Hristo's FI Journal

[Hristo Botev]

Oh man, Paul Kingsnorth talking about the differences between Huxley's world and Orwell's: https://www.thegreatresetmovement.com/e ... d-activist. This for me is the closest thing to the "Hermitix Question" that gets asked of interviewees on that podcast, 3 folks from history you'd want to put in a room together: right now my answer might be Huxley, Orwell, and Kingsnorth.

Also, prompted by Ben Hunt on the Strong Towns podcast (https://www.strongtowns.org/podcast), I may finally be coming around to the realization that I need to get my money out of stock index funds. I've already started doing that a bit, in moving away from my blind allegiance to VTSAX, but as the veneer of the world we're told we're living in cracks for me, stock indexes seem more and more dangerous.

To that end, as someone who has never had a brokerage account (apart from Vanguard) and never traded a single stock in my entire life, the Dogs of the Dow approach discussed on the ERE blog seems like a good place to start for me (http://earlyretirementextreme.com/a-sim ... ement.html, http://earlyretirementextreme.com/day-2 ... ement.html). I see that there was a thread on this back in 2016 (viewtopic.php?t=7758), which I'll read; but I'm open to anyone telling me why this is a really stupid idea.

Also, back to the Ben Hunt interview, towards the end (around the 55:35 minute mark) he starts talking about the importance of finding "packs" of folks who don't treat you as a means to an end, but who treat you as an autonomous human being. Basically, finding folks who recognize things are a bit "off" at the moment, to say the least, and then relying on that group of folks for support as you figure out how to stay positive in a world where the future looks very tenuous and uncertain. This "pack" concept is very much what Dreher is talking about in his Benedict Option book, just from a different angle. And it got me thinking that ERE is, in a way, one kind of this "pack" for me (virtually); and the group of families DW and I rely on from our church/parish is very much this "pack" for us IRL, in a more Benedict Option sense.

I'll say, from a resiliency standpoint, we had a hurricane come through and do some damage yesterday morning (which is INSANE given how far from the coast we are), and once again, the differences between my church/parish friends (do-ers) and my old neighborhood friends (consumers) were made strikingly clear. The neighborhood folks have been foaming at the mouth for a day and a half because they are without power with downed trees on their streets making it impossible or difficult for them to go anywhere. Their frustration/anger makes sense, as they're all working virtually from home, and their kids (all of whom are in our fancy public schools) are learning virtually as well. So, they are COMPLETELY at the mercy of various state and local governments and the power company and the telecom company: they can't work, their kids can't learn, and they can't even eat without the help of local restaurants.

For me and my church/parish friends, the storm was barely even noticed, apart from the fact that it gave us an opportunity to play with chainsaws. One of the reasons DW and I moved to our current neighborhood is because it's one of the rare places in our town with buried power lines, and so we've not had a single power outage in the year we've lived here. This was important because in our old neighborhood the power seemed to go out once a week, with elevated power lines running through an old growth forest in an urban neighborhood. Also, downed trees don't affect me because I walk to work and to the store. And my kids' school didn't even start late yesterday, even though they had a massive oak tree crash into one of the church/school buildings (which doesn't currently house any classrooms). This is the difference when your school caters mostly to kids whose parents are blue-collar, small business owner, and "essential worker" types, as opposed to corporate directors/VPs or big professional firm partners/associates. The only issue we've had is that Internet is still out at our house, so DW walked into the hospital today instead of working from home.

This is an image of what self-reliance looks like. I've got a long way to go, however. E.g., our county's sewer system is a trainwreck, with billions of dollars spent and to be spent with very little to show for it, except some county officials serving time for corruption. So probably about time I started storing water and perhaps setting up a water catchment system. Also, I need some food stores. And I need to improve my vegetable gardening skills.

[Hristo Botev]

Not quite the end of the month, but I don't want to work anymore and I won't be in front of a computer (hopefully) this weekend.

So, without further adieu, we had another month that we will consider to be a success because our family's spending was under 1 JAFI (and yes, I know JAFI is an annual and not a monthly figure; but, baby steps?).

October 2020 Savings Rate Numbers

Total after-tax income: $14,270.58 (DW is out of management! Yippee! So less income but I couldn't care less!)
Total expenses: $6,885.02
Surplus/profit: $7,385.56
Savings rate: 51.75% (progress, barely)
NW needed to cover expenses: $1,967,040.00

October 2020 Expenses

Mortgage Principal: $815.97
Mortgage Interest: $470.43 (thank you bank, may I have another)
Mortgage Escrow: $767.75 (thank you city/county, may I have another)
HOA: $254 (the new tennis court is nice, and I'm told DW really likes hearing the leaf blowers EVERY DAY!!!!)
Kids' Tuition: $1,710.20
Life Ins.: $59.15
Car Insurance: $28.90
Kids' Rec/Camps: $0 (yeah DW's new schedule!)
Charitable Donations: $490.91 (I don't know if this should be counted as an expense or not, but I want to track it that way so that it factors in to the FIRE numbers, as we want to be able to keep doing this)
Kids' Allowance: $34
Internet: $20
Home Gas: $41.86
Home Electricity: $70.09
Water: $210.15 (someone has to pay for all the corruption)
Cell Phones (x3): $54.64
Groceries: $763.60*
Alcohol: $168.08 (I'll blame this one on my in-laws; what is it Benjamin Franklin says about house guests and fish?)
Home Improvement: $69.36
Restaurant: $31.38**
Dog: $112.00
Gifts: $149.13 (sick parishioners, nephew and niece bday; kids school photos is also in here for lack of a better category)
Entertainment: $379.14 (hmm, this one creeping back up, and it ain't me)
Car: $176.38 (trip to the mountains and driving around the state for soccer games every weekend; plus we were nice and gassed up the in-laws car--also, I'd forgotten to cancel my registration on the old car and had to pay a fine)
Clothing: $265.87 (ouch - kids' school clothes, et al.; none of it is mine)
ATM: $160.00 (also part of charitable contributions)
"Beauty": $0 (uh-oh)

*I can't really say anything about this unless I take on more of the shopping/cooking duties, which I hope to start doing more of as we try and build up some dry good stores, and incorporate those into our daily cooking/eating. But if you add this with our restaurant for a total food budget, we've made pretty drastic improvement on this over the past couple years. I mean, in August 2018 we were at $2,678.80 (viewtopic.php?p=171702#p171702).

**Family Record!!! We ate out ONE TIME (well, take out), exhausted from a day of driving around the state for various kids' soccer games. The rest is for a couple school lunches for the kids.

[Hristo Botev]

Finished Kingsnorth's The Wake, and I'm a fan. It was like nothing I'd read before, with the hybrid "Anglish" language. After about 20 pages I ended up getting the audiobook version to listen to while I read along; without that I don't think I could have made it through the book, but with the audiobook (Simon Vance as the narrator) the book definitely came alive for me. It reminded me of a 350-page epic poem, like something Homer would have written; but 1066 England instead.

I've ordered a used copy of Kingsnorth's Beast and am looking forward to reading it; also looking forward to reading something that won't require translation.

[jacob]

Luckily I didn't realize that there was a dictionary in the appendix before I finished it. The first 15-20 pages were hard but after that it became increasingly easier---like learning a new language (which I think was one of the points of the exercise/experience). I wonder whether my case was somewhat assisted by being fluent in Danish as well as speaking some German to make out the roots of a lot of the Old Norse and Germanic words. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_E ... rse_origin

[Hristo Botev]

Thinking jiujitsu classes might be an investment for the future as important as improved insulation. Probably more so for the kids. I’m feeling more like Sarah Connor these days.

[Hristo Botev]

Was very, very happy to have an all-day mediation yesterday, which locked me in a conference room and away from my computer. Hoping a full plate of work with urgent deadlines today will keep me focused on something other than the electoral college tally.

[Hristo Botev]

I certainly think I was a bit hamstrung as a (mostly*) monolingual Southerner. I probably could have forced my way through it, but I'm glad I didn't as the audiobook version was fantastic. I forced myself to read along with the audiobook, instead of just listening to the audiobook, and I'm glad I did because there's definitely beauty and a bit of genius in the way Kingsnorth created the hybrid language, and the way it looks.

I took the message of the book to be that there's comfort in history. Yes, the crisis we are facing is a new one; but, it's also not. So, suck it up and recognize that perpetual progress is a myth, and be grateful for what you've got, and love those around you. The long festival/dinner scene towards the end of the book is a good visual, even if a bit hedonistic.

*The only language I ever learned for real was Slavic, so not particularly helpful (also, I've lost that language).

[Hristo Botev]

DW just found 25lb bags of rice at our international market for $13.99; still looking for a good source for legumes. It's probably a bit ridiculous just how excited I am about this, but I'm just giddy at the prospect of getting 95% of our food from: (a) bulk-purchased dry good stores (rice, beans, flour, etc.), and (b) farm share/CSA veggies, fruit, cheeses, and eggs (supplemented by our back patio veggie containers and our community garden plot). It'll take some work to get the kids off of processed foods (it's purely a convenience thing; getting elementary school kids out the door in the morning and off to school with a "snack" and their lunch is always stressful); but DW and I are all in, and we'll get the kids there eventually.

ETA: Re-reading To Kill a Mockingbird a few months ago with DD, there's really no reason why the kids shouldn't be able to come home for lunch. It'll never happen, but we're certainly doing something wrong as a society when we can't trust our community enough to allow kids to walk home from school to grab lunch.

[Hristo Botev]

It really is crazy that I've spent the past 11 years sitting on my ass behind a computer in an office typing things on this stupid keyboard stressed out that other people (who are not family members or members of any community of mine outside of work) might think I'm not typing these things fast enough or in the right way. Why do I do it? Because partners (or, in my case now, more senior partners) pay me a bunch of money so that (to paraphrase Kingsnorth) I can buy shit I don't need which I'll end up throwing into a big hole in the ground to be replaced by more shit I don't need. And what's in it for the partners? Just more stress, more money, more shit they don't need, and more shit sitting in a big hole in the ground. Ditto the clients for whom the partners work.

11 years x 50 weeks x 50 hours* = 27,500 hours

*50 hours is certainly a fair average, if you factor in those weeks I worked well over 50 hours and the 1 hr/day I used to spend commuting, plus the time I spend getting dressed for work, etc., and the time I spend checking my email, etc. outside of the office.

I know we've all got to find something to do with the time we've got on this planet, but this seems like a really screwed-up way to spend our time.

[jacob]

FYI: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/kingsnorth/register

[Hristo Botev]

@Jacob: Thanks for sharing! Looking forward to it.

Also, I went ahead and ordered the book; from my own independent bookseller, however, not the one hosting Friday's event. Hoping there won't be any spoilers during the event!

[Hristo Botev]

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned; this is my first carbon emissions confession.*

- Electricity: 1/4** of 7,200 kWh of electricity at .4444 kgCO2e.kWh = .8 metric tons
- Heating: 1/4 of 300 therms of natural gas = .40 metric tons
- Flights: 1 economy class round trip (936 miles x2) = .42 metric tons
- Car: 4,500 miles with an average of 18 mpg = 1.47 metric tons (4,500 is just a guess; this is total household driving)
- Food: $175/mo. for a heavy meat eater = 1.36 metric tons
- Pharmaceuticals: $0 = 0 metric tons
- Clothes/shoes: $320/year = .09 metric tons (though all but a pair of running shoes and a baseball hat was bought used)
- Paper products: $420/year = .08 metric tons (newspaper subscription and books)
- Computers/IT/TV/radio/phone: $0 = 0 metric tons (admittedly, we got laptops for the kids when the lockdown schooling started)
- Motor vehicle: $19,000 (new car) = 4.15 metric tons (seriously?)
- Furniture and other mf'd goods (i.e., non-clothes "stuff"): $2,500/year (a very rough guess) = .57 metric tons
- Non-stuff stuff (i.e., hotels, entertainment, restaurants, recreation, etc.): $4,000/year = 1.09 metric tons
- Mobile/Internet: $300/year = .05 metric tons
- Mortgage/Interest: $3,875/year = 1.11 metric tons
- Insurance: $250/mo. (medical, home, car, term life) = .39 metric tons
- Education: $0 = 0 metric tons
- Total: 11.98 metric tons***

*I used this calculator: https://calculator.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx
**Dividing household by 4 to get individual feels a bit like cheating; I suspect someone on here can suggest a better way to calculate this.
***This seems lower than it should be. For one, it doesn't account for my share of carbon emissions where I spend most of my time, in the office. But it's at least something to work from.

Having done this little exercise, I think going forward it makes more sense to do this as a household number, rather than on an individual level.

[jacob]

I suspect someone on here can suggest a better way to calculate this.

Certainly!

Calculate as an individual (you yourself) and then add 1/2 of your impact for each child (because there are two parents) who will eventually grow up to become a fully consuming adult like yourself, 1/4 for each grandchild (because there are 4 grandparents), etc. That is your total impact on the demand side of the equation.

[7Wannabe5]

It’s very hard for anybody to do these sort of calculations accurately. It gets even more wonky (IMO) the lower you go in spending. For instance, what share of the heating costs of apartment my BF would otherwise occupy solo should I assign myself? Do I get to subtract for my body heat? That’s why the 1 Jacob rule of thumb is best/simplest.

[Hristo Botev]

@Jacob: Clearly when I said "someone," I meant you! Thanks. That said, I think going forward given the ages of my kids it's just too difficult to extract out their emissions from my emissions. E.g., they play soccer, but we watch their games (sometimes it seems like that is ALL we do on the weekends); and we used to coach their respective teams when they played rec soccer. My daughter makes chocolate bars, but we (and the neighbors) eat it. I brew beer, but DW (and the neighbors) drink it. Seems like for now, until the kids get a bit older, it just makes more sense to calculate our household footprint, with the understanding that there's 4 people in the household. This is how we track our spending, as it's always seemed weird for me to say my spending is X, DW's is Y, and the kids' spending is Z.

[7Wannabe5]

Luckily, I am betting on maybe only one grandkid now. Although still possible my INTP son could get married someday. Anyways, I am wrapping full, not just 1/4, responsibility for grandchild into my permaculture project, so I should be covered no matter.

[Hristo Botev]

It’s very hard for anybody to do these sort of calculations accurately. It gets even more wonky (IMO) the lower you go in spending. For instance, what share of the heating costs of apartment my BF would otherwise occupy solo should I assign myself? Do I get to subtract for my body heat? That’s why the 1 Jacob rule of thumb is best/simplest.

I agree, and as I recall we had this conversation a couple weeks ago. I was happy to see that in the calculator I used and some of the others I found that they do in fact ask for the dollars you spent on "stuff," and then guesstimate from that $$$ the kg CO2. That said, for someone like me who'd never done the calculations before, I think it's good to be able to understand the 1 Jacob rule in the context of the carbon footprint. E.g., just knowing that spending $100 on new clothes isn't the same thing as spending $100 on used clothes (and why that's the case); same thing for any newly manufactured thing. Also, I'd never even looked at our heating bill or power bill before (pathetic, I know--DW pays those particular bills). And it's pretty insane to me that, for our household, heating our house for the year is equivalent from a CO2 emission standpoint to taking 1 round trip to New England. I certainly won't forget that particular tidbit.

[7Wannabe5]

I think $100 on used clothing is same as $100 on new clothing, because thrift stores need heat, lights, etc. It’s just that you get more bang for your quality of life buck with the used purchase, because whole new spring wardrobe for cost of one pair of pants. However, if/when you donate them back, you could also credit yourself less depreciation.

[Hristo Botev]

I think $100 on used clothing is same as $100 on new clothing, because thrift stores need heat, lights, etc. It’s just that you get more bang for your quality of life buck with the used purchase, because whole new spring wardrobe for cost of one pair of pants. However, if/when you donate them back, you could also credit yourself less depreciation.

This makes sense; also, you're right I should probably just stick with calculating 1 Jacob, for simplicity sake--You start talking about depreciation and my mind starts wandering. But I do think it'd be good to actually track those things that are easily trackable from a CO2 emitting standpoint (gas mileage, kWh, therms), in addition to tracking overall spending. It's too easy for me to think, "hey, we saved a car trip by riding our bikes to the kids' soccer practice"; and then rely on the residual smugness to excuse otherwise wasteful behaviors.

[Hristo Botev]

Spending more and more time looking at my FIRE spreadsheet, wondering when the day will come when we'll pull the FIRE trigger.