akratic's ERE journal

Where are you and where are you going?
akratic
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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by akratic »

@theanimal

WFH helps for sure. I've never been drawn to martial arts, but I could see it as something to try later.

@C40

It's a good list. I'll probably tackle it slowly, starting with home gym. (Not interested in easy button solution though.) I do notice that many of these life energy giving activities also cost a lot of life energy. More on this in the time section below.

------

I suspect I have three long term projects and one short term one:
long-term #1) pay off house
long-term #2) create a plan to pay for college for our kids
long-term #3) make more efficient use of my time (at work, with kids, and free time)
short-term) check in on net worth, asset allocation, and expenses

== house ==

When we bought our house last year rather than wipe out my FI fund to pay cash we put 20% down and have a mortgage for the remaining 80%. The mortgage is a 7/1 ARM which acts like a 30yr fixed loan for 7 years and then the interest rate floats for the remaining 23 years. I hope to pay it off in full before the floating starts. In particular, my plan for my income is to fully fund retirement accounts and then put everything else into the house (rather than accumulate more taxable investments).

I know that many people believe having equity in a house is a waste because it could be invested in the market and earning a higher rate of return. I personally think it only seems that way because of the rampant prosperity for the last 100 years. I look forward to the emotional and diversification benefits of a paid off primary residence, especially one customized to our needs and wants.

I will be creating a plan for paying off the house and some charts and all that. One thing I'm currently confused about is how to track numbers with the house involved. The mortgage is more than all my other expenses put together, and it seems wrong to base my long term spending on this number that will go away. Also once the house is paid off it would be double counting to both count the equity as positive net worth and also get the bonus of lower expenses because no rent. I'm sure someone has figured this out already but I'll need to as well.

== college ==

We have two kids now and have say a 30% chance of having a third later. We need a plan to help them with college, both to decide how much help we will give them and also to set aside that amount of assets. First of all, let me say that I don't think college is for everyone, and I will strongly encourage something like tradeschool or apprenticeship instead if it's better suited to the particular kid. Also, I kind of think the college bubble will burst in the next 16 years before my son starts applying. But still, it's not too early to be thinking about it, and I'm not sure I can consider myself FI without both the college plan and house sorted out.

My first thought here is to game the college financial aid system. I believe the following assets are exempt from consideration in FAFSA:
- retirement accounts
- primary residence
- small business owned and controlled by the family.

At first glance, this seems pretty beatable to me by moving all assets into the above three buckets and having a low income. I have some personal experience here. By happenstance, after paying full tuition my first year at MIT my dad lost his job the next two years and the university gave me grants (aka free money) for 75% of tuition.

As I looked into it more I found that some colleges do look at home equity and business ownership in their own private formula, but not all of them.

Let me also note that this path could be immoral. I will have to think more about that. One early thought is that the places with the most generous policies like Harvard, MIT and Stanford are also the places with ultra-mega-sized endowments.

There is some follow on work here:
- find someone who has been down this path intentionally and learn from them
- research ways to move taxable investments into retirement accounts more aggressively (would be nice for other reasons too)
- alternatively, look into small businesses that are low risk and passive

== time ==

Right now my time is split into these buckets: work, family time with kids and/or wife, sleep, and free time. Free time can be further divided into maintenance tasks like showering and eating; "low value" choices like TV, video games, and easy books; and "high value" choices like journaling, working out, working on projects, hard books, and connecting with friends. Specifically what I would like is to spend a greater percent of my free time in "high value" choices.

This is more complicated than it sounds though. You might think I could simply choose to spend my free time on "high value" tasks instead of "low value" ones, but you'd be wrong. This lifelong struggle is in fact at the root of my username that I've had for half my life.

The best model I currently have of my behavior is as follows: imagine a battery that is drained by work and family time (and some other stuff). In free time "high value" choices are net positive for the battery but cannot be chosen when the battery is low. In fact, when the battery is low only "low value" choices are available to recharge it.

I'm not saying this model fits all people. For example, my wife has little use for the "low value" bucket and will seemingly happily spend all her free time in "high value". I suspect she is simply more high functioning than I am in a way I cannot learn. Instead, my approach will be as follows:
- become more efficient at work in the following way: find ways to drain the battery less during work time while still meeting expectations. (Is this the Loser strategy from the Gervais Principle?)
- become more efficient at family time in the following way: find ways to drain the battery less during family time less while still being present and engaged with my family
- gain greater awareness and insight into the battery units gained and lost through the day (how? first pass answer is meditation but I personally find little development of awareness and insight on that path)
- I'm going to put this one on the list to make the list exhaustive, but I currently do not believe it works: learn to recharge the battery faster by becoming more efficient at "low value" recharge -- or skipping it altogether and going straight to "high value".

I will note that having two young kids (2.5yr & 2.5mo) along with a high-powered job means this is probably the most challenging year of my life, in a way that, forgive me, is kind of impossible to explain to non-parents. That said, even with this handicap, it's still worth working towards more efficient use of time.

== check in ==

I plan to collect some numbers and make some charts on net worth, assest allocation, and expenses, just to make sure things are generally on track.

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RFS
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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by RFS »

Hey Akratic, I'm glad you're journaling again :P I have really enjoyed your journal.

I am not a parent, and I can't imagine how exhausting that is. Nonetheless, I think there are immense benefits from some of the "high value" activities you listed (especially vigorous exercise), even if you do them for an incredibly small amount of time.

For example, exercising can be 90 minutes lifting weights, or it can be a 5-10 minute run. I have noticed that, once you get your heart rate up and are feeling particularly strenuous for a couple of minutes, there's not a massive difference in how much better you feel. Maybe it would help to ask yourself "what is the absolute minimum viable version of a high-value activity I can do right now?" when your battery is low.

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C40
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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by C40 »

There's a book you might find useful, called "Essentialism". My mom (and I think my brother) read it and said it helped her a lot with work - like sorting out what things she really needs to work hard on, and what things to just let go. I'd guess that the advice in the book would be useful outside of work too.

I never read the book because I felt like it was explaining things that I was already telling my mom and brother to do. So I'm not sure whether it's just obvious suggestions, or more in-depth stuff.

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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by jacob »

@akratic - IIRC, there's some ideas for accounting for home ownership in viewtopic.php?t=7870 ... There was no general agreement on the right way as everybody seemed to favor a method that didn't make their own choices look bad. The most fair to me is to count home equity as a 3-4% expense, since technically that could have been invested if one hadn't bought the home.

You're probably the one individual I've ever met that I think is most temperamentally aligned with my own. In terms of energy buckets, I can totally relate. Exercise may work as an energy booster, but I've generally found the opposite effect. It's true that some forms of exercise can provide stress relief IFF it takes the mind off the stressor. For example, for me, hockey or shinkendo is good while swimming or running is bad. However, in terms of energy levels I find them to be higher when I take a long break (weeks) from exercising. It simply costs both time and physical energy. OTOH, not exercising ever also has its costs. Perhaps the solution is "light exercise"... I've only done enough of that to finally understand what people mean when they say they feel good (endorphins) after working out. So maybe pick something light and "game-like" instead of an actual workout, like a pick-up game. Didn't you use to play soccer?

Also ... the energy thing is real. Look into eneagram type 5 descriptions which pretty much cover the INT* character. The so-called avarice manifests when stressed and will generally seek to hoard time and [life-]energy by trying to cut away things (minimalism) or frantically optimize inefficiencies away. This can lead to a bad spiral as the preserved energy gains are funneled directly back into trying to preserve even more energy resulting in no net gain. I'm not sure exactly what the solution is or rather what a practical solution is. Sabbaticals are a popular outlet in academia. Historical gurus (Musashi) run off into the mountains and hide there. These methods are not super practical from a modern/everyman perspective.

Add: I mostly blame it on the increasing amounts of tasks/responsibilities, especially maintenance stuff, taken on as one gets older or further along. Like stuff, they just seem to accrete slowly until there's little left. That's a big reason what Zuckerberg had his "no one older than 30yrs"-guideline. I think the "Simple Living" movement was an attempt at a solution. I'm not sure how well it works in practice.

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

akratic wrote:
Sun Apr 05, 2020 9:35 pm
The best model I currently have of my behavior is as follows: imagine a battery that is drained by work and family time (and some other stuff). In free time "high value" choices are net positive for the battery but cannot be chosen when the battery is low. In fact, when the battery is low only "low value" choices are available to recharge it.

I'm not saying this model fits all people.
This model fits me really well and is better than any explanation I've come up with. When my energy is run down I have no trouble continuing with manual labor type work but I have a hard time thinking. I can think when I am not feeling like it but it is difficult.

Tyler9000
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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by Tyler9000 »

akratic wrote:
Sun Apr 05, 2020 9:35 pm
Right now my time is split into these buckets: work, family time with kids and/or wife, sleep, and free time. Free time can be further divided into maintenance tasks like showering and eating; "low value" choices like TV, video games, and easy books; and "high value" choices like journaling, working out, working on projects, hard books, and connecting with friends. Specifically what I would like is to spend a greater percent of my free time in "high value" choices.

This is more complicated than it sounds though. You might think I could simply choose to spend my free time on "high value" tasks instead of "low value" ones, but you'd be wrong. This lifelong struggle is in fact at the root of my username that I've had for half my life.

The best model I currently have of my behavior is as follows: imagine a battery that is drained by work and family time (and some other stuff). In free time "high value" choices are net positive for the battery but cannot be chosen when the battery is low. In fact, when the battery is low only "low value" choices are available to recharge it.
I totally relate.

Even though high-value activities may be net positive for the battery, they usually have high startup costs. That's why they're impossible to do while the battery is low and you have nothing left to give. For example, journaling and hard books require focus you may not have, while projects and connecting with friends also require inspiration and setup that may be lacking.

One trick I've found is to cut yourself some slack and focus on simple incremental steps when your battery is low. Instead of journaling, just write down a list of topics you can journal about later. And instead of working on projects, just take a few minutes to set aside the tools and materials for easy access. Focus on the little things when the battery is low, and it reduces the startup costs for when the battery recovers a bit. That will make it easier to get back into the high value activities later on with less friction.

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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by Fiddle »

Hey Akratic, just chiming in here as I've 3 children similar ages as yours.
I find having a pull up bar in the door way of my utility room helps, no matter what is happening I can slip away a minute several times a day and feel better doing pull ups getting stronger and see the improvement.
I went part time at work and that helped big time with my time and energy but I did have to take the cut in money, status power etc but I feel valued there so was a good call for me.
Looking forward to reading how you progress things.

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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by jacob »

@Tyler9000 - Good point. I also think http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html can be part of the problem in terms of "productive" recreation. It's best not to choose something [productive] that requires too much "tooling" so to speak. Something that's easy and incremental, e.g. knitting a scarf, would be better than something that requires complex inspiration, e.g. CAD design. In the sense of the link, accreting maintenance tasks is like adding more and more "manager tasks" until at some point, it's impossible to keep a maker's schedule.

akratic
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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by akratic »

I’ll have more to say later but for now between the epic thread jacob linked and the responses in my journal let me just say this: I’ve missed you guys!

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

Another metaphor that is similar to the spoon metaphor is that of "burning matches." You hear this in places like bike racing. The racer only has so many matches in the matchbook and once they are burned they are gone for that race.

CS
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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by CS »

A super simplified version is that you can do one thing a day in your major categories (work, family, health).

One.

Plan accordingly.

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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by niemand »

I relate too. I've only got one DD3, but also struggle to figure out how to get in more high value activities during my free time. My battery is usually half empty by the time free time begin, and more often than not there's just not enough energy left for high value in this stage. I'll be following with interest to see if/how you figure this out.

We need a jump start cable...

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C40
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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by C40 »

Exercise when your battery is high. In the morning. Before work.

Don't have your home gym set up yet? No problem, do this. Might feel like it's totally impossible because you're not a morning person, or because you feel tired in the morning, but you'd only need to wake up 10-30 minutes earlier. You've got 10-30 minutes of fluff in your evening during your low battery time that you can eliminate and go to bet a little earlier. If you can bring yourself to start, you'll get used to it and then you won't wake up as tired.

m741
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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by m741 »

Hey akratic, glad to see you're back and doing well!

akratic
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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by akratic »

You guys have given me a lot to chew on, and I haven't been able to process most of it yet. Still, I'm going to try to stick to monthly updates again, so here's what I've got.

== Money ==

I created a few spreadsheets this month: net worth, rough expenses, and an analysis of how FI I'll be after the house is paid off. In short, assuming the college plan from my last post works, I just need to pay off the house and I'm good.

At the current pace, the house will be paid off in 2.57 years. However, I'm likely to change jobs before that and if my comp drops closer to market rate, the expected payoff is 5.18 years.

== Time ==

I've made good progress this month on retaining the battery charge while watching my son. Much of this progress is due to the weather and his own development, not something I'm doing. When it's nice out, we go outside and wander around the yard and he largely entertains himself, meaning I can do yard work or relax on my phone while keeping 20% attention on him. (He gets a lot of 100% attention time so I don't think this is hurting him.)

Another big win this month is from home gym improvements. I picked out a tiny gym worth of weight lifting equipment, but unfortunately the website I want to order from isn't taking new orders due to coronavirus (and craigslist is ravaged). What is taking new orders is Amazon, and from there I got this recumbent bike. This bike is pretty sweet because it's nearly silent and it's comfortable, so I can sit on it and play video games for 40 minutes while exercising (I play Slay the Spire on a Switch) and feel good about that.

The big loss this month is my job: I got "pivoted" from an interesting low-stress future architecture project to a meeting heavy on-fire high visibility project. This is decidely bad for me, but I've used up pretty much all of my requests for special treatment already, so I think I'm stuck on this project, and I'm not sure it's worth riding out.

What I'm trying to do is coast a little more: cap myself at 8 hours all WFH right now minus one hour for video games + shower + lunch, and minus another hour for things like browsing or writing this journal post. Coasting is pretty unnatural for me though, and I'm not sure I like it. It seems better to quit, relax for a few months, then do a full job search and use that next job to finish paying off the house. However, I'm only 2.5 weeks into this new project, so I'll give it a little more time to decide.

== Food ==
bigato wrote:
Mon Apr 06, 2020 2:42 am
Also some energy building activities do not necessarily require spending more time than you already do on them, but rather spending this same amount of time wisely. The most obvious is diet. It may require some upfront payment in the form of time spent learning about it though.
Food is something I've given some thought to but haven't figured out. First of all, I agree with you that the actual meal prep time to eat healthy is negligible. I think where I get stuck, instead, is the other subconscious reasons I'm eating. I suspect my unhealthy eating serves as a crutch for other areas in my life like insufficient emotional support or as a patch to cover up too much stress or inadequate motivation. In other words, the challenge with food is not the time, but replacing all the other things I get from it.

Some random other thoughts on food: I still remember when I was 22 and I figured that getting more fit would help my dating prospects, and dating was my #1 goal. It was so easy to stick to my diets and exercise plans then! The reward was so tangible. It's not anymore.

I'm also struck by a comment my cousin made once, which is you can tell how she's really doing just by looking at her and seeing if she's at the high end of her weight range or the low end.

akratic
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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by akratic »

The big news this month is I gave notice at my job. I have one week left, and then I'll be unemployed again! I'm glad I pulled this trigger: life is short, the job was mediocre overall, I don’t need the money, I have lots of other good options for my time, and I want to live my life deliberately and in control.

If I had to guess I'll take six months off to focus on things like my family, my health, my house, building a community in our new town, etc. And then after six months or so maybe I'll get another typical dev job or maybe instead I'll try again to create a little independent income stream.

I've decided to try a new approach in my journal this month, which is to be heavy on pictures. Let's begin:

Image

As you can see, I'm totally kicking ass at cardio this month: 28 workouts averaging 1 hr 20 minutes and 850 calories each. I've been very consistent too, exercising 6 out of 7 days most weeks (my ideal). The far right image has a typical workout.

What I'm less happy about, and kinda actually embarassed, is my measurements: 201.5 lbs, 38" waist (widest point), and approx 24.4% body fat represent the worst shape I've been in my life. I look forward to seeing these numbers improve. Although I did well at cardio all month, I only started watching what I was eating in the last week, and my weight lifting is still interrupted by covid.

Image
Image

This is my setup: a recumbent bike, a table that I made out of a metal shelf from the garage, and a laptop. I have a system where I let myself play videos games but ONLY if I'm doing cardio. This is how I got such good workout number above! This sounds simple but it's pretty revolutionary for me. Normally when I start to get into a video game it kinda takes over my life, consuming all the free time. Here, I'm naturally limited by the ~1-2hrs/day my body can handle biking with resistance, and the exercise is basically free. I started playing a strategy game called TFT this month and have climbed to Diamond IV on the bike (top 1.7% of player base). I'm now working on getting a second account to Diamond and then climbing higher. It's so much fun and it's amazing to not feel guilty about it.

Image

Here is a small new hobby: propagating plants. This is my first attempt and it's using a pothos plant we already had. It's so cool that all this plant needs to grow more of itself is tap water and sunlight.

Image

Here are my kids!! 2.5yr old and 4 months old (both very big for their age).

In the background you can get a small taste of the constant state of disarray our house is in these days. This pains the minimalist inside me. That said, what I like about minimalism is the extra headspace it gives, and one surprise I've found as a parent is the right possession in the kid's hands results in them self-entertaining... which grants headspace. One short term goal I have is to pare down the non-kid possessions to counteract the whirlwind that our kids create.

Image

My son has two magical abilities: 1) flipping through books 2) and doing jigsaw puzzles. He practices puzzles so much that he can do 24 piece puzzles on his own and 48 piece puzzles with help. He's also able to entertain himself in the yard. These are the exception though: he still takes an incredible amount of his parents' mental energy and resources on the whole, followed only by:

Image

Here is our daughter, who is teething and is pissed off about it around 80% of her waking hours. Here she has surprised us by falling asleep for the first time in her upright chair. In the background you can see our 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle habit, as well as the sliding door my dad and I added to the house.

Image

Our backyard has been taken over by this invasive species, which I believe to be creeping charlie (not 100% sure). The previous owners, as well as most neighbors, solve this problem with money by hiring landscapers. I want to solve it myself but haven't been able to finish my research yet. I believe I need to do something like:
1) kill the creeping charlie, either with chemicals (bad for kids) or like a big tarp (kill whole yard)
2) plant new grass seed and help it grow, with the help of a spreader.

Please let me know if you know how to solve this one. It will be one of my next projects.

Cheers,

Edit:

My wife, who lurks in this journal, has informed me that my post makes our lives look substantially more under control than they are. So I'll leave you with this photo a friend took of both our kids having meltdowns at the same time. I'll leave it to your imagination how the same situation plays out when there's only one parent around.

Image
Last edited by akratic on Sun May 31, 2020 5:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

That sure looks like creeping charlie to me. I have the same problem. I'd like to get rid of it too but I am just keeping it confined to the lawn area for now. I think the only realistic solution for me would be to kill the lawn and start over. Pulling it would take forever and I am not convinced the grass could outcompete it though that would be the first thing I would try. Glad everything else is going OK for you.

daylen
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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by daylen »

akratic wrote:
Sun May 31, 2020 3:40 pm
The previous owners, as well as most neighbors, solve this problem with money by hiring landscapers.
Why is it a problem?

Frita
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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by Frita »

Love the pictures!

It is amazing how little kids change your life. People would always advise to enjoy the time because it goes fast. That is very true.

We have creeping bluebells, “hellbells,” or campanula rapunculoides which looks similar (though the leaves are more heart-shaped than what I see in you picture). What kind of flowers does it have?

If the creeping bellflower, it is highly invasive because it produces a tuber a foot down from which a web of runners are produced. One has the option of digging up the whole yard (yep, 12” down), using triple strength Roundup, repeated burnings, or spot pulling and digging. We do the latter as our neighbors have let it flood their yards. Good luck.

LOL My spouse says I make life sound worse than it is.

akratic
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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by akratic »

daylen wrote:
Sun May 31, 2020 5:42 pm
Why is it a problem?
Well it's not the end of the world, and in fact my wife is advocating that we just leave it. Here are some things I don't like about it though:
- last year when we moved in it had 20% of the lawn, now it has 60%, probably it will have 100% without intervention
- it's actually kinda nice this very moment, while it's green and flowering purple, but a lot of the rest of the year it is brown. We use the back yard a lot, say 1hr/day on average. When it's brown it's worse to look at, so less serene and less relaxing. I also have dreams for the future like playing soccer with the kids, those dreams are possible without grass but nicer on grass.
- the idea of it spreading to neighbors after being unchecked at our house freaks me out, and our lots are close together.
Frita wrote:
Sun May 31, 2020 6:15 pm
What kind of flowers does it have?
Here's a close up from the part we don't mow:
Image
Frita wrote:
Sun May 31, 2020 6:15 pm
LOL My spouse says I make life sound worse than it is.
That's our normal dynamic too! I think I'm just in a good mood because I quit my job (and my wife is lacking sleep because our infant is up all night recently)

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