Blog Archive: December 2025
Week 38 / Road to $25K: Closing 2025 Above $10K with Covered Calls and NVDA
Greetings from India. This holiday season we’re in South Goa, staying near Palolem Beach — our third year in a row returning here. With temperatures above 30 °C and Kingfisher beer under $2 per bottle, the place is hard to beat. With a portfolio our size, one could comfortably enjoy life here living off options income alone.That said, As of December 26, 2025, our covered-call stock portfolio has grown by an additional 2.21% and reached $10,696. As this is the final options expiry Friday of the year, I’m pleased to be closing 2025 with the portfolio above $10k.One of our short- to medium-term goals is to grow the portfolio to $25k using options trading alone. With a systematic approach…
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj (Mumbai) International Airport
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport is the international airport serving Mumbai, the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the second-busiest airport in India in terms of total and international passenger traffic after Delhi, the 14th-busiest airport in Asia, and the 31st-busiest airport in the world by passenger traffic in 2024.I first arrived at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport at the end of December 2025, flying IndiGo from Tbilisi. We stayed a few days in Mumbai before continuing onward to Goa with Air India.Mumbai’s airport has a long history. It was originally built in 1942 during World War II and has since evolved into India’s…
Gateway of India, Mumbai
I first visited the Gateway of India at the end of December 2025, during our three-week trip to India. We spent only a few short days in Mumbai, and this stop was not planned in any deep or academic way. We arrived from The Lalit Hotel by Uber — roughly a 28 km drive, costing under 700 Indian rupees. At that point, I had only a vague idea of what the place was, and almost no sense of its symbolic weight.At first glance, it felt like another grand colonial monument by the sea. Busy, touristy, loud. But things changed quickly.After taking a private boat trip from the harbor — the kind that locals casually offer — and seeing Mumbai’s waterfront from the water, the perspective shifted.…
Week 37 / NVDA & BMY: Portfolio Up +1.11% as We Head from Tbilisi to India
As of December 19, 2025, our covered-call stock portfolio has grown by an additional 1.11% and reached $10,465. It’s genuinely exciting to be above $10K for the fourth week in a row. I was expecting to fall under $10K this week as volatility kicked in, but the result is better than expected.Year-to-date, we’re up 33.73%, outperforming the S&P 500 by a wide margin (+16.26%). With just one calendar week left in the year, it looks like this is shaping up to be one of the best-performing years for the stock market in recent memory.Besides activities in financial markets, 0ur kiddo wrapped up Term 1 today, and we enjoyed a lovely Christmas concert at her school in Tbilisi - just before we…
Week 36 / Defensive Roll on SHELL, New NVDA Weekly Spread
As of December 12, 2025, our covered-call stock portfolio has grown by an additional 1.12% and reached $10,350. It’s genuinely exciting to be above $10K for the third week in a row.Still, I’ve been in the stock market too long to rule out a possible pullback in the upcoming weeks.Year-to-date, we’re up 27.64%, outperforming the S&P 500 by a wide margin (+17.18%).As usual, we made no major moves throughout the week. Except I decided to roll our position in European SHELL stock down and out, buying back the 31 puts expiring on December 19, 2025 and selling new puts expiring on February 17, 2026. This adjustment brought in a small additional credit of EUR 7, while improving our downside…
Week 35 / NVDA Spreads + McDonald’s Buys: Covered-Call Portfolio Hits $10,235
As of December 5, 2025, our covered-call stock portfolio has grown by an additional 1.65% and reached $10,235. It’s genuinely exciting to be above $10K for the second week in a row.Still, I’ve been in the stock market too long to rule out a possible pullback in the upcoming weeks.Year-to-date, we’re up 31.87%, outperforming the S&P 500 by a wide margin (+17.41%).As usual, we made no major moves throughout the week. At the start of the week, we bought 0.1 share of MCD - we have a tradition of buying 0.1 McDonald’s whenever the kiddo talks us into junk food. I’ll admit we ordered McD more than once this week, but 0.1 share is still a decent addition, and we now hold 3.9 MCD shares in our…
Mziuri Tennis Club in Tbilisi
Our family has been attending Mziuri Tennis Club in Tbilisi since September 2025, after several recommendations from our BIST community. We signed up our 7-year-old for the junior program, which costs 300 GEL per month. After a few months of regular training, here’s an honest, practical review.Mizuri Tennis Club is located in Vake, on Nino Ramishvili Street, right next to Mziuri Park and directly opposite the police station.The most important part: our daughter genuinely likes it. She looks forward to every session, which, for any parent, is the biggest indicator that the environment is good. The coaches work well with kids, balancing discipline with fun. There are several trainers…