classical_Liberal's Semi-ERE

[ThriftyRob]

I guess influenced by knowing that Jacob lived in a RV for some time, I have explored the 'van life' movement in some depth. DW has ruled it out as an option full-time and when I modelled the costs of part-time, I couldn't get the numbers to stack up because of the cost of a home 'base' which is empty half the year. Having researched a number of YouTube conversion vlogs, most self-builders have overspent their initial budget by between 50 per cent and 100 per cent due to naivety when planning at the start and 'specification creep' during the build. Our current thinking is that owning an economical, small car and staying in a mix of hotels, Airbnbs and house-sitting will be more affordable in supporting our travel plans without depleting our capital or blowing our monthly spend budget.

[classical_Liberal]

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[classical_Liberal]

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[2Birds1Stone]

Not all cars =), I made a shitty (in hindsight) move, and my car happened to depreciate a ton thanks to a complete model haul-over. There are MANY vehicles (vans included), which with some elbow grease, can and do hold/increase in value. I think a used van which you convert to live in could at worst be a net-worth neutral endeavor.

I still think the accounting method is very good, no correlation with salaryman/Renaissance/Working man etc way of thinking.

[Riggerjack]

Two thoughts.

One, you are on the right track regarding your operational fund. Now try to remember that NW is the total of all funds, minus all liabilities. So moving $Xk from a taxable fund to your operational fund has no affect on your NW. It's simply a reallocation of assets from more passive investment to more active investment.

Two, you burn out in full-time employment as a contract hospital nurse. And fully retired former nurse is also suboptimal. Trying to balance two unsatisfactory extremes is... Unsatisfactory.

I'm no expert in nursing, but I have been a patient a few times, and I think you have eliminated the more satisfying options for the higher $/he of contract nursing, and now that the $/hr means less (now that you have "enough"), you are looking for more meaning/hr.

So, with this in mind, have you considered a hard change to the nursing work you are looking for?

Because most of the nurses I encounter aren't working in hospitals. They work in private practices or small clinics. You don't want to work full time forever, surely there are substitute nurses for smaller operations. Maybe try switching temp agencies to one that provides substitute nurses, rather than quarterly contract nurses for large organizations that think of nurses as an expense line item.

You seem to have over optimised. When I find that I have over optimised, my most productive thoughts have been in re-examining previously discarded options.

Often, given the new situation, the previously optimal option, is no longer optimal.

So what would optimal nursing look like for you, right now? Great, now who does that? And can you help them, on a part time or substitute basis?

Good luck!

[classical_Liberal]

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[Mister Imperceptible]

2021 Ford Bronco fully loaded

[classical_Liberal]

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[Mister Imperceptible]

https://www.ford.com/bronco/

[Frita]

If you buy smart on the van, you can make out like a bandit. The previous and first owner passed away after being ill. The van was garaged for a couple years. Her heir sold it at an incredibly low price. Having done my research, I knew it was a potential deal. My spouse did some work on it and we paid a mechanic to do some other things.

We had our camper van for two years and made a bit north of $3000 when we sold it. My spouse was shocked. If I wanted, we could have asked more or hosted a bidding war. Not cool, I just asked what I knew was a fair price. It was a good lesson for our teen on buying used and modeling how we treat people with respect even when we could fleece them.

Two, you burn out in full-time employment as a contract hospital nurse. And fully retired former nurse is also suboptimal. Trying to balance two unsatisfactory extremes is... Unsatisfactory.

I'm no expert in nursing, but I have been a patient a few times, and I think you have eliminated the more satisfying options for the higher $/he of contract nursing, and now that the $/hr means less (now that you have "enough"), you are looking for more meaning/hr.

Well-said. This can apply to any profession. I have yoyo-ed between two extremes myself (crappy culture and no work), though I have never made a high salary in education. Jacob hit the mark that the goal of ERE isn’t to just make bank or stopping having a j-o-b. I am slowing grasping this, as you said not failing for the fallacy of balance between two extremes. Meaning is on a third dimension.

[classical_Liberal]

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[Frita]

Update 8/18/2020

Work
I tried to quit my job today. I had emailed my boss for another contract to start in a few weeks and was told I shouldn't have control of which region I work in. This was much different than my understanding and hadn't been an issue until this point. Straw-camel. I resigned. Only to get a phone call and an email that they wanted to keep me and we should talk. So now I've got a call scheduled tomorrow afternoon.

At this point I'm going to heed the advice of others here(thanks @riggerjack & @frita) and try to craft the job to fit my needs. I think I'll approach it direct and honestly. I was on the fence before, this new thing sent me over. Even if you give in, and give me the flexibility I already thought I had, it's not enough.

Fair warning, I am just coming off my most recent unsuccessful (last?) attempt to craft a meaningful job in a place that Native people considered an evil vortex. Some things I have (re)learned are:
• Just because one is direct and honest does not mean anyone will reciprocate.
• Once an employer lies or tries to jerk a person around, the behavior baseline has been lowered. It does not improve.
• Most people just don’t grok that working is optional for others. They are working (and engaging in their reprehensible moral flexibility) because they most likely “have to.“
• I suppose someone else would say to get things in writing. My take is more old school: If one needs it in writing beyond a normal contract, don’t do business with this scumbag of a person.
Good luck with your conversation tomorrow.

BTW Why does your GF want to get married so badly? Do you plan to have kids? Are you religious? Being married for 29 years to the same person, I’d say commitment and character and communication are what’s vital. Does being engaged or married change this?

[classical_Liberal]

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[ertyu]

Hm it’s possible getting married is one of those things — there’s never the right perfect time where everything is safe and perfect and flows beautifully with no problems or issues. Holding out for such an improbable state is more a symptom of denial about underlying avoidance or other issues than a legitimate hindrance. While I see the wisdom in planning things out and working through issues, it seems to me that that’s what’s going on here. You just don’t want your life to change, you want to have your cake and eat it too, and you’re making excuses by making a bigger deal out of all the things that you need to iron out. I feel like I’m uniquely positioned to smell it when someone’s being an avoidant coward so felt like I’d contribute.

[horsewoman]

Not sure about the time difference and if you had you call already... My current job is pretty crafted to my needs as well, the best advice I can give is to make it very clear very early in the conversation that you don't need the job.this puts you instantly in the stronger position. Also don't be afraid to own your strengths and make clear why you are more valuable to them if they give you contracts within your parameters compared to being either constrained of no longer with them. I hope that makes sense! Good luck!

[2Birds1Stone]

Yeah, this has been my question to her lately. There may be some religious undertones to her thoughts. Mostly though, I think she just wants good old fashioned commitment on my part, while she's still young.

It's not like she sprung it on me, I mean she's been upfront about eventually wanting marriage since pretty much day one. It's just that now seems like a bad time, we've both been working to get our lifes to the point where we want them and are on the precipice of greatness, so to speak. I always kind-of hoped we'd just "be there" and decide to get married one day. Like, after a few years of living our ideal lives together.

The bolded text could have described my own relationship to the T. We got married shortly after 9 years of dating/living together, so definitely didn't rush into it, but I was the one who hesitated, for the same reasons you lay out. My wife also understood all of the rational reasons for domestic partnership, and avoiding the official piece of paper from the state government, yet despite the rationality, was extremely happy/surprised when I proposed in 2017.

Dovetailing from that bit of experience, my advice it twofold. Do not create some arbitrary checklist that leads to a predictable engagement. You know your SO best, but one of the best things I ever did was propose when DW least expected it. Second, is to echo ertyu's comment. The time/place will never feel perfect, and it's really easy to keep kicking the can down the road, moving the goalposts, very much like those suffering from OMY syndrome and work.

For reasons I'm not even sure I can exactly formulate into words, getting married was a great thing, life just feels different now, in a good way, despite all of the hesitations and valid reasons "not to".

Take this all with a grain of salt, I'm only ~8 months deep here.

Editing to add: thanks to YOU, I'm using the same/similar bucket approach to my finances (both individual and combined with DW).

Immediate spending (6-24 months) - Checking/Savings/Cash
Intermediate (2-10 years) - CD Ladder/I Bonds/Taxable Brokerage
Retirement - 401k/rIRA/tIRA/HSA/Ag/Au

The first bucket can get topped up from the second, but I refuse to tap into the retirement bucket unless I know that money can sustain a desirable lifestyle at age 60+. Just like you, I plan on replenishing the second bucket through sporadic work, projects, and other unknown activities, which may also lead to adding some funds to the third bucket (if I/DW works a job with access to those types of accounts).

[basuragomi]

Three biggest reasons I changed my mind about marriage and eventually got married:

1) You don't have a choice. Here, common-law marriage is in force. If the state will consider you married anyways, might as well do it on your own terms.

2) You get to explicitly define your relationship. If you disagree with your local marriage laws/norms, you have the opportunity to challenge or change them with your own marriage contract/pre-nups. Again, without a formal marriage the state will force the default on you anyways.

3) From a time and hassle perspective getting married may be easier than having to convince institutions and people, over and over, to respect the level of trust you have in your partner. Marriage is an incredibly powerful and widely-recognized status symbol. It's literally giving someone the power of life and death over you. Many useful institutions and laws are also built around the idea that only spouses have privileged status. See all the stories of common-law couples stranded by COVID border closures. And again, if you don't choose someone the state will choose someone for you, likely when you have no control over the situation.

I think I started off by thinking that one would get married after demonstrating that their relationship could survive any hardship. Now I think it's more a statement that you deeply trust this person to face future hardships with you. It's the difference between viewing a marriage as a risk to be managed versus a marriage being a method to manage risk.

[Frita]

Now I think it's more a statement that you deeply trust this person to face future hardships with you.

I agree with this statement as one can never know what or how many hardships can occur. Being a long-time married person, who went from first meeting to church wedding in six months, I’d say marriage involves faith, ongoing skill development, as well as risk management. There are ups and downs. Sometimes things need to be renegotiated and recalibrated. It’s a long-term relationship in a culture dominated by fastfood, disposable products, and racking up credit to buy something new. I would suspect that the ERE-like philosophy enhances marriage viability though.

[Hristo Botev]

Re marriage, you guys are living together and sexually active with one another, right? If so, please forgive the cheezy idiom, but the obnoxious man in me says: why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? On the other hand, the father of a daughter in me thinks I have a pretty good idea of what I'd be encouraging your GF to do if I were her father, and that'd be to lay down the ultimatum, and to do it now and make the results immediate.

I also wouldn’t mind any comments people have about their general anecdotal experiences with marriage.

I'm 15 years in at this point (marriage, that is), and my anecdotal experience is I can't (and don't want to) imagine life otherwise. That said, and I'm a devoutly religious person so take this with a grain of salt: I don't really understand the point of marriage without at least the prospect of children (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1buybmnQ0nQ). The reason behind the binding commitment is for the sake of the kids that result from that marriage. If you're not interested in starting a family with your GF, then it seems like you've got things pretty well set up currently. If you and GF want to start a family, then by all means get married. And as for the waiting for the right time and getting your life in order before marriage, I second what ertyu said; my personal take is you build your life with someone, not for someone. If we could do it over again DW and I both would have gotten married to one another much earlier than we did.

[CS]

Congrats on resigning the job. I find great delight when the people on the other end discover to their horror someone saying "no thanks."

Ask for the moon.

And never trust them again. On anything.

On marriage:

Even my marriage, which had many negatives, had a lot of positives. It is a different state, in ways you cannot anticipate from the outside. A marriage with a good working partner seems to be one of the best risk mitigators in life. A bad marriage is one of the worst dangers. I guess I'm saying it all depends on your partner.