Teach me how to sluggy
Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2024 1:25 pm
Welcome! I'm new to these parts, and want to start a journal to keep myself honest and hopefully soak up some wisdom from all of you.
Apologies if you read my intro post, some of this will be repetitive!
Current affairs
Apologies if you read my intro post, some of this will be repetitive!
Current affairs
- Late 30s, married, employed as a software engineer. Job is really hard to complain about, as far as jobs go
- Currently WL4-ish, looking to improve my general handiness and solve more problems in-house.
- Living in a house we bought ~1 year ago in the suburbs. This was a mistake. We do not like the suburbs, and would like to sell the house and return to the city
- Have about $900k in assets (including the equity in the house, which is only ~$100k of that)
- Aside from housing, we spend about ~$25k/year combined. Our mortgage payment is nearly $3,000/month. So housing absolutely dominates our spending. I'd like to bring this down significantly.
- Housing We're going to look at an apartment in the city later today. The rent on this unit is 60% what our mortgage payment is, so it would be a pretty lovely change of pace. Plus the reduced maintenance, utilities, and car-dependency would be really nice. We have a close friend who lives in the same building, too, which is a big draw.
Neither my wife nor I are entirely sure what kind of housing situation we really want. Part of me hates going back to renting. But I'm feeling a little trigger shy after making such a goof with our home purchase last year.
We had our roof replaced soon after moving into our house, and decided to have a skylight removed because of condensation issues. What remains is a hole in the ceiling with a beautiful plywood view. To start getting the place ready to sell, I'll be putting my limited drywalling skills to good use this weekend, and closing that bad-boy up.
- Cycling/fitness. Since covid, I've turned into a bit of a hermit, and been way too sedentary. Moving to the 'burbs has only made this worse. I have used my bike as transportation exactly 0 times since moving here. I'm trying to get back into some semblance of "in shape". I'm focusing on primarily zone-2 cardio training now, and have been doing ~90 minute indoor bike rides on my trainer. A relatively pathetic 90w is my current zone-2 sweet spot. Hoping to see this go up over the coming months.
- Work. I'm getting close to my FI number. And if we can bring our housing costs down a bit, we'll be ready to rock. I'm having a tad of the "One More Year" mindset. I know I could figure out a way to scrape some money together in the future if I needed it. But I'm having a hard time actually believing it's a wise idea to give up my relatively easy money-fountain. Sitting at a computer desk most of the day is not exactly a healthy way to spend my time, and I certainly wouldn't be doing this if it weren't for the paycheck—there's very little passion here.