CS's Journal

Where are you and where are you going?
CS
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Re: CS's Journal

Post by CS »

Wow, it has been a long time since posting here. Lots has changed.

I ended up working two (and the third is coming up) temp jobs instead of taking off a lot of time as planned. At the end of this third job, I'll have ~485-490k saved, depending on how well I do with frugal housing. Which means I am so close to 500k that some earnings might get me there by the end of the year anyhow!

I've also temporary moved home and resigned, no, resolved to stay there for a year after this job - at least until I can get on my feet with the writing, aka a new way to make income. At any rate, I could live off of 3% of my savings while home. I asked about paying some rent, but was rebuffed.. think mom just wants me around for now. I'll take it... for now.

My plan is to let the blood money from hated current career multiple while I spend like madwoman all earnings from the new career. (Well, unless I really starting making some change, then it will be more savings of course.) The savings should double over the next decade if I lucky (it's invested right now in PP). If I'm really lucky, I'll have too much new money coming to take Social security at 62 1/2.

There is a slight possibility this last temp job will extend into the new year, which I would take just to get the Solo 401k funded for 2018 and then some. Really want this to be the last job in this field - between the recruiters spreading my personal info far and wide in some sort of identity theft dare to the universe, and the last job sorta sucking to the point I quit without notice (never done that before), that I'm ready for a change. I sometimes marvel that people do just fine without being a *******, like I am. I want to be one of those people.

What else - not going to talk politics here - other threads for that.

I did sign up for a dating service and had good luck - or rather an overwhelming amount of attention resulting in the rather ironic outcome that I sort of ran away and am still alone. Need to buck up and deal with that I think. I did post about wanting the simple life, yada, yada... which went over well. If they think it's code for "she's a cheap date", then they would be right. Just don't expect me to have lots of the latest fashion, etc. Umm, no.

But it's rather difficult to date when going to another state for 4-6 months. I told a few guys I'd be back this fall - now what do I tell them? Sheesh. Maybe I'll just date in that new state, which would open a whole new can of worms. Or I could just enjoy it for the moment and go home. Worked out okay this spring, so maybe.

The biggest struggle I'm having right now is lack of community. I don't need much of one, but with all this traveling I've missed all the Sisters in Crime meetings locally. Perhaps I'll look up the Portland chapter (location of fall job) and hit that up. The local chapter dues should be $20 or less, and it can be a business expense. It IS a business expense - must work on that thinking, eh?

Totally unrelated note, if anyone knows how to get strikethrough text to work in the journals without being an admin, please let me know... I wasted too much time trying to figure that one out.

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fiby41
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Re: CS's Journal

Post by fiby41 »

CS wrote:
Wed Aug 23, 2017 4:06 pm
Totally unrelated note, if anyone knows how to get strikethrough text to work in the journals without being an admin, please let me know... I wasted too much time trying to figure that one out.
Even the admin uses ^H^H^H to emulate strike through text. :lol: You can copy paste strikethrough text though.

CS
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Re: CS's Journal

Post by CS »

Well that answers that on the strike through! Going to have to play around with the copy and paste option. Thanks for the tip fiby41.

Been reading "The Intelligent Investor". It seems to be a 101 basics on value investing. I've skipped a bit ahead just to learn more about stock analysis - something that has felt like a black box until now. Excited to learn this stuff. Not sure if it will be enough to lure me away from a total stock index fund, but perhaps. Things take a while to sink in.

Also got my local library card (finally) and was able to link it up to the much larger, neighboring county library system. Which means access to a slew more books, including ebooks. Pretty happy about that. (It's not as bad as it sounds, I've been out of town for much of the year... excuses, excuses)

CS
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Re: CS's Journal

Post by CS »

So, been thinking about the next step now that 'retirement' is approximately 52 days of work away. (Semi-retirement, could be full, whatever... it's freedom).

I've been reading a lot of blogs lately - Lacking Ambition, Mad Fientist, Retired Syd (thanks Lacking Ambition for that one), JLCollins, and this persistent one that keeps sending stuff to my inbox, Jeff Goins. I keep going back to The Minimalists, but am consistently disappointed in their focus on podcasts. I can read much faster than I can listen - and have little patience for audio these days (unless it is an audio book by Anthony Trollope and I'm driving cross country.)

Doing a google search on blogs for middle aged women talking about existential questions came up with not much. There are recipes sites, and flowers, and homemaker stuff (how our family lives on 14,000 a year, etc) - but these are mostly younger women. Part of the problem is 1. women are busy taking care of everyone else (selfish == bad, also why blogging about the home is okay), 2. Statistically speaking men will read male authors, while women will read men and women authors, this leaves half the audience for women to mine (this is true for books - can I extrapolate to blogs? I'm going to say yes), 3. We women are tired as shit by the time we reach middle age.

The thing is I'm also angry as shit.

Yes, angry.

That dirty little word that is especially bad for women to express. Because, frankly, angry people are scary to be around. I get it.

But it could also be a good thing, because all that anger could be channeled into courage to stop doing 'The Dance'. It takes a hella lot of courage to stop doing 'the dance'.

What is the dance, you ask?

-The dance is going to brunch with your girlfriend and her husband, having a great conversation, only to have to curb it to talk about the husband so he will stop sulking.
-The dance is having to politely ignore when the retirement aged husband puts his hands over his ears and sings 'lalalala' when his wife and two friends talk about how much they love Hillary Clinton (imagine a woman doing that to her husband). I could have punched him. Instead we changed the topic to him talking non-stop about himself. Ass.
-The dance is having to smile politely when you are touched inappropriately at work. You dance away, but discretely, (The ultimate dance skill, eh?)
-The dance is having to tolerate a Wonder Woman with fucking wedge heels, because fucking what - it helps with Amazon warrior training?! Bonus question - Who was doing the dance there - the director? The producer? The audience (tolerate it or no more female lead movies for you!)

Dances from my past -
- Finding lab partners were lazy as fuck, who would let me do all the work, which was the only way to get listened to/get my hands on the gear.
- Switching to to temporary work, so when I was ignored at work, I could shrug my shoulders and let it go because 'not my problem' anyhow.
- Finding a husband with not much going on, so I could lead the way (bad strategy, don't recommend... go for equal, or not at all).
- Walking away from careers where the battle to succeed as a woman was too much to fight (sad, survivalist, also not a great strategy). Film directing was a good example - a man with a shitty beard and a baseball cap and little to no experience has better luck than a woman with a successful first picture under her belt. This is true all the way up, or especially so, at the blockbuster level.
- Shutting the hell up about successes and hoping someone notices. This can work, but there are no promises. Because the only thing worse than an angry woman, is a successful women who is proud of her accomplishments... So make yourself indispensable, but don't commit the cardinal sin of asking for ANYTHING (and 'Respect' is a thing, don't cha know?)

Going back to my list about searching for women bloggers, point three is ironic, because it is precisely at this point when women realize how deeply entrenched misogyny in this culture is, how much it has cost us, how 'it won't happen to me' is so not, not, true. (It HAS happened to you buttercup - did you smile when it did to make them happy??)

The thing is - do I really want to write about all this? Do I want open that well of rage? I don't know. Plus blogging, successfully, is a dang lot of work. It needs constantly posting - substantial content - with a lot of revealing. I haven't even been able to post here consistently for crying out loud, how realistic would it be to think I could do such a thing?

I've come up with a list of topics to start with - things I have to say now. A few of them are:

The cost of keeping doors open
Midlife crisis
Optimizing your life (your time)
Choose something, for now
Fear based reality, or how they keep you working
Boundaries, or what MSRP have you set for yourself?
Minimalism for commitments
The dance (see rant above)

Does any of that sound interesting? Perhaps not to this crew. The problem is, just where the heck ARE all the women?

Side note, I have two, possibly three, meetings with Sisters in Crime authors coming up. These are predominately middle aged women writing books. This makes me happy. So I guess I've found some of them.

CS
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Re: CS's Journal

Post by CS »

Also, I'll state this clearly, I do appreciate what the male bloggers have written, but holy hell, I want to read some women's voices as well.

Scott 2
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Re: CS's Journal

Post by Scott 2 »

There's no shortage of women rallying against the patriarchy. While they tend to be younger, I wonder if there aren't more experienced women behind the veil, using who society pays attention to, in selling their message.

The biggest downside of a blog presence like you've described, is the trolls it will invite. My wife teaches plus size yoga, she's opted keep a very constrained web presence, due to the troll hassles. It's just not worth it.

sl-owl-orris
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Re: CS's Journal

Post by sl-owl-orris »

@CS
What you wrote resonates with me on many levels. Inspired by that I started a separate topic here.

Even today I saw something interesting. When we have evaluations at work we need to ask our colleagues for feedback. Since I recently started, one of the managers showed us examples of feedback he wrote for some other colleagues in the past, just to give us an idea of how it should look like. I noticed that he described men as competent, trustworthy, focused, creative, driven etc. He listed their achievements. However, when he was giving feedback about women he described them as friendly, outgoing, elegant and helpful. In the achievement section, he mentioned things such as ‘adapted well to changes’, ‘is well liked across the office’ etc. In short, men’s feedback was about their work and skills, while women’s feedback was about their personality. It’s hard to get a promotion if all they write about you is that you’re nice.

CS
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Re: CS's Journal

Post by CS »

@Scott 2
Yeah, I'm a little afraid of the troll blowback. But women suffragettes were outright beaten, and still they persisted. Resorting to physical violence to contain women is age old.

Actually, and this is anecdotal, but anecdotal over a lot of women, it seems a lot of the younger women have a 'it won't happen to me' attitude. I posit this is based on a few things.
1. The naiveté of youth. (Why they think they are invincible too)
2. Inexperience (related to 1, but in a more in-depth "It will beat you down like you didn't think possible" sort of way.)
3. Ignorance of history.

It was not that long ago women could not have credit in their own name, or own property. Getting the vote came before credit. And all those things can vanish in a heart beat. Look at Iran. Look at Syria (caused in part by water, btw, which I'm guessing is the next peak thing - or perhaps a place to live that stays under 104 degrees most of year).

By the time women are 40 or 50, they've been shit on enough, had their ideas stolen, been ignored, made less money and had less opportunities to understand it was NOT PERSONAL. There was, often, was jack shit they could have done without banding together with other women and really putting some effort into it. When you are young, this sort of powerlessness is inconceivable.


@sl-owl-orris
That sucks on your review examples. Did you state your observations to your manager? He probably doesn't even know he's doing it, but once you bring it to his attention, you might see a change. If you don't, then perhaps a new job is order.

Also, one thing that makes fair job reviews harder is this - Men are assumed competent, until (any perhaps not even then) proven otherwise. Women are assumed incompetent. This colors all judgment of the results of either sex.

One glorious example of this thinking was the comment two scientists had about their (unknown to them) transgender colleague. Paraphrasing "She does good work, but not as good as her brother." The SAME PERSON. The ONLY thing different was the gender. This article is pretty succinct about the effects:
https://newrepublic.com/article/119239/ ... vance-work

Another article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01883.html

This is why, in the words of MMM, I want to face punch any man who whines about how hard it is to make it. Trying making it when the base assumption about you is incompetence. THIS is why I have a PhD (besides the fact the project was fun). Just to have some credence to compete the slew of MSs out there.

Also, someday I'll post about the idiot physics professors who wouldn't work on my project because I didn't use the same terms for MR spin that they did. And pretty outright rude about it, something I doubt they would do with a male student. I ended up having a physics advisor who worked on the gravity wave team. He thought out of the box, same as with my Biophysics advisor. We were doing cutting edge research in making Quantum Computers with MRI machines. They had a golden opportunity. Whatever. Now, no-one can get tenure without some sort of biology. Too bad for them.

Maybe that last thing isn't so much male/female thing, but more a "it's not incremental research so it scares the bejesus out of me" thing. Still, I don't think they would have been as rude to a guy.
--

Woke up this morning to the shit storm of Bernie BS Sanders being the opening speaker at the Women's convention. With 'friends' like that, FML.

CS
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Re: CS's Journal

Post by CS »

Okay, well a day or so to cool off and yeah - pretty clear I don't want to be a blogger. At least right now.

Today's next career tasks is outlining a book by an author I admire. Transcribing worked when I was learning to make music was an excellent way to learn - this will probably teach a lot as well.

Okay, so here is a completely non ERE thing - I am lusting after a Ford Fiesta SE Manual. I could get the thing new for 12k. It is so fun to drive. (Yeah, yeah, yeah - I KNOW. Not right! BAD er person, BAD!). The reason I'm considering it is that I have a 1999 Honda Civic, bought new, that has been so, so wonderful. But it needs (probably) a new AC Condenser, A new CA Catalytic converter, new engine seals and probably all new hosing since my radiation main hose broke last year and it was only with luck and the help of guys outside a gas station that I was able to save it from overheating.

That night I also learned how to top off radiator fluid in an empty parking lot 20 miles from home, because we had not bled the thing before I ran off to my engagement and I could not drive more than a few miles before the temperature started shooting up. It was oddly super satisfying, even when it was 11 pm and I was doing this under some underpowered streetlight in an unfamiliar neighborhood. My smart phone paid for itself that day.

So why the Fiesta?
This car is like a go-cart for adults, It is the best car I've driven since... my current car. It doesn't feel like an overgrown turd lumbering down the road to squish everything out of it's way.
Plus, I love stick shift cars. (They are a dying breed in this country. Don't cha know?)

And specially, the Fiesta is no more in the USA after 2017. Because Ford hates us (or we are stupid and only buy gas guzzling pieces of shi-- I mean stylish SUVs). Something like that.

One the flip side, my main character is my mystery series is a female mechanic so I could (should?) undertake some of these repairs myself as research. Or find a garage that will work with me (I think I have actually) on doing a mix of DIY and their help.

I have tons of space (during the summer at least) to undertake this - and a backup car I could borrow if needed from dear old mom. So, why isn't this a no brainer?

I want both!

I am like that stupid Donkey in Predictably Irrational that can't decide between two bales of hay and ends up dying of starvation.

Also, I don't 'need' the 12k to make my retirement goals, which makes this whole thing with the indecision so infuriating. Wtf.

Happy Saturday y'all.

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Chris
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Re: CS's Journal

Post by Chris »

Used 2017 Fiestas will be available in 2018, right?

Have you considered which car you would rather have be in a statistically-inevitable crash? I think about this with my (older) car. As long as you're driving, road incidents will occur. It's only a matter of time before a crash/theft/meteor happens. If I had to choose, I'd pick my current car.

If the catalytic converter just bolts in-line, it's certainly something you can do yourself. And if halfway through you realize you can't the car is still drivable.

CS
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Re: CS's Journal

Post by CS »

@Chris

A used Fiesta might be available in 18, but is pushing me towards new is
1. I like stick - they are hard to find in SE trim, especially in Minnesota. Right now I'm on the west coast - I could get one here, now.
Automatic transmissions are huge sources of headaches/repairs needs for cars. Also very not ERE frankly ("Please shift for me because I can't".
No. Learn to row your own damn boat)
2. They are desperate to unload them - 4k off, which makes it the same as one-year used one. (Unless I am not bargaining hard enough
on the used ones.)
3. I'm renting a car for work out here on assignment anyhow - why not use that money towards a new vehicle?

I'm trying really hard to just not purchase it. I keep thinking about the higher insurance, the higher registration costs, the possible 'piece of junk' factor of a Ford econobox made in Mexico, removing my cushion for retirement, other uses for that money (mom wants to go to Alaska).

Not sure how much safer it would be than the civic. 7 airbags verses 2. How well was the civic is designed structurally to disperse energy in a collision? I think the current safety standards are why all the new cars feel like rolling tanks. I'm guessing the Fiesta is as good, if not better than the current car in that regard.

I do go to CA occasionally, so I'd like my car to be CA compliant (I've got plates from there too - it is registered in two states due to my living locations for the last few years. The screws holding the plates on are so dang rusty, I've just left the CA ones on rather than switch them out.) I guess I could learn how to weld if I got a universal one. But at least one company makes a direct fit CAT for my model (yes, I looked it up_)

Rust is actually one of my biggest worries for the old car - already I'm having trouble getting to hood to latch shut again. (Recognizing a personal bad habit: I think need to *do* something about a problem before judging how bad it is. Perhaps a can of WD 40 would solve a lot of my rust issues. Or some sand paper, paint and effort. There has been more than one time I thought the car was toast - and a little bit of effort solved the problem. How many times do I have to experience this before it sinks in?)

CS
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Re: CS's Journal

Post by CS »

Well, I think I've made it through the temporary insanity of wanting a new car. Yay for that victory.

Spent sometime reading the miles stones thread on the Early-Retirement.org page (http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/ ... 65754.html) and now feel a little ill. Ten million here, four million there, a whole conversation on how $3900 a month was just insulting low and not nearly enough. Wtf. One person had a 2k a month property tax.

It felt like being in crazy land.

And I realized how just insane my actions would have been seen (by those folks) to go study for a MFA with about 200k in the bank. The thing is, that was one of the best experiences of my life - not having that would have, well, sucked. It also is opening up to me a new way of making money (and cost me nothing but the opportunity cost of working more in a job I don't like). Coming back to this forum brings back the air in the room.

Some other differences I noticed -
A lot of those folks just count on SS being there. A common plan was to spend down the 401ks so the SS payout was maxed at 70. Wut? I can't imagine anyone here doing such a fragility enhancing thing.

There was no talk, at all, about learning other skills. Perhaps that was a selection error of readings on my part, since their forums are huge and I was only on a few threads. Regardless, thank you Jacob for your systems thinking and being willing to post about it.

There was a lot of talk of OMY (one more year). I think I suffer from OMJ syndrome (one more job). This is probably related to the fragility of their plans. All their eggs were on that one basket, so it better be a humongous ass basket. One that could carry small cities to safety.

--

Speaking of one more job, I got a call about a full time position in my hometown. They had initially told me that I was not in the top-three-thank-you-very-much-good-bye. Fine. I sent a short note thanking them and moved on. 13 days later I get pushy calls from a (later condescending) in-house recruiter asking if I could come in. My travel work experience, which initially bounced me out of consideration, is now a plus since I've worked with so many different machines and know a lot of different stuff. And am flexible enough to work with anything. Long story short, I give in to the pressure and agree to come out next week - even though I'd be in town anyhow two weeks later. This new trip would cost me ~$1700 in lost wages and travel fees for my cat, even if they pay the airfare and hotel, which is crazy considering I thinking of having this be my last assignment for a while. That is $1700 I could really use to support myself while writing.

Also, the recruiter found my linked in page, with my writing and filmmaking stuff on it. I need to delete that thing. It was almost as creepy as when a physicist found my old band pages and pulled up a video of me drumming while I was interviewing with him. Something felt inappropriate about that in a way that I am not clear on to this day.

They are interviewing five people for the job. I tend to think I will not be chosen. Oddly, I often am the chosen one for travel positions (they also interview multiple people for those), but not nearly as often for permanent. So odds are 1.) I am not the favorite even now, and 2.) Even if I smash the interview, someone will nix me. I know the recruiter is trying to discourage me. And I have ill feelings towards him and I don't even work there (yet... or ever).

The benefits at the job on cool though - 457 and 403b plans both available, plus some employer contribution thing in addition (yes, three retirement plans are available at once). It makes it possible to contribute the max 18k (or 24k) to two of them at once, while getting another 6.5% free in a third. Almost as much as you can put away as a super successful solo 401k person.

Blah, whatever. Part of the reason I like working for myself is that someone else's bad planning is not my emergency. This job has bad planning all the heck over it. They need someone for a machine that is coming in TWO WEEKS and has to been good to go in March, with a department move, in a department that has already been designed. These are all things that you should have your person in line to oversee - not pop them in a like piece at the end and expect the whole system to run smoothy.

--

Rebalanced the portfolio. Felt a little stupid for not having more in stock since 2013 since that stock more than doubled (seriously). But using Tyler's portfolio charts (thank you!) have helped me feel better about my choices. Considering switching to the Golden Butterfly. I would do that ala Jacob's technique of saving for the new thing, rather than moving the existing money. So the old portfolio stays as is, and I add the twenty percent on top. Since there is not a planned onslaught of new money after December, this puts off any decision making about putting money into a hot market. That's just fine with me. Maybe a correction will come and I can get a bargain by the time I have cash to invest again.

CS
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Re: CS's Journal

Post by CS »

Just realized this year (2018) will be the first year I'll be living off an amount equal to 3% of the current portfolio. Still trying to accumulate a little more - as well as exercising skills to bring in money a different way- but all in all, a pretty exciting milestone.

Thinking roughly 1480 hours more of day gig... but who's counting.

classical_Liberal
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Re: CS's Journal

Post by classical_Liberal »

...
Last edited by classical_Liberal on Thu Feb 04, 2021 11:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

CS
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Re: CS's Journal

Post by CS »

@classical_liberal

Thanks for saying hi and letting me know you enjoyed that post. In the midst of mid-rant it feels good - but later it can be anxiety producing to think "what did I share?". One of the best things about getting older is that the thought that often comes after THAT one is "Meh, whatever, I said it. " :lol:

It's hard to decide on how to manage the traveling thing isn't it? On paper, a person could do it part time forever, but I find that part of me doesn't trust that the jobs will always come around when needed... hence the push lately to get the nest egg up to a safe WR. And the next money making interest going too...

Plus once I left the certification go, it's not coming back. Big commitment to quitting (and 2k a year to keep it). Do you have that same issue?

Funny that you are close (in?) to Minnesota and I'm out west. I don't know why that amuses me - the big puzzle of getting the right workers in the right places - and we are the workers they have to ship around. Heard it snowed there today!

CS
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Re: CS's Journal

Post by CS »

November 1, 2017 status -
482k in PP, plus 8 months expenses in cash and 7k set aside for some desired dental work (getting rid of the Mercury).

So, yay?, made the minimum I've set for myself. Which feels weird, and oddly scary. A full time position is being persistent. I'm on the fence. I don't want to waste my life on OMY syndrome. ("but more money..." blah blah blah). I mean, technically, I do have enough for 33x times living expenses with my current situation.

--

How is this for randomly aggressive behavior - a top manager at my current assignment is having problems dealing with someone with a big purchase (he comes back to our area to vent and chit-chat). He does his venty-vent thing, then out of the blue, says it must be an estrogen problem. W-t-b-f? I know he thinks I'm the bomb because my recruiter has an email from him saying so, so why this attack on women all the sudden? (yes, I'm the only woman in the room and/or being talked about.)

I was once punched in the stomach by some 5th grader that "liked me". Pushing fifty seems a little old for this shit. Actually any age over embryonic is old for this shit. But I digress.

--

I'm having some days when I don't feel 100% mentally. I feel 50%, or less... things are not computing. I can't remember if I struggled with this in the past, but it is scary as all get out. If I have limited time to do something else (i.e the mental resources), then perhaps I should get a move on instead of perfecting my SWR. I know working full time did a number on my mum's health. I don't want to go down that path.

wolf
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Re: CS's Journal

Post by wolf »

Great CS! Congratulations! I think that journey took a long time (if your joining date is any guideline) I guess, it is rewarding to finally achieve your goals.
May I ask, by which factor your passive income cashflow covers your past/future expenses?
Do you have a transition plan in place?

1taskaday
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Re: CS's Journal

Post by 1taskaday »

Enjoying the journal.
Nice to read another female view on life.

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Bankai
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Re: CS's Journal

Post by Bankai »

Hi CS!

Historically, you have enough capital for close to 100% success rate. Every next year at work gives you less and less money-wise (diminishing returns) while also being the best year health-wise that you choose to trade away for some more money (that you most likely don't need). Why take the risk and trade away even more of your precious time? Or maybe quit for now and revisit the question in a year's time, when you have more data on how you actually feel while not working, know how it feels to live off capital and decide then if you want/need to come back to work? Your life can unfold in unexpected ways, but only if you let it.

CS
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Re: CS's Journal

Post by CS »

@Mdfire2024
My timeline is a little deceiving. Yes, it did take me that long, but I was also going to school full time for three years during that period, which was free, and paid a little for living expenses. I worked summers and holidays. The last year and a half I've been pushing harder with near back to back gigs. So it doesn't really feel all that real yet - since I guess I've been semi-retired for a while now.
My entry into the PP was in 2013, which if you check out the heat chart from Tyler's portfolio charts, was a bad year to enter it. It feels like all my gains have been the brute force savings way. I'm taking it on faith that it will turn around now that I'm in it and will show some positive returns. I'm following all the rules the best I can. Of course, I just added a large amount, so will 2017 be the same as 2013? Maybe... the high stock market valuation alone makes me think it's possible.
I don't have a transition in place. My main goal at this point is to work on a new hobby - writing - that I hope will generate income. I'd be over the moon if I could make 15-30k a year. I'd have something fun to do, an interest to meet like minded people over, and the security of a new way to make money. My current nest egg *just* covers 3% right now. I need a little bit more if I buy a condo/townhouse/rent somewhere. That, too, makes it feel not quite there yet. On the other hand, I could travel overseas today and be set.

@1taskaday
Thanks! I like your handle. It is calming just to read! (Spoken as a list maker)

@Bankai
You are right of course. It is scary to leap off. I've done it before, with other changes, and all has worked out, so there is nothing to do but face the fear.

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I'm doing nanowrimo this month. Or rather I'm failing to do it. All hope is not lost, since I know I can do 4k words a day (past pace) and catch up. I'm hereby declaring I'm writing the shitty version of my novel. Anything else paralyzes me with anxiety. Viva la crap!

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