Solar panels – solar surfaces – why bother?

From childhood, I've been excited about the Passover holiday. In the kibbutz where I grew up, the Passover celebration was divided into two parts. In the afternoon, the Omer harvest – the first wheat harvest performed with sickles as it was done hundreds of years ago. In the evening, the Passover Seder. When I was a child, Passover was the time when we received new sandals (biblical-style) for the summer.

Many families I meet with talk to me about the longing for financial freedom. Everyone defines financial freedom differently. Some define financial freedom as the ability to not work at all and travel the world non-stop. I connect less with that, but the aspiration to not be Must To work or the ability To choose What to work on or how much to work on is definitely an aspiration I connect with.

We live in a single-family home. Years ago, I heard about the possibility of generating electricity using solar panels in exchange for money. The return I calculated for this investment is approximately 81% per year, and this is a risk-free return (a 20-year contract, as well as a manufacturer’s warranty for the system’s integrity). I am also deeply committed to the additional benefits of such a system: reducing air pollution on the one hand, and reducing the income our enemies derive from selling oil and gas on the other. Despite this, it took me more than seven years to decide to install the system, and I am still the first one on our street to do so. I’ve noticed that the things that held us back from doing something I’m convinced is excellent are the same things that hold others back from various types of investments. Here are a few reasons that hold people back—and finally, the ridiculous reason that held us back.

Leave me alone / It's a headache

The daily workload is so overwhelming that it's impossible to even lift one's head to explore other options. It's unfortunate because those who are most overloaded are precisely the ones who urgently need relief. Thus, financially stressed individuals often choose the only solution they know for this stress – for example, working overtime. While adding more work might provide temporary relief in terms of income, it significantly deepens the overall burden and will later manifest in family life and mental and physical health. In my opinion, Anyone who wants to get ahead Must do two things:

a. To ensure that not all of his current income (no matter how much he earns) goes towards consumption, but that at the end of each year he can look at Report of Reserves to see that he has more money (or assets) than he did last year. If this is not the case, no progress has been made.

B. Make sure I don’t stay the same as I was last year. Every year, I take at least five workshops on personal coaching, business coaching, and various skill-building topics. Besides that, I’m part of a group of people who meet regularly and discuss exactly these points—personal and financial progress. If you don’t invest in yourself and grow personally, it’s very unlikely you’ll advance financially either. And at first, there might be some progress. I remember that when I worked in high-tech, every move from one company to another came with a roughly 50% pay raise, and I thought that if I kept this up every two years, within 20 years I’d 'make it.' Since then, I’ve seen that the definition of 'making it” has changed, and salaries don’t really keep going up either.

So yes, the solar panels issue has been delayed for years because 'I didn't have time'. One of the obstacles to doing things is the understanding that if there are many installation companies and I don't know which company does a good job at a low price and which does a bad job at a high price, then in the end I do nothing and lose much more than If I were to choose the company that does a bad job at a high price. So I don't recommend entering into investments without due diligence. But pay attention that the due diligence doesn't paralyze you. Think about what the worst thing could be if you made a bad choice versus if you didn't choose at all and did nothing. Think about that father who, after the birth of his first son, spends two years market researching which camera is best, and then realizes he doesn't have a single photo from his son's first two years.

I missed the train

Prices have already gone up, prices have already gone down, I’m waiting for... etc. What to do? The economy contains a broad factor of uncertainty. Economics is part of the social sciences faculty, not the exact sciences. It would be much easier if we knew exactly how long the stock market or real estate prices would rise and when there would be a decline. Also, regarding solar panels, there has been a significant decrease in the payment that the electric company is willing to pay. Today, you receive a much lower sum than you did a few years ago. Does this mean it’s not worth installing panels? This is a double mistake. First, an investment is not measured by the income side or the expense side alone, but by the ratio between the two. This is what those who publish advertisements saying 'Only 200,000 shekels and you have an apartment in Bucharest" want you to forget. In the context of solar panels, you do receive less today for every kilowatt of electricity sold to the electric company. On the other hand, the price of the panels themselves has also decreased significantly, and therefore the ratio that needs to be measured between annual income and investment is still higher than any other investment I know of at a similar risk level. The ratio between annual income and investment (or value) is called return. Even if the return was significantly higher five years ago, it is not relevant to the decision of whether to enter Today For investment. What's relevant is only if Today I can find a better investment.

A friend/brother/father told me it's not worth it

I wrote above about the importance of the social circles you are in. Naturally, you are usually with people similar to you. Your family is the one whose mold you more or less follow. And your friends are those whose worldview is similar to yours, which is why you are comfortable with them. When you want to break through a mental barrier or think a little outside the box, family and friends can be a hindrance. After all, if they thought it was the right move to make, they would have done it. Meaning, in reality, family and friends explain to you why it's not worth doing something they have no experience and no concept of. When I was contemplating whether to publish my first book – "Efficient Mortgage," there was a consensus around me that "writers don't make money." As an economist, I know how to add and subtract numbers, and it really didn't seem logical that I could recoup the approximately 50,000 shekels it cost me to publish the book. But I didn't stop at my thoughts, and with my friends, I went for advice from someone who had actually published a book. In my case. Dr. Yaniv Zeid He told me that publishing the book would change my life. In the end, in my opinion, the book brought in more than five times its cost to me. Whenever you're debating whether to do something, ask someone who has done it, not someone who can explain why they didn't.

So what actually stopped me for so many years from making a financial move that I think is excellent? And it's not just financially excellent; from my perspective, I was ready for the move even if it was, as they would have told me in school: almost good. I think in addition to a micro-evaluation—how the move will affect me and my family—a macro-evaluation should also be done: how the move will affect society as a whole. In this case, there is no doubt that reducing air pollution is an important value. As an Israeli, reducing the use of oil or gas is very important to me also from a geopolitical perspective—the oil and gas industry is the biggest financier of all the missiles and explosives thrown at us, sometimes from the north and sometimes from the south. Just imagine where we would be if, back in the seventies, when the Arabs imposed an oil embargo on the West, we had become independent of oil.

We want to build another floor

As early as the 1950s, Ben-Gurion stated that "solar energy" was the future of the State of Israel. It's a shame it took so long, but when the opportunity arose, it was worth seizing. What stopped me from taking this step was our desire to build an additional floor on our house. It's foolish to install a system and then dismantle it, build another floor, and then reassemble it. Foolish? An economist shouldn't think in terms of foolish or not foolish, just as they shouldn't think in terms of whether they'll be taken advantage of or not. An economist should think in terms of alternatives. Which alternative will be better: dismantling and reassembling in, say, a year, or waiting a year and then assembling? As long as the dismantling and reassembly cost less than the revenues from a year of operation, it's an alternative that should be better. In our case, I'm ashamed to say we waited seven years because of the thought, "We'll build soon..." I'm glad we escaped this limiting thought loop.

Summary

I have no doubt that those who do many things will not profit from all of them. I do not expect constant profit. But those who do not take action will remain stuck in the same loop all the time. Some will tell me it's not so bad that I have to work until age 67, that I love my job. In response, I ask, how much would you be willing to pay to continue going to your job if you didn't have to? Pay to work? Of course, I like eating at a restaurant or seeing a play, and that's why I pay for it. If you love your job, how much are you willing to pay to do it? If you are not willing to pay to work, or if you are not completely sure that even at age 66 you will love the job just as much, the market will need what you do just as much, and your boss will love your work just as much, then in my opinion, it is time to think about moves that will bring you closer to financial freedom – the ability to choose whether to work or not.