I'll reserve this as a placeholder for a "looking back / review" post that is easily accessible and designated to this post.
Here's a short vague about: viewtopic.php?t=13057
My side of the mountain
Re: My side of the mountain
I grew up excited about weird places, strange ways of living, and being creative. I loved the book "My Side of the Mountain" as a kid, the illustrations are wonderful and I have so many visual memories of that story burned into my mind's horizon. I figure I'll burn out a metaphorical tree on this thread and set up camp a bit. (I have not read My Side of the Mountain since I was a kid and I'm terrified to do so -- we can all relate).
I want this thread to be a chronicling of my shift in perspective from an intense focus on financial abundance to a holistic focus on my own personhood in that kinda-drunkenly-talking-about-existentialism sorta way.
Not trying to take myself too seriously on this thread -- I'll excuse the mess of grammatical errors and sloppy thinking now -- this will be a lot of shoot from the hip thoughts and updates.
In past written reflection, I've found one "tactical" aspect to be super helpful: positives and lessons. Positives are things I did well in the past. Lessons are things to try differently for tomorrow.
Taking a day away from whatever may've happened has helped me create space to really understand how my life is going instead of just feeling it. Easier to actually believe my own reframe when I have a day away from whatever emotion I felt, good or bad.
I won't be perfect but I'll try to have some sort of routine near-term review to ensure I'm really hammering something like "you're fuckin' doing it dude, stfu and just keep doin' it" into my brain on a regular basis.
Such a cool experience as a kid to dive into this world.
I want this thread to be a chronicling of my shift in perspective from an intense focus on financial abundance to a holistic focus on my own personhood in that kinda-drunkenly-talking-about-existentialism sorta way.
Not trying to take myself too seriously on this thread -- I'll excuse the mess of grammatical errors and sloppy thinking now -- this will be a lot of shoot from the hip thoughts and updates.
In past written reflection, I've found one "tactical" aspect to be super helpful: positives and lessons. Positives are things I did well in the past. Lessons are things to try differently for tomorrow.
Taking a day away from whatever may've happened has helped me create space to really understand how my life is going instead of just feeling it. Easier to actually believe my own reframe when I have a day away from whatever emotion I felt, good or bad.
I won't be perfect but I'll try to have some sort of routine near-term review to ensure I'm really hammering something like "you're fuckin' doing it dude, stfu and just keep doin' it" into my brain on a regular basis.
Such a cool experience as a kid to dive into this world.
Re: My side of the mountain
More about:
I've been unsure about starting a thread here because I'm not yet bought in on all of the ERE concepts. IDK what I am on the ERE wheaton scale but I'll consider myself a newbie in general.
Stuff I feel like I still want that is not common here:
-- pay other people to do stuff for me, even if its establishing a web of dependent people (I run a business)
-- acquire higher cost items at a good value that eventually are resold for nearly identical value or that lower ongoing costs in a meaningful way.
I'm good to pay a premium/high deposit on physical goods -- e.g. EV car, tankless water heater to reduce nat gas usage.
-- invest in index funds like a boggleheads noob (I don't think I can pick stocks, I don't think picking a handful of stocks is smart downside protection)
-- enjoy vacations where I just chill out, I'm not trying to learn a skill or optimize anything other than my booty in a lawn chair on a beach reading
-- high income, equities way past FIRE for many here... but not for me.. questionmark?? -- this is a big part of why I'm here
-- willing to keep working doing some stuff I don't like b/c the pay is good -- again, queeeeeestionmarrkkk????
^^ emphasis on "feel".
Another reason why I'm here: I lost a beloved family member recently and unfortunately, another is in hospice. I've had a year of anticipation, helping, accommodating, and all of the processes that go into being there with someone as their life comes to an end. Simultaneously, my son had just been born (now a bit over a year old). So just a whirlwind of facing existence, all of the best parts and the hardest parts. Beautiful and tragic and beautiful.
These events have tightened a spring in me whose catch is on a hairpin, ready to burst open (and maybe forward). It's been a season of consolidating ideas, of care for others, and of "getting it done" both at work and in my personal life -- plenty of laughter and fun and adventure in there too, not some sob story over here.
A few months ago, I don't know why, I revisited Jacob's book and then the blog and then this forum. Things clicked, timing wise.
So here I am, confused as fuck with the realization that I could be FIRE today and over the last 60 days I think I've probably changed things so that I am, but.. I'm not.
And why am I not? Because FIRE is a numerical goal, not an emotional state.
So what I'm really here to do is reorient my life towards excitement and satisfaction.
That's the goal.
I've been unsure about starting a thread here because I'm not yet bought in on all of the ERE concepts. IDK what I am on the ERE wheaton scale but I'll consider myself a newbie in general.
Stuff I feel like I still want that is not common here:
-- pay other people to do stuff for me, even if its establishing a web of dependent people (I run a business)
-- acquire higher cost items at a good value that eventually are resold for nearly identical value or that lower ongoing costs in a meaningful way.
I'm good to pay a premium/high deposit on physical goods -- e.g. EV car, tankless water heater to reduce nat gas usage.
-- invest in index funds like a boggleheads noob (I don't think I can pick stocks, I don't think picking a handful of stocks is smart downside protection)
-- enjoy vacations where I just chill out, I'm not trying to learn a skill or optimize anything other than my booty in a lawn chair on a beach reading
-- high income, equities way past FIRE for many here... but not for me.. questionmark?? -- this is a big part of why I'm here
-- willing to keep working doing some stuff I don't like b/c the pay is good -- again, queeeeeestionmarrkkk????
^^ emphasis on "feel".
Another reason why I'm here: I lost a beloved family member recently and unfortunately, another is in hospice. I've had a year of anticipation, helping, accommodating, and all of the processes that go into being there with someone as their life comes to an end. Simultaneously, my son had just been born (now a bit over a year old). So just a whirlwind of facing existence, all of the best parts and the hardest parts. Beautiful and tragic and beautiful.
These events have tightened a spring in me whose catch is on a hairpin, ready to burst open (and maybe forward). It's been a season of consolidating ideas, of care for others, and of "getting it done" both at work and in my personal life -- plenty of laughter and fun and adventure in there too, not some sob story over here.
A few months ago, I don't know why, I revisited Jacob's book and then the blog and then this forum. Things clicked, timing wise.
So here I am, confused as fuck with the realization that I could be FIRE today and over the last 60 days I think I've probably changed things so that I am, but.. I'm not.
And why am I not? Because FIRE is a numerical goal, not an emotional state.
So what I'm really here to do is reorient my life towards excitement and satisfaction.
That's the goal.
Re: My side of the mountain
You wrote: "Another reason why I'm here: I lost a beloved family member recently and unfortunately, another is in hospice. I've had a year of anticipation, helping, accommodating, and all of the processes that go into being there with someone as their life comes to an end. Simultaneously, my son had just been born (now a bit over a year old). So just a whirlwind of facing existence, all of the best parts and the hardest parts. Beautiful and tragic and beautiful."
Yes that's hard. See also the thread: ERE or Semi-ERE past Age 65, recently about to cope (or not) with aging and ill/dying family-members/friends.
Seeing a baby grown is a very inspiring event, as I still remember when we got a daughter long ago. I do think that will help you to reorient.
Wish you pleasure with your child.
Money is not so important as you have already a lot of it. Freedom to do want you suit is a better goal.
Yes that's hard. See also the thread: ERE or Semi-ERE past Age 65, recently about to cope (or not) with aging and ill/dying family-members/friends.
Seeing a baby grown is a very inspiring event, as I still remember when we got a daughter long ago. I do think that will help you to reorient.
Wish you pleasure with your child.
Money is not so important as you have already a lot of it. Freedom to do want you suit is a better goal.
Re: My side of the mountain
@J - thank you for those words, having my little guy happily slap me awake after a nap together is the best: "Da da!!" *slap* *slap* *slap*. Me: "Gentle pets buddy". "Da da!!" *whispering, soft slaps*
\\\\
I'm getting back into the swing of normal life -- the past many months have been dominated with family time, errands, helping where we can, dinners, meals prepared, etc.
In 2023, knowing that I'd lose my Uncle really focused my attention in my business on delegating every last part of what I do to someone else. This meant internal hiring (upgrade staff responsibilities + bonus pay + remove lower level tasks) and adding three new people to our org.
It's a hectic thing in some sense, replacing yourself, because you must make everything known but not documented into something known and documented. This "took if out of me" last year and was absolutely a way that I coped in the face of inevitably losing my uncle.
My uncle's life ended earlier this month and it's stayed with me, maybe more than I expected, both the best parts of him and the hardest parts of being with him breathing his final breaths.
So here I am, settling back down into this new work configuration that I haven't really enjoyed yet: 2x 15 minute exec staff checkins per day, 50% of working days.
So far I've filled that extra time with vengeance. Coffee roaster, spend optimization, cutting services, starting seeds for the garden, yard work (pruning as a metaphor for life cleanup feels right), consolidating servers and systems and backups, building, reflecting, writing.
I got all that random stuff off of my to-do list, and then even more random stuff. That backlog is done. Now what.
...now what.
I'm at an inflection point, I can feel it, and the crack of a door is open, I'm opening it, but boy howdy I do not know what's on the other side of that door.
For now, I'm going to marinate in that space. I have some ideas, though, at least of some fun I'd like to have this year:
Japan for 3-4 weeks in fall -- something I've dreamed about for a long time -- will be beautiful and quiet (I hope). On my to-do for this trip is to find and connect with gear makers in Japan because I want to meet locals, make friends, and see other people's beautiful work.
Circumnavigate Glacier Peak with my friend over a few days -- big climbs, big views, good tea, awesome company.
Apple tree grafting -- I have two beautiful asian pear trees that I've just cleaned up a ton, primed and ready to become "frankentrees" that I hope will bear a variety of apples throughout fruiting season (June - Feb) (inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkyd4S7bxCY). I'd like to trade for these and as such have saved scions from my trees. (Am in the Seattle area, please send a message if you're interested).
Fiction 'reading' -- I need to sink back down into the weird worlds of other minds. Life has been too "non-fiction-y" recently, time to let my imagination run wild. Currently I'm listening to Hitchhikers Guide on audiobook because the laughs are hitting the spot right now, such a fun one (read it when I was a kid).
Fiction writing -- I am not yet ready to make a commitment on this but I know this will be a core part of what's next for me, so I'm letting what that looks like slowly build. I may revisit a novella I wrote near term to edit and revise or continue on an outline for a novel I've been plotting. I want this to be fun, genuinely fun, and not feel like a slot or an obligation. Counterpoint is the thesis from the book The War of Art. I don't think I need to go to war for my creative self today, but maybe I do.
Cheese making -- as if I need a new weird thing to get into. My main trepidation is limiting my location-independence which I cherish. I also know myself enough to know that I wouldn't make just one cheese and ofc I'm gonna want to check in on my babies, so while it sounds cute and fun, this is actually a big commitment. To trial this hobby without any new costs or substantial work, I've been making farmers cheeses for my wife. Majorly high reward to effort ratio, would recommend.
Outdoor, "zero maintenance" garden -- because I'm local in Q1 this year and have an automated-enough indoor garden setup, I can and have gotten seeds started early for healthy transplanting in March. Once the weather turns here and I'll be on the road/trail/not-home a lot more, my hope is that whatever survives survives without any major upkeep. Part of this project is setting up rainwater catchment and a timed watering system.
MYOG Pulk + winter camping setup -- was given a very large sled for winter adventuring with my kiddo and it immediately screamed "make me into outdoor gear right now!" so I'll take some extra PVC piping and cordage and fashion a pulk and waist harness. The worst part about winter backpacking is that it's dark too damn early so I hope this will eventually become a "max gear" set up where I haul the kitchen sink out with me. The truly awesome version of this would be my own MYOG hot tent, DIY stove, and some lofted bed situation. I could imagine a version of this that's ultralight and intended for elk hunting but that's years away.
Foraging -- would love to learn more about local wild plants and fungi to combine the following "tags" that I'm now trying to RPG-character max out when doing stuff: natural environments, mental health, exercise, skill development, wilderness survival, high quality produce, socializing. I think this would be an overlay on top of an existing interest (backpacking) that can provide a deeper canvas of experience while out in the woods. Found food can also be traded.
\\\\
One thing I've noticed envying (too strong) about others here is that folks here seem incredibly mission-driven. In the past I have as well about things like developing social/dating skills, FIRE, business, philosophy. But right now I do not have any through-line with what I'm working on.
I have an idea but frankly it feels too big and too nebulous to break down into parts. I've had a "shortest time horizon possible" view for many things in life (example:FIRE) but this path is intended to be the longest path possible. That structure feels new and different. More to poke on this topic for sure.
\\\\
The past few days have been covered in a haze of underslept exhaustion but also love and fun.
My kiddo and wife and I went to a therapy pool for family swim last weekend and while costly (got a punch card, $5/adult, $4/kid), this was really delicious consumption of money: my guy absolutely freaking loves playing in the water. The joy of counting to three but my dude is jumping into my open arms on the two count, just beaming. Giggle mania. Just so good.
On a sunnier day we had a lovely time playing at our local park. Kids everywhere and all my guy wanted to do was chase dogs (he is 16 months old in a bright yellow rain suit so, I'll be honest, he's not winning). We struck up conversation in Spanish with a nanny team and their kiddos which was lovely and led to one of them giving us a kids tricycle because their kid had out-grown it. Being nice is free and being nice creates opportunities, even if its just a bit more guac on your burrito (oof streetmeat taco truck, I miss you).
== As an aside: a really lovely lady in my unmarried years taught me the lesson of being just extra nice to people especially when they expect the worst and it stuck with me. Being nice is a social skill, certainly, because plenty of folks can mean well but come across poorly. That lady demonstrated it to me on a new years night when all both of us wanted to do was be all over each other but she insisted on having a full conversation with the cabbie that was driving us home. That cab driver appreciated her kindness more than whatever positive feels my lower-brained hormonal body could've felt. Everyone* deserves kindness, dignity, and appropriate attention (*okay okay, not everyone, but it's a smart default orientation to others). ==
Not a ton of time in the indoor plant room but I've enjoyed myself a ton just watching cotyledons and then true leaves grow. Experiencing change is beautiful. One of the best parts of seasons: the same hiking trail with different colors, plants, animals, sounds, even views.
The ordinary things are sweet these days.
\\\\
Positives:
- giggles and big laughs with my wife and kid
- cleaning my slate for new things
- energy consolidating and building
- being "aimless" does not feel bad if I decide to occupy that space intentionally
- spending on myself that feels really valuable, honoring the person I'm constantly striving to become
Lessons:
- transitions take time so plan for a transitory space between big life events. I'd thought that I'd hit FIRE and things would change. Now I'm in this ambiguous "maybe I'm already there and nothing is different" space, realizing crossing this finish line does not give me guidance on what's next. I've never been bored or wanting for new projects to do but the larger identity level change just takes time.
- Sometimes my friends and family react to my weird new thing I'm doing in a pat on the back, "cool buddy" kind of way (that's fine -- they don't owe me their interest in my next project). But, as it turns out, fairly often they're also like "oh yeah and give me more of that pls". Recent examples are hot sauce, roasted coffee, farmers cheese, my wife's bread, tea, misc frugality tips, and investing advice. There's a right and wrong way to express these things and I think I've found a healthy, dynamic balance here: offer to share things you eat and lead by example elsewhere (no one wants to get unsolicited financial advice lol).
- spending money on baby giggles is a super solid use of money
\\\\
I'm getting back into the swing of normal life -- the past many months have been dominated with family time, errands, helping where we can, dinners, meals prepared, etc.
In 2023, knowing that I'd lose my Uncle really focused my attention in my business on delegating every last part of what I do to someone else. This meant internal hiring (upgrade staff responsibilities + bonus pay + remove lower level tasks) and adding three new people to our org.
It's a hectic thing in some sense, replacing yourself, because you must make everything known but not documented into something known and documented. This "took if out of me" last year and was absolutely a way that I coped in the face of inevitably losing my uncle.
My uncle's life ended earlier this month and it's stayed with me, maybe more than I expected, both the best parts of him and the hardest parts of being with him breathing his final breaths.
So here I am, settling back down into this new work configuration that I haven't really enjoyed yet: 2x 15 minute exec staff checkins per day, 50% of working days.
So far I've filled that extra time with vengeance. Coffee roaster, spend optimization, cutting services, starting seeds for the garden, yard work (pruning as a metaphor for life cleanup feels right), consolidating servers and systems and backups, building, reflecting, writing.
I got all that random stuff off of my to-do list, and then even more random stuff. That backlog is done. Now what.
...now what.
I'm at an inflection point, I can feel it, and the crack of a door is open, I'm opening it, but boy howdy I do not know what's on the other side of that door.
For now, I'm going to marinate in that space. I have some ideas, though, at least of some fun I'd like to have this year:
Japan for 3-4 weeks in fall -- something I've dreamed about for a long time -- will be beautiful and quiet (I hope). On my to-do for this trip is to find and connect with gear makers in Japan because I want to meet locals, make friends, and see other people's beautiful work.
Circumnavigate Glacier Peak with my friend over a few days -- big climbs, big views, good tea, awesome company.
Apple tree grafting -- I have two beautiful asian pear trees that I've just cleaned up a ton, primed and ready to become "frankentrees" that I hope will bear a variety of apples throughout fruiting season (June - Feb) (inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkyd4S7bxCY). I'd like to trade for these and as such have saved scions from my trees. (Am in the Seattle area, please send a message if you're interested).
Fiction 'reading' -- I need to sink back down into the weird worlds of other minds. Life has been too "non-fiction-y" recently, time to let my imagination run wild. Currently I'm listening to Hitchhikers Guide on audiobook because the laughs are hitting the spot right now, such a fun one (read it when I was a kid).
Fiction writing -- I am not yet ready to make a commitment on this but I know this will be a core part of what's next for me, so I'm letting what that looks like slowly build. I may revisit a novella I wrote near term to edit and revise or continue on an outline for a novel I've been plotting. I want this to be fun, genuinely fun, and not feel like a slot or an obligation. Counterpoint is the thesis from the book The War of Art. I don't think I need to go to war for my creative self today, but maybe I do.
Cheese making -- as if I need a new weird thing to get into. My main trepidation is limiting my location-independence which I cherish. I also know myself enough to know that I wouldn't make just one cheese and ofc I'm gonna want to check in on my babies, so while it sounds cute and fun, this is actually a big commitment. To trial this hobby without any new costs or substantial work, I've been making farmers cheeses for my wife. Majorly high reward to effort ratio, would recommend.
Outdoor, "zero maintenance" garden -- because I'm local in Q1 this year and have an automated-enough indoor garden setup, I can and have gotten seeds started early for healthy transplanting in March. Once the weather turns here and I'll be on the road/trail/not-home a lot more, my hope is that whatever survives survives without any major upkeep. Part of this project is setting up rainwater catchment and a timed watering system.
MYOG Pulk + winter camping setup -- was given a very large sled for winter adventuring with my kiddo and it immediately screamed "make me into outdoor gear right now!" so I'll take some extra PVC piping and cordage and fashion a pulk and waist harness. The worst part about winter backpacking is that it's dark too damn early so I hope this will eventually become a "max gear" set up where I haul the kitchen sink out with me. The truly awesome version of this would be my own MYOG hot tent, DIY stove, and some lofted bed situation. I could imagine a version of this that's ultralight and intended for elk hunting but that's years away.
Foraging -- would love to learn more about local wild plants and fungi to combine the following "tags" that I'm now trying to RPG-character max out when doing stuff: natural environments, mental health, exercise, skill development, wilderness survival, high quality produce, socializing. I think this would be an overlay on top of an existing interest (backpacking) that can provide a deeper canvas of experience while out in the woods. Found food can also be traded.
\\\\
One thing I've noticed envying (too strong) about others here is that folks here seem incredibly mission-driven. In the past I have as well about things like developing social/dating skills, FIRE, business, philosophy. But right now I do not have any through-line with what I'm working on.
I have an idea but frankly it feels too big and too nebulous to break down into parts. I've had a "shortest time horizon possible" view for many things in life (example:FIRE) but this path is intended to be the longest path possible. That structure feels new and different. More to poke on this topic for sure.
\\\\
The past few days have been covered in a haze of underslept exhaustion but also love and fun.
My kiddo and wife and I went to a therapy pool for family swim last weekend and while costly (got a punch card, $5/adult, $4/kid), this was really delicious consumption of money: my guy absolutely freaking loves playing in the water. The joy of counting to three but my dude is jumping into my open arms on the two count, just beaming. Giggle mania. Just so good.
On a sunnier day we had a lovely time playing at our local park. Kids everywhere and all my guy wanted to do was chase dogs (he is 16 months old in a bright yellow rain suit so, I'll be honest, he's not winning). We struck up conversation in Spanish with a nanny team and their kiddos which was lovely and led to one of them giving us a kids tricycle because their kid had out-grown it. Being nice is free and being nice creates opportunities, even if its just a bit more guac on your burrito (oof streetmeat taco truck, I miss you).
== As an aside: a really lovely lady in my unmarried years taught me the lesson of being just extra nice to people especially when they expect the worst and it stuck with me. Being nice is a social skill, certainly, because plenty of folks can mean well but come across poorly. That lady demonstrated it to me on a new years night when all both of us wanted to do was be all over each other but she insisted on having a full conversation with the cabbie that was driving us home. That cab driver appreciated her kindness more than whatever positive feels my lower-brained hormonal body could've felt. Everyone* deserves kindness, dignity, and appropriate attention (*okay okay, not everyone, but it's a smart default orientation to others). ==
Not a ton of time in the indoor plant room but I've enjoyed myself a ton just watching cotyledons and then true leaves grow. Experiencing change is beautiful. One of the best parts of seasons: the same hiking trail with different colors, plants, animals, sounds, even views.
The ordinary things are sweet these days.
\\\\
Positives:
- giggles and big laughs with my wife and kid
- cleaning my slate for new things
- energy consolidating and building
- being "aimless" does not feel bad if I decide to occupy that space intentionally
- spending on myself that feels really valuable, honoring the person I'm constantly striving to become
Lessons:
- transitions take time so plan for a transitory space between big life events. I'd thought that I'd hit FIRE and things would change. Now I'm in this ambiguous "maybe I'm already there and nothing is different" space, realizing crossing this finish line does not give me guidance on what's next. I've never been bored or wanting for new projects to do but the larger identity level change just takes time.
- Sometimes my friends and family react to my weird new thing I'm doing in a pat on the back, "cool buddy" kind of way (that's fine -- they don't owe me their interest in my next project). But, as it turns out, fairly often they're also like "oh yeah and give me more of that pls". Recent examples are hot sauce, roasted coffee, farmers cheese, my wife's bread, tea, misc frugality tips, and investing advice. There's a right and wrong way to express these things and I think I've found a healthy, dynamic balance here: offer to share things you eat and lead by example elsewhere (no one wants to get unsolicited financial advice lol).
- spending money on baby giggles is a super solid use of money
Re: My side of the mountain
I don't have any great advice for you, but I am sorry for your loss. You sound like you're on a good path, and that you're a wonderful father to your boy.
I'm excited to find out what is on the other side of the door for you!
I'm excited to find out what is on the other side of the door for you!
-
grundomatic
- Posts: 425
- Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:04 am
Re: My side of the mountain
Welcome to the forum. I remember reading My Side of the Mountain as a kid. I don't remember much except thinking it was pure fiction--"can a kid really do that!?!" I liked it enough to read the next book, however, and I do like your metaphor.thef0x wrote: ↑Sun Feb 25, 2024 11:16 pmI grew up excited about weird places, strange ways of living, and being creative. I loved the book "My Side of the Mountain" as a kid, the illustrations are wonderful and I have so many visual memories of that story burned into my mind's horizon. I figure I'll burn out a metaphorical tree on this thread and set up camp a bit. (I have not read My Side of the Mountain since I was a kid and I'm terrified to do so -- we can all relate).
Don't get too hung up on differences. You may also have more in common than you think. For instance, hiring people to run your business is just a more concrete version of people living off their dividends. Buy it for life, paying for quality, and collecting few but really nice possessions is very much part of ERE--it made it to the book. Your vacations sound like my vacations.thef0x wrote: ↑Sun Feb 25, 2024 11:43 pmI've been unsure about starting a thread here because I'm not yet bought in on all of the ERE concepts. IDK what I am on the ERE wheaton scale but I'll consider myself a newbie in general.
Stuff I feel like I still want that is not common here:
-- pay other people to do stuff for me, even if its establishing a web of dependent people (I run a business)
-- acquire higher cost items at a good value that eventually are resold for nearly identical value or that lower ongoing costs in a meaningful way.
I'm good to pay a premium/high deposit on physical goods -- e.g. EV car, tankless water heater to reduce nat gas usage.
-- invest in index funds like a boggleheads noob (I don't think I can pick stocks, I don't think picking a handful of stocks is smart downside protection)
-- enjoy vacations where I just chill out, I'm not trying to learn a skill or optimize anything other than my booty in a lawn chair on a beach reading
-- high income, equities way past FIRE for many here... but not for me.. questionmark?? -- this is a big part of why I'm here
-- willing to keep working doing some stuff I don't like b/c the pay is good -- again, queeeeeestionmarrkkk????
^^ emphasis on "feel".
The wisdom I gleaned from all the WL conversations is to embrace where you are. If you are super into optimizing and still think that more money has extra utility for you, run that pony until it's tired. You'll either realize that baby giggles are free and you don't want to miss any more moments with them making money you don't need, or you'll be super-duper financially secure.
Re: My side of the mountain
Cursory thoughts on capitalism:
\\
The good:
- seemingly aligns with human nature
- massive upswing in quality of living, poverty, longevity, education, etc -- correlation vs causation here? -- see Steven Pinker's work
- affordable physical transport
- affordable digital transport
- in theory, vaguely meritocratic
The bad:
- not meritocratic
- horrific needless draining of natural resources leading to unknowable* global climate impact
- consolidation of power
\\
Thought experiment re global resource yield vs principle consumption:
There's a world I can imagine where ecologically minded capitalism actually works. Innovation for "points" is a thing, and systems built around those points exist (financial markets). But we're living on the yield of the Earth, not the principle.
In this world, is consumerism bad?
I think it's super stupid. But morally.. why would it be bad?
Kinda like my preference for foreign films and dark chocolate vs rom-coms and hersheys. Whatever, morally speaking. I don't like yellow blazers but maybe that's really your thing. If everything recycles itself in a holistic manner, how would I cast blame anywhere.
In this example, is capitalism still bad because it will always lead to eating at the principle?
Would it be possible to use capitalism to get us to a global yield based system? Does humanity require a phase shift in its geopolitics to be able to actually live on the yield?
I've written a far future novella about an AI that basically instantiates a virtual utopia where humans live off the yield (this is a minor detail, it's a story about people). In past iterations of a move toward communism, centralized power/planning has been used to force outcomes that adhere to the required principles to achieve XYZ social outcome (history so far has not been kind to this strat). In our example, nurturing earths resources to then live abundantly, tyranny required (AI or Stalin).
Could we actually overcome the tragedy of the commons, best the worst part of our selfish nature, and actually govern a hegemony of humans living off earth's abundance (again, thought experiment here, so give me that we can get to the yield).
And is capitalism a good OS at that point?
*Safe to say horrific but I suppose it'll be relative to your moral scope.
\\
The good:
- seemingly aligns with human nature
- massive upswing in quality of living, poverty, longevity, education, etc -- correlation vs causation here? -- see Steven Pinker's work
- affordable physical transport
- affordable digital transport
- in theory, vaguely meritocratic
The bad:
- not meritocratic
- horrific needless draining of natural resources leading to unknowable* global climate impact
- consolidation of power
\\
Thought experiment re global resource yield vs principle consumption:
There's a world I can imagine where ecologically minded capitalism actually works. Innovation for "points" is a thing, and systems built around those points exist (financial markets). But we're living on the yield of the Earth, not the principle.
In this world, is consumerism bad?
I think it's super stupid. But morally.. why would it be bad?
Kinda like my preference for foreign films and dark chocolate vs rom-coms and hersheys. Whatever, morally speaking. I don't like yellow blazers but maybe that's really your thing. If everything recycles itself in a holistic manner, how would I cast blame anywhere.
In this example, is capitalism still bad because it will always lead to eating at the principle?
Would it be possible to use capitalism to get us to a global yield based system? Does humanity require a phase shift in its geopolitics to be able to actually live on the yield?
I've written a far future novella about an AI that basically instantiates a virtual utopia where humans live off the yield (this is a minor detail, it's a story about people). In past iterations of a move toward communism, centralized power/planning has been used to force outcomes that adhere to the required principles to achieve XYZ social outcome (history so far has not been kind to this strat). In our example, nurturing earths resources to then live abundantly, tyranny required (AI or Stalin).
Could we actually overcome the tragedy of the commons, best the worst part of our selfish nature, and actually govern a hegemony of humans living off earth's abundance (again, thought experiment here, so give me that we can get to the yield).
And is capitalism a good OS at that point?
*Safe to say horrific but I suppose it'll be relative to your moral scope.
Re: My side of the mountain
Understanding ERE thoughts: satisfaction
One of the biggest "unlocks" of the ERE strat in the game of life is reframing satisfaction. I think that's what I admire the most from the folks in this forum. Deep rich life satisfaction.
More more more = chase chase chase. Chase = not having. More = not having enough.
Being appreciative of what is, what we have, and really experiencing the depth and richness of simple things is the best: a hot shower (how magical is hot water on demand -- my son thinks it's just incredible, I agree) or delicious food or the sounds on a walk.
During covid my business really took off, cool, launched me toward FIRE faster, but since then I've been feeling busy because I have been.
Revving down the engine has not been fun. That feeling of boredom, fighting every answer to it that isn't aligned on a higher level, over and over and over.
Metaphorically, I've been watching classic cinema feeling that super slow cutting speed. I've been feeling impatient, wanting to "get it done". But actually I want to be watching those old movies right now because they're great. Have you seen "M"? Awesome.
And now, finally, months after offloading basically everything I do at work, I'm calming down. It feels good to go slower.
Satisfaction requires a certain tempo, no?
One of the biggest "unlocks" of the ERE strat in the game of life is reframing satisfaction. I think that's what I admire the most from the folks in this forum. Deep rich life satisfaction.
More more more = chase chase chase. Chase = not having. More = not having enough.
Being appreciative of what is, what we have, and really experiencing the depth and richness of simple things is the best: a hot shower (how magical is hot water on demand -- my son thinks it's just incredible, I agree) or delicious food or the sounds on a walk.
During covid my business really took off, cool, launched me toward FIRE faster, but since then I've been feeling busy because I have been.
Revving down the engine has not been fun. That feeling of boredom, fighting every answer to it that isn't aligned on a higher level, over and over and over.
Metaphorically, I've been watching classic cinema feeling that super slow cutting speed. I've been feeling impatient, wanting to "get it done". But actually I want to be watching those old movies right now because they're great. Have you seen "M"? Awesome.
And now, finally, months after offloading basically everything I do at work, I'm calming down. It feels good to go slower.
Satisfaction requires a certain tempo, no?
Re: My side of the mountain
@Cam -- thank you for those words, without going into detail, they mean more than you can imagine.
@grundomatic -- I'm definitely here to learn and I am super good with disagreeing over these things, I don't think there is a "right answer" in any meaningful sense here because all this stuff, imo, is person dependent. The 'perspective from nowhere' is mostly BS, at least definitely in this context. I'll spare you a diatribe about objectivism.
\\
Welp, I bought a new to me car. 2017 chevy bolt with a new battery (recall), 21,400 miles, zero wear on the car, $16,600 with licensing and fees (0% sales tax b/c of WA state tax credits on the first $16k of an EV). Annual savings on gas have mathed out to ~$1,100. We'll see if we end up driving it more b/c it's cheaper to drive. The depreciation curve for these cars is theoretical at my car's age but Leaf's and Bolt's are surprisingly good in this regard.
I consider this CapEx on a cheaper, greener lifestyle, accepting that I do in fact use a car and will continue to do so. Where I live, 50% of my electrical power is generated from hydroelectrical power. For whoever is thinking it: yes, driving less, not participating in any car market, is greener and yes, lithium mining is bad. Nevertheless, here I am accepting my morally imperfect consumptive nature as a human.
My estimate for depreciation is ~$800/year for 5000 miles of driving but I expect I'll do better than that and realistically, I bet I'll drive this car into the EV-ground (where it becomes a golf cart to my grocery store instead of a cheap trailhead golfcart).
Normally people upgrade their homes with a level 2 charger -- way too expensive for my blood, so we'll just be smart about planning and pay for level 3 charging when required (still much cheaper than gas).
Of course I had to get it connected to my home automation server. Firstly I ran the charger through a power meter with a remote on/off switch. Then I signed up for the free trial from OnStar (they make you call them, gross) which enabled me to receive API call request data from my car (when the trial ends the only data I will get is state of charge which is the only data I care about). I then set up "onstar2mqtt" and pointed it to broadcast to my mqtt server. Copied the templates provided for my home assistant and here we are:
I'll be honest, this is a weird thing for me to post about here / since discovering the ERE forums. I've definitely had the fatFIRE trajectory going -- it's still going -- but with a consumer minded, ecological perspective. Think like 50% the way to ERE while being grossed out that fatFIRE meant consume consume to most people but for me it was a way to live close to family in a VHCOL city while also being able to give to charity / allocate resources to what I care about.
So when I first learned about the Chevy Bolt,I was super excited to buy a used one eventually. I joked with friends that once I got my business really grooving, I'd get one and slap a tesla logo on it and call it good -- this was well before the muskrat showed his true colors. As such, this purchase felt like a big "accomplishment" which is really weird because I never ever buy stuff to celebrate. And I didn't buy this car to celebrate, our minivan died
What's weird is that the math itself plus the cost of what I paid and the depreciation curve actually make sense from an ERE perspective, as does the move toward greener consumption for car-miles. I ended up getting the car not because I wanted to "do the thing I said I'd do when I crossed XYZ milestone" but because it'd literally be cheaper: annualized depreciation not including opportunity cost in investment income of that deposit of $800 but saves $1,100 in gas for a net cost reduction of $300 (realized once I sell the vehicle in ~5 years and do it again). If you account for the investment income off the 16.6k at 4% then I'm in the red $334, but I would've bought a car regardless, so that was going to happen anyway. If I were to buy a $3340 car that could drive my family safely for 10 years at 5000 miles a year, firstly that's nearly impossible to do in today's car market, and even if I did, it would be a gas car that would increase annual expenditures again in gas.
^^ Clinic on rationalizing
I'm enjoying having the vehicle, I have to say, which is the first time I've ever enjoyed owning a car. Yes you can drive it fast which is terrible for it but mostly I like that it's silent, has no gas emissions when I park it in my garage, handles really well, safe, enables me to completely skip spending time going to/at gas stations, and uses 50% renewable energy.
This is the coolest gadget I've ever owned. Kinda like the first time you traded your old flip phone for a smart phone (if you did / showing my age here).
All of this said, the reason that I have it is this:
I know deeply that my richest life involves being in nature regularly with the people I care most about. Simultaneously, it involves being close to family and friends to share the joy of each other.
I feel like this decision negotiates those conflicting goals.
How beautiful is this, I stood here with my little guy and we enjoyed this together for an extra beat: https://i.imgur.com/ECxRAkl.mp4
\\
We've been out in nature as much as possible given our trip to the Superstitions was rightfully cancelled so we could be there with my Uncle as he passed. PNW photons are not powerful this time of year so we're going for quantity over quality.
This has also meant yard work which has meant learning about apple trees. Who would've known how excited I'd be about apple trees but dammit they're interesting.
I gave our two asian pear trees a major haircut (again) this year, this time early enough to hopefully not stunt fruit production too much. So far buds are forming beautifully and I'm really enjoying time spent daydreaming at my office desk looking at them.
I now have room for one more apple tree and I have a lot of interest in growing some fruit bushes too so I'm scheming ways to do this on the frugal. I've saved scions from both trees I trimmed for trade but not much has been promising yet on craigslist and offerup.
The indoor garden is looking strong and I'm also going for quantity over quality here this year because I do not want the freedom-inhibiting aspects of plant stewardship to prevent me from longer adventures this summer. More to noodle on here, systems wise (I've seen some awesome home automation stuff here but I'm sure I'll use the water timers I got with the property).
I'm feeling good, headed in the right direction internally. I'm slowly accepting that I might already be FI and that it absolutely does not matter if I'm doing what I love, so the focus is really to just do as much of that as possible.
This week it's taking the week off completely to be out in nature w my people. My DW also took me to see Dune Part 2 in IMAX over the weekend for my bday (my request) and I absolutely loved it (minus Christopher Walken lol love him but wtf are you doing in this world).
\\
Feb was insane for my networth, a 4.2% growth. I'm skeptical now is a good time to be short-term in but I don't play the short term game so it's just fun to think about
If I were, I'd be taking profits.
@grundomatic -- I'm definitely here to learn and I am super good with disagreeing over these things, I don't think there is a "right answer" in any meaningful sense here because all this stuff, imo, is person dependent. The 'perspective from nowhere' is mostly BS, at least definitely in this context. I'll spare you a diatribe about objectivism.
\\
Welp, I bought a new to me car. 2017 chevy bolt with a new battery (recall), 21,400 miles, zero wear on the car, $16,600 with licensing and fees (0% sales tax b/c of WA state tax credits on the first $16k of an EV). Annual savings on gas have mathed out to ~$1,100. We'll see if we end up driving it more b/c it's cheaper to drive. The depreciation curve for these cars is theoretical at my car's age but Leaf's and Bolt's are surprisingly good in this regard.
I consider this CapEx on a cheaper, greener lifestyle, accepting that I do in fact use a car and will continue to do so. Where I live, 50% of my electrical power is generated from hydroelectrical power. For whoever is thinking it: yes, driving less, not participating in any car market, is greener and yes, lithium mining is bad. Nevertheless, here I am accepting my morally imperfect consumptive nature as a human.
My estimate for depreciation is ~$800/year for 5000 miles of driving but I expect I'll do better than that and realistically, I bet I'll drive this car into the EV-ground (where it becomes a golf cart to my grocery store instead of a cheap trailhead golfcart).
Normally people upgrade their homes with a level 2 charger -- way too expensive for my blood, so we'll just be smart about planning and pay for level 3 charging when required (still much cheaper than gas).
Of course I had to get it connected to my home automation server. Firstly I ran the charger through a power meter with a remote on/off switch. Then I signed up for the free trial from OnStar (they make you call them, gross) which enabled me to receive API call request data from my car (when the trial ends the only data I will get is state of charge which is the only data I care about). I then set up "onstar2mqtt" and pointed it to broadcast to my mqtt server. Copied the templates provided for my home assistant and here we are:
I'll be honest, this is a weird thing for me to post about here / since discovering the ERE forums. I've definitely had the fatFIRE trajectory going -- it's still going -- but with a consumer minded, ecological perspective. Think like 50% the way to ERE while being grossed out that fatFIRE meant consume consume to most people but for me it was a way to live close to family in a VHCOL city while also being able to give to charity / allocate resources to what I care about.
So when I first learned about the Chevy Bolt,I was super excited to buy a used one eventually. I joked with friends that once I got my business really grooving, I'd get one and slap a tesla logo on it and call it good -- this was well before the muskrat showed his true colors. As such, this purchase felt like a big "accomplishment" which is really weird because I never ever buy stuff to celebrate. And I didn't buy this car to celebrate, our minivan died
What's weird is that the math itself plus the cost of what I paid and the depreciation curve actually make sense from an ERE perspective, as does the move toward greener consumption for car-miles. I ended up getting the car not because I wanted to "do the thing I said I'd do when I crossed XYZ milestone" but because it'd literally be cheaper: annualized depreciation not including opportunity cost in investment income of that deposit of $800 but saves $1,100 in gas for a net cost reduction of $300 (realized once I sell the vehicle in ~5 years and do it again). If you account for the investment income off the 16.6k at 4% then I'm in the red $334, but I would've bought a car regardless, so that was going to happen anyway. If I were to buy a $3340 car that could drive my family safely for 10 years at 5000 miles a year, firstly that's nearly impossible to do in today's car market, and even if I did, it would be a gas car that would increase annual expenditures again in gas.
^^ Clinic on rationalizing
I'm enjoying having the vehicle, I have to say, which is the first time I've ever enjoyed owning a car. Yes you can drive it fast which is terrible for it but mostly I like that it's silent, has no gas emissions when I park it in my garage, handles really well, safe, enables me to completely skip spending time going to/at gas stations, and uses 50% renewable energy.
This is the coolest gadget I've ever owned. Kinda like the first time you traded your old flip phone for a smart phone (if you did / showing my age here).
All of this said, the reason that I have it is this:
I know deeply that my richest life involves being in nature regularly with the people I care most about. Simultaneously, it involves being close to family and friends to share the joy of each other.
I feel like this decision negotiates those conflicting goals.
How beautiful is this, I stood here with my little guy and we enjoyed this together for an extra beat: https://i.imgur.com/ECxRAkl.mp4
\\
We've been out in nature as much as possible given our trip to the Superstitions was rightfully cancelled so we could be there with my Uncle as he passed. PNW photons are not powerful this time of year so we're going for quantity over quality.
This has also meant yard work which has meant learning about apple trees. Who would've known how excited I'd be about apple trees but dammit they're interesting.
I gave our two asian pear trees a major haircut (again) this year, this time early enough to hopefully not stunt fruit production too much. So far buds are forming beautifully and I'm really enjoying time spent daydreaming at my office desk looking at them.
I now have room for one more apple tree and I have a lot of interest in growing some fruit bushes too so I'm scheming ways to do this on the frugal. I've saved scions from both trees I trimmed for trade but not much has been promising yet on craigslist and offerup.
The indoor garden is looking strong and I'm also going for quantity over quality here this year because I do not want the freedom-inhibiting aspects of plant stewardship to prevent me from longer adventures this summer. More to noodle on here, systems wise (I've seen some awesome home automation stuff here but I'm sure I'll use the water timers I got with the property).
I'm feeling good, headed in the right direction internally. I'm slowly accepting that I might already be FI and that it absolutely does not matter if I'm doing what I love, so the focus is really to just do as much of that as possible.
This week it's taking the week off completely to be out in nature w my people. My DW also took me to see Dune Part 2 in IMAX over the weekend for my bday (my request) and I absolutely loved it (minus Christopher Walken lol love him but wtf are you doing in this world).
\\
Feb was insane for my networth, a 4.2% growth. I'm skeptical now is a good time to be short-term in but I don't play the short term game so it's just fun to think about
If I were, I'd be taking profits.
Last edited by thef0x on Wed Mar 06, 2024 1:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: My side of the mountain
It's so cool that you have the time and freedom to take your little guy in nature as much as you want!thef0x wrote: ↑Mon Mar 04, 2024 6:39 pmI now have room for one more apple tree and I have a lot of interest in growing some fruit bushes too so I'm scheming ways to do this on the frugal. I've saved scions from both trees I trimmed for trade but not much has been promising yet on craigslist and offerup.
Not sure how those things have evolved in the US, but here, local gardening and permaculture groups on facebook are a gold mine. I know, fb, yuck, but SO many community groups. Gardeners trend older (40+), if they're online, it's on facebook...
Re: My side of the mountain
@Newblood -- thank you for the kind words. I'm so grateful life has played out how it has for me such that I have this freedom-to with my kid. I would sacrifice basically any physical good for more time with this guy. Puts everything into perspective pretty clearly re "stuff".
\\
Tactical post, a quick summary of things I've done recently to reduce ongoing expenses:
-- Azure Standard + gamma-seal buckets, used coupon NEW15 to save 15% on 309 lbs of dry goods. Major quality upgrade while saving money.
-- Consolidated two at-home proxmox servers into one server and one timed backup (turns on, pulls backups, turns off). Redid photo storage systems to get me completely off of google cloud products, paid google photos subscription cancelled.
-- Removed a redundant router and changed wifi settings to accommodate.
-- Set up on an on/off switch for the sauna electronics
-- Researched and found wholesale / bulk food stores that sell larger quantities of produce. Learned more about pesticides, etc, and have figured out how to best navigate when to pay for organic, when not, and when to skip produce completely.
-- Got to that breakthrough ah-ha moment with my DW about value shopping for groceries. The shift from "this is the cheapest price for XYZ" to "we're going to skip XYZ because it's not in season or close to the cheapest price it's been". Shift from "I want to get these ingredients for this meal" to "here's what's on sale and in season, lets meal plan around these ingredients". My DW was skeptical about cutting food spending but I think my biggest "skill" in entrepreneurship is grinding time against problems to think of new-to-me ways to solve them (part of why I came to the ERE forums, I figured I'd find out solutions to food optimization -- I did). Small tweaks, including upgrading to organic in many cases, has cut our grocery budget by 50% while increasing quality. Credit to my DW who was not too proud to acknowledge this success, even if she had thought all options were dialed, and instead saw it as fuel for more creativity and resourcefulness in other areas of our spending. Love her for her humility.
-- Eating through what we have already to spend much less per month. This strat will run out eventually but by biasing bulk dried goods and bulk frozen goods, we'll keep ongoing expenses lower.
-- Turned down the water heater further and have been researching into tankless water heaters. Unlike a level 2 EV charger, this household upgrade would eventually pay for itself (expense vs CapEx).
-- Batching bathing by showering with my kid after he eats and rubs oatmeal glue into his hair. My dude is a water baby and has always loved playing in the water, even if it's cold or saltwater. I may end up purchasing the water heater to save our family money over time. Behavior modification here has a limit because we reeeeeeeeally enjoy baths at this house (Relationship protip: draw a bath and pour a glass of wine for your person, light a candle if they like that and then say "Let me borrow you for a minute" and put them in the bath while you take care of whatever household thing she was going to do. Max out your relationship stats because if your relationship level is low, your character has -10 HP drain per hour).
-- Optimized house heating via space regulation, smarter heat control (home assistant x nest thermostat automations), and via bundling up clothing. Cut 33% off our energy bill after the first month of focus, curious how we'll do next month.
-- Quit dental insurance as we're good about daily care and there are so many great deals on groupon. I'll need to actually see how this plays out b/c I like having the same doctor but he's the only 'service person' I've wanted to plan my spending around in life so far.
-- Reactivated my ebay sellers account. Identified stuff to sell but frankly, I'm not rushing here -- I'm trying to reduce ongoing expenses instead of focus too much on one-off wins that frankly make 0 impact on my NW. This work will be more about expunging than earning.
-- Removed 4 needless fans from my desktop computer after giving it a good cleaning.
-- Won't go through specifics but also went through my business and cleaned up the lowest hanging fruit for spending and services, not a lot here to tweak fortunately.
-- Most importantly, I made DIY laundry soap. Crisis averted
\\
Food Strategy:
1) Dry organic bulk goods, high quality, daily eating
2) Pasture raised eggs, daily eating, best price at costco for us
3) Dairy, not always organic but always free of all of the hormones, antibiotics, best price at costco (milk, half and half, yogurt). We're making our own full fat yogurt for my kid but I like nonfat greek yogurt so I buy that because the yield on homemade is bad (ime but ideas welcome).
4) Meat, this varies a lot but in general we're just consuming less meat. Aim for ~$2/lb or under via BOGO deals. Willing to spend up here on occasion to prepare feasts for friends (one of my favorite things, esp summer BBQ), so I'll sometimes grab a bone-in roast or a filet of wild salmon when in season. Chicken: rotisserie from costco (weighed one this week, ~2.5lbs of meat + carcass for broth). Trying to figure out the right sweet spot for occasional beef, fish, seafood consumption. In general, we're just reducing consumption instead of pricing here. I would love to explore hunting for deer/elk and birds (grouse seems like the only bird worth the pain, ime). I'll probably also figure out a way to share a quarter/half of a cow. I don't want to buy another chest freezer, though.
5) Produce, mindful of pesticides, aiming for ~$1/lb which means plenty of in-season veg and some frozen. Mostly frozen fruit. Lots of onion, zucchini, cabbage, apples, bananas, potatoes, and veg from local asian grocery stores (pak choi, bak choi, napa cabbage, thai basil, cilantro, etc).
6) Herbs, grow your own indoors
7) Lettuces/Salad greens, building a kratky hydroponic system for this <-- super open to feedback here about what's flourished for you, reader, but aiming for a way to offset the $5/lb spring mix boxes and wasteful plastic.
7) Spices, sauces, flavorings -- no heuristic here, just price shop and buy in bulk for the spices we use the most (cumin, oregano, paprika, salt, pepper corns, curry powder, chili powder, turmeric, garlic, onion, italian seasoning mix).
8) Coffee -- buy green beans, roast, give out to friends like a drug dealer, hopefully build some demand for cheaper-than-premo high quality beans from friends so I can cut my spend here even more.
\\
Tactical post, a quick summary of things I've done recently to reduce ongoing expenses:
-- Azure Standard + gamma-seal buckets, used coupon NEW15 to save 15% on 309 lbs of dry goods. Major quality upgrade while saving money.
-- Consolidated two at-home proxmox servers into one server and one timed backup (turns on, pulls backups, turns off). Redid photo storage systems to get me completely off of google cloud products, paid google photos subscription cancelled.
-- Removed a redundant router and changed wifi settings to accommodate.
-- Set up on an on/off switch for the sauna electronics
-- Researched and found wholesale / bulk food stores that sell larger quantities of produce. Learned more about pesticides, etc, and have figured out how to best navigate when to pay for organic, when not, and when to skip produce completely.
-- Got to that breakthrough ah-ha moment with my DW about value shopping for groceries. The shift from "this is the cheapest price for XYZ" to "we're going to skip XYZ because it's not in season or close to the cheapest price it's been". Shift from "I want to get these ingredients for this meal" to "here's what's on sale and in season, lets meal plan around these ingredients". My DW was skeptical about cutting food spending but I think my biggest "skill" in entrepreneurship is grinding time against problems to think of new-to-me ways to solve them (part of why I came to the ERE forums, I figured I'd find out solutions to food optimization -- I did). Small tweaks, including upgrading to organic in many cases, has cut our grocery budget by 50% while increasing quality. Credit to my DW who was not too proud to acknowledge this success, even if she had thought all options were dialed, and instead saw it as fuel for more creativity and resourcefulness in other areas of our spending. Love her for her humility.
-- Eating through what we have already to spend much less per month. This strat will run out eventually but by biasing bulk dried goods and bulk frozen goods, we'll keep ongoing expenses lower.
-- Turned down the water heater further and have been researching into tankless water heaters. Unlike a level 2 EV charger, this household upgrade would eventually pay for itself (expense vs CapEx).
-- Batching bathing by showering with my kid after he eats and rubs oatmeal glue into his hair. My dude is a water baby and has always loved playing in the water, even if it's cold or saltwater. I may end up purchasing the water heater to save our family money over time. Behavior modification here has a limit because we reeeeeeeeally enjoy baths at this house
(Relationship protip: draw a bath and pour a glass of wine for your person, light a candle if they like that and then say "Let me borrow you for a minute" and put them in the bath while you take care of whatever household thing she was going to do. Max out your relationship stats because if your relationship level is low, your character has -10 HP drain per hour). -- Optimized house heating via space regulation, smarter heat control (home assistant x nest thermostat automations), and via bundling up clothing. Cut 33% off our energy bill after the first month of focus, curious how we'll do next month.
-- Quit dental insurance as we're good about daily care and there are so many great deals on groupon. I'll need to actually see how this plays out b/c I like having the same doctor but he's the only 'service person' I've wanted to plan my spending around in life so far.
-- Reactivated my ebay sellers account. Identified stuff to sell but frankly, I'm not rushing here -- I'm trying to reduce ongoing expenses instead of focus too much on one-off wins that frankly make 0 impact on my NW. This work will be more about expunging than earning.
-- Removed 4 needless fans from my desktop computer after giving it a good cleaning.
-- Won't go through specifics but also went through my business and cleaned up the lowest hanging fruit for spending and services, not a lot here to tweak fortunately.
-- Most importantly, I made DIY laundry soap. Crisis averted
\\
Food Strategy:
1) Dry organic bulk goods, high quality, daily eating
2) Pasture raised eggs, daily eating, best price at costco for us
3) Dairy, not always organic but always free of all of the hormones, antibiotics, best price at costco (milk, half and half, yogurt). We're making our own full fat yogurt for my kid but I like nonfat greek yogurt so I buy that because the yield on homemade is bad (ime but ideas welcome).
4) Meat, this varies a lot but in general we're just consuming less meat. Aim for ~$2/lb or under via BOGO deals. Willing to spend up here on occasion to prepare feasts for friends (one of my favorite things, esp summer BBQ), so I'll sometimes grab a bone-in roast or a filet of wild salmon when in season. Chicken: rotisserie from costco (weighed one this week, ~2.5lbs of meat + carcass for broth). Trying to figure out the right sweet spot for occasional beef, fish, seafood consumption. In general, we're just reducing consumption instead of pricing here. I would love to explore hunting for deer/elk and birds (grouse seems like the only bird worth the pain, ime). I'll probably also figure out a way to share a quarter/half of a cow. I don't want to buy another chest freezer, though.
5) Produce, mindful of pesticides, aiming for ~$1/lb which means plenty of in-season veg and some frozen. Mostly frozen fruit. Lots of onion, zucchini, cabbage, apples, bananas, potatoes, and veg from local asian grocery stores (pak choi, bak choi, napa cabbage, thai basil, cilantro, etc).
6) Herbs, grow your own indoors
7) Lettuces/Salad greens, building a kratky hydroponic system for this <-- super open to feedback here about what's flourished for you, reader, but aiming for a way to offset the $5/lb spring mix boxes and wasteful plastic.
7) Spices, sauces, flavorings -- no heuristic here, just price shop and buy in bulk for the spices we use the most (cumin, oregano, paprika, salt, pepper corns, curry powder, chili powder, turmeric, garlic, onion, italian seasoning mix).
8) Coffee -- buy green beans, roast, give out to friends like a drug dealer, hopefully build some demand for cheaper-than-premo high quality beans from friends so I can cut my spend here even more.
Re: My side of the mountain
Barbell investing thesis:
1) something very very very bad will happen and there is not really any downside risk you can buy against this in a financial markets sense, so OTM puts doesn't really make sense when there is no financial market infrastructure. I am willing to be okay with "welp, I'm gonna die" in this scenario. Maybe billionaires can plan for this Mad Max type shit but realistically I'm just gonna get eaten by the zombies. There is no "to do" here, it's just a part of the risk landscape. I think people waste money over planning for this.
2) bad stuff happens slowly enough not to erode my participation in global markets. In this camp, I think the US has 60/40 odds of maintaining a large % of global GDP during my lifetime. De-globalization may be to the US's benefit -- I believe north america in general will fair well. Why? Current resources, demographics, affordable manufacturing and labor, cheaper transport costs. What about nukes? See point 1.
As such, I've front-loaded investment into the US in my total principle allocation of investment capital. I think having money in the US markets earlier in time will mean buying risk for a cheaper price, which I hope rewards me long term.
I plan on my end principle allocation of US/Ex-US to be something like 65/35.
I have planned for 4 buckets of investment capital over my lifetime. I've already invested bucket 1 and am into bucket 2 now.
Bucket 1 was VTI and chill + cheaply purchased leverage (margin loan on equities from interactive brokers) for more VTI and chill. When interest rates went insane I paid off that debt with income and have since purchased $NTSX for cheap leverage with interesting downside protection (5x levered bonds -- again this is in line with my thesis #2 above so net-net my bet is I'll do better than just $SPY over time).
Bucket 2 is small cap value tilting as an overlay to VTI and chill. I am buying international here but front loaded US as per my thesis. So far +10% more NTSX, 10% $AVUV, and working on 10% AVDV. Not sure where I'll put the rest of the 70% of bucket 2 as it will depend on interest rates but it will be getting into total market US with 15-50% leverage (on that sub-bucket so this is not 50% of my total portfolio, it's more like 17% at the max).
Bucket 3 will be total market international, maybe tilting to emphasize emerging markets. I'll be losing risk and losing total returns here but increasing downside protection so it's to be expected.
Bucket 4 will be paid into long term downside protection. Maybe this does end up being a property in the middle of nowhere with a huge amount of underground stored food and water and gas. I highly doubt it, it'll probably be stuff like using $BOXX to get the risk free rate of return if it's competitive alongside other strategies that hopefully provide a smoothening out of my risk profile -- managed futures does look interesting here from the long-tail downside protection side (where my upside on the downside is basically unlimited b/c of short positions instead of being in cash). I have no interest in personally managing options strategies to buy myself cheaper downside protection so I'll look to some of these trend following strategies to hopefully further remove downside risk. I also wonder if managed futures is itself a trend (definitely is today, but we'll have actual data moving forward before I decide to buy into something like $CTA or $DBMF).
Why leverage: same reason as frontloading US investments, it enables me to generate a higher total risk appetite at a lower* cost than buying the whole thing outright (one must manage these costs like any debt, including taxes on earnings). I've emphasized doing this ONLY during higher income earning years where you can take a huge slap in the face and be fine / start over. I would not recommend the average person do this because it's a lot more scary of a wave to ride. In total I currently hold 2.85% of debt in my equity portfolio but have gone as high as 20% in the past.
This market feels frothy which means leverage will reward and punish that much more. I've bought it exclusively to multiply what I consider to be boring, not-frothy choices, so I'm "risk off" on leverage today. When the market relaxes from this crazy run on AI and when rates lower, I may lever back up to 15%.
I'm trying to treat leverage much more like a mortgage than a slot machine but in the end, I get that it's a continuum and even if I think I'm on one side, I don't know what the future holds. With that being said, I'm good with where I am today re risks.
This is how I'm thinking about investing on March 9th, 2024. We'll see how things change.
* If your added investments go belly up then it's a higher total cost. Mortgage analogy: if the money you didn't spend on buying your house outright (because you have a mortgage) does not beat the cost of the interest rate on the mortgage, you've lost money. Unlike with a mortgage, your loan can be called if the underlying assets, your equities portfolio, decreases over a certain amount. You cannot get a margin call on your house as long as you're paying your mortgage but you can with equities, so again, do not do this if you do not know what you're doing. Holy hell. And to be clear, I hold 0 margin loan balance today because rates are currently 6.1%-6.8%. I gotta repeat it: do not use leverage if you do not know what you're doing!
1) something very very very bad will happen and there is not really any downside risk you can buy against this in a financial markets sense, so OTM puts doesn't really make sense when there is no financial market infrastructure. I am willing to be okay with "welp, I'm gonna die" in this scenario. Maybe billionaires can plan for this Mad Max type shit but realistically I'm just gonna get eaten by the zombies. There is no "to do" here, it's just a part of the risk landscape. I think people waste money over planning for this.
2) bad stuff happens slowly enough not to erode my participation in global markets. In this camp, I think the US has 60/40 odds of maintaining a large % of global GDP during my lifetime. De-globalization may be to the US's benefit -- I believe north america in general will fair well. Why? Current resources, demographics, affordable manufacturing and labor, cheaper transport costs. What about nukes? See point 1.
As such, I've front-loaded investment into the US in my total principle allocation of investment capital. I think having money in the US markets earlier in time will mean buying risk for a cheaper price, which I hope rewards me long term.
I plan on my end principle allocation of US/Ex-US to be something like 65/35.
I have planned for 4 buckets of investment capital over my lifetime. I've already invested bucket 1 and am into bucket 2 now.
Bucket 1 was VTI and chill + cheaply purchased leverage (margin loan on equities from interactive brokers) for more VTI and chill. When interest rates went insane I paid off that debt with income and have since purchased $NTSX for cheap leverage with interesting downside protection (5x levered bonds -- again this is in line with my thesis #2 above so net-net my bet is I'll do better than just $SPY over time).
Bucket 2 is small cap value tilting as an overlay to VTI and chill. I am buying international here but front loaded US as per my thesis. So far +10% more NTSX, 10% $AVUV, and working on 10% AVDV. Not sure where I'll put the rest of the 70% of bucket 2 as it will depend on interest rates but it will be getting into total market US with 15-50% leverage (on that sub-bucket so this is not 50% of my total portfolio, it's more like 17% at the max).
Bucket 3 will be total market international, maybe tilting to emphasize emerging markets. I'll be losing risk and losing total returns here but increasing downside protection so it's to be expected.
Bucket 4 will be paid into long term downside protection. Maybe this does end up being a property in the middle of nowhere with a huge amount of underground stored food and water and gas. I highly doubt it, it'll probably be stuff like using $BOXX to get the risk free rate of return if it's competitive alongside other strategies that hopefully provide a smoothening out of my risk profile -- managed futures does look interesting here from the long-tail downside protection side (where my upside on the downside is basically unlimited b/c of short positions instead of being in cash). I have no interest in personally managing options strategies to buy myself cheaper downside protection so I'll look to some of these trend following strategies to hopefully further remove downside risk. I also wonder if managed futures is itself a trend (definitely is today, but we'll have actual data moving forward before I decide to buy into something like $CTA or $DBMF).
Why leverage: same reason as frontloading US investments, it enables me to generate a higher total risk appetite at a lower* cost than buying the whole thing outright (one must manage these costs like any debt, including taxes on earnings). I've emphasized doing this ONLY during higher income earning years where you can take a huge slap in the face and be fine / start over. I would not recommend the average person do this because it's a lot more scary of a wave to ride. In total I currently hold 2.85% of debt in my equity portfolio but have gone as high as 20% in the past.
This market feels frothy which means leverage will reward and punish that much more. I've bought it exclusively to multiply what I consider to be boring, not-frothy choices, so I'm "risk off" on leverage today. When the market relaxes from this crazy run on AI and when rates lower, I may lever back up to 15%.
I'm trying to treat leverage much more like a mortgage than a slot machine but in the end, I get that it's a continuum and even if I think I'm on one side, I don't know what the future holds. With that being said, I'm good with where I am today re risks.
This is how I'm thinking about investing on March 9th, 2024. We'll see how things change.
* If your added investments go belly up then it's a higher total cost. Mortgage analogy: if the money you didn't spend on buying your house outright (because you have a mortgage) does not beat the cost of the interest rate on the mortgage, you've lost money. Unlike with a mortgage, your loan can be called if the underlying assets, your equities portfolio, decreases over a certain amount. You cannot get a margin call on your house as long as you're paying your mortgage but you can with equities, so again, do not do this if you do not know what you're doing. Holy hell. And to be clear, I hold 0 margin loan balance today because rates are currently 6.1%-6.8%. I gotta repeat it: do not use leverage if you do not know what you're doing!
-
calamityjane
- Posts: 61
- Joined: Sun Jan 08, 2023 2:51 pm
Re: My side of the mountain
Something I've been experimenting with this past year is growing sprouts and micro greens. I started with a couple of square glass Pyrex containers with covers, and jute matting (can also use coconut and other materials) cut to size. You just layer the soaked seeds on the mat, and water daily. In about a week you have micro greens. Sprouts are even easier! Just throw seeds in a mason jar, soak, drain, then wash them twice a day until sprouts grow. Not a replacement for lettuce, but a great way to bulk up a salad and make things extra nutritious. I think this would also be a super fun science project for a little guy.7) Lettuces/Salad greens, building a kratky hydroponic system for this <-- super open to feedback here about what's flourished for you, reader, but aiming for a way to offset the $5/lb spring mix boxes and wasteful plastic.
Re: My side of the mountain
Love this idea, thanks, love me some sprouts. Like herbs, they offer so much impact for such little work.calamityjane wrote: ↑Sun Mar 10, 2024 1:58 pmSomething I've been experimenting with this past year is growing sprouts and micro greens. I started with a couple of square glass Pyrex containers with covers, and jute matting (can also use coconut and other materials) cut to size. You just layer the soaked seeds on the mat, and water daily. In about a week you have micro greens. Sprouts are even easier! Just throw seeds in a mason jar, soak, drain, then wash them twice a day until sprouts grow. Not a replacement for lettuce, but a great way to bulk up a salad and make things extra nutritious. I think this would also be a super fun science project for a little guy.
You could spend 50 minutes cooking a delicious curry with tons of ingredients, spices, chopping, etc but if you don't serve it with fresh chopped mint at the end it loses 30% of it's punch. Just from mint. Finishing herbs/spices = cooking cheat codes.
A good sprout in the right sandwich, oof. That texture and sound of crunch, maybe some heat depending on what you're growing. Into it.
Extra points for not interfering with location independence b/c turnover is fast and quantity is minimal.
It does sound like a fun thing to do w my kid. I can already see the expressions he's gonna make eating radish sprouts. Confusion, furled brows, a tongue creating a sprout-stream of drool, and then after a moment, deep questioning eye contact and finally, the bellowing "MOOOOOOR". This is the way
Re: My side of the mountain
Wastestream warrior: food edition
Home made bread, evoo, pan roasted cherry toms, fresh rosemary in the pan
Sauz
Chickpeas and rocket became a salad
And then a compliment to hash with more homemade bread
\\
Kratky setup for lettuce:
Using seeds, 36mm coco coir pellets, water, nutrients, skewers as the "consumables" in this project.
Pellets held up in solution by the skewers. The roots will grow down into the water and then develop air roots which absorb oxygen from the humid air pocket created from the water line (this is called Kratky hydroponics).
I'm hoping this is mega affordable as a way to pay for the $5 lbs of lettuce we'd be consuming most of the year in non-ideal outdoor growing temps.
All of this except the pellets was on hand from other projects. Worth noting I used 100% silicone to seal the cooler drain plug.
Garden for outdoors looking good so far:
\\
Power went out but my modular battery setup I made enabled us to daisy chain electrical cords through the house with lamps to manage as if nothing happened. We even powered on the interwebs to save on data usage on our phones.
We bundled up with clothing but stayed warm. The power went back on in the middle of the night but we had a lot of runtime:
Not gonna power any heat but just fine for lighting and basic electronics.
Built the lithium iron phosphate battery myself to save a fuckton of money. Very easy to do.
Set up a modular case with a power charge controller that can handle 40A from the car while driving, as well as solar, and also set up a simple 12v fusebox to run electronics directly from the battery instead of the inverter (2000watt).
This enabled me to be on starlink remote working from the woods last year so not bad. Again RIP the minivan
Most importantly:
Home made bread, evoo, pan roasted cherry toms, fresh rosemary in the pan
Sauz
Chickpeas and rocket became a salad
And then a compliment to hash with more homemade bread
\\
Kratky setup for lettuce:
Using seeds, 36mm coco coir pellets, water, nutrients, skewers as the "consumables" in this project.
Pellets held up in solution by the skewers. The roots will grow down into the water and then develop air roots which absorb oxygen from the humid air pocket created from the water line (this is called Kratky hydroponics).
I'm hoping this is mega affordable as a way to pay for the $5 lbs of lettuce we'd be consuming most of the year in non-ideal outdoor growing temps.
All of this except the pellets was on hand from other projects. Worth noting I used 100% silicone to seal the cooler drain plug.
Garden for outdoors looking good so far:
\\
Power went out but my modular battery setup I made enabled us to daisy chain electrical cords through the house with lamps to manage as if nothing happened. We even powered on the interwebs to save on data usage on our phones.
We bundled up with clothing but stayed warm. The power went back on in the middle of the night but we had a lot of runtime:
Not gonna power any heat but just fine for lighting and basic electronics.
Built the lithium iron phosphate battery myself to save a fuckton of money. Very easy to do.
Set up a modular case with a power charge controller that can handle 40A from the car while driving, as well as solar, and also set up a simple 12v fusebox to run electronics directly from the battery instead of the inverter (2000watt).
This enabled me to be on starlink remote working from the woods last year so not bad. Again RIP the minivan
Most importantly:
Re: My side of the mountain
Another photo based update of life outside of finances
I've been actively focused on slowing down and enhancing experiences through stillness, quiet, and attention. Easy tactic is to ditch the phone. Having a baby full of joy and love, looking up to me moment by moment to see if I'm following along with the fun he's having. I am following along as fully as I can be these days and it feels great. Bird chirps are lovely.
\\
Garden update as every minute of time gardening this year has felt really fun.
I started seeds super early in Feb to give my warmth-loving plants time. Then started another round of veggies straight into raised bed soil (skipped something inert b/c I didn't want to buy anything and to experiment). Inert media is simply superior for sprouting seeds but straight into the soil did work, just not nearly as well.
Start:
Great progress (all from seed except the ginger which sprouted, so I threw it in soil and it started growing):
Two weeks after transplanting:
Beautiful stretch of warm weather here so I threw them straight into the raised bed:
Trying something different with the ginger:
Put together some simple fencing to keep the bunnies out:
Threw a tent on top of cardboard and we'll get some soil in here to grow lettuce until it's too hot:
\\
I've learned a ton about blueberry bushes and how to amend the soil to promote healthy shrubs. I'll be gathering natural amendments from a family friend's property (pine needles) to mulch for improving acidity in the soil. I think I'll end up purchasing peat moss for aeration in the soil as it also slowly acidifies the soil.
I suspect my first few years of growth will be diminished until nature breaks down these materials well but I hope to have some really healthy productive bushes in 36 months.
We have two large roses in the bed that we're going to replant at my neighbors house for him so I know raspberry canes will flourish in this soil. Excited to shorten my produce's commute into my belly from the grocery store to my backyard.
Work from home, eat from home.
\\
The hydro lettuce experiment is blowing my mind. Kratky is working well.
A few days after sprouting, I put the pellets in:
Developing roots quickly:
Farther along:
Last update:
I think I'll be able to bring this outside soon and save $$ on photons.
\\
It was my birthday the other day and it was lovely. I splurged with a morning bathhouse session (super hot sauna, steam room, 45* cold plunge, body temp salt pool) and enjoyed their birthday special pricing.
Walked w my DW and kiddo.
Worked before and after a bit (20 minutes total, just answering Qs for exec staff on slack).
That evening I really wanted "mall" chicken teriyaki. The super sweet stuff with the really weird iceburg lettuce "salad".
An opportunity for skill development, I do say good sir!
I reviewed a few recipes for the sauce to get the general sense of it and then threw mine together with what I had on hand:
-- 1tbsp mirin
-- 1tbsp sherry
-- 1tbsp xiaoxing vinegar
-- 1tbsp rice vinegar
-- 1/3 cup soy sauce
-- 1/2 cup brown sugar
^^ reduce until it's tasting right, then add a corn starch slurry until to 80% of your desired thickness. As it cools it will get to that perfect texture.
Quick marinated boneless skinless chicken thighs in this for 30 while we prepped the salad dressing and rice.
The key to mall teriyaki is the grill marks, imo, so I used my gifted cast iron skillet to cook the meat. Oil spitting everywhere is to be expected for that perfect crunch.
We totally nailed it:
Damn it was good.
\\
Got invited to indulge in SPORTS, bro. My first ever hockey game in box seats no less.
Nice to have friends who also run businesses. Unlike us, my buddy's business is not run from his pajamas. While it's cool that Wells Fargo is try to seduce him with fancy sporting events and Drake concerts, unfortunately he has to wear pants.
I'm gonna stick with no pants.
It was a weird experience. Amazing, loud and colorful, so techy (lights and video and all of that), and yet so destructive and polluting and pointless... sorta?
We need enjoyment and entertainment in life. This version of it, with all this trash created, eh. Ultimately it just felt pretty weird.
The parking for this event was $90! (Free for us). $90!!!
I'm glad to have had a taste of this again to remember why I don't pursue this stuff.
\\
The best stuff:
This captivated me on our most recent hike. A Pollock painting of moss. Found art, so good:
\\
Going backpacking next week (finally) and cannot wait to sleep with my forest friends once again. We'll see how the snowline changes near term.
\\
I've been good at stopping myself from "declaring XYZ as the next phase of my life". I'm waiting and letting stuff slowly change.
I've been thinking in 1 year increments but I'm flirting with 3 year or 5 year increments for vague life planning / goals. Specifically for health/fitness/sports as that category has suffered the most from my work focus. A year of fitness focus feels wrong but 5 years feels right... no idea why and not making any decisions yet.
\\
One thing I've been thinking about is "speed running life" vs "savoring life".
I think I've been speedrunning life a lot: get into a great philo PhD, get really good at dating, start a profitable business, reach FIRE, etc. All things intended to do as fast as possible.
I've reached a new phase of life where, sure, I'll speed run plenty but doing so for most things would detract from life, not enhance it.
So I'm wearing that "savoring" jacket more and more these days.
Feels damn good.
I've been actively focused on slowing down and enhancing experiences through stillness, quiet, and attention. Easy tactic is to ditch the phone. Having a baby full of joy and love, looking up to me moment by moment to see if I'm following along with the fun he's having. I am following along as fully as I can be these days and it feels great. Bird chirps are lovely.
\\
Garden update as every minute of time gardening this year has felt really fun.
I started seeds super early in Feb to give my warmth-loving plants time. Then started another round of veggies straight into raised bed soil (skipped something inert b/c I didn't want to buy anything and to experiment). Inert media is simply superior for sprouting seeds but straight into the soil did work, just not nearly as well.
Start:
Great progress (all from seed except the ginger which sprouted, so I threw it in soil and it started growing):
Two weeks after transplanting:
Beautiful stretch of warm weather here so I threw them straight into the raised bed:
Trying something different with the ginger:
Put together some simple fencing to keep the bunnies out:
Threw a tent on top of cardboard and we'll get some soil in here to grow lettuce until it's too hot:
\\
I've learned a ton about blueberry bushes and how to amend the soil to promote healthy shrubs. I'll be gathering natural amendments from a family friend's property (pine needles) to mulch for improving acidity in the soil. I think I'll end up purchasing peat moss for aeration in the soil as it also slowly acidifies the soil.
I suspect my first few years of growth will be diminished until nature breaks down these materials well but I hope to have some really healthy productive bushes in 36 months.
We have two large roses in the bed that we're going to replant at my neighbors house for him so I know raspberry canes will flourish in this soil. Excited to shorten my produce's commute into my belly from the grocery store to my backyard.
Work from home, eat from home.
\\
The hydro lettuce experiment is blowing my mind. Kratky is working well.
A few days after sprouting, I put the pellets in:
Developing roots quickly:
Farther along:
Last update:
I think I'll be able to bring this outside soon and save $$ on photons.
\\
It was my birthday the other day and it was lovely. I splurged with a morning bathhouse session (super hot sauna, steam room, 45* cold plunge, body temp salt pool) and enjoyed their birthday special pricing.
Walked w my DW and kiddo.
Worked before and after a bit (20 minutes total, just answering Qs for exec staff on slack).
That evening I really wanted "mall" chicken teriyaki. The super sweet stuff with the really weird iceburg lettuce "salad".
An opportunity for skill development, I do say good sir!
I reviewed a few recipes for the sauce to get the general sense of it and then threw mine together with what I had on hand:
-- 1tbsp mirin
-- 1tbsp sherry
-- 1tbsp xiaoxing vinegar
-- 1tbsp rice vinegar
-- 1/3 cup soy sauce
-- 1/2 cup brown sugar
^^ reduce until it's tasting right, then add a corn starch slurry until to 80% of your desired thickness. As it cools it will get to that perfect texture.
Quick marinated boneless skinless chicken thighs in this for 30 while we prepped the salad dressing and rice.
The key to mall teriyaki is the grill marks, imo, so I used my gifted cast iron skillet to cook the meat. Oil spitting everywhere is to be expected for that perfect crunch.
We totally nailed it:
Damn it was good.
\\
Got invited to indulge in SPORTS, bro. My first ever hockey game in box seats no less.
Nice to have friends who also run businesses. Unlike us, my buddy's business is not run from his pajamas. While it's cool that Wells Fargo is try to seduce him with fancy sporting events and Drake concerts, unfortunately he has to wear pants.
I'm gonna stick with no pants.
It was a weird experience. Amazing, loud and colorful, so techy (lights and video and all of that), and yet so destructive and polluting and pointless... sorta?
We need enjoyment and entertainment in life. This version of it, with all this trash created, eh. Ultimately it just felt pretty weird.
The parking for this event was $90! (Free for us). $90!!!
I'm glad to have had a taste of this again to remember why I don't pursue this stuff.
\\
The best stuff:
This captivated me on our most recent hike. A Pollock painting of moss. Found art, so good:
\\
Going backpacking next week (finally) and cannot wait to sleep with my forest friends once again. We'll see how the snowline changes near term.
\\
I've been good at stopping myself from "declaring XYZ as the next phase of my life". I'm waiting and letting stuff slowly change.
I've been thinking in 1 year increments but I'm flirting with 3 year or 5 year increments for vague life planning / goals. Specifically for health/fitness/sports as that category has suffered the most from my work focus. A year of fitness focus feels wrong but 5 years feels right... no idea why and not making any decisions yet.
\\
One thing I've been thinking about is "speed running life" vs "savoring life".
I think I've been speedrunning life a lot: get into a great philo PhD, get really good at dating, start a profitable business, reach FIRE, etc. All things intended to do as fast as possible.
I've reached a new phase of life where, sure, I'll speed run plenty but doing so for most things would detract from life, not enhance it.
So I'm wearing that "savoring" jacket more and more these days.
Feels damn good.
Re: My side of the mountain
Great journal. I am catching up on your entries and came across the above when you were discussing your various bucket strategies. Since you know about $BOXX (what a great investment product!) you are familiar with the concept of a box spread. Interactive Brokers does have competitive margin rates but I have always found short .SPX box spreads a more favorable way of obtaining leverage or borrowing against a portfolio. Better rates, you can pick where on the yield curve you wish to borrow from (Dec '29 offers the most favorable rate now- around 4.5% yesterday), no sudden changes in margin terms, AND since it is a 1256 contract you should be able to claim a 60/40 LT/ST capital loss on the "interest" you pay. (Not tax advice!). Boxtrades.com is a good site to see what the box spread yield curve is. I believe $NTSX uses futures contracts to obtain its leveraged exposure, so there is an implied finance cost of the risk free rate (T-bill) baked into the futures contract that you are not seeing. Maybe worth a cost comparison. The way I would apply leverage now is go short a Dec'29 .SPX box spread and pay it back by with contributions to $BOXX until you wish to close the short position. This has the added benefit of a little interest rate arbitrage given the inverted yield curve.thef0x wrote: ↑Sat Mar 09, 2024 3:57 pm
Bucket 1 was VTI and chill + cheaply purchased leverage (margin loan on equities from interactive brokers) for more VTI and chill. When interest rates went insane I paid off that debt with income and have since purchased $NTSX for cheap leverage with interesting downside protection (5x levered bonds -- again this is in line with my thesis #2 above so net-net my bet is I'll do better than just $SPY over time).
* If your added investments go belly up then it's a higher total cost. Mortgage analogy: if the money you didn't spend on buying your house outright (because you have a mortgage) does not beat the cost of the interest rate on the mortgage, you've lost money. Unlike with a mortgage, your loan can be called if the underlying assets, your equities portfolio, decreases over a certain amount. You cannot get a margin call on your house as long as you're paying your mortgage but you can with equities, so again, do not do this if you do not know what you're doing. Holy hell. And to be clear, I hold 0 margin loan balance today because rates are currently 6.1%-6.8%. I gotta repeat it: do not use leverage if you do not know what you're doing!
Re: My side of the mountain
I really need to learn to work with box spreads. It's always seemed like such an intimidating business and I've read enough stories of people blowing themselves up that I never took the time. I think it's mostly a skill issue though with them trying to do it with non-SPX underlying? Either way, never felt confident enough to try it. Maybe in IB paper trade? Any books on this?frugaldoc wrote: ↑Thu Mar 21, 2024 1:56 amGreat journal. I am catching up on your entries and came across the above when you were discussing your various bucket strategies. Since you know about $BOXX (what a great investment product!) you are familiar with the concept of a box spread. Interactive Brokers does have competitive margin rates but I have always found short .SPX box spreads a more favorable way of obtaining leverage or borrowing against a portfolio. Better rates, you can pick where on the yield curve you wish to borrow from (Dec '29 offers the most favorable rate now- around 4.5% yesterday), no sudden changes in margin terms, AND since it is a 1256 contract you should be able to claim a 60/40 LT/ST capital loss on the "interest" you pay. (Not tax advice!). Boxtrades.com is a good site to see what the box spread yield curve is. I believe $NTSX uses futures contracts to obtain its leveraged exposure, so there is an implied finance cost of the risk free rate (T-bill) baked into the futures contract that you are not seeing. Maybe worth a cost comparison. The way I would apply leverage now is go short a Dec'29 .SPX box spread and pay it back by with contributions to $BOXX until you wish to close the short position. This has the added benefit of a little interest rate arbitrage given the inverted yield curve.
Re: My side of the mountain
@Veronica
I don't know of any books on it although once you understand the mechanism of it it becomes pretty straight forward. So maybe a book on options would be the best place to start. They are very similar to an Iron condor except both the put and call spreads use the same strikes. Yes, they can blow up if you try to do them with American style options where there is the possibility of early assignment on one of your legs. So only use European style options. SPX has a lot of liquidity so I see no reason to do use anything other than that. Paper trading with IBKR would be a good place to start. When you start doing them for real IBKR is also a good place to use them. They mark the value of the spread more closely to market price while Fidelity uses the bid/ask of individual legs and gives crazy marks for the value of the spread.
I don't know of any books on it although once you understand the mechanism of it it becomes pretty straight forward. So maybe a book on options would be the best place to start. They are very similar to an Iron condor except both the put and call spreads use the same strikes. Yes, they can blow up if you try to do them with American style options where there is the possibility of early assignment on one of your legs. So only use European style options. SPX has a lot of liquidity so I see no reason to do use anything other than that. Paper trading with IBKR would be a good place to start. When you start doing them for real IBKR is also a good place to use them. They mark the value of the spread more closely to market price while Fidelity uses the bid/ask of individual legs and gives crazy marks for the value of the spread.