I love Rockstar Finance (RF). It is my ‘go to’ resource to see what’s happening in the personal finance blogging world. I have had the privilege of having a number of my articles featured in RF and enjoyed the warm blanket feeling of seeing thousands of visitors on my site on the day I am rockstar’ed! […]
Some time ago, I wrote an article about the famed 1%, suggesting it all depends on how you measure it and some of you may even be part of it! The 1% means different things in different contexts. Apathy Ends wrote a post titled Can you do 1% better showing how even a small increase in […]
Few of us are so lucky as Mr. Confucius advised. For vast majority of wage earners in the world, our job is not only a means to use our skills but increasingly the main source of income to support our life and family and to provide for our retirement (for those who have pensions or […]
The personal finance blogging world is filled with three categories of people who put out good content: A) People who are open about both their net worth and their identity. They track their net worth vigorously and update frequently. They also post their pictures and their family’s including their travelogues. These blogs […]
This is a guest post by Jacob Evans @ DollarDiligence. The topic of student loans is always current on people’s minds, especially those with kids or young adults in college or many having college debt. Persistent student loans (or lack thereof) plays a significant part in your net worth journey. College costs are not in […]
The journey of life is long, complicated and is never a straight path. Same applies to our financial journey as well, as finances mirror our lifestyle and choices. So, we must stay humble and kind. The elegance of steadily compounding financial returns are merely that…just elegant. It’s funny we model financial portfolio growth using […]
My past article on tracking your progress has a simple calculator where you can track whether you are accumulating wealth at a sufficient rate to achieve financial independence. This was based on a formula shared by Dr. Thomas Stanley in his excellent and meticulous research in his book “The Millionaire Next Door”. This book demystified how […]
How mainstream finance sees you
The problem with traditional retirement planning and even personal finance oriented websites (including this one) is that they all focus a lot on the number, that is, our retirement stash that we aspire to get to. For those having a set target, this laser-like focus on ‘hitting’ that number can turn into an obsession. For those with say, a $1 million target, reaching a precise figure of say, $933,240, may still feel like they fell short. That is far from the truth. The number doesn’t define who you are or isn’t even a gauge of what you have accomplished in life.
Raman Venkatesh is the founder of Ten Factorial Rocks. Raman is a ‘Gen X’ corporate executive in his mid 40’s. In addition to having a Ph.D. in engineering, he has worked in almost all continents of the world. Ten Factorial Rocks (TFR) was created to chronicle his journey towards retirement while sharing his views on the absurdities and pitfalls along the way. The name was taken from the mathematical function 10! (ten factorial) which is equal to 10 x 9 x 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 3,628,800.
Even this doesn’t come along for the last ride.
“Even an eye-less needle doesn’t come with you on your last journey” says an old proverb. A sewing needle is a trivial item anyone can afford and its essential part is the hole or the ‘eye’ where you pass the sewing thread. If that is broken, the sewing needle is useless. You cannot carry even such a useless item on your final journey, leave alone the nice things and the people you love. This is the inner meaning of that proverb. It may be depressing but that’s the stark truth. (more…)
Raman Venkatesh is the founder of Ten Factorial Rocks. Raman is a ‘Gen X’ corporate executive in his mid 40’s. In addition to having a Ph.D. in engineering, he has worked in almost all continents of the world. Ten Factorial Rocks (TFR) was created to chronicle his journey towards retirement while sharing his views on the absurdities and pitfalls along the way. The name was taken from the mathematical function 10! (ten factorial) which is equal to 10 x 9 x 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 3,628,800.