Pemulis' journal

[pemulis]

Hi Anyone Reading,

I want to start this journal saying I read m741's journal recently and it struck me that we are fairly similar in many ways (software developers with good jobs right out of school, already pretty frugal committing to ERE) but in a lot of ways we are very different and have vastly different philosophies about life and making money.



I want to start this journal because I want show a perspective of someone who started ERE in the same age range as m741, and in similar job but I get paid way less. I am trying to compensate by increasing my income in other avenues, unlike m741 did I only work 8 hours a day at my company and have a 10 minute commute so I need to use this extra time to compensate. If I start to think of this as a competition it will additionally motivate me.

So first off, where am I at?
I live in a large midwestern U.S. city working for a medium-size construction company doing internal development work (iPad apps and Java web development for accounting, production systems, ect) and some server maintenance and network administration. I just turned 24 and have been working there for about one year and a half (I graduated at 22).

What is my income?
I gross 60k a year in salary + about 20% extra in profit sharing. Also do contracting work which has totaled only about 2k this year. A youtube channel bringing in $30 a month, about another $30 from Amazon affiliate links, and I have an app in the Apple app store that is making about $40 a month

Financial Starting point:
I have no debt! But also few assets!
I have a company phone that I use for everything.
I have 15K in my Roth IRA. 10K in another taxable account (I use DRIP so mostly its OK), and 3.5K in my 401K, plus 6 months of expenses in cash just in case.
I am also holding a significant amount of bitcoins and litecoins (lol... won't list the amount because I think it is a very risky speculation still, so it should not be counted!)

Why am I starting so low? Well I was still paying off some student loads as late as April of this year. So that was first priority to take care of, which removed approximately 15K from possible savings this and last year. Also I actually have a Chemistry degree so I can't exactly work for Google or IBM...

First what are my monthly expenses?
-$425 - Rent + utilities (I have a roomate).
-$60 Gas - ( I drive little)
-$100 - car insurance (State Farm, I got in a small accident + had a ticket)
-$500-$750 on Credit card. Sometimes more like $1000

The credit card:
I put all of my groceries on this. I also go to bars and eat out a lot! I blow a lot of money on my electronics hobby as well (always need random sensors, LEDs, LCD screens + motors). I also have to purchase domain names, pay server fees, software, ect. I spend money on clothing- usually about $50 a month. I do moonlighting work so this also means I spend money to hustle and schmooze clients.

The Car:
I live 4 miles from work but the neighborhood is not safe to walk I think. I can bike to work sometimes
but it also is along a very busy road and I am afraid of getting hit. This city is NOT bike friendly! I get 37 mpg so not super worried. Insurance really sucks but I still need the car in this city. It can be 1 or 2 hours between buses so that is not acceptable if I have a meeting or need to go in on the weekend.

Immediate Game Plan (spending reduction):
-Reduce monthly expenses to $1200, then down to $1000 if possible.
-Increase 401K contributions to 30% or $40 of gross. This will net me $1500 to $2000 in savings immediately
-Reduce restaurant outings to once / week.
-I think I spend $400-$500 on food/ month at least! Reduce food bill to $50 a week total (groceries + outings).
-Stop buying new clothes (I sit in an office away from the customers, why do I need this?)

Long term game plan (income increases):
This is super optimistic but here goes:
-I may get a small raise soon.
-I can increase App Store sales with current app.
-I can write another iPhone app, get some small additional income.
-I can make more websites with affiliate links (this is really hit or miss...)
-I can try to get more web development work- but time is hard to come by.
-I am developing a SAAS app that will charge a monthly fee but this is very long term and I still need to get some beta testers and build out the front end a little better. It already has 20 database tables so its getting kinda big


Dollar figures:
-Stash: 30K (a bit more if I include cash)
-Gross salary income monthly is $5000 (not including bonuses, outside work).
-Savings rate Goal Initial: $2500 a month.
-Savings rate Goal step 2: $3000 a month.
-Spending rate Goal: $1200 a month.
-Increase passive income to $200 a month (app store, amazon, adsense).
-Increase contracting income to $300 a month average (currently this will be maybe be $200).
-ERE savings goal: Save 30k a year! This year I am already close considering I paid down 7k in loans in the begining.
-ERE stash goal: have 100k in savings to start, then maybe slow a bit. If I can live on $1200 a month this is 83 months of security! Almost 7 years. I think I can do it 2 year. I honestly am a frantic workaholic (if you didn't notice) so this is just a great security blanket for me.
-ERE stash goal final: 14,400 / 0.4 = $360,000


Investment Strategy
First off I read these 3 investing books: Four pillars of investing, A random walk down wall street, and the Intelligent Asset Allocator. They have greatly influenced me. I also remember reading "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" some Real Estate investing books, and some books about market and trading strategies and some other crap like that but I think a lot of it was B.S.

Quick Bullet pointed strategy for investing:
-Don't try to pick stocks. This is not for me. I don't have the time.
-Try to go all index based ETFs
-Do asset allocation, buy what is historically cheap, re-balance yearly or every two years.
-Right now foreign stocks look cheap, American stocks + Bonds look expensive. I am buying EEM + VWO, plus other troubled sectors (REM) affected by interest rate increases.
-Get rid of any individual stocks! The risk is too high. Unless something is going for a crazy bargain (e.g. AAPL when it hit $400 a few months ago- the stock was actually selling for less than real book value of company and PE was < 10, so this was a bargain by my definition).
-Only buy in increments of $1000 or more to minimize trading fees.
-Keep some cash on the side so you can get bargains when they appear.


Sorry if this is longer than normal, just wanted a good record of my starting point. I may not have the income m741 did starting out, and given my lack of formal CS education I will probably never (chemistry certainly doesn't pay and good luck getting hired- I could't even while graduating summa cum laude with a published research paper, companies don't give a damn apparently) but I would like to think I am creative enough to increase more unconventional sources of income to compensate.

Drive by comments and arguments are welcome!

[secretwealth]

Firstly, welcome to the forum. Secondly, thanks for a comprehensive and interesting first journal post. (m741 is quite the draw--a lot of people love his journal.)

Anyway, I don't have much to comment on other than you're definitely on the right track and I think a 7 year timeline is pretty easy for you, if you can stay satisfied with your current spending level. It'll probably take less time--if you have some good investment years and raises at work, I could see you getting to your goal net worth in 5 years or less.

One question, though: you say $1200/mo. living expenses. What kind of lifestyle do you plan on having post-ERE?

[pemulis]

First sorry for the typos! Apparently I can't edit my post...

Secretwealth-
Thanks for the welcome, I am hoping to stick with the journal throughout and use it as a motivator. 5 years would be really cool. But I don't want to get my hopes up too high!

To answer your question- I would still expect to make some money on top of the 4% draw to support a slightly more indulgent lifestyle beyond the minimum and be able to finance my eccentric projects (e.g. right now I'm building a quadcopter that should able to carry a pizza... don't ask ).

Ideally I would still like to work but not work for anyone else! Freedom + autonomy is my main motivator. I would like the ERE Stash to cover my basics and would like to be able to work more when I feel like it to save up for other things (travel, business ideas, ect). I love to cook up new projects, so its not like I will stop. I would love to have the freedom to start a low initial capital investment business (e.g. write software, network security consultancy, online store, ect) and not have to worry about food and rent if I am not making any money- which let's be realistic, is pretty damn likely.

[WorkingWageWealth]

Great first post. I don't think your income goals are overly optimistic and I think you can easily save $30,000 in a year based on your income. Were you thinking about academia at one point? You mentioned the published research paper and seemed a bit exasperated that the for profit sector doesn't seem to understand the difficulty of such a feat (in a reputable journal) as an undergrad. You overall plan looks good but you don't really mention how much you spend on discretionary spending (hobbies)...care to share?

[pemulis]

@WorkingWageWealth

I was actually. The plan was to take a few years in between to kill the student loans. Turns out I like the private sector more than working in a research lab. Although I miss it. I don't think I will go back for the PhD anytime soon, although if I get to FI I may. I like the idea of increasing the sum of human knowledge. There is a lab at northwestern I was very interested in.

Discretionary spending... Hmm. This could be 200 some months and 20 the next. One of goals w/r/t to ERE is to begin tracking expenditures better.

[WorkingWageWealth]

@pemulis

"The plan was to take a few years in between to kill the student loans." Ahhh...I thought I heard a twinge of the familiar. A couple of weeks ago, I was headed off to graduate school in the Midwest. Then, en route to school, I decided to get rid of all of my debt before I turned thirty, while working on a side project. I figured, even if the side project didn't pan out I would be debt free at thirty and could easily live on a graduate student stipend before entering academia.

"although if I get to FI I may. I like the idea of increasing the sum of human knowledge." I understand this sentiment. The "greats" (I am acknowledging the hierarchical and discursively oppressive connotations of that word) in my field have all come from privileged backgrounds. And it makes sense. To really do great work, "to increase to sum of all human knowledge" as you so aptly put it, requires, to some extent, to being well funded and/or being free from financial worry. One of the reasons that I decided not to go to graduate school this fall was because I felt as though my financial worries would undermine the quality of the work I wanted to produce. But FI...FI would change all of that.

Discretionary spending...make sense.

[pemulis]

Journal Update #2 - 8/26/13

I promise I won't post this frequently in the future, but I made some changes and I want to keep a record.

Eating Habits.

I noted that I was blowing a lot of money on food. I think sometimes it can be $500 a month (eating out, bars, expensive cheeses, ect). Friday I purchased a bag of potatos, 2 lb of red onions, and 1 lb of cabbage. I also purchased 4 cans of red gold diced tomatoes. I think it was perhaps 10 dollars, it should feed me 4 days?

Last night I cooked about 2 days worth of stew using the above ingredients. I added cajun seasoning and red pepper. I also chopped up a single met (left over in freezer) and fried it with the onions and some garlic and chucked it in the pot.

I brought a lunch portion in for work today, it was really awesome! I am going to try Jambalaya soon too. I think the ingredients are inexpensive.


Biking to Work

I did some long rides over the weekend to prepare myself. Although I switched to a standing desk (up on milkcrates ) for working at home, I still don't do a lot of physical activity.

I am going to give myself a few days to recover before I attempt the 8 mi round trip (and hilly) bike commute!

I would like to bike-commute 1 day a week, and perhaps 2 to start. We have nasty, wet winters here so this may be a limited time thing.

[WorkingWageWealth]

"I promise I won't post this frequently in the future, but I made some changes and I want to keep a record." Post as frequently as you want. If someone doesn't want to read what you have written then they won't. This journal is about you more than it is about anyone else. Besides, there are some of us that enjoy hearing about the smaller triumphs as much as the larger ones.

Eating Habits... Eating healthier is definitely a good choice. However, from past experience I would also recommend you include one or two "treats" even if you have to make them yourself. It will help to stave off the feeling of constant sacrifice and prevent binges/splurges.

[pemulis]

Journal Update #3 - 8/30/13

My first week of really seriously trying to adhere to the ERE philosophy is over and I have a lot of thoughts about how it went. It's also the end of the month. WARNING: this may be tldr;


Forced Saving: The 401 K

I increased my contribution to 40% of my pay. I was a little aghast when I saw my direct deposit- apparently they only reduce federal withholding and state tax, nothing else. I was still paying taxes for my full gross pay on social security and medicare(?). So the reduced tax rate was not much, but still significant. Effectively various entities are extracting 27% of my net pay each week (I guess I'm also a little disgusted with what they use it for, looking at this number now).

I will have to live with $500 a week take home for a while now. This will not only force me to save a minimum of $2000 a month, it will hopefully encourage me to save more (I think in percentages a lot, feeling like something costs a larger % of my pay is a motivating factor here, it is stupid but I think tricking yourself is key sometimes).


Non Essential Spending

I only ate out once (Friday at lunch, its kind of tradition) and only spend $7.50 there, then skipped happy hour and took a bike ride instead. Healthier and cheaper!! I purchased $18 worth of groceries and should not need to again until next week. I spent $106 to renew my Apple developer account, but I will at least break even on this with App sales over the year. At least I got a month free after the hacking fiasco. Its funny, we use Struts2 (at work) also and had to patch all of our systems as well.


Additional Savings

If I keep my expenses to $1000 a month (which should be doable, on average) I will be able to save a little more than $1000 on average (considering 5 paycheck months) perhaps even more. Overall that may amount to $3000 savings a month. Roughly 75% saved of accessible wage income- nearing maximum efficiency I would think - $36000 / year. Yearly bonus and extra incomes should bump this number.


On Biking

I purchased a cheap bike last week start riding to work. 4 miles one way, its totally do-able but was rough to start right in. I only rode one day this week. Next week I would like to ride two days. I like the riding but the cars scare me a lot- I feel like a baby snapper in a sea of barracuda. The busy smoggy roads also suck, not to mention the pungent factory I ride by.


On Cooking

Generally I feel very ambivalent about food and will eat anything as long as it has a good taste. I cooked a few stews this week and took them to lunch every day- it is working very well and is exceptionally cheap but I am afraid it will become monotonous. Variety will be essential to turn this experiment into a habit. I am looking forward to the ERE lifestyle improving my mediocre cooking skills. I should be better at this considering I spent 4 years studying chemistry.


On Stash Allocations

If forced to predict my income over the next year I would expect it to remain stable, however so much is going into the 401K. When you put money in a retirement account- I have read- it is mostly protected from being seized to cover exceptional medical expenses, lawsuits, and bankruptcy. IRAs are protected up to 125K (I found out because a friend has a cancer with very terrible insurance which covers nothing- how is this legal?- and has well over 100k in medical bills after only a few months of treatment).

I like the idea of the money being very "safe" but eventually I will have to pay to get it out early in most cases. So ideally it would be good to move as many assets as possible into taxable accounts that give off regular payments, or can be configured for DRIP when in saving mode.

Anyway, ROTH IRA is OK because contributions can be withdrawn without penalty. I will continue to max this out yearly. Otherwise all extra money will be put into a taxable account in the form of ETFs that payout above 2.0% in dividends consisting of equities (foreign and domestic, emphasis equal weighting- VWO, VGK, VTI, VT, SPY) and bond ETFS both high yield and "safe" treasuries (TLT, BND, JNK and SJNK). I will continue to pick up bargains when they arise (e.g: POT, SLV, REM recently) dumping them for more stable things eventually.

I will try to emulate Jacob in spirit, with some changes. It seems a very pragmatic approach, although I will use ETFs to minimize risk while my portfolio is still too small to hold a diverse basket of common stock.


On Income

I will not make much more at my current job barring unforeseen personnel changes. I love the job but I know this is true. I will also not get very much from other sources (realistically). I realize this and am planning ahead accordingly for the next thing- trying to contribute to some open source projects on Gtihub, working on a SAAS app I can show off (hopefully make money with- but at least I will learn how to build a payment system) and reading books on programming and CS. Right now I am reading "Clean Code". Also trying to use more complex OOP design patterns at work. I will consider writing another mobile app so I can point to this on a hypothetical resume at some presumed future interview.

I am at a huge, glaring disadvantage without a degree in CS: even with equivalent experience I will have to work twice as hard as Akratic and m741 to get to the same place. Hence all the extra career development. I am also one semester away from an associates in DBA but realistically nobody will care- and its all .NET courses- so I put this on hold.

In Summary, my precarious position in my career makes FI a necessity rather than simply a goal.

Regardless, I need to stay here longer for more experience/ savings/ and building up a bigger portfolio of successful (lol yeah idk, hopefully) commercial projects.



@WorkingWageWealth

I remember hearing something like that on NPR one time. Much better to buy yourself a small thing every day or every week than to feel like you need to splurge and end up buying a $2000 computer for no reason (or something like that). I have been trying to take this approach for a long time but ended up instead eating out a lot and then it became a habit

[robotic]

Interesting journal. Look forward to reading it.

Journal Update #3 - 8/30/13

On Income

I will not make much more at my current job barring unforeseen personnel changes. I love the job but I know this is true. I will also not get very much from other sources (realistically). I realize this and am planning ahead accordingly for the next thing

Just curious: how did you get into your current line of work coming from a Chemistry background?

Just speculating here, but I wonder if you may be downplaying your freelancing earning potential. I find myself often thinking about how nice it would be to obtain some software development skills on the side for freelancing purposes, just purely because of the time flexibility. I've found the biggest impediment to increasing my freelancing income is the increasing complexity of coordinating times that work with multiple clients. If you wanted to, seems like you could take advantage of the skill set you already have and find some freelance clients (and continue with your open-source work as part of your portfolio).

Anyways, just my two cents. Thanks for posting.

[bulgaria]

About a degree:

I'm a university computer science dropout. And somehow there is always a nagging feeling of not having completed it. Perhaps it is something for the future, when I'm ERE.

But on a practical level. I keep in touch with some of my old classmates and what I see is:
- even before I left Holland and moved Bulgaria, I already earned way more than they do hope to do in the future. I currently get 5100 euro's net a month, more then they hope to get gross.
- my work is 100 times more exiting; I'm doing super cool distributed stuff, work for an organisation where I'm appreciated and where my input makes a difference. They are stuck at a big system integrator and getting nowhere. Sometimes doing even the most tedious job; application maintenance.
- I have more than 100k euro's on the bank and they are dealing with a mortgage which is under water. So if they would need to sell their house, the money is not enough to cover the remaining debt (a Dutch problem due to decreasing property value).

So apparently dropping out of university has really payed of for me; I have used this feeling of not living up to my expectations as an energy source to study and practice. To put in a lot of extra time instead of doing the 9 to 5 routine.

I have never had a hard time finding work due to a missing degree, I think to some extend I have been able to find work easily due to a lack of one.

PS:
Don't look too much where other people are with ERE. There are people that a miles ahead, but also people that are miles behind. Focus on your own goals; make realistic ones.. commit to them and be happy when you reach them. And keep repeating this process and you will be ERE at some point in time. Looking too much where other are.. imho is going to make ERE a big frustration. You should enjoy where you were at some point in time, see where you are now.. and enjoy your progress. 2.5 years ago I was 18k in debt.. I'm now at +100k.. this is something I'm really proud of and really enjoy.

[pemulis]

@robotic

Well I had been programming for a few years already but essentially I realized I would not have a very good paycheck with a chemistry degree so I switched gears really fast and polished up my skills to be employable. My research as an undergrad also exposed me to a lot of computer networking and programming stuff and I got pretty good with linux due to working in the lab also.

I know you are right. I redid my website to make it more "professional" and I am going to start actively looking for more freelance work. Right now I'm only working on referrals.


@bulgaria

Good to hear you are doing well without a degree. It makes me feel better I suppose, but I still know I need to keep my skills ahead of the competition. I think I may be missing out on the super corp jobs but I think you are right the smaller places may want people that can make it without a degree even more. Still I would love the stock options that come with a big corp job.

You may be right but... I still like to compete. I know it may it be frustrating but I also find it motivating. Still it sounds awesome when you put it that way congrats by the way.

[jacob]

... Much better to buy yourself a small thing every day or every week than to feel like you need to splurge and end up buying a $2000 computer for no reason (or something like that). I have been trying to take this approach for a long time but ended up instead eating out a lot and then it became a habit

Nah, you'll just end up with a bunch of trinkets. A good way to get your consumer kicks is to window shop for cars: "I could buy this car in cash", "Now I can buy these two", ... to "I could in principle buy this entire lot". Otherwise, it's best to stick with tools and books---things that will move you forward and make you more skilled. Never skimp on those.

[pemulis]

@jacob

I found myself doing this at the airport recently when thinking about the $10 sandwiches- tbh it did help me not spend when I thought about how I could buy 4000 of them and how I should be increasing that number, not decreasing it.

I feel bad about shelling out for books though sometimes. Back when I had more time I could put down two or three books a week but now I usually do that many in a month. Chances are I'll forget most of it anyway, so I really try to focus on necessary books now.

[theanimal]

@Pemulis
No reason to decrease your reading habits because of ERE. Make the library your new best friend.

[pemulis]

Journal Update #4 - 10/1/13

September 2013 went really well but I had some slip ups as well, this is a lot of progress for me for one month, I hope to keep it up.

New Financial Stats:

ROTH IRA: 15 k
Taxable Trading: 11.2 K (4.5 K is cash- I'm thinking stocks are going down btwn shutdown/ default worries).
401 K: 5.7 K
Cash: 7 K

Totals: 38.9 K

Spending:

Credit Card: $400 ($100 was the yearly apple developer fee so this is good really)
Rent/ Utils: $420
Vacation: $400 (estimated)

Estimated Sum: $1220

Income:

Work 401k deductions (@ 40%): $1840
Work Post Tax: $1948
Freelance: $525
Selling things: $500
Amazon: $36
Apple: $28
Google: $10

Sum: $4887

Other Stats:

Biked to work 2 times / week.
Avg Restaurants/ week: 1.5
Random girls talked to at bars: 2
Avg ratio of meals with meat: no meat - 1:5


I'm not going to do spending / earnings percentages because I think it would be misleading considering the very large pre-tax 401K withholding. But, I am above 50% savings rate no matter how you slice it so I am happy with this.


Summary:

I picked up some freelance work and sold my camera so that helped a lot! I would like to pick up more in October. I took a sort of yuppie style beach vacation which was actually my first ever and possibly my last ever. I got good deals on the hotel, plane and car with friends but it was still very expensive, and the full cost is not represented here because airfare + hotel was paid well in advance. I think I will be backpacking from here on out. I learned a lot of lessons and don't regret it but I will be smarter in the future. I also learned about playing games with credit cards for free flyer miles with signup bonuses. I'm almost certain I won't ever get a mortgage so I don't care about my credit score too much. I can put my rent on a credit card so this is kind of a revelation for me... Next month both spending and income will be lower, I predict.

Books, Ideas, ect:

I read on INTP forums and Tynan.com nearly simultaneously about playing poker for a living and recommending it to learn life skills so I have decided to commit to this. I will play with play money for a few months or until I can consistently keep positive cash flow, then do some online cash play and make sure I am cash flow positive with real money before hitting a physical casino. I am going to read several books on poker and I started with "The Theory Of Poker" by David Sklansky.

Tynan has an interesting blog and I think most of you guys here would enjoy *some* of it if you have not already. He wrote a book about traveling the world and another about living in a very small modified RV (I read this after becoming interested in it due to Jacob). He spent a lot of time in Thailand and China sort of backpacking across the world after making a lot of money on poker. I guess he is writing blogging software now and buying islands (it was on Hacker News the other day).

The SaaS App and Freelance work

I need to build in a payment system for my SaaS app and create a small LLC to manage the payments before I go farther but I have absolutely no motivation to do this without beta testers and feedback. I am still trying to find people I know to test it (it is for contractors to manage their job sites) but not having tons of luck. No point in accepting payments without customers or feedback.


Other Cool Stuff

I got my company to hire my friend to do some freelance work for them after he got me a freelance job with his company! This is a really easy strategy and I am going to try it some more.

Another friend really wants to go Thailand for a whole winter. I would like to go also but I'm worried about leaving my job. I may look for remote work or really ramp up the freelance work and try work really seriously on my SaaS app. I think I need to be up against the wall to get this thing done and start promoting it. I don't think living in Thailand or spending 6 months backpacking around will hurt my FI goals a lot but it will certainly stall them out. Although I would like to do this before 26 and my parent's health insurance is still available.

After reading Tynan's little book about the nuts and bolts of RV living I'm really tempted to do the RV thing but I don't have 10K in cash I am willing to part with. I may move into my moms for a few months after my lease is up here to work on buying and fixing up a very small RV. Also will look for work elsewhere. A friend actually did this with an old white church van it turned out to be a great generator of cross-country adventures.


Goals For October

- Ride bike to work avg of 2 times / week.
- Pick up $500 in freelance work again this month. Check out the freelancing websites.
- Finish another poker book, get in 1 hr of play / day average.
- Talk to 3 random girls out at bars, ect.
- Get a beta tester for my SaaS app.
- Save $1000 for my taxable account.


Stocks I'm Looking At:

Yeah, so I'm starting to hate the ETF idea because I think I will be able to hold enough dividend stocks soon to be diversified.

BP (cheap)
RDS (cheap)
GSK (spin offs)
PM (reasonable, market is good, diversified)
RY (diversification, low beta, solid)
BNS (see reasons for RY)
WPZ (good dividend, good growth potential, does not look overpriced)
RIO (diversification, should be cheaper soon)
T (looks cheap, want a telecom)
LVS (I really want in on the gaming action in china, judging from the price so does everyone else )
SCTY (waiting for a cheaper price)

[pemulis]

Journal Update #5 - 11/4/13

Novemeber 2013: 5 paychecks, paid for car insurance, went out fairly often and saw a lot people, did a lot of things. Seems like drinking PBR and eating cheap things makes it not so much of an issue. Really consciously trying to budget now on the eating/ drinking habits. Opened up a new online checking account - I'm anticipating moving to another city soon. Depositing checks with the phone is nice


Income:

Work 401k deductions (@ 40%): $2300
Work Post Tax: $2390
Freelance: $0 (failed goal)
Amazon: $58
Google: $45
Total: $4793


Spending:

$375 rent
$41 utils
$575 - 6 months of car insurance
$38 gas
$285 groceries + restaurants
$90 misc
Total: $1404

Total without the abnormal car insurance expense: $829 dollars


Investments Purchases:

Buy: 12 shares of PM @ $84.74, yield=4.17%
Buy: 20 shares of BP @ $45.92, yield=5.82%
Buy: 25 shares of DWX @ $48.28, yield=6.52%


Account Balances:

Taxable Brokerage: $12,700
IRA: $15400
401 K: $8,200
Cash: $6000

Sum: $42,300


Notes: The forced 401K contribution is really helping, but I I'm still keeping the deposits into the taxable account going. I should be focusing on side income more but motivation is down. Will be working on it this month some more. Goal is to make $500 outside of regular work income once again. Had a job interview today...

[pemulis]

I have a few Bitcoin and Litecoin but recently this small sum has soared to a value of $8,000 USD. Is it time to unload them all? I think not. Back in 2011 I had about 250 bitcoins and sold them all for about $1000 dollars. If I held on to them they would be worth $195,000 dollars today. I would be FI upon conversion. I don't want to make the same mistake twice.

At this point I have so little real capital invested in cryptocurrency and the US stock market is already at all time highs it looks like there is no point in jumping off of the bitcoin train and converting in USD that I don't even know what to do with. I think the value of my coins could go to $20,000 easily. The Chinese exchanges are on fire!

I will let this post be a record of what I decided to do so maybe I will get to look back and laugh at myself:

Current prices as I write this:
BTC price on Mt.Gox: $785 (my guess for this near term possible high is $2000)
LTC price on Btc-e: $9.22 (for LTC I hope it could go to $40 when the main exchanges pick it up).

I am holding on....

In China the bitcoin prices have reached $1200 and litecoin has reached $17. There is room for gains.

[Gilberto de Piento]

I like the "Other Stats" section of your reports. It's easy to get caught up in the money and forget that FI is not the only thing that matters.

[pemulis]

November 2013 Stats

This month was exceptional mostly due to my speculation on cryptocurrency coming to fruition. Back in April 2013 I picked up several hundred litecoins for about $2.00 a piece and the recently hit a high of $48 and are currently trading at $34 dollars. I already had several bitcoins.

At one point in the last few weeks I had nearly $27,000 dollars worth of bitcoins + litecoins, however that number has since fallen to $20,000. I believe Litecoin could hit $100 in the near future and Bitcoin $2000 so I will continue to hang on to these. Anyway, the stock market is so expensive now I would rather not move money out of the cryptocurrency space which has more upside potential (much more downside as well, but oh well).

Income:
Take home: $1,912
401 K deposits: $1,840
Apple App Store: $180
Google Play Store: $40
Adsense: $125
Amazon: $160
Freelance: $0 (failed goal)
Total: $4257

Spending:
$375 rent
$36 utils
$453- All Other (food, gas, restaurants, movies)
Total: $864

Investments Purchases:
25 shares MSFT - yield = 2.8%
30 shares of KMI (today actually after it dropped 5%- so not november). - yield = 4.8%

Account Balances:
Taxable Brokerage: $13,850
IRA: $15200
401 K: $10,081
Cash: $6000
Cryptos: $20,000 *

Sum: $45,131
Sum w/ cryptos: $65,131 *will fluctuate highly

Months of expenses: 45131 / 864 = 52
Months of expenses w/ cryptos: 75

Other life events, thoughts

This month I had a lot of money come in on the side not from freelance jobs. It makes me confident that I could make enough money from Apps, websites, and freelance work to not need to work an office job. Which is good because it is really killing me lately. I hate being so damn sedentary.

I am also getting active again in a small startup that is starting to turn a profit. I will not include income from this until I take money out of the company.

I got offered the software job I interviewed for last month but ultimately turned it down due to the location and size of the company. It was a better job but I really need to hold out for something more in line with my life goals.

Well, seeing it all totaled up it doesn't look like much anymore but I felt really excited these last few weeks seeing it all come in. If litecoin hits $75 I will start to sell some off and buy some safe dividend stocks. This may seem like a stupid idea to some of you but I decided to start buying 0.05 btc per week because I believe due to China it will continue to rise. Market cap of BTC is still only 13 Billion.