the dude's diary

Where are you and where are you going?
SavingWithBabies
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Location: Midwest, USA

Re: the dude's diary

Post by SavingWithBabies »

I saw an electric Opel at the Grocery Outlet in Berkeley, California, a couple of times. I googled the markings but not much info. I suspect it was an early lead acid conversion. Cool project! I'd be curious if a VW Kharman Ghia would be feasible.

El Duderino
Posts: 177
Joined: Mon Oct 27, 2014 12:24 pm

Kharman Ghia

Post by El Duderino »

SavingWithBabies wrote:
Sat Jul 22, 2017 9:12 am
I saw an electric Opel at the Grocery Outlet in Berkeley, California, a couple of times. I googled the markings but not much info. I suspect it was an early lead acid conversion. Cool project! I'd be curious if a VW Kharman Ghia would be feasible.
That'd be a great candidate platform for a conversion! In fact, it looks like EV West sells a kit, which means they've got an adapter plate for the trans already sorted, which is a help. Video link

wolf
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Location: Germany

Re: July '17 Update

Post by wolf »

El Duderino wrote:
Tue Jul 18, 2017 2:57 pm
Looking at this, it really reinforces the #1 and 2 things I need to be focused on right now: expense control and income generation. The dude's deal covers the first point, and #2 can be helped as well.
Hi Dude! Great progress!

I am looking to your chart and it seems that the spending line is / will be below the 3.5% Investment Income line in the next few months. Is that so? Would be really good.

Why do you think about expense control? Your monthly spending was going down in the last 18 months.

Do you already generate passive income, as the chart suggests?

Beside the numbers, I do like the pics what you posted. You created something out of cardboard. Where I work we also did some rapid prototype CAD with cardboards. Is that something you do as a side-income or has it something to do with your profession?

You calculate your daily budget. It is $108 per day. It is an interesting number or indicator, but do you find it practicable? Usually I know, that one uses a monthly budget and compares that with monthly actuals. I am interested in the positive aspects of that number. Why and how do you use it? Do you also calculate your actual daily costs? Please don't misinterpret my many questions, I am just curious about other/new FI related perspectives. (still learning :-)

El Duderino
Posts: 177
Joined: Mon Oct 27, 2014 12:24 pm

Re: July '17 Update

Post by El Duderino »

Hey MD,thanks for the comments and questions. Happy to add more info.

Although the next few months are predicted to be under the estimated income line, I've used an estimated monthly budget. Thing is, I haven't been so good at working to a budget unless I'm tracking it closely, and that's what the daily tracking is meant to help.

Expense control is the single biggest way to build robustness in anyone's finances. While my monthly spending has gone down over the last 18 months, some of this was due to a move to a new city and a change from renting to owning my primary residence again. What I'm really trying to prepare for now is a move to a post-accumulation phase of my FI journey. To help bridge that gap over to not having a job income and being more reliant on my savings and earnings from assets, I'm using a daily budget to keep tabs more frequently and while I'm still earning income from my job, I want to test run for a while to make sure my expenses are under what my assets will support.

Perhaps it's just me, but I find it convenient to distill all expenses down to a daily basis to give me a better idea of what things are really costing me. For example, I pay $1381 a month to my mortgage, but really >$1000 of that is to the principal and around $300 is to interest. So on a daily basis, it's costing me ~$10 a day to live in a house. Of course, I need to add in the cost of utilities, insurance, repairs and maintenance, etc, but all those come separately and can be dealt with as they arise just like any expense like groceries. When I make my monthly mortgage payment, I subtract the amount of the payment that went to interest from my running total. Similarly, when I go to the petrol station for fuel, I subtract whatever it cost from my balance. Each morning I can add $109 to the balance rather than adding $3,270 once a month because I think if I did it that way, I'd probably 'run out' of money by the 20th each month and then go significantly over.

I've been keeping a running total going since mid-Apr and I'm carrying a negative balance right now of -$1454. Seems high, but that's totally recoverable and if I stopped doing daft things like spending nearly $800 on cosmetic car parts last month, I'd be doing really well. I hope to get caught up by the end of Aug. When I've had a positive balance going, it gives me a good feeling and sense of satisfaction, but the real benefit is that it keeps the pressure on me to control costs as I feel like the income generated from my assets (even if it is estimated income, currently) is something precious to be conserved and spent wisely.

Income shown on the chart comes from two sources. The biggest bit comes from dividends and stock price appreciation from current equity investments and the other is rental income from two properties. The rent income isn't as passive as I'd like it to be and the equity instrument gains aren't ulta-predictable so I just estimate 3.5% annually as a reasonable SWR. To be super-safe, I'd like to get that down to 3%.

The CAD (cardboard-aided design) was just messing about with some scrap boxes so I could get a physical impression of the components and perhaps do some mock-ups in the car once the engine is out. With 3d printing the way it is now, perhaps switching to that for some of the smaller components later in the planning could actually turn it into a money-making proposition.

wolf
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Location: Germany

Re: July '17 Update

Post by wolf »

El Duderino wrote:
Mon Aug 07, 2017 1:28 pm
What I'm really trying to prepare for now is a move to a post-accumulation phase of my FI journey. To help bridge that gap over to not having a job income and being more reliant on my savings and earnings from assets, I'm using a daily budget to keep tabs more frequently and while I'm still earning income from my job, I want to test run for a while to make sure my expenses are under what my assets will support.

The rent income isn't as passive as I'd like it to be and the equity instrument gains aren't ulta-predictable so I just estimate 3.5% annually as a reasonable SWR. To be super-safe, I'd like to get that down to 3%.
Very interesting. It is an approach that I will write down and maybe try it for myself. In the context of your transition phase it makes absolutely sense. A daily budget needs daily tracking and controlling. You are always up to date. I guess you have some tools/app to keep track? Maybe daily budgets and controlling get you a better feeling your spending. I guess it could give you alsa better feeling how the expense is satisfying (e.g. YMOYL with needs, comfort, luxury, clutter...) Thanks for sharing Dude.

I'll follow your journal because I am interested how you do in your transition phase to postFI. For sure there will be some leesons and experiences along the way. Like you, I am also a conservative and risk averse FIRE-aproacher. I appreciate that you share your thoughts in your journal. Happy to learn some things from you who has the goal in sight.

El Duderino
Posts: 177
Joined: Mon Oct 27, 2014 12:24 pm

Mid-Aug '17 Update

Post by El Duderino »

Work
Decided against demanding a raise but I did express to my boss at a recent mid-year appraisal that I'm going to be looking for more time away on holiday, which he was receptive to and understood the primary challenge is getting someone who is capable enough to cover whilst I'm away. In the grand scheme of things, comparing my situation to conversations I have with other people about their jobs and what I read on here in other journals, my job is dead easy and really isn't too taxing. I get to work from home, the hours aren't horrible, I'm well respected on the team and the projects I lead are reasonably challenging without being too arduous.

Madison
Started to demolish the 3rd flat, which consisted of ripping out all the old kitchen cabinetry and fixtures. It's now pretty much a pile of rubble that needs to be hauled off. Feels good to have gotten started on that, at least.

Dude's Deal
Probably won't break even before the end of August, being realistic. I've kept really excellent control over expenses this month, it's just that I keep getting hit with little setbacks. 6 month renewal for car insurance? Okay, paid. Pre-pay deposit for next year's ski trip? Done. Canal boat tour for the family when they visited the city a few weeks ago? Sure, it's my treat. However, it means with all the other daily expenses, I'm currently sitting at $-1219.70 and I know I've got another 6 month insurance to pay before month end along with a gym membership and the mortgage interest portion of my house payment. The good part is that clawing my way back to a positive daily balance is really instilling the discipline of keeping below my per diem, which is currently at $108 due to market fluctuations.

Figured out how to create a hybrid chart so I can plot lines as well as stacked areas and bars. It's a long road, but I'm slowly becoming an Excel geek. Perhaps pivot tables are next.

Spending Breakdown
Image

One thing I'm particularly proud of is that with the exception of two months this year, I've been able to keep my expenses below $4K. Last year I had 7 months with expenses above that line.

Asset Breakdown
Image

wolf
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Re: Mid-Aug '17 Update

Post by wolf »

El Duderino wrote:
Tue Aug 15, 2017 5:12 pm
[One thing I'm particularly proud of is that with the exception of two months this year, I've been able to keep my expenses below $4K. Last year I had 7 months with expenses above that line.
That's great. Congratulations. If I analyze your chart of your expenses correctly, I think it has to do with housing costs. Two years ago you had to pay rent. I think that lead to monthly costs greater than $4k. Since housing is a very constant cost and not very volatile, there are good chances that you will stay below $4k, IMO (if you don't increase other costs, of course).

Have you already started to think about regrets? Like, regrets to leave the workforce too early? Or, regrets like to FIRE too late or haven't saved enough? For myself, I wrote that down in my Lessons Learned List, that I will focus on regrets when I am in my transistion phase to FIRE. I hopefully won't regret to FIRE too early / late or haven't saved enough or too much. Well, if you remember right, I think you are in a kind of transition phase. I do like your conservative approach to FIRE, btw.

edited: removed "bold"

El Duderino
Posts: 177
Joined: Mon Oct 27, 2014 12:24 pm

Regrets

Post by El Duderino »

MDFIRE2024 wrote:
Sat Aug 19, 2017 8:37 am
Have you already started to think about regrets? Like, regrets to leave the workforce too early? Or, regrets like to FIRE too late or haven't saved enough? For myself, I wrote that down in my Lessons Learned List, that I will focus on regrets when I am in my transition phase to FIRE. I hopefully won't regret to FIRE too early / late or haven't saved enough or too much.
I have a tendency to reflect back a lot too and evaluate past decisions, sometimes too much, because I think people can beat themselves up about mistakes they've made and never really move on. However, I really don't have any serious regrets so far. Instead, I'm really glad I started saving when I did with the intensity that I had. It's only been a little over 10 years since I had negative net worth. The weird thing is that I remember those first few months of saving close to 50% of my salary as being very fun and I eagerly awaited the chance to buy more stocks when my paycheck came through. Now I'm less enthusiastic about it, perhaps because I see a fair bit of money exit my checking account and it hardly registers as a blip on the chart when combined with the rest of the long-term accounts. The normal daily market ups and downs more than cancel out a standard month's contribution.

Knowing how risk averse I am, I highly doubt I'll leave the workforce too early as you said. What is much more likely is that I'll wait too long and waste time accumulating money that I'll never need and will largely go unused. Some may be thinking it's already well past that point given my net worth. I've got a close friend who knows more than most about my situation and he occasionally comments on me being overly tight.

Why do you think that regrets are more important when you're transitioning over, MdFire?

El Duderino
Posts: 177
Joined: Mon Oct 27, 2014 12:24 pm

POSITIVE!!!

Post by El Duderino »

It felt like forever, but just today I finally went from a negative balance to having a little cash (the princely sum of $46) in my Per Diem!!! :D Seriously, it's been at least two months since I had some extra $$$ kicking around in there and it was really frustrating.

The whole experience has taught me a few things:
1. It's easier to say 'fuck it' and make a dumb purchase when already hip-deep in the money pit than when hovering around a positive balance.
2. When I keep track of all spending on a daily basis, outflows add up a lot faster than I might imagine :roll:
3. It's psychologically better to 'save up' for stuff and have it covered than spend the money and then try to find a way to recover. :idea:
4. By the time I've covered an unplanned purchase, the stuff I bought is a distant memory and the new-ness and thrill of the purchase is long gone.

So yeah, basically all the stuff anybody who has ever saved money and been responsible with their income already knows about. :o

Now that I've worked so hard to climb out of the hole I created for myself by buying a TV and parts for my car, I definitely don't want to do it all again so I'm really taking a hard look at my upcoming purchases to prioritize and stagger them out.

wolf
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Re: Regrets

Post by wolf »

El Duderino wrote:
Tue Sep 26, 2017 5:45 pm
Why do you think that regrets are more important when you're transitioning over, MdFire?
Hi Duderino. I have just read again your last two journal posts and found out, that you asked me something. Sorry, that I respond just now, and not earlier.

Initially I found about "regrets in the transistion phase" a few month ago, when I read it here Early Retirement and The Likelihood of Regret.

It is about:
1) "The likelihood you’ll regret retiring too soon."
2) "The likelihood you’ll regret working too long."

Personally with regrets I mean the following. If it is possible to transition into the next phase (of your life, e.g. ER), and you don't do it, you will possibley regret it someday (e.g. a few years later). Why do I think like that? I think so, because I possibly will regret something like that, if I delay my decision to go to the next phase out of subjective/personal reasons, e.g. self-insecurity, fear what comes next, missing courage, etc... Well, I guess it is always a difficult decision, because everyone has different feelings about risks, e.g. I am also risk-averse. I have also read some books about elder persons who reflect their lives and who regret not having done this or that ("Top five regrets of the dying" by Bronnie Ware). In my opinion, the same underlying principle can you find along the ERE-Journey, when it is time to transition over to the next phase.
You know what I mean?

El Duderino
Posts: 177
Joined: Mon Oct 27, 2014 12:24 pm

Re: Regrets

Post by El Duderino »

MDFIRE2024 wrote:
Wed Sep 27, 2017 12:39 am
You know what I mean?
Yeah, I think so. It's good to approach these decisions from multiple angles by thinking about them in different ways and, hopefully, by reaching the same conclusion, it will boost confidence that the right thing is being done.

That's kind of the story of a lot of our journals. Run the numbers, put down thoughts about progress and run through the scenario of what it will look like to live a very different life.

El Duderino
Posts: 177
Joined: Mon Oct 27, 2014 12:24 pm

Dec '17 Update

Post by El Duderino »

Changes
Might decide to move these updates to quarterly now as things have settled down and there aren't many changes happening for me. Really haven't progressed much on my various projects, (especially the electric Opel :( ) just chipping away at things slowly and being patient. I did make a significant change in my nutrition recently. After about a year of being Paleo and trying to stay in a ketosis with less than 30g net carbs a day, I changed course and now am eating mostly plants with no meat whatsoever for the past couple months. This was mostly in response to watching the film What the Health and getting scared about all the dioxins and heart disease risk factors. In the film, there was one doctor in particular who seemed to be a strong advocate for eating just plants, so I started reading his book, 'How Not to Die' and that has been informative too. Never thought I would become vegan, and I have noticed hardly any changes other than my food bills dropping appreciably since making the change. It's fun to try new recipes and after the first week, I don't miss meat in my foods at all. Not even at Thanksgiving when the entire rest of the family was chowing down on deep fried turkey. I eat out even less than before, which was already not much. I still cheat a bit on the strict vegan thing because I have a small amount of dairy products almost daily, but I'm working on it. It definitely helps that the GF is being a good sport about the whole thing and has gone along with me on the journey. The meals are really delicious and fresh and it's actually easier to eat vegan than paleo, IMO.

Rental property
It's very strange that the Zillow appraised price for my residence / multi unit house (Madison) has jumped by about $150K over the past two months. I don't trust it a bit. I think it's partially driven by a recent sale near me, at least that's what caused the house valuation to increase from around 200K to 280K last month, but this month it's gone up another 70K for some reason. A new roof and siding was installed and covered under hail and storm damage, so I'm sure that'll help increase the value, but it's not something that should necessarily be reflected so quickly on something like Zillow. The interior is still a right mess as I continue to smash stuff up and replace it with better. Recently, I pulled much of the old water pipes out and have replaced with more modern PEX tubing. I also replaced the 10 year old water heater with an electric unit that should be significantly more efficient. Add that to the new house water filter and new water softener and the quality of the H2O in this joint has probably never been better. I'm learning heaps (and making myself significantly more resilient to income fluctuations) and am much less intimidated by the work to be done, but the scale of the remaining repairs is still daunting. Maybe sometime next year I'll finally get another unit rented out. My other property (Vigilance) is steadily providing income with no issues.


Dude's Deal
Still stubbornly chugging along with this plan. It's not fun, trying to maintain some discipline around controlling my spending, and unexpected stuff keeps throwing my numbers off and creating a bit of a sinkhole. Right now I'm at -759.81 and the fact that I'm able to keep it within a thousand of breaking even is no small feat. Costs for house repairs keep eating away at the tally, not leaving much room for fun stuff like travel or purchases.

Future plans
Work is a piece of cake right now with little hassle so I'm at least going to carry on my current course until April of 2018, when my bonus for 2017 comes through. After that, who knows, but unless I have a really strong desire to head out and travel or do an adventure, it would be smart to continue to pay off the mortgage, save more, and get the situation with the car fleet and houses really nicely sorted.

Spending Breakdown and Asset Breakdown
I had updated graphs for this as well as pictures of some of the repairs to the property to share, but with PhotoBucket shutting down, I've switched to Imgur and I'm getting a messages here that it can't determine picture sizes, so that's a new problem. I was already annoyed at the horizontal limit which reduced the resolution of the graphs, so this is the last straw for me. No more pictures or graphs, I guess.

Spending over the past four months has averaged at around 4K and net worth has increased by about 175K over the same time frame but about 150K of that is due to the valuation increase of one of the properties, which I don't really believe is an accurate reflection of the true market price.

wolf
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Location: Germany

Re: Dec '17 Update

Post by wolf »

El Duderino wrote:
Fri Dec 01, 2017 1:47 pm
Might decide to move these updates to quarterly now as things have settled down and there aren't many changes happening for me.
Hey dude! Are there really no changes happening? Your journal is inspiring and therefore I'm looking forward to an update. How are you? Still tracking expenses per day?

El Duderino
Posts: 177
Joined: Mon Oct 27, 2014 12:24 pm

Jun '18 Update

Post by El Duderino »


Hey dude! Are there really no changes happening? Your journal is inspiring and therefore I'm looking forward to an update. How are you? Still tracking expenses per day?
Yo, Wolf, how you doing? You anywhere near Nurburg? My sim-driving rig has the Nordschleiffe and it is the absolute favorite track.

There have been some changes I'm happy to relate!

Work
Took a promotion earlier this year. More responsibilities for team leadership and implementing a new technology platform for our group. I feel like both are a stretch for me, but a very good sort of challenge. A 15% raise came along with it, but it doesn't kick in until July.

Housing
The house I bought in Sep-16 is a massive time suck / learning experience / goldmine. I've got 101 things to do around here and an itch to get shit done. My EXP is the limiting thing, but that's increasing each day. Just recently I've continued the works on the upstairs apartment rehab (full gut and refresh) and a bitch of a ditch behind the garage (grading issue). Recent wins include the basement lighting, lawn looks 100% better than last year, garage cleanout, lighting and wall tear down. Fairly happy with how things are turning out. My effective rent with utilities is ~$500 a month and for that I've got an income producing house that I can grow with.

Autos
Got the ole Dreadnought fixed up and looking sharp! That car is so close to being perfect, but there's always something that needs tinkering with to get it just right -- it is an Evo after all! :roll: Just fitted an Optima battery yesterday and this afternoon I'm cleaning up some of the wiring back there in the trunk where it's relocated. There's also a stereo amp and 120amp circuit breaker so it needed tidying up. Getting the body done was a major step and now it's looking pretty sharp with the JDM Evo 9 rear bumper painted all purdy.

The rest of the fleet is still milling about. Now that summer is here I can drive the sportscar. 8-) I bought a 2nd van (2007 Grand Caravan) in Jan to replace the first. Now I just need to sell the first one, but it needs the right buyer as not everyone is in the market for a van with 193K :lol: .

Electric Opel is one step (in a journey of ten thousand) closer to completion as new wheels and tires were fitted in March! That baby is looking sweet.

Overall ERE / FIRE Assessment
Pretty much been killing it in this category. My numbers are up all over so I don't even really sweat it anymore. Stopped the per diem because it was having a weird effect of me sort of using it to bank up indulgences that I didn't really want/need. Instead I just look at my annualized spending as % of income returning investments. 12 month average spending is 4.52%. That leaves the real estate portion of my net worth out of it, as well as my EF and current accounts. Oh yeah, and I'm 3/5 to bumping up my EF to 1 year of spending.

wolf
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Location: Germany

Re: the dude's diary

Post by wolf »

I'm doing great, thank you. Happy to hear from you, especially to read those interesting updates in your life.

Congratulation to your promotion! I guess, you want it that way, otherwise you wouldn't have done it. It sounds that implementing that new technology is the right spot between a challenge and learning. Leading a team is also challenging at some times, I guess. I can only relate to my work, when managers have to lead teams also in bad times. But I hope that you doing well with your team and project at work.

Your housing experiences sound a bit like Jacob's, which he shared in his other journal. There is a fine line between asset (increasing in worth, enjoying) and liability (time-consuming, RE taxes).

And of course your overall ERE/FIRE progress :) For some months I had been watching my costs per day. To be honest, I don't pay too much attention to it anymore, but it is a reference point sometimes. It has helped me definately to gain a new perspective on my expenses, e.g. comparing living at home in Germany and travelling (like a tourist). The difference is immense, as you probably could imagine.
Instead I just look at my annualized spending as % of income returning investments.
Maybe I will try that one in the future too, when I am much nearer ERE/FIRE. I am still on track to my next milestone, which is 210k€. That relates to 60% of my overall FI-goal. And I am always happy learn something from ERE/FIRE-achievers, like you. I collect all those various experiences and lessons learned from different sources (blogs, forum, videos, ...) in a separate document. It is helping me to think of opportunities and avoiding typical traps, e.g. only saving for the future, instead of living in the present. Therefore I live a much more balanced lifestyle than some months before.

Thank you for your update. I wish you much fun at the "Nordschleiffe". Unfortunately I am not around. Take care when driving!

El Duderino
Posts: 177
Joined: Mon Oct 27, 2014 12:24 pm

Dec '18 Update

Post by El Duderino »

Had a wild idea to check this site and see how everybody is doing and figured I should do my part and provide a bit of an update, albeit a brief one.

I missed the Chicago get together again. Maybe I'll make one of these sometime and get introduced to people IRL.

Still working after the promotion earlier this year. I used to wonder why people who were fairly set continued to toil away and now I have my own answer. It's just a really comfy, low stress job that pays well and I get lots of side benefits, including recognition, different types of challenges, occasional travel and social interaction and of course things like healthcare and paycheck. My biggest worry used to be that I'd lose my job somehow before I had enough investments socked away, the internal dialogue now centers around who's getting the better end of the time/$ deal, me or 'them'.

Despite flirting with some other cars and taking a test drive in an electric, there have been no significant changes in the vehicle fleet, which continues to be my biggest vice and temptation. I do have a correction to make where I said I purchased a replacement van to replace my old one. I actually got a 2005 with 142K on the odometer and did end up selling the old 2006 which had 190K+ of the same model. I love that this van, which I probably would get rid of last out of the 4 autos I own cost about a tenth of a percent of my net worth. There is a small pride of ownership as it's only got a bit of rustiness and it drives well and is easy to work on. The Dreadnought recently made a 1100 mile round trip with no sweat after having received a plethora of upgrades over the past two months.

12 month SWR average is at 4.24% of invested assets. With any kind of effort it's easy to get into 3% as I've seen several 3% months this year already and even a 2.6% month which was kinda surprising. My emergency fund is over 90% of a years spending so everything feels quite comfy.

TBH, I don't do nearly as much obsessing about money or savings or general ERE stuff anymore. More frequently, I ask myself, 'what could be better' or, more precisely, 'what is the most productive use of my resources to effect the maximum total gain to myself and others'. increasingly, the answers have little to do with money and more about relationships.

Quantummy
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Joined: Thu Jun 14, 2018 10:39 pm

Re: the dude's diary

Post by Quantummy »

Congrats on change of focus. That sounds like "success" "enlightenment" "grace" and something to celebrate. What type of van?

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: the dude's diary

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

I'm glad you are doing well. Thanks for the update!

El Duderino
Posts: 177
Joined: Mon Oct 27, 2014 12:24 pm

Aug '19 Update

Post by El Duderino »

Hey all! Wanted to check in with my ERE compadres and see what's cracking. Can't believe it's been so long since I checked in here but it's nice to see familiar people from way back when I was a more frequent reader.

I'll be turning 40 this year and I'm still working. While I do consider myself FI, as I've become more financially secure I really just do the sort of work that I enjoy and let the rest drop away. I'm fortunate to be a home-based worker and have built up a good career so that this tactic actually works, surprisingly well. Work is less about slugging away at tedium and more about complex problem solving using sophisticated tools and techniques and when that doesn't work, learning new skills so I can tackle even more complicated assignments. I'm setting practice for my team and am also learning how to be a better leader and a fair amount of my focus is on mentoring my colleagues and finding new ways to train the team I lead.

The second main reason why I'm still working is that it provides some much needed structure in my life and even affords me the chance to take breaks from my typical routine through occasional travel (albeit usually for work purposes) and interaction with others. If I didn't have a need for it, I'm sorry to say that I'd quickly get into the bad habit of waking up around 10am or later each day and then staying up too late. Bonuses, benefits, and pay are another strong incentive to keep working -- not going to lie, you can never have too much.

Financially, I feel like I'm still in an accumulation stage because I'm paying some debt on my primary home mortgage and car (more on that later) while adding to investments. My typical SWR is < 3% and in May I somehow got to 1.87%.

The home situation is steadily improving as my construction abilities have progressed waaay beyond where I was when I bought this old shack. Every month or so, something breaks and forces me to get to work. For example, the upstairs tenant in my home dropped the toilet tank lid and cracked the tank on a Saturday morning. That resulted in a wild weekend that saw me cutting out 10 feet of cast iron drain stack spanning 3 floors and completely replacing the whole toilet, flooring and water supply lines for that bathroom while greatly improving the drain plumbing for the tub and toilet. For a lot of people it would've been terrible but I actually kind of enjoyed it, mostly because it turned out well in the end.

No update would be complete without a mention of my car situation. I've decided to sell my petrol cars (1 of 2 gone already) and instead go with a Tesla, which arrived in July. The Dodge Grand Caravan is still a must keep and the Opel is in the garage as well, patiently awaiting a heart transplant.

2Birds1Stone
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Re: Feb '17 Update

Post by 2Birds1Stone »

El Duderino wrote:
Wed Feb 15, 2017 5:18 pm
My hard stop is that I will not be 40 and still working so that gives me 2.5 years more of asset accumulation. By that point I hope to have a moving average SWR of <3% with a mountain of dry powder on reserve.
Just sayin', dude!

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