Hristo's FI Journal

[Hristo Botev]

Thanks CL. And I see she has a recipe for using a Kitchen-Aid Mixer also, which we may as well use since we've got one.

[Hristo Botev]

I need to start closely tracking our spending again, because with DW and I shifting our investment strategy towards cash and away from auto-paycheck draws to max out 401Ks, we're in danger of our spending getting out of control (relative to what is normal for our spendy family of 4, not what is normal for this forum--I mean, we consider it a win to "only" spend 1 JAFI per month). So, without further ado:

September 2020 Savings Rate Numbers

Total after-tax income: $15,036.78
Total expenses: $7,271.91
Surplus/profit: $7,764.87
Savings rate: 51.64%
NW needed to cover expenses: $2,181,573

September 2020 Expenses

Mortgage Principal: $813.68
Mortgage Interest: $472.72
Mortgage Escrow: $767.75
HOA: $254
Kids' Tuition: $1,710.20
Life Ins.: $59.15
Car Insurance: $64.14
Kids' Rec/Camps: $90 (kids' soccer lessons)
Charitable Donations: $490.91
Kids' Allowance: $34
Internet: $20
Home Gas: $42.42
Home Electricity: $139.17 (should be going way down the next couple months)
Cell Phones (x3): $47.76
Groceries: $680.42 (includes our farm share, kids' school lunches, and buying what we can from our expensive and fancy corner market, which is owned by friends of ours)
Alcohol: $65.97 (should be going down as the homebrew starts filling the shelves of the fridge)
Hobbies: $113.41 (the last of the homebrew equipment, plus a recipe kit)
Home Improvement: $1,087.60 (includes $905.86 for a new stove/oven)
Restaurant: $238.79 (we treated the neighborhood to pizza for DS's birthday; also a $30 ice cream trip and $65 for a family lunch with friends, both outings I've already complained about on this forum; the rest of this is grabbing quick meals when running from soccer game to soccer game, when we didn't pack a lunch, which we are trying to get better about doing)
Gifts: $190.68 (DS's birthday, a chair for DD's room, and stuff for godchildren and nieces/nephews)
Entertainment: $49.52 (Redbox rentals, CD for DD, and newspaper subscription)
Car: $46.48 (gas)
Clothing: $112.82 (kids keep growing)
"Beauty" (not mine, I assure you): $99

All in all, this is progress for us. And I expect some of these categories to come down further.

Edit: Oops, screwed up my income numbers; those numbers don't make any sense. Corrected now.

[Hristo Botev]

The end result of my incredulity at my family's $30 ice cream trip last week:

I guess it doesn't look particularly appealing in the picture (kinda looks more like sausage gravy than ice cream), but I can assure you it was very delicious (also, I need to work on my photography/staging skills, clearly).

8-year-old DS followed the recipe and did pretty much everything himself, with just a bit of guidance from me (mostly in the form of stopping him from licking the spatula and then putting it back in the bowl). DS's mind (and mouth) have been running a mile a minute since as he comes up with various product variations and names, and he's looking forward to being able to package it up with personalized labels to give as gifts for friends' birthdays, etc., as opposed to having me or DW grab something from the Wal-Mart toy section. He also nearly sprinted to school this morning because he couldn't wait to tell his buddies what he'd made, "with my own hands!".* Next on the list is vanilla ice cream with red and blue M&Ms, which he's named "We the People"; as someone who works with marketing folks on a regular basis, I think that's a pretty clever name for an ice cream.

This is the recipe we used (https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/food-co ... ice-cream/). Here's hoping we forever disassociated the ice cream = $5+ at the corner shop connection in the kiddos' brains.

It's a testament to how well trained I've been as a consumer that in 42 years it's never occurred to me to do this before.

*I can't laugh at him too much (or at all), because I did pretty much the EXACT SAME THING last night, delivering my Scotch Ale homebrew (homebrew batch No. 2) to the mailboxes of neighborhood friends--because, frankly, I needed an excuse to get away from the TV and the train wreck of a presidential debate.

[Hristo Botev]

Glorious St. Joseph, trying to keep me on task.

[Hristo Botev]

I've watched quite a few YouTube videos on beer and brewing the past couple of months as I've gotten into the homebrew hobby, and this one is by far the best at explaining at a very elementary and non-jargony way what beer is, how it's made, the differences in styles, and what role the few ingredients play (e.g., malted barley is primarily responsible for the color; hops are primarily responsible for the bitterness, flavor, and aroma, depending on when in the brew they are added; yeast can provide some flavor). Anyway, putting this here so I have it as a reference; wish I would have discovered the video 2 months ago when I was starting out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yux8ZBxiXB0&t=321s

[Hristo Botev]

In an effort to getting back to closely tracking numbers again, here's what I got for September's net worth.

September 2020 Net Worth Numbers

Total NW: $688,039.37
"FIRE" NW:* $446,518.73
% of $800K FIRE NW Goal:** 56%
Total NW change from last month: -$3,553.52***

*Total NW minus money saved for kids' K-12 tuition, money in the 529, estimated car value, and estimated home equity.
**With the new plan of prepaying the kids' K-12 tuition and paying off the mortgage, $800K is the amount I project we'll need to cover monthly expenses with no mortgage or tuition payments. This of course assumes we actually pre-pay the kids' K-12 tuition and pay off the house.
***Would have been a good bit worse if we'd not moved a big chunk of our money from VTSAX to VGTSX, VTBIX, and VTIBX, and also cash.

[Hristo Botev]

Brothers and sisters:
Have no anxiety at all, but in everything,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
make your requests known to God.
Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding
will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers and sisters,
whatever is true, whatever is honorable,
whatever is just, whatever is pure,
whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious,
if there is any excellence
and if there is anything worthy of praise,
think about these things.
Keep on doing what you have learned and received
and heard and seen in me.
Then the God of peace will be with you.

[Hristo Botev]

I've been really slouching today at work, and spending way too much time on this forum. So it made me laugh when I decided to pull up the ERE blog and was greeted with this gem of a blogpost: http://earlyretirementextreme.com/a-duty-to-work.html. Hadn't read it before, but it's a good one for sure; and because I was wasting time 'til 5, I read the comments as well--fantastic discussion, and even think I saw a decades-old post from @ffj. Anyway, reading this and the subsequent comments made me think of how much my own thoughts on the "duty to work" have changed in the past 3 years or so. I don't think my thinking has changed in any sort of fundamental way, just that I have a better understanding of the nuances. I mean, I don't think I ever thought we have a duty to go work a 40-hour workweek until we're too old to do it anymore, in exchange for a paycheck. But I do think that's more what I had in my mind's eye in the past when I thought of "work," to the extent I saw (and still see) work as a means by which we can exercise virtue, and by which we can employ our time and talents. I guess I think of the "duty to work" question in the sense that we are commanded to love our neighbors, and if love isn't a feeling but rather active conduct to will the good of the other, and if God gifts us with unique talents by which we can "will the good" of others--well, then we do in fact have a "duty" to use those talents and the time we've been given to serve others. But serving others doesn't necessarily mean working a job for a paycheck. It certainly can mean that--in the sense that, at the most basic level, we have an obligation to take care of ourselves and those who are directly under our charge, and to not be a burden on society. But once you're in a position to take care of you and yours--whether you've done so through a job for a paycheck, or by gardening and bartering and whatever, or via inheritance, or whatever--the question then is simply, how will you use your talents and your time to serve others above and beyond your basic obligation to not be a burden. And that probably isn't by working a 9-5 for a bank that only really makes money when people can't afford to make their CC payments, or by litigating cases for commercial landlords, or by figuring out clever ways to get people to buy more and more paper towels, or whatever.

Sorry, this is all just stream-of-consciousness armchair theology and philosophy, for which I'm EXTREMELY unqualified to speak on. Also, it's past 5; so, see ya'.

[Hristo Botev]

I should start a new topic on this forum titled "Hristo's Misadventures in Weekend Warrior DIY".

To begin, this was an especially prolific DIY weekend because DS broke his arm during the week (he's fine) playing a game we call "soccer tennis"; a game that he and I used to claimed we'd invented until one of DS's Brazililan soccer coaches said, "umm, no, we've been playing 'soccer tennis' for decades in Brazil.'" Anyway, the downside of the broken arm is no soccer or flag football games for DS this weekend. But, the upside is that the family had plenty of time this weekend to tackle our various projects, as the only game we had to go to was DD's on Saturday, which was thankfully a home game.

For me, my main project was trying to do something about the rotted out door trim at our front door:



It's been driving me and DW crazy since we moved in, but I've been reluctant to tackle the project because I know it's well beyond my carpentry expertise (I don't have any). Anyway, here's is that happens when someone like me, whose experience wielding a hammer is limited to hanging pictures on the wall, decides to take on a carpentry DIY project.

First, after confirming Home Depot has this trim in stock, I tried to clear out the rotted wood using nothing but a wood chisel, because that's all I have. It took A LONG TIME, and I think I destroyed my cheap wood chisel in the process, but eventually I got to this:



Unfortunately in the process of clearing out the rotted trim I exposed how rotted the siding is next to the trim, and I'm clueless as to how to address that problem.

Anyway, the final product, before painting:



It's ugly, but I'm hoping that perhaps using some sort of filler (putty?), plus painting, might make the fix a little more seamless. Also, and more importantly, it addresses the real problem, which was that you could see the rotted trim from the street, meaning we were bound to get an email/letter from the HOA eventually telling us we needed to do something. And as ugly as the fix is up close, it's looks perfect from the street.

I'm open to and welcome any and all sorts of criticisms: "you should have . . . "; "did you think about trying . . ."; "you realize your house is about to fall apart?"; etc. As I really do want to get more competent at tackling these sorts of projects, and our house is old enough (built in the 80s), and built poorly enough (again, built in the 80s), that I've got no shortage of projects with which to hone my non-existent handyman skills. I'd also love to hear any ideas about how to address the rotted siding.

ETA: The good news is that, so far, this project only cost me about $3.50, to buy 2 feet of the trim from Home Depot. I still need to find something to fill in the gap between the two pieces, and I don't know if I have the paint. But, from an ERE perspective, $3.50 for a half-ass fix I think trumps whatever I'd have paid a handyman to do the project, the end result of which I'm sure I'd have been disappointed in anyways.

I had more success with the DIY project I'm more passionate about, which is home brewing. This weekend my red ale (home brew batch no. 3) had finished bottle conditioning and was ready for sampling:



It turned out perfectly, and was a big hit with DW (as well as with the neighbors/friends who have sampled it so far).

DD has also caught the DIY bug, and she made her very own candy bars at home this weekend, from scratch, which she's named "Worth One's Salt" (they are currently studying Roman history in school):



They are a chocolate and pretzel combination, similar to a Take 5. And they were delicious. DD even made $2 selling the candy bars to neighborhood kids (we are going to frame the first dollar).

I've continued experimenting with home pizzas, and have found that the new convection oven seems to be better at baking the pizzas than my Big Green Egg; though at some point I'd like to try doing something like this, from my favorite DIY Italian guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFikK4wfK8c. Anyway, the pizzas we made on Saturday turned out excellent, with DD and I making everything (except the mozzarella and, naturally, the mushrooms--I'm no ffj) from scratch:



We also continued the new tradition of doing "Sub Sundays," with DW baking Subway-style subrolls, and then doing 2 meatball subs and 2 Italian subs.



In other DIY news, a bit of a red pill anecdote: The ER doc said we needed to buy a bag from a pharmacy or a big box store that we can use to cover DS's cast when he takes a shower. I stopped by CVS on my walk home on Thursday and found the bag the doc was talking about, and I was about to take it to the counter to pay without thinking (you know, bc the doc told me to, and it's for my kids' health and well being). BUT, the price tag was $29.99, which caused the ERE bulb to flash inside my head. So, what do you get for $29.99 plus tax? A plastic bag, a plastic ring, and a rubber diaphragm. Ridiculous. I put the package down and walked out of the store, and DS has had no issues keeping his cast dry using a trash bag and one of DW's ponytail holders.

In other other DIY news, DD spent the weekend (when she wasn't playing soccer* or making homemade candy bars and pizza) making homemade Halloween decorations for our house. Neither DW nor I are really seasonal decorations people (I'm the Scrooge who equates Christmas decorations with work of the most unrewarding variety). But DD wanted to decorate the house and I told her she could have at it so long as she used her own money for any decorations. She bought some yarn, some Styrofoam balls, and some pipe cleaners from JOANNS, and she's covered the house with two large and very impressive spider webs, covered with a bunch of spiders she made with the Styrofoam balls and pipe cleaners (with some glue and glitter, as well as some colored beads for eyes). She really did a spectacular job and I reimbursed her for her craft expenses; and we had neighbors stopping by all day to tell DD how great the house looked.

*She scored an absolutely FANTASTIC breakaway goal where she sprinted with the ball 30 yards, outrunning 3 defenders, and then when the goalie came out of the box to challenge her and limit her angles, DD absolutely BURIED a shot in the upper right side of the net from 15 yards out! I was in FULL ON crazy soccer dad mode!

Finally, on Saturday we went by my in-laws condo and dug out DW's grandmother's sewing machine, which DW inherited but has never used, and so we'd stored it at her parents' condo. DW thought it might be missing some parts and maybe not fully functional, but perhaps unsurprisingly--given how well DW's grandfather took care of stuff--it's working and in pristine condition, despite years of use; we even still have the manual! It's a 1976 Singer Stylist 776 (I think?), and I spent an hour or so on Sunday while folding laundry watching a wonderful series of YouTube videos a mother made for her daughter explaining how to use the exact same sewing machine, which I gather used to belong to the daughter's grandmother (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae-fIOX6SSQ). So I've got a sewing machine learning curve to climb in the next few weeks/months--but I'm thinking it's one of those things where once you climb the initial curve, the possibilities open up in front of you (for starters, I've got a good bit of mending that needs to be done to my work shirts and pants).

So, good weekend all in all. Now, back to work.

[Hristo Botev]

I don't normally post photos of my workweek lunches, but it's not everyday DW has such a light day at work that she decides she wants to go for a walk and bring me an Italian sub, with bread she baked using tomatoes I grew.

[Hristo Botev]

Cheers indeed!

You should probably foam the gap behind the brick mold trim on your door, as that is a notorious air leak problem especially after rot has opened up the cavity. And before you caulk everything make sure you prime the ends of the siding boards to help reduce them from absorbing any more moisture. Finally it would probably behoove you to improve your butt joint before caulking that large gap as *caulk can only do so much. You don't want to make your repair to look like a repair if you know what I mean, and some more chisel work would easily make it look much better.

If I could trouble you with some really, really stupid questions:
1. What kind of foam are you talking about when you say foam the gap behind the brick mold trim? Could you perhaps link to a product, so I know what I'm looking for?
2. How would you improve the butt joint? (And is the butt joint where the trim meets the bottom board that the screen door is sitting on?) And which large gap are you talking about (there are so many!)?
3. Regarding the cock (sorry, caulk ), again, what kind? (are there "kinds" of caulk? I really don't know)
4. Apart from priming the siding boards, if it were you, would you just prime and paint the siding boards, including the one that's rotted and jagged, or would you make some other (perhaps more extensive) repair for the siding?

Of course don't feel like you have to respond to my questions; I know I'm asking a lot of you. Thanks!

[Hristo Botev]

This is fantastic stuff; thanks ffj! I'm really looking forward to making this fix look professional (or at least trying to).

[Hristo Botev]

No doubt this idea has been written about extensively elsewhere on this forum, on the blog, and probably even in the book, but it occurred to me that a spectacular ERE skill is to just train yourself to like old stuff. E.g., the family and I were enjoying a Growing Pains rerun last night on one of those .2 or .3 broadcast channels, via the digital antenna. And the kids' favorite show to watch after dinner, as they are winding down for prayers and bed, are reruns of Foxworthy's Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader (helps that we've got a 5th grader), which is also one one of those .2 or .3 channels. (It's new to the kids.)

If Ross Douthat is right and in our decadent society we are just repeating the same old shit creatively, over and over again, anyway, then when you're looking for a half hour or so of mindless entertainment at the end of the day, why not just watch 30-year old sitcom reruns for free, as opposed to paying for cable (or its streaming equivalent) to watch the exact same show, except newer and with different actors (mostly)? Indeed, as a copyright lawyer, I should appreciate the efforts that content creators (and marketers) go to to make people think they've created something new and exciting (and which coincidentally is protected by IP), when they know they're pretty much just putting a new coat of paint on something that's already been done many times before (and which is accessible for free, via the public domain).

Same goes for music (and the means by which you consume the music), clothes, books, used cars vs. new cars, pots/pans, bikes, print newspaper vs. Internet news aggregators, appliances, etc. etc. I mean, seems like with very few exceptions (an iPhone I'd love to not have to have), the stuff we've got now is pretty much the exact same as the stuff we had 30 years ago, though perhaps the new stuff just isn't made as well.

As another example, awhile back I threw a fit on this forum because I'd spent a bunch of money on a (discounted) FitBit watch, through a wellness program DW's work was doing. Of course the watch glass cracked in less than a year, and FitBit refused to replace it. The cheapness and planned obsolescence of all this NOT inexpensive stuff just pissed me off, and it made me realize how much I prefer my old analog Timex anyway, which is still going strong after I don't know how many years. Same can be said for owning a nice safety razor that will last decades over some cheap Gillette plastic handle with cartridges that are expensive and must be frequently replaced.

I've been slowly purging all this new-age stuff from my life over the past couple of years--no more podcasts or streaming music, I've deleted all apps on my phone unrelated to calling or texting or the camera, no cable/video streaming, buying (and maintaining) quality, I "track" my morning runs by turning on the timer on my watch, etc. etc. And my life is better and richer for it.

So queue up Miranda Lambert's "Old Shit" as I go full on retrogrouch. http://new-country-songs.com/miranda-lambert/old-shit

[mathiverse]

This post made me think of this thread which I felt was interesting and may be interesting further reading: viewtopic.php?t=10461

[classical_Liberal]

...

[Hristo Botev]

Part of this may just be your personal preference to the way things used to be. There's nothing wrong with that, and you should structure your life in the way that's most pleasing.

Everything you say is spot on; BUT, part of what I'm saying is that in a whole lot of ways things are the way they used to be--and my personal preference about that is irrelevant. Call it the myth of progress, or whatever. We're still just asking a lot of the same questions Aristotle asked, and not really coming up with anything better in terms of answers. And our artwork focuses on the same themes. They are of course important questions and themes, and it's certainly not a waste of time to ponder those questions and themes. But there's no reason really to chase after the newest, shiniest take on those questions/themes.

[Hristo Botev]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KLODGhEyLvk

[mooretrees]

Duuude. That's so sad/good. Glad I watched it. I think watching his stand up could be considered educational.

[Hristo Botev]

“It’s called the American dream. Because you have to be asleep to believe it.”

[Hristo Botev]

Just want to get some thoughts from this past weekend down before motivating myself to get the work week started.

The family went to a "cabin" in the mountains this weekend with another family. As is usually the case on these trips, I stress myself out at work at the end of the week trying to get as much pushed into the following week as I can so I can meet DW's schedule of getting on the road Friday morning or early afternoon; and then I spend that entire drive to wherever constantly checking my phone because lawyers have a tendency to drop bombs on one another late on Fridays--it's just something we all do.

After getting to the "cabin" and spending about 30 minutes in the truck by myself managing all the lawyer bombs that'd come in while I was driving, I looked around at my surroundings and was severely disappointed. We'd rented for the weekend a suburban-looking home in one of those TVA dam lake mountain developments where each house is on about an 1/8 of an acre of land at a severe angle (to maximize the mountain views from the back of the house), with neighbors on all sides within earshot, so that you can hear everything they say on their porch, and vice versa. And because the plot of land the "cabin" is built on is at such an extreme angle, there's really no place safe to go outside--so you've got 2 families stuck inside a 4-br house, with 2 8-year-old boys bouncing off of the freaking walls (literally; I had to do some minor porch screen repairs necessitated by the boys' bounce house antics).

To make matters worse, the "cabin" had not one, but two large TVs. And the couple that we went on the trip with are both big college football fans, supporting several different teams that were not playing at the same time. What this means is that my attempt to get everyone out of the house Saturday morning for a hike were cut short because there were games that just HAD to be watched starting at 12pm (game 1), 3:30pm (game 2), and 8pm (game 3) (I went to bed at about 9:15 at the end of the first quarter of game 3, only to be woken up periodically for the next 2 hours when someone felt the need to scream at the TV).

My idea of getting away to the mountains for the weekend involves a tent, or a yurt, or a cabin--provided the cabin looks like a cabin and DOESN'T have a TV, and preferably doesn't even have electricity, or even indoor plumbing (I mean, it's only for 2-3 days!). And activities are reading, hiking, board/card games, cooking/grilling, and sitting around a campfire. This weekend was not that. This weekend was voluntarily locking myself inside a modest-sized home with a whole other family, with no place to send the kids to let out energy, to watch 12 hours of college football, while on the other TV our 10-year-old DD watched 12 hours of the Disney Channel BS we very intentionally do NOT have at home.

And the cherry on top is that we got to pay for the privilege of this "cabin getaway."

What a waste.

ETA: I take it perhaps as a positive that I spent the weekend daydreaming of all the DIY projects the trip was keeping me from working on; wishing that I was spending the weekend at home brewing the next batch of beer, and/or painting the kitchen, and/or finishing the wood rot fix at my front door, etc. etc. I SEE the wastefulness and futility of these sorts of weekend getaway (but not really getaway) trips in a way that I didn't a few years ago.