2025 in Review

Looking back, 2025 wasn’t a year of big wins or losses for me. It was a year of adjusting defaults. I changed how I keep learning, what I pay for, and what I invest in. The changes were subtle, but they’ve stuck.

Learning Outside the Syllabus

AI and layoffs were all around us in 2025. Every week AI Labs were launching models or companies finding ways to trim their workforce and attribute it to AI. Naturally this triggered FOMO in me and I panicked about my future. I didn’t want to lose relevance as AI became mainstream.

I enrolled in one such course by 100x Engineers which was not an impulsive decision. It took me 3 months to decide before I invested $1250 towards it. But it was one of the best decisions of 2025.

I realised my unknown unknowns after joining this cohort. I gained clarity about how I can learn from anyone without them being physically present. It gave me the confidence to work on projects that solve my day-to-day problems.

It also helped me realise what I lacked. Structure and conviction to learn. Now I use AI not just for answers but for ways to improve my thinking.

Why I Finally Started Paying for Software

I’ve mostly relied on free apps throughout my life. For most of the SaaS I use, I either stay on the free plan or look for alternatives. But that changed this year. I subscribed to a few SaaS to get back my time. I’m okay paying for software as long as it buys back my time and doesn’t strain my budget.

I spend a lot of time on long-form content, and removing ads meant I could stay focused without constant interruptions. So YouTube Premium became my go-to solution for ad-free experience. Over time, spam emails started increasing, and using Hide My Email from iCloud+ turned out to be the simplest fix. Using Hide My Email meant I no longer had to worry about where my email ended up or why spam kept increasing.

This year, I realised that paying for a simple, bundled setup reduced the friction of deciding what to watch and where to watch it. I already had Disney+, and adding Amazon Prime gave me a predictable setup along with retail perks.

AI is unavoidable at this point. For the first half of the year, I was using the ChatGPT Free plan but towards the end they end up adding rate limits. At that point, paying for ChatGPT made sense because it had become part of my daily workflow. I’m making the most of the $20 plan.

Recently I got myself Claude subscription as well to try out Claude Code. Everyone is praising about the strength of Opus 4.5 in coding and the only way for me to try was to get a paid plan. Over time, I’ve learned that paying for the right software is often cheaper than paying with my attention.

Letting Time Do the Work

My journey with money and investing started in 2021 when I got my internship at Zoho. I was introduced to regular mutual funds (MFs) by my bank manager. I had no idea about the difference between regular and direct MFs or why regular MFs had higher expense ratios. Eventually I switched to direct MFs of the same fund and exited from it completely a year later.

Like most beginners, I believed I could do better by picking my own stocks. That experiment ended in losses, and I exited all my direct stock positions in 2023 for good.

Now I stick with Index ETFs and Active MFs. It has beaten the market without taking outsized risk. I’m happy with a consistent ~15% p.a. I have made my investing journey as boring as possible. I just stick to sipping now and don’t chase returns.

I have seen multiple corrections and one major drawdown over the last 4 years. All I have to do now is keep investing the same way, especially when the market gets uncomfortable, and let time do the rest.