lilac's journal

[Tyler9000]

The husband has decided to try and curb the lunches out. It's a running theme so I'm not holding my breath that things will be a lot different next year. Trying to cut down on eating out has been our major issue since before we got married.

I ate out for lunch every day most of my career up until two years ago. It was an ongoing issue for us as well. Frankly, it makes me cringe today thinking of how wasteful it was. What pushed me over the edge towards bringing my own lunch was a commitment to minimizing expenses for the early retirement goal, but other benefits have sustained it. Here's how I've made it work:

1) I never pack lunch the day before. I simply keep enough sandwich supplies in the work fridge where I can make a meal any moment I think of it with no pre-planning required.

2) I realized one day that I ate out every day not because I really loved the food, but because I just needed to get away. So I don't deprive myself of that. Sometimes I drive home for lunch. Sometimes I go to a nearby park. Sometimes I just eat in my car. With that routine, I don't mind my homemade food at all.

3) I allow myself to eat out once a week. Interestingly, over time my tolerance for certain restaurant food dropped after I stopped eating it so often, so my tastes have changed and sometimes I don't even go that one time. I've definitely lost a few pounds in the process, which is a good reminder that the benefit is more than financial.

4) When others invite me out, I always say "yes". This is fine at my current company, as that request is mostly rare. If coworkers went out every day, I'd probably limit it to the once a week rule. But I make it a point to not be completely anti-social even if it costs a few dollars.

Today, I'm a reformed lunch eater who wouldn't go back.

[George the original one]

> Today, I'm a reformed lunch eater who wouldn't go back.

I mostly am, but we have 15+ very tempting food carts across the street from my work building and sometimes I just give in to the flavor variations. I'm going to miss that slice of food culture when I retire!

[lilacorchid]

All great suggestions, but I'm not sure if any of them work. He takes our only vehicle to work and uses it to get from jobsite to jobsite all over the city (hence the extra vehicle expenses this year). He's currently working construction in brand new buildings... no fridge or microwave on the job site. I walk home from work for lunch so I never think about what I'm going to make until I get home. (Lots of days are cereal for me, ha ha!) I'm terrible about packing lunches too... my work/home location is just set up that I'm rewarded with a walk and a bowl of cereal, not punished!

I am pretty sure that he goes out to get off the jobsite as he could eat in our car during the summer months. I may mention that to him to put the thought in his head if this discussion comes up again. I don't know if he ever really thinks he will stop working, so it's not like he is working toward something... more like he's drifting toward it because he is hitched to my boat.

P.S. @jenny - The countdown app gets opened at work quite frequently. I can't believe I'm almost ten percent of the way there!

[lilacorchid]

900 days left!!! I can't believe how fast 100 days went while feeling like they were taking forever, ha ha. And the markets rallied a bit and we reached our first investment goal!!!

[GandK]

Congratulations!

[lilacorchid]

Tomorrow is my birthday (DAY 880)! Today I write the post.

Update on tyke: Will use bathroom almost entirely by himself. Still needs occasional help, but this is a huge upgrade from diapers and a massive upgrade from cleaning out a small plastic potty.

Life goals from last year:

1. Keep up with sewing and music hobbies - Dropped music due to group breaking up, still sewing
2. Lifestyle adjustment for my health (drop 20-30 lbs as a byproduct) - HAR HAR NOPE
3. Do something fun as a family or couple once a week - also happening occasionally.

Last year's financial goals (added to above) are:

1. Top up RRSP to optimum level - check
2. Cross over into six figures saved up - check (just last week in fact!)
3. Support husband at his final trade level in school - Complete! Helped with #2
4. Get kiddo into cheaper daycare that is even more walkable - Double check.

I managed to go part time for a few months last year on a fabulous project. It's most certainly the crowing achievement of my career at this point. I worked with intelligent, motivated people, and it was WONDERFUL. Where do these people hang out? When can we get together and do something else equally amazing? I feel like a rainbow-shitting unicorn rode through my life and I want it back!

Goals for this year:

1. MOAR FU money. We are in serious downsize mode at work (like 20% over the next 5 years, hopefully people who qualify will retire so the rest of us can keep our jobs...) and I can see the writing on the wall for my industry. I predict cloud computing, which means I will no longer be needed to do diagnosis and hardware repairs on computers. Also, my husband's body is breaking down from the manual labour at his job. Time to start planning, which brings me to...

2. Start looking at the job market/update resume and/or pursue side gig. Side gig may include starting a business or getting (another) trade.

3. Fitness! Seriously, I'm going to be over a hill next year. Kiddo requires less maintenance so I should theoretically have the time do more maintenance on myself.

4. Save all my paycheques. This could be over 50% of our income.

5. Cross something off the "Tee-hee I could never do that!" list. Some ideas would be work at the local radio station, sew some Cosplay and sell it, start a blog or youtube channel, start a cat sitting business, etc.

6. Relax. I am so terrible at this. I think I could use some practice!

Finally, I know it's only 881 days left, but I'm pretty sure I won't make it. Shoot for the moon, land among stars and all that, right? My hard and fast deadline is still four more years away. This gives me a little wiggle room and allows us to save up more and pad the pension before I jet out of there. At that point, I only have to bridge 17 years with my savings before other things start to kick in. This old lady won't be eating catfood after all!

[Tyler9000]

I feel like a rainbow-shitting unicorn rode through my life and I want it back!

Ha! Nice image.

Great update. Very inspirational.

[jennypenny]

Happy Birthday Lilac!

[lilacorchid]

Day 851 -

We have decided to split up our finances, so I highly doubt I will be retired in 851 days. We are still trying to figure out exactly how to split things up and how to pay for everything. (viewtopic.php?f=16&t=5690)

My savings rate will still be around 50% and up to 70%. But, we also split up the savings, which was what I used to calculate my 1000 days. So no more 1000 days. At this rate, I'm looking at another five years. (Shoot me plzkthx)

My feelings about this are complex. The reason we are separating finances is so he can learn manage his own money which is great, but some of the stuff I was doing (tax savings, etc) won't work so well if we have things split.

I expected some setbacks. This one, not so much.

[lilacorchid]

I have no idea how many days; I can't bring myself to look at it as I'm feeling pretty setback at this point. It's disheartening to look at my spreadsheet and see half of all the work I put in no longer there.

The only good thing is I no longer have to worry about all the fast food expenses from the other half. That's already less than half. I'm just so depressed that I may not hit my goal.

I was going to pick up programming and see if I can farm myself out evenings and weekends. Is that even a thing anymore?

(And yes, I'm still in wound-licking mode. )

[BPA]

Feeling your pain, Lilac. I suspect that if I were still with my spendy ex, I wouldn't be FI right now. He drove me nuts with his spending and insistence that we needed a large single family home with a huge yard in a prestigious neighbourhood and two cars and a bigger dining room table than his SIL.

I did need to "start over" 14 years ago when we split and came to FI, so maybe your "starting over" now isn't so bad and if you love your husband, you get to keep him too. I was ready to kill my ex, so splitting up was the way to go for us.

My current boyfriend is spendier than I am (but not like my ex) and we don't even live together even though we've been together for more than 7 years, so there are no disagreements about money.

Good luck to you. Just remember that it only gets better and less stressful from here.

[lilacorchid]

Day: Who knows, I still can't be bothered to look

My spending, oy. Let's just say it will be a very merry Xmas in our house. Bought a few shinies, at least we split the cost. I guess I'm still wallowing a bit on that front.

On the other hand, I have been regularly exercising all month. I went 3.4km today in -20C (-29 windchill) weather doing walking and jogging intervals. My fiances suck, so I have shifted to my health. Something will go right, dammit.

[lilacorchid]

Day 820: I'm back!

So that was about a month of wallowing. And I will admit: I did some spending while I was down there; thankfully for mostly practical items. (I am looking forward to the steam mop as I'm tired of washing floors on my hands and knees.)

Unless I get some side gigs going, I am not going to be done in 820 days. But I will be back to where I started before we split everything up, so there is that.

[K60]

DH and I split our finances years ago. Though I wasn't happy about it at first, I am now very happy with the arrangement. So it could work out very well for you. Good luck!

[lilacorchid]

Day 799: Still jogging (up to 3k at a time now), still got the winter blues big time. I'm so glad that the shortest day is over with and maybe we will get some sunshine. I am dying to get out of here or have some fun. Makes me want to buy all the shinies.

[1taskaday]

Hi Lilacorchad,

The best thing my DH and I did was split our finances.We have 2 kids-teens now, thank goodness.

You are going through the toughest part of parenthood-no freedom and if you take some you get to deal with the guilt.
Please believe me,it will change.You will get your independance back again as your son grows.He will just not need you as much when he is older.

Now is the time to prepare for that because whether you want it or not,that day will come-that's just the way it's meant to go.
When my kids were young I job-shared for years.I earned pittance and even when I discovered ERE I could only save a tiny amount as I earned so little.But the "want and hunger"in me was huge to increase my earnings and so when I got the chance I grabbed it with both hands and made great progress.Just bide your time your chance will come too.

We never argue about money-we just split all expenses.I probably earn more than him now-neither of us really know or care.We are both on our own retirement end-dates.For a marriage to work there is so much give-especially for a woman when kids come along.Just suck it up and remember it will not always be like this.We adore each other but want totally different things from life.So what-it seems to work...

The most important thing is to hold on to your own dreams.Just because you are a wife and a mother doesn't mean you have to let go of them-just put them on a high shelf for a while,(where you can always see them) and every now and then bring them down,polish them,breathe them in and most importantly of all ...keep the fire burning within.

[lilacorchid]

Everyone who has replied since we split up the money: Thanks for taking the time to do so. It's really comforting to read your words. I seem to have fallen in a pit and can't get out on my own. I have managed to climb up a little and you bunch all helped.

[lilacorchid]

So I'm back at work after my vacation. Already bored and it's the new year so I spent the afternoon figuring out my pension. Turns out unless I have 25 years of service at 55 and start drawing my pension, I will lose 3% per year until my age and service add up to 80 or I turn 60. That's when I put the pension stuff aside and started calculating how much I have to save per paycheque to bankroll 20 years of not working! Turns out it's doable, but will take me another 6 years to get to the point where I have a 60% chance of success of 20 years off from firecalc. These are good enough odds from what I can see since I will have a guaranteed income from my pension at 60 and then and additional boost from the national pension plan at 67.

Truthfully, I could bump my savings rate and be 90% sure in six years, but I want to take it easy for a bit. I just spent a few years with reduced income and there are a couple of expenses that I have put off. The flip side of this is my house is starting to feel just as good as a nice hotel, so the wanderlust is lessening a bit...

[lilacorchid]

Updated this year's budget: Should be able to pull off 75% savings rate with perfect money management, I expect closer to 65% without any effort.

This is good! I see some hope.

(Edit to add: without any effort means without doing anything I could consider extreme at this point in my life)

[steveo73]

without any effort means without doing anything I could consider extreme at this point in my life

I think that this is the only way to live your life. There is no need in my opinion to be extreme. It might appear extreme to the average consumer however I don't see it that way.