Jacob's other journal

Where are you and where are you going?
tommytebco
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Re: Jacob's other journal

Post by tommytebco »

regards small house for back yard:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/tinyhouseplans/bolt-house1.pdf
I bought the plans a long time ago, but never had land to build on. If you like it, you can have the plans.
It might be too much for a back yard. On wheels is a lot safer re. zoning police.

Tyler9000
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Re: Jacob's other journal

Post by Tyler9000 »

Congrats, Jacob. Whether it's at a job or not, responsibly maintaining the flexibility to do what makes you happiest at any given moment is a always great choice.

Spartan_Warrior
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Re: Jacob's other journal

Post by Spartan_Warrior »

Well, I'm excited! Looking forward to the finance insights and the next books.

jacob
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Re: Jacob's other journal

Post by jacob »

@cmonkey - I always felt that my adventures were kinda boring/uninteresting-to-most compared the other adventures posted here. I saturated on traveling and living in other countries during my early-mid physics career before I started blogging so nobody ever got to hear about that era of my life. Now I’m much more interested in the kind of “travel” that’s deep and local or even personal.—And as such, it’s not generally exciting/interesting.

@Kriegsspiel - Not blind anymore … but I think I’m still as susceptible to one more interval of comfortable misery as anyone.

@J_L13 - After we moved to Chicago, DW took a sabbatical for about half a year and then enrolled simultaneously in accounting community college and tax-school. The latter worked out really well and she rapidly rose in the ranks. She’s now managing the logistics for a couple of dozen offices. Strangely, she (iStJ) seems to like it, so I’ll support that. After all, it’s her turn to decide after following me to Chicago. Hence I’m the one doing the house keeping now. In my opinion, we’re definitely much better off when at least one of us is taking care of managing the home full time. Real home cooked meals every day. Everything spick and span.

Since marrying we have split all income 50/50. Since I had a head start, she’ll never catch up in fractional terms, but she’s at 45 years of savings by now (I’m at 100.5 years). Of course, if we hadn’t split 50/50, I’d be a millionaire by now … but whatever … I think when we make the decisions together, we should split together as well.

@Riggerjack - Fun stuff. I’ll definitely look into it. One issue about buying a semi-old house (1950) is that all these new home DIY books are mostly written in for the era of drywall and ABS/pex pipe plastics (1970+). Forsooth, I can’t even use a *cursed* stud finder to find my framing studs since my walls are plaster of mostly uneven thickness. Maybe I should get a bore-camera before I bubble-sort my walls with tiny holes?! ;-P One of my plans is to dig down two feet around the perimeter and see if I can fix our leakage problem (when it really really rains). Unfortunately, I don’t think the city will let me do my own French drains like @cmonkey did. Of course one of the great things about an old house is that it’s actually fairly well designed to avoid needing AC. We did get it installed anyway for the next buyer but we only use it for a couple of weeks each summer.

@tommytebco - Thanks for the offer! I can take/hold it, in case it becomes useful for the project with @bryan. If not, I can pass it on to someone else eventually. It would definitely be too much for our current backyard.

@Tyler9000 - “Any given moment” would be taking my psychological powers too far. I have a lag time … more like MA(happiest(t))_1year<threshold. Maybe with time I can eventually manage to make the time frame shorter. Usually my regret is not leaving earlier … but very likely that’s a superior regret to the “what if I had stayed X time longer”-regret. I think the key thing here is just to YOLO and live in the moment and take it for what it’s worth once one is post-FI. It was an interesting 4 years. I learned a lot.

@Spartan - Nnnnggg… books. Don’t you know that writing eventually makes you blind 8-) Financial insights are possible… as long as I don’t have to debate dogma. I crossed that one off my list(*) when I turned 35 ;-) These days I’m happy to disagree about investment issues. Disagreeing means that there’s at least one person who is willing to take the other side of my trade. Win-win, right?
(*) I’ve posted “the list” a few times, I believe … but basically I have a list of topics I will no longer debate after turning a certain age :)

Dragline
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Re: Jacob's other journal

Post by Dragline »

Missed the first recent post -- congrats on the transition, that sounds great. I agree that life is lot more pleasant when somebody stays home.

But now you'll have time for Book Club . . . Yeah, that's it. ;)

Maybe we should start a thread "What should jacob do next?" where we suggest ridiculous things and you have to shoot them down. :lol:

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jennypenny
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Re: Jacob's other journal

Post by jennypenny »

Ooh, pick that Ted Koppel book. :D

We could always do ERE. I was surprised no one picked it.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Jacob's other journal

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Pockets full of pennies of free time again! If I were you, I would go to the library and spin myself around and then decide to interest myself in the topics of the first three books I randomly picked.

cmonkey
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Re: Jacob's other journal

Post by cmonkey »

Dragline wrote:Maybe we should start a thread "What should jacob do next?" where we suggest ridiculous things and you have to shoot them down. :lol:
I vote this. :D

Carlos
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Re: Jacob's other journal

Post by Carlos »

Kriegsspiel wrote:Your lack of blind, droning work-ethic is an inspiration to us all.
This.

Congratulations to you for quitting and transitioning on to a new project - whatever that may be. Wow 3 years goes by so quickly.

saving-10-years
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Re: Jacob's other journal

Post by saving-10-years »

Good luck with the future projects. Especially interested to hear whether you are doing more woodworking for fibre artists - you mentioned a while back that you had a commission. Niddy noddys? Nostepinnes? Skeinwinders? Most things that knitters or spinners use have designs with considerable scope for improvement - should you feel the urge.

But don't let this distract from writing. Looking forward to more books please ...

Did
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Re: Jacob's other journal

Post by Did »

@jacob thanks for the update! I just spoke in detail about your post with my wife (you are a character in our household who gets discussed occasionally - much like Marcella Hazan), and I explained the vine thing to her and said (before I got to the end of the post), I'm not sure what the next vine is for him, maybe woodworking since it was his hobby a few years ago. So I was pleased to see it mentioned!

Very relevant and helpful for us to hear your updated situation, thank you.

cmonkey
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Re: Jacob's other journal

Post by cmonkey »

You reminded me you retired again and I just had to ask.....how has your first month been? Everything you dreamed it would be? ;)

jacob
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Re: Jacob's other journal

Post by jacob »

I meant to post something about that, really! Being this is my second "first month", I figured I could contrast and compare.

Last time, I had a lot of pent up energy for writing since my physics job didn't allow any non-job activities during 9-5. The first month felt like half a year/forever at work.
This time, I didn't have pent up energy for anything. Again, the first month felt like half a year/forever.

This brings home the point that life is lived in "compressed time". It's not about how the clock ticks but how fast the neurons are firing. If every one year at work (or being "retired" for that matter) blends into another, I'm losing "living".

Last time, I retired at 25x but being at a market bottom, I felt comfortable safe in terms of SWR knowing that markets would probably go up. This time, I'm at 100x+ and despite being at a market top, I feel very comfortable indeed knowing that whatever markets do, they can't undo me.

As far the first month specifically ...

I spent the first week developing the worst tooth ache I've ever experienced (supposedly a root infection). This resulted in a root canal one week later. My old insurance still covered but if it hadn't it would have been 0.15% of my NW. I also got my shitty 401k rolled over into my personal IRA for some severely enhanched ROI ... all sorts of paperwork that week.

In the second week, our sewer backed up. We're likely looking at flood control + a possible sewer system replacement and we've pretty much spent the time since then shopping around since this is above my DIY level. This meant lots of paperwork and bureaucracy with the city (for some kickback) which is more DW's department since she's way more Zen about this crap (figuratively) than I am.

I've taken over all householding tasks (except laundry for some reason). I make dinner and pack lunches for DW. Consequentially, food costs have dropped enough that annual fixed expenses are now <$5k/person/year (our main expenses are RE taxes, food, and various insurances). This is good!! I find that I actually enjoy cooking again. Since I'm the better "chef" in this household, we also eat better. Also improved "operations" around here, cleaning up.

My "retirement" also resulted in everybody I know wanting to finish up or start various projects. This has resulted in an epic case of analysis-paralysis :? . My apologies. I'll get there ASAP!

cmonkey
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Re: Jacob's other journal

Post by cmonkey »

Wow what a crappy first month (pun intended). I hope that was in an unfinished basement!

I developed a super sensitive nerve in one of my molars almost 3 years ago now and had to have a root canal performed. The procedure itself was heavenly compared to the hours leading up to it. I had developed it that morning and started calling around because I was practically passing out from the pain. Thankfully someone had an opening.

Then I had to have a crown put on. I hope you don't/didn't have that done! It was worse than the root canal. :( On top of that total cost was something like 2K before insurance/HSA. That's why I'm planning to keep funding the HSA after FI.
jacob wrote:If every one year at work (or being "retired" for that matter) blends into another, I'm losing "living"
I'm not sure what you mean by that. I think you mean getting lost in what you're doing thus losing track of time. To me this is a great thing.

JL13
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Re: Jacob's other journal

Post by JL13 »

jacob wrote:I make dinner and pack lunches for DW. Consequentially, food costs have dropped enough that annual fixed expenses are now <$5k/person/year
Ok. I guess this means that you're still able to cook for <$100 per person per month. I thought the old numbers from your journal might have been low due to a combination of local advantages (geographical fluke, if you will.) and inflation (since that was written over 5 years ago).

Would you mind elaborating a bit on your techniques? I'm still spending ~ $200 per person.

jacob
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Re: Jacob's other journal

Post by jacob »

I follow the strategy that KevinW wrote up
http://earlyretirementextreme.com/wiki/ ... _and_sales

I have a pantry that would allow me to avoid "shopping" for about 2 months and only buy whatever is on sale to supplement. Those sales determine what I cook. IOW, rice, beans, lentils, pasta, etc. comprise the base. Vegetables and meats on sale comprise the extras. My cooking follows the loss leaders. We also have the garden adding stuff for free.---And garden stuff in the freezer, hopefully until April when we can pull it out of the ground again, for free.

Dave
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Re: Jacob's other journal

Post by Dave »

jacob wrote:Since I'm the better "chef" in this household, we also eat better.
But can you make that good pumpkin bread, or is that the dominion of DW? :P

jacob
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Re: Jacob's other journal

Post by jacob »

DW all the way when it comes to baking. She was into the artisanal stuff for a while!
The only stuff I bake is Elvish waybread. (=Regular rye bread + oat meal but w/o yeast).

Dave
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Re: Jacob's other journal

Post by Dave »

Ah - lembas must be helpful in adhering to the Warrior Diet :-D.

jacob
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Re: Jacob's other journal

Post by jacob »

Coffee makes it [the WD] easier(*). Not sure whether coffee=cheating though.

(*) Caffeine stabilizes blood sugar.

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