arbrk's journal

[arbrk]

Hi guys,

I've read ERE and MMM and Frugalwoods for a long time, but I just realized there was an active forum here a few days ago. I wish things would go back to forums instead of social media so I figured I would participate. Here is my story.

I have always been a frugal person. Growing up, my mom always shopped at scratch and dent stores for appliances, got our furniture from yard sales, and we only shopped at thrift stores for clothes. My parents always had used sedans - my dad always drove 2 door manuals and that worked just fine, even with two kids. You don't need a giant car. They would always marvel about how stupid most people were spending their money - having car payments to have fancy car to show off, buying new clothes for their kids for $30 per shirt from Limited Too that the kid would outgrow or get stained in 6 months or less. So we spent much less than other people, and I never felt deprived - I felt like normal people were f****** idiots. I remember the one time growing up I got new clothes - $15 dollars for sparkly green jeans from KMart. I never wore them since I was so scared of getting them dirty - so my mom never bought me a new clothing item again since the one time she did "I never wore it". However, my parents are hoarders and we shopped A LOT. Going to the thrift store to see what was there happened multiple times a week. Our house was totally full of stuff, with little pathways to get around, the dining table completely covered with stuff, and so on.

I dropped out of high school when I was 15 and started going to community college part time and working part time. My parents let me do whatever I want, so I started going to college radio parties and spent a lot of my time ages 16-18 at my boyfriend's house, living like an adult, working and going to school. When I was 17, I bought my first car (2008 Toyota Yaris) from craigslist for $8000 I had saved my job.

I moved out when I was 18 and got an apartment. My grandmother had left my some money for college, which was enough to cover state school (8k a year) plus some living expenses. I had a part time job as a nanny (full time in the summer). My parents basically let me manage the money myself, and just let me know, this is my money to do what I want with, but there was no more coming from them and they also wouldn't co-sign any loans. I went to school for Special Education and finished at 20. I started teaching high school at 21, making a little less than 40k.

I saved about half my money, and lived in a 3br rowhome with a roommate for $1000 between both of us. Shortly after turning 22, I bought the house from my landlord for 85k. The mortgage is around $700 a month. So it was cheaper than renting, and I got a FHA loan, so I only had to put 3.5% down and got help with closing costs through a grant from the city for teachers. Shortly after this, my roommate moved out and my girlfriend at the time moved in with me. She was a software engineering graduate student. She learned about early retirement and hipped me to it. We started being very, very frugal. I was already pretty frugal. But we started doing things like getting a chest freezer and buying in bulk, not getting drinks when we went out to dinner with friends, eating out only once or twice a month.

She graduated and got a job as a software engineer. Around the same time, I got pretty sick with an autoimmune disorder. Rheumatoid arthritis made it very painful to walk, especially in the morning. I also had thyroid issues and was tired and felt like I was on the verge of passing out all the time. There was no reason I got this. I was very healthy - I was a vegan at the time and we went hiking every weekend. One of my splurges was a $65 gym membership and I went three days a week. Anyone can become disabled at any time. So I could not really do my job as a teacher very well, because standing and walking all day was quite painful, and I was very tired. At the same time, I saw my girlfriend making over a 100k as a software engineer, and I knew she was not any smarter than me. Additionally, to retain my teacher's license in my state, I would have to go to grad school (30k) and pay for it myself, while working full time, and at the end of paying 30k for it, they might give me a 2k raise. So it would take 15 years to break even. And going to grad school while working full time, and already being pretty sick was not a very good option.

Luckily I had saved half my money, and since I owned a very a cheap house, my housing expenses were very low. So I quit my teaching and started grad school for software engineering. This was expensive (private school) but it was worth it because after graduating, I got a job paying over 100k more than my teaching job. In the meantime, in grad school, I broke up with my girlfriend, because she was horrible to me, and crashed my Yaris on the way to my friend's mom's funeral. Not having a car sucked for me, so I replaced it with a 1998 Volvo wagon for $1500, which I registered as Historic and therefore got very cheap car insurance on. I love my Volvo and will never get rid of it.

After finishing grad school, I moved to Los Angeles, which is much more expensive. I kept my house and rented it to friends for a little bit more than the mortgage. Los Angeles was a lot more expensive, and I started dating another software engineer who encouraged me to spend more money. I'm not easily influenced by the group of people in the world in general, but I am easily influenced by people who I trust and see being successful. So unfortunately, the past three years, I have spent quite a bit more money than I needed to on smoking, shopping, dining out, and housing expenses. There were some other entirely justifiable expenses like redoing the subfloor of my rental home when there was a leak that ruined it, reroofing the roof of my rental home when there was a leak, new water heater, emergency vet for my elderly dog, expensive last minute flights back home to the other side of the country when my dad was in the hospital, and an airbnb near my mom to help her empty her hoarder house and move closer to my sister after my dad died. In my opinion, that stuff was all expensive, but That Is What Money Is For. To get rid of stress under emergency conditions or conditions that would otherwise be bigger problems that can be solved with money.

About a year after my dad died, I received a settlement from a wrongful death suit we brought against the hospital. It is a lot of money, but still less than my ex-boyfriend who is a software engineer manager at a big tech company makes in a year. Technically, I could RE right now if I went back to my house in my hometown. I know I can live quite happily for less than 20k a year there.

However, instead of doing that, I just bought a house in Los Angeles. I used part of the settlement for the down payment.

This post is getting really long, so I will end it here and justify my decision to buy a house in another post.

[mathiverse]

Welcome! Looking forward to reading!

[AxelHeyst]

Thanks for sharing your story and welcome! Looking forward to hearing your thought processes.

[arbrk]

Thanks guys! Hope to see you around! Started reading other people's journals but not quite sure how to jump into discussion yet. Seems like everyone here knows one another for a long time!

Anyway, to continue my story, I realize "I grew up with the idea that the standard American mindset is stupid, and wrong, then made a few good early decisions like buying a cheap house, and then unexpectedly got a giant windfall" isn't the usual story or the cute story everyone likes of "I did it, and so can everyone else!" But that's not what happened. A large windfall is certainly nice to have, but I would definitely rather have saved ruthlessly, gotten a promotion, sat through a few stupid systems designs interviews and got the money myself rather than having a hospital grossly mismanage my dad's healthcare to the point where he died. Nevertheless, here we are.

So, even though I could go back and basically stop working (or only do work when I felt like it), that's not super appealing. Number one, my boyfriend doesn't want to go back. Otherwise, I might consider it. Number two, it's a small town. There are only 2 or 3 things to do, and you see the same people doing all of them. And now it's kind of depressing, because while it used to be fun to go to the 2 or 3 spots around and be guaranteed to run into friends, now it's going to those spots and seeing the same people, who are now in their mid thirties and alcoholics. Plus, a lot of the people I was friends with moved away, and now it's mostly acquaintances. And my mom moved away from the area when my dad died, so I don't have family there anymore, either.

Instead, I bought a house where I currently live at a probate sale. I got a good deal, as far as I'm concerned, and it's THE HOUSE, a house I will never have to move away from until I die. And I think me and my boyfriend can pay it off in seven years, then we can go do whatever we want and exit the rat race. If we want to stay here in LA, it is better to buy a house and pay it off. It fixes our expenses forever, and rent will only keep going up. Once we pay it off, we will be paying less (just property taxes and insurance) for a big old Craftsman than we would for a crappy box apartment. Plus, if we change our minds, we will have already fixed it up, and we can sell it for more than I paid (houses that are flipped with crappy finishes and gross, cool-toned laminate floor are going for 250-400k more than I paid), and then go back home or somewhere else cheaper.

It is in mostly good condition - there are only a few things we will need to do. The previous owner lived in it 30 years and was in the process of restoring it. She was on the historical preservation committee, never married or had kids, and was just chilling and slowly restoring the house herself. So me and my boyfriend will now take that up and finish her project.

The challenge of the next few months will be getting my boyfriend to budget. He makes a good salary but he spends it. But, he is a great cook, knows how to get a good deal on furniture and restore it, knows how to work on our (old ass) cars, great at DIYing. So he has a good skillset, he just likes to go out and spend money. I'll take the compromise, because my last girlfriend I lived with had so much money and was so cheap to the point of being insulting. Like, when we bought groceries, she would take the $20 out of the total for my dog's food and put it on my side of the spreadsheet we used to track expenses - even though she was making over 100k (and I was in grad school making nothing) and splitting my mortgage with me, so her rent was $350 instead of the $1000 for a studio apartment she was paying previously. I will rather deal with a generous person who overspends than someone who is so miserly as that. Plus, I would rather work forever if it means being with my man, than to be without him.

As far as house news, we got a nice D-Scan teak table with 4 Moeller back chairs from facebook marketplace for $400, and got 2 giant teak mirrors that were part of the set thrown in for free. Each mirror alone is probably worth $400. The chairs are in good shape, the table is in rough shape to the point it won't even be able to be restored to mint with sanding. But the chairs are so cute, and the table was clearly damaged by kids. We're going to have kids in a few years, so it's a little bit of a relief to get something and not have to cry if kids mess it up, cause kids have already messed it up. But it will still look pretty nice with some sanding and teak oil.

[arbrk]

Haven't updated because I've been busy on the house!

First thing we did was redo the floors ourselves. It looks like the previous owner did the living room and dining room but the bedroom were in rough shape. With tool rental, sanding supplies and ordering postmates/doordash because we were too busy doing this on the weekends and after work to cook, the cost was $3741. We totally messed up the first time and had to sand it back down after adding poly to one bedroom, go back and rent the sander again, and it sucked. But not as bad as paying someone to do it, and having THEM mess up and have to argue with them to come back and fix it.

Now, there is a pipe that is not one the correct grade. So I can't poop in the toilet right now. We had to root the main line out of the house twice, once ourselves by renting the tool at home depot and once from roto rooter, which they could not offer a warranty on because the pipe grading is bad and it will back up again. Sure enough, days later, after I scheduled the plumber to come actually fix the problem, but before they actually came, it backed up again. I have been pooping at the library yesterday and today, and the plumber will be here soon. That will be $3600.

Next, the house needs to be tented for termites...once again at a cost of $3600. I budgeted $10,000 for initial repairs because I bought a 110 year old house that has been sitting empty for a year with no contingencies. When it goes down in YNAB, I add more to top it up from my paycheck when it comes in.

I signed up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred and I've met the minimum spend. I am waiting for the 80k points to hit my chase account. I signed up for Hilton Honors Business card with 150k points and 1 free night with a 4k spend within the first three months. They were unfortunately unable to expedite the card so I can't put the plumbing on this today. I also signed up for Chase Business Ink Preferred with 100k points with a 15k spend in 3 months. I am going to see if they can overnight it and if the plumbers will let me pay them tomorrow on this card. I am hoping to reach the bonus spend with termite fumigation, tools for the house like ladders, weed wacker, and painting supplies, and parts for my 1998 Volvo that need help, and some big CostCo trips to stock the house after fumigation. If I can't meet the spend, I plan to do things that need to be done on the house that I would otherwise put off, like screens for the windows, fixing windows that need work, or possibly even painting the house (which the termite people say is how you prevent termites from getting back in), getting new glasses (which will be reimbursed by insurance), going to the dentist (reimbursed by insurance) and so on.

My man is on board for early retirement and paying off the mortgage but he sure loves to spend money and isn't interested in playing the credit card game...he is already annoyed about me talking about the credit card game and how we can go to Italy or Vietnam first class on points. He is the one who wants to travel (I don't hugely care for it and definitely not paying for it) but doesn't want to play the game and sign up for cards.

WHERE IS THE FRUGALITY IN ALL OF THIS? Well, just getting a house that can eventually be paid off and just paying property taxes and insurance at that time. And traveling cheaply and in style with credit card points before having a kid. It's not really frugal but it's my life right now.

I've been paying an extra $2500 toward the house principal every month. According to a calculator online, this will allow me to pay off the house by 2035 instead of in 30 years. My man is currently putting additional savings aside so he can make a big (10-20k) payment on the house once we get married.

I also called a woman who does estate planning (she was recommended by the previous owner's friend as the one who did the probate stuff after the previous owner died) and she charges $475 an hour to set up a living trust, and says it typically takes 7 hours. I don't know if there is some way to do this myself because that's another 3k right now. But I need a will.

[Chris]

My man is on board for early retirement and paying off the mortgage but he sure loves to spend money and isn't interested in playing the credit card game...he is already annoyed about me talking about the credit card game and how we can go to Italy or Vietnam first class on points. He is the one who wants to travel (I don't hugely care for it and definitely not paying for it) but doesn't want to play the game and sign up for cards.

This is bewildering to me... or maybe I just like games too much. You're in the perfect position to meet minimum spend on multiple cards (not easy for ERE folks), and you want to redeem for travel, which is usually offers the most beneficial redemption rates. Plus with two of you, you can take advantage of referrals.

Maybe there's some other motivation that would get him interested? Like "status" given by hotel co-brand cards, or airport lounge access?

[arbrk]

This is bewildering to me... or maybe I just like games too much. You're in the perfect position to meet minimum spend on multiple cards (not easy for ERE folks), and you want to redeem for travel, which is usually offers the most beneficial redemption rates. Plus with two of you, you can take advantage of referrals.

Maybe there's some other motivation that would get him interested? Like "status" given by hotel co-brand cards, or airport lounge access?

It's because he racked up credit card debt in the past and I think he is scared of credit cards. He feels like he is just getting out of that debt and doesn't want to get back into it. I am not scared because I've played the game before and come out way ahead - one or two times I had too much shit going at once and missed a payment here or there (like once a year), but even then, I always called the bank and they always refunded the late payment fee and also the interest. I'm somewhat getting around his unwillingness by signing up for more cards myself and handing them to him for any big expenses of his (car parts) and then having him immediately write me a check. It's annoying he doesn't even want to hear about it because I am so excited. I will probably just end up booking the vacation and telling him what we are doing.

I will say, churning is definitely a hobby. If you don't like counting and playing games, then it's not for you.

[arbrk]

Jesus Christ, I am having so much trouble focusing at work. I did nothing the past few days. I have been doing this for months. Nobody seems to notice. Everyone seems to be focused only on what they themselves are doing or not doing, even my manager. Just don't get in anyone's way. I don't particularly enjoy feeling like I'm getting nothing done and have no guidance. My manager seems to have issues organizing people or telling them what to do. I have directly told her leading is part of leadership but she doesn't seem to get it. Everyone in the management chain seems to have never understood this concept from Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot:

“Whether the best or the worst in men emerges as they face crises together
swings on the quality of leadership available to them. I say “leadership available to them”
because people in true crises usually beg for leadership—seldom is it a case of some
authoritarian master imposing it on them. Although conventional wisdom has it that
the human condition is optimized when each individual has a maximum of autonomy,
when true crisis prevails, when life really gets chaotic, when the dividing line
between good and evil ceases to be clear-cut, when no consensus exists as
to what is the right and what is the wrong thing to do, people demand to be
led, regimented, and guided. The neophyte senior spending his first month
in a cell block, grasping after a fashion the great dilemmas of human choice
on every hand, typically launched his career of giving prison orders by
whispering under his door something like, “In this situation where we’re
being forced to do things against our will, all I can ask is that you do what
you think best.” About two days later, said senior would be accosted by
juniors with outrage: “You have no right to dump these decisions in our
individual laps; we deserve to live in a sensible society in which we have
some idea about what is considered unavoidable and what is considered
totally repugnant. Tell us just exactly what specific enemy demands you want
us to refuse and take torture for. It is not fair for you to proclaim that all
should try to do good; you owe it to us to set down rules of behavior and
tell us just exactly what the good is.”


Excerpt FromThoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot
James B. Stockdale

It feels like a crisis to everyone in the tech industry (even though it's a routine crisis) and we want to feel we have some leadership and someone paying attention to what we do and believing in what we're doing and building, not just someone running around being a yes man to the next boss up and saying whatever will make them happy. At least that's how I feel. "Everyone do what you think you should" is no way to work on a team.

[arbrk]

Back after the 4th of July and I keep hearing from everyone, Oh I hate America.

Maybe it's because I just read Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, but America right now seems pretty great to me. Sure, some of the predictions in those books literally did come true (Did Trump's team lift "Make America Great Again" straight from the president's mouth in that text?) but I am extremely happy that if I see a junky on the street overdosing, I can still call 911 and an ambulance will come pick the person up and try to save them, no matter how poor they are. I don't have to live in walled neighborhood and take a nightly patrol with a gun. I could call a fire truck and expect it to come basically anywhere in the country. There was not that much fiction in those books - a lot of the conditions described are just how it is in many parts of the world.

After reading those, one thing that really bothers me is how much people describe a job as slavery. It is not even remotely like slavery to have a job. You can leave and go somewhere else and they can't stop you. You can do like Jacob, and reduce your expenses to an extreme and if you don't have the capital to not work at all, take gigs or part time and leave any time or switch. Not being able to do literally whatever you want at all times, and sometimes or often have to do stuff that is mildly unpleasant and unenjoyable, is not like slavery at all. We aren't living in company towns with company currency trapped in debt we are forced to take on. Most people with a lot of debt have trapped themselves. Very poor people haven't, who are forced to take on debt to get a car to drive to a job, to pay for groceries, to pay for a place to live - that is hopeless. But most people have trapped themselves in a lifestyle - not in survival.

[Chris]

Back after the 4th of July and I keep hearing from everyone, Oh I hate America.

Maybe it's because I just read Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, but America right now seems pretty great to me.

I think I'm now old enough to say, "kids don't know how good they have it!".

Sure, as a teenager, it's typical to hate America, because teenagers hate everything. But then you grow out of it. As you travel and meet people, you learn that no, life a suburban American teen life is pretty great compared to many other parts of the world, or almost any other time in history. This understanding seems to be happening less. On the other end of the age spectrum, you have grumpy old people who now have access to social media, which they use to grump effect. And then externally, there are the malevolently well-informed non-Americans who freely share their opinions. JJ posted a recent video on this last one.

After reading those, one thing that really bothers me is how much people describe a job as slavery. It is not even remotely like slavery to have a job.

Yeah, I find the term to be extremely unpleasant. And I'm kind of surprised that in this age of hypersensitivity around word choices, it's still acceptable to compare yourself to someone born into bondage, while being paid to sit a safe in air conditioned space that you can leave at any time without being beaten or killed.

Taking a more charitable view, perhaps these people just haven't realized the agency they do have over their own lives. For millennials and younger, they've been passed from one institution to another until age 22+. They've not had to make important free choices. "Pick a university from this list" and "select a major from that list" are pretty incremental choices. After that, the so-called wage slave job is accepted from whatever company hired them out of the school job fair. They haven't really exercised their agency muscle ever.

Interestingly, I've found that that people who started working earlier in life (in trades, or agriculture) are less likely to use the term "wage slave", despite their job being actual physical labor.