Early Retirement Extreme Forums

My personal practical limit is about 1 hour, so ~6kms one way. I enjoy walking, I also listen to stuff sometimes, so I don't see it as time wasted. It also depends on the situation. E.g. walking can be the most pleasant way of commuting if you have a nice route and every other mode is in rush hour. ...

So several years back I shifted to buying second hand shoes. And I have multiple pairs. They wear more slowly and I never end up panic buying anything. The cost works out much better for me. Much cheaper ironically. I am curious where do you find them? I found that in local thrift shops you can def...

Of course - our government could take these things all away tomorrow. My counter argument to this is - we live in a country founded by rebels who overthrew our previous government by force over smaller matters. Everyone has the legal right to own firearms, and if you tell a few tens of millions of ...

I was thinking about efficiency lately. One thing I absolutely hate is losing time doing nothing without any goal. I think the main reason for that is that it is really inefficient. When I was in my university, I realized that often the best time to do stuff is the exact opposite of when you are sup...

Okay, my second trip got cancelled. Technically, I still can get there, but there is a fire nearby, about 30km, and I don't want to be that close to it. Not to mention that the air quality is probably bad, a lot of smoke and maybe it is hot. I am not really bummed out, although it would be cool to a...

Just got back from my first trip. I actually met all my plans (even optimistic ones!), and even went above and beyond. I had 3 full days, where I hiked 40kms, 35km, and 51km (!). All days have about ~800m-1000m of elevation. It's quite a feeling, as I have serious doubts that I'll ever top that last...

I will go far to say no one knows a country they didnt live in as an ordinary person for at least a couple (more than one) years To return to first point: you dont really know if you will fit somewhere you never lived. If you are 20, can explore. If you are 40, kind of big risk. Even just to try it...

As somebody who lived in Europe and now lives in the US (and I am getting the citizenship: my home country, Russia, is completely off the rails, so basically anything developed is better) I think US is very homogeneous, and Europe is more culturally diverse. E.g. my small town in Oregon is not very ...

Haven't written here in a while! Almost exactly a year. To be honest, things are pretty boring. My NW projections were too good due to several reasons, so now my investments took a good beating, we have about $90k invested, and about $25k cash. So total NW is just $115k! That's a bit sad compared to...

If you don't walk too much/don't run and don't live in a super hot environment, then hiking boots are pretty tough to beat, or just good boots. They are less than ideal if you do exercise a lot, and then run pretty hot, imo. Personally, I love lightweight shoes but they disintegrate fairly quickly c...

It's a common thing, and it seems Sclass is on the right track to alleviate it. Still, if somebody experiences it, I would recommend to try to get through it first and not discard immediately. I believe it is similar to early 3D games, where people can feel something similar (if any non-gamer people...

It seems that you are indeed not a typical software developer, so I think that feeling of "puzzle solving" comes precisely from that lack of understanding how it all works underneath. I don't mean it as a bad thing, nothing wrong with it, just a bit different role. In that case, more busin...

But ultimately you will (subconsciously or otherwise) seek out another low-effort dopamine hit. Very true, in my experience if I successfully ditch something I spend too much time on, pretty soon I find something else, probably some other entertaining media. I guess you can trick yourself into doin...

I'd guess the unusable clothes in the video were often from estate donations when someone passed away and they had to clear out a whole house but I don't doubt some people donate unusable clothing for the tax write off (if that's still a thing). Some people donate unusable things just to feel good,...

I am also working slowly on acquiring more manual skills. I never really did when I was a kid: my dad knows how to do stuff, but I wasn't really involved in any of that, and nobody forced me to. When I lived in rental apartments, I did not really do anything as well, as everything was already there ...

After we moved to the US, I acquired one interesting skill everything here takes for granted: starting fires (campfires). It is fairly trivial to keep a fire alive once it's going and you have enough hot ashes, but to start is an entirely different beast. My wife taught me basics, but she was quickl...

I use these maps, they're great: https://www.benchmarkmaps.com/atlas I don't plan ahead very much, and I've rarely had a problem finding a place to camp. Thanks, I just ordered their atlas, will drive around dirt roads nearby. I live right in a national forest, so shouldn't be a problem to find the...

FWIW, I go down a lot of forest service roads in NV and CA in my sub compact Kia Rio to camp on BLM and other public lands. Been doing it for years. Just go slow, and be prepared to get out and roll a few rocks away that could scrape underneath. Cars are tougher than they get credit for. I also muc...

One area I am completely lost is housing. I would say we are pretty lucky to have our current arrangement: we live with my wife's mother (she lived alone before), we pay her $500/mo mortgage (we don't really have to, but my wife loves her mother and it is the only way to make her not work, so I am f...

When we were in pandemic, we spent a bit more than we should've. I guess it ended up being even since we didn't really go anywhere last year at all: not that we really spend any significant money on the outside activities, but we didn't travel and that saved us some money from gas/wear and tear/hote...