anomie's journal

[anomie]

Technology front update:

1. Playing Clash of Clans on my job-supplied iPad (yes, i don't understand why my job gave me an iPad either); I have tended to stay away from this iPad, lending it to DW for her work .. my Clan leader is in 8th Grade! LMAO! and I have paid $25 in this free- to play game. $25 for 3 months of play, so far... I do not plan to spend any more on the game, and I tend to play these city builder type games to level 50 or so before getting to bored. The game itself is like a virtual pet where you have to check in every few hours to tend to it.. Find it interesting that there is now a new generation of humans raised on the internet and video games, with opportunity to have leadership positions, and to 'interact' (we have in game chat, bigato!!!! likewe shoud in these forums.. in some capacity with some of us 1st generation gamers...

2. After seeing the utility dw got from hers for past 14 months, I bought a Nook Simple Touch for $45 on ebay - with a cover and an 8GB memory card. Now I have no excuse not to read books. I have been downsizing physical books, and this will expedite the process. Nook Simple Touch reads the open-format epub. So I can basically get any book I want for this thing...

3. Next week Google (24th!) is to announce the next generation of the Nexus 7, called Nexus 7 2! A bad ass tablet computer for $230 -- the Nexus 7 is already an awesome buy, but am looking forward to the shinier version just because.


#Technology update out.

[spoonman]

I'm always happy to see a fellow gamer on these boards. Ever since I saved one of the fake pricesses in Mario Bros I have been hooked on videogames. I remember playing Atari with my rich friend across the street, it was amazing.

These days it's difficult for me to sit down and play a game without thinking about all the more "productive" things I could be doing with my time. I'm hoping to change this in retirement.

[BlueNote]

I remember when I played the civilization (the first version) for the first time. I played it for more then 24 hours straight, all day and all night. My mom had to practically drag me kicking and screaming from the PC. I think it ran on one floppy disk at the time, it was awesome. I could see myself becoming a video game hermit so I pretty much avoid them as much as possible.

[anomie]

Hello,

Yes - Civilization was the first PC game I ran into in 1993. I played it on a 386 PC for a year. It blew my mind. From then on, for about 10 years, I would buy PC's around the spec's needed for the next video game (ie, I would buy gaming PC's). an expensive habit that I am glad I finally kicked about 3 years ago.

I am really glad that gaming has caught up with the low cost tablet platform, more or less. I hate the iPad, but it is sure a beautiful graphic and computing experience.

@spoonman - Yes, I agree. maybe if I played fewer games, I would have more time for sober, mature experiences. Like making my own soap. hmmm. not going to happen at this time.

One prominent gamer in these parts is MikeBOS, the author of http://lackingambition.com/ . I'm pretty sure he is open about his gaming interests; hope I am not transgressing by mentioning him here.

thanks for the responses!

[anomie]

***** Paying off the mortgage - Part 3 of 3
Bank of America: Oh, we didn't mail this to you? Oops. Will send a copy to you.
few days later we got a 'Letter of Satisfaction' that the mortgage has been paid. Filed with the County Recorder's office of official documents.

WARRANTY DEED

I was expecting some type of closure. I thought that the 'title' of ownership to our house had been signed over to the bank when we signed a mortgage.
Turns out the banks had just filed some documents with the county government that they had a lien on the house. I guess same legal effect. I was expecting something more literal I suppose.

The closest thing that exists to what I was expecting -- a title on the house free and clear - was the WARRANTY DEED that we signed when the previous home owner sold use the house. Which we already have a copy of.

The free and clear part is just the legal paper trail in the country recorder's office. Very nice website, all documentation available on-line, thank you jesus.

So for whatever property ownership is worth, as much as anyone 'owns' anything, we now 'own' our home.
(Until we do not pay taxes on it. Or it burns down. Or SHTF.)

(NOT) my house ....

[vivacious]

Hey Anomie. Good to hear from you. I wondered what you have been up to lately. Glad you paid off the house. Careful though I have heard of paid off houses getting "foreclosed" on because of very poor accounting etc and the all out fraud in the banks. I once saw a guy online foreclose a bank though! He went in with some cops and some lawyers and they started breaking the bank down piece by piece! They thought a little differently after that and I think he got some kind of settlement or something. Anyway smoke a joint, play some videogames or whatever you like to do, etc. You earned it.

[anomie]

Hi vivacious -

Yes>

Careful though I have heard of paid off houses getting "foreclosed" on because of very poor accounting etc and the all out fraud in the banks.

As you say there. My concern was -- what proof do I have that I have paid off a mortgage? What does that look like?

I tried to report that in my 3 part series on that topic.

The key seems to be the "Letter of Satisfaction" from the bank that they have their blood from you and are done with you.

regards,
anomie

[vivacious]

Ah ya. Definitely saw that. Thanks for the report and I'm glad you're being thorough.

[anomie]

48 month Plan ™
Month 12 --- 36 months to go ....
I am still saving my paycheck and investing it. 36 more checks to go!
I am currently splitting the paycheck between 2 different brokerages. The FIL did not come through with any productive/ proactive investment advice.
Fortunately, 95% of our money is in low cost managed 403(b) funds.
So the plan becomes how to invest for the near-term -- 10-15 years out .....
I recently learned how to do limit buy orders ---- " buy x if it goes down to y$ amount " ....

While loving the dividend-growth idea, I still have much to research / learn on that front.
We have so much $ in the market, it seems prudent to put money into cash positions right now just to wait out the hoo-ha, and to look for a dip ..... ; the mortgage payment was a conservative bet against the volatility that we otherwise face. We have friends who avoid paying their mortgage, and invest extra money in the market, betting they will get higher rates than their mortgage rate. different strokes, different folks.
Recently found Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF ( PACIFIC STOCK EXCHANGE : VYM ) that starts to scratch my itch for a dividend bearing fund.

My stress levels have decreased dramatically now that I just invest my paycheck. Having to try to budget around DW's work expenses was a major stressor for me. Now I just say 'we're living on your paycheck now'. I can focus on the horizon.

Just wanted to get a journal entry in. I don't really feel like I am a great writer, but I do like reading the forums, and do want to update this journal periodically.

[anomie]

Greetings. Have not posted in 3 months! Want to post at least quarterly; my beans and rice are cooling, so here goes ...

Looking back I see that I was amazed when the DOW hit 14,000. 2013 was a wild ride seeing the DOW hit 16,500. The stock market has provided some exciting possibilities for our future....

We are looking at moving to Japan in about 18 months for DW's work. We'll see what that does to my work scene.

I have picked up a disgusting habit -- I hike with my DW to work in the mornings, and then help myself to the cigarette butts in the ash can that sits on the edge of her work. ! LOL. Have to keep the smoking under tight control, but it does help with the drinking ..
Keeping the alcohol budget to 80 - $110 / month...



48 month Plan ™
Month 16
Almost a year of saving my paycheck with no extra 403(b) withdrawals from it. Vanguard is my friend. Though we need to increase our cash position with this market, so basically just sitting on most of it.

We are now living off of the wife's check; have had to reduce her 403(b)'s to half to cover monthly expenses.

Note to others: you can have your employer direct to your retirement 401(k) or 403(b) like up to around $17,000 now, and it will not be taxed. This was news to some of our friends, so just sharing.

Doing that for past 10 years has really helped us out now...We have more than we need in the 403(b)'s now, given that we can let them grow for 14 more years before touching them...

Our target monthly expense is $2500 for 2 adults, no mortgage ($2400/year in taxes and homeowner's insurance, so $200/month towards that)...
We spend way to much on food ..
I do enjoy our weekly hikes to the local farmer's market, though there again we probably spend to much on things like potatoes just because they are not poisoned.
Need to pick up other skills outside of work other than housekeeping. Oh and now that Steam has come to Linux, there is much video gaming to be had this Mid-western winter. Yes I know I should be doing more productive activities than playing video games; maybe later ..
Speaking of video games, now am lvl 78 on Clash of Clans - (I play this on work provided Ipad). Me and a couple of friends finally left the children's clan where my clan leader was 12 years old, and am now in a '21-year-old+' clan. Like you have to be an adult to play COC! It has worked out well over the past 6 months, though I'm not a fan of their enforced age restrictions.

In other News -- we are a "Nielson Family" !! LOL. We are keeping a diary for a week of our TV habits. LOL! We had to call them and ask "What do you do if you don't watch any actual Television channels or subscribe to cable TV or satellite?" We watch TV shows but only via Internet. Boy, Nielson 's data collection diary needs some updating for the 21st century......

I also enjoy reading the ERE forums and learning from all the folks here.

Ok. Back to lurking mode. Have a nice day.

[jacob]

The 401k limit is currently 17.5k. You can tax defer an additional 5.5k in an IRA. If you're married with one income, you can still have a spousal IRA (you spouse can earn the money). This brings it up to 28.5k you wont have to pay taxes on. If you're high income (like 80k) one of the 5.5k IRAs will phase out. Conversely, if you're low income (like 40k), you will get the Saver's Credit (not just a deduction but actual money back) on your tax return due to your high savings rate. If you have an self-employment income, you can protect even more money with a SEP-IRA.

[spoonman]

"48 month Plan ™"

I love it! Thanks for the giggle.

[anomie]

@jacob - thanks for spelling that out for folks. I hope people read that very useful information.

--
For own my personal situation in this regard, as mentioned before, I am in the situation of planning how to survive from ages 49 - 59 on investment income &/or via my housekeeping skills &/or otherwise by sheer wit. I am sort of done with hiding money from mr. tax man in retirement accounts.

@spoonman - glad to know that someone appreciates a lil humor!

In that vein, I thought back how warm and satisfied I felt writing my current entry. Then I did the math (yeah I'm a little slow a lot of the time..) .. our TARGET monthly expense is $2,500. That is $30,000 A YEAR! Huh??? We OWN our house? WTF are spending money on?

So I went and looked at our Monthly spending by category in trends on Mint to see how we did for January:



and




The monthly damage is much lower than I feared. Though our food and dining budget is ridiculous (this also includes my favorite category - alcohol).

Oh, my! The Entertainment and the Shopping are mostly mine! Bought $80 worth of Civilization 5 on Steam this month, and some personal supplies from Amazon.com including a $20 headset for video gaming! But these categories total almost $130, and they are mine. At least those particulars won't happen again ....

Story of my PC gaming rig: I am very fortunate to have a friend who loves PC gaming. He gave me his old gaming PC because it had a few quirks he wasn't interested in fixing; it is now 3 years old and should be good for another couple of years... (I am taking away from my few free hours to narrate this to you my kind audience ...) Due to some recent projects at work, I also now have a copy of Windows 7 professional, so now I have a dual - boot PC gaming rig that can run Civilzation 5 ... So yeah I am privileged lucky bastard to have a PC gaming rig for free.

I am also privileged to be sharing my resources with someone, reducing many costs in half; but I also do not have unilateral control over many aspects of my life (Me: "Honey..., can we turn the thermostat down to 62 F to save money? A: Sure you can..., when I'm not in the house!. Now turn that heat up! " ) So the utilities are not going to change much ....

Again, have a nice day, and best regards.
-anomie

[anomie]

48 month Plan ™
Month 20

This journal entry concerns my primary approach for saving the 50k-150k I hope to save over next 2-3 years. This amount will be the basis for my survival between ages of 49-59.

Using a Growth and (Dividend) Income Stock Screen:

Current Price >= 5
20 Day Volume >= 100000
Zach's Rank <= 3
ROE (12 months %) >= S&PMed (10%)
PE (next quarter estimate) <= S&P Median
Debt / Equity <= 1
Beta (60 month) <= 1
Current Dividend yield % >= S&P Median
Current Dividend yield % Top 2 in Sector
Current Dividend yield % Top # 7

purchase , sell, and re-balance every 12 weeks

[anomie]

This update concerns what I am thinking of as "core expenses". Just the costs of shelter. Not even food.

What are our costs of living in the house as we have been? I collected some data from past couple of years.


********* Monthly Expense
Electricity 100 based on average of past 25 months expenses
Gas 64 based on average of past 25 months expenses
Sewar/ Water 54
Property Tax 146.9
Homeowner's Insurance 60

Total Monthly $424.90
Total Annual $5098.8

This is for 2 adults living in a modest 2-bedroom house in small town midwest america.

The electricity is high-ish mainly because I tend to run a lot of computers in my house, some as servers non-stop. In recent years , these are getting fewer, and I am learning to suspend or turn off when not in use, and computers are getting smaller. General down-sizing.

The Gas is used for heat and cooking.

no mortgage; we are paying 2.07% of the purchase of the house per year in taxes and insurance.

$5,000 per year.

Just to have a home.

[UrbanHermit]

You should probably include 4% of your home equity in the "just to have a home category" to account for the opportunity cost.

If it makes you feel any better I'm paying close to 15k/y (inclusive of utilities, etc) just to have a small, hot, noisy, one bedroom apartment in the city. Your numbers look pretty good to me at this point :)

[anomie]

I am not really going to talk to other folks about exiting the work force until closer to time, in about a year.

To keep me focused i came up with a simple little countdown calculator. Thought others may be interested. Image below Links to a google sheet




a 3x2 sheet of happiness!

[m741]

I remember looking at a few cells like that. It's great seeing the days slip away.

I'm guessing you arbitrarily chose an end date? I tried to calculate compounded monthly income (so, based on current savings rate, compounding returns at a given rate, and how much had already been saved, when to expect retirement). It's a bit finicky, but also very reassuring.

[anomie]

@UrbanHermit - a belated thank you for mentioning the opportunity cost. That is something I find hard to put a number on, because having the home - settling down in my 30's - was probably something that saved me many other costs (stability, sanity, etc.) . Locating in bumb fuck where I live, has definitely helped $ accumulations, but there are other cultural and social costs associated with living where I do. But I will take a look at opportunity costs of home ownership again in the future.

-----
Regarding the countdown calculator above, for those who don't want to click the link, the formulas were really simple in the end:

Today =TODAY()
Retirement Date your date
Remaining Days =B2-B1
(the datediff() function is apparently broken in Google Sheets atm..)

-----

@m741 - my personal Retirement Date was derived from a series of compromises with my SO, my current work situation, stock market, the usual various factors. I had to choose a date, and have chosen 1-Oct-2016; so that is my actual date. I have seen you mention how you code spreadsheets to include stock values, and price alerts. If you ever wanted to elaborate on that , I would be interested in reading it! I have toyed with using the GoogleFinance() function in Google Sheets, but have not done anything productive with it.
(Example: =GoogleFinance("MAT", "close", "01/01/2000", today(), "weekly") )

Anyhow, thanks for commenting!

[anomie]

So I want to recount some 'wins' I have experienced in recent months in terms of do it yourself repair projects in the physical world. (I spend most of my time living in abstract and computer world, and have no problem there; re-entering the physical world has taken more work):

Lawnmower
Living in middle america means lots of garage sales and such. About 7 years ago, came across a craftsman push mower that the owner gave me for free. Replaced the blade, and have had a great little mower for a total cost of about $20. The wheels became a bit of problem. Had them cotterpinned on and the pins would keep breaking. Last spring , someone else set out an old mower on the side of street (small town for 'free! take me!'). I took it home and stripped the tires off of it and put them on my craftsman, and now have rejuvenated my mower for another couple years. I have duct tape on one side of the base where rust has eaten it away. But it does the trick for our small yard! The remaining junked mower was recycled for scrap.

Dishwasher
Our little 21" dishwasher died last month. With the help of a great parts website and its troubleshooting section, I was able to borrow a friend's multi-meter, test the timer, order it and replace it myself. Lots of angst around all of this, but the final solution was pretty simple, and the total cost was about $25 for the timer switch.

Light switch in kitchen
This one was really basic. Finally realized that to verify the power was out, could just turn on the light, and then turn off power breakers until the light went out. (duh) I have had a replacement switch for over 5 years, just never used it. 1 screwdriver is all it takes to put the switch in.


A recent compromise with SO is resulting in us doing some home repairs and having to hire a carpenter. If I had more time away from work, or more youth and energy, I might insist on doing these repairs myself. I hope to at least pay attention to what they are doing and learn something in process, for the future.

Funny, these few things this year have made me feel more competent; when I write them down, they really don't seem that many, or that great an achievement.. huh. Guess that is one benefit of journalling - self-reflection. oh well, hope i didn't waste ur time!