The Journal of Just A Guy, Really

[JustAGuyReally]

Hi All,

Age: 27

Personality Type: ???

Savings/Pension: $52,500 ($45,000 in savings/checking account)

Student Loans: $8,050

Goals: Move abroad "permanently" . . . Teach ESL/pursue anthropological interests. I can live a comfortable lifestyle in SE Asia for around $10,000 a year.

Wanted to remove details. Upon reading through again, felt they were too personal. Still look forward to posting here, though! Thanks.

[Frugalchicos]

Hi there,

Good luck on your journey.

Hey, have you ever thought about teaching ESL in Europe? cost of living is fairly lower compared to the US and you would probably have free health insurance for your medication. I know it is not SE Asia, but...it is an option.

Also, is there any particular ESL course you were thinking in doing? I am also thinking in doing it myself and work as an English teacher back in Europe once I become FI/ERE (I am European and English is my second/third language). I find rewarding teaching and helping people.

Cheers,

Frugal Chico

[JustAGuyReally]

Thanks for reading, Frugal Chico, and thanks, too, for wishing me luck!

I don't have much interest in living in Europe, but I wouldn't rule it out in the future.

I did a three week long TEFL course in southern Thailand a couple of years ago. It was fairly rigorous, but we got plenty of classroom practice/observation time, which is what I wanted. I'd suggest doing something like that if you want to understand the basics of classroom management, lesson planning, etc.

Edited to remove personal details

[Frugalchicos]

This sentence is pretty much the key: "I'll have enough saved to "do whatever I want" for work"

I will do a cheap course online at the end of this year and start teaching to some friends and relatives over Skype. And I will probably do a course with classroom practice once I am ready to move.

Good Luck!!

[Stahlmann]

...
cost of living is fairly lower compared to the US and you would probably have free health insurance for your medication. I know it is not SE Asia, but...it is an option.
...

In which country and in what kind of livestyle arrangements? I am asking rather in terms of curiosity

Car/van living is not an option in most developed countries (Western Europe)

[Jason]

To quote Bon Jovi (another man who went far despite a bad organ) you're half way there.

In all seriousness, I admire your hope and perseverance.

But I have to ask, does this whole Asian obsession have anything to do with chicks? I tend to project but I had to ask.

[JustAGuyReally]

This sentence is pretty much the key: "I'll have enough saved to "do whatever I want" for work"

I will do a cheap course online at the end of this year and start teaching to some friends and relatives over Skype. And I will probably do a course with classroom practice once I am ready to move.

Good Luck!!

Appreciate the encouragement, F.C.!

To quote Bon Jovi (another man who went far despite a bad organ) you're half way there.

In all seriousness, I admire your hope and perseverance.

But I have to ask, does this whole Asian obsession have anything to do with chicks? I tend to project but I had to ask.

Thanks for the kind words, Jason. Much appreciated.

I'm surprised how "easy" it has been once I learned about this mindset and committed to saving. I'm a fairly frugal person by nature, and, when I was broke 15 months ago, I vowed to myself that I'd never be broke again. Too stressful for me.

Edited to remove personal details

[Jason]

I'm more interested in sociology than anthropology although I have read The Nuer by Evans-Pritchard which I'm guessing you have memorized. I drive around a lot and have been conducting my own studies. I'm actually thinking of writing a paper: "Paradox Found: Field Studies Demonstrating Higher Quality Asses in Lower Income Neighborhoods." Harvard Press type of thing.

[JustAGuyReally]

^Ha ha! I bet you cover a lot of ground as a real estate agent. Is selling houses all about the women?

[Frugalchicos]

...
cost of living is fairly lower compared to the US and you would probably have free health insurance for your medication. I know it is not SE Asia, but...it is an option.
...

In which country and in what kind of livestyle arrangements? I am asking rather in terms of curiosity

Car/van living is not an option in most developed countries (Western Europe)

Hi Stahlman,

I was mostly referring to South Europe (Portugal, Spain, Some places in France, Italy, Greece...) not the cities, but in towns or smaller/secondary cities.

I am not sure about the van situation, but France has amazing campings were you could spend the night.

[JustAGuyReally]

Hey everyone,

A quick update from me, as well as a call for some investment advice . . .

Savings/Checking: $82,082

Pension: $16,976

Student Loans: $6,025

I was incorrectly tracking my employer's contribution to my pension, and thought that I had surpassed my 'long-term' savings goal of assets exceeding $100,000. Damn. I'm close, though, and I'll hit it in early January.

I discovered what 'vesting' was this year, and that my employer's contribution to my pension vests at 5 years of service. At time of this writing, I've got 26 months to go until I hit 5 years. If I hit the road again 2 weeks from now, I'd stand to lose approximately $8,000. That's a big hit for someone who only makes $17/hr.

Can I make it another 26 months?

I'm not sure.

More often than not, I find myself Googling "How many days until February XX, 2021?" to see how many days I've got left. Increasingly, I've also begun to play around with hypothetical investment scenarios on various online compound interest calculators to see where I stand.

What I find is that even if I don't save another dime over the rest of my career, I should end up with around $700,000 invested over a 30 year time-line (at 7%) which would allow for an absolutely lavish lifestyle in various parts of the developing world.

But I've started to feel like $100,000 is a piddly sum and won't give me the buffer I might need/want in the future. Which is funny, because if you'd have asked me 5 years ago what I could do with $100,000 accumulated, I'd have stuttered and looked at you wide-eyed and slack-jawed, my mind racing with all of the things I could accomplish with that kind of money.

I should re-state that I don't plan on stopping working anytime soon. I plan on working for decades, but I've turned to ERE concepts to give me the opportunity to live where I want with rather unique/specific/expensive health circumstances.

At the moment, despite feeling like the job's transformed into more of a daily grind, I plan on sticking it out for the remainder of the 26 months. If I can get to $175,000-$200,000 of net worth, I'll have that much better of a financial foundation in place for when I do enter my next phase.

=
Over the past 3 years, I've spent on average $11,700/year.

Savings rate during the same time period has been between 70-75%.

I spent too much on food this year, I'd like to reduce food-related expenses dramatically in 2019. More canned soups, frozen veggies in the microwave, and eggs, and less Subway, pizza, and overpriced company cafeteria fare.

==
I'd like to start investing this year. I've spent lots of time reading over the past few months about various investing strategies.

So far, for my temperament and investing knowledge, I like index funds the best. Specifically Wellesley or Winston or what have you.

I'm having a hard time finding legitimate criticisms of indexing (excepting doomsday scenarios where we all get punished), but I'm more pessimistic than the "All VSTAX or nothing" crowd. For those who are skeptical about indexing, please jump in and let know where you're at.

If you've got any other investment ideas I should research, please also chime in.

[wolf]

I spent too much on food this year, I'd like to reduce food-related expenses dramatically in 2019. More canned soups, frozen veggies in the microwave, and eggs, and less Subway, pizza, and overpriced company cafeteria fare.

Have you considered a plant-based diet and/or buying and cooking in batches?

[slowtraveler]

I like Wellesley. Golden butterfly is also nice but less stable than Wellesley. Wellesley will give you fomo in a strong bull market.

[JustAGuyReally]

Year-end review:

Current assets: $135,000

Vanguard: $64,000 (85% VTSAX/15% Total Bond Fund)

Ally Savings: $46,000

Retriement/Pension: $25,000

Checking: usually between $100 - $300, saved for absolute dire emergencies, or if I misplace my credit card.

(+ another $2,500 - $4,000 in accumulated pension interest that hasn't been accounted for yet. I'll just add it in when I get my annual statement from the retirement fund. I enjoyed 17.5% of free growth this year! Nice.)

Liabilities:

Student loans: $4,900

Goals for the new year:

-Surpass $200,000 in assets. Hitting a NW that ranges between $200,000 - $250,000 will allow me to 'put money second' in life, so to speak... I'll still have to earn money -- especially if I want a family with a more 'conventional' woman -- but money won't be the dominating feature in my life.

-Lower the amount of cash I've got in my emergency fund, or find more creative ways to earn interest. I'm only getting 1.6% at Ally, down from the 2.1% I was getting when I opened the account in June or July. Anyone got any ideas? I might throw another $15 - $25K into Vanguard.

-If I choose to lower the amount of cash I've got in my Ally savings acct, save up $8K - $15K gradually over the next 14 months to set aside for a possible yearlong or two-year sabbatical.

-Work on lining up a job/career change/sabbatical, so I can leave my job during March-August of 2021. Find a job/career that will pay me more money for less work (especially less physically strenous work), and give me much more time off.

-I've got ambitious financial goals this year given my fairly low hourly wage, but I want to spend less time at work, less time working overtime on short notice, and more time enjoying my life, spending more time doing the things that are truly important to me, finding ways to savor the life that I've got, as tomorrow is never, ever promised.

-I don't have many physical possessions as it is, but I want to continue to philosophically ponder the value of physical possessions/goods (crap) in my life. The simpler/sparser my life is, the happier I seem to be. Toss out old clothes, donate books that I don't get re-read value from (or aren't absolute favorites), etc.

Ok, I don't have many things, except for my music collection.

I love the process of chasing the next exciting sound or finding something I've never seen before, and wondering if its the next disc or tape that'll leave me slackjawed and head nodding. This process brings me a lot of happiness and pleasure.

Because I am purposely seeking out sounds that are neglected and unknown, I'm not spending $100s of dollars on coveted private press vinyl records or on collectible sets, etc. I'm usually spending a quarter or $1 per disc or tape, so I can buy alot without having to put a dent in my pocketbook.

Problem is, I have shoeboxes of CDs containing mostly mediocre music sitting around my room... Some of this stuff might be worthy money... Eventually. Do I keep it at a family member's storage unit, or do I re-donate this stuff?

Funny as it sounds, developing a sensible philosophy that answers this question will be big for me in 2020.

-Consider tracking expenses so that I can maximize savings in attempt to get as close to (or surpass) $200K as possible. In the past, I haven't tracked expenses because I was usually poor and jobless and only had the necessary bills and food. Now that I've got some cash, I spend quite a bit of money on food(I HATE cooking and cleaning up), but I wonder if I should just let it ride and do what I've been doing since I started saving back in 2016, or if I should add FI-approved budget-making and expenses tracking to my arsenal.

Hope everyone's doing well out there! I love reading along here, but I just don't feel like I've got much of value to contribute.

[JustAGuyReally]

Hi everyone,

I'm a low level, non-clinical hospital employee. My hospital, which currently has around 15 COVID-positive patients in it, will be reducing my work load to 24/32 hours per week for, uh, the time being. The time being might be two weeks, it might be two months. Or longer. It's finally caught up to us.

You guys already know how the rest of my co-workers are taking this. But I've used some of this quarantine time to work on my copywriting a bit, as well as throw two short stories up on Amazon. I got my first -- and only sale -- last week. 35 cents in royalties! It feels big. I'm gonna use the reduced work load to build the copywriting/Amazon thing up as much as I can. I'd like to make more from writing than I do from my job, just to see if I can do it. Wanna keep growing as a writer, too, taking risks, having fun with it.

My net worth is hovering between $125,000-$128,000, so I'm still $8-10,000 down from my year end net worth.

I haven't gotten my tax refund or stimulus check yet, though, and I'm gonna sign up for that Chase $600 checking account bonus one of these days. So things are still sorta clicking along while the world crashes and burns around me. ERE really is a super power.

I wanted to take a sabbatical or jump into teaching next year (or both). I'm not holding my breath on either actually happening.

[JustAGuyReally]

Hi friends,

Assets: $166,200

The road to FI continues...

Hoping on a sabbatical/career change next year!

Cheers!