Hristo's FI Journal

[Hristo Botev]

Marriage advice: Get a queen size bed with a king size comforter. A queen is big enough to have your own space but small enough to encourage some physical contact from time to time. And the king size comforter does wonders to avoid spats about who is hogging the sheets.

[basuragomi]

We zip together two sleeping bags into a giant comforter for the same effect in winter. The advantage of this method is that you can zip up the feet further (effectively partially pleating the blanket) to avoid the edges drooping on the floor since your shoulders take up more blanket-perimeter than your feet. If you want sleeping bags anyways for camping/emergencies then you can avoid buying a large comforter too.

[Hristo Botev]

Had a daddy/daughter date over the weekend (movie and a dinner; the Addams Family animated movie actually wasn't that bad). While waiting for our dinner reservation we walked over to our local bookstore and, to my surprise, there was a graphic novel version of To Kill a Mockingbird. What a wonderful idea! Not sure if Harper Lee would have signed off on that if she were still alive (or, more importantly, if she would have signed off on it while alive AND still in her right mind; I still haven't been able to bring myself to read Go Set a Watchman). Regardless, I HAD to buy it, as my daughter is a huge fan of the graphic novel genre, and I'm a huge fan of To Kill a Mockingbird (I've read the book and seen the movie a number many times, and I've even toured the Monroeville courthouse shown in the movie--though, admittedly, I was only visiting Monroeville because I had a girlfriend there at the time). My daughter finished the entire 270-page book in 4 days, and I tore through it in just 2. I think my daughter appreciated that I trusted her to be able to handle the very mature subject matter. And as a lawyer in the South with a young daughter, I can only hope that my daughter might view me with as much regard as Scout viewed Atticus. I thought the book was very well done--it's loyal to the original book and the illustrations do a wonderful job of giving people like me (who are already very familiar with the story) a great way to discover some new layers to that they previously might not have noticed.

I've requested the movie from the library, which hopefully we'll have by this weekend. And I'm looking forward to re-watching the moving with my daughter, now that she's read the book (even if in graphic novel form). At my daughter's school they don't read To Kill a Mockingbird until the 8th grade, and she said that several 8th graders and her teacher were very excited when they saw that she was reading the graphic novel version, and they couldn't wait for her to finish so they can talk to her about it. Certainly has to rank near the top of discussion-generating fiction novels.

[Hristo Botev]

Came very close to getting hit by a car twice on my walk in to work this morning. Was in the crosswalk (with the walk sign; with my eyes looking forward and my headphones stowed away) as a guy made a left turn but didn't see me until he was about 2 feet away from me, at which point he slowed and turned away from me with an "I'm sorry" look and wave. I waved back as he passed (really, I did; with a "it happens" smile even), only to realize that there was someone driving right on his back bumper who was also turning left, and who didn't see me at all because she was driving so close to the guy in front of her. She came about 6 inches from hitting me before she stopped. My hands reflexively went up as if a cop had just pulled a gun on me. The second driver did not give me the same "I'm sorry" look and wave; rather, she just glared at me as if to say, "how long do I have to wait for you to move from the front of my car before it would be acceptable for me to just run your ass over." I took the hint and double-timed to the other side of the street.

I'd say my numerous recent brushes with death (bike accidents, intubation-inducing bouts of pneumonia, etc.) were getting comical if I didn't know how hard they are on my wife and kids. I realized this morning, however, how much less aggressive I am as a pedestrian as opposed to a bike commuter. Had that woman come so close to hitting me while I was on my bike, no doubt I would have reflexively reacted with a stream of expletives, and/or with a smack to a window, and/or with some sort of obscene gesture. Or maybe, at 41, I'm just finally maturing. But I doubt it.

To repeat a quote from one of my favorite southern authors, Harry Crews, when describing his novel Car:

"The novel Car would, I think, be a better book if the automobile outraged me less. I hate its stifling presence and abhor the sheer stupidity of the automobile industry. Consider this question: How much sense does it make for a 113-pound housewife to get into 4,000 pounds of machinery and drive 2 blocks for a 13-ounce loaf of bread? That question and others like it made writing the book Car inevitable."

[Frita]

Marriage advice: Get a queen size bed with a king size comforter. A queen is big enough to have your own space but small enough to encourage some physical contact from time to time. And the king size comforter does wonders to avoid spats about who is hogging the sheets.

Agreed, I accidentally bought a king-sized comforter for our new queen-sized bed in 1999. Our son has a full-sized bed with a queen comforter. Compared to sleeping with the correct-sized comforter when we are traveling, the bed is easier to make.

[Mister Imperceptible]

Marriage advice: Get a queen size bed with a king size comforter. A queen is big enough to have your own space but small enough to encourage some physical contact from time to time. And the king size comforter does wonders to avoid spats about who is hogging the sheets.

What if the woman is six feet tall?

[Cheepnis]

What if the woman is six feet tall?

Then let them have the comforter and count your blessings!

Being tall myself I've always had a bit of a fancy for women my own height. Unfortunately the laws of pragmatism require that trait remain far far down the list.

[Hristo Botev]

I've continued running, managing to run in half-mile increments before my lungs scream uncle and have me in coughing fits. On Thursday, however, I managed to make it a full mile without stopping, though I then had to switch back to half-mile increments to finish out the run. But that's progress, and hopefully I'm on track to start a 10-week half-marathon running plan a month from now. I really like the idea of being able to complete a half marathon (ideally with a respectable time) about 4 months after having been hooked up to a breathing machine, unable to breathe on my own. It's going to be a long haul, as the mile that I was just able to complete without stopping was at a pace that would just barely qualify as jogging; but I tend to need truly challenging goals to keep me motivated.

[Hristo Botev]

With the move to the new house we've gotten very lazy about tracking spending, in part because of all the uncertainty and non-recurring expenses that happen with a move. This means of course that our spending has been ridiculous of late, because frugality is not instinctual for us--if we don't track our spending, then we just spend. We hope to remedy this starting this month, so that we'll be able to track our savings rate numbers again.

Our net worth numbers have been fine, due entirely to the curiously strong stock market and the fact that we've automated most of our regular savings. For our family of four, with Catholic school tuition for the kids followed by college tuition, I'm aiming for the house to be paid off in 5 years and for a net worth (not counting home equity) of about $1.5 million. We're a little over a 1/3 of the way there, and with a little luck, we'll hit our goal in about 5-6 years, right around the time our oldest finishes her freshman year of high school.

No doubt we'd have made more progress towards our net worth goals had I stayed at the big law firm, with roughly double the salary I'm getting now. But that's the great thing about FU money--I was able to switch to a job that satisfies my professional goals and interests, but that also allows me to be a better father and husband, and to pursue outside interests like teaching Sunday School and training to be a Catholic Canon lawyer. So I'm in no hurry to "retire," as I'm perfectly fine where I'm at and honestly can't imagine not practicing law in some capacity once we've hit FI.

In other news, starting next year the kids will be able to walk home from school by themselves, and DW will be able to adjust her work schedule so she'll be able to meet them at home when they get home around 3:15 or so. That means we, FINALLY, won't have to pay for any sort of aftercare, which will result in savings of about $500/month. This is one more of the MANY benefits of having your house, work, and kids' school all within easy walking distance.

[Hristo Botev]

In other, other news, following our meeting with a very nice and professional contractor, I'm changing my tune about insisting on using a contractor for all of the renovation work on the house we'd like to do. In our minds we were thinking that adding a bathroom to the basement level and renovating the existing two full bathrooms and the kitchen, along with some other work, would cost around $35,000 or so (for our 1,300 sq. ft. home). Apparently we were way off, as the contractor's ballpark estimate was more in the range of $50K-90K. So at this point I think the plan instead is to do the kitchen ourselves, as it really is just some cabinetry and paint. And I'm hoping YouTube will tell me how to fix my kids' leaking shower tiles, as DW and I are growing tired of them using our shower. And I think I'll handle things like refinishing the floors, updating light fixtures, replacing the patio fence, and so on. I've already relied on YouTube to show me how to fix the hole the plumber left in the ceiling, including replicating the "stipple" pattern (there's a special place in hell reserved for whoever invented textured ceilings). That leaves the master bathroom and adding the bathroom to the basement, both of which are big projects definitely beyond my skillset and anything I can expect to learn from YouTube. Hopefully that will get us down to $25-35K or so.

[Cheepnis]

Does your house have any existing plumbing in the basement? If not your basement could be below the sewer elevation and you'll need a sump installed if you want a bathroom down there. That could explain a little bit of the steep price estimate.

[ertyu]

Hi-five, man, just read your journal. Lots of blessings in disguise in that last post. Developing the skills to fix your own kitchen and tiles sounds like the sort of thing that will give you a lot of satisfaction. Godspeed!

[Hristo Botev]

Fortunately it does have water down there already, as the washer and dryer are currently located in the basement, which is really the ground floor level because it's where the ground-level garage is located. No sump pump needed. That was a concern in a prior house which we briefly toyed with the idea of converting the large unfinished basement into either a rental.

[Hristo Botev]

Hi-five, man

Thanks! My wife is not a spender by nature, as she grew up with a frugal dad and she idolized her even more frugal grandfather. But we can all get carried away, and it was funny how things in our new house that seemed unbearable to DW became much less so after the contractor told us how much it would cost to hire him to fix them. She started thinking of ways she could be smarter about use of cabinet space, and that very weekend I came home from running errands to find she'd cleared out about 1/4 of the junk from the cabinets that we've accumulated over the years but that never get used. Now, it's looking more and more like all we really need to do with the kitchen is paint the cabinets and walls and change out some of the hardware. Even I can manage that.

[Hristo Botev]

While I'm screwing around at work, I'll add that DW realized that one of the bus stops for her employer's bus system (she works at a hospital that runs several bus routes free-of-charge for employees) is right outside the front door of my new office building (we moved to a neighboring office building a few months ago for more space). So this morning we had an absolutely wonderful commute, as DW and I walked the kids to school (across the street from our townhome development) and then walked downtown together for the 15-minute commute to my office, where she picked up the bus. The entire trip took her about 35 minutes, from our front door to the front door of her work. And that's about 10 minutes faster than when she drives, because apart from dealing with traffic, her parking spot at work is a long walk (or a long shuttle ride) away from her office. She can also walk to work, without taking a bus, in about the same amount of time as she can drive. And so her plan is to walk in with me in the morning and take the bus, and then walk the entire distance home in the afternoon.

I continue to be amazed at how little value so many people place on commuting distance and walkability when making home and work decisions. Granted, our family lives in a very (at least for the South) expensive community, and people are very quick to argue that most people can't afford to live here. And it is true that, if we insisted (as we have in the past) on living in an updated, single-family detached home in our town, we'd be looking at a minimum of ~$650K (the average price for new construction is now $1mil+; and, incredibly, $800K+ for new townhome construction). But we were able to buy a great home for half that amount by being just a tiny bit more flexible in what we considered acceptable as a home. ~$300K for a house is still not cheap, but it's certainly comparable to what people are paying in the suburbs and exurbs. And as Jacob (and MMM) have explained in detail before, people just don't factor in all the costs of car commuting (financial and otherwise) when buying a less expensive home further out; not to mention the additional costs of buying a larger home with higher energy costs, maintenance, yard upkeep, etc.

Anyway, that's me patting myself on the back.

[Hristo Botev]

I've been having a very difficult time motivating myself to workout, because it's been cold in the morning and I'm kind of a wuss when it comes to exercising outside in the winter. This time last year I had a relatively cheap gym membership that I was actually using on a regular basis. But that gym was across the street from our old house, which was kind of on the edge of where the downtown urban area meets the suburban/strip-mall and big-box part of town (where cheap gyms exist). Our new place is right downtown, where big-box gyms are non-existent, and so all the gym options are small, expensive, concept gyms. I really just need a treadmill to get me through the winter, and perhaps some free weights as a bonus; but it's really kind of a no go if I'm trying to avoid starting my morning off by driving to a gym on the edge of town. I ALMOST pulled the trigger on the cheapest of those small, expensive gyms that I could walk/bike to, but I then remembered how much I hate cancelling gym memberships and fighting with them over promised monthly discounts that don't make it to the auto-draft (it's like dealing with telecom companies). And so ultimately I decided to just suck it up and wear more layers when I run in the morning, and alternatively do some body-weight and kettlebell stuff in my family room. If I'm going to fail at sticking with a workout plan, I may as well avoid being stuck with monthly membership fees in the process.

[ertyu]

I've been having a very difficult time motivating myself to workout, because it's been cold in the morning and I'm kind of a wuss when it comes to exercising outside in the winter.

I hear this. Hard.

Currently at the stage where a kettlebell is gathering dust in the corner. Just because you buy a threadmil, doesn't mean you'll use it. So, your choice to build a habit to exercise at home first _then_ worry about investing in equipment is, I think, smart. Good luck with your exercise habit.

[Hristo Botev]

I just saw an interesting post from Jacob on the "Hopping over from MMM" Introduce Yourself board (sorry, no idea how to insert hyperlinks), which got me thinking. I started to comment on Jacob's post there, but I tend to be long winded, and I figure Cal Bronson probably doesn't need me cluttering up his topic.

Anyway:

There are a couple of recent (within the past 5 years) outside comments on ERE that I've enjoyed. I paraphrase:

1) The ERE forums are a bunch of people who are already FIRE or seeking FIRE but mostly talk about anything but FIRE.
2) If Dave Ramsey is high school, MMM is college, and ERE is grad school.

Regarding 1), FIRE is just one of those concepts that can kind of blow your mind when you first come across it, at least for people (like me) who grow up equating good living with consumerism. But once you've gone down the rabbit hole and read all the blogs, done all the calculations, set up all the spreadsheets, and so on, there just really isn't anything else substantive or interesting to say. So the ERE forums for me are just a place to talk to and hear about the lived experiences of people who have come out the other end of the rabbit hole; to hear about their hobbies and interests, their spouses and their kids, their struggles with meaning and purpose, and so on. The numbers and FIRE milestones are interesting, but I think the people on this forum mostly seem to recognize that FIRE isn't an end in and of itself.

Regarding 2),the home inspector for my first home gave DW and me a copy of Ramsey's Total Money Makeover book as a gift, which he said he did for all first-time homebuyers who hired him. I'm a religious person, and so I can't help but see the hand of God in that home inspector's gift, which was the exact right gift at the exact right time. The book started to get DW and me to look at money differently (if only slightly so) as we entered our professional and family lives in earnest, and it was the impetus for us deciding to pay off our student loan debt early. Then came exposure to MMM and its kin, as I was starting to get a little burnt out at work and wondering why I had so little to show for all the hours I was spending at work and not with my family. MMM prompted me to, among other things: start bike commuting, get rid of my car loan in favor of a used car I could pay cash for, and to downsize my home and my job, with a goal towards being able to quit working altogether. Then came exposure to ERE, which I tend to look at as a lifelong capstone course of sorts that brings together the concepts of anti-consumerism, simple living, and DIY to try and figure out what really brings joy and fulfillment in life. Yes, partly as a result of exposure to ERE we downsized from 2 family cars to 1, and we downsized our home even further, to a place that's about 300 sq. ft. per family member. But with ERE I'm much less concerned (though still somewhat concerned) about savings rates, because for me, in the specific life circumstance I find myself in, I view it as entirely consistent with ERE to spend more money on a local farm share than I would if I bought the same food from Kroger, or Costco, or even Jeff Bezos's Whole Foods. And I also view it as consistent with ERE for me to send our kids to our local parish Catholic school, even though we live in an exceptionally good public school system. Because at my kids' Catholic school they are being taught to put God at the center of their lives, as opposed to consumer goods, wealth, fame, or even academic and/or professional success. And I also view it as ERE to take a ~50% paycut for a job with fewer hours and less stress, but that still allows me to flourish professionally, even though I could have reached my FIRE point earlier had I stuck it out a few years longer at the big firm.

So .. basically, the selection bias of the forum is for those who already have their basic shit together and want to see how deep the rabbit hole really goes... and where it goes... or could go. It's actually not so much about being extreme as it is about wanting to "get educated". For example, a quick road to perdition here would be to either request or suggest a simple one-size-fits-all approach

I definitely don't have my shit together, basic or otherwise, but I do love the rabbit hole. And I love how no one here seems to suggest that there is a one-size-fits-all approach to ERE. We've got the van and RV dwellers, the international travelers, the rural homesteaders and even the urban homesteaders, and we've even got the big spenders like me who make a budget at the beginning of each month so that we can head straight to confession at the end of the month when we add up all the gluttonous spending.

[Hristo Botev]

From: https://fs.blog/2017/06/habits-vs-goals/

"Studies have shown that people’s brains can confuse goal setting with achievement. This effect is more pronounced when people inform others of their goals."

This is SO true; and something I'd never thought of before. The same principle must apply for why I get so much satisfaction from making lists, New Year's resolutions, etc. I could spend hours creating a Great Books reading list, and never actually read any of the books on the list.

[Hristo Botev]

In an effort to focus on habit-forming over striving to achieve goals, I managed to actually get out of bed this morning at 5:30 and do a ~30-minute kettlebell workout in the family room, while listening to a podcast. The habits I'm seeking to form are: (1) get out of bed when my alarm goes off at 5:30; and (2) do SOMETHING physical first thing, whether it's going for a run or some sort of kb or body weight thing, it really doesn't matter. I recognize of course that my brain is feeling a misplaced sense of accomplishment by the very fact that I'm telling you all about my GOAL to form a HABIT. Nevertheless, having given myself some time this morning before the kids woke up made it much easier to deal with all the kids' craziness when they woke up. I was even able to get about 30 minutes of reading in, which was nice. I'm currently reading a book that purports to be a "biography" of the fictional character Atticus Finch, from To Kill a Mockingbird. It's really (so far) a deep look at the relationship between Harper Lee and her father, and all the events of their lives that brought Atticus Finch into being. I'm really enjoying it.