I was there - Jackson Falls and Bell Smith Springs - at the same time! It would have been really weird if we had run into each other and figured it out.Shawnee National Forest over the entire Labor Day weekend
Thanks George! Thanks Spoonman!George the original one wrote:Fantastic scenery and good photography! Thanks for sharing!
It wasn't quite that bright to the naked eye. You could see the milky way, but you couldn't see the stars quite as well as in the picture. And the light at the horizon was no where near that bright in person.cmonkey wrote:Those are some awesome photos, I particularly like the Milky Way photo. Was it that bright to the naked eye, or is that just really enhanced by the camera?
haha, yeah.vexed87 wrote:Ah yes, the inevitable has happened. A woman has come along to undo all your hard made plans and work... a nice problem to have though
oh wow! We were thinking about going to Bell Smith Springs. We ended up camping at One Horse Lake (which is just a bit east of Bell Smith Springs), and going to Garden of the Gods, Rim Rock, and Pounds Hollow lake. And we hiked a bit along the main trail through the park. Do you live around this area? (PM me if you want to be more private)Gilberto de Piento wrote:I was there - Jackson Falls and Bell Smith Springs - at the same time! It would have been really weird if we had run into each other and figured it out.Shawnee National Forest over the entire Labor Day weekend
Good luck with your decisions. I'm having something similar and I've found that relationship questions are much harder than financial questions.
yes, absolutely.GandK wrote:Looks like things are going great for you! Congratulations.
If one is going to have a relationship problem, I think "do we continue this great thing or not" is probably the best one to have.
How much more work do you have planned on the van? I cant tell by looking how much more there would be. And other than the van expenses, are you pleased with your financial trajectory?
No, it was a road trip for me.Do you live around this area? (PM me if you want to be more private)
That's how I felt until I realized work was actually preventing me from doing the work necessary to sell. I just wasn't devoting enough time unless I suspended other things I considered important, so the employer loses out on my sparkling wit & wisdom.C40 wrote:I feel like I really need to have the house sold before I quit my job.
Thank you!! I haven't been doing much with the charts lately, lots of focus on other stuff.RealPerson wrote:Congrats on all the new developments. I have read your journal for years with great interest. Your excel graph skills make your journal esthetically pleasing and easier to read. It is terrific to see your plans unfold and come to fruition. The years of work and planning are paying off!
Curious about the sale of the house. As I understand it, selling through a realtor will cost 6% in commissions. Are you considering FSBO? If so, how would you market the house and complete all the steps of the transaction? I would like to sell my house to downsize, but we have a lot of work to do before that point. My neighbors sold their house themselves, for an outstanding price. I am just not sure how they did it. I am concerned about trying FSBO and then later having to go to a realtor. It is my understanding that a house gets "stale" when it has been on the market for a while.
I am not sure if how to get your house listed on MLS without using the realtor. Anybody know how you do that?
Since you already qualified your statement with "theoretically"...C40 wrote:Theoretically, a seller's agent should help me do what is needed to ensure I can get a high sales price, which, theoretically, might make up for the 3% commission.
From Freakonomics, quoted longer hereBefore plunging into the data, it helps to ask a question: what is the real-estate agent's incentive when she is selling her own home? Simple: to make the best deal possible. Presumably this is also your incentive when you are selling your home. And so your incentive and the real-estate agent's incentive would seem to be nicely aligned. Her commission, after all, is based on the sale price. But as incentives go, commissions are tricky. First of all, a 6 percent real-estate commission is typically split between the seller's agent and the buyer's. Each agent then kicks back roughly half of her take to the agency. Which means that only 1.5 percent of the purchase price goes directly into your agent's pocket. So on the sale of your $300,000 house, her personal take of $18,000 of commission os $4,500. Still not bad, you say. But what if the house was actually worth more than $300,000? What if, with a little more effort and patience and a few more newspaper ads, she could have sold it for $310,000? After the commission, that puts an additional $9,400 while she earns only $150, maybe your incentives aren't aligned after all. (Especially when she's the one paying for the ads and doing all the work.) Is the agent willing to put out all the extra time, money, and energy for just $150? There's only one way to find out: measure the difference between the sales data for houses that belong to real-estate agents themselves and the houses they sold on behalf of clients. Using the data from the sales of those 100,000 Chicago homes, and controlling for any number of variables---location, age and quality of the house, aesthetics, whether or not the property was an investment, and so on---it turns out that a real-estate agent keeps her own home on the market an average of ten days longer and sells it for an extra 3-plus percent, or $10,000 on a $300,000 house. When she sells her own house, an agent holds out for the best offer; when she sells yours, she encourages you to take the first decent offer that comes along. Like a stockbroker churning commissions, she wants to make deals and make them fast. Why not? Her share of a better offer---$150---is too puny an incentive to encourage her to do otherwise.
. I've actually heard/read that segment. I'm going to be more concerned about getting the house sold than I am about a few thousand here or there on the price. So our motivations would align on that one. I've been focusing on just enjoying our times together, and not worrying about far off in the future, and reminding myself that we will likely be able to work it out however we decide (me having flexibility, if I wish, could be quite helpful). She seems to be doing a good job of this as well. 
(I was thinking that the short length would be an issue, but in most cases it is not at all) 
I think a more accurate representation of post FIRE spending would not include your van spending, nor your home spending? That is sorta how I'm thinking with my current home remodel. That would mean you are super close if not already at at a 3% SWR.If I take the van costs out of this year’s spending, 6 out of the 8 months so far this year were under the 3.5% line. That doesn’t really mean much, but it makes me feel better.
Factor in the home sale and I'd bet you are ready now. No need to work longer than needed. 
!
