Early Retirement Extreme Forums

August 2023 update

Naps taken: 0

Portraits drawn: 116

No naps but lots of portraits. I'm over 500 now. If I can keep it up I'll hit 1,000 by end of year.

I paid my corporate taxes, did research on my thesis, and tried a pattypan for the first time. The big thing for August was my vacation, where I get paid $4k for a week spent hiking through the woods, swimming and eating. This year the weather was perfect and blueberries were wildly abundant! I ate and gathered so many of them, and was able to let some people taste real wild blueberries for the first time. I also managed to find a beautiful 7 meter tall bare-rock waterfall out in the bush! Unlike last year the students asked me quite a bit about career and money topics. I generally don't talk about ERE with anyone who isn't an early retiree, but I was able to introduce a few of them to the idea of investments that yield growth/cash flow and saving most of your salary.

A nice view from the top of a hill.

Good stuff basuragomi. I would love to read more from you on entering graduate school as an Ereite. I know you shared some in the past, for example on stress levels being minuscule compared to your average PhD student. I’d be interested in your motivation and how it evolves, if and what meaning you find in the endeavour and to what extent it is a closed ended project or exercise versus an integrated element of life system (integrated how).

You might not want to write about it which is fine

500 portraits! Awesome. Have you done any of the same faces to compare over time?

I was bummed out by your nap score this month (one of my favorite ERE metrics). Presumably you got enough sleep on your vacation so you did not need a nap.

The ultimate ERE tradeoff: Naps vs. Portraits.

@guitarplayer:

The initial motivation was that I live in an education-focused family, and I wanted to leave my employer on good terms, so saying I wanted an education that money can't buy satisfied both parties. I also had a specific idea that I wanted to research and the lab I ended up joining dovetailed perfectly with that. About 70-30 escape-from vs. escape-to. I envisioned grad school as being an intermediate step between full-time work and the "fully retired" lifestyle.

My basic behaviour hasn't changed: I take on a lot of projects that seem interesting to me, overbook myself, then abandon most of it and complete the rest in fits and spurts. The amount of actual creative working hours I get in a day (~3-4) has not changed, I just waste fewer of them. Some people slow down after the decompression period, maybe I haven't gone through that yet.

Unlike work, everything I'm doing is coming from a place of voluntary interest. So I still feel motivated to come in and work on things even if I don't always make progress or drop things for months at a time. There is still a sense of obligation though. Graduate courses here are heavily project-oriented which helps a lot. Being in an environment where people are generally open and motivated about their own projects helps when things dip into type II fun.

School has managed to fit more deeply into my web-of-flows than I imagined. I am still researching the specific idea I had while working for my thesis. That is still a largely close-ended goal, in that following up will take serious devotion. My side projects have fit really well into my overall interests. I'm sure I'll be working on some of these things for years after I've graduated. I didn't realize it before, but grad school is really geared towards entrepreneurship so there is a lot of opportunity on the food science and hobby fronts.

The vast majority of graduate students here are international students. Most of them are using school as a way into permanent residency and industry, since Canadian regulators are very reluctant to recognize foreign credentials or experience. A handful are focused on achieving an academic career. The domestic students (myself included) mostly were dissatisfied with working life. Some of the PhD track people see it as a prison of their own making at this point. So there is pretty big mix of people wanting to escape to and fro. I think I'm just enjoying the opportunities that arise for now.

@mountainFrugal:

Humid weather inhibits napping since I get sweaty going home, so the portraits definitely won the trade-off last month!

Sometimes I'll go back and redo particularly bad efforts of the past. I'm also going to do a set of ten portraits of the same person and see how it varies. I don't know if you've had the same experience with your figures, but I find that I can now produce the same quality with less time, but the average quality hasn't changed as much. Making a better portrait has always meant spending more time or allowing revisions.

Thank you very much @Basuragomi.

When you talk about the web of flows, it makes me think of a relationship between a web of goals and its complement / inverse graph where skills are connected, or its dual where skill sets are connected. I enjoy the exercise, maybe something to explore further one time.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complement_graph
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_graph

ETA: maybe

Web of goals - objectives - goals - copy, compare

Complement of web of goals (web of flows) - plan(s) - skills - compile, compute

Dual of web of goals (web of streams? cascades) - guiding principles - skill sets - coordinate, create

Oops, sorry used your journal as canvas here a bit.

September 2023 update

Naps: 10

Portraits: 124

Sorry in advance for the boring update. Not much progress on other projects due to everything breaking and time spent on portraits/naps. I did learn how to use a CT scanner though.

I spent money like crazy this month. First was replacing my six-year-old phone. The battery was still strong and it barely worked with the mandatory university programs but the charging port wore out. Repairable, but the OS is also so old that my car share app was disabled. I hate how locked down Android is. I looked into getting a PinePhone that is theoretically upgradeable but phone Linux is missing some key compatibility libraries. Nevertheless, once I fix the old one, Manjaro is going to get thrown onto it for tinkering.

My rice cooker blew another fuse - I think I placed it too close to the heating element. I bought a tiny Instapot to replace it. Then I repaired the cooker anyways, tucking the fuse further from the heater. Preparing oatmeal, hummus and frozen meat without any forethought is really nice and the convenience is already saving some money. It can probably handle canning things too, though I haven't seen any lab-tested recipes yet.

Forced travel for a conference was the other big hit. It's for our lab's main funder so refusing would make my life difficult. I never realized how much academics are expected to travel, and it's the worst kind of speedy travel as well. I'm just a student and this is my fourth trip this year.

I'd like to say that I calculated these things will pay themselves off in 2-3 years before getting them, but in reality I wanted the shiny new thing and splurged for it. Reducing future costs is just a bonus. At least my "vacation" covered the cash outflows.

basuragomi wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 04, 2023 4:36 pm

I bought a tiny Instapot to replace it. Then I repaired the cooker anyways, tucking the fuse further from the heater. Preparing oatmeal, hummus and frozen meat without any forethought is really nice and the convenience is already saving some money. It can probably handle canning things too, though I haven't seen any lab-tested recipes yet.

This is such a cool idea about canning! I only have a slow cooker but when I set it on high I can imagine it works for canning. I will try it out.

The convenience and energy efficiency of these devices is hard to beat, in my world it is up there next to the bicycle.

A slow cooker can work (no pun intended), though a very slow cook might make pickles too soft. The biggest constraint I foresee is that the filling has to stay hot prior to processing, but my instapot and slow cooker can both only process about a pint at a time. So it is probably best for very small batches: near-expiring fruit into sauce or niche pickles I can't get at stores like mushrooms or daikon-carrot mix.

October 2023 update

4th journal anniversary.

Naps: 3

Portraits: 74 (excluding Inktober!)

My 16-year-old, junkheap-salvaged microwave died due to a blown fuse. I considered repair, but it was really worn out at this point. Instead I asked around and got two replacements lined up from a company downsizing their office, including the exact same model but in much better condition. I even got a replacement monitor too, as my main one is acting up again. All it cost was a bike ride to pick them up.

I went to a conference, which meant very little nap time and a hit to portraiture, but was a bit of paid vacation. Eating cheap, healthy and local with the constraint of no fridge, stove, dishes or microwave is always an interesting challenge. If only I could buy lentil jerky in stores! Cheap, shelf-stable, ready-to-eat protein without oodles of salt or fat. It's good on pasta. I've been traveling with my homemade rucksack this whole time too, which has led to some interesting interactions - it's very distinctive and obviously inexpensive, which surprisingly gets strangers to open up a lot.

I also went hammock camping for the first time! It was a test for bikepacking, as I would be sleeping on unprepared, forested crown land. It was super comfortable and pretty compact, so I think it's worth the weight hit. I used double sleeping bags (one on the outside of the hammock, one inside) to stay warm in the 5 degree weather. I think a single sleeping bag outside the hammock and a bug net/tarp combo would be bite-proof and warm enough for early summer/fall bikepacking.

I tried a new twist on the lentil jerky, adding the meat glue before dehydrating it extra thick. It gave it a bit more chew and ended up with a texture more like crispy bacon rather than the current tortilla chip. The guinea pigs seem to prefer it. I need to work on getting bigger pieces out from the process but I keep circling back to flavour and texture, which makes me feel like I'm going nowhere fast.

Thanks for the update!

DW is looking for a monitor as her company doesn’t give her one - need to find out how to connect with downsizing firms round here.

I ended up at an office building slated for redevelopment. That might be a good way to get started on the hunt. Most of the businesses there needed to move, and it seems like quite a few were choosing to downsize but didn't have enough stuff to justify selling (I also ended up with a pile of untouched, new books).

November 2023 update

Naps: 3
Portraits: 20

Two money saving tips I've been using this month:

Deodorant - the bit that is embedded in the plastic carrier can be extracted. Poke it out with a toothpick or scraper, suspend the bits on some flat plastic wrap above a bowl and microwave it for 5 seconds. The wax will melt and recombine into a puck. Get a few more weeks of use from a bar.

Milk - I was getting yogurt + the 4L ultrafiltered stuff since regular doesn't last long enough. Then I was getting the smaller 2L cartons since even the ultrafiltered bags weren't lasting long enough. The issue is that the 2L filtered stuff costs the same as 4L unfiltered, but I didn't want to waste all that milk. Solution: buy 4L regular bags more frequently, make yogurt with the excess. The Instapot really makes this easy. Spending on milk and yogurt has halved, and less waste from fewer yogurt tubs purchased. I strained it to make labneh as well which has been great on sourdough with some zaatar and olives! I have leftover rennet as well from a failed lentofu experiment - I will try making cheese next.

December 2023 update and year in review

December
Naps: 4
Portraits: 30

Ever since being interrogated by students for career advice, I've been thinking about pithy "carrot vector" phrases for WLs.

WL1 - "What if you had every dollar you ever earned, available to spend again in your wallet?" or simply "You can be a landlord"
WL2 - "What if the interest on your savings was higher than your salary?"
WL3 - "Why spend money to harm your health?"
WL4 - "Why spend money doing things that make you unhappy?"
WL5 - "Why work if it only gets you money?"
WL6 - "Why make yourself the single point of failure or success?"
WL7 - "Why?"

I repaired my rucksack, adding a handle and reinforcement down the front. I also made cheese curds for the first time! It's fairly difficult to get them here, and when you do it's $5 for 100g! Instead I made them for about $0.50/100g, following on from my cheaper dairy strategy. Nice and squeaky!



I repainted my bike frame. I found that a single-edged razor blade got off the decals but left behind gummy adhesive. 97% isopropyl got rid of that. I then scrubbed the rust with a wire brush, brushed on a gelled rust convertor, washed that off and painted it with an oil-based alkyd paint pen. The Sharpie brand of them lasts for years without drying out, so I was able to reuse the pen from the last time I tackled rust spots. The bike is back on wheels and awaiting new decals now.

Year in review:

First calendar year without a "real" job!

Financially:
I had a 48% savings rate and an income robustness score of 2.9 (they track different things). I also finally have ten years of tracked investment returns, yielding a 9.0% CAGR. I picked up $1.90 off of the ground.

2023 spending:


My "core" spending inflated 7.5% year-on-year (at a highly theoretical 2% WR), although over the time I've tracked it, there's actually been an average 3.4% *decrease* per year. 2024 is looking like it will have lower spending than 2023 as well.

My biggest expense was forced travel which I extended into vacations. Next year should hopefully have less.

My 2024 income will be lower, so I can finally start paying myself a salary to get to the CPP bendpoint. In that vein, with interest rates so high and a lower WR, fixed income is looking more appealing.

2023 goals:

Use all the tools: Concrete vibrator, concrete mixer, rock saw, coring drill, surface grinder, ct scanner, digital image correlator, uniaxial test frame, biaxial test frame, linear transducers, humidity chamber. There are a few broken tools left to fix and try, but it's been almost exhaustive.

Make a pair of shoes:

I made a pair of shoes out of paper and cardboard to test patterns and how to assemble the upper. I joined it to the sole with a curved needle which worked surprisingly well. I also designed a sole plate for 3d-printing. Next up is working on cushioning. I think inner tube sections glued into little air cushions might be a DIY-accessible alternative to two-component foams. It's a very slow burn project.

1000 portraits:
Up to around 700 now. Didn't get to 1,000, but I will soon! After that, figures, flora and fauna!

Nap more:
Success! My nap rate gradually declined over the year. One of the biggest reasons is that I achieved a more stable bedtime. I've gotten more aware of when I had poor sleep the night before and now typically nap only to top off my sleep hours. I learned some great tactics to quickly put myself to sleep - worked even on planes and with a very loud NYE party next door.

What I liked about 2023:
The instapot, proper weightlifting at the gym, and having a free backup bicycle! This little gif I made of my last camping trip, it was a very peaceful moment.

2024 goals:
Write a song, make a personal website, and graduate!

Mind sharing your cheese curd recipe? Those look delicious!

Great update and post. Those shoes look awesome and look like Chukkas. I can't wait to see progress on the design and the next iteration of it.

Do you mind sharing some of the tactics for falling asleep quickly? I find myself falling asleep quickly, but any changes to my environment (extra noise, etc. outside) really throw me off.

@mathiverse: I came up with a recipe that attempts to minimize the amount of time spent standing over a pot. Cheesemaking recipes seem very idiosyncratic.

- 1.3L 2% milk (makes 150g-300g cheese, depending on how hard you press it)
- 1/2 tsp/2g calcium acetate dissolved into 1 tbsp water (or calcium chloride if you have it, I just used my eggshell+vinegar calcium acetate that I made ages ago)
- 1/4 tablet rennet, ground and dissolved into 4 tbsp/60 mL water
- salt (non-iodized if you're adding garlic)
- optional: mesophilic starter culture (i.e. yogurt)
- also optional: herbs for flavouring (try dill and garlic!)

0) Optional: Add starter culture and ferment at 31C for 2 hours
1) Heat to 31C, add in rennet, stir 1 minute, let sit 1 hour (most recipes call for shorter set times, I needed an hour for my rennet to work)
2) Check for clean break, if not clean let sit additional 20 minutes
3) Cut into 1.25cm cubes
4) Allow curds to heal for 5 minutes
5) Gently heat to 39C over 30 minutes
6) Stir intermittently for 20 minutes at 39c
7) If the curds don't stick together when squeezed, stir for another 10 minutes and repeat the test
8) Remove from heat, let rest for 15 minutes
9) Ladle curds into cheesecloth/soyfilter-lined colander, adding herbs as you go
10) Allow to drain for 10 minutes, you can save the whey for ricotta or brunost
11) Cover the slab with top of cheesecloth, add a large jar filled with warm water on top to press it for 1 hour
12) Cut up the slab into curds, put in container, add salt to taste (try 1-2 tsp), shake to mix
13) Store in the fridge. Will stay squeaky for at least 36 hours

@Divandan:
There are some obvious ones: Cover your extremities to stay warm, cover your eyes to block out all light.

What really works best for me to help ignore external noises or clear my mind is task overload. Usually I compose music in my head while trying to imagine each instrument playing all at once. I get focused enough trying to keep each imagined sound distinct that I can ignore noise and get knocked out quickly. Another technique that works is composing a painting or building a car/whatever in your head, imagining all the details of how the suspension works, how the forces are taken up by the frame, how it will crumple in a crash, where the weldpoints and drainholes would be, etc.

I find that long-term recall and planning tasks (i.e. replaying things in your head or planning your day) actually keep me awake. It has to be something entirely creative to be effective.

Thanks! This is really cool, and I will have to try this next time I am struggling to fall asleep.

January 2024 update
Not much to report on, a lot of projects in progress. No more nap counter as I've fully adopted the habit.

I installed Unhook and Pockettube on my browser which hides Youtube recommendations and lets you sort subscriptions respectively, turning the subscription feed into a categorized library. It's nicer this way. Mostly because the recommendations were just plain gross with history turned off. Lots of culture war dross and tech clickbait when I only use Youtube for music and hobby content.

Not much else to say, so I'll post a classic family recipe:



Cheater's Pho - pictured above with homegrown beansprouts, homemade beef balls, fish balls, and round tip steak.

It's "cheating" because it uses ground beef instead of bones - this is because ground beef is inexplicably cheaper than cow bones! It also cooks way faster. You can even eat the ground beef afterwards! It's great fried with rice.

Makes about 4 servings/3-4L.

Equipment needed:

- Pot (optional if using instapot and fresh noodles, but you'll need it for dried noodles)
- Slow cooker or instapot (optional if using pot) - the slow cooker and pressure cooker will both make a lovely clear broth
- Sheet pan
- Broiler
- Tea ball
- Chef's knife
- Cutting board
- Strainer

Soup base ingredients:

- 2 lb (900g) ground beef
- 3-4 tbsp (40-60g) powdered gelatine
- 6" cinnamon stick
- 2 cloves
- 3 star anise
- 1 onion
- 3 cloves garlic
- 2 tbsp brown sugar (or white sugar and molasses, or palm sugar, or Chinese rock sugar)
- 3 lemongrass cores, chopped (you can use the outer lemongrass leaves but they get progressively more bitter - limit the time they cook if you're doing so)
- 3 tbsp (50g) ginger, chopped
- 3 tbsp (50g) fish sauce - for "restaurant style," triple this amount
- 1 tsp peppercorns
- 1/2 tsp cardamom, roughly crushed
- 1/2 tsp fennel
- 1/2 tsp coriander
- 3-4 L water

Add-ins:

- Fresh rice noodles - definitely try these if you can find them. Keep in mind it takes about 10 minutes to peel a single serving of noodles - a good use for child labour.
- Dry rice noodles - get at least the 3mm kind, boil for 7 minutes. Do not store or reheat in the broth, the starch will turn everything gloopy.
- thin-sliced meat (get the kind meant for hot pot, or parfreeze and slice your own)
- tripe
- beef tendon meatballs (these are quite easy to DIY from ground beef with a food processor/mixer)
- fish balls (can be DIY'd from fish paste)
- beansprouts (again, easy to DIY)
- lime/lemon juice
- cilantro
- mint
- basil
- red onion, finely sliced
- green onion, finely sliced
- sriracha garlic chili sauce
- birdseye chilies
- hoisin sauce

Directions for soup base:

- brown half of ground beef in pot, draining and reserving liquid (helps it brown faster), until it's crispy and fully separated.
- broil spices on sheet pan until fragrant, 1-2 minutes
- add all ground beef to pot or slow cooker with water and reserved liquid (you can add just enough water to cover the meat and dilute it later if using small vessels like an instapot).
- Add spices, ginger and lemongrass to tea ball. Add to broth. Cinnamon probably won't fit, you can add to broth directly. This step just makes it more convenient when getting the meat out.
- chop onion and garlic. add to broth.
- sift gelatine into broth while stirring to avoid clumping (alternately, bloom gelatine before adding).
- simmer for 1-2 hours, or pressure cook for at least 1 hour, or slow cook for 4 hours. There's no upper limit but the lemongrass will get progressively more bitter.
- skim off fat to your preference.
- remove tea ball, strain out ground beef and onions. eat those later fried with rice.
- add add-ins and eat.

Naps Level 10!

I am going to try this Pho recipe soon! Yum. We have made Pho broth before out of bones, but have not attempted to add fish balls. We usually add a table spoon of fish sauce for that flavor profile.

February 2024 update:

This month felt like nothing but baking, so here's what happened this month (spot the AI-generated image):

Finances:


Social life (recipe below!):


Lentofu progress:


Thesis progress:



Gok Jai (Cantonese sweet stuffed Chinese New Year dumplings) - vegan!

Makes about 90 dumplings

Ingredients - shells

6 cups pastry flour
3/8 cup white sugar
3/4 cup sunflower oil
2 cups boiling water
2 tbsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt

Ingredients - filling - also good in crepes

1/2 tsp salt
1 cup white sugar
1 cup toasted sesame seeds
1.5 cups finely crushed peanuts (3 cups uncrushed)
250g creamed coconut

Equipment

Small mixing bowl for filling
Large mixing bowl for dough
3.375" cookie cutter (e.g. bottom of yogurt tub)
Food processor
Fork for mixing
Some kind of flattening solution (pasta roller, rolling pin, tortilla press, hands and enthusiasm)
Frying pan
Teaspoon for filling

Method

Crush peanuts in food processor, don't overprocess to the point of turning into peanut butter. Add in creamed coconut if you don't want to bother mixing it in later.
Toast sesame seeds in nonstick pan, stirring often for about 10 minutes on medium heat.
Break up creamed coconut with fork or food processor. Mix in sesame seeds and sugar and place in small mixing bowl. This can be covered and prepared in advance.
Mix flour, sugar, salt and oil into large mixing bowl.
Add 1.5 cups boiling water.
Mix dough until homogenous. Add remaining water in 1 tbsp increments until it stops being shaggy.
Roll out a handful of dough until almost thin enough to see through, about 1/16".
Cut out circles with cookie cutters, recycle scraps.
Alternatively - make 3/4" balls and press thin in tortilla press
Pinch circle edges thin, put in about 1 tsp of filling.
Fold over and crimp edges decoratively.
Deep fry until golden brown, or bake at 375F for 13 minutes, flipping shells halfway.