Early Retirement Extreme Forums

@delay Thanks for reading! And what a beautiful quote. On a related note, I was surprised how much of the Tao Te Ching deals with leadership: (66) ...The Master is above the people, and no one feels oppressed. She goes ahead of the people, and no one feels manipulated. The whole world is grateful to...

@erytu Gradual Awakening is definitely worth checking out. He comes from an insight (Vipassana) meditation practice but rather than being a manual he focuses on how mindfulness applies to daily life and naturally bridges to compassion (in his case, involving caring for the dying.) Unmasking the Idol...

Metrics Books Read: 12 Miles Driven: 139 Daily Steps: 12,055 Monthly Spending: $1,568 Savings Rate: 84.85% Twelve Month Trailing: 28.86x Six Month Trailing: 32.27x Three Month Trailing: 38.64x* *All of these are estimates, based on manual tracking and overly convoluted spreadsheets. Healthcare prem...

February 2024 Metrics Journal Days: 25/29 Meditation Days: 27/29 Daily Steps: 11683 Miles Driven: 338 Savings Rate: 80.78% Monthly Spending (% of NW/12): 2.93% Twelve Month Trailing: 26.27x Six Month Trailing: 28.12x Three Month Trailing: 33.66x Absolute Spending: $1679.19 Spending Levels My focus ...

Welcome to the forum Oey! It's nice to see someone else from Massachusetts around here. I'm also doing my first BN period so rooting for you on your journey.

January 2024 Metrics Annual: Books Read: 16/150 4K Footers: 1/12 Bach Inventions Memorized: 3/12 Monthly: Journal Days: 27/31 Meditation Days: 27/31 Miles Driven: 449 Possessions (est.): 288 Savings Rate: 77.36% Monthly Spending (% of NW/12): 3% TSM: $2,034.77 Spending I focused a lot on bringing t...

Thanks for reading @sodatrain. I had to recall the name but I do remember your intro in the journal a while back and feeling inspired. :) Your thoughts on tech jobs - "FI and get out" - parallel where I am at this point. It will be interesting how that changes or doesn't as we reach our go...

I love Nate Hagen's podcast. I just relistened to his podcast with Vicki Robins. I highly recommend you give it a listen if you haven't already. I might need to give his interview with Vicki another listen. I think it started to shift some things through different ways of achieving financial securi...

I do recommend checking out Wild Mind, though. I think his work is meant to be read slowly but then to really spend the time on the exercises. Definitely. As much as I like to let things "wash over" me, there are some books that have paid dividends by multiple close readings (looking at y...

Now, on most work days, I will just skip breakfast and lunch and eat normally during the dinner window. Here I was thinking of skipping dinner, but the reverse works too! Thanks for sharing the prompts. I like the idea of doing a morning / evening routine for gratitude. And answering those question...

Fasting opens up an avenue for your body to get a rest but also for you to realize you don't need to eat every four hours[/list] I'm curious about your approach. Do you focus on morning or night? I haven't ever really tried it apart from a meditation retreat where skipping dinner was (lightly) enco...

I am also currently reading Wild Mind by Bill Plotkin and am curious about your review of Nature and the Human Soul by Bill Plotkin. I didn't know where to start with him but was planning on reading Journey of the Soul Initiation next. Nature and the Human Soul is a broad, observational survey of a...

I'm curious about the following KPIs (TME, FU stash, NPS, and STM). FU Stash (credit to @AH for elaborating on the concept in the decentralizing FI post, although the FU money concept I've definitely seen around?): even though I'm focusing more on FI, I like the idea of having some cash reserves re...

December 2023 Food Total Spending / person: $96 I have been experimenting with the Instant Pot Yogurt setting a bit. The first time I just threw things straight into incubate mode and things turned out a little runnier than I'd like. Using the boiling step on round 2 seemed to help a lot with the t...

@Divandan I wish I responded earlier. I could definitely see that alternation working out for someone with more self-control than myself :) I'd probably like the novelty but for me it's easier to cut video games out entirely and focus on things that I value more. I think having a screen-heavy WFH jo...

@Divandan Thanks for stopping by! I'm following your journal now and see a lot of overlap in those areas too. I'm definitely a beginner gardener myself, but I'm finding the progression herbs -> leafy greens -> vegetables to be a gentle progression on the learning curve. Other than that, I try to thi...

I also started rereading Walden which has proved a pleasure. I remember reading Walden a while back (after college) and getting caught up in the magic of it. Being able to visit Walden Pond in person definitely added to the mystique. Unlike you I never attempted to live in the woods for a long peri...

Did you just use one of the plastic film kits to weather-proof your windows? I used Frost King Caulking Cord. You made me curious about the plastic film kits and might check out for our next space. Last winter we had the heat up substantially higher (and I was less bundled up generally), so it's di...

WEB OF GOALS Food Eating out was one of the first things to go when I got into frugality. At this point, it’s only for special occasions (maybe 1-2 times a month at most). Outside of that, I’m eating at home, although I share this job with my SO now. Recently we’ve found a bit of a compromise betwee...

@frugaldoc Thank you! Looking forward to hearing more about your own journey! I also have trouble determining where I am exactly on Wheaton Levels and try not to get too hung up on this categorization. In addition to the wiki, I found the discussions here helpful along with Jacob's summary table: ht...