As ertyu says above, if I had done things differently, I would not be the person I am today and would not have the knowledge I have now.
Hey, I learned this from Captain Picard on Star Trek TNG. It had a big impact on me at the time. He begs to go back in time to reverse some kind of tactical mistake and when he appears in the present he’s no longer Captain. He is the peon he would have been if he didn’t have any self confidence and convictions. He freaks out and begs for his old reality where his mistakes killed innocent people. I know I sound like an idiot “everything I learned from Star Trek.”
@unemployable Yes, I was talking about my parents. Stanford was kind of a disaster for me. It took me down a path that was difficult to turn back on. I name drop it and wear the shirt but really it made me unemployable. My folks really liked telling people about my schools. It seemed like a good thing because it made them so proud of me. They were really upset when I used stocks to make a nest egg and throw away my career. It was odd, the richer I got “gambling” the more they disapproved of me. They’d hold up my pauper siblings as golden children. At the end of the day I think they hated me because I went against their plan. Financially winning made them angrier. Dad controlled everyone around him with money so he was naturally disturbed when I dug an escape. I would have thought parents would be proud of their financially successful child but they refused to speak when people asked what I did for a living. So yeah, my folks were pretty toxic. I should have dumped them in my 20s and forged ahead. Left my dad and my multiple mothers to themselves. Yuck. I really shouldn’t have stuck around trying to win their approval.
I also have the AAPL sold too early from around 1994. I really don’t like thinking about it. Last time I checked the sold off shares were worth over a million…it might be 2 now but I don’t like to check. I thought about old Captain Picard when I see the Apple price go up year after year. In the alternate time line I may have been a pauper because the isolated big win would have undoubtedly influenced my trading style. I’ve mentioned on this topic before that I applied my lessons to NVDA when I saw my stock go down 50% in the recent past. This time I held.
ETA-sh.T I just checked the price history of NVDA. This is actually the second time my stake lost half its valve. I must have ignored it the first time in 2018. Aye aye Captain!
I think it is important to have a clear, strong vision driving you. Why do you want to be FI? Around the forum this is commonly encountered as 'freedom from/freedom to' discussions. When I first started out I had a strong 'freedom to' vision which helped me set a really good financial base, make good financial choices and live with the 'sacrifices'. Over the years, though, I lost track of that vision. Even worse, circumstances led to me having a 'freedom from' mindset. I just wanted to get out from under everything. This probably led me to take some unnecessary financial risks. Maybe one mindset is not better than the other, but the 'freedom to' vision I had was much more compelling to me, personally. When it became 'freedom from', everything seemed to be pain and suffering except seeing the net worth grow. That was not a great way to be living life.
Beyond not wasting time beating yourself up now over past mistakes this is just a semantic stop sign. It is a counterfactual question and unless you have never comitted any mistakes or made any suboptimal decisions it can be answered straightforwardly.
+1. The OP question is a creative way of asking 'what did you learn?' and worrying about butterfly-flap-ruining our lives like poor Captain Picard is not relevant (until Apple releases the iTimeMachine, that is...).
It *is* relevant to understand the danger of Resulting, though, which is where you make the error of thinking that a good result *means* your decision was good, or vice versa. It is possible to make a bad decision and get lucky, or to make a good decision and get unlucky. The good or bad luck does not mean that you ought to have made a different decision.
I'd have aggressively crowbar'd expenses even faster. Probably a strict #nobuyyear was the right Rx for me.
Also I would not have gone down to 8hrs/week schedule (20% pay but not really 20% of the responsibility/attentionsuck, so not worth it) and would have aimed to get another 1-2yrs of FTE income in the stash before pulling the trigger myself.
With those two tweaks I'd be at ~30x as of a year ago...
To add a little bit to this: before I got laid off, my plan A was to accumulate to an FI-level stash and then be FI/RE'd by no later than end of last year.
Then [things happened] and I went 20%FTE in mid2020 and then laid off in 2021. My options were: 1) Find another job or 2) go full semiERE.
By that point I'd
a) observed that semiERE was possible due to JnG and cL, and by running it for a year already as my attempt to 'save' my employee's job by going down to 20%fte,
b) I knew that my old job had afforded me a frankly insane amount of autonomy and that any kind of new FTE I could get was likely to be very uncomfortable for me, much less tolerable than my previous company had been, and
c) I was full of ideas of ways to semiERE doing cool stuff.
So semiERE was more attractive based on the hand I got dealt at the time. I hadn't been running ERE long enough to have multiple strategic contingencies in place yet. In 2020 I still had enough gas in the tank *and momentum* to cruise out to FIRE if circumstances had been different. But because of how things played out (getting laid off etc), sticking to the FIRE script would have required what I thought would be a big lift and probably some lifestyle sacrifices to get another FTE gig that I would have grated under.
A few items based on some of my Should ‘ve Known Betters:
1. I tend to be impulsive which is not universally skillful. One thing that I am learning is to stop and consider some options, sketching out possible short-/mid-/long-term future outcomes.
2. Before getting married, I would get to know my spouse and his family really well. How do they react to different situations? Is there congruence between what they say and do?
3. Dovetailing off number 2, I would have weekly check-in meetings with my spouse right away. These truly have improved our relationship. (We do weekly family meetings too plus dinner mini-check-ins.) Good communication is vital and takes work.
4. I would have delivered my twins at a hospital with a level 4 NICU.
5. We oversaved. Not sure about the solution to that one, we don’t spend much money because we don’t need to.
6. I would never buy a house somewhere without renting first.
7. I would accept that sometimes I just don’t know until I know. It’s getting easier to learn the lesson and move on.
8. I would realize that time does seem to pass quicker the older one gets. The result is a compilation of all those little decisions, including self-care.
9. I would have ditched school to to drive down to Denver to see U2 at the Red Rocks with some friends. Sometimes being responsible means unnecessarily missing out.
10. I would NOT tan with baby oil and Crisco. So dumb in hindsight!
@unemployable Yes, I was talking about my parents...
They were really upset when I used stocks to make a nest egg and throw away my career. It was odd, the richer I got “gambling” the more they disapproved of me.
Well what the hell did they expect from the Stanford kid? They sort of recruited me, by the way, after I got a top-200 score on some national math contest. Sent me an application without my asking them, as did Notre Dame. Seventeen-year-old me had potential.
Dad wanted me to go to the Naval Academy. Probably 30% because he served in the Navy and 70% because it would've been free. I never would've passed the physical, but did solve the cost part a different way without having to potentially die for my country, and then he never really complained about anything I did or thought after that.
I went somewhere that likes to think it's as good as Stanford and similarly, felt like I was making a lot of mistakes there. My grades were good and I was deeply involved in a couple extracurriculars in particular, but my heart wasn't into any of these things. A year after graduation I thought this was the school's fault, or perhaps Dad's for "making" me do engineering. Thirty years after I now know it was 100% mine. You're an adult by then.
That doesn't nag me as much as the AAPL. It was 220 shares I sold around $60. I had held it since 1998 and thought I could "trade" it, but within a couple weeks it shot up into the $80s. Today that would be 12320 shares, which are worth $2,374,680 at today's close.
In all honesty, I probably would've sold pieces of it along the way, but at some point the potential capital gains tax would've kept me from selling it all at once.
I get the Star Trek episode reference. Which is why I wouldn't have gone so far back as to change my major. For awhile I thought the fully-actualized version of me would be working as a bond trader. For Cantor Fitzgerald. On the 101st floor of Tower One. Talk about a bad trade.
For Cantor Fitzgerald. On the 101st floor of Tower One. Talk about a bad trade.
I have to dig up that episode of Star Trek. I never was a TNG fan but this particular episode hit me. It came out when I was at Stanford. I wish I could say I read some classic there and learned this but I got it from Star Trek TNG while avoiding my studies.
Beyond not wasting time beating yourself up now over past mistakes this is just a semantic stop sign. It is a counterfactual question and unless you have never comitted any mistakes or made any suboptimal decisions it can be answered straightforwardly.
Well, yeah. The whole first paragraph of the OP is either a non sequitur or it is discussing the difficulties of their current path and somewhat lamenting the roads not taken. When followed by, "What would you have done differently based on your knowledge now?", the whole post is begging for someone to say that they shouldn't beat themselves up.
Have you actually provided suggestions for the OP?
I read the synopsis of the TNG episode, thanks for posting about it. I think the takeaway *ought to be* to focus on making good decisions and let the consequences take care of themselves. He first went back in time to the bar and acted in a cowardly manner, because he was thinking only of the outcome. But outcomes cannot be known!
Q took him forward in time and Picard learned that his cowardly/bad decision resulted in a worse life (being a nobody). Luckily he got another shot at going back and did the brave thing and went back to his awesome life as Captain Picard.
So when looking back at our lives and trying to decide what decisions we'd make differently, we have to carefully examine the relationship between good/bad outcomes and good/bad decisions.
For example, I had two modifications. I'd stomp the gas on the frugality because I think going hyperfrugal was a good decision and it'd be worth it to crank it harder and faster. The reasons I had at the time for being more conservative about frugality came from a place of fear and desire to not hurt other people's feelings. I was putting the brakes on something that I actually felt strongly towards, repressing my own truth. Eff that! Full speed ahead!
My other thing was to try to avoid getting laid off so I could FIRE faster. Ehh... yeah maybe this is me Resulting. At the time the decisions that led me to being laid off involved taking some risks, then attempting to protect someone else from the consequences of those risks. The environment changed radically immediately after I'd already made those decisions (new ceo + covid). I feel good about those decisions even though the results weren't great.
Hi OP, it seems like what you really want help with is this highly stressful situation where you're re-entering the labor market after five years and it's not going smoothly and it's stressing tf out of you. I think we're answering a more general question and that isn't getting you what you need because what we would have done differently is specific to our lives, not yours -- for instance I don't have children so what I would have done is by necessity not what might be applicable to you.
That said, I have experienced fear about finding a job, most recently before I found my current one. My situation was different in that my previous line of work was clearly burning me out and driving me batshit, my CV was too job-hoppy, I'd been fired twice, I pulled a runner for covid, etcetera -- the similarity to you is a work history that recruiters found problematic (as they might find yours - why has this guy been out of work? is there a problem with him? are his skills current? etc)
When interviewing, recruiters went directly for the jugular - they didn't search for what is right but for what is wrong. Every interview felt like trying to justify and explain myself to people who held the key to my survival.
Consequently, I didn't do too well on those interviews. I was anxious, and it showed, and recruiters took this as a red flag.
So the first piece of advice I have for you is to sit with your fear. By this I mean find out how, on the inside, to deal with the fear not by pushing it away but by turning towards it. I am talking about actual, bodily felt sense. Where is your body tight when you think about your financial situation? For me it happens to be the upper chest area, in the middle of my torso. You're hunting for the actual bodily sense of the fear. You want to find out what the sensation of fear is like.
What would it be like to open up to that fear instead of dealing with it by pushing it away? Is there something that stops you? One of my favorites is, I can't open up to the fear because then the fear would be true. No idk the logic either -- but connecting to that makes it easier to open to the fear.
Why should I be opening to the fear, you might ask? Dude, I don't have a job and I don't have cash, tell me how to save money -- the premise here is, if only you could find that one magical action to take, the fear would be gone and everything will be alright.
But it's not a matter of finding the one magical action. It's a matter of being able to live life and move through this difficult period - do what needs to be done while being a good spouse and father - while afraid. And for that you need to figure out how to relate towards your fear differently.
And before you ask, yes, in hindsight, this was one of the things that I identified as wishing I'd been able to do differently - not invested in this or saved on that, but been able to be while afraid. my relationship to fear shaped my choices. if i'd related differently to the fear, i'd been able to choose differently. I'd have been able to have the core concern of my life be something other than "how do I make the fear go away" (as a proxy for no longer being in danger).
The way this "being with the fear" thing is done, practically, is to move your attention to the center of your chest - or to wherever the mess is, that's just where mine is - before going to bed. It's tricky because you need to sort out how to open up to the fear - and there's all sorts of things that one could do that are not opening up to the fear, such as pushing the fear away, trying to make the fear go away, other sorts of efforting. It might not happen all at once.
Alright. That said.
What field are you trying to get employed in? This would determine actions you could take: get certifications, temp, volunteer, get connected with people, etc. The appropriate actions differ by industry so knowing what you're trying to do will help us make suggestions. (and btw, I absolutely get the sense that the problem here is being able to find a job much more than it is implementing That One Magical Savings Hack -- so focus your mental efforts on that). Watch youtube videos of mock interviews. Prepare to answer common interview questions. You got one interview already so you're clearly doing something right - now try to nail down the vibe you want to project as you interview and the answers to the most common questions you're likely to be asked.
Another thought I had was about the "scrimp and save." To me, this conveys a vibe of deprivation. Can you see this differently? The ERE book has a quote I really like, move "from consumer deprivation to producer manifestation." Can you see what you're doing not as scrimping and saving, but as developing life skills that allow you to depend less on the consumer economy? Can you see it as an opportunity to bond with your children over diy projects rather than buy them toys and toss them in front of the TV? And so fortth. What would it mean to change your mindset around that?
Whatever you end up doing, good luck. Needing a job and not being able to find one sucks absolute ass, and I don't even have dependents. Strength dude, you'll get through this
Have you actually provided suggestions for the OP?
No, because DutchGirl basically nailed the general strategy previously: Establish employability by getting and holding any job and then work your way up from there.
As for the counterfactual: I would have taken an apprenticeship much sooner instead of wasting time on a useless degree.
Edit: I would have made "a format that counteracts bad work habits" the primary decision parameter for choice of education rather than "bookish passion" or "maximizes potential lifetime income" which generalizes to identifying whatever the antonym of a force multiplier is and taking it into account when deciding.
Last edited by rref on Tue Jul 25, 2023 7:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
Section 3.2.1 (Ergodicity and destiny) in the ERE book is relevant to this point. Similarly to investing, the issue is not whether one bought or sold a given security at a given time. The issue is whether the transaction decision was a good one. Remember that even good decisions have bad outcomes ... and sometimes bad decisions have good outcomes. However, good decisions does skew in the direction of better outcomes. The question, therefore, is, not whether you would have made different decisions but whether you would have made decisions differently.
My situation was very different than OP's when I started earning. I had a lot of extra money due to a high income and not much extra time or energy. Therefore, this probably isn't useful advice for the OP.
I would have spent a lot more money on things that would have paid off in the future and less money on the small things that only had payoffs in the moment. So instead of eating out, going to concerts, and taking trips, I would have spent on cooking classes, other householding skill classes, and personal fitness training. This would not have maximized my savings rate in the short term (in fact, maybe I would have spent more), but in the long term, the payoff would have been great. So, yeah, it looks smarter in the short term to spend $30 eating out each day rather than taking a $100 class each day (better savings rate! lower expenses!), but the classes would have paid off throughout my lifetime and the eating out actually probably had negative effects in the long term (eg delaying my start to building cooking skills, worse health, less social contact than a class given that I normally ordered delivery rather than eating out with friends, etc). I probably would have started applying these skills earlier, too, since once you learn a skill and have done it once or twice, it takes less time and energy to apply it in the future. So something that I had no energy or time to learn to do on my own the first time might have been well within my limitations at the time once I got over that hump with the assistance of a class. ETA: I also may have found all of this as entertaining and fun as what I had been doing and I probably would have made more friends given the fact that repeated contact in a class is a good way to get to know people. With respect to improved fitness, doors would have opened there such as bike commuting despite living on a huge hill in a hilly part of town and sports leagues I wanted to try, but was too unfit to feel comfortable joining.
When I was looking at saving time, money, or energy. I should have traded money for time/energy more often since that was what I had in abundance, but I should have focused on doing that trade in ways that would lead to long term benefits rather than short term benefits (eg classes rather than house cleaning or eating out or vacations).
The other thing I might have changed was focusing on sustainability within my job rather than always seeking to advance as quickly as possible. Given the high income I already had, an extra year in a job probably would have made more of a difference than a promotion a year quicker.
I would have strived to make as many decisions as possible from the perspective of my best known functioning. Kind of like how I learned to never initiate a "relationship talk" with another human during my late afternoon low mood, but applied to conversations with myself. What would 7WB5-in-her-power do?
However, this advice may not be universally applicable. It's just that for me my more conservative 'safe" choices made in down mode have tended to be the most wasteful. Kind of like when I have to periodically clean out my life closet and haul some stuff to the donation bin, maybe there's a spangly red thing I spent $12.99 on and only wore once, but it's the heavy, itchy dull brown thing I spent $400 on and made myself wear for 8 years that I really regret.
In hindsight:
- I'd have given even higher priority to my physical and mental health. Weight, sleep hygiene and dental hygiene in particular.
- Investing. I had zero idea.
- I might have studied and practiced some kind of engineering and kept my current job as a hobby. I breathe engineering projects as a hobby now. Great fun, but rather suboptimal income wise. Engineering would also give me more freedom to do project based work as opposed to my current more rigid work schedule and flat career. I have some ideas how to financially benefit from my engineering side projects.
- Financial expenses. A simpler home renovation would have worked well and grown my skills. A considerable difference, but definitely not the end of the world.
No regrets though. I'm rather happy with my life so far. As for something done exactly right, we just spent a week with my parents at our countryside place. First time we were able to do something like that. My dear wife and I are so grateful for the experience. Higher expenses than usual, but money very well-spent, on restaurants in particular. Those are comparatively cheap here anyway. ERE highlight of the week was when I dropped my wife and my mother off at the second hand clothing shop. They had great fun together and spent about 9€ on five useful pieces of clothing... before the cashier applied a 10% discount.
That doesn't nag me as much as the AAPL. It was 220 shares I sold around $60. I had held it since 1998 and thought I could "trade" it, but within a couple weeks it shot up into the $80s. Today that would be 12320 shares, which are worth $2,374,680 at today's close.
Just sharing my own realization. One thing i wish i had done is build a better support system around me. I have some older guys i get together with occasionally but not often enough to really help me. Also their kids are grown and out of the house so they are in a different stage of life. What i probably needed was a mentor and friend that was close enough and met often enough to really make a difference for me and my kids.
