Lemur Journal!

[Lemur]

Need a few days off soon......some burnout I'm dealing with and I don't even have it the worst on our team. I'm convinced at this point I work for robots. I don't know how my managers constantly push out 55+ hour weeks every week meanwhile I'm putting up walls to resist working past 45 hours a week as much as possible. Our motivations are different that is for sure. That big director/partner $300k+ salary carrot doesn't do it for me. All the managers are gunning for that. Meanwhile, I'm dealing with cognitive stresses trying to manage workload in a up or out environment.

[Lemur]

Took one day off next Monday. Not sure if that is enough for a recovery but it definitely made me look forward to a 3 day weekend. Just need to slug this week out...

Only reason I didn't take longer is because my spouse wants me to save more PTO. Okay I can compromise. She has the unfortunate opposite problem - not enough work due to virus impacting her supplier shipments for her business.

[Lemur]

April 30, 2020

Investments:
Invested - $202,422.84 (+$18,569.85)
Debt - $50,000.00
Cash Savings - $5,451.04 (+$3,551.04)
Net - $157,873.88 (+ $22,120.89)

Cash savings grew substantially due to normal savings + recent stimulus checks. I now have 2.72 months expenses in cash savings. Investments grew substantially due to some market recovery + options premiums + buying in at good prices for Walmart, Microsoft, and WFC.

I own KO, WMT, MSFT, GE, WFC (new), and AMD (new). I am still writing puts for AAPL, PG, and more for AMD. I'm also selling covered calls on the stocks I own but with the strike price 25%+ of my cost basis. I'm making easy income for that.

I'm still very much a bear and after I'm done with cash savings (aiming for 6 months worth), I will have to think of my next moves. I'm also very big on AMD long-term. A lot of sentiment believes that AMD will overtake INTEL in 10 years time. Possibly sooner. AMD could be a 3x-4x bagger at its current price if this prophesy is true.

Physical Health / Diet: I've recovered from my injury greatly. Pain is 2/10 most days. Key was strengthening the multifudus muscle (which is known to atrophy from those with herniated discs) and the glute muscles (to take stress off the back - you have to make the hips do more work). With that, I am now going to begin a slow-paced diet to drop back down to 175lbs while retaining the gained muscle (I ate like a bear during recovery to induce muscle hypertrophy from my physical therapy exercises).

Mental Health: Stable but dealing with some occupational burnout. I've been slogging through work this week after putting in all the recent over-time. I took one day off next Monday to just "disconnect." I'm still thankful I'm not commuting. My savings rate has increased to 50% due to the lack of transportation.

Job: Still love telework. Over-worked recently but I turned down FIRM work. I have to get better at setting boundaries. Declining work felt weird but I have no regrets.

Gardening: Cucumbers failed. Will try again. I'm successful with all other plants so far (pumpkin, zucchini, tomatoes, garlic, radish, carrots, onions, and potatoes.

Family: My sister quit her extra job (she was at 50+ hours a week as a health care professional). Good for her. She has lost 50lbs and is focusing more on hobbies/life lately. She has motivated me to kick start my diet again as well. My spouse finally got a shipment of supplies in for her business so thankfully her boredom will be cured in the short run.

Other: Still reading the financial wisdom book but also taking the resilience.org course mentioned in another thread.

[Lemur]

http://earlyretirementextreme.com/the-longest-line.html

Relevant that on coming to this website today this was the blog post. I've just finished watching a documentary on the Rwanda Genocide and learned about the "Rape of Nanking" after watching World War II in color on Nextflix. Scary to think how the average person is capable of atrocities in the right circumstances. Authority, helplessness, and propaganda is a deadly mix.

[basuragomi]

For what it's worth, the Milgram experiment has been strongly criticized for most participants not believing that the scenario was "real." The Stanford prison experiment not only had a severe selection bias issue (affluent white males in their most antisocial life stage), but the "guards" had their behaviour coached daily. In the Asch experiment, 95% of participants defied the group at least once. People behave differently when the stakes are low and they're playing make-believe.

[Lemur]

@basuragomi

For military related genocides (Holocaust, Rape of Nanking, etc.) the authority level is extremely high. "Just following orders" after years of sometimes subconscious training that the enemy is sub-human.

The Rwanda Genocide was ...different. These were average people, living in villages, who took machetes to commit genocide against their neighbors. They were not military but heavily influenced by over a year of propaganda by Radio (Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines) from the extreme wing of the Hutus. They saw the Tutsis as different.

The theme I see is the same, the victims are labelled as a lower class of human either due to propaganda or authority. Innately, this may be a primitive reason why humans fear being in an out-group.

When money didn't exist, we relied on social capital and being in an in-group. Imagine being a hunter-gatherer and expelled from your group. That probably meant death 90% of the time. I have to imagine hunter-gatherer groups war'd with other hunter-gatherer groups.

[Jason]

Nothing like a discussion on genocide to get your mind off this friggin' pandemic.

If you haven't read it already, I would recommend Samantha Power "A Problem From Hell." It does not include Japan and its horrific acts imposed on the people of China as the criteria outlined in the Genocide Act requires a systematic removal of a people group as opposed to an act of spontaneous cruelty imposed by a renegade army.

[Lemur]

My grand master plan for a 3 day weekend decimated due to firm work. The joys of working for a Big 4 audit firm. "Work Life Balance"

PTO = Oh you get a day off from client work; here is some stuff to work on to grow the business.

Lemur essentially has two options:
- Get another job
- Suck it up

The former would've been likely....but due to the virus, the timing would be terrible. All this extra work = income preservation at this point because I doubt raises/bonuses happening in this environment. The firms are certainty taking advantage of this situation....sucks to be labor.

On a positive note since I don't like to just be a complainypants, I'm getting hands on training on some essential business skills....my network is growing which may lead to opportunities down the road, I'm getting some personal growth from the high-pressure deadlines and situations. And everything afterwards should be comparatively easier. Oh and not to mention....I try to keep my eye on the long-term vision...like I could get another easier job for less money but that would mean it would take longer to build up investments.

The extra work I'm doing is going to look good for promotion purposes....which I never wanted to gun for but since the FIRM basically forces you to step up...I might as well go for it and get the extra money. Otherwise its like I'm just doing 1 level up work for 1 level down pay.

[Lemur]

To watch list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Econo ... _Happiness

[Lemur]

Closed out a short position in Apple and sold a put on AMD for $50 strike this Friday. Very quick profit. If assigned, AMD will be my largest holding.

[Lemur]

From the SWR Thread:

12/01/2018 - 32.97% [$750,000 * 0.04 = $30,000 / $91,000]
04/30/2019 - 20.34% [$600,000 * 0.04 = $24,000 / $118,000]
05/22/2019 - 17.78% [$600,000 * 0.04 = $24,000 / $135,000]
11/12/2019 - 16.90% [$600,000 * 0.04 = $24,000 / $142,000]
04/30/2020 - 15.21% [$600,000 * 0.04 = $24,000 / $157,800]


Woke up early today (surprising...I usually just wake up 5 minutes before the first conference call of the day lol) so something I haven't done in a long time is to write out a list of my current expenses:

Expense Cost
Rent $850.00
Food $400.00
Other $300.00
Electricity $100.00
Car Insurance $92.00
Gas $60.00
Phone $59.00
Water $35.00
Trash $30.00
Internet $30.00
Total $1,956.00
Assets Req $586,800.00


I keep asking myself, how can I bring down my (and family of 3) expenses to the next $100k so total of $500k in assets needed. At the moment, I have locus of control for 2 of these: food and 'other'. Now 'other' is just a catch-all for cleaning supplies, mower parts, car repairs, basically anything that is a variable expense that I can't plan for. Or can I plan for? I haven't fully embraced one of the ERE principles yet of DIY instead of running out to Walmart to buy what I need...this is usually due to a time-value idea. For instance, I could spend hours banging my head on something...waiting for a deal on a used good...or just go out and get it because "I make good money anyway."

All my other expenses are the best they're going to get at the moment as I'm splitting house fixed expenses.

My next steps over the next few months is to track food / other a bit more. These are also rough estimates. I may actually go through my bank statement for this year and go month by month to see where the actual food expense is falling.

I can immediately think of one expense to be eliminated. It felt innocent...3x 12 packs of diet soda for $10.00. But lets say we take that deal twice a month...that is $20.00 a month or $6,000 in assets. My energy drink sin ...$40 a month or $12,000. Already right there I'm seeing $20,000 trim.

Sodas are not worth $6,000.
Energy Drinks are not worth $12,000.

Seemingly innocent habits...add up to a lot....especially the so-called infrequent ones like this. It happens, spouse and I work hard all day. Feeling tired and "deserving" ...don't feel like cooking bam order Chinese. $33.00 or $9,900 assets needed. I know we do this more then 1x a month.

[Cheepnis]

Drinking water is a very easy way to save money. It's also one of the easiest ways to cut calories if you're into that.

Back when I first found MMM a few years ago I started a "small things that add up" thread, one of the things I listed was primarily drinking water. There was huge pushback that I was not expecting and the thread turned into a debate about whether or not I was missing out.

That was my first warning that I should maybe find another forum!

[jacob]

I've been watching the Spendaholics BBC show since Alice_AU mentioned it a few days ago. They usually highlight two categories of inessentials in each episode during the first 10-15 minutes. Here's one with bottled water: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3GefCDpql8

[Scott 2]

Two views on the energy drinks:

What's the health impact of $40 worth a month? It can't be positive. That gives me much greater pause than the price.

If you are using them as a performance enhancer, what's the return? One great day at work could easily offset the extra $40 expense.

[Jason]

I once worked with a small, multi-generational, family owned, entrepreneurial bottler. Really just a glorified machine shop when it came down to it. What I later learned was that they became multi-millionaires when they noticed the uptick in the vitamin/flavored water/energy drink demand and invested in the companies for whom they were bottling. My guess is, they never took a sip of any of it. Just a bunch of guys walking around in overalls operating bottling machines taking stock of the trends of the market. It's a reminder that purchasing these products is making others, no brighter than yourself, filthy rich. In an era of no-fee trading, you could invest that $40 a month in the most risky shit out there giving you a chance to get some return on your money as opposed to ensuring that you are both figuratively and literally pissing it away.

[Lemur]

@cheepnis

I think I vaguely remember that thread....2012/2013? I browsed MMM forum for a month or so back then when I first discovered it. MMM was the first time I heard of FIRE.

@jacob

Probably one of my spouses customers lol. My spouse is in that business - works from home. The amount of repeat customers she has boggles my mind.

@Scott 2

Health - probably negative or somewhat negligible. Caffeine is good for the brain, not good for the teeth, not good for sleep quality. For what it is worth, I only drink the 0 sugar ones. I'm not against fake sugar / alternative sugar. The science says safe for consumption and nothing I can find makes me to believe not to trust that.

You bring up a good point though as to my why- It helps with energy & productivity. I'll have to browse my own journal ; I did post something useful about changing habits...need to apply myself. Essentially, need to see this not from a reductionist view but a gainful view...also there are cheap alternatives : Caffeine pills or black coffee. Easier to replace a habit then it is to completely remove it. At least it would help with transition.

@Jason

When Pepsi bought Rockstar Energy I immediately wanted to invest in Pepsi. Rockstar has a very loyal following. They're my go-to. Great move by Pepsi. Rockstar tastes better then Monster as well.

Yeah $40 a month could have gotten more some more GE & AMD shares.

[Lemur]

Woa....I'm actually really surprised. Estimated $400 a month but actuals are worse. The Lemurs must be printing money lately lol.

Food Spending
January $428.93
February $515.76
March $625.98
April $714.35
May (current) $146.35

Turns out my bank has a cool feature where you can categorize each expense. Since we spend everything on 1 credit card and pay it off when I get paid, this would be easy to track. So motive for May....stay under $300 (we actually did a lot of stocking up in April which would explain that),

I would say my end goal is $250 a month max. This would trim off $45k. And I'm gonna set categories up for 'other' and track this down a bit more. Not gonna look at historical for this exercise. Just going forward.

[Lemur]

Friday - Long walk after work maybe 2 hours or so.
Saturday - 30 minute or so jog. First jog in many months. First in 2020?
Sunday - Just did a 90 minute jog. My 4 year old joined me for the first 20 minutes or so. Forgot how much I loved running. Really clears the mind.

I'm probably doing too much too quick. I'm a little sore but trying to build regular jogs into my routine.

Did some grocery shopping. Came out to $150 or so. Hopefully will last the rest of the month. No sodas purchased. No energy drinks purchased. Just started drinking water regularly. I'm adding chunks of cucumber for some freshness flavor.

One reason I started running again was to build up my work capacity, endurance, and take my mind off some things of course.

Running changes the brain afterall: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6148340/

[2Birds1Stone]

Are those expenses you posted for two people? Or are your wife's completely separate?

[Lemur]

@2Birds1Stone

Whole family.