White Belt's Military Journey to FI

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white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

Scott 2 wrote:
Wed Sep 01, 2021 8:00 am
Getting enough protein has been an ongoing struggle for me. I get tired of eating it. I'm guessing you know the plant based amino acid profile is inferior quality and requires more grams as a result.
I follow guidelines laid out in this article: https://www.strongerbyscience.com/veget ... n-athlete/

Protein quality is more important if your protein intake is low. At my intake levels, I’m going to get plenty of leucine without the need for supplemention. I would be more concerned if I was trying to go fully vegan, but with maybe 1/4 of my protein coming from plant based sources (particularly soy tempeh which has all the amino acids and the fermentation improves protein absorption), I’m still getting a lot of micronutrients and proteins from animal sources. I guess my current diet could be thought of as flexitarian. I have reduced meat consumption from daily to perhaps 1-2 times a week on average. Still eating eggs and dairy daily, and frequently fish as well.

I don’t think I’ll continue with lentils as I just didn’t really like them and my body doesn’t really seem to like them either. Tempeh gives me no issues though.

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

Hristo Botev wrote:
Wed Sep 01, 2021 7:20 am
Thanks @WB! I'll check out those resources and see if I can't cobble together a DIY program. Admittedly, one goal I've got is to hopefully not grow too much bigger, as I just had to buy new dress shirts because my neck size grew and the buttons around my chest were popping off on my old shirts and I had to keep sewing them back on (admittedly, the older shirts were from a trendier designer and were cut a little slimmer than the Brooks Brothers-type American standard). So I'm thinking I might go ahead and start on some sort of a "cut," and try not to lose too much muscle in the process.
One thing that happened to me after doing SS is that I did of course gain some muscle, but I also gained a bit of fat without really realizing it. I was following the SS mantra of eat big, lift big, get big. Obviously this will depend on your diet as well, but one part of SS dogma I disagree with is the concept that you can't be lean and strong (the first article I sent you dispels this myth). If you look at the strongest people in the world, you will find they are generally pretty lean with a ton of muscle mass (the exception is the elite super heavyweight lifters who have no weight class limit, so they have a ton of muscle mass and bodyfat to eek out the smallest strength advantages).

If you would like to slim down, then the general protocol is to follow more of a hypertrophy/bodybuilding program to retain muscle mass while eating a caloric deficit. I believe the Renaissance Periodization video I linked may show a general template for hypertrophy. You don't need to weigh and track all your food necessarily, but you do want to ensure you're getting sufficient protein at all times and especially in a caloric deficit. You might even be able to continue gaining muscle while losing fat due to your relative beginner status.

Also I'm not sure about you, but I think it is typically the case that everyone vastly underestimates their bodyfat. When I was weighing 176, I assumed I was at maybe 20% bodyfat. I now weigh 160 with the same amount of muscle and still only have visible abs in down lighting (my estimate is I'm now at 12-13% bf). If you do the math on that, I was definitely over 20% bf at 176. Certainly there is a good chunk of weight gain that is muscle, but there's also fat and water retention that come along with it.

Hristo Botev
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by Hristo Botev »

white belt wrote:
Wed Sep 01, 2021 2:09 pm
Also I'm not sure about you, but I think it is typically the case that everyone vastly underestimates their bodyfat. When I was weighing 176, I assumed I was at maybe 20% bodyfat. I now weigh 160 with the same amount of muscle and still only have visible abs in down lighting (my estimate is I'm now at 12-13% bf). If you do the math on that, I was definitely over 20% bf at 176. Certainly there is a good chunk of weight gain that is muscle, but there's also fat and water retention that come along with it.
I wouldn't be surprised at all to learn that I've put on a pound of muscle for every pound of muscle I've put on over the past 4 months. I've put on about 15 pounds total over that time, give or take, but the difference this time compared to other times when I've allowed the scale to creep up is that my clothes are tighter in very different places--primarily my thighs and my chest. I don't even have a pair of jeans I can wear anymore, even though there's still room in the waist, because there's just no room at all left in the thighs. That said, it's time to cut.

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

@Hristo

I had similar thoughts at 176. Now at 160 a lot of my pants fit again. Well actually not quite, it's more like they fit in the quads and butt but are loose at the waist. So I get this weird dynamic trying to find pants and shorts that fit; I can either go for the slim fit which fits in the waist but is a bit too tight in other places, or I can go for regular fit which is too loose at the waist but fits in other places. Shirts can have similar fit issues since most bodyfat for men is stored around the waist, which means my chest/shoulder/arms are still big but my stomach is much smaller. Luckily, having a t-shirt that's loose around the stomach isn't that big of a deal. But yes, this is the tradeoff you make when your physique starts to stray from the average American guy.

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

white belt wrote:
Tue Aug 31, 2021 11:58 am
Now onto the bad. I still managed to spend $500 on food I prepared myself! For some reason I thought cooking all of my own food would lower my food expenses to $300-400 at most. I will note that I didn't really focus on optimizing my grocery purchases by buying on sale or in bulk since I was testing so many new recipes. Really the focus was just on cooking all my meals to meet my diet requirements. Now that I have a few more recipes in the rotation, I think I can standardize them and start stocking up on ingredients. I also ran to the more expensive nearby grocery store rather than Aldi a few times when I didn't properly plan out my meals.
I think I discovered one of the culprits of my high grocery bill. I went to Aldi today to pick up about a week's worth of groceries, to include pricier items like frozen berries, fish, yogurt, chicken, etc. It came out to a grand total of $60. If I had bought those same items at the nearby chain grocery store I think it would have been $100. Multiply that by 4 and we're at $240. Add another $60 for protein powders, supplements, vitamins, fish oil, other random items, and we're at $300. Let's conservatively say another $50 for staples (will likely be much less than that), and that gets me to $350. This leads me to believe that just sticking with Aldi and then bulk food stores for staples should be able to get me to <$400 a month.

The next ratchet lower will likely require me to DIY more stuff. Catching my own fish and/or hunting my own meat. Microgreens instead of paying for cabbage and leafy greens. Making my own greek yogurt from milk instead of buying it from the store. Growing my own fruits and canning them to eat throughout the year instead of getting frozen fruits (won't happen until next summer). Maybe even making my own tortillas and ramen instead of buying store bought, but those are lower priorities due to the fact they are so cheap already.

Another possibility is exchanging other capital for food. I suspect I already could exchange some of my cooking skills for free ingredients (who doesn't love homemade pizza?). In a way I've already been building up social capital by cooking for others in social groups, but that's just been for fun and I usually pay for my own ingredients. Maybe I can find someone who needs help harvesting their garden in exchange for a cut of the bounty? I'll have to think some more on how to implement this in practice in my current lifestyle. Any suggestions are welcome. I'm seemingly surrounded by a combination of wealthy retirees and yuppie families with young children in my current neighborhood.
Last edited by white belt on Wed Sep 01, 2021 8:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Scott 2
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by Scott 2 »

We buy 85% of our food from Aldi, for this very reason. I could not beat their prices anywhere, especially after accounting for how high quality the produce is. I found when pricing per pound, they often match the bulk food stores, but in much smaller quantities. We supplement with some specialty items from Trader Joes, just to increase variety. It helps too that Aldi's packaged food tends to really suck. No temptations from a box of hot pockets or $3 organic frozen burritos.

When I looked into it, beating Aldi's prices on produce by growing your own is nearly impossible. The food is just too cheap. There are other good reasons to do so, but I could not see how to make it a money saving endeavor.

Hristo Botev
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by Hristo Botev »

We're big fans of Aldi, and buy almost all of our groceries there, except that we buy most of our veggies from Sprouts, which is usually cheaper than even Aldi (but just for veggies). Honestly, I've always felt completely lost and overwhelmed in a typical large grocery store (I tend to get physically dizzy in such places; it's weird). But I don't have those issues in Aldi; the way they are set up just makes so much sense to me. Sort of like a very small scale Costco--you've got 1 kind of X to choose from, 1 kind of Y, 1 kind of Z; it's not 50 kinds of X with you the consumer just trying to figure out how not to get ripped off by what you know to be very sophisticated marketing schemes. I love it. It's funny, though, we have so many friends and family who HATE Aldi, and it's always for a reason like: they don't have A brand of X, or B brand of Y. Sure, the trademark lawyer in me appreciates how good my clients are doing at building brand loyalty; but seriously, at a certain level peanut butter is peanut butter, tortillas are tortillas, etc. If you're looking for variety, you're not going to find it by buying A brand vs. B brand. For those things that you don't want to treat as staples, be it bread or jelly or ice cream or whatever (or tortillas), just make it yourself; it ain't hard.

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

I've shopped at Aldi regularly the past year or so and I agree with the sentiment. The only items I can't find there are giant bags of soybeans for Tempeh, which is what I was really referring to as "staples" at the moment.

Well in another review of my recurring monthly expenses (WL4 stuff), I've decided to re-examine my insurance costs. Up to this point I've been paying $55 a month to insure my beater car (KBB value ~$2500), have minimum renter's insurance, and a $1M umbrella policy. I've done some more reading and determined I was definitely over-insured. First off, some things about my risk profile:

-I have comprehensive health insurance from work (literally no deductible or anything thanks to Uncle Sam), so there is no concern for giant medical bills in the next few years
-A huge chunk of my assets are in bankruptcy-sheltered accounts (TSP and IRA), which means even in the catastrophic case of a bankruptcy I'd still have ~12 years of living expenses left to figure things out
-I don't appear wealthy, nor do I own any businesses

Therefore, at the moment I'm not too concerned about umbrella insurance that provides liability protection. Additionally, I don't need to pay extra beyond the state minimums for the under-insured motorist protection, because all of my medical expenses will be covered regardless of the reason I get injured. If my car gets damaged in an collision, I will either repair it myself or replace it out of pocket.

When I leave full-time employment I will of course have to reconsider all of this, but that's still 2+ years away. I'm going to do some shopping around on rates and I think I should be able to get my insurance down to $15-25 a month.

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Lemur
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by Lemur »

$55 is pretty decent for car insurance.

Not sure if you know but I'm prior military as well. Did almost 7 years. Was enlisted. If I woke up tomorrow as a young enlistee again (forced into on-base housing), I'd just ride a bike to work. Never purchase food (use the cafeteria) and use all the free stuff on base for entertainment. ERE could easily be a young military person's dream. After you're done with a contract's worth of accumulation, you could use your low spending skills to go to school on the governments dime (which is what I did) and try to make savings just with the GI Bill + a job. When school is over, you'd probably be just about ready for retirement as well. Too easy...

But I discovered FIRE/ERE around 2012 or so but didn't start really saving until 2016...about when I finished my contract lol. I'd be a millionaire right now had I started just a few years sooner and rode that bull market. Compound interest is that powerful ofc. I also discovered bitcoin when it was under $100 a coin but that is another lottery I don't like to revisit haha.

For protein, it has been awhile since I studied the nutritional aspects of weight lifters but if I recall the general recommendation is 1 gram of protein per lean pound of body mass for adequate recovery and "gains" ... I'm almost certain one could get away with lower requirements and still have good progress but don't quote me on that. I was never too consistent on protein requirements (hence I stalled at an intermediate level of strength at some point).

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

Lemur wrote:
Thu Sep 02, 2021 7:50 pm
Not sure if you know but I'm prior military as well. Did almost 7 years. Was enlisted. If I woke up tomorrow as a young enlistee again (forced into on-base housing), I'd just ride a bike to work. Never purchase food (use the cafeteria) and use all the free stuff on base for entertainment. ERE could easily be a young military person's dream. After you're done with a contract's worth of accumulation, you could use your low spending skills to go to school on the governments dime (which is what I did) and try to make savings just with the GI Bill + a job. When school is over, you'd probably be just about ready for retirement as well. Too easy...
I went the officer route so it has been a pretty good setup from a financial perspective. I essentially lived like your example Soldier for the first year of my career, but there were a couple of issues with that system as I indicated a few posts up. The biggest issue is that dating and entertainment prospects are severely limited when living on base, so that required me to get a car. There was also the issue that my career field meant a ton of field time, which is in theory cheap but in reality is a psychological/physical meatgrinder and can lead to spending to "make up for lost time." Living with roommates and pocketing a big chunk of my BAH was definitely the right move that I continue to this day.

Nowadays I just work a desk job, which is how I have the time and energy to dedicate to developing ERE skills outside of work. Speaking of GI Bill and benefits, there are a few ideas I have for bridging the gap from active duty to an alternative lifestyle:

-Do internship for last ~6 months of my career at my future settling location (I get paid my military pay but I'm working for a regular company). This would also allow me to househunt and qualify for low interest rates due to high income if I decide to purchase an urban homestead site with conventional financing because economic factors favor it at the time.

-Join reserves immediately following active duty for 2 years (I get 6 months free healthcare, then can pay ~$50 a month for low deductible health insurance, 2 year deployment stabilization, possibly even $10k-20k bonus)


Reserves with a normal drill schedule pays around $13k a year after tax (I'm avoiding the National Guard because I don't want to deal with disaster response and political unrest as much). Thus, it would be quite possible to cover a huge chunk of my expenses for those first 2 years by just working 1 weekend a month (potentially my entire expenses if I can get my spending low enough). I have GI Bill benefits in my back pocket as well. For now I'm just saving them in case I want to pivot to an entirely different career field at some point, but I could also in theory live off of the GI Bill BAH the entire year even if just taking fall/spring classes, which would buy me another 2-3 years of flexibility without having to spend down any savings.

Some of this may be moot in the end because if my spending stays consistent then it's very likely that by the time my service commitment is up, I could never earn another dollar in my life and live off my portfolio in the traditional FIRE sense. Instead of not doing anything for FIRE during my service like in your case, my dilemma was more that I didn't understand WL6 perspectives and true ERE (as opposed to E-ER) until very recently so I made some career decisions because I thought that I would need a much larger portfolio.

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

I just finished another week of work so I have a few updates:

Food/Restaurants/Bars
I'm still continuing to cook all my food. I've experimented with incorporating more canned vegetables and canned seafood. In the past I just opted for frozen veggies but I'm uncomfortable with how much of my food requires electricity for storage. Additionally, I can eventually transfer the canned cooking skills to my own food that I produce/forage when I start canning my own bounty at some point.

I had a nice labor day BBQ at a friend's fancy high rise apartment rooftop patio. I ate a burger which was my first time eating beef in over a month. I find I didn't really miss it that much, so it seems I've adjusted to eating beef (and meat in general) much less frequently. I still eat fish almost daily and the occasional chicken/pork. I guess this is what it's like to be a flexitarian.

I'm tempted to start making wine again. I've got pretty much all the equipment from when I used to make it, I'll just have to scrounge up some old wine bottles and maybe get myself a hand corker. I tried doing screwtop lids back in the day and I could never get them to work without leaking. I have a folder of recipes that I'll see if I can dig up to give this a try. I don't drink a lot of alcohol at the moment, but I am occasionally still buying hard seltzers to drink when I have friends over or go to other houses. I also like hard cider but I've never tried making it, so maybe I can look into that again (although I only have gallon sized carboys, not the 5 gallon ones that are typically used for beer and cider brewing). Some of this is laying the foundation for a possible buy nothing exercise. I guess I'm too scared to just jump into one at the moment, but there is definitely something churning in the back of my mind.

I haven't been to any bars since I started my food "challenge", but this weekend I have a birthday party to go to at a karaoke bar, which will certainly involve me dropping some money.

I have my fishing license now and I plan on foraging for some fish very soon. I dug more into consumption advisories and it turns out that there are waterways within a 10-15 minute bike distance that don't have consumption advisories for any species I'd eat, so there is hope. There is also a group at work that does fishing trips so I will try to get on one of those as the schedule allows. I'm going to start with trying to catch some "bait fish" which I can legally catch with a dip net. I will experiment with cooking the little ones whole like I've discussed in earlier posts with minnows. I can also catch snapping turtle with a dip net, which I am inspired to do after reading Possum Living, but I don't feel ready for that yet because of the cleaning process. There is a highly invasive species in local waterways that people claim tastes better than tilapia, which is exciting because tilapia is one of my favorite fish to eat. More to follow on all of this after I do some reconnaissance.

Car/Transportation/Insurance
I bike commuted twice this week (would have been more but I had to do some more tinkering to fix the wobbly back wheel issue). I think I've got things down pretty well with my route and bike configuration. I ride on some pretty dark paths due to my shift hours, so I'm going to have to do some more work to re-adjust my dynamo hub front headlight. Today I tried using a headlamp on my helmet as well, which really helped with seeing a bit further down the path to move out of the way of possible obstacles. I may just stick with that.

The ride home is pretty tough because it's mostly up hill and during this shift was also during the hottest part of the day. I researched a little bit into pedal toe clips/straps and I think having straps would help to make things more efficient especially when going up hill. I think I'd like to try the velcro style because I have no interest in getting specialized shoes with toe clips and they seem to be a cheap/effective option. Maybe this is something I can DIY with some heavy duty velcro and nylon straps, but I'll have to do some more research. There are some straps available for ~$10 but they also seem to have durability issues in the reviews. My pedals are MKS Silvan Touring Pedals, so any recommendations from the more experienced cyclists on here would be greatly appreciated.

I reviewed my car insurance and modified my coverage so costs are now $30 a month. I did some comparison shopping and found I could change insurance companies and get the exact same coverage for $20 a month, so I might switch at some point. I didn't yet reach out to my current insurance company to see if they would match the price since I have been a loyal customer for years.

Health/Fitness
I'm starting to get back into a consistent gym routine after drifting a long for the last few weeks. I think I like the 4 day a week schedule and have decided I will just do my own programming from this point forward. This will save me another ~$30 a month.

I wrapped up a fat loss phase last week and I'm probably the leanest I've ever been. Ironically, when I was at the pool earlier this weekend my friend said that I look even more muscular/bigger. I think there is definitely some optical illusion effect with having well-defined muscles and low bodyfat that make a person look even bigger (although the reality is that my arms and chest are slightly smaller due to reduced surface fat). I don't quite have washboard abs but I am very close and the layperson probably would say that I do have a sixpack (my estimate is ~12-13% BF, with my ultimate objective to get to 10% BF at some point). I can't decide if I want to do a maintenance phase next before trying to cut and get even leaner, or to just do a bulk to build more muscle going into the cooler months. It's been awhile since I've done a bulk so it may be about that time, although I will say I do really prefer being lean and I think I will use ~15% BF as my upper limit going forward. The only downsides I have noticed is I am colder and sitting has become much more uncomfortable due to reduced padding on my glutes, even though I actually have a relatively large butt.

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

I ran the numbers on the JAFI calculation for current day. 1x JAFI is $9217 at the moment, although inflation numbers lag by a few months so by year's end it will likely be higher. I'm inching towards 2x JAFI and I think I can get there soon with more adjustments (that would be monthly spending of $1536). Unfortunately, with my current lifestyle design/skill, achieving 1x JAFI is unpossible. I spend more than 1x JAFI ($800 monthly) on housing alone and I've currently exhausted the conventional options. I've done a little exploring of alternative options like RV or boat living and they aren't viable. This area is just so expensive and I'm chained to it as long as I'm still in the Army.

I think my early retirement plan is to just get my housing expenses to virtually zero by buying a house and renting out a room or two as part of my urban homestead project. I can still get a 3 bedroom house in my retirement location for $100-200k, while the area I'm currently in requires about $500k+ to get a 3 bedroom house. 1 and 2 bedroom condos are also available in my current area for less money but after HOA fees the numbers just don't make sense.

So I think I'll just stick with renting my below market bedroom in a shared house for now. My best option to lower housing costs is probably to try to reduce rent through some kind of barter/skill exchange so I'll have to try gauging what my landlord might need help with to set up such an arrangement.

Scott 2
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by Scott 2 »

Living outside a major city, I have found valuing a condo or town home with HOA vs. a house tricky. The HOA fees are an obvious trade of money for reduced demand on your time and skills. Because that carries the overhead of hired help, and maybe a management company, it seems inefficient. I resented my choice of a town home for years. Until I considered moving.

There are additional gains from living close together. Since the HOA spending benefits from scale and a high population density, services get pretty affordable. Property taxes tend to be lower. Heating and cooling consume less energy. For the same money, you get a higher quality neighbor and/or location. Smaller units tend to be avoided by families, who can be loud and messy. Barring the bottom end, you live by empty nesters and dinks.

For us to come out even financially, relative to our town house, we'd have to move about 10 miles further from the city. We'd also have to switch from a middle class to working class neighborhood. Crime is higher. Schools are worse. Utilities are less reliable. If you do not value that stuff (or mind caring for the home), you do have much more autonomy and space.

However - if we were willing to make those same neighborhood tradeoffs, but keep a condo or town home - expenses go down by around 1/3. Conversely - in our neighborhood, it's not really possible to buy a house with comparable square footage to our 2 bedroom town home. Moving to a nearby house adds 1000+ square feet and doubles housing related expenses.

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

@Scott 2

I haven't run the in-depth numbers yet to see if I could make "house-hacking" work in this area. From a cursory look of the MLS (which really just shows the houses too overpriced to be snapped up quickly), house-hacking might work if I'm willing to scale up to a 4+ bedroom in the $500-600k range (renting bedrooms out individually). This would require a $100k downpayment, which I certainly could pay without issue, but I'm not a big fan of being 5x levered at this stage of a real estate bull market. Regardless, I'm really attacking this from a cashflow/business perspective rather than perhaps the typical perspective for owning a home. Another important detail is that I will leave the area in 2-2.5 years, which means the numbers still have to work in the situation that I'm renting out the entire property and paying property management so I can be an absentee landlord (or I have to plan on only owning for 2 years, but I'm more interested in making cashflow profits than trying to speculate on appreciation). I guess typing this out makes me realize I don't really have beef with HOA's as long as the numbers make sense.

In my retirement location, there are countless affordable rowhomes that have the benefits you allude to without many of the drawbacks of HOAs. Unfortunately in my current location those houses have long been bulldozed to build high rises and luxury condos.

One recent realization, basically since I started my no restaurant experiment, is that my preferences for location are starting to change. At one time, I was a huge fan of cities and being close to the action, but since I no longer can go to restaurants and my bar activity is extremely curtailed, being close to hip downtown areas has much less appeal. I currently live in basically a streetcar suburb and again I keep coming back to that level of density as an optimal model for me. I still believe in the network effects of cities, however the question becomes how far away can I be while still benefiting from such effects? For example, if I'm 30-40 min by bike or public transit from a city center (~5 miles), is that close enough? Maybe that's too far and 3-4 miles is the optimal? By living in a streetcar suburb (even if still technically within city limits), I can still participate in all sort of cultural events and benefit from the collaboration with others, but I get more green space and lower cost per square footage. Commute distance is less of a concern if I'm not working full time in an office and the domestic life takes on greater importance, as many teleworkers have learned since COVID started and as Holmgren points out in RetroSuburbia. I'm also quite concerned with the heat island effect of high density urban streets which can be mitigated much more easily on leafy green streetcar "suburban" streets.

Despite all my mention of my post-retirement life, I am actually trying very hard to fight the temptation for bifurcation between an accumulation phase and retirement phase. I am trying to live the life I want now, without hiding behind the excuse that I can't because I'm still working full time and blah blah blah. I'm legally obligated to work another 2.5 years full time and I have no intention of delaying some of my grand plans until then. Right now I'm just focused on lowering expenses and developing skills in the WL5 vein.

Scott 2
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by Scott 2 »

I'd agree, your time frame is much too short for playing HCOL house hacking games, especially in today's market.

Have you spent time around the affordable rowhomes in your retirement location?

I found neighborhoods that looked great online, could be lacking in person. Maybe there's a small local airport a few blocks away and flight plans go overhead. Maybe you can smell the nearby refinery or sewage treatment plant. Maybe freight trains roll through at night, blaring their horn. Maybe the area is on well water with questionable quality. Maybe homes with a beautiful nature view, turn out to have subtle signs of basement flooding and pest problems. First world problems to be sure. One is fortunate to have the opportunity to consider them. But, problems all the same.

Within the region, I found our housing market to be fairly efficient. Neighbors are the ultimate differentiator. While I'd love a simple (cheap!) townhouse with a 1 car garage, people like me don't live in homes like that. Most people buy as much house as they can afford. So inexpensive housing hosts individuals who, for whatever reason, have been disadvantaged in our society.

It is the same with access to things like nice restaurants or expensive shopping. While I don't value them, because most of my peers can and do, they are present in areas that suit me. The people make my minimum buy in about $300k.

In that sense - you are smart to avoid a bifurcated life. Hedonistic adaptation is very real, and very hard to undo. I wouldn't choose to live in the neighborhoods I grew up in. After seeing the other side, I know what is missing. While there is a point of diminishing returns, in my experience, that bar is pretty high. People pay more because they are getting more.

On the other hand - maybe you are capable of and would enjoy more interdependence? It's pretty clear over a broad range of traits, you are well above average. Is it worth the price to surround yourself with comparable people? I do think it would be highly unusual to taste that for several years, and then happily take the more humble path.

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

Scott 2 wrote:
Wed Sep 08, 2021 7:18 pm
Have you spent time around the affordable rowhomes in your retirement location?

I found neighborhoods that looked great online, could be lacking in person. Maybe there's a small local airport a few blocks away and flight plans go overhead. Maybe you can smell the nearby refinery or sewage treatment plant. Maybe freight trains roll through at night, blaring their horn. Maybe the area is on well water with questionable quality. Maybe homes with a beautiful nature view, turn out to have subtle signs of basement flooding and pest problems. First world problems to be sure. One is fortunate to have the opportunity to consider them. But, problems all the same.

Within the region, I found our housing market to be fairly efficient. Neighbors are the ultimate differentiator. While I'd love a simple (cheap!) townhouse with a 1 car garage, people like me don't live in homes like that. Most people buy as much house as they can afford. So inexpensive housing hosts individuals who, for whatever reason, have been disadvantaged in our society.

On the other hand - maybe you are capable of and would enjoy more interdependence? It's pretty clear over a broad range of traits, you are well above average. Is it worth the price to surround yourself with comparable people? I do think it would be highly unusual to taste that for several years, and then happily take the more humble path.
Looking through my post history, I guess I've already revealed where I would like to settle so might as well just put it out there. My intended retirement location is Philadelphia, which is close to where I grew up and also where I attended college. I return to visit once or twice a month and have many family and friends that still live there. So yes, I am familiar with the area. When I'm talking about the affordability of the area, I checked COL calculators and Philly has a COL of about 50-60% of my current location.

In terms of specific neighborhood quality, I'd say at the moment I'm primarily interested in Class B and C neighborhoods. Class A is too pricey/yuppie/douchey for me and Class D is too rough/stabby for me. I'd say some of the greener/leafy neighborhoods are typically Class B and have slightly larger lots, while there are also some Class C neighborhoods that are more centrally located but also denser. Of course there is a lot of variation. I'm not so sure housing in the city, particularly a dense city built before the automobile, follows the same patterns as housing in other areas built after the automobile.

Scott 2 wrote:
Wed Sep 08, 2021 7:18 pm
It is the same with access to things like nice restaurants or expensive shopping. While I don't value them, because most of my peers can and do, they are present in areas that suit me. The people make my minimum buy in about $300k.

In that sense - you are smart to avoid a bifurcated life. Hedonistic adaptation is very real, and very hard to undo. I wouldn't choose to live in the neighborhoods I grew up in. After seeing the other side, I know what is missing. While there is a point of diminishing returns, in my experience, that bar is pretty high. People pay more because they are getting more.
To be clear, I grew up in a very comfortable upper middle class suburban existence. 4B/2.5BR house, large lawn, good school district, 2 car garage, and all that jazz. I'm very grateful that my parents were able to provide me with security and stability in that way. My parents still live essentially a similar standard of living, just much more efficiently after my dad discovered FIRE. I believed I covered that part in a post on your journal.

However, there were certainly downsides to that life. My dad worked a lot and we as a family spent a lot. There was no extended family in the area, so we were very much the nuclear consumerist family stereotype. I see that same pattern playing out in my current expensive neighborhood. Dual income, shuttling the kids to extracurriculars, cleaning people, lawn people, dog walkers, outsourcing all childcare, and so on. I guess this is the pinnacle of success?! If I do have kids at some point, I'd rather raise them in a different life (maybe one that involves extended/multi-generational family, homeschooling, community, etc).

So back to the point about my "peers". As my spending decreases, I find it harder and harder to relate to yuppies and the wider consumerist culture around us. Everyone is just so focused on their job at the expense of literally everything else in their life. The fact that I can't talk about eating at restaurants or the latest TV show means that we don't have much in common to discuss. I'd rather live a higher quality of life and ERE has given me the framework to do that. I'm still trying to bridge between the mainstream lifestyle and my ERE lifestyle, so I'm not yet sure what form this will exactly take. However, I do have a lot of ideas from permaculture thinkers and others. I know that it will involve some non-traditional things (or rather things that were traditional at all other times in human history except the anomaly of the last 50 years). I think I'd rather live in a working class neighborhood that allows for a bit of diversity, but perhaps I will test drive such an arrangement and change my mind. What I do know is that the bohemians, artists, activists, academics, etc are all priced out of the Class A neighborhoods.

Scott 2 wrote:
Wed Sep 08, 2021 7:18 pm
Within the region, I found our housing market to be fairly efficient. Neighbors are the ultimate differentiator. While I'd love a simple (cheap!) townhouse with a 1 car garage, people like me don't live in homes like that. Most people buy as much house as they can afford. So inexpensive housing hosts individuals who, for whatever reason, have been disadvantaged in our society.

On the other hand - maybe you are capable of and would enjoy more interdependence? It's pretty clear over a broad range of traits, you are well above average. Is it worth the price to surround yourself with comparable people? I do think it would be highly unusual to taste that for several years, and then happily take the more humble path.
Maybe. Or perhaps there are also people who pursue something that isn't heavily remunerated in our current consumerist society? Either way, a large city is unique in the fact that the diversity and density enables me to find/make my own tribe that matches my druthers.

Scott 2
Posts: 2824
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by Scott 2 »

That's a good framework. I grew up in class C, am in class B now, and visit class A neighborhoods to enjoy their amenities. Houses with a comparable cost of living to my town home, are in class C.

Taking this housing plan as a good example - you strike me as someone who:

1. Is already operating at a high level
2. Makes ongoing and effective investments in purposeful growth

I mean peers in that context, rather than a purely financial metric.

I've observed non-traditional thinkers like you, despite forgoing a normal 9-5, tend to solve the money problem. When they excel, traditional thinkers aspire to be like them and pay well for the opportunity. Everyone I know meeting those criteria (admitted selection bias) has found their way into class B or A housing.

Jin+Guice
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by Jin+Guice »

Housing is really tough in the United States. It's really hard to purchase a pleasant small space that doesn't have some sort of outlandish fees associated with it. Also, mortgages, what a fucking scam.


As far as meeting people, WL 5 is rough socially, I think. It's not super interesting if all you do is go to a job that you don't really like, save money by not engaging with the world and index invest (not saying you are doing this, but kind of a broad summary I've noticed of people at WL 4-5, in the greater FIREsphere). If most consumer are a few WLs below you, they will think of your experience as either painful or insane. As you get into more activities and community engagement at higher WLs, it's easier to find shared interests with people as well as meet people who go beyond their desk/ couch.

The two strategies I have for avoiding alienation are 1) engage "boring" people more deeply on a topic they are interested in that also you like and 2) try to become more interesting so that you can go where more "interesting" people are.

Almost everyone has something interesting about them. People who like to eat out? Talk about what makes a meal great and how it is made. People who like to shop? Talk about what defines quality for what they are buying and how it makes them feel. People who like TV? Talk about what makes great story telling and videography (just thought of this one). I'll admit that I find some straight up work/ TV people with no hobbies pretty difficult to talk to, but there's usually also some work people who have some pretty serious side hobbies, even if they insist on spending as much money as possible doing them.

I find people who are outside of the 9-5, TV, eat/ drink out, work crowd to be more interesting. Finding these people can be difficult if you are in the 9-5 work world. There are usually some access problems, but figuring out what the group of people you'd like to talk to are interested in and learning about it,. or figuring out how to satisfy some need they are likely to have is usually a good way to get passed the barriers to entry.

white belt
Posts: 1452
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

Scott 2 wrote:
Wed Sep 08, 2021 11:45 pm
Taking this housing plan as a good example - you strike me as someone who:

1. Is already operating at a high level
2. Makes ongoing and effective investments in purposeful growth

I mean peers in that context, rather than a purely financial metric.

I've observed non-traditional thinkers like you, despite forgoing a normal 9-5, tend to solve the money problem. When they excel, traditional thinkers aspire to be like them and pay well for the opportunity. Everyone I know meeting those criteria (admitted selection bias) has found their way into class B or A housing.
My hope is that in a city environment I have a good chance at finding other interesting people. To be clear, I'm still not sure I'd even call myself "non-traditional" at this point because I still read about some of the lifestyles of others on this forum and in permaculture books that I can't yet envision myself doing. There are people in this space who have made Class D neighborhoods work (Novella Carpenter comes to mind), but I'm not so sure I have the grit to go through with something like that. Or rather I probably have the grit but I'm not sure that I want to deal with the headache of such a location if I can avoid it.

With regards to #1, you are probably correct. In my career context, that led me to work on some extremely challenging and interesting assignments within special operations. However, I have since left that world and now work among the hoi polloi in an easy military job, which is why I recently have all of this newfound energy/focus to dedicate to projects outside of work.

With regards to #2, I think that is the INTJ in me (although I have tested as ENTJ at times). I find learning and challenging myself to be very rewarding, which has led to growth over time. I'm sure my life will continue to involve the pursuit of mastery in a variety of subjects.

white belt
Posts: 1452
Joined: Sat May 21, 2011 12:15 am

Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

Jin+Guice wrote:
Thu Sep 09, 2021 12:53 pm
As far as meeting people, WL 5 is rough socially, I think. It's not super interesting if all you do is go to a job that you don't really like, save money by not engaging with the world and index invest (not saying you are doing this, but kind of a broad summary I've noticed of people at WL 4-5, in the greater FIREsphere). If most consumer are a few WLs below you, they will think of your experience as either painful or insane. As you get into more activities and community engagement at higher WLs, it's easier to find shared interests with people as well as meet people who go beyond their desk/ couch.

[...]

I find people who are outside of the 9-5, TV, eat/ drink out, work crowd to be more interesting. Finding these people can be difficult if you are in the 9-5 work world. There are usually some access problems, but figuring out what the group of people you'd like to talk to are interested in and learning about it,. or figuring out how to satisfy some need they are likely to have is usually a good way to get passed the barriers to entry.
I actually don't feel all that socially isolated at the moment. I'm not to the point where I can't relate to most people, but it's something I see as becoming more prevalent the further my lifestyle veers from the norm. I am still socializing with some of my same friends, just with some tweaks like packing my own food and avoiding pricey activities (fortunately my friend group is relatively frugal anyway). I'm trying to find people who have parallel activity interests, like fishing or gardening, regardless of their spending level. I do think I will be able to go out on a fishing trip with some people from work which should check most of the blocks.

In terms of the idea of sacrifice and "save money by not engaging with the world", I've actually framed it as being able to have the win-win of a more satisfying lifestyle while also having a lower environmental impact. Instead of thinking "well I guess I can't go to restaurants now so I'll have to give up food X", I'll just research and try out some recipes to prepare food X at home. Often my home version is more satisfying because I know I cooked it myself and also has the benefit of impressing other people.* In other words, I'm trying to brand myself as the guy who can DIY a lot of interesting stuff rather than the guy who just hangs out at home all the time because he never wants to spend any money. I'm aiming for a producer mindset rather than an ultra-efficient consumer mindset.

My strange schedule is a blessing and a curse. In theory, it should enable me to hangout with some of the people who work outside of the 9-5 because I frequently have weekdays off. In practice, I haven't really had much luck with meeting such people with the exception of a girl I hooked up with once who is a sous chef at a restaurant (met on dating app). I know others must exist.

* = Due to the work schedule, most people on my team pack their own meals for work. Sometimes I imagine myself as Patrick Bateman trying to subtly one-up everyone with the quality of my packed meals like Bateman and his coworkers do in American Psycho with the most exclusive consumer products. I'm pretty sure no one else in the office realizes the game but it keeps me amused.

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