5to9's journal
Re: 5to9's journal
Shovelglove, huh. I never heard of that before. Looks interesting. What's the point of wrapping the sweater around it? I imagine it would still do damage to something with or without an old sweater.
Re: 5to9's journal
It it really fun, and a good workout. I do more of a higher intensity, less frequent version that the original 5 days a week version. Much like this:IwantLess wrote:Shovelglove, huh. I never heard of that before. Looks interesting. What's the point of wrapping the sweater around it? I imagine it would still do damage to something with or without an old sweater.
http://www.urbanprimalist.com/id3.html
I thought the same thing initially about the sweater, especially since I work out in my garage. After a near miss where the hammer grazed my shin, I think that an old sweater could be a good idea.
Re: 5to9's journal
A personal anecdote in advance of my monthly update, because where else do you go to brag about things like this?
Today I was at work, hadn't really planned well for lunch, and was overcome with a stronger than usual urge to hop in the car and run over to Chick-Fil-A for a sandwich at lunch time. These are the sort of impulses I never even questioned before ERE. Today I fought it, knowing it was a bad decision, and it was surprisingly difficult. I probably spent a full 5 minutes just sitting there paralyzed by this decision.
I managed to push through, and grabbed an old can of sardines I had sitting in my desk, filled up my water bottle, and went for a walk. I ate my sardines sitting on a tree stump in the "woods" (just enough trees that if you try you can almost believe you're not in the middle of an office park). After lunch I sat on the stump and read for a little while, and was visited by a young deer. It was an infinitely more pleasant experience than Chick-Fil-A has ever provided.
A small victory in a long war I'm nowhere close to winning, but it felt good. And without ERE, I wouldn't have even known I was competing, let alone losing.
Today I was at work, hadn't really planned well for lunch, and was overcome with a stronger than usual urge to hop in the car and run over to Chick-Fil-A for a sandwich at lunch time. These are the sort of impulses I never even questioned before ERE. Today I fought it, knowing it was a bad decision, and it was surprisingly difficult. I probably spent a full 5 minutes just sitting there paralyzed by this decision.
I managed to push through, and grabbed an old can of sardines I had sitting in my desk, filled up my water bottle, and went for a walk. I ate my sardines sitting on a tree stump in the "woods" (just enough trees that if you try you can almost believe you're not in the middle of an office park). After lunch I sat on the stump and read for a little while, and was visited by a young deer. It was an infinitely more pleasant experience than Chick-Fil-A has ever provided.
A small victory in a long war I'm nowhere close to winning, but it felt good. And without ERE, I wouldn't have even known I was competing, let alone losing.
Re: 5to9's journal
September 2014
Financials
I did a bunch of cleanup on the data used to generate my chart, and the picture isn't quite as exciting, but it's still trending in a positive direction. Another low for the year on spending. Started tracking actual dividends, as I am starting to focus in on the Dividend Growth strategy at least to cover what I consider core expenses.
Food
Significant improvement on the restaurant spending, but groceries are still high. I did have a major restocking trip to Costco this month, but it still seems excessive. Going to experiment with some things here in October. This will probably never come fully in line with ERE principles, but I think there is still room to improve without causing a family revolt.
Groceries: $706
Restaurants: $296
Habits
My compliance on the daily exercise was around 3-4 days per week. I intend to keep working at this, but need to come up with a better system. I've been reading more about habit formation, and I don't think the timing/setup is conducive to compliance. Going to try to set up something better for the future. My October habit is something a bit more achievable, and easier to set up for success. I plan to eat a healthy breakfast every day. I have fallen into the bad habit of relying on free bagels/muffins at work, and I really want to break this.
Learning
I read Superhuman By Habit this month, and it has lots of great advice on getting habits to stick, and building willpower. It also really resonated with me in terms of the idea of compounding benefits from lots of small changes. Fits a lot with the ERE idea of building a compounding effect financially.
TL;DR
Not a particularly remarkable month, but progress was made.
Financials
I did a bunch of cleanup on the data used to generate my chart, and the picture isn't quite as exciting, but it's still trending in a positive direction. Another low for the year on spending. Started tracking actual dividends, as I am starting to focus in on the Dividend Growth strategy at least to cover what I consider core expenses.
Food
Significant improvement on the restaurant spending, but groceries are still high. I did have a major restocking trip to Costco this month, but it still seems excessive. Going to experiment with some things here in October. This will probably never come fully in line with ERE principles, but I think there is still room to improve without causing a family revolt.
Groceries: $706
Restaurants: $296
Habits
My compliance on the daily exercise was around 3-4 days per week. I intend to keep working at this, but need to come up with a better system. I've been reading more about habit formation, and I don't think the timing/setup is conducive to compliance. Going to try to set up something better for the future. My October habit is something a bit more achievable, and easier to set up for success. I plan to eat a healthy breakfast every day. I have fallen into the bad habit of relying on free bagels/muffins at work, and I really want to break this.
Learning
I read Superhuman By Habit this month, and it has lots of great advice on getting habits to stick, and building willpower. It also really resonated with me in terms of the idea of compounding benefits from lots of small changes. Fits a lot with the ERE idea of building a compounding effect financially.
TL;DR
Not a particularly remarkable month, but progress was made.
Re: 5to9's journal
October 2014
Financials
This month broke our downward trend. We’re not progressing in core areas as fast as I’d like, and this month had some higher spending in the name of family harmony. I have decided that while I will discuss the ERE gospel at times, I’m not going to preach it, and I am certainly not going to invoke it in specific purchase discussions. Even if it’s a slower path to ERE, keeping the family on board with the plan is critical to the long term success. As Jacob has said, it’s not about making sacrifices, it’s about changing your view point to not see the lifestyle as a sacrifice.
Food
This one is stubborn. This number is a little higher than it appears, due to some bulk purchases made at a local beef farm, but I seem to have some excuse like that every month. I think this month I’d like to do some serious recipe research to try to come up with some healthy, low cost dinner options. I also need to keep on top of the planning, as some of the dinners out are the result of bad planning, and even just a few mistakes like that in a month add up. I have made some progress in the healthier eating department, especially in avoiding the bagel/muffin type breakfasts.
Groceries: $788
Restaurants: $402
Fitness
A new category for the report. After yet another round of injuries (I have had recurring shin/ankle problems for nearly 15 years now), I decided to set myself a specific goal of being able to run a 5k at race pace pain-free by next year. I don’t much care what that pace is, but I want to be able to work hard without injuring myself.
Towards this goal, I went this month and got a Functional Movement Assessment. It turns out I have several suboptimal movement patterns, strength imbalances, and a big buildup of scar tissue in my legs. I was prescribed a series of stretching and strengthening exercises, as well as some (excruciatingly painful) self massage techniques. I spend about 30-45 minutes working on this every evening, and I’ll be going back for a progress check this month. I’m also working through some reading material on the subject to supplement.
Habits
Oatmeal for Breakfast: 30/31
This one is great. It might not be the perfect breakfast, but it’s way better than the bagels, muffins, and donuts I used to eat. Making this my default has been a huge improvement and I plan to stick with it.
Physical Therapy Exercises: 10/10
I am very motivated to stick with this one and take no days off.
In November I’m trying to keep the above habits going, and add a salad with dinner each night. It’s a positive improvement to my diet, and doesn’t require a major shift to my family’s eating habits. (Unless of course they’d also like a salad). I’m also planning to join “Live Like a Stoic Week”, and assess the possibility of adding components of that in the future.
Learning
I finally finished “Black Swan” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I really struggled to get through it, I’m not sure if it was just dense, or dry, or what, but it was really tough to get through. Tons of interesting content, so I’m glad I got through it, though. I’m still working on ways I can apply some of this, but I think that reading stuff like this does help me improve my decision making progress. I’m planning to work on “Predictably Irrational” next.
TL;DR
I’m starting to put some small habit improvements in place, and the slow grind continues.
Financials
This month broke our downward trend. We’re not progressing in core areas as fast as I’d like, and this month had some higher spending in the name of family harmony. I have decided that while I will discuss the ERE gospel at times, I’m not going to preach it, and I am certainly not going to invoke it in specific purchase discussions. Even if it’s a slower path to ERE, keeping the family on board with the plan is critical to the long term success. As Jacob has said, it’s not about making sacrifices, it’s about changing your view point to not see the lifestyle as a sacrifice.
Food
This one is stubborn. This number is a little higher than it appears, due to some bulk purchases made at a local beef farm, but I seem to have some excuse like that every month. I think this month I’d like to do some serious recipe research to try to come up with some healthy, low cost dinner options. I also need to keep on top of the planning, as some of the dinners out are the result of bad planning, and even just a few mistakes like that in a month add up. I have made some progress in the healthier eating department, especially in avoiding the bagel/muffin type breakfasts.
Groceries: $788
Restaurants: $402
Fitness
A new category for the report. After yet another round of injuries (I have had recurring shin/ankle problems for nearly 15 years now), I decided to set myself a specific goal of being able to run a 5k at race pace pain-free by next year. I don’t much care what that pace is, but I want to be able to work hard without injuring myself.
Towards this goal, I went this month and got a Functional Movement Assessment. It turns out I have several suboptimal movement patterns, strength imbalances, and a big buildup of scar tissue in my legs. I was prescribed a series of stretching and strengthening exercises, as well as some (excruciatingly painful) self massage techniques. I spend about 30-45 minutes working on this every evening, and I’ll be going back for a progress check this month. I’m also working through some reading material on the subject to supplement.
Habits
Oatmeal for Breakfast: 30/31
This one is great. It might not be the perfect breakfast, but it’s way better than the bagels, muffins, and donuts I used to eat. Making this my default has been a huge improvement and I plan to stick with it.
Physical Therapy Exercises: 10/10
I am very motivated to stick with this one and take no days off.
In November I’m trying to keep the above habits going, and add a salad with dinner each night. It’s a positive improvement to my diet, and doesn’t require a major shift to my family’s eating habits. (Unless of course they’d also like a salad). I’m also planning to join “Live Like a Stoic Week”, and assess the possibility of adding components of that in the future.
Learning
I finally finished “Black Swan” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I really struggled to get through it, I’m not sure if it was just dense, or dry, or what, but it was really tough to get through. Tons of interesting content, so I’m glad I got through it, though. I’m still working on ways I can apply some of this, but I think that reading stuff like this does help me improve my decision making progress. I’m planning to work on “Predictably Irrational” next.
TL;DR
I’m starting to put some small habit improvements in place, and the slow grind continues.
Re: 5to9's journal
I used to have oatmeal for breakfast, although I switch it up as I make bread too. But I switched off oatmeal to steel cut oats. Huge improvement, imho. The texture makes all the difference. While they can take a while to cook, I don't really care as I make 4-5 days worth in the slow cooker5to9 wrote: Oatmeal for Breakfast: 30/31
This one is great. It might not be the perfect breakfast, but it’s way better than the bagels, muffins, and donuts I used to eat. Making this my default has been a huge improvement and I plan to stick with it.
. I add either peanut butter or blackstrap molasses, with walnut pieces.Re: 5to9's journal
I use rolled oats, as I usually end up making them at work, so the add hot water method is much more practical. I do add a little butter and some variety of seeds/nuts/dried fruit to keep it from being too monotonous.slsdly wrote:
I used to have oatmeal for breakfast, although I switch it up as I make bread too. But I switched off oatmeal to steel cut oats. Huge improvement, imho. The texture makes all the difference. While they can take a while to cook, I don't really care as I make 4-5 days worth in the slow cooker
Re: 5to9's journal
November 2014
Financials
I reached a small milestone this month in that I have passed 1 year of actually tracking my finances. Fittingly, it was also our best non-daycare spending month in that period. It really does seem to be true that you improve what you measure.
I restructured my spreadsheet and charts some. One major change is something I picked up from the new Tony Robbins book, which is having multi-level goals. Say what you might about him, the man understands motivational psychology. So in addition to just tracking FI, I’m adding Financial Security (housing / shelter / medical / utilities). I think that adding an intermediate goal will be good to help keep me focused. I also changed my averages to 12 month, since 6 month averages were showing too much fluctuation.
Food
Good progress here on grocery spending, but we were out of town for a few days over the holidays, not sure how much that artificially improved the numbers. It might be partly offset by the fact that I think the Restaurant number is high from that traveling, and a work trip.
I’ve been trying to develop some solid recipes that are ERE friendly, but the kids like, and one thing I’ve had success with is Savory Coconut Rice. It’s very filling, and the kids love it.
Groceries: $485
Restaurants: $361
Fitness
Slow progress here. I’ve added some ART Therapy to deal with the scar tissue, but still not running again yet.
Habits
Salads with dinner: This one was a failure. I had good intentions, but I think that the structure was not there. I think the biggest issue was a lack of a good trigger. I’d often remember the salad 5-10 minutes after we finished dinner. I’ll have to see if I can restructure this and bring it back at some point.
Stoic Week: This just didn’t happen. I can come up with plenty of excuses, such as holiday travel, and the fact that my youngest has started waking up at 4:45am. Really though, I think I need to work on more basic organization and routines before I can jump into something that requires a 3 times per day commitment. I may try to work some of the pieces in slowly this month, and at some point I’d still like to work through the week, as I have all the materials.
I think this coming month is going to be about reliable sleep and making our mornings a little more predictable and less chaotic. A strict morning routine isn’t really viable with a <2 year old.
Learning
I read So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport. I'm not sure how much it applies to the ERE journey, other than perhaps allowing me to earn more with more flexibility. I do think there are some things in there that I can implement to make the ride a bit smoother, in particular if I can build expertise in a certain area, I can probably negotiate more flexibility on hours spent in the office (saving on commute time and gas).
I am about halfway through Money: Master the Game by Tony Robbins. I mostly got it for the interviews, but if you can look past the hyperbole, it's actually pretty good stuff so far. I'll give a more complete review when I finish it.
TL;DR
Some failures on the habit building, but slow and steady progress on the finances.
Financials
I reached a small milestone this month in that I have passed 1 year of actually tracking my finances. Fittingly, it was also our best non-daycare spending month in that period. It really does seem to be true that you improve what you measure.
I restructured my spreadsheet and charts some. One major change is something I picked up from the new Tony Robbins book, which is having multi-level goals. Say what you might about him, the man understands motivational psychology. So in addition to just tracking FI, I’m adding Financial Security (housing / shelter / medical / utilities). I think that adding an intermediate goal will be good to help keep me focused. I also changed my averages to 12 month, since 6 month averages were showing too much fluctuation.
Food
Good progress here on grocery spending, but we were out of town for a few days over the holidays, not sure how much that artificially improved the numbers. It might be partly offset by the fact that I think the Restaurant number is high from that traveling, and a work trip.
I’ve been trying to develop some solid recipes that are ERE friendly, but the kids like, and one thing I’ve had success with is Savory Coconut Rice. It’s very filling, and the kids love it.
Groceries: $485
Restaurants: $361
Fitness
Slow progress here. I’ve added some ART Therapy to deal with the scar tissue, but still not running again yet.
Habits
Salads with dinner: This one was a failure. I had good intentions, but I think that the structure was not there. I think the biggest issue was a lack of a good trigger. I’d often remember the salad 5-10 minutes after we finished dinner. I’ll have to see if I can restructure this and bring it back at some point.
Stoic Week: This just didn’t happen. I can come up with plenty of excuses, such as holiday travel, and the fact that my youngest has started waking up at 4:45am. Really though, I think I need to work on more basic organization and routines before I can jump into something that requires a 3 times per day commitment. I may try to work some of the pieces in slowly this month, and at some point I’d still like to work through the week, as I have all the materials.
I think this coming month is going to be about reliable sleep and making our mornings a little more predictable and less chaotic. A strict morning routine isn’t really viable with a <2 year old.
Learning
I read So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport. I'm not sure how much it applies to the ERE journey, other than perhaps allowing me to earn more with more flexibility. I do think there are some things in there that I can implement to make the ride a bit smoother, in particular if I can build expertise in a certain area, I can probably negotiate more flexibility on hours spent in the office (saving on commute time and gas).
I am about halfway through Money: Master the Game by Tony Robbins. I mostly got it for the interviews, but if you can look past the hyperbole, it's actually pretty good stuff so far. I'll give a more complete review when I finish it.
TL;DR
Some failures on the habit building, but slow and steady progress on the finances.
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jennypenny
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Re: 5to9's journal
I'm sorry you still can't run. Is therapy helping at all?
Re: 5to9's journal
Hard to tell at this point. I have another appointment at the sports medicine place today. Hoping to hear that I am ready for some test runs.jennypenny wrote:I'm sorry you still can't run. Is therapy helping at all?
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jacob
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Re: 5to9's journal
What we're saying is not incompatible. However, one-advice-does-not-fit-all. It ultimately depends on what the payoff curve looks like (are people who are 10% better paid substantially more than 10% extra?) and what the probability of winning is (are people who work 10% harder substantially more likely to be 10% better?). Each profession will thus have 3 such curves sorting people out:
Work effort; Work Outcomes; Pay for the outcome.
or ...
(your skill/your effort); (everybody's skills/your skills); (payout/everybody's skills)
Now in immature or novel productive/useful high demand fields, like e.g. webdesign in the year 1998 or I'm afraid software engineering in the 2000's, we have a rather special situation. There's a lot of money. There's not a lot of competition. The field is new so there's lots of absolute growth potential. This means that it's rather easy not only to get more skilled on an absolute basis. It's easy to beat the competition. And there's money to be had.
In his book Cal Newport gives an example of spending some hours or days or weeks (I forget but it's not a lot of effort) understanding one (single!) paper that few others in computer science has bothered to study to significantly accelerate his career. Similarly, I remember in the mid 1990s when people with "computer skills" were dropping out of high school to take a 6 month course in "HTML" and proceed to rake in $5000/month doing "web design".
As the field matured, that party didn't last.
Lets compare to physics which is an example of a field where additional skill is really hard to acquire; where the competition is strong and usually comes down to something other than raw skill (e.g. the ability to not have a life); and the money is weak. In such a case, it would require months or years of extra time to become significantly better than your competition in some skill; however since the field is mature, you're certainly not guranteed that your acquired "so good skill" won't be ignored because you didn't happen to know Professor X and Y on the hiring committee ... or maybe your skill didn't coincide with some observation that happened to lead to winning the Z Price that year for your resume; to boot: if you didn't get ignored, you would be paid the standard fare for only a few years afterwhich you'd have to luck out again or be replaced by a "younger model".
Trying to be "so good they can't ignore you" by writing the next Great American Novel is even harder. Being so good they can't ignore you as a professional football player might be slightly easier (about as easy as the top tier physics game given how many people play and succeed at the game).
Conversely, I'm told that it's easy to be so good you can't be ignored as an electrician, plumber, mechanic, ... simply by doing good work and most importantly showing up on time.
In conclusion, I think Cal Newport's recommendation is subject to some selection bias and people definitely need to be aware of how their field specs out before they try this recommendation.
Work effort; Work Outcomes; Pay for the outcome.
or ...
(your skill/your effort); (everybody's skills/your skills); (payout/everybody's skills)
Now in immature or novel productive/useful high demand fields, like e.g. webdesign in the year 1998 or I'm afraid software engineering in the 2000's, we have a rather special situation. There's a lot of money. There's not a lot of competition. The field is new so there's lots of absolute growth potential. This means that it's rather easy not only to get more skilled on an absolute basis. It's easy to beat the competition. And there's money to be had.
In his book Cal Newport gives an example of spending some hours or days or weeks (I forget but it's not a lot of effort) understanding one (single!) paper that few others in computer science has bothered to study to significantly accelerate his career. Similarly, I remember in the mid 1990s when people with "computer skills" were dropping out of high school to take a 6 month course in "HTML" and proceed to rake in $5000/month doing "web design".
As the field matured, that party didn't last.
Lets compare to physics which is an example of a field where additional skill is really hard to acquire; where the competition is strong and usually comes down to something other than raw skill (e.g. the ability to not have a life); and the money is weak. In such a case, it would require months or years of extra time to become significantly better than your competition in some skill; however since the field is mature, you're certainly not guranteed that your acquired "so good skill" won't be ignored because you didn't happen to know Professor X and Y on the hiring committee ... or maybe your skill didn't coincide with some observation that happened to lead to winning the Z Price that year for your resume; to boot: if you didn't get ignored, you would be paid the standard fare for only a few years afterwhich you'd have to luck out again or be replaced by a "younger model".
Trying to be "so good they can't ignore you" by writing the next Great American Novel is even harder. Being so good they can't ignore you as a professional football player might be slightly easier (about as easy as the top tier physics game given how many people play and succeed at the game).
Conversely, I'm told that it's easy to be so good you can't be ignored as an electrician, plumber, mechanic, ... simply by doing good work and most importantly showing up on time.
In conclusion, I think Cal Newport's recommendation is subject to some selection bias and people definitely need to be aware of how their field specs out before they try this recommendation.
Re: 5to9's journal
In my case I am applying it to a specific opportunity for a role that I think I could get, but it would require more work on my part. The piece that was new to me was realizing that the payout from that could be more than just increased pay. I am not sure I would take this on for more pay, but if an increase in effort could lead to location flexibility, that could be valuable to me. My commute is unfortunately pretty long right now, so more days when I could avoid it would be a real time and quality of life improvement.
Re: 5to9's journal
Sweater Repair
I have a few nice merino wool sweaters that have developed moth holes / rips over the years, and I decided to take on the challenge of repairing them. This turns out to be a lot harder than it sounds, and I probably average about one hole repaired per 45 minutes (fortunately there are lots of mediocre TV shows on Netflix to help pass the time). They look pretty janky up close (as you can see in the picture, matching the knit weave is way beyond my skills), but from a reasonable 3-4 foot distance, they are barely noticeable. I'm pretty happy to have recovered the sweater, this would have gone straight to the trash bin in my pre-ERE life.
I have a few nice merino wool sweaters that have developed moth holes / rips over the years, and I decided to take on the challenge of repairing them. This turns out to be a lot harder than it sounds, and I probably average about one hole repaired per 45 minutes (fortunately there are lots of mediocre TV shows on Netflix to help pass the time). They look pretty janky up close (as you can see in the picture, matching the knit weave is way beyond my skills), but from a reasonable 3-4 foot distance, they are barely noticeable. I'm pretty happy to have recovered the sweater, this would have gone straight to the trash bin in my pre-ERE life.
Re: 5to9's journal
2014 Annual Report
It has now been one year since I started this journal. The process has been good for me, and I am still working out the ideal format for myself, but the old truism "That which is measured, improves" seems to hold. I have been frustrated by my progress at times, but working within my constraints I am happy with what was accomplished. I have had to accept that my path isn't quite ERE, but more like a focus on efficient living, with a plan for FI earlier than average. The happiness of my wife and two children will always remain a higher priority than early retirement, but my true challenge is to bring their happiness in line with those goals, which is a process that will be gradual and require much patience. I am happy with this path, though.
Year End Stats
Our overall post-tax savings rate for 2014 was 52%. This is a solid improvement from last year's savings rate of 43%. Most of the improvement is due to increases in income, but our total spending was less than 2013, which is a trend in the right direction. I have to remind myself that in a world where lifestyle inflation is the norm, it is a victory to buck this trend. My goal for 2015 is to hit 56%.
We ended the year at 125 months of (non-daycare) savings. This is up from 55 months at the end of 2013. The two major drivers here were selling our house, and reducing our overall spending. It was also a pretty good year for the stock market. I don't know if we will be able to make a comparable jump this year, but I think that 150 months is an achievable target.
Personal Development
I didn't really make goals for 2014, but there are several areas that I have made progress in through this year. I have worked on improving my diet (still lots of room to grow), and getting back on a regular exercise plan. The latter has mostly consisted of doing physical therapy work to try to get back to injury-free running, but I have consistently stuck with that for nearly 3 months, and am happy with the progress despite its slow pace.
I have also made efforts to get more organized. One of the main obstacles to ERE for us is that we tend to fall back into consumer habits when we get behind. Convenience foods, dinners out, buying things we could fix ourselves, etc. One of our big accomplishments for 2014 was scheduling our mornings better, which has been a good start.
In 2015, I want to expand on these themes and add a new one. My three themes for the year are Fitness, Organization, and Mindfulness.
Fitness: I want to run a maximal effort 5k without pain by the end of the year. I don't care so much about the time, as the ability to run at full effort without injuring myself. This will involve continuing my PT exercises, slowly ramping up mileage, and keeping a strong focus on nutrition, hydration, and sleep.
Organization: We need to get more organized with our time and our possessions. I don't have a great quantifiable goal for this, but I suspect we'll know it if we get there We have two initiatives planned to achieve this. One is a sustained de-cluttering effort. I am on the wait-list for Marie Kondo's "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up", and I am committed to going through her program. We have also committed to weekly family meetings where we discuss schedules, meals, and to-do items around the house. After only 2 weeks of this it has shown considerable life improvement.
Mindfulness: I have started doing the Five Minute Journal, and I will continue it for the rest of the year. It's a very simple bit of journalling at the beginning and end of the day. It hasn't shown major improvement, but I'm viewing it as a bit of keystone habit to get time each day set aside for this sort of activity. I'm still trying to find what works for me here, but some blend of Stoicism, meditiation, and mindfulness training seems to be where I am settling.
ERE Forums
Lastly, I want to credit my time on the ERE forums for some of the progress I made this year. Even though it is anonymous, I feel some accountability to this journal that impacts my life in a positive way. I hope to continue my journal through this year and continue to learn and grow with it. Thank you all.
It has now been one year since I started this journal. The process has been good for me, and I am still working out the ideal format for myself, but the old truism "That which is measured, improves" seems to hold. I have been frustrated by my progress at times, but working within my constraints I am happy with what was accomplished. I have had to accept that my path isn't quite ERE, but more like a focus on efficient living, with a plan for FI earlier than average. The happiness of my wife and two children will always remain a higher priority than early retirement, but my true challenge is to bring their happiness in line with those goals, which is a process that will be gradual and require much patience. I am happy with this path, though.
Year End Stats
Our overall post-tax savings rate for 2014 was 52%. This is a solid improvement from last year's savings rate of 43%. Most of the improvement is due to increases in income, but our total spending was less than 2013, which is a trend in the right direction. I have to remind myself that in a world where lifestyle inflation is the norm, it is a victory to buck this trend. My goal for 2015 is to hit 56%.
We ended the year at 125 months of (non-daycare) savings. This is up from 55 months at the end of 2013. The two major drivers here were selling our house, and reducing our overall spending. It was also a pretty good year for the stock market. I don't know if we will be able to make a comparable jump this year, but I think that 150 months is an achievable target.
Personal Development
I didn't really make goals for 2014, but there are several areas that I have made progress in through this year. I have worked on improving my diet (still lots of room to grow), and getting back on a regular exercise plan. The latter has mostly consisted of doing physical therapy work to try to get back to injury-free running, but I have consistently stuck with that for nearly 3 months, and am happy with the progress despite its slow pace.
I have also made efforts to get more organized. One of the main obstacles to ERE for us is that we tend to fall back into consumer habits when we get behind. Convenience foods, dinners out, buying things we could fix ourselves, etc. One of our big accomplishments for 2014 was scheduling our mornings better, which has been a good start.
In 2015, I want to expand on these themes and add a new one. My three themes for the year are Fitness, Organization, and Mindfulness.
Fitness: I want to run a maximal effort 5k without pain by the end of the year. I don't care so much about the time, as the ability to run at full effort without injuring myself. This will involve continuing my PT exercises, slowly ramping up mileage, and keeping a strong focus on nutrition, hydration, and sleep.
Organization: We need to get more organized with our time and our possessions. I don't have a great quantifiable goal for this, but I suspect we'll know it if we get there
We have two initiatives planned to achieve this. One is a sustained de-cluttering effort. I am on the wait-list for Marie Kondo's "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up", and I am committed to going through her program. We have also committed to weekly family meetings where we discuss schedules, meals, and to-do items around the house. After only 2 weeks of this it has shown considerable life improvement. Mindfulness: I have started doing the Five Minute Journal, and I will continue it for the rest of the year. It's a very simple bit of journalling at the beginning and end of the day. It hasn't shown major improvement, but I'm viewing it as a bit of keystone habit to get time each day set aside for this sort of activity. I'm still trying to find what works for me here, but some blend of Stoicism, meditiation, and mindfulness training seems to be where I am settling.
ERE Forums
Lastly, I want to credit my time on the ERE forums for some of the progress I made this year. Even though it is anonymous, I feel some accountability to this journal that impacts my life in a positive way. I hope to continue my journal through this year and continue to learn and grow with it. Thank you all.
Re: 5to9's journal
Looks like you had a really good year and are on your way to having another one.
I like the "months of savings" metric that you use. It's easy to quantify and track measurable progress with.
I like the "months of savings" metric that you use. It's easy to quantify and track measurable progress with.
Re: 5to9's journal
January 2015
Financial
We mostly recovered mostly back to normal from our big spike in December (a combination of holidays and some home purchases.) Still a bit higher than I’d like, but that was mostly due to inflated food costs on our week of vacation with my family. It feels like we are making progress, but the improvement is drowned out by the noise. I don’t yet have enough data to know if spending is cyclical, but if it turns out to be, maybe a YOY improvement metric would help.
Fitness
I have been consistently doing 2-3 nights a week of a routine given by the sports medicine clinic to strengthen my core and glutes. It seems to be helping with posture, and strengthening those muscles, but I’m not noticing any great improvement in the pain-free running department. I’m sticking to the program for now, but it is getting a bit frustrating.
Other health initiatives are going well. I have given up my habit of 1-2 drinks about 3-4 times a week. I don’t think the drinking was a problem in and of itself, but I think my sleep and energy levels have improved. I’m not completely giving up drinking, but keeping it to social occasions where it is integral to the situation. (aka. I’m not giving up my once a month whiskey tasting group)
My plan for the next month is to try to stop eating refined sugar. I’ve got a bit of a sweet tooth, and a particular weakness for donuts, so this will be an interesting challenge, but a good first step towards cleaning up my diet.
Organization
Weekly family meetings to schedule meals and events for the week, and divide up to-do items have been a big help. It saves us a lot of time and energy to discuss these things in advance, instead of trying to remember it that morning.
Not much decluttering happened this month, but we did start on getting my son’s toys better organized. We’re also trying to start to develop the discipline that toys go back when we are done with them, but that will be a long process. We’ve at least reached the point where we don’t pull out all the legos, blocks, and every other toy just to dump them in a pile.
Mindfulness
I have managed to do the Five Minute Journal every morning and every evening for the whole month. I don’t know yet if any of it is helping, but I think that there are benefits just from developing the practice of doing it twice a day. I’m going to let this sink in for a while before trying to vary or expand on the practice with any other sort of mindfulness training.
TL;DR
Kicked off the new year with a pretty good commitment to my three themes, as well as a return to pre-holidy spending. Hoping to start making forward(downward) progress on the expenses again this coming month.
Financial
We mostly recovered mostly back to normal from our big spike in December (a combination of holidays and some home purchases.) Still a bit higher than I’d like, but that was mostly due to inflated food costs on our week of vacation with my family. It feels like we are making progress, but the improvement is drowned out by the noise. I don’t yet have enough data to know if spending is cyclical, but if it turns out to be, maybe a YOY improvement metric would help.
Fitness
I have been consistently doing 2-3 nights a week of a routine given by the sports medicine clinic to strengthen my core and glutes. It seems to be helping with posture, and strengthening those muscles, but I’m not noticing any great improvement in the pain-free running department. I’m sticking to the program for now, but it is getting a bit frustrating.
Other health initiatives are going well. I have given up my habit of 1-2 drinks about 3-4 times a week. I don’t think the drinking was a problem in and of itself, but I think my sleep and energy levels have improved. I’m not completely giving up drinking, but keeping it to social occasions where it is integral to the situation. (aka. I’m not giving up my once a month whiskey tasting group)
My plan for the next month is to try to stop eating refined sugar. I’ve got a bit of a sweet tooth, and a particular weakness for donuts, so this will be an interesting challenge, but a good first step towards cleaning up my diet.
Organization
Weekly family meetings to schedule meals and events for the week, and divide up to-do items have been a big help. It saves us a lot of time and energy to discuss these things in advance, instead of trying to remember it that morning.
Not much decluttering happened this month, but we did start on getting my son’s toys better organized. We’re also trying to start to develop the discipline that toys go back when we are done with them, but that will be a long process. We’ve at least reached the point where we don’t pull out all the legos, blocks, and every other toy just to dump them in a pile.
Mindfulness
I have managed to do the Five Minute Journal every morning and every evening for the whole month. I don’t know yet if any of it is helping, but I think that there are benefits just from developing the practice of doing it twice a day. I’m going to let this sink in for a while before trying to vary or expand on the practice with any other sort of mindfulness training.
TL;DR
Kicked off the new year with a pretty good commitment to my three themes, as well as a return to pre-holidy spending. Hoping to start making forward(downward) progress on the expenses again this coming month.
Re: 5to9's journal
Do you journal on anything specific? Or is it your present thoughts at each journal time?
I'm a big fan of the concept of journaling. I can't say I'm the best at practicing it though
I'm a big fan of the concept of journaling. I can't say I'm the best at practicing it though
Re: 5to9's journal
I use a journal called the Five Minute Journal. Every morning you write down three things you are grateful for, three things that you would like to accomplish that day, and a daily affirmation (I am ...). Every evening you write down three things that went well, and one thing you could have done better.
I am not convinced this format is perfect for me, but certainly I think that having it be so easy is helping me form the habit. I'll probably stick it out through the end of the journal I bought (about 6 months) and then reevaluate.
This is the journal: http://www.fiveminutejournal.com/
I am not convinced this format is perfect for me, but certainly I think that having it be so easy is helping me form the habit. I'll probably stick it out through the end of the journal I bought (about 6 months) and then reevaluate.
This is the journal: http://www.fiveminutejournal.com/
Re: 5to9's journal
February 2015
Financial
This was a pretty good month. Even with a ski trip, and some car repairs, we managed to hit our lowest spending month since we started tracking. If we can keep the momentum in the right direction, we could really start to see some gains. Food spending is still high, but at least I got lots of free exercise shoveling snow.
Health
Some setbacks on the running front. After an attempt to slowly ease back in to running (2-3 miles twice a week), I reinjured my leg. I think that I have concluded the Chirpractor/ART practitioner I was going to is just a waste of money, and not really helping. He was the one encouraging me to try the running again.
I think the sports medicine guy is still worth his paycheck, though. He assessed that while I’ve made some improvement on hip alignment, my left glute still isn’t firing properly when I run. I have a new set of exercises and some strict instructions that the changes I’m trying to make are very subtle, and I need to really focus on form and technique. I also need to build core strength. Hopefully in a month or two I can start easing back in to the running.
I managed to go the whole month without any “added sugar”, except for one time that I found myself with no food except a granola bar for breakfast. This involved passing up several occasions of donuts and such at work, as well as desserts at home. This might not sound like much, but it’s a huge change for me, I’ve had trouble resisting this stuff in the past. Going to try to keep it going this month.
Organization
Minimal progress here. I started reading “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up”, but it’s a bit tough to take it very seriously. It spends a lot of time talking about how my socks deserve a rest from their hard work, and the clothes on my hanger should be organized by the lightness of their spirits. I’m going to finish it, but I’m seriously questioning if it is the right strategy for me. Either way, I think next month I’m tackling my closet.
Mindulness
I have continued my journaling, and while I’m not completely sold on the particular format I’m using, I like the beginning and end of the day routine, and will continue it for now. I’m mostly just trying to form the habit, and will worry about optimizing it later.
I’ve also started listening to Tony Robbins’ Personal Power II on my morning commute. I got a good deal on a set of the CDs on ebay, and a week or so in, I enjoy it. It’s definitely a better use of my time than the random podcasts (aside from a few quality ones) that I used to fill that time previously.
TL;DR
All of my initiatives are making small incremental progress, with no major jumps, but I’m pretty OK with it. Slow and steady and inevitable is the goal.
Financial
This was a pretty good month. Even with a ski trip, and some car repairs, we managed to hit our lowest spending month since we started tracking. If we can keep the momentum in the right direction, we could really start to see some gains. Food spending is still high, but at least I got lots of free exercise shoveling snow.
Health
Some setbacks on the running front. After an attempt to slowly ease back in to running (2-3 miles twice a week), I reinjured my leg. I think that I have concluded the Chirpractor/ART practitioner I was going to is just a waste of money, and not really helping. He was the one encouraging me to try the running again.
I think the sports medicine guy is still worth his paycheck, though. He assessed that while I’ve made some improvement on hip alignment, my left glute still isn’t firing properly when I run. I have a new set of exercises and some strict instructions that the changes I’m trying to make are very subtle, and I need to really focus on form and technique. I also need to build core strength. Hopefully in a month or two I can start easing back in to the running.
I managed to go the whole month without any “added sugar”, except for one time that I found myself with no food except a granola bar for breakfast. This involved passing up several occasions of donuts and such at work, as well as desserts at home. This might not sound like much, but it’s a huge change for me, I’ve had trouble resisting this stuff in the past. Going to try to keep it going this month.
Organization
Minimal progress here. I started reading “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up”, but it’s a bit tough to take it very seriously. It spends a lot of time talking about how my socks deserve a rest from their hard work, and the clothes on my hanger should be organized by the lightness of their spirits. I’m going to finish it, but I’m seriously questioning if it is the right strategy for me. Either way, I think next month I’m tackling my closet.
Mindulness
I have continued my journaling, and while I’m not completely sold on the particular format I’m using, I like the beginning and end of the day routine, and will continue it for now. I’m mostly just trying to form the habit, and will worry about optimizing it later.
I’ve also started listening to Tony Robbins’ Personal Power II on my morning commute. I got a good deal on a set of the CDs on ebay, and a week or so in, I enjoy it. It’s definitely a better use of my time than the random podcasts (aside from a few quality ones) that I used to fill that time previously.
TL;DR
All of my initiatives are making small incremental progress, with no major jumps, but I’m pretty OK with it. Slow and steady and inevitable is the goal.
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jennypenny
- Posts: 6856
- Joined: Sun Jul 03, 2011 2:20 pm
Re: 5to9's journal
I'm sorry about the running. I'm not allowed to run again right now either. I hate it and tried running anyway, but my PT finally convinced me to address the underlying issues first. He said that any issues that we try and compensate for now (by changing our gait or relying too heavily on certain muscle groups) will get worse with age to the point where we won't be able to compensate anymore, nor will we be able to fix them through simple PT.