C40's Journal

[C40]

Jacob - Thanks for the additional info on flexibility. That helped to clarify things (and to make clear to me that I should learn more about this some time)

llorona - Quite a bit, yes. Not as much as I used to, but still a lot, and I notice that when sitting, I am often slouched forward. I think as long as I am intentional about it, I will improve, and I will notice. I've noticed improvement in my hip rotation since focusing on it, and I've also noticed that when driving I had been tightening my back in a very unnecessary way (I think this is related to the hip rotation)

[C40]

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JANUARY 2015
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SPENDING: $1,451

• Entertainment - $641
• Home - $540
• Food - $259
• Clothes/Hygeine - $88
• Transportation - $23
• Sold things – ($84)

WHAT? $641 for Entertainment!? What the hell is that?

• $193 – Dating (About 15-20 Dates! Wow)
• $148 – Tea (I’m pretty stocked up for now)
• $128 – Kindle (My old one “bricked”)
• $63 – A Really nice Portenzo case for the Kindle
• $23 – A bottle of ink

I’ve been dating a LOT in January. It definitely got to where I was feeling “date fatigue” and decided to slow back down. The results? One FWB, one potential relationship (or likely FWB at least)




READING

I did a lot of reading in January:

SEX AT DAWN (Christopher Ryan) – A book about the history of sex. This was a VERY interesting book. If you’re going to read this, you might want to read “The Selfish Gene” first for context. It also has a giant bibliography.

What Every BODY is Saying (Joe Navarro) A book about body language. It’s good but there are probably better body language books out there.

Ultimate Guide to Cunnilingus (Violet Blue) – A pretty good book about a favorite pastime.

VAGABONDING (Rolf Potts) – I read this for our book club. It’s a great book. It’s concise and well-written. I like that it is basically a traveling philosophy book – about how to manage your travel and what kind of mindset to have – with tips and specifics worked in as examples only to support the main message. (Sort of like how the ERE book is a process/philosophy book more than a specific “how to”)

How to be the most engaging person in the room (Jordan Gray) – This is only really useful for people with BAD social skills. Still wasn’t bad to read as a reminder of some things.

A book for work that wasn’t very good

(note, if these aren't easily available at your library, they are all available through, uhh, other methods)





CHARTS






A PROMISE FOR THE FORUM

I have a number of personal finance education posts in mind that I’ve been meaning to write and post as individual threads. I’m saying here that I’ll write them to encourage myself to get around to doing so. I’ve learned a lot from both my career in manufacturing and management, and from reading personal finance books/blogs/forums, and from applying and refining these concepts myself. I’m not a good writer, but I can communicate well visually. So I want to make these posts to try to communicate the concepts well, and as a writing exercise for myself.

Subjcts I have in mind so far:

• Yearly Goals and tracking
• Applying the Pareto Principle in real life.
• How to align your daily activities and short-term actions with long term goals
• Home organization / minimalism / 5S
• Visualizing your financial health – Charts!

[henrik]

Looking forward to those posts!

[GandK]

Me too. All 5 of those sound like they'd be good topics.

[C40]

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FEBRUARY 2015
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SPENDING: $801

• Home $470
• Food $279
• Transportation $255 ($230 = Insurance)
• Entertainment (-$178)
• Travel $0
• Clothes / Hygiene $0

FOOD DETAILS:

• $150 - Groceries
• $104 - Gardening equipment
• $25 - Eating out

TRANSPORTATION DETAILS:

• $230 - Insurance
• $25 - Gas

ENTERTAINMENT DETAILS:

• (-$435) – Sold This pen*.
• $112 – New pen
• $45 – Internet service
• $20 - Dating
• $55 – Other

* - An awesome pen. The body is like 50% lava rock. The nib is 23k Palladium. Just not worth the $ right now to me as I wasn’t using it that much, and when I did use it, I often would wish it worked a little better for me. I wasn’t comfortable modifying such an expensive nib myself. And to make it work better I’d have to do it myself, or take it to a nibmeister in person (hard to do). I’d already sent it to a very good nibmeister to have him improve it.

I pared way down on the dating. Don’t have much interest right now. I’ve been spending more time by myself and with a couple friends.

My income was high this month because my pension value got a yearly bump up in value. This month my net worth increased by over $20k. (Half from saving and pension increase, and half from investment price increases). I’ll get my yearly bonus in March, so I’ll have high income again.






CHARTS


I have some kind of urge to continue making more types of charts. Here’s one.




On one of my various “Am I FI?” charts: CONTACT!!




Nice bump on the NetWorth this month:



Next month I’ll get to have an “I’m $400k rich!” party.



I made these charts to track progress vs. my yearly goals. So far, I’m on track.









STOCK PURCHASES

• HCP in my IRA. (A healthcare property REIT. Gonna be all kinds of baby boomer old folks moving into my senior housing in the next 20 years)
• NSRGY (Nestle. The most powerful food company in the world).

Let’s go, pay me!!!








PROGRESS ON PERSONAL FINANCE LESSONS

I’ve been making some progress… It takes me quite a while to write, but it feels like good exercise.

Here are some excerpts for a tease/preview



(The three columns are excerpts from different places.
I’m starting to wonder if I could eventually make this into something worth selling.







READING

The 4 Hour Workweek By Tim Ferris. Of his three books, this was my favorite, by far.

• Very ERE relevant
• Tons of good information. (on a wide variety of subjects)
• Helped me generate some more ideas for improving and/or expanding my hobby income sources
• Good information for making your current job easier – how to spend less time doing it, how to negotiate working remotely, how to get people to stop bothering you
• Information on setting up simple, fairly passive businesses/income sources. Direction / ideas on sourcing materials and setting up so you don’t have to manage inventory and shipping yourself. I may see if I can apply this to an idea I’ve been meaning to test out.
• Good information on using the Pareto principle in real life – mainly work situations.

I guess you can get access to the first 50 pages here, but the book should be easy to find other ways; there are a lot of copies out there.





BEST USE OF VACATION IN LAST YEARS OF WORKING?

I expect to work two more years. I’ve been starting to think about how to use my work vacation days over these two years. Right now my vacation days balance is at 4 weeks. I believe I’ll accrue 5 weeks per year. So that’s 14 weeks total to use. I can have a max balance of 6 weeks at a time. I know I’ll use a couple weeks worth of this for holiday trips. So that leaves me with about 3 months total vacation time. Some options:

• Use a day here and there. Shorten my workweek to 4 days per week by using a day every week. I could do that for one year straight. This isn’t that appealing to me because in some ways, I already do it. (for example, if I’m working somewhere away from home one week, I often travel back on Friday. Whether I get back at 9am or 1pm, I generally don’t do any work after getting back). Mondays are often similar. So there’s not much need or room for doing this.
• Spend them a week at a time. This would give me a lot of weeks - 6 per year, plus the holiday trips. I’d spend some of these at home. I don’t have much desire to go on one week vacations. Once my mom and step-dad get on the road in their RV, it would probably be an option to fly out to near where they are and spend a week with them. If I start building a van near the end of my working time, I could use the vacation time to build it, and/or to go on test trips.
• Take long vacations from work. If I travel to somewhere far away, this is how I’d want to do it. My current position could allow me to take 2, 3, or maybe even 4 weeks off without any serious issue. Southeast Asia? South America? I could take a month off each year.
  • I could also request sabbatical time. My company has a sabbatical policy, but I’ve never heard of anyone ever taking one. It could allow me to take a portion of the mini-ERE periods as non-paid. If I need an excuse, I could say I need to go take care of a family member, and I’d just be exaggerating how much help they need. But I’d run into some trouble if they say I need to use FMLA instead
• Quit with my vacation balance near max. I’d get about $7,500 (post-tax) from this.
• Try to use up all my vacation after the date that I would have quit, to extend my insurance, and accrue some more vacation during that period. I’d also accrue another 3 days during that period and thus be able to go 7 weeks. That would feel a bit dishonest, and would probably make it so they wouldn’t hire me back in the future if I asked. I could approach it as a mini-retirement – and use the time to make sure that I feel ready to quit – and if so, tell them that I’m not coming back at all or only for a short period.

SOME HOBBY PICTURES

Last year, the seeds that I started indoors didn’t fare all that well. I think they didn’t get enough light. So I set up a little grow light station. I’m using 4 bulbs: 2,500 lumens each at 5,000 kelvin. I got a timer and have it on for 14 hours or so per day. I may add reflective barriers using aluminum foil to keel the light in better. It was $55 for the lights, bulbs, and timer, and $12 for these seedpod holders. I used part of a shelving unit that I already had.







Working on pen nibs. I’m left-handed. Writing left-handed is difficult – English and most languages are generally designed to be written with your right hand. But it’s not all bad. When you’re right handed and you use normal nibs, writing very well can depend on how “springy” and “flexy” the nib is. These are expensive qualities – and ones that I could not generate myself

Instead of normal flex nibs, I like to use Italics. This is a little bit of a blessing, because when it comes to italic nibs, well, they aren’t that complicated. They don’t need to flex. They just need to be ground to the right dimensions, including matching your writing angle. And no one can match my writing angle better than me.

I can modify a cheap steel nib myself and grind it into an italic nib that works very well for me – that’s at the writing angle I actually use. It will work every bit as good as an expensive italic nib, or one that I had a very highly skilled nibmeister work on. Why? Mainly, it’s because the writing angle is important, and when I grind it, I grind it into my own writing angle. It takes some skill, but it’s not hard to learn. And when I’m working on cheap nibs, it’s ok to experiment and to have some end up in the trash. The other night I made a nib in 15 minutes that writes nearly as well as the really expensive one I sold this month.



Saint Louis can be kind of a shit-hole. But one good thing it has is neat old buildings. This is inside the Library downtown.



I updated my tea storage method by putting it in smaller jars. I think this may help the tea to stay fresher (as I’ll keep the rest of it in the sealable bags they come in – which I can evacuate most air from).


And I’ve been drinking a lot of it lately. The caffeine can be annoying though :-/

[jacob]

You could quit with your vacation balance but cash it out into your 401k (presuming you're quitting early in the year). That's what I did.

[EdithKeeler]

Love the pics, and those are some awesome charts.

[spoonman]

I love that library photo. The high ceilings remind me of a cathedral.

[C40]

It feels like about once every six months, I've reanalyze if/how I can retire earlier than whatever my projected retirement date is at that time (It’s currently April 2,017)

(For the TL:DR Version – just skip down to the handwritten plan)


Through some combination of thinking about and researching the following two things, I’m back in “how soon can I retire?” mode.

• Living in Thailand – AND also thinking about hobby/side income - because many of the Bloggers/Youtubers living in Thailand don’t have a retirement nest egg and are therefore also talking about how to make money.
• That my networth is getting well ahead of the projection that I used to determine the April 2017 retirement date. If I extrapolate the last 2 year’s growth rate, that puts me at over $500k in April 2016, and over $600k in April 2017.

My daydreaming and research switched back to Van Touring a few days ago. Then, last night I watched this video on Youtube: Without Bound - Perspectives on Mobile Living. If you look past the cheesy chilling piano music, and past the tin-foil hatters, there is a gem in this documentary. That gem is Randy Vining. He has a blog (mobilekodgers) that I had read before – but that never stood out to me the way his speaking in this documentary does. He has a very ERE-friendly slant, and he has a very encouraging type of positivity. If you could cut out just his portions of the documentary, it’d be worth watching for anyone interested in ERE. One thing he made very clear is that it’s easy to live off of $500 while living in a van or camper.

At work today, while feeling re-motivated to find a way to retire earlier, I went for a walk. I read books at work to develop my professional skills. During the times I read while working at the office, I like to leave my desk and go read somewhere else. We have a few places on our campus that are good for this – but not many. So I went walking around our buildings to look for more spots. While walking around, I meandered through cubicle farms, past offices and conference rooms. Here’s what I saw: People sitting at their desk in silence, staring at a computer screen, clicking buttons. Most people were doing this. They’re going to be doing this all day long. And tomorrow. And all of next week. And next year….

I fully recognize and appreciate the irony that I voluntarily look at a computer during a lot of my free time, including this very moment. But I still can’t imagine that all these people really want to be doing this. What I saw was a depressing mass of people sitting there, plugging their bodies and minds into our huge company, and I saw sort of a vision of their souls (or their internal selves) just sitting there, looking at them from out of body, waiting and waiting for them to do something more meaningful. Now, I work for a good company. By common measures, rankings, and awards – and based off my own opinion – this is a great place to work and a great company to work for. But… It still stinks.

I walked around for half an hour. I found one good reading spot but it was on a sort of roof terrace, outside, and it was too cold today to sit out there. I walked past my normal spot and there were some people there. While I was walking around, and when I got back to my desk, I did my “when can I retire” analysis (instead of ever doing the reading I'd planned to).

Here’s what I’ve thought up today:

• I know that I’m capable of earning more money after I quit my job. I’m not certain how much effort it will take. When I compare another year of working to how long I’d have to be earning, say, $5,000 per year of hobby income, it looks like just working the additional year makes sense (because I’d have to make the hobby income forever, or for many years, to catch up). But – that’s looking at hobby income as I currently do – as something in ADDITION to my full-time job. I’m confident that hobby income will come easier after I retire. When I’ve taken time away from work, entrepreneurial ideas come far easier and far more frequently.
• I think it might actually be a good thing to quit while expecting that I need to earn some more money. My current plan is basically to wait until I reach a very secure level of retirement. That security would feel nice. It would also allow me to go on many adventures or change my life in more ways later on. But there’s also a higher risk of me wandering through a search for purpose – and being bored – and maybe becoming depressed – effectively making myself into a lazy and aimless trust fund kid.
• Another poster, I can’t remember whether it was Spoonman or MyBrainGetsItchy, wrote about intentionally generating friction in his life. I want to make sure I have some kind of challenge/friction in my life. That challenge could be to make some more money. And if it is - guess what – I get to retire earlier. YAY! Web of goals and all.
• I could probably make somewhere around $500 per month from hobby type work, or some kind of part-time working effort. According to the mobilekodgers guy, I could keep my ongoing expenses that low.
• My net worth is just over $400k right now – I could get to $450k-500k in one year.
• If I get my net worth to $450,000 or $500,000. That, along with the hobby income, should easily be enough.

With those things in mind – I drafted an updated Escape or Launch Plan. Here it is:


(that last line should say to use income from Work, hobby(shirts), and post-tax dividends



After I finished writing this, in some kind of a signal to convince myself how serious I am about the plan, I left work with half of the workday still remaining. Now it’s shirt-designing time.

I posted this plan on my refrigerator. I might laminate it. Here we go! Let’s see how it works out. If nothing else, this should keep me pretty busy over the next year.

[jennypenny]

Quit before you're completely ready. Sometimes life's more fun without a net.

You don't need to spend that much on a van. Get something cheaper until you're sure you want to continue. If you like it and decide to continue living that way, you can trade up to a used Roadtrek or similar. I have a high-top, but it doesn't fit in most garages. I'd try out both styles of van to see which you prefer driving. There's a youtube channel called Dan Travels that shows how he converted a standard size van. His style is very utilitarian, but it's stealthy and inexpensive.

[George the original one]

Consider whether renting house is better than selling house.

[jacob]

Definitely confirm the hobby income potential! I've found that some of my hobbies would have been a real struggle to drive past $500. Copy-editing was an easy goal and the only cost was 15 hours/month of not-so-interesting work. Bike repair would have been a real struggle as most of the money didn't come from the repair but from buying cheap and selling rich after some trivial repairs. Internet blog/ad-money would have been barely doable (the blog currently makes about $600/month in ad income) but I think I already had 300k views/month or something of that order.

The book makes more today but didn't exist at the time. The job makes way more today but didn't exist either.

In short, without being entirely FI, it might be a crap shot as to whether you can make up the difference. However, if you pursue value-generation in some form, you'll probably come up with something sufficiently remunerative sooner or later.

I'm glad I was fully FI before pulling the trigger in 2009. I would not have enjoyed the friction. The biggest downside here is ending up with more money than you know how to spend.

[C40]

Maybe I should clarify something - I'd consider myself fully FI at $500k. I consider myself basically FI, or FI-Able right now (I'd just have to get rid of my castle of a house or find a room mate - something I plan to do for sure as I have no desire to stay here long-term.



@Jenny - You're right.. I'm just planning on buying a cargo van - what I call the older/smaller style - like the one DanTravels has.

In that older style, It should be easy to find one in good shape for $5,000-$7,000.

As for the newer models - where I showed a $15,000 max, these are models that have only been out about one year. So they haven't depreciated much. (I'm talking about the larger Ford Transit, Dodge Ram Promaster, And Nissan NV2500). 5 years from now, this style would be a no-brainer for me.

How important is it to be able to stand up inside the van? I'm not sure. It seems like it would be very nice. I've driven and been in the back of both sizes of vans. The higher top vans feel VERY different inside - like they'd be much more comfortable to live in. Problem is, it's hard to decide if that's worth spending so much more for one right now. I don't think it would be worth it at this point, so I'm planning to start out with the older style.


@George - Yep. With the basic calculations I've done so far, it does not look like it'd be worth it. I'll check in greater detail as the time to act approaches. Also, in the area I live, I don't expect house prices or rents to go up much over time.


@Bigato - Thanks for the confidence, and for sharing your stories.


@Jacob - I'm pretty confident about the shirt sales. What I need to confirm is if the design strategy changes I'm thinking about will sell well. If they sell anywhere near as well as what I was doing before, I'll be set. My designs before had some copyright infringement issues, and they were nearly all based on current pop culture subjects - things for which interest peaks and then dies out over time. With that strategy I had some high selling periods where my sales got up to $300-$400 per month. I could've scaled that up by making more and more. But I don't want to rely on that type of income because it's not very sustainable. At the end of 2014, I had a ton taken down and my entire account frozen until I cleaned it out. I could go and put most of the same designs up again, but I don't want to rely on that.

What I'm working on now are designs with no infringement/takedown risk. This would also open up the number of different shirt sellers that I could post my designs on. Interest in and searches for these styles would not decline over time. If the amount of people searching out and buying designs like this is in the ballpark of the pop-culture styles, I'll be set, easy.



Other hobby income ideas that I could try out at some point later on:
(I started writing more details about these but I don't want to get into that right now.. maybe that'd be good for a later journal post)

• Portrait Photography. (Very saturated, but I believe new opportunities exist in shooting portraits for people to use on Dating sites/apps, which are spiking in popularity and use while people's pictures suck and have not yet improved to match hot much they are using dating apps)
• Nightlife Photography. Also likely saturated. But opportunities probably exist if establish a reputation among corporate events/parties.
• Nature and wildlife photography. Probably only useful as supplying material/visuals for a blog
• Selling physical things. (have a teaware idea I want to test out. The challenge is setting it up in a way that I don't have to manage inventory)
• Writing / Blogging / Youtubing. Possible subjects: Van conversion. Van living. Dividend investing. Nature/Wildlife photography. I'd have to get much better at writing though. As of right now, I just don't think these kind of things would really suit me well.
• Consulting at my current employer . This may be a very real possibility. It would be easy to do while van-touring. When I quit, I may (first) try to negotiate part-time work. Even if I quit entirely, there will be the possibility of it happening within the first year or two. If I work 50% of full-time, I might make just as much money as I do right now.
• Some kind of drop-shipping business - This would be more work than hobby. I don't really know how plausable this stuff actually is. I'd need to talk to someone in person who's actually doing it.

I know I had some other ideas but I'm drawing a blank right now.. I should make a serious list of these options and notes..

[Ego]

How important is it to be able to stand up inside the van? I'm not sure. It seems like it would be very nice. I've driven and been in the back of both sizes of vans. The higher top vans feel VERY different inside - like they'd be much more comfortable to live in. Problem is, it's hard to decide if that's worth spending so much more for one right now. I don't think it would be worth it at this point, so I'm planning to start out with the older style.

Pop tops offer the best of both worlds. You might get a low top van and see if you can acclimate to it. If not, you could have Sportsmobile add a penthouse for you.



Alternatively, you could watch local junkyards for poptop vans and retrofit the mechanism to your vehicle. Generally, the canvas is the thing that goes. If you have the old canvas as a template you could have a new one made.

[akratic]

Pull the trigger now!

[jacob]

How important is it to be able to stand up inside the van? I'm not sure. It seems like it would be very nice.

Well, if it's anything like the common boat, it sure makes it easier to put your pants on. No seriously, that's probably the #1 issue. Don't laugh.
Everything else can be done seated. You're not going to be doing much walking in there.

[George the original one]

> How important is it to be able to stand up inside the van? I'm not sure.

Advice my dad gave me: "Never buy a tent you can't stand up in." I've followed his philosophy in that regard and, particularly as I've aged, it is an excellent luxury that costs very little. A van is just a tent with wheels.

[C40]

Thanks guys

Well I think the "standing" question is pretty much answered for me already. I want to buy a van this year, but I don't want to spend $20k* so it will be a shorter van.

* I will keep my eye out for Sprinters, but they are generally expensive for what you're getting.

[C40]

Tough love time...

...I apologize for the rant, but I've just watched so many people waste so much time at jobs they didn't like, in order to save themselves from the possibility of... get this... the *possibility* of spending time in the future at jobs they didn't like.

Don't apologize. These are very good points. And I love your certainty here. I don't disagree with any of your individual points.

It is true that I'm very used to working for just one company. My resume is severely outdated. I only interviewed with TWO companies when I was graduating university. I feel like I would stink at finding a new job. But - yes, I know that I could figure this stuff out pretty quickly, and getting a job shouldn't be any problem.

I also have no interest in learning about a new company, a new culture. No interest in meeting a whole bunch of different work people** and learning all their names and acting like I care about what they're saying. I think a year in my job would be WAY easier than the first year in a new company. So the thought of getting another full time carreer type job in the future does feel pretty ugly to me. Is it stupid or irrational to choose the guaranteed annoyance of work instead of only the POSSIBILITY of this ugliness? Maybe it is. I know. But I'm probably going to be happy (enough) waiting out this last year anyways.


(** I compartmentalize relationships a lot)



Here are some thoughts on why I don't want to quit any sooner than a year from now. There's one main point first and then a few more concrete things down below:

- Probably the main reason is just that I like control, and power, and abundance. I like the feeling that I am in a position of strength. Having some extra money will help me feel that way. I think an additional year of work may be worth it just for the purpose of helping me to have that feeling. I know that It's possible to get that same feeling from the knowledge that I could get another job and make more money quickly. But, for me, that would feel more like thinking "Oh, I could win if I did xyz", when I'd rather be thinking "I am winning right now". In the first year or two after I quit, I might wish that I had quit a year earlier. But 50 years from now, I'm certain I won't look back and think "Oh, if I had just quit one year sooner, .... "


Side bike racing story:

I have a couple examples along this line of thought from when I was bicycle racing. Bike racing was, aside form ERE prep, the most recent thing that I really worked hard on outside of work. I raced three years. The first year I was just getting into the sport and learning how it worked, and working my way up to racing well in the entry category. The second year I set a goal to get at least top 3 in the biggest race of the season. I improved my training, my diet, my sleep, my racing tactics, my mental toughness. I joined a team and helped the other guys in some races ahead of mine so they'd be willing to help me. When the race came, I dominated. Completely dominated. It felt great.

There were two specific races that really stand out with a feeling of dominance:
- One was in my second year of racing, still in the entry level category. It was one of my very last races in this category and I was so much better than the people in my race that I would've been in contention to win races a category above mine. At one of the most popular/famous races in the whole region, I attacked straight from the starting gun. No one ever wins when they do this. It's just a stupid and ballsy thing to do. I got a good lead and was on my own for like 15-20 minutes of the hour long race (riding as hard as I could). I got caught and rode with the pack the rest of the race. Generally, if you attack like this, you're basically blowing your wad and you won't be able to compete after that. Well I recovered and sprinted very well. (Got 2nd, but I let off for a stupid reason and could've actually won). Being able to race like this is WAY more fun than suffering along. I could decide how the race unfolded. I could decide which way I wanted to try to win and would have a good chance of it working out, whatever the method was.
- Another was a year later. I had moved up to a harder category and joined a big team. Most of the season I was working for my team mates who cared more about winning and were slightly better sprinters than me. There was a race series where I did horribly. My mental focus was way off and I couldn't ride worth a shit. I struggled through all the races. Then the next race I did ended up being the ONLY race all year that I had no team mates. So I could do whatever I wanted. At this race, I attacked on my own and rode ahead of the field for the last 10-15 minutes. I got a huge lead and as I got within 4, 3, 2, 1 laps to go, the win was more and more absolutely certain. The last 2 laps I was 100% sure I had it won. This is the best way to win a bike race - out ahead by yourself - because you get the rush of winning for a very long time. (In a sprint win you only get that rush for a few seconds).

I won other races, but these are two of the most memorable. I loved feeling the way I did during these races -- being in control, having power, being confident about winning, etc.. I want to feel that way more.






Others:
- A huge chunk of my money is in my 401k and Pension. More than half. I'm planning to do the IRA Escape plan thing or whatever folks call it. If I understand/remember it correctly, there's a 5 year delay in getting spendable money. I want to make sure I have plenty enough post-tax money so this doesn't become a problem
- I want to get the van all set up and sell the house before I quit. This will probably take at least six months
- I get my yearly bonus from work in March. My pension increase might also happen at once in February/March. (our pension value information pages are archaic and confusing). That means in the first quarter of the year, I get paid way more money than normal months. If I get anywhere close to Q1, I'll want to work through it to make sure I get that "extra" money.
- I'm sure that at times in the future I'm going to want to buy really nice things - cameras, bicycles, plane tickets, an AWD van, a cabin in the mountains near the city where my immediate family live, a jetpack, etc.. I think I would rather work the extra time and have the ability to buy these things without worrying about whether I'm spending too much. I know that may be a bit irrational - because I could just work more later if my net worth starts to go down. But I still feel that way. If I quit right now, buying the nice things very well could decreases in my net worth. But instead of going ahead and doing it, and figuring out where to get the money from after, there's a good chance I would just not buy them and would be wishing that I was...... I know, I know.. But again, the abundance thing is important for me.
- My current role at work is the easiest my job has ever been (and of course I make more money than I ever did before). It also gets me to nice locations sometimes. I'm only working like 30-35 hours per week, and thus my effective hourly pay rate is pretty darn high. I don't feel burnt out. The main issue I have with work is that It's just in the way of me doing many of the these other things I want to do after I quit. I just have senioritis.

It does seem like this time in my life is pretty "slow". Like I don't have as much going on as I could. But a lot of why I feel this way is because I'm comparing right now to an imagined (ideal) retirement state. I'm still doing plenty and learning plenty and my life isn't any slower than it ever was before. And now that I've shortened my timeline from 2 years to 1, and made this plan of action, I'll spend much of the time doing what I (feel I) need/want to do before I quit. Maybe these things will take 6 months, and I'll have another 6 months waiting for more money. But that's not so bad. Also, I have a lot of vacation time at work. I can take 5 weeks off over the next year and still have max vacation balance when I quit. Or I could take up to ten weeks off.

(Sorry about this being so long)

[C40]

Well yes I like to excel, but I think my reasoning here is just more about having certainty/security/extra