DutchGirl's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
rube
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by rube »

Hi DG, I guess your week off started today? Hope you can enjoy it!
And January is approaching fast. I am curious how you like the months off early 2021.
Good luck with life.

DutchGirl
Posts: 1646
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:49 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

@Mendes: thanks :)

@Rube: yeah, I'm in my week off; I always get philosophical when I have the time...

I feel like I'm on the edge of something new for my career, and that it's going to be an interesting few months.

I struggle a bit with my feelings still. I feel a bit relevant and useful in this COVID19 pandemic, if only by helping to keep my little part of the medical world going. (And I know it's only a very small medical contribution, but it is one). And then we've always struggled to keep enough people interested in this job of being a blood bank doctor (it's not glamorous, it's not very interesting, it's not high pay), so if I leave, that's one more new colleague needed and perhaps not found. But then on the other hand, the upper management truly isn't helping to make this job better, so why would I keep going if I no longer need the money and am not appreciated by the organisation? I know I am appreciated by my direct colleagues, though.

I know from the previous time (when I switched from working here to doing the PhD research) that the feeling of "abandoning your colleagues" subsides; and I know that personally I do not hate or blame other people for quitting their job, but hope they'll enjoy their life (including, often, a new career). So nobody will (or at least: should) hate me for leaving, either.
Taking a step back, I like it when people create the life they want for themselves (within ethical boundaries of course). So I should go do that myself, too.

So: working on this!

My pension money has now grown to an amount that will easily be able to sustain me after official retirement age. It's going to be a rich and boring retirement after age 70, you guys. How sad ;)

My current savings are not enough to carry me to age 70, but they would cover my expenses with a 5% withdrawal rate for roughly 75%. The other 25% could quite easily come from some work I could do. Helping my boyfriend with his company for example and getting paid a reasonable amount for that could cover the rest. Or finding some other way to make some money and maybe to contribute to society. Thinking, thinking...

DutchGirl
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Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:49 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

So far for 2020 I reduced my "gifts and fun" budget by 50%, massively helped by going out very little, visiting friends very little and very few stops at a "to go" shop at the train or petrol station (when it comes to COVID19, I value my health over buying a coffee on the go, apparently).

My transport spending has gone up as I've bought a car. Where I planned to use it only for trips to workplaces hard to reach by public transport, for most of 2020 I have used my car for almost every trip to and from work. So that has cost more than expected, but again I feel I value my health more.

My charitable donations have gone up, too. Hard to not see the need these days.

I actually don't know yet whether my total average spending went up or down. I used a budgeting app for 2019 that I stopped using by the end of it (due to it no longer being supported on my phone). For 2020 I started using a spreadsheet I made. It works well, but now I can't compare this year's numbers to last year's ones. But it does seem like my savings rate will be slightly lower than last year's, so I guess all in all I'm spending more.

Still I'm continuing to inch closer to being FI every month, so I'm happy about that.

As I wrote last month, I'm still thinking about how to shape my work or "work" life over the next couple of years. I'm going to have a sabbatical at the beginning of 2021! It's going to be for three months, and I'm looking forward to it. I actually wish I could do this every year, but I'm not sure whether they'd let me. For 2021 they are happy with me not being there, as all of my colleagues have not asked for any weeks off during these months (they're hoping to be able to travel again in summer/autumn 2021), so for these first couple of months enough people are working to easily cover my absence. So for 2021 it'll work.

7Wannabe5
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Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Sabbatical- that’s a lovely sounding word. Like a vacation, but with visits to libraries assumed.

CS
Posts: 709
Joined: Sat Dec 29, 2012 10:24 pm

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by CS »

Congrats on the sabbatical and all your progress. You might be able to do it every year. Worth the ask. I mean, it's win-win for them if it means they can keep you.

DutchGirl
Posts: 1646
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:49 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

2.5 more weeks to go before the sabbatical. Of course, with some days off due to the holidays, so it's going to be relatively easy. I'm looking forward to it!

And CS, that's a good idea. I can ask for 3 months off every winter and I will settle for 2 months :-D

I've also taken on a volunteer job (okay guys, it's official: I can't sit still). A hospital in my area has opened an extra ward for patients who don't strictly need hospital-level care anymore, but who also aren't well enough to go home; and for whom it is not yet possible to find a spot in a nursing home or a revalidation center. While they wait on either further recovery to be able to go home, or a spot opening up in a regular facility, they can stay at this ward. It helps making hospital beds available for people who need hospital care (for example because of their COVID19 infection). On average the people stay on this ward for a week or so.

In the ward there are nurses and doctors taking care of the medical side of things, while volunteers help with the day to day business like helping with meals, helping the patients to walk and build up strength again and entertaining them, a bit. (Due to COVID19, we're not allowed to get within 1.5 meters of them, so things like playing a board game are not possible right now). I'm one of the volunteers now and will be during my sabbatical, for one day and one evening per week. So far it's been fun and very different from my work, so in a sense it's refreshing. There are also a lot of older people there, and some of their stories already have reminded me that the clock is ticking and that I should go and have fun now, while I can. For some of the people, the recent event that put them in the hospital will be the reason that they will never be able to live independent again. That's sad. A woman who now moved on to a revalidation center had an awesome life of teaching kids in Indonesia, Africa and the Netherlands, finding the love of her life, and retiring with him in Portugal. Sadly, he died (at age 80+, so could have been much worse), and now she (also age 80+) is living her remaining years here in the Netherlands. I don't know all the medical details (not my "job" here), but I hope she is able to recover enough to go home again!

I have no further plans yet for using my sabbatical. Maybe... writing? Oh, and definitely cleaning out the attic... maybe by the end of March, ha.

My boyfriend now has more than enough money to call himself financially independent, but he is not very interested in not working, and he has some remaining fear that he won't have enough money. Still, from January onwards he'll reduce his work hours from 40 to 16 per week, PLUS he's going to develop some piece of hardware that he may or may not be able to sell later on. So hopefully he'll enjoy a more fun lifestyle as well in the upcoming months, with only 2 days/week where he's truly working and has the risk of being exposed to some corporate bullshit, and the rest of the week to spend on tinkering with hard- and software to his heart's desire. That probably won't always be fun either, but if he doesn't like it, he can just quit that project.

DutchGirl
Posts: 1646
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:49 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

Half a week left to my sabbatical, and some new developments. The COVID19-vaccination campaign is starting tomorrow, here in the Netherlands, and I've reached out to a local organizing party to ask whether they could use my help with that for a couple of days per week. I've already talked to them and I think the work is fun and important(ish) and different from what I've been doing these last couple of years, so I'm waiting on their final verdict tomorrow on whether they'll hire me or not for these next couple of months. (They know it's only going to be for a couple of months, but during our conversation they said they thought I could contribute something during that short time frame).

I have understood that sabbaticals used to be periods when professors would go away from their own university for half a year or a year or so, to teach and research at a different institution. The new environment, new colleagues and new resources helped them to see their profession with a fresh eye and would often lead to new discoveries.

So now my sabbatical could be more like that, with me working for a different employer for a couple of months, trying out new things and seeing how I like it.

If they will have me, I'll do it. If they won't, I'll have a three month holiday. There are no bad outcomes here for me!

My boyfriend is valiantly defending his rights for a free Monday & Friday over the next couple of months. He started out with wanting a half year off, but for him this has changed to working still on a project on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and it's possible that there will be another project that they'll need him for, for 1-2 days per week. And both projects are awesome, he tells me.

Aren't we the blessed, lucky ones? We are.

During our visit to my parents a few days ago (we tried to make it as safe as possible) I discovered that my mother is the careful & scared one when it comes to money, while my father is more trusting and ready to take on some risks. This was a new discovery for me. My mother is scared of running out of money, while my father sees money sitting in their bank account only losing value. I'm guessing I'm more like my father, although I can also understand my mother. It's nice to make these kind of discoveries and to learn something new about them. By the way, they won't run out of money - their house is paid off, they both have a nice pension from different sources coming in, and the Dutch health insurance and the Dutch longterm care system cost a bit of money every year but will never take away all their savings with one bad fall or anything like that. So they're golden.

We've laughed a bit about a suggestion I repeatedly have made to my parents since my father retired, now 4 or 5 years ago. I told them that they should go on a cruise to enjoy the sights in a luxurious way. Oh dear. So pre-COVID! But hopefully the vaccine works well and then next year they can take a nice trip and enjoy a holiday, even if it probably isn't going to be on a ship.

DutchGirl
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Location: The Netherlands

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

So, checking in...

Everyone of my family members is still fine. My MIL is now even vaccinated. Well, just now they opened up the vaccination centers for her age group, and we were fast to make that first appointment for her and bringing her there. I understand that she's not safe just yet (and what's safe? Maybe she gets vaccinated and then a month later she slips on some ice or whatever). But it's progress.

As for me, I'm enjoying my sabbatical. I'm noticing that the troubles at my old workplace, the blood bank, are now less important to me. I can look at it more neutrally, as in: hey, every workplace has its ups and downs. Every workplace has its good and its less smart policies. Every workplace has its good colleagues and okay colleagues and annoying colleagues. I will go back there in a couple of months, because a. I promised and b. by April I'll be in the negative when it comes to holiday hours, I'll owe them, and I can get that back to zero by working, at least for the rest of the year. But I'm considering quitting after that - this mental distance I have now also means that I can say more easily: they will also be okay without me, so if I want to go at some point, I can do that.

The new, temporary, workplace is nice. I'm in an "office" with two colleagues, and that hasn't been my type of workplace in years. Maybe others who have this all the time might hate the fact that there are always other people around, but for me it's a nice change to be able to discuss things with colleagues all the time. I have an errrr... zero-hour-contract, and they don't need me next week. So next week is a holiday-within-a-sabbatical again, ha.

I'm also still doing the volunteer work, and that is nice, too. You get to talk to all different kinds of people. Generally they are old, so they do have a lot of stories to tell. They also now and then remind me to live - enjoy life now while I'm still, ahem, relatively young and able to use my brain well, and to move about.

And then, at home, I'm working to declutter my house, and to improve my habits regarding eating fruit, making my veggie-eating habit stronger, and moving around at least half an hour every day.

In conclusion: stress levels are low, and life is pretty good over here...

CS
Posts: 709
Joined: Sat Dec 29, 2012 10:24 pm

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by CS »

Glad to hear things are going well.

My mom had a saying regarding work and the was 'everyone is replaceable.' She didn't mean it in the way you might think - it was more like, don't take on unnecessary ownership of a place, problem, whatever, because someone else can deal with it just as well.

Or well enough.

Distance has a great way of breaking that spell of feeling responsible for it all.

I had some allergy problems this past fall and have switched to eating different foods so that I only repeat every five days. It has been much harder than I thought it would be so can understand the food challenges. The varied diet has done miracles for my allergy reactions so I'll keep at it.

DutchGirl
Posts: 1646
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:49 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

  • Eating my veggies Image
  • Eating fruit Image (big one for me! What helped me the most is to just always have fruit available at home, even if, OH HORROR, I sometimes have to throw a piece of fruit away due to not eating it on time. I now try to accept that potential horrible event in return for the fact that now one or two pieces of fruit end up in my stomach every day. And oh, same goes for my boyfriend who has been an unknowing subject of this experiment
  • Moving about half an hour per day Image - same with the fruit: also causing my boyfriend to also go on a walk with me more often.
  • Losing weight Image
  • Losing clutter Image - we've had a sudden short winter here, right before it happened I cleaned out the garage enough so that I could walk there. This garage can be entered from the home (if you do not, ahem, put stuff all the way up to the interconnecting door...) and so this allowed me during the week that we couldn't do much outside to fully declutter the garage. And now I've started on our tools (plus the inherited tools from my FIL that we took to our house after he had died; MIL kept some vital tools but there were many more). But for these I also need my boyfriend's help, as he is the one to ultimately decide which tools to keep and which to give away (to a good friend who is a hobby mechanic). I've got two more big projects: the office and the attic. I think I'll start with the office as that is mostly where I can make the decisions on my own. My boyfriend is not very attached to any of our staplers :D
I had a week off from my temporary job. That helped in the decluttering progress as it gave me more time. Now I'm working there again, but only 2-3 days per week. And because currently with this job I really don't care about it on the days that I don't work, that gives me four or five free days per week in which to make progress on my own projects. The volunteer work is now only one half day per week, as they have found many volunteers (hurray for them!).

I'm thinking about leaving/quitting my job at the blood bank after 2021 is over. I feel like going back there for the rest of 2021 for a couple of reasons: 1. because I promised 2. because right now I'm also using up vacation days for the rest of 2021 and otherwise it would be an HR mess and 3. because that would still give me slightly more money before I jump ship. If the market would return exactly 0% over 2021, it would get me to 92% of my money target, and that, I feel, is close enough to do risky things like quitting and seeing what I'll do next.

Reasons to quit after 2021 would be that 1. it turns out that after all they can manage without me, 2. the swamp of rules&regulations created by HR and management that you have to wade through to get to your actual job and 3. the freedom it will give me to do other things that are also important to me.

These weeks I also thought about some ideas of "what to do next", but I still notice a bit of burnout, where I can't get enthusiastic enough about any other new option, yet. I did a career test and had the two highest scores on A. jobs that are repetitive with strict rules and B. jobs that are fully creative. Welcome to being me? I do recognize these results: although I am quite smart, I love doing repetitive, easier tasks. Especially if I feel that they are worthwhile. I don't know why, but it is true. I also love the accomplishment that comes with that and the way in which you can often track progress with these types of tasks (3 done, 2 to go, stuff like that). And yes, on the other hand I love creating something, but maybe more as a hobby with no money consequences if nobody else likes it.

Well... 1.5 month down, 1.5 month more to go in my "sabbatical" or whatever the hell I'm making of it. Who knows what's next?

Jiimmy
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by Jiimmy »

Sounds like you have some fun changes on the horizon. Best wishes to you!

rube
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Location: Europe (NL)

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by rube »

Hi DG, taking some time off and having some distance from your normal job is doing you good, on several aspects, it seems.

Your reason #2 to not jump the ship earlier is not a valid reason imo, they can sort it out. #1 can be valid (perhaps, depending wat type of agreement/promise you made) and #3 is probably a good reason.
All your reasons to jump the ship after 2022 are very valid imo :D .
With after 2021 you mean early 2022?

Enjoy the remainder of your "sabitical"!

DutchGirl
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

I'm sitting on the couch on this evening. It was stormy weather outside today, so I didn't exercise.

And now I am like: okay, stop typing here. Go sit on your hometrainer,read an ebook in the meantime, and you can at least do your 30 minute exercising today. Here I go...

I'll update this journal some other time.

chenda
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by chenda »

Post again in 30 mins to let us know you're done ;)

Quadalupe
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by Quadalupe »

Well done DG, you're almost done cycling by now!

DutchGirl
Posts: 1646
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:49 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

Oh dear, I thought I hadn't posted that message. It wasn't very important, was it? But apparently I did post it. And yes, it helped me get off my lazy ... couch ... and yes, I did cycle yesterday! And today I checked all my daily to do-items off, too. Again with cycling on my hometrainer for the half-hour-exercise item on my list. Maybe tomorrow I'll go out and about for a walk again instead of the hometrainer. It's nice to do that when there aren't low-flying tree branches around. We'll see.

Still losing some clutter as well, although I've hit a rough spot with that. I'm working on decluttering my home office and one half of the room is nice stuff, and the other half is storage. Oh, and the hometrainer is there, too. Typical? So for now I can't really see how to make this room really nice. And I haven't found the courage yet to look at the stored stuff and throw away things that were mine once but I won't use again. I'm especially bad at getting rid of emotional stuff like old postcards from family and friends, and pictures. Also, some of the stored stuff is from my boyfriend, and I just can't get him to look at his stuff. So that will just continue to sit there. But yeah, as I said, I'm pretty bad at getting rid of my old stuff, too. So can't really blame him :-)

Well, at least the garage, the kitchen, the living room and the bed room have been decluttered now. Those are after all the rooms that we spend the most time in. And maybe in the next month I'll also make some progress on the office and storage area.

Moneywise, I've gained a few thousand euros these last couple of months due to my investments going up (where are you going, stocks???). So it's funny how I'm already halfway towards my goal for the end of the year; mostly due to the stock market, and a bit due to working part time during my sabbatical, which wasn't the plan at first. Nice.

I'm also giving budgeting app YNAB a new try. I used it when you could buy a version on Steam, and stopped using it when they switched to the webbased YNAB with a monthly subscription system. I never used it in exactly the way that YNAB wanted me to use it. I never gave every dollar a job and I always went over some line items and didn't correct that - basically I just used YNAB to get nice graphs of how my net worth was developing and on what I actually spent money on.
Well, now I have decided to give it an actual go as it's meant to be. So far so good, following the ideas of YNAB does make sense - or at least I can say it's one sensible way to do this budgeting thing; and so far it's working fine for me.

DutchGirl
Posts: 1646
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:49 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

Looking back at the beginning of my journal, now 9.5 years ago...let's do it again...

I'm 42. I have a job.

I currently have 213k euros in savings and investments.

I am building a pension (which is an obligation in the Netherlands) that will already give me about 2050 euros/month after age 67. (Hopefully this number will also be corrected for inflation in the 25 years to come).

Plans for this year
Save 14k euros more. (To be fair, in 2011 when I wrote I wanted to save 4k euros more, it was September; so this time I have six months more to do this).

A new computer. The one I'm using now is actually from 2013 and it's crashing every now and then. I replaced its battery and I have upgraded its memory, but it's growing old.

Plans for the long term
Saving probably 40k more for financial independence (so get to 250k).
Back in 2011 the goal was 240k and I wrote that I should be able to get to 240k in 15 years. It looks like I might be able to reach that 240k this year or next year, so then I'll have done it in eleven or twelve. That feels good! In the last ten years we did move to a more expensive house, so costs have gone up a bit. I might make it work on 250k, I might do better to work a little bit longer to get to 300k or so.
Spending 2k euros a year on taking a month off work in the winter. Because I hate winter and would love to be able to spend at least one month of it cocooning inside.

I didn't take a month off every winter so far, but I took three months off this winter. I am intending to take off a month again next winter and travel to the south of Europe during that month. So that goal stays :-)

wolf
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by wolf »

That's great progress DutchGirl. You are faster than initially anticipated or planned. That's a very good sign, that you'll achieve all of your financial goals in time.

Regarding your pension: Wow, how is that possible? You are 42 years young and have already build up a pension of 2050 euros/month (before taxes, I guess). Is that a private one or the legal required one, or the combination of both? Nevertheless it is great, I would say. I am quite surprised because if I compare it to the German pension system it would not be possible with 42 years.

Regarding your old computer: Have you already considered a Linux operating system and operating it only via the power adapter? If you are open for such an idea, I can recommend it, because I'm doing such a setup for a few years now. It works fine for my requirements.

I guess, I read, that there is a tax on personal wealth in Netherlands. Am I correct? How do you calculate / budget for it? Do you include it into your personal expenses? Hopefully the German politicians won't come up with such an idea.

And your plan for the winter season sounds nice to me. I like it. Taking a month or two off and travel to a warm and sunny place in November or December would be awesome.

Wish you good luck with saving 14k more this year!

DutchGirl
Posts: 1646
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:49 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

wolf wrote:
Sun Apr 04, 2021 10:50 am
Regarding your pension: Wow, how is that possible? You are 42 years young and have already build up a pension of 2050 euros/month (before taxes, I guess). Is that a private one or the legal required one, or the combination of both? Nevertheless it is great, I would say. I am quite surprised because if I compare it to the German pension system it would not be possible with 42 years.
Maybe I should have worded this differently, but it is everything, wolf, including the state pension. That would be roughly 750 euros/month (this is the amount that each of the persons in a relationship gets; if you're single it's roughly 1200 euros/month) and then 1300 from my individual work pensions. And this is before taxes, but given how total income would be 25k/year or so and I would be over 67 years old, the tax rate would be very low. (People who are over 67 get a lower tax rate, at least on the first 30k or so of income). What also may help is that since age 25 I've always earned more than the median income.

And yes, we have asset or wealth tax here. Currently, as a single person the first 50k of your assets (actually assets minus debts; and the house you live in and own is NOT considered an asset, the mortgage is NOT considered a debt) is not taxed; if you're a couple then 100k of your combined net worth is not taxed. Beyond the first 50k/100k you get taxed annually. However, there is no capital gains tax or dividend tax, which a lot of other countries have instead. So instead of paying for example 30% tax on your capital gains, you pay between 0% and 1.5% per year on your assets, with the percentage going up as you own more.

One other advantage is that this wealth tax is part of all of the income tax that you owe, and that we all get a 2000 - 5000 euro credit on our taxes (the exact credit amount depends on personal circumstances). So if I am not working and have no other income, the first 2800 or so euros of my asset tax will be forgiven. If I have 300k euros the tax would be 3085 euros (so, around 1%), but a tax credit of 2837 euros would be applied and I would need to pay 250 euros in taxes for that year (so, < 0.1%). I don't think that when I live a FIRE lifestyle and enjoy all of my free time, that I would be very unhappy about having to pay 250 euros of taxes while living a comfortable (self-funded) lifestyle and probably while seeing something like 15k profits from the 300k of assets, or more.

There are of course Dutch people who complain about having to pay taxes, and the wealth tax gets more taxing (ha) as you start to have 1 million or more. But 1. I'm sorry, but I can't feel really sorry that people who have 1 million or more of assets outside of the house they own need to pay some taxes and 2. I guess that's the advantage of the ERE lifestyle: if you can live well with 300k or 600k of assets, you get to pay less taxes than if you need 1 million or 1.5 million to feel like you're living comfortably.

DutchGirl
Posts: 1646
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

Back at work, now. And I notice a couple of things:

1. Yesterday evening at work (I worked the evening shift) I felt physically sick for an hour or so. Was it stress? I think it was. Perhaps I was hyperventilating. It passed after an hour or so. I think it was caused by the fact that I'd already had a busy day doing other important things and that it was just a little bit too much to need to be energetic for 3 more hours at that point. I made it, but it sucked for a while.
2. When working it's much, much harder to make sure I exercise enough and eat well. This is also due to the fact that I work irregular shifts. At home I have fruit and I'll eat it sometime between 2 and 4 PM. At work, I don't have fruit and so I don't eat it. At home I had gotten into the habit of creating a little raw veggie snack in the afternoon (also helps with staving off the cravings!) but if I work an afternoon or evening shift, that just doesn't happen either. I know this is partially on me, I'll have to find better ways to deal with this, but ... it would be easier without work, or perhaps with a different job.
3. I got some distance from all the things going on at work. That was really nice. I had made the resolution to not get sucked in again, but oh, it's hard. Man, the higher-ups truly can make bad decisions sometimes (For example, buying the cheapest machine that will do the required tasks, and not paying enough attention to whether the machine actually does the job well). And then my colleagues really really love telling everyone how it sucks to have to work with this machine, too.

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