What are your work and life goals? Are you working today, to save up x amount of money, then you will retire to either do what you love, or to rest in old age? Most of us are. We defer rest and happiness, suck it up in jobs we hate that are aging us, all for the hope that one day, we will have enough…
Read MoreBarbara Ehrenreich attempts to crack this in her book, Bright-Sided (How Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America), where she traces what we know as “positive thinking” and “self help” to its origins in late 1800s America, and the dominant religion of the time. The Calvinisim brought by white settlers to New England could be described as a system of socially imposed depression. Its God…
Read MoreOver the last 4 months, I have been participating in a savings challenge. When I started out, the intention was to save for a holiday in India, where I intended to run the Bengaluru Midnight Marathon. However, because of work concerns, I will not be going to India this December. But, you can bet I will be running a marathon somewhere in Asia early next…
Read MoreIf you live in Kenya, you are definitely familiar with the idea of car resale value, which is a huge part of the Kenyan car buying experience. A significant part of the car owning population buys second hand imports from Japan (typically 5-7 years old), with a view of driving it for may be 3-6 years, then replacing it with a newer second hand car….
Read MoreJoel Gascoigne had been using Twitter for about 1.5 years when he realized that his Twitter feed would be more beneficial if he could schedule interesting content he came across online, instead of just sharing it randomly. In 2010, he started developing an app that would do exactly that, and that is how Buffer was born. Buffer has since grown from its first paying user…
Read MoreI recently finished reading Ramit Sethi’s I Will Teach You To Be Rich. He gives very good practical personal finance advice,but I felt the book was written for and suited for an American audience. For example, when discussing how to pick a bank, he talks of asking the bank to waive fixed fees and other fees and threatening to move banks of they do not….
Read MoreThe other day, Amazon announced that it would be shipping to Kenya and Nigeria (though I thought it has been shipping to Kenya all along). Even as people celebrated this announcement, I couldn’t help but think of the opportunities there are to sell in the global market, yet we have remained mostly importers. The web has make it possible to import a car from Japan…
Read MoreFirst off, borrowing money (or lending) to family and friends is a terrible idea. Most of us have horror stories of money lent out that cost you the relationship or you let go off to avoid losing the relationship. I have had many such experiences where I lend money out and never get it back. I also have testimonies of decades old money borrowing and…
Read MoreFor the longest time, people repeated and believed the 21 Day Rule; that it takes 21 days to form a new habit. However, recent research has shown this to be false. The number of days it takes to form a habit depends on the type of habit, and the strategy used or how you train your mind on the new habit. For example, the habit…
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