mountainFrugal Journal

Where are you and where are you going?
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mountainFrugal
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mountainFrugal Journal

Post by mountainFrugal »

Starting this journal to track progress and contribute to this community that I have learned from over the past 3 years lurking and applying what I learned.

Mid-thirties, STEM grad, back-country sports enthusiast, artist. Goal to ER in the mountains on the West Coast somewhere. Large job change last year provided opportunity to take mini-sabbatical for 6 months to try ER and art full-time in a rural community. Landed a much lower paying, but dream job in many ways doing data science and statistical modeling. Also allows me to build towards original goal with a longer time horizon to pick up additional side skills/projects and not be nearly as stressed.

I generally followed the advice to front load savings as much as possible. There were many tactics to get the cost down in a HCL West Coast city. Bicycle commuting year round, 6 miles each way (rain/shine/cold/wind). One bedroom apartment with my partner. Pressure cook or slow cook most meals. Minimal eating out, especially for "lunch with the office". Pour-over coffee at home. Rice, beans, lentils, sweet potatoes, quinoa and soups are staples of my diet. I do have a bicycle/ski/trail-running/fly-fishing/ equipment problem, but movement is essential to how I de-stress so justified in some way. I also service all the equipment myself, tie my own flies, and could likely get a job in a bike/ski/fly shop with this skill set. Ski-shop FIRE as opposed to barista FIRE? My road bike is from 2004 and I have replaced most of the parts and maintained it myself. The next few years will allow more prototyping for shorter stays in various towns.

May 2021:
Savings Rate this month- 44% (just moved after getting new job so additional expenses snuck in there)
ER Target- 73% to goal as of May 7, 2021

RoamingFrancis
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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by RoamingFrancis »

Welcome!

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mountainFrugal
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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by mountainFrugal »

# Questions I try to ask before spending money.

Default state is to not spend money on non-essentials. The one exception is books.

Are you ready for the time spent doing this? You have not purchased many items after answering all these questions. Is this item your contemplating so life changing that it is even worth the time to go through this checklist?

[edit] "If item X is so necessary/desirably how come I've been able to live without it for N years so far?" -jacob

Does this item remove a specific negative from your life?

Have you wanted this item for more than a month? Evidence?

Pick a random Tuesday next year and how are you using this item? 5 days, 5 months, 5 years- vivid narrative about how you will use/enjoy?

Where specifically will this item be kept?

Will this item bring joy into your life and in what form?

Will this item simplify my life? How? Will it continue to simplify my life equally into the future?

How will this item change your daily, weekly, or monthly activities? Reminder that anything not used every 6 months is not necessary for your life.

Does this item add to or help me directly achieve one of my goals?

What goals would this item subtract from in maintenance time?

How was this item advertised to me?

Will I still need this item in 5 years from now? Specific example.

Can something that I already own substitute for this? Can it substitute for this 80% or greater.

If you had to solve the problem within an hour without spending additional money how would you?

What is the environmental impact of this item?

How would you properly care for this item? What is the time estimate and when would this maintenance occur?

What accessories are typically associated with this item? Stuff begets more stuff.

What is the future value of the money that would be used for this?

What is the generated monthly income that can come from the money used to purchase this?

Calculate the opportunity cost in Python:

```python
cost = 1000
timeline = 12
interest = 1.07 # per year
oppCost = cost * interest ** timeline
print(oppCost)
# 2252.191588960825
```

This then begs the question, is this item worth more to you now than more than double in 12 years?

Can you easily afford two of these items? If you cannot, you cannot really afford a single one.

What am I comparing this item to? What individual attributes of the comparison am I making this decision on? Did I even know about these attributes before doing research on this item? Am I comparing based on what I have now or the comparison layed out in the shop.

Do people in my immediate friend or family group have this item? Is that how I came to learn about it?

Is this replacing an item? Does the item you are replacing still work? Would it work better if you spent your hourly rate time towards maintaining it?

Spending new money actually costs 1.x per dollar because of the taxes that we paid on this. Obviously these tax dollars go towards infrastructure allowing you to enjoy this item, but still an earned dollar in your hands is actually worth more than the face value.

Time is much more important than money. Money is a renewable resource. Time is not.

Could this money be donated to charity instead and have a meaningful impact on someone's life?
Last edited by mountainFrugal on Sat May 08, 2021 3:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by jacob »

Also (I might have missed it): "If item X is so necessary/desirably how come I've been able to live without it for N years so far?"

May or may not be rhetorical. For example, it's getting increasingly annoying to live w/o a smartphone although it was no problem for the first N-5 years of one's life.

ellarose24
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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by ellarose24 »

Those are really great questions! I do sometimes wonder if I can move to “post consumer” as I think alpha vile called it to where I don’t have to spend so much time fighting AGAINST consumption. We know items themselves require more time in money/upkeep/etc but even when I don’t buy an item—there is time wasted in internal fight against buying item.

However, that’s my state currently and I need every tool in my kit to fight against consumption. Your questions are extremely thorough and sound like an amazing way to train brain out of impulse/dopamine addiction of consumption. Thanks for posting, I’m screenshotting and keeping with me. Perhaps eventually full list is not needed and time is reduced in think about its as brain starts linking automatically to answers without even having to ask questions.

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mountainFrugal
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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by mountainFrugal »

@jacob Good point. This is not specifically part of the questions but maybe implied through a few of them. Will add.

@ellarose24 I am glad you think they are useful! They are a good aspirational guideline and I am in no way a master of all of them in all contexts. I have slowly accumulated them over time and they are made to work in different scenarios. The easiest one for me is online shopping. Just put it on a wish list and 99% of them go away after a month. The social/friend comparison one was the most interesting one for me get better at recognizing. As an example, fly-fishing is filled with a lot of gear heads always trading tips, tricks, ideas etc. Often I could trace back my desire/"need" for some new piece of gear to a conversation with a friend or online forum. Interesting to see where the seeds of desire are planted.

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mountainFrugal
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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by mountainFrugal »

# Writing out identity based goals.

## Backgroud
An idea from Atomic Habits by James Clear that you can think ahead to the goal that you want to accomplish and think about the actions that the type of person who could accomplish that goal would do and then do those things daily. These are the categories that I try to work on every day or depending on the season, every week.

## Planet
Planet is the fictitious name of the space that my partner and I inhabit. Planet is the abstract name of the shared experience and physical space we inhabit together. "What have you done for Planet today?". This is a frequent phrase for our emotional connections, ideas, goals, and shared physical space also called the "third entity". If you are living together as a couple there is the third entity in your relationship that is the physical environment that you both inhabit. This needs attention on a daily basis just like interacting with one another.

The goal here is to maintain a healthy romantic relationship for the long term. What would a couple do on a near daily basis to achieve such a goal?

- A couple who openly discusses ideas, topics, things, emotions
- A couple who supports each others decisions, goals, aspirations
- A couple who lives passionately for one another
- A couple who is thoughtful and curious in discussions with one another

## Fitness
Exercise has always played an important role in my life. I vowed to myself in high school that I would always prioritize exercise as part of my existence. So far I have kept that promise to myself and it has paid dividends. What kind of routine would a pro athlete have?

- The kind of athlete that runs, cycles, walks, skis, moves, stretches daily
- The kind of athlete that puts in 5-10 hours of exercise per week
- The kind of athlete that gets adequate rest and recovery time
- The kind of athlete that does not get overuse injuries
- The kind of athlete who is fit for life
- The kind of athlete who has mastered movement

## Mental Health
The basis of mental health is a meditation practice. The lay person's path to enlightenment is the path I want to be on. What might an enlightened human have done on a daily basis to become enlightened?

- The kind of person who practices mindfulness everyday
- The kind of person who "notes" mental states and emotions when they occur
- The kind of person who thinks about the outcomes on others before acting
- The kind of person that is mentally rigorous, but fair
- The kind of person who enjoys being disciplined
- The kind of person that is strong enough to fail

## Physical Health
Health is wealth.

- The kind of person that gets enough sleep, rest, recovery time
- The kind of person that flosses daily and goes to the dentist
- The kind of person who indulges in alcohol only occasionally
- The kind of person that relaxes with books instead of TV

## Friendships
Obviously friendships are super important to human happiness and my happiness in particular
- A friend who listens just to listen and gives advice only when asked
- A friend who holds people up and to their convictions
- A friend who points out blind-spots
- A friend who preemptively reaches out
- A friend who can accept praise and criticism equally

## Drawing
I want to achieve a "level 7-8" in drawing through deliberate practice. Level 7 is being able to draw realistic (not photo realistic) from my imagination.

- The kind of artist who draws every single day
- The kind of artist that has a specific goal for each session
- The kind of artist that observes reality and converts it to a 3D representation on the page
- The kind of artist that thinks about lines and objects as component parts when not drawing
- The kind of artist that is hungry to put down observations on the page

## Writing
Journaling and writing has been part of my life for such a long time and I think that I can learn wisdom about myself overtime through this process, especially during stressful times. Writing about a topic helps you to become closer to fully understanding it because it forces you to put ideas into words on a page and make them readable by others.

- The kind of writer that writes thoughts everyday towards some goal
- The kind of writer that can analyze facts about themselves
- The kind of writer that can form clear and coherent sentences
- The kind of writer that spends 20% of the time editing

## Reader
Learning to read was difficult for me because I am dyslexic.

- A reader who reflects on the words and integrates into current knowledge.
- A reader who finds the flaws in arguments.
- A reader who has constructive criticism.
- A reader who reads new, intellectual material everyday.

## Adventure
Adventure and exploration has always been a part of my life since I was a little kid. This is both the external world and the internal world.

- The kind of person that gets after adventure every free moment
- The kind of person who pushes through self doubt to achieve that next 4%
- The kind of person that spends the week training and planning for the weekend

## Fly Fishing
Fly fishing is one of the most engrossing activities when standing in a stream taking in sensory information, insect information, and strike feedback in order to optimize presentation of artificial insects to wild trout.

- The kind of fly fishermen that takes in all the variables and ecology of the stream in account for fly selection and presentation
- The kind of fly fishermen that ties their own flies
- The kind of fishermen that has very high ethical standards and respect for the fish
- The kind of fly fishermen that is always in for one more cast in one more hole

## Essentialism
I used to think that minimalism was for me but better phrase is essentialism. I think that minimalism is a subset of essentialism. There is something beautiful about not having many material things. Minimalism allows for greater flexibility when moving around or taking up less space and less time to maintain.

- The kind of person who values quality produced things used regularly
- The kind of person who values experiences over material items
- The kind of person who could pack up on a whim and move
- The kind of person who could list every single item they own

## Wealth
True tenure is being able to work on what you want, when you want, with whom you want. No need to have an institution backing you, just manage it yourself.

- A person who has frugal tendencies
- A person that can live within a budget
- A person who understands opportunity cost
- A person who gets more utility out of each dollar spent
- A person who resists the temptation of spending on frivolous things

## Cooking
Eating good food on a regular basis is a necessity for my happiness and continued pleasure of daily life. The food does not have be be expensive, but it does have to be nutritious and not processed very much. Cooking is a skill that can always be improved and will nearly always pay dividends to your future self.

- The kind of chef who likes home cooked meals >> then meals at restaurants
- The kind of chef who eats a mostly vegetarian diet
- The kind of chef that plans ahead for meals and cooking
- The kind of chef who cooks for themselves, even without company
- The kind of chef that generously shares meals on the 20th of each month (Epicurean day)

#

ellarose24
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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by ellarose24 »

I love this idea--identity based goals.

I, in my best moments, reduced this to the thought that "every action is a decision and every decision is a statement of who I am as a person."

So, if I were to order takeout, I would reflect on what that stated about me as a person.

I find your identity-based goals to be more healthy, as they seem to focus on the positive aspects of who you want to be before negative behavior comes into play--which only leads to guilt. I suppose this is called "direction"--something I struggle with and you seem to be extremely good at.

I'm really enjoying your journal and thought processes.

Lol at a writer being someone who spends 25-30% editing. I wonder what my writing would look like if I did that. I may steal some of these ideas from you to implement at a later date. Once again, thanks for sharing.

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mountainFrugal
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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by mountainFrugal »

@ellarose24 - Atomic Habits is an excellent book and has many ideas for these types of things if you are interested. Something I should also make clear is that these past few posts have been refined over a few years of thinking, experimenting, rewriting, editing, etc. "Writing is re-writing" is a common writers phrase that I try to take to heart. What you are seeing here is the tip of the iceberg of thought/reflection/ideas/experiments. What you are not seeing is all the work that went into trying to figure these various ideas out for myself and put them into my own words (the underwater part of the iceberg). Any clarity in goals is a direct consequence of many iterations and refinements.

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mountainFrugal
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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by mountainFrugal »

Below are some examples of how I approached the web of goals. This exercise does not take into account the negative consequences of each activity, but does help to come up with projects that attempt to serve many goals at once. It is easy to list a goal-by-goal overlap for most combinations if you want. It gets harder to track if you have 3 or more. Randomize it to sample a good collection of potential projects serving 3, 4, or 5 goals simultaneously.

#######
Make a list of your goals and number them. Use one of the randomization methods below to print to a terminal or draw numbers from a hat. Order your drawn goals on a piece of paper or text editor and try to come up with projects that overlap 3 or more. Some of my own examples follow and a few turned into actual projects I am actively working on.

## planet-1
## finance-2
## fitness-3
## drawing-4
## music-5
## job-6
## essentialism-7
## writing-8
## programming-9
## van-10
## flyfishing-11
## fastpacking-12
## nutrition-13
## personal-14
## social-15

``` python
from random import sample
list1 = [*range(1, 16, 1)]
print(list1)
print(sample(list1, 4))
```

```R
sample(1:15, 4, replace=FALSE)
```

```analog
scraps of paper
write out goals on separate small scraps
hat
pull scraps from hat
```

##3x
fastpacking--music--fitness --> songs for BPM? Cadence?
programming--flyfishing--job --> Python database for environment and data variables
nutrition--minimalism--programming --> database with favorite ingredients, recommender system
nutrition--drawing--planet --> drawing all the ingredients for each of the meals we eat, source and final

##4x
finance--social--writing--essentialism --> writing letters to people on homemade cards
nutrition--writing--van--drawing --> Illustrated cookbook about vanlife/athlete nutrition

## 5x
van-nutrition-fitness-personal-fastpacking --> nutrition bars in pressure cooker
drawing-finance-essentialism-music-writing --> blog post with music illustration with affiliate links?
fastpacking-nutrition-writing-drawing-job --> bike commuting full load, blog post, drawing of items, nutrition for that ride
nutrition-social-flyfishing-music-personal --> catch fish, cook, and play music to entertain friends
programming-social-job-personal-essentialism --> personal social network graph

## 6x
I found diminishing returns after 5, but have at it in your own web of goals.

ertyu
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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by ertyu »

i really like this approach. will be doing the analog method, but it sounds fun.

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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by chenda »

I've never understood the 'web of goals' thing, it makes no sense to me, if anyone can explain it in simple terms.

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Bankai
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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by Bankai »

The basic idea is that every action should ideally support multiple positive goals and as little as possible negative, or anti-goals. So for example, if you walk to work instead of driving a car, this action supports the following goals:
- saving money (walking is cheaper than driving),
- taking care of health (walking is good for health),
- taking care of planet (walking produces less pollution than driving),
- loosing weight (more calories are burnt walking than driving),
- possibly also learning / increasing understanding if you're for example listening to a podcast which you couldn't otherwise while driving.

So, if you have a bunch of goals, or things you want to achieve or consider to be good, you want to be taking actions / doing things that 1) check multiple boxes from that list. While also 2) have as few as possible anti-synergies, i.e. would be pulling you in the opposite direction from your goals, or be harmful. Smoking while socialising with smokers might be supporting your 'socialising more' goal but at the same time pulling you away from your 'health' & 'money' goals so is not worth doing. Inviting friends over for a dinner instead of to the restaurant ticks all of socialising, learnign a skill, spending less money than alternative, saving planet by not driving to the restaurant and few others.

Now, I don't think it's practical to have an actual map/web of goals drawn and try to only ever to things that support multiple goals, but it's a useful mental model to have. Most things are obvious, like almost everything that saves you money also has some other benefits, like heath or new skill, because it forces you to find an alternative to the easy option of buying a solution. But occasionally it's not so clear cut and it makes sense to go through positives and negatives of an action you're considering in relation to your goals/values. It's also easier to say no to things when realising they pull you away from several goals at the time / are against several of your values.

Might as well call it web of values?

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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by chenda »

Thank you @Bankai, the concept does not really resonate with me for some reason but I see what it is now.

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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by mountainFrugal »

@ertyu please enjoy! Analog works and is the simplest. Analog also works for the lottery so it might make you rich ;).

@chenda I am glad you have some understanding.

@Bankai thank you for doing all the heavy lifting in explaining! I agree that it is not practical to do in all cases, but for those that have not tried it out there are many additional benefits. I would add that by somewhat internalizing the potential overlaps in your goals/values you can much more easily take advantage of opportunities and 'batch' process like tasks. To extend your example...I waited until Thursday of last week to cash a check so I could walk to the bank, listen to an audiobook, and get fresh produce from the nearby store. I usually grocery shop with my backpacking pack to carry heavy loads and train for this activity. Right before entering the grocery store nearest my bank I found out my next meeting was rescheduled. So I walked to the cheaper grocery store across town, filled my backpack with more than produce, and then walked home. Having a clear set of goals/values allows you to do these types of things more easily. So it went from batch processing chores that are geographically located together, to getting additional exercise, saving money, and doing a much larger grocery run.

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mountainFrugal
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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by mountainFrugal »

Further along the GOALS space...

I did a quick overview illustration of my goals are organized into the broad categories of Make, Live, Think, Explore. I will provide an example of a detailed monthly goal sheet next. The 5 year plan is a rolling one meaning that at the beginning of each year I re-calibrate direction based on new information learned the previous year. So this current iteration is 2021-2026. I have the 5 year goals illustration sheet pasted to my wall in front of my desk as a constant reminder to be working towards these goals by making meaningful progress on the projects.

# Make
drawing
music
writing

# Live
planet
personal
essentialism
nutrition
social

# Think
programming
job
finance
read

# Explore
fitness
van
fly-fishing
fast-packing

In reality I have more than three projects for each broader goal, but it is too visually cluttered for explanation purposes. Example projects in each category that have overlaps with goals in other categories.

# Make
## Drawing- Level 7-8 drawing in 2026.
Project: Sketch notes for all books that I read or plan to reread. See recent example for Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel (Visualize concepts from imagination)

# Live
## Planet- My partner and I's shared space. Create joyous space for living, working, socializing.
Continue permaculture learning and gardening to be able to host guests and feed entirely from our small yard.

# Think
## programming- master geospatial datasets
Create personal database of western US alpine lakes that contain trout.

# Explore
## van - travel/spend time in mountain towns across Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada, Idaho.
Use western US trout database to plot backcountry lake/fishing linkup for bike-packing or fast-packing

Example Plan:
Image

Example Sketchnote:
Image

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mountainFrugal
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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by mountainFrugal »

Further along the GOALS space...

Here is a visualization of my monthly goals sheet.

The top right are the monthly goals of what projects/sub-projects I will be working on and what specifically I would like to get done, or put time into. This is also where have short TODO type lists like "file my taxes".

A few examples:

# Make
drawing- put in the time working on tutorials or personal projects
writing- research proposals and blog posts (some of which you are seeing here)

# Live
planet- plant garden and do yard maintenance (mow, clean leaves, etc. )
social- host vaccination dinner party


The top left is the bread and butter of the system I have developed for myself. You can do this with some sort of calendar app as well, but I like to have a physical representation of how I have spent my time at the end of each month. Every month I practice making straight lines evenly spaced apart for this grid as additional training for my drawing goals. Each day is a column and each row is a generic category corresponding to the general goal/subgoals on the right.

For this example month, I have my morning routine starting at the top.
Sleep 8 hours? 25 pushups? Meditate? Coffee? Gratitude?
The next block is the art tutorials or art personal projects section.
Programming
Writing
Reading
Exercise
Cooking
Tidy/Clean the house?
Maintain house/yard/garden
etc...

Many times I do not know how to get started so having a tracker of the rough amounts of time spent on each goal. At the very least, starting a sub project could be as generic as "spend 30 minutes making a plan and gathering resources to make some sort of progress". Either way this helps you answer at the end of the month if you legitimately put in ANY time towards these goals.

I try to write something specific that I am grateful for each day. A few actual examples in the image.

What are goals without review? For my purposes I review progress/success towards each goal at the end of the month using the acronym WINDOWS.
Wins- what are you wins for the month small, medium, large?
Improvements- What are specific areas that you can improve and how specifically?
New- Insights/Directions based on things learned this month?
Drawing-review
Outdoor/Fitness- review
Work- review
Social- friend/family/partner relationship review


Example Month Image:
Image

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mountainFrugal
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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by mountainFrugal »

The lockdown really put a strain on my partner and I's relationship in a single room apartment that we were normally just using for dinners and sleeping. We decided to move to a much lower cost of living area because our lease was up, she could work remote for the time being, and I thought I could swing remote work as well. In the end the portion of the company that I was working in gradually got squeezed due to budget constraints, fear, etc. I preemptively left on good terms when the walls were closing in to try this experiment. Initially, I thought I would live off my savings for a year. My partner and I split costs on everything equally (as it should be) if you are both working and have savings. Partner has student loan debt, I lend financial support to my aging parent.

Our greatest physical asset is our built out adventure van. Although we had done longer trips in the past, it was not designed for full-time remote work plus van living. I realize that people do do this, but we would have made very different design decisions had this been the vans main use case. The main living space was designed for cooking and a bit of relaxing. We would have made more work/sitting space with a take down kitchen if we had to make it work for that purpose.

My partner and I are on the same page about ER, but have separate stashes. I decided to take up to a year off to do some exploring of what ER might look like. Fortunately, we found a 1 bedroom ADU unit in a small town for a fraction of the cost of our living expenses in a HCL city. The ADU had all utilities included, access to a small garage space to work on projects, a side yard, and most importantly, as we quickly learned, access to nature.

The stress from work melted away over the first few weeks. Even when working full time I was exercising everyday commuting and sometimes in the evenings. After a month into the sabbatical, my partner said "You know, your sweat smells different now. It no longer smells like stress." Less aprocrine gland sweat for the win!

I generally organized my day around what an ideal day would look like if I ER'd for the long haul (see below). It really allowed my to work on drawing/painting, exercise, and cooking skills. The main learning from this experiment was that time is completely different if it is all your own. I kept a routine to make sure I was making and learning new things everyday and not just scrolling reddit woodworking all day (not a complete waste of time). We spent a month up in far Northern Washington exploring the North Cascades, staying in the van, and stealing wifi from a friends rental property. The smoke last summer made its way up there as well. Full time van living would have been much harder during this past Western US wildfire season. Anyone reading this doing full-time vanlife have a strategy?

During all of this I had been in contact with a former colleague and they were going to have a remote position opening up in early 2021 that I might be suited for. I put a lot into the application and the interview because it seemed like a good use of my technical skills and I could work on open-source tools development. It ended up paying off. A large reduction in salary, but all the parts of my previous jobs I liked, with seemingly little of the B.S. (so far). I started recently and surprise, surprise, my sweat glands are acting only when exercising. As it should be.

The main thing I learned during Er-LITE experiment is that I can leanFI and be completely content personally. However, now in my new role, I realize that using savings to take the time to think about what you really want and hopefully find a job that points in that direction is a more prudent life sustaining way to go about it. Lengthening the time to ER is fine if you are not killing yourself to get there. I was just on the point of burnout before starting the sabbatical. Had I put in 9 more months to a year and then was fired, I might have not been able to enjoy any time off, just sat around mindlessly recovering.

Another very important discovery is that having access to nature/wilderness is essential for my personal happiness. There is no going back to urban living for me. Spending way more time in nature added to my stress reduction and helped me clarify my thoughts. Nature also showed me that nearly endless amounts of time could be spent observing/sketching/painting. I would trail run up to an alpine lake, fish/sketch, and then run back down. Or bike out on fire roads with a lunch/chair/sketchbook and just absorb it all. All of this "just maintenance cost" exploration showed me that my original FI calculations while living in the city were way too high so I am much closer then I thought! BONUS. Additionally, even if I had a ton of money, I am not sure that it would "buy" very much time. With my ideal day layed out below there would really only be ~3 hours of the day that could be outsourced. Mainly cooking, cleaning, and maintaining. I did find that cooking is now one of my favorite activities, especially when preparing meals for other people. There is also inherent satisfaction in maintaining your own things.

73% of the way to FI (taking into account large additional estimate for taking care of aging parent). Hoping to dial it in over the next year on this smaller salary. I have worked very hard over my working life (starting in 5th grade with paper route), but it is only when I really started saving in earnest 5 years ago that made all the difference for options. There is also an incredible amount of luck involved with anything in life. I like to think that having been disciplined contributed to being able to take advantage of opportunities along the way, but I think it is more likely that I am one of the planes returning to base with bullet holes in none critical places.

Thanks for reading. More on my background and current projects in the coming posts.

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Western Red Cedar
Posts: 1200
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 2:15 pm

Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by Western Red Cedar »

Welcome to the forum mountainFrugal! I'm at a similar life stage and have shared interests, so it is great to see you provide detailed explanations on identity-based goals, your web of goals, and your approach to realizing those. Your approach is more meticulous than mine, so I've already started making mental notes and thinking about refinements to my own web of goals. I look forward to following along.

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mountainFrugal
Posts: 1117
Joined: Fri May 07, 2021 2:26 pm

Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by mountainFrugal »

@WRC Thanks for the welcome. I have to admit that reading through your journal was an inspiration for me to just go for it, make an account, and start posting. Thanks! I am glad my ideas/goals might help you in anyway.

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