Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of my journal. It's been an interesting year getting involved on the forum and committing to a new habit of sharing details and thoughts. This past year has brought a lot positive changes (fatherhood!), but from an ERE perspective the most notable are: 1. More inte...

Oh man, that second link from BSOG basically ruined the peace of my morning. I'm going to be chewing on that for a while - thanks for sharing

On buckets:

https://www.kitces.com/blog/managing-se ... -approach/

https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Buckets_of_Money

Agreed. The contribution constraints means this isn't worth fooling with

Your reasons for potentially having a kid are totally fine. The idea that wanting child for purely selfless, altruistic reasons is an unreasonably high bar and you do NOT have to meet it in order to be a suitable parent. Edit: Kudos for being willing to write all that out. It's a very difficult subj...

Sorry to hear about the dog. Sounds like she lived a long and full life though. Thanks for the year end update and reflections. What typically strikes me in following along with your journal is how little time you spend on portfolio management and financial moves. It's easy to get the impression tha...

It's a fairly common topic over on the Bogleheads forums, and an issue I know I'll dealing with myself in the next couple of years. Best advice I've gleaned from over there and with my own reflection mirrors WRCs - you don't have to figure out "forever" before you make a move. You're creat...

Figured out the housing cost issue - forgot we did a cash-out refinance in 2021. We have a lower rate but higher balance, and I switched to a 20 year mortgage instead of a 30

I posted above the final results for the categories I outlined at the beginning of this journal. It omits a few things, including charity spend, ranch house / development, and costs related to MBB_Baby. I did a process overview previously before seeing this numbers, and frankly I was surprised. Most...

I just did a super long post laying out thoughts and such on the results above and lost it all when I hit submit.....

2021 2022 % change Housing $38,404 $46,401 19.9% Home Improvement $29,705 $222 -99.3% Student loan $23,870 $21,900 -8.3% Charity $0.00 $0.00 22.4% Car payments $10,791 $8,093 -25.0% Groceries $7,757 $8,741 12.7% Pet $7,398 $4,204 -43.2% General merchandise $6,454 $2,457 -61.9% Wine club $5,075 $4,5...

I experienced something similar in undergrad, but it broke out along racial / wealth lines (looks the same given the correlation). I showed up to our business school and wanted to do accounting......because I was prioritizing getting a job. Then I observed that the class was basically all the Black ...

Laundry habits vary......widely. We literally had brother-in-law and his girlfriend show up yesterday, and I went upstairs and was confused why all of the laundry that was safely hidden in the dryer was sitting folded on our bed. Turns out one of them needed to do laundry. They have been here less t...

Ahhh! Not Yellowstone! We haven't watched the latest season, but sounds like it may end up on the list of TV shows that get abandoned when they take a turn. Like the meme with Netflix ruining everything. So many shows with a great season 1 (produced without Netflix and then bought by them) followed ...

This post is simultaneously fascinating and depressing. This generational knowledge transfer of practical skills thread is going to occupy my thoughts for a while

RE the properly functioning community obviating the need for outsourcing 1) plans and 2) accountability... 1). I'm not sure on this. Maybe I'm not old enough to have experienced it, but groups of people with shared virtures who support each other strongly don't always have the knowledge necessary to...

You say the end date of work is uncertain - did I miss why it's no longer June of 2023? What has made it uncertain instead of firm? How does the study plan for the Bible work? I've never tried any of the plans I've seen around, but they all seem to differ so I'm curious. My wife is doing one based o...

Oh man, loving the process here. Its essentially the same process we go through each year - are you and my wife long lost twins?? The only difference is that our grades are against our plan vs a regional average - anytime I've looked at aggregated consumer spend data at work, I leave with more quest...

Not sure I buy this gender component to work - the difference is skilled vs unskilled labor. The reason you aren't expected to do you own plumbing, or accounting, or electrical work etc isn't because those are male dominated fields - its because they are difficult and often require licensing or trad...

The ranch now has power! Our actual house doesn't, but the property does. Next step is to get an electrician to pick up where the utility left off - may also be renting a trencher to give them somewhere to bury the cable if they don't do it themselves. Furnishing continues to go well - taken a few t...