5to9's journal

[slsdly]

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 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 . I add either peanut butter or blackstrap molasses, with walnut pieces.

[5to9]

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 . I add either peanut butter or blackstrap molasses, with walnut pieces.

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.

[5to9]

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.

[jennypenny]

I'm sorry you still can't run. Is therapy helping at all?

[5to9]

I'm sorry you still can't run. Is therapy helping at all?

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.

[jacob]

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.

[5to9]

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.

[5to9]

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.

[5to9]

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.

[Dragline]

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.

[5to9]

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.

[theanimal]

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

[5to9]

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/

[5to9]

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.

[jennypenny]

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.

[5to9]

March 2015

Financial

Some backsliding this month, but the bulk of it was due to a long planned trip my wife took with some friends. Not too upset, but it was the first time in a while my TTM average spending ticked back up. Not the end of the world, but I'm motivated to try to get things back under control this month. It was a pretty nice dividend month, though!



Health

Making some real progress here on diet. I'm definitely the incremental improvement type, the slow habit building strategy seems to be working well. I made it through the last month with only two occasions where I ate things with added sugar. Next up this month is chips/pretzels, other junk food. I'm starting to reach a place mentally where the positive feeling I get from sticking to my plan when things like free cookies are in front of me almost surpasses the negative feelings. Definitely depends on the day, but it's getting easier.

I'm also getting better with my sleep habits (these things all seem to snowball together). Going to bed earlier helps me avoid the late night snacking, and getting more sleep puts me in such a better frame of mind the next morning. This has been yet another place where as silly as it seems, tracking my sleep on the FitBit really helps me stay motivated to maintain good habits.

Organization

Some small progress here, got rid of some old clothes, and I'm doing better at keeping a few key places (kitchen, my closet, front entry way) clean. I never finished the KonMari book, it just didn't click for me. I don't think I'm the target audience. I'll look around for a better system, but I think that incremental improvement might work for me. There are a few minimalist websites (becoming minimalist, and zenhabits) that seem more up my alley.

Mindfulness

After a few months of not feeling like I was sure what I was getting from my Journaling, I had a bit of a breakthrough. One day as I was filling out my three things to be grateful for at the end of the day, it struck me how out of balance my priorities are. Every day, at least 2 of my 3 things are related to my family, but I really hadn't been given them nearly the energy that I spend on everything else. I resolved to focus on being mindful and particularly trying to enjoy the 2 hours after work before my boys go to bed. It has made a real difference in my life. We have more fun, I am less stressed, and I can see the positive effects on everyone in the family. So I think I'm going to stick to the journaling, although I'm still thinking of some ideas to tweak it.

Between the Tony Robbins program I've been doing, and some recent threads here on the forum (Space between stories), I'm starting to realize how much work I have to do in terms of really understanding myself and my motivations. I like the idea of ERE, but I'm really starting to wonder if I'm giving it my full effort, and I think part of the reason I haven't committed to it is that I have no good idea of who I am outside of being a dad and a software engineer. Obviously one of those isn't going away, but it will only be a few years before the boys are in school, so if I'm going to do ERE, I need to figure that out. It's also tough because I do enjoy a lot of the parts of my job, but I can't honestly say I'd do it if I wasn't getting paid. Anyway, expect a little bit more navel gazing here, as it's probably more important than the money stuff for me.

TL;DR
I need to figure out who I am. I have started to make real progress with learning some discipline and improving my habits, but the savings rate continues it's up and down trends.

[5to9]

2015 Annual Report

I have fallen off maintaining my journal here, but have continued plugging away on my financial goals. I have consciously chosen that my path won’t be the extreme path, since I have a wife and family that get votes here as well, so I’ve tried to settle in for the long grind. Part of that means that while I still track my expenses, I have focused a little less on the month to month progress, to avoid it becoming a demotivating force instead of a positive one.

I have really transitioned to trying to live a happy life with as light of a footprint as I can manage. Financial Independence is still a main goal, but I think the bigger thing that I get from this community is reminders and encouragement to not accept the status. It will keep me coming back, even if I am not as actively participating as I once was.

Financial

Our savings rate for the year came in at 50%. This is down slightly from last year (52%), but this was mostly due to a slight decrease in some stock based compensation. Our spending was actually 9% less than the previous year, and under my spending target, so progress! Assuming we can keep income the same, I’d like to get over 55% this year.

We ended the year at 156 months of total savings, which exceeded my goal of 150. This puts us just over half way to a 4% SWR, which is both exciting and daunting. I’m not sure we can keep up the previous pace of improvement, but I will certainly try. Aiming for 175 months by the end of 2016.

I’ve tweaked my charts a bit, and I now track a few moving averages, interestingly I’ve hit the point where my theoretical max income from savings is about even with my theoretical bare minimum spending, which is pretty cool. The reasonable target line for FI is still a ways off (all current spending except for child care).



Personal Development

I have continued to keep my journal on a mostly daily basis. I no longer use the Five Minute Journal, but I still keep much of the same format, gratitude and goals in the morning, with a daily recap in the evening and some reflection. It has been a great tool for me, and keeps me centered on what matters in life. Almost everything can go terribly throughout the day, and if I have one good, present moment with my kids that I can write down, it feels like a pretty good day.

I fell off pretty sharply around mid year with my exercise regime and attempts to resume running. I mostly got frustrated and then started making excuses and rationalizing. I started to make some progress on this in November and December, mostly spurred by the purchase of a bike trailer. The boys love riding in it, and hauling 70lbs of kid up the hills around here is pretty strenuous. I’m trying to work in some regular exercise routines as well, and keep this going. I’m also experimenting a bit with Yoga and Pilates to see if either of those can help correct my postural problems that keep leading to the running injuries.

The other big focus for this year has been on building community in my new hometown. I think this one has gone pretty well, and we’ve found a great group of friends, and a good church. Getting to know some local farmers has been very eye opening and good for me as well. It is a very rich experience to really know where your food comes from. We had some hints at this when we were living in a big city participating in a CSA, but that was like a two dimensional version of this. Building real social capital will continue to be a big focus of mine throughout the coming year.

TL;DR
It was a good year. We made great progress on our financial goals, and made great progress on improving our lives to a point where the urgency of ERE is reduced.

[5to9]

2016 Mid-Year Update

I’m still working out what the right frequency is for Journaling here, but I felt like I at least needed to put in a mid-year update.

Financial

Our savings rate for the six months is around 46%. My goal for the year is 55%, so we have some catching up to do, but July is when bonuses and other extra payments come in, so I don’t think we are actually that far off pace. We are buying a house again, which might impact the numbers some, but I don’t think it makes a major impact to our trajectory, aside from tying up some capital. Interest rates are insanely low right now (thanks Brexit), so the mortgage will be very affordable.

My very simple calculations estimate that we are still about 6 years away from FI. The MMM chart has a 50% savings rate equating to 17 years of working, so I guess that puts us around 2/3 of the way there. I’d love to try to get up to 60% next year, but progress has been slow. The market has been good so far this year, giving some added boost.



Personal Development

I did an experiment with meditation for about 1.5 months this spring. I did mindfulness style meditation for around 15-20 minutes every morning. Contrary to everything I read beforehand, I saw almost no value in it. I am very willing to accept that maybe I was doing something wrong, or had the same mindset, but I’ve been happier since I let go of that experiment. One unintended benefit, though, is that I had to start waking up earlier, and I’ve kept that piece going.

Fitness has made some real progress. I have slowly been working back into running. I even was able to do a (very slow) 10 mile trail run to help pace a friend while he did an ultramarathon. I’m still trying to be very cautious in ramping up the training, but it’s promising. I have done a lot of cross-training with swimming and cycling, which helps. I’ve also maintained my Pilates regimen, which is really helping with core strength and stability. Current target is a 50 mile bike ride in late August, I picked up a used road bike and have been doing some long training rides.

Building social capital has gone very well too. As evidenced by our willingness to buy a house, we are really settling in as part of our small town community. We’ve also been slowly moving more of our food consumption to local products where we know the farmers.

TL;DR

Settling in and buying a house in our small town. Savings rate still around 50%, ER 6 years away.

[5to9]

October 2017 Update

Not quite the end of the year, but long past time for an update. I have consciously been spending less time on the forums here, but I think getting back to somewhat regular journalling would be good. I've gotten lazy on the ERE front.

Financials

Savings rate so far for this year has improved to around 56%, but that is mostly on the back of income increases, we've actually gotten worse on the spending front. Some of that has been necessary increases due to our return to homeownership, but certainly some of it has been of the lazy spending variety. I've been tracking expenses, but not all that carefully, and it's too easy to rationalize some of the purchases. I'm not concerned about getting to minimal spending levels, but I'd like to better optimize where the money is going. Overall it's been a positive year, but I find myself increasingly feeling like the stock market is a house of cards, and I'm struggling with how to divide up my assets. I've done some diversification, but I'm not sure I can buy into something as conservative as the Permanent Portfolio yet.



Personal Development

Fitness has improved a lot over the past year. I've gotten into a regular routine with Crossfit. I think it's the perfect mix of activities for me, and I've been able to stay mostly injury free for over a year, which has really made significant improvements in my fitness. I like that it requires minimal thinking or planning from me. I just show up 3 times a week, and work hard at whatever is planned. I've done some running, mostly shorter distances, and so far so good. I'd love to get back to more distance running at some point, but taking it carefully.

Other areas are good too. Continuing to get more involved in the community, especially around activities with the local elementary school. I could see that being an activity I cultivate for a post-ERE activity that could potentially even generate some minimal income. Teaching young kids about science and engineering is extremely rewarding.

I've also started playing more chess lately, and trying to substitute chess apps on my phone in place of mindless Facebook browsing. I think that has been a quality of life improver as well.

TL;DR

Finances are good by peer group standards, weak by ERE standards. Crossfit has improved my fitness, and I'm developing some good hobbies.

[wolf]

Hi 5to9. In between your last journal post and now, I have joined the ERE-Forum. I like surprises, like your updated journal.
Can you describe what the y-axis with 0 to 250 means regarding the different curves, e.g. the red one "Financial Independence"?