Tyler9000's Journal

[Seppia]

Congrats and happy birthday!
Always great reading you, be it your site or your diary.
You left out the most important information though: what car is it?

[wolf]

Thank you Tyler9000 for your inspirational journal. I have read it from the very beginning and just finished it now. I made some notes and think about them. I am turning 35 this year. So I am quite interested in your thoughts of an 40 yo.

[Tyler9000]

You left out the most important information though: what car is it?

I got a gray VW GTI Sport. If you're ever at a point where you're looking for a car that is not only practical but also high quality and super fun to drive, I definitely recommend taking one for a test drive.

[Seppia]

My company car is a Quattro Audi A3 with turbo Diesel engine and 190hp, so basically the exact same car

[jennypenny]

I'm glad you're ok!

Forty is so much fun. Wait until you start getting the 'at your age ...' comments when you have a medical issue.

[Eureka]

Scary to read about your heat exhaustion adventure. Glad you had access to the right medical assistance and that everything went so well with your recovery.

Any meassures you now take to prevent such things from happening again?

[cmonkey]

Haha, my work buddy that got me my new job has that exact car. We took a roadtrip in it across Iowa a couple weeks ago and I will never be the same again....have fun with that!

[Tyler9000]

So did you get to go woop-woop on the way to the hospital in the ambulance? Happy to hear it was only heat exhaustion, not to minimize your experience, but it could have been much worse.

No minimization felt. I also don't want to be a drama queen about it. Honestly it was more embarrassing than anything.

I've been wiped out by heat before but this was not normal. Once I started vomiting, had trouble putting two words together, and thought I was going to pass out DW decided to call the professionals and I'm glad she did. Luckily my core temperature never got high enough to necessitate an ambulance ride, but they were able to give me something for the nausea to help me keep fluids down and stuck around until I was back mentally. I can only imagine what a full heat stroke must do to you.

Any meassures you now take to prevent such things from happening again?

The main thing is just being really careful and not taking anything for granted. I'm a lot more smart about not putting myself in an overheated situation, and I also pay close attention to subtle early symptoms.

@Seppia & Cmonkey -- Yeah, the GTI rocks. It's built on the same platform as the A3 but without the luxury price point. I'm also happy to report that the A/C works really well.

[jacob]

Once I started vomiting, had trouble putting two words together, and thought I was going to pass out ...

I don't know man. To me that doesn't sound any different than reading or writing in the comment section on youtube or yahoo

[Tyler9000]

@Jacob -- First paramedic question: "Sir, have you read any youtube comments today?"

@ffj -- No need to be so self-critical. Thanks!

[wolf]

Lately I've been thinking about using ERE coupled with my new work gig to partially disable my ingrained savers mindset and live a little. Now that retirement is covered and maximizing savings is no longer a primary concern, I can instead use my PT work income to live "paycheck to paycheck" in a cool, walkable, but expensive part of town I wouldn't have previously considered when I was thinking of retirement finance as a closed system. I'll still have FIRE-level investments backing me up and continuing to grow in the background, but an outside observer will just see a surprisingly happy and relaxed guy casually working 3 days a week to barely cover expenses. New adventures enabled by stealth wealth.

Hi Tyler9000, do you have any updates regarding your PT-"paycheck to paycheck"-Hipster-Lifestyle?

[Tyler9000]

Hi Tyler9000, do you have any updates regarding your PT-"paycheck to paycheck"-Hipster-Lifestyle?

We knew all along that making the move is probably more of a spring/summer thing thanks to the housing market cycle and the need to sell our home. Spring is sneaking up and we're definitely still interested, although a family development has made us re-think the plan a little.

Our old cat that we've had for ~16 years has recently become a little senile and developed a habit of screaming bloody murder for attention, which makes her a problematic neighbor and a terrible roommate in a small space. Standalone house rentals could be a workable solution but are a lot harder to come by in the part of town we're interested in. Luckily we're in no real hurry and can be patient until we find something we like. Otherwise we've joked that we feel like parents waiting for the last teenager to move out so we can finally be empty-nesters and do what we want.

Aside from that timing detail, I do very much like the idea and think it could be fun. And in the meantime, I've come to appreciate that you really don't have to live downtown to embrace the part time hipster lifestyle. Simply being "that guy" who strolls into work three days a week and generally never falls into the mental morass of deep work stress really is kinda nice. Happiness is less about where you live and more about how you live.

[suomalainen]

Our old cat that we've had for ~16 years has recently become a little senile and developed a habit of screaming bloody murder for attention, which makes her a problematic neighbor and a terrible roommate in a small space...we've joked that we feel like parents waiting for the last teenager to move out so we can finally be empty-nesters and do what we want.

Have you considered euthanasia?

Asked no one, ever, and certainly not me.

[Tyler9000]

Seems a little harsh, as life is pretty darn good for me right now.

Oh wait... you're talking about the cat. Nah, we're good. =^.^=

[Tyler9000]

Easy Mode

Back when I was a young engineer, I worked for a while in a very large company subdivided into so many sites and sub-groups that it was hard to keep up with it all. My DW actually worked at the same company and in a similar engineering role but at a different site, and it was always kinda funny how we could relate to similar work stories but understand so little about the exact tasks we were each responsible for. That’s life in a big company. I remember feeling a little lost at times, but one of the constants I could count on was my engineering manager. He was one of the legitimately nicest and most well-grounded human beings I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with, and he was full of great advice not only for the office but also for life in general.

One conversation sticks out more than others. I was sitting in his office talking about something innocuous like the company 401k, and I remember him casually leaning forward and saying “You know – If you don’t have a million dollars saved by the time you’re 40, you’re doing something wrong.” For context, I was just a young kid with student loan debt, car payments, and a small apartment. I also came from a very meager background and had an entire lifetime of memories of parents, family, and friends being stressed about money. And to top it all off, it was about 2003 with the 90’s stock bubble that made him wealthy fully in the rear-view mirror. So there I was, sitting across from my 40-something mentor who basically just outed himself as rich and out of touch with no concept of what normal people deal with. I pretty much filed that away as one of his rare missteps and went on with my life.

It took several years before I had enough experience and maturity to fully appreciate what he told me. Young me misinterpreted his comment as a broad statement that he believed applied to all people and made him sound ridiculous, when in fact I later figured out he was talking about me specifically with full knowledge of my wife's job as well. While he was far too polite to say it, he could have equally said “You have no idea how good you have it, kid. Don’t blow it.” Luckily, while it took me a while to understand his motivation I never forgot his message, and I credit that manager as one of the positive influences on my own financial journey. Fast forward to 40, and I may not be where I am today without people like him willing to put himself out there and offer a different and even controversial perspective compared to what you hear every day.

Recently a conversation on the forum brought up the term “easy mode” in financial independence, where high income spoils some in the FI blogosphere into a false sense of savings accomplishment. While I admit I sorta resent the implication that my own hard work and personal choices (studying instead of partying, engineering degree, dedicating life to career, etc) were in any way “easy”, I totally understand the concept. Looking at my income over the years, my old manager would agree that my path to future wealth was relatively easy provided I didn’t waste my opportunity, and looking back I’m thankful that someone pointed it out.

I may have indeed accumulated on easy mode, but just because something is easy doesn’t mean everyone takes advantage of their gifts. I worked with many people who made way more than I did, and it’s amazing how many are still struggling to save. Likewise, I’ve met people with far less income opportunity who are even more financially secure than I am as a result of their impressive skills (carpentry, gardening, machine repair, etc) that allow them to provide for themselves rather than pay others for goods and services. So many people are blind to the opportunities that come and go every day, easy to dismiss success stories as outliers rather than positive examples. No two people will follow the exact same life path, but that doesn’t mean the desired destination is unreachable.

Think about the personal opportunities you have in front of you right now. Not just the income opportunities, but ones built around each of your personal strengths. Now imagine a wiser older person sitting across the table from you and giving sincere advice free from your own mental baggage and preconceptions. What would he say?

Listen. And don’t blow it.

[BRUTE]

my own hard work and personal choices (studying instead of partying, engineering degree, dedicating life to career, etc)

brute always found typing way more enjoyable than partying, and why wouldn't he get a degree in something that's fun?

this doesn't mean brute wants to belittle Tyler9000's accomplishments. but he thinks that the puritan work ethic narrative isn't necessary to justify being proud of accomplishments and a moral justification to keep the accumulated shit.

[Tyler9000]

No worries. I definitely don't believe one path is suitable for all people. Everyone is different.

To the extent that my comment reads as defending the puritan work ethic, I really only meant to critique the mindset that any appearance of ease is a result of unattainable aptitude or circumstance rather than hard-earned mastery. Think of it in terms of putting in your own 10,000 hours towards whatever goal you care about.

[bryan]

It doesn't take much looking to see how anything can be truly relatively easier, harder and by a large order. For example, working in the US tech sector of the last 20+ years: a mediocre CS grad or self-taught programmer from the bay area is in much more of an easy mode than a programmer in Nebraska, Germany, France/UK, Japan/China/Korea, Ukraine/India, etc. The least one can do is be humble and avoid jealousy, anger.

The (as perceived by me) waste (of resources, opportunities, etc) is kind of disappointing but also understandable.

[ThisDinosaur]

Easy Mode/ Hard Mode is a misnomer. We use it around here to separate people by whether or not they ever achieved a six figure income. Or maybe whether they need more or less than 1 million to be FI. But it's probably not fair to call either of those accomplishments "easy."

I see occasional jealousy from hard mode people here as well as defensiveness from the easy mode high-earners. One noteworthy thing about this forum is that the high earners can frequently learn more from the Hard Mode people than the other way around.

I think it's a matter of niches and a personal economic calculation about whether a particular individual is better served becoming a high net worth specialist, or a low-spending generalist. We shouldn't all have the same strategy.

[oldbeyond]

It is of course relatively easier to FIRE on a 100k income than on a 30k one all things equal, but that doesn't mean that easy in a absolute sense, certainly not a sort of expected outcome. It is a major accomplishment and something to feel proud about.

It takes wisdom to see the fields of possibilities and probabilities clearly, and then focus your energies where you have agency. I guess that's stoicism. I.e people harping on EZ-moders grasp the socioeconomics, but it's likely wasted energy on a personal level, serving as an excuse not to deal with their own challenges. I think a lot of discussions of politics, personality etc fall into that trap.