the animal's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
AtticusFinch
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by AtticusFinch »

Did you make it back up in one piece, friend? How's the temp? Are you happy to be back or just waiting for the next gig to start. All is well here, thinking seriously about taking up the bow project you left with Jacob, I was looking at recurve bows online when I remembered my new years resolution, "no new shit or anything I could make myself." Seeing as how you've already broken ground on it, it's up to me to finish if I want a bow anytime soon. Keep us posted on your travels man, it was a real pleasure reading your journal!

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Ego
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by Ego »

Welcome back to the land of opportunity! Adding a new planet where you can function and survive (the arctic) represents massive growth. The societal-sickness that screams at you but that everyone else thinks is normal, and its correlate, return-overwhelm, may encourage you to shun this planet. That would be the opposite of growth. Being able to function in both provides advantages over those who can only function in one.

theanimal
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by theanimal »

cmonkey- That's basically the same strategy I followed during my time away. I only left the house if visiting others or otherwise needed. I'm not a fan of these artificially contrived environments. I feel as if I'm living in a designed world, like The Truman Show. I think like Ego says though, it's important to have the ability to still do it.

George- I'm sure it feels good to be on the other side!

Atticus- My initial flight was cancelled by sleet in Chicago, so I was delayed a day but gained a more direct flight and a $125 discount in the process. Not the worst that could happen. There is a warm spell going on up here. It is 20 above zero (F) today after hitting -45 below on two separate days last week. T-shirt weather! It's great to be back. I love it here. Though the new job should be fun too. I like the bow project idea. Let me know how it progresses.

Ego- Thanks. Great points to consider. Being able to live in both environments requires adaptability, which I know you value. I do too. I do recognize shunning the rest of civilization to live in the Arctic or some other remote location would be a regression. As of now, I can live in both worlds. The hardest part is the transition. Hopefully, I can improve on that over time.

I will say I'm very happy to be back to this...

Image

Opportunity Costs

These have played a big role in my thoughts lately. I'm reading Economics in One Lesson now, which doesn't help ;) . I'm realizing more and more how opportunity costs dominate almost every factor of life. Its quite present in my current situation. I constantly have questions in my head whether or not I am making the right choice to go to the new job. I love the area I'm in now and am part of a great community. Though the other job is something I want to do and also allows me to have greater freedom (allowing me to do other things I want to do). I think the lack of security, in the form of a contract job, leads to the thoughts that maybe I should be doing something else, perhaps something safer. It could be fear of the unknown too, but it doesn't really matter. I think that fear or the particular worries can be dangerous and prevent any growth from occurring. After all, I don't want to live like the cubicle drones who believe they are secure. The perceived risk may be high but actual risk is very low. There is also the possibility for great benefits. Most of the time, I am content with my decision and thought process. Questioning myself and my decisions is probably healthy as long as I don't over-do it. So we'll see how things go.

There are so many things to do in life, yet so little time! I do like the way my lifestyle is set up for this year. Yesterday, I was offered a pretty good outdoor related job, for which I didn't even apply! How cool is that? If I was in the same spot two years ago, I would've taken it. But I'd like to do other things this year. Anyways, I think it's time for me to read The Renaissance Soul.

skintstudent
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by skintstudent »

Truly inspiring journal. You are showing that life doesn't need to be lived on corporate cubicle terms. Well done. Some of the things you've done are well outside my comfort zone. I'm envious you've done them!

theanimal
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Re: Year End Reflections

Post by theanimal »

2014

I was daydreaming the other day and came to realize how I had a great year!

I moved to Alaska. Made some great new friends and acquaintances and am part of a strong community. I love where I live.

I didn't work for about 4 months of the year. This time was spent with friends and family, reading books, hiking, a couple backpacking trips and a climbing trip.

My new job as a tour guide is good for the most part. It has allowed me the opportunity to strengthen my knowledge on related subjects and develop interpersonal skills. My application for and acceptance of a position as a wilderness therapy field guide was also a great development,

I spent lots of time outside. But not enough! A lot more packrafting this year and plenty of great hiking being on the doorstep of one of the largest remaining wildernesses. I also went on a climbing trip with my cousin earlier in the year and had a great time.

Skill acquisition was limited this year. I had a goal of learning bike maintenance that was sidelined. Another goal was to learn more about hunting, which I certainly did but did not have any practical skill building in this regard. This past summerI helped maintain a coworker garden, which helped to further the knowledge and practice I had in that subject. If I was to stay where I am now, I would maintain my own garden and hunt small game. Alas, that will not be the case. Knife and axe sharpening were also learned.

I read the most books I've ever read in one year. But not enough! There are a number of books that stand out in my mind as having the greatest impact (listed in no order).
Brave New World
This Ugly Civilization
Meditations
Survival +
Status Anxiety
Nunamuit:Among Alaska's Inland Eskimos
Sacred Economics
Overshoot
1984
It's Not All About Me

Health wise- I've done pretty good. I was fairly active this year and didn't let myself become sedentary after periods of low activity. I did a couple rounds of Insanity but other than that not much in terms of scheduled workouts. Eating habits are largely the same. My eating is good for where I am now but not great. Not many fruits and veggies make it up this way in the winter time.

Financially, I did pretty well. I spent right around $3,000 total. Most of that came from early in the year before I moved to Alaska (ironically). Too much excess spending though! Seriously! It could have easily been cut in half, but due to a lack of effort on some days it was inflated. This being my first full year out of school marked my greatest earning year to date. Although, it was much less than most on the forum, coupled with low expenses made for a good savings rate. Since moving to Alaska my savings rate is about 91%. For the year, it's right around 80% +/- 4%. Most of the savings went to paying off student loans. I've made great progress in this regard. I am very close to completely paying off my largest and highest interest bearing loan. The rest of my loans will probably be paid off at a slower rate since their interest rate is pretty low (3%). I'll likely appropriate half my savings this year to loans and half to build up assets.

Looking forward to the new year. There will be a post on that to follow sometime in the next few days.

theanimal
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by theanimal »

Skintstudent- Thanks, that means a lot. I appreciate you following along.

AtticusFinch
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by AtticusFinch »

Great book list man, I've been thinking of rereading status anxiety one of these days. Brave New World, man what a piece of art.

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

I am very close to completely paying off my largest and highest interest bearing loan.
Nice job on the progress with the loan and going beast mode on your savings rate. I think 91% might be the highest I've heard of.

theanimal
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by theanimal »

@Atticus- Status Anxiety is sure great, well worthy of a re-read.
@GdP- Thanks. I make much less than most people here so I try to compensate for that with very low spending. It has worked very well so far.


2016
I have a number of exciting things that I plan to do this year. As mentioned previously, I will be starting a position as a wilderness therapy field guide. I had stated above that I didn't think I would continue my current job, but have since changed my mind. While I would love to run around Alaska hiking and packrafting wherever, I think long term my best strategy is to keep earning as much as I can. So the plan is that I will be doing my current job for the majority of the year with wilderness therapy stints dispersed throughout. It is pretty likely as well that once I finish my CDL training that I will receive a pretty decent raise. With the CDL, I will also be able to take more people as well resulting in more tip $. Win-win. Below I list some of the categories I am focusing on for this upcoming year.

Hunting
It's time to stop messing around with books and actually get some practical action in this department. I have been talking with my extremely skilled local friend (mentioned a page or two previously) and he recommended that I start out by going for caribou in the spring. It's much smaller than a moose and is not too intimidating for a first hunt. I haven't decided whether or not I will do that in the spring, fall or not at all. I'll keep this journal updated with any new developments. Besides caribou, I would be interested in hunting small game and birds, such as snowshoe hare, ptarmigan and spruce grouse. If things go well, maybe try Dall sheep in the fall? We'll see though. That's getting far ahead of things. If I was to go hunting, I'd have to purchase some firearms. Likely a .243 winchester rifle for the caribou and sheep and a .22 for the smaller game.

Bike Repair
As stated in a post above, I had planned to start learning bike repair last year, but utterly failed. That will change this year. There are 2 bikes nearby that are in serious need of repair and one that could use a tune up. I plan to work on these in the first half of this year. This upcoming summer, I also plan on biking much more frequently when going out hiking or packrafting(the only instance when I use a car). I have debated whether or not I should purchase my own bike, but I will probably just use one of the bikes I fix up.

Gardening
I'm still not sure how much I want to try to achieve in this department. Last year, I helped out in a community garden. I'm debating whether to take charge of that (resulting in plenty of skills, but little yield) or start my own garden. If I were to start my own garden, I'd likely grow a limited supply of food. Probably at least carrots and beets, maybe potatoes as well. The community garden always has an excess supply of greens.

Interpersonal Relations
In 2015, I believe I advanced more in this area with regards in interacting with others. As someone who tends much more to the introverted side, I occasionally can have issues dealing with others (relating to others, overconfidence, mediocre conversationalist etc.). Living and working in close proximity helped a lot in this regard in allowing for experimenting and practicing new ways of interacting with others. This should continue to improve going forward.

My job(s) also help with this too and will only continue to do so. So far, I have led over 900 guests in the time I have been up here. I have dealt with a large variety of people from all places on the globe and don't recall any negative experiences. Most of the people leave extremely satisfied. My new job as wilderness therapy will likely help even more so. Living in extremely close proximity with troubled youth (mainly from a native background as well) should provide for tremendous growth, and at a much faster rate, than what I am experiencing currently.

Outdoor Competence
I aim to achieve more than I have in years past, especially last year. What does this mean? In essence, a lot more trips and trips that are longer and more challenging than what I've done previously. I want to dramatically improve my skills at travelling through wild landscapes both on foot and by boat. The only way to do that is get out as much as possible. I have a list of trips (both multi-day and challenging day trips) of things I want to do/accomplish this year. I aim to have it done, and hopefully much more, by the end of August. The trips are all in this area.

Books
This year I plan once again to top 100 books. My primary focus this year is on economics and investments. I would like to be much more educated financially than I am at the moment. I'll be reading much of the financial related books on the wiki list, books Jacob recommended on the blog and some from the forum. Here's some reading material for February:
Image

I also will continue reading material related to improving interpersonal relations. These will include topics on envy, empathy and communication among other things.

It should be a good year!

Here is a picture I took from a nearby area last week. While we may not have much light in this area, the light we do have is beautiful. The sun comes back in 7 days!!!
Image

theanimal
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by theanimal »

Well the month is basically over and I'm not buying anything in the next few days, so time for an update.

I was pretty upset with my spending this month. I felt like it was much more than it should have been but I've been thinking about it and realize that maybe I need to take it easy a little bit...

Spending for the month: $226
Savings rate-90%

If I feel like it's a bad month and I'm still getting a 90% savings rate and spending a couple hundred dollars maybe things aren't all that bad. The bulk of that spending is on a plane ticket for training at my new additional job in March.

It has finally hit me how much harder I am making it on myself, with regards to amassing financial assets, in a low income job. Sure, I realized before that it would take longer but it has now finally sunk in. Still contemplating what should be done about this and where to go from here. I'm finishing my CDL soon and that should get me a 50% boost in pay. I would still be on the low end of the scale. Decisions, decisions... There’s not much more I can do in my current job expense wise. I can consistently achieve 90+%. Now it’s time to find a way to either increase income or just wait patiently..very patiently. I feel like a kid who can’t get dessert until he finishes his homework. The dessert is within reach. The only catch is that the homework takes 4-6 years. Oh well, it’s definitely worth it.

I have also realized how much more antifragile I am with two jobs. If one dries up, I still have the other. My current boss loves me and seems afraid that I'll run away to the other job. It feels like I have a little more power, but I get how that could also be a bad thing job wise.

In other news, the sun is back! How great it is to see the sun light up entire mountains, the valley floor and the trees. It's such a beautiful sight. It's not up above the mountains for much more than 30 min a day still, but in just a week or so it'll be high enough to be up for hours!!

It's incredibly warm here. 32 degrees ABOVE zero farenheit yesterday. 30 above again today. T-shirt weather (not a joke)! In the middle to the end of January, the average high daily temperature for this region is anywhere from -25 below F at the higher end to -65 below. The temperature has been hovering between -10 F to 5 above the past few weeks. Very warm for this area.

I've found a way to take better photos of the aurora. This shot below is from a couple weeks ago, looking to the west (not north!). The aurora is better than any show I've ever seen. And I get paid to watch it. 8-)

Image

El Duderino
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by El Duderino »

wow, looks amazing! Glad to see you're doing great, man. Really enjoy reading your posts.

Those are some pretty hefty textbooks you've got there. I started with A Random Walk this week, but maybe eventually I'll get to that level of study.

theanimal
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by theanimal »

@Dude Thanks! I'm really trying to challenge myself and up my knowledge about economics and investing this year. Those books are a part of that.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No real big changes in February. Another month with a >90% savings rate. This month was 94%. Half my spending was on a fancy tarp that I'll use in my new job and the other half was essentially all books. Not bad.

One new development is that I spent quite a bit of time this past month with my much neglected ukulele. About an hour every day for ~5 days a week. I have a huge song book and have been playing around with many of those. I am able to play the beginner songs fairly fluidly. Intermediate at a choppy rate and advanced, very slowly and choppy. Steadily improving though. I have the hardest time with changing chords, but that keeps improving with more practice.

This weekend I leave for training for the wilderness therapy field guide job. I'll be missing the busy season at my current job and the best time of winter for outdoor activities. Missing the latter doesn't make me very happy, as I've formed quite the bond with this area. I've never felt more at home anywhere else. The training is short though and this should give me experience that I'm looking for, while also being fairly rewarding.

I have thought up a somewhat new strategy that I'd like to pursue going forward. That is the intermittent work style of ERE with a larger number of income sources. I heartily admire the lifestyle strategies of some of the members on this forum who follow such a practice like Riparian, 7wb5 and Ego among others. It seems much more antifragile to me and much more of the core essence of ERE than the more popular methods. I have a few thoughts of how I would implement this in my current rural and remote setting. Some of my plan relies on being able to acquire some property here within the next year, as this is where I would like to be for the indefinite future. I'd plan on setting up my home or building another structure on my property and rent the space to tourists to the area during the busy season here(current lodging accommodations are sold out in specific seasons). I think that I'd also continue my current job in a much more limited capacity, either something like just a couple days a week or a few specific weeks throughout the year at the busier times. Some type of outdoor guiding job for a ~3 weeks of the year, whether it be something I start myself or through an organization like NOLS. This is all I've really come up with so far. Gaining passive income from financial investments would help as well and add another source. Ideally, I'd like to have between 4-5 sources of income, yet only working 3-4 months of the year. If anyone has suggestions or critiques, my ears are wide open.

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

If you do anything dependent on tourists figure out how to own TripAdvisor. Every time I travel now I use TripAdvisor for almost all my decisions.

nitelight
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by nitelight »

epic saving rate!

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Ego
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by Ego »

Alaskan Skills Academy?

There is a well developed model in the yoga world where people come for a few weeks for a retreat to learn specific elements of yoga. Here is a good example of a place that is extremely successful at it. I would guess they are bringing in more than a million dollars a year in revenue. Probably closer to two.

http://www.theyogabarn.com/schedule.html

The way they do it is rather interesting. They break down the core elements of the yoga practice into tiny bits, then teach programs revolving around each bit.

You are living a life (lifestyle) that many people dream about. You are learning new skills the hard way by trial and error. People willingly pay good money to bypass the hard way and have someone teach them. I bet you'd be good at it.

theanimal
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by theanimal »

GdP and nitelight- Thanks!
Ego- Thanks for the info. That looks interesting. I'm not entirely sure what'd I'd offer, but certainly something to think about.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The month of March was somewhat interesting. I left for the wilderness therapy training in the second week of March. All was going well, but something felt off. I felt like I was overcommitted and didn’t like the thought of continuously travelling back and forth about 800 miles at separate points throughout the year. So I quit. There were great people and what seemed like a great job, but this doesn’t appear to be the right time. I came back to the Arctic and have been here since.

March is the busiest time of year here. Chinese students on spring break flock to northern Alaska to watch the aurora. I was working long hours by choice and have enjoyed some great auroras recently, especially the past two nights. Things have dwindled down here and I just finished my last tour until the summer season begins in mid May. My bosses were relieved to have me come back; they wouldn’t have been able to get through the month of March without me. Both they and I know that I am a highly valuable asset to this company.

I’ll be finishing up my CDL training in the next couple weeks. I was given a raise yesterday and I was able to renegotiate it higher and given another raise today. I don’t feel as if I asked for enough, but oh well. I plan to ask for another one later this year. With tips included, it ends up being fairly substantial. A 56% raise. So all things considered, I am fairly pleased with the result.

In other news, I’ve been planning to have a garden here this summer and have been making progress on that. A couple of friends wanted to help out, so they will be pitching in. I’ll post more in the garden log thread but we’ll have 3 3’x8’ raised beds growing Yukon gold potatoes, beets, cabbages, carrots, broccoli, greens, beans, sugar snap peas, turnips and flowers among other things. Seeds will be started inside and likely will go in the dirt about 1 month from now.

Also, I paid off my biggest and highest interest bearing student loan in March! There’s a little bit left now that’s at 3%. I’ll be paying that off more slowly than what I had been doing previously, with the aim to have everything paid off by the end of next year. Savings rate for March was down a bit with travel and increased living expenses. Savings rate around 73%. April will be back in the 90s. Savings rate for the first quarter of 2016 ended up at ~85%.

Kriegsspiel
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by Kriegsspiel »

theanimal wrote: Interpersonal Relations
In 2015, I believe I advanced more in this area with regards in interacting with others. As someone who tends much more to the introverted side, I occasionally can have issues dealing with others (relating to others, overconfidence, mediocre conversationalist etc.). Living and working in close proximity helped a lot in this regard in allowing for experimenting and practicing new ways of interacting with others. This should continue to improve going forward.

My job(s) also help with this too and will only continue to do so. So far, I have led over 900 guests in the time I have been up here. I have dealt with a large variety of people from all places on the globe and don't recall any negative experiences. Most of the people leave extremely satisfied. My new job as wilderness therapy will likely help even more so. Living in extremely close proximity with troubled youth (mainly from a native background as well) should provide for tremendous growth, and at a much faster rate, than what I am experiencing currently.
That's great man, very cool. Any hot ladies running around up there? Well, either way, contact with people is great. As they say, No man is an island, but every man has a peninsula.

theanimal
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by theanimal »

Kriegsspiel- There sure are. In total, there are 14 women in the area. 6 of the 14 are very attractive. 10 of the 14 are in a relationship. 2 of the 14 are children. 1 of the 14 is a lesbian. Leaving 1 single woman, who I have no interest in. The Arctic is no place for a single bachelor :lol: .

There's a popular saying in Alaska with regards to women seeking men: "The odds are good, but the goods are odd."`As long as I keep my sanity and hygiene up to decent standards, I'll at least have a leg up on all the odd ones. But women are few and far between.

theanimal
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by theanimal »

I was going through my finances for the year and categorized some of my expenses. Work related expenses are the highest, with that being the bulk of my spending. Most of that is a result of travelling to and from the wilderness therapy job, rent for the house I shared there and any equipment purchased for that job. That being said, it doesn't amount to very much. Barely over $1k. Still way more than ideal obviously for what amounted to just over a week. But that will not be budging by more than $20 for the rest of the year. My non-work related expenses are slightly over $300 for the first 4 ish months. 75% of that is or is related to books. I'm fairly pleased with this. I don't anticipate any major percentage changes through the rest of the year. I'll likely be purchasing a rifle in the next two weeks, but it'll be used and I think I can get one for a fairly decent price. That will (most likely) be my biggest expense for the rest of this year. Total expenses under $2k would be nice. Not sure if that'll happen this year, might have to settle for 2.5k

nitelight
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Re: the animal's journal

Post by nitelight »

Rock on! Awesome work with savings. Very inspiring!

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