Easier said than done - Melo's path towards freedom

Where are you and where are you going?
MeloTheMelon
Posts: 81
Joined: Thu Apr 22, 2021 2:18 am
Location: Germany

Easier said than done - Melo's path towards freedom

Post by MeloTheMelon »

Heya,
I want to use this journal as a way to keep myself accountable and to make me formulate my plans and goals.
For now, I plan to set myself tasks and goals to achieve in a 4 week period, which hopefully move me further towards "retirement".
I don't mind sharing what I'm doing, how I'm doing it, or any background or financial information, so I'm an open book.
If you have any ideas, critique, advice, whatever, let me know. I'm always eager to learn and try out something new.

First of all my base stats, or what I'm starting out with:

Monthly income (after taxes, health care, pension contribution, etc.):
Salary: 2450€
Right now that's my sole income stream, except the occasional buck from investments or hobby projects.

Monthly Expenses:
Apartment + Utilities: 294€
Phone: 17.70€
Wifi: 27.70€
Transportation: 43.50€
Cable Service "Tax": 17.50€
Food and other stuff: 149.60€

What can I change:
The biggest thing I could get rid of is the transportation cost. I bought a yearly ticket for public transport throughout the city, before I managed to get an apartment way closer to my workplace. The monthly cost is just the yearly price calculated for each month, although it's already paid anyways, so I'm not sure if I even should put it into the budget. Since I moved I walk literally everywhere and rarely need the bus or subway, so just buying a ticket occasionally will be way cheaper.
The budget for food and other stuff is also quite high, most of the time I can live on around 100 bucks, but I like to have some buffer in there for special occasions. Everything left at the end of the month goes into my portfolio.

Net Worth / Financial Situation:

I have no debt which is pretty great, but also not much in savings and investments, which isn't so great.
Emergency Fund: 5000€ on a "high" interest savings account.
Investments: 7600€ mostly in ETFs and some random stocks I liked, ETFs make up >90% of the portfolio.

Current Financial Goal:
I want to get to around 40.000-50.000 in the bank and use that as a down payment for an apartment. I can't go cheaper than my current rent, so I would like to get a mortgage and rent out the place to pay it off and maybe get some income from it in the future.

Immediate Goals (next 4 weeks):

Main Goal: Research and getting inspiration.
I'm somewhat new to the whole topic of ERE and FIRE, and although I read a bunch of blog posts and watched way too many videos, I feel I could need some more education, as well as some inspiration for things I can do in my free time. Thus, my main goal for the next 4 weeks is to read some books, mixing financial topics with a bit of philosophy.
Week 1 - Early Retirement Extreme, I read a bunch of Jakob's blog, but never got around to read the book, definitely need to catch up here.
Week 2 - The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, I love Naval's somewhat philosophical look on money and life, I read the almanack once when it was released and had the podcast about getting rich without getting lucky playing in the background while doing chores multiple times. I want to re-read it because I think there's a lot I might be able to combine with ideas from the other books to build a philosophy and plan of action for myself.
Week 3 - I will teach you to be rich, this is sitting on my to-be-read list for far too long now, not sure what I will get out of it, but I thought it would fit the theme.
Week 4 - Letters from a Stoic, again a book I read ages ago, but I feel it fits well into the topic and might have some guidelines I can apply to my current situation.

Side Goal: Declutter and sell some stuff.
Other than reading I'd like to get rid of some of the useless stuff and nicknacks I have accumulated over the last years. For now, the goal is to put some of it online and try to see how much I can get for it. I don't expect much, but my goal is to make 50 bucks by selling stuff I don't need.

----

That's it for the first post, sorry for making it somewhat long, but I thought being detailed might make it easier to see where I can improve. And just writing it down already helps me getting a better overview.
Feel free to give critique, ask questions, or chime in with ideas about what other goals I could set myself for the months to come.
I try to update the progress on a weekly basis, maybe more often if I get through parts quicker than expected.

~Melo

not sure
Posts: 141
Joined: Fri Feb 05, 2021 2:34 pm

Re: Easier said than done - Melo's path towards freedom

Post by not sure »

Hi, Melo, and welcome to the forum!

Your journal title is "path towards freedom".
What does "freedom" mean to you?

MeloTheMelon
Posts: 81
Joined: Thu Apr 22, 2021 2:18 am
Location: Germany

Re: Easier said than done - Melo's path towards freedom

Post by MeloTheMelon »

not sure wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 11:06 pm
Hi, Melo, and welcome to the forum!

Your journal title is "path towards freedom".
What does "freedom" mean to you?
I just like to remove some of the "musts" in my life. I don't think I will stop working, even if I could, but I'd like to have the option.
I think it's best described by getting rid of the people and things that control how I have to live, if that makes any sense

not sure
Posts: 141
Joined: Fri Feb 05, 2021 2:34 pm

Re: Easier said than done - Melo's path towards freedom

Post by not sure »

makes sense, I also like to have options
hate being told what to do :evil:

MeloTheMelon
Posts: 81
Joined: Thu Apr 22, 2021 2:18 am
Location: Germany

Re: Easier said than done - Melo's path towards freedom

Post by MeloTheMelon »

Small update,
I managed to sell of some trading cards yesterday. Wasn't much, but I haven't played actively since ~5 years, so it's time to let go of that.
Also got lucky and got a free printer/scanner :D A couple moved out and decided that they don't need it anymore, they left it at the garbage room to take for anyone who wants it.
I thought it might be broken at first, but after trying everything worked fine, only the ink is dried out, so I might have to get some new one.
I don't really need it, because I usually just print stuff at the office, but if it works well with new ink, I might just throw it onto facebook marketplace and see if I can get anything for it, if not I still got a free printer, so win win anyways

MeloTheMelon
Posts: 81
Joined: Thu Apr 22, 2021 2:18 am
Location: Germany

Re: Easier said than done - Melo's path towards freedom

Post by MeloTheMelon »

End of week 1 and end of month update!

Sold some more trading cards and am at a bit over 30€ profit, after calculating in the cost of shipping. So that is a great start for the side goal.
I ended up not selling the printer, my brother mentioned that his broke down, so I gave it to him.
I also managed to read the whole ERE book. All in all it just gave me some more motivation. I feel like I am already on a really good track, but there are always things you can improve. Especially the part about fixing your own stuff and DIY opened up my eyes. I know how to solder and have some tools laying around, no clue why it never came to me to just build or fix things I need instead of buying them new.
Also, the whole renaissance man style of living gives me a bunch of topics to look into and learn, so I actually have something to do in my free time now, so that's a big win for now.
Another great point was that it made me realize that I need way less to "retire" than I thought I needed, I always had the proverbial million in my head but even after taxes, some safety, and only taking out 2% every year, I "only" need about 450.000€ to retire fully, which also would mean that I won't make any income otherwise.
Right now, I could easily go part-time and still save about 50% of my income, which is making me think about what things I would want to pursue, how I can create more streams of income, and how to spend the time. For now, I'll just rake in the full salary and build up my savings, but I am considering going part-time next year to focus on other projects.
After finishing the book, I picked up I will teach you to be rich, but after reading the first chapter and skimming through the rest, I don't think I would learn anything new. Everything mentioned I either already do, or are not applicable for me (don't have a credit card, I already invest, etc.), so I am removing that from the reading list. I'll look for a replacement to keep the challenge up, but I thought it would be a waste of time to read the book just for the sake of sticking to the exact goals.

With the end of the month, I can also go over all my spendings for this month, so here is the list:

293,37 Rent and Utilities
56,49 Phone and Internet (costs for March and half of February)
56,80 Grocery Shopping
31,05 Lunch at work
29,90 Fast Food / Eating out
17,78 Other Expenses (new refrigerator light bulb, laundry, curtain hangers)
17,50 Radio/Cable Tax

Total: 502,89€

I'm slightly over my goal of 500€ a month, but that's mostly due to eating out, and buying lunch whenever I am at the office. I have an amazon gift card laying around which I plan on using on a couple of those glass food-prep containers, so I am able to bring my own lunch to work and cut down on those expenses. The eating out / fast food has to go down in general, I feel like I am an ok cook, and most of the time I just get it because it seems to be more convenient. Cutting that from my costs should make me healthier in the long run too, so it's a win-win situation.
For my food spendings in general, I am looking into places where I can buy staples in bulk or larger quantities. I mostly eat pasta and rice anyways, so I think buying a 10kg sack of rice instead of small packages all the time would make sense. Same for pasta, and maybe some other stuff.

Although with this spendings, I am not sure if optimizing them more is worth the effort or if I should just focus on learning some more skills. Definitely, something I have to consider in the future.

MeloTheMelon
Posts: 81
Joined: Thu Apr 22, 2021 2:18 am
Location: Germany

Re: Easier said than done - Melo's path towards freedom

Post by MeloTheMelon »

Short update!
Good news first, my brother is picking up the printer on the weekend and in exchange he managed to get me a used dining table and some plant pots.
I moved into my current apartment without any furniture, and only got a desk, bed, and two chairs :lol: Wanted to get a dinner table for a while now, but never had time for it, now it's one for free so I guess it worked out in the end. The flower pots will be great too to start planting some herbs and spices.
After getting my pay check for last month, and checking my bank account, I moved 2.250€ into my investment account, getting my portfolio up to 9.900€ Not quite 10k yet, but I should get there this month.

On the book front I'm getting in a bit of a slump, I cannot really find a book to fill the void. I tried a book about editing stories, I'd like to improve my writing, but after a bit it went too far into the whole "what did the author try to express with x" direction, and I couldn't get myself through that. Still learned a bit from the it though, so I'll try to edit one of the short stories I have laying around.

I think writing short fiction might be one of the activities to fill my free time. I somehow always come back to it. It would also work with the ERE mindset, selling a short story could cover a good chunk of my monthly expenses, and can bring in small amounts of money almost passively, stretched over multiple years. On the other hand it is quite unreliable, especially as a somewhat new writer. So I shouldn't bank on it. For now I'll just try to write a little bit every week and when I am happy with a story I'll submit it and see what happens. Every rejection will just get me closer to getting a story out there.

MeloTheMelon
Posts: 81
Joined: Thu Apr 22, 2021 2:18 am
Location: Germany

Re: Easier said than done - Melo's path towards freedom

Post by MeloTheMelon »

Another week gone by, and I have some progress on my goals.
I managed to finish the side-goal and made a bit over 50€ now. I still have some stuff I want to get rid of, but for now they are listed online and I will see if anyone wants them.
I started reading - or rather listening to - the Almanack of Naval Ravikant last week, and am about halfway through. I'm using the 20min walk to and from work every day to listen to audiobooks and podcasts, so that fell right into that spot.

On the whole philosophy of life aspect. I think I'm slowly getting to a point where I know, or find out, what I want to do with my time. My list of things to try out is growing and I'm doing something new every week or so, which makes my days a lot more interesting. I'm building up a small garden, as much as my balcony allows, and planted some herbs and two tomato plants. I'll add to that whenever I have time and find something new I could try to grow myself. I don't think this will ever supplement a reasonable amount of the food I need, but the idea of eating something home grown is still pretty nice. So let's hope at least some of the plants survive.

Zanka
Posts: 165
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2017 2:33 am

Re: Easier said than done - Melo's path towards freedom

Post by Zanka »

NIce read. Seems like you are on a good track with saving almost 80% of your income. :)

MeloTheMelon
Posts: 81
Joined: Thu Apr 22, 2021 2:18 am
Location: Germany

Re: Easier said than done - Melo's path towards freedom

Post by MeloTheMelon »

Zanka wrote:
Tue May 11, 2021 7:49 am
NIce read. Seems like you are on a good track with saving almost 80% of your income. :)
Definitely, but when you are at the start it always feels like you make no progress :lol:

MeloTheMelon
Posts: 81
Joined: Thu Apr 22, 2021 2:18 am
Location: Germany

Re: Easier said than done - Melo's path towards freedom

Post by MeloTheMelon »

Results from the 4-week challenge.

I managed to read the ERE book and listen to the Almanack. I skipped I will teach you to be rich after skimming through and realizing that there isn't anything new for me in there. In the end, I read Skip the line by James Altucher instead. That had some good points and ideas but was mostly repetition and loads of personal stories. I took some points from it I want to try out in the next 4-week block, so that will come later.
I didn't get to Seneca though. Time was a bit too limited in the last week, with an unexpected visit of my grandparents and lot's of stuff to do at work. I'm moving that book over to the next challenge though.

The side goal of selling some stuff was met pretty early in the challenge, since then I sold some more stuff and plan to gradually get rid of more and more things I don't really need.

Other small wins:
Got my phone bill down to 10€ instead of ~18€. It's not much, but better than nothing.
Cancelled Amazon Prime. I'm still running on a student account, but 34€ a year for a service I rarely use is still too much. It was great when I still watched a bunch of tv shows there, but since I replaced TV with reading, I don't really need it anymore.
Uninstalled a couple of video games. I got this bad habit of playing video games in the morning. Lately more and more started to pill up. I would tell myself to only do the daily quests in game x, and then go on to do the same in game y and so on. Easiest way to break that loop was to just uninstall the games. I kept one because it kinda makes me some money. Although it is so minimal it shouldn't even count. I'll see if I can find something else I can replace it with, but all in all, I now have a lot more time in the morning.

For today I'll see what I can come up with for the next 4 week period and post my new goals tomorrow morning.

MeloTheMelon
Posts: 81
Joined: Thu Apr 22, 2021 2:18 am
Location: Germany

Re: Easier said than done - Melo's path towards freedom

Post by MeloTheMelon »

So the next 4-week block is starting and I have some new tasks for myself.
The overall theme this time is idea generation and execution.
I have the huge problem with finishing projects I started, I started calling it "Proof-of-Concept"-Disease, because usually once I have a proof of concept that what I want to do, could work this way and I have a small prototype or something similar, I completely loose interest.
Obviously this is something I probably can't solve in 4 weeks, so I thought I would start at the very beginning, getting ideas.
I mentioned the book Skip the line by James Altucher earlier, and one chapter talks about a habit of writing down 10 ideas every day. Pick something like ideas for a books, articles, stories, businesses, or things that could improve someone elses life, business, whatever. Simply pick anything you'd like and come up with 10 ideas.
As someone who is terrible at coming up with my own ideas, I thought this might be a good challenge and I could train my "idea-muscle" a bit. If I can do this for the full 4 weeks, I'll have 280 ideas, and maybe I can try out a couple of those to find something I can work on in the future. So this will be my main goal.

For side goals I'm moving over Seneca from the last block. I think reading one of his letters everyday and taking time to analyze and process it would be a good exercise. I can probably do that in the morning with the free time I now have without videogames.
I also want to pick up writing again, I used the last week to go through the short stories I wrote earlier in the year and gave all of them a final edit. So for now I need some new material. That's why I set a second side goal of writing 4 pieces of text. I intentionally kept this pretty vague to not limit myself too much, I don't mind if I write a shortstory, essay, article or whatever, as long as I write something.

Main Goal:
- Write down 10 ideas every day - preferably first thing in the morning.

Side Goals:
- Read one of Seneca's Letters every day, analyze and reflect on the text. Focus on application in own life.
- Write 4 pieces of text

That's it for now, depending on how that goes I will adjust the goals a bit and I might add something in the future. But if I learned something from the last challenge, I should consider unexpected events and take a bit less to start with, I can always add things to do in the future.

MeloTheMelon
Posts: 81
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Location: Germany

Re: Easier said than done - Melo's path towards freedom

Post by MeloTheMelon »

The last week went quite well, although work took up a bit more time than I'd like it to, but you can't do much against busy times.
I stuck to the 10 ideas every day goal and am doing this now every morning. It's a lot more fun than I thought it would be and I am getting a bunch of new ideas I would like to try out / work on. I'm writing the daily list on large sticky note and stick them on the door right next to my desk. That way I see them all the time and remember to work on at least one of them.
I'm only wondering how long it will take until I completely run out of ideas, but for now I'll go with the flow and see how long I can keep it up.

On the side goals:

Reading Seneca comes right after writing down my ideas. I read one letter and mark everything I feel sounds useful to me. Then once I'm done I copy each marked section on a piece of paper and add my own interpretation and ways how to implement it in my life. Interestingly, his writings and advice works pretty well with ERE.

Writing on the other hand is a bit of a problem right now. I had a long weekend and planned to take some time to write, but I felt extremly unmotivated and a bit depressed. After sulking around for a while, I got the idea to just write down what makes me unmotivated, and throw all my thoughts and feelings on the screen. After all some writing is better than nothing.
I ranted on for about an hour and wrote a full 1500 word "journal entry" in the end. I'll count this as one piece of writing, because I feel like any writing will push me in the right direction, as long as I do write.
On the upside that piece of text lifted my mood a lot and made me realize some problems in my life. One of the being that even after removing video games, I just spend way too much time on several social media platforms.
I installed a website-blocker and locked myself out of facebook, instagram, and reddit. Youtube is also blocked, although I allow myself to use it in incognito mode if I am looking for something educational and specific - e.g. how to's or stuff that helps me solve an immediate problem. With that I unistalled all of the apps for those social networks from my phone too.
This was on Saturday afternoon, so now I had two full days of no social media and bad weather :lol: I was bored quite often, but in the end I always found something to do, read a lot, and all in all got more things done than usual. I also feel more motivated, so it doesn't seem to have any real downsides. This might be another thing I try to add to my day to day life.

On a completely different topic, I read this about improving ones life "Every day do one thing that would make tomorrow a better day." and now add this sentence to my daily todos. It's fun to think about what I could do to make tomorrow me happier, even if it's just a small thing. Yesterday I was looking through my closet and found a x-box controller I bought 3 years ago. I maybe used it a dozen times in those years, and without games to play it's not of any use. I researched the prize a bit - it was a limited edition design back when I bought it - and put it up on ebay. I sold it in a couple hours for 50% more than what I paid for it new. So now my FI fund is happy, my closet has a bit more space, and my now today-me is definitely happy too :lol:

Anyways, that's quite a wall of text. This week looks like it's going to be at least as busy as the last, so I'll probably write another update next week, or on the weekend!

MeloTheMelon
Posts: 81
Joined: Thu Apr 22, 2021 2:18 am
Location: Germany

Re: Easier said than done - Melo's path towards freedom

Post by MeloTheMelon »

Really short update.
Daily tasks are going fine, somehow I come up with new ideas every day and even if I feel like I have no idea what to write on that damn paper, something bubbles up after a couple of minutes and I get my 10 ideas down.
Seneca keeps throwing wisdom at me, but I need to make up some time to actually try out and implement some things.
Writing is kinda on a back burner and I am constantly switching between "I really want to do this" and "Why am I even bothering". So for now I try to stick with my challenge and maybe write something this weekend.

The extremely positive changes are happening in my savings though. I was hovering around 10k in my portfolio the last few days and finally hit that, but I also got a huge tax return this week. I only worked for 3 months last year, due to just finishing my degree, and my taxes were calculated on a yearly salary. So after filling out some paperwork, I managed to get back a bit over 2000€ That money was moved straight into my investments and with the salary coming in on Monday I should be able to add another 2000€ bringing me up to 14k in investments and 5k in the emergency fund.
Somehow my savings seems to really take off lately :lol:

Last thing for today. Quitting most of social media is also doing wonders, I feel less down most of the days and am motivated to get back to some projects I started and never finished. So if this continues I might be able to actually get some stuff done in the next weeks

NuncFluens
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Location: Bavaria, Germany

Re: Easier said than done - Melo's path towards freedom

Post by NuncFluens »

Hi Melo, just wanted to say welcome real quick :)
I don't have much time right now, but might need to pick your brain on a few things later on. As a fellow german on this quite US-centric forum it's always nice to have someone to compare notes to. Anyway, see you around.

MeloTheMelon
Posts: 81
Joined: Thu Apr 22, 2021 2:18 am
Location: Germany

Re: Easier said than done - Melo's path towards freedom

Post by MeloTheMelon »

NuncFluens wrote:
Sat May 29, 2021 5:17 am
Hi Melo, just wanted to say welcome real quick :)
I don't have much time right now, but might need to pick your brain on a few things later on. As a fellow german on this quite US-centric forum it's always nice to have someone to compare notes to. Anyway, see you around.
Thanks, and sure thing. I'm open to pretty much any questions, so just ask away.
We are not even just in the same country, it looks like we are both in Bavaria too :D
I'll definitely check out your journal, maybe I can learn a thing or two!

shelob
Posts: 85
Joined: Sat Apr 24, 2021 11:04 am

Re: Easier said than done - Melo's path towards freedom

Post by shelob »

Hi, I'm glad to read from a fellow German in the same life stage! We have the same hobby too (writing). It's really awesome and inspirational that you maintain expenses like that, you're my role model now :)

We have somewhat opposite problems, I can never find the time for everything I want to do. What would your ideal (FI) life look like? Are there any skills you will need then that you could develop now? What are your physical activities? How well do you know the place where you live? Is there anything going less-than-ideally in your community that you could get involved with?
Trying to synthesise writing, video games, and your degree: have you thought about developing your own video game? It might even be good for building an additional income stream!
Sorry, those questions were probably weren't very helpful, so I'll stop here :oops:
(Also, seems like you have handle on that with the 10idea/day challenge. Awesome idea btw, I'll definitely copy it at some point :) )

I'm originally from NRW, recently Saxony, but work in MV. So regards from the coast ;)

MeloTheMelon
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Location: Germany

Re: Easier said than done - Melo's path towards freedom

Post by MeloTheMelon »

shelob wrote:
Sun May 30, 2021 10:22 am
Hi, I'm glad to read from a fellow German in the same life stage! We have the same hobby too (writing). It's really awesome and inspirational that you maintain expenses like that, you're my role model now :)

We have somewhat opposite problems, I can never find the time for everything I want to do. What would your ideal (FI) life look like? Are there any skills you will need then that you could develop now? What are your physical activities? How well do you know the place where you live? Is there anything going less-than-ideally in your community that you could get involved with?
Trying to synthesise writing, video games, and your degree: have you thought about developing your own video game? It might even be good for building an additional income stream!
Sorry, those questions were probably weren't very helpful, so I'll stop here :oops:
(Also, seems like you have handle on that with the 10idea/day challenge. Awesome idea btw, I'll definitely copy it at some point :) )

I'm originally from NRW, recently Saxony, but work in MV. So regards from the coast ;)
Hey hey,

I still have a long way to go, but I guess it's easier to start young, that way we don't have to get rid of old habits.
It's kinda still unclear for me what my ideal life would look like, my situation changes regularly and I'm still trying to figure out what exactly I want to do.
So right now I try to try out different things to find out what I really want to do. Writing is definitely something I enjoy, but I'm a pretty compulsive writer, so that's not something I do regularly.

For skills, I usually learn as I go, so I don't have anything want to learn right now, but I wouldn't mind if something would come up soon.

The city here is pretty big, and although I studied here for a while I haven't seen much of it. Now that the weather is getting better I'm starting to explore more, which will probably take up some time for the next weeks.

I'm not that involved in any community around me, except people at work and some old friends from university. I'm pretty introverted and love to be on my own, and I think the pandemic gave me a good reason to keep that up. But like I said above, I try to explore the city a bit and maybe see if I can get to know some more people / find a community to join.

Soooo video games :lol: My bachelors degree was actually in Game Development - pretty much a basic CompSci Degree with some adjusted courses. I change to a course for Data Science in my masters for a bunch of reasons, the biggest ones were the better pay and a more reliable chance for work-life-balance. It might be something I go back to once I work less, but making games takes just a lot of work and a lot of different skills, especially when you want to make one on your own. I great at programming and I think I could do the design for a decent game, but I'm extremly lacking when it comes to art and music. Obviously, I could try to learn those skills, but I just think it's too much effort for something I'm not super into anymore.
During my studies I started to play less and less, and now I try to quit completely, so it doesn't make much sense to me to create games if I don't enjoy playing them.

Also feel free to ask more, I really don't mind :)

shelob
Posts: 85
Joined: Sat Apr 24, 2021 11:04 am

Re: Easier said than done - Melo's path towards freedom

Post by shelob »

Sounds like you're doing well :) And you're right, video game development doesn't seem to make much sense for you to pursue.

The point about habits is super important, I'm noticing that about myself right now too. And gathering data in the form of trying many things is a very smart thing to do, it would have saved me a lot of hassle if I had done it a while back. So thumbs up :D

If I needed even more to do, I might ask myself questions like "What is something that has a reasonable chance of happening in the medium term that I could prepare for now?" and "Is there something that needs to be done, that no one else is currently doing (properly)?" This is probably what I do unconsciously. An example for a possible answer to the first would be "I should learn a bit about self defense, since it will probably come in handy at some point." e.g. increases resilience. Right now I'm cutting everything that doesn't fit into my web of goals well, and focusing on creating more income streams. So many thanks for the link you posted in the other thread, it has given me many things to think about :)

So yeah, a web of goals based approach is definitely something I would recommend.

I'll have a lot more time for online activities about a week from now, so I'll look forward to seeing you around :D

MeloTheMelon
Posts: 81
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Location: Germany

Re: Easier said than done - Melo's path towards freedom

Post by MeloTheMelon »

Trying out different things is always a good idea, I still regret not doing this way earlier. Once I started high school I completely focused on Computer Science, which is great for a career, but I feel like it's the only things I am somewhat good at. I never did anything other than programming.

Planning, or just thinking, ahead is probably one of my biggest weaknesses. I think the largest timeframe I can work on is maybe 3 months, everything beyond that changes way too quickly. I can quickly motivate myself to do something, but also lose interest at the same speed, so in 3 months from now my life might be completely different from how it is now.
But maybe I stumble upon something I can stick with and from there on I should be able to plan a bit further into the future, who knows.
Same with the web of goals, I tried building on that idea, but it was too static. But once I can make some things a regular piece of my life, I can build onto those and spin my web.
On that point, I've also done a lot of research and some journaling exercises in the last few days which is definitely getting me closer to understanding what I really want and how I could get there. Everything is still not completely clear, but I'm making progress.

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