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seanconn256
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New member checking in

Post by seanconn256 »

Hi everybody,

Very happy to find this form, and to see how active it is; I look forward to asking questions and figuring out ere a little more here.

As for my background, I recently started my first out-of-college job as a software engineer, and having money for the first time has sent me down a rabbit hole of personal finance that led me to the FIRE subreddit and eventually had me reading ere and finding this site.

I want to retire early, as I have a lot of miscellaneous interests that I want the time to pursue, including reading, writing, open source programming, and drawing.

I've got some challenges ahead. I've got a partner who is decidedly not doing fire/ere, so that will be interesting to navigate.

As for my current ERE progression, I'm already saving 50% of my income, but I plan on saving more as I pay off my car and stop paying literally half of all my expenses on rent.

I'm currently reading an investments textbook so my investments can do a little better than index funds, currently looking at generally doing more things myself, and trying to bike more places as opposed to driving. Right now I'm lucky enough to work from home, so going car free is certainly possible once I get something to carry groceries with on my bike. Ditching the car for real is a long way off, but saving on gas and being more fit never hurts.

Any miscellaneous tips would be appreciated; especially when it comes to saving money on rent, living without a car, and living with a partner not doing ere.

Miss Lonelyhearts
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Post by Miss Lonelyhearts »

Welcome and good luck. My word of advice is to reserve some time for your miscellaneous activities now. Even if they’re completely non-remunerative, give yourself an hour or two per week to think deliberately and engage in actionable steps. You might even “pay” yourself for your time. You can accomplish a lot.

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Bankai
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Re: New member checking in

Post by Bankai »

If you're just starting out it makes sense to focus on increasing income rather than investment returns. It requires serious time investment to beat the index and you won't see much of a difference until your stash is into six figures. Are you planning to buy a house?

MeloTheMelon
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Re: New member checking in

Post by MeloTheMelon »

Welcome!
I'm in a similar situation as you - software grad that recently started working - so I'm looking forward to your posts.
Miss Lonelyhearts wrote:
Sat May 15, 2021 2:19 pm
My word of advice is to reserve some time for your miscellaneous activities now. Even if they’re completely non-remunerative, give yourself an hour or two per week to think deliberately and engage in actionable steps.
I have to completely agree with this, especially for what you mentioned. Reading, writing, drawing can easily be done for an hour here and there. Open Source programming might be a bigger time sink, but it might also lead to some useful contacts and career options.

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seanconn256
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Re: New member checking in

Post by seanconn256 »

Miss Lonelyhearts wrote:
Sat May 15, 2021 2:19 pm
Welcome and good luck. My word of advice is to reserve some time for your miscellaneous activities now. Even if they’re completely non-remunerative, give yourself an hour or two per week to think deliberately and engage in actionable steps. You might even “pay” yourself for your time. You can accomplish a lot.
Thanks for the advice! I always make sure to make time for my hobbies; they're mostly what keep me going.

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seanconn256
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Re: New member checking in

Post by seanconn256 »

Bankai wrote:
Sat May 15, 2021 2:45 pm
If you're just starting out it makes sense to focus on increasing income rather than investment returns. It requires serious time investment to beat the index and you won't see much of a difference until your stash is into six figures. Are you planning to buy a house?
Interesting: I didn't know it was that hard to beat the index.
And from my undersranding of ERE, I thought that spending less was more of a goal than earning more?

And no, not planning on buying a house yet. Maybe someday, but I have particular interest.

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seanconn256
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Re: New member checking in

Post by seanconn256 »

MeloTheMelon wrote:
Sat May 15, 2021 11:51 pm
Welcome!
I'm in a similar situation as you - software grad that recently started working - so I'm looking forward to your posts.

I have to completely agree with this, especially for what you mentioned. Reading, writing, drawing can easily be done for an hour here and there. Open Source programming might be a bigger time sink, but it might also lead to some useful contacts and career options.
Cool! Nice to see some people in similar situations as me, I hope we can learn from one another.

Open source stuff as a career booster is definitely something I should put more thought into.

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Alphaville
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Post by Alphaville »

seanconn256 wrote:
Sun May 16, 2021 7:52 am
And from my undersranding of ERE, I thought that spending less was more of a goal than earning more?
it's not really about money in itself ("personal finance"), but more about developing personal economic systems and competencies in loosely connected modules that display tensegrity under conditions of stress from ecological/economic/societal/other collapse.

ertyu
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Post by ertyu »

in english, reducing spending is a goal because it makes you less vulnerable to swings in the real economy. but it is not the only goal: having multiple sources of "yields" -- some of these can be money (say a business or a side gig), some of these can be zucchini from your garden, some of these might be e.g. being able to get a tool on loan from a neighbor you helped out that one time.

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Alphaville
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Post by Alphaville »

yup your job is a "module" and your zucchini growing operation would be another module which (hypothetically) could continue unaffected in the event of job loss ("collapse") or even compensate somewhat for it (eat more homegrown zucchini under money shortages).

if "zucchini" is not very dependent on "job" it is therefore "loosely coupled."

ofc i said hypothetically because if your zucchini garden is in a rental unit then it is more tightly coupled to your job than it would be if it were located in a house you own outright, or a community garden, etc.

compare this to a pure consumer system where everything (mortgage, car, food, shopping, a/c) is absolutely coupled to "job" central unit, like the sun around which all of life revolves.

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seanconn256
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Post by seanconn256 »

Okay interesting responses, thank you guys.

I'll admit I saw the systems part of the book and pretty much glossed over it. I've been much more attracted to a no-work retirement, but as I've thought about the details more, living completely off interest from investments is still pretty risky from a systems perspective. I'll be looking through the forum for more stories of people doing stuff like this.

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Alphaville
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Re: New member checking in

Post by Alphaville »

right, in the case of financial system collapse, eg zombies eat wall street, being tightly coupled to money leaves one naked ... people can lose their job and their investments on the same day.

remember also during the pandemic there were things money couldn't buy. like.. toiler paper :lol:

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