SustainableHappiness Journal

Where are you and where are you going?
SustainableHappiness
Posts: 266
Joined: Tue Jun 28, 2016 6:39 pm

Re: SustainableHappiness Journal

Post by SustainableHappiness »

First Week Off
- Ate bacon and eggs for breakfast with DW 4 out of 7 days due to a fantastic sale on bacon (ending up buying 12 packs…) and the fact we could, typically we have bacon and eggs on weekends only
- Progressed digital marketing income stream (still at $0, but gaining exposure and learning rapidly)
- Mildly bitched at surveyors to get me my damn survey to finalize our rentals severance. Still haven’t received.
- Anxious Monday/Tuesday with no reason, likely due to impact of change
- Finished book from library
- Worked out or massaged/yoga 6 days
- Read to baby every night
- Taught both courses and prepped for next week
- Restarted consistent morning routine of mindfulness meditation (5 of 7 days) -> 10-20 minutes of yoga -> read a classic or traditional book of wisdom (currently Tao Te Ching)

Overall state at end of week – Content
Average state throughout – Mediocre/slightly anxious

SustainableHappiness
Posts: 266
Joined: Tue Jun 28, 2016 6:39 pm

Re: SustainableHappiness Journal

Post by SustainableHappiness »

Second Week Off

- Ate well, both deliciously and healthily (minus leftover ice cream from thanksgiving!)
- made lots of broth from families chicken carcasses from thanksgiving
- Bought 10 lb of carrots for $2 and pickled about 6 lbs, ate the rest (who knew you could pickle carrots??)
- Exercised 5/7 days
- Morning routine 100% execution 6/7 mornings
- Surveyors still suck, lined up the realtor who will be engaged in selling our houses, she's got possible investors in line...hopefully cha-ching
- taught both courses, prepped, marks, etc.
- move digital marketing learning forward
- spent lots of time reading/walking/sitting with DW and Baby
- played video games yesterday for first time in ~4-5 weeks (was playing 1-2 times a week, resolved to cut back when I went off work)
- started Plato's Euthyphro
- had/will have 3 dinners/hang outs with friends and family this weekend

Overall State now - Content
Average throughout - content with some anxiety (but different) still

The anxiety was actually interesting this week in that it was almost liked now that I have time to think I resurfaced a nagging doubt/thought process that's been in my mind all along, but now I am facing it head on instead of distracting with work+all the things I fit in around work.

I am viewing this as a growth opportunity and funnily enough I was listening to a podcast this week called "Philosophize This" and the topic was Kierkegaard and his focus on boredom, anxiety and despair as fundamental parts of the human condition and they are typically their regardless of the actions we take to avoid them. Granted he is talking about them usually in relation to your spiritual and ethical selves, finite/infinite, and in my case it may be my fear of the finite/infinite (i.e. the turmoil caused by a fear of death AND fear of living forever)...

Anyways, this will be good to reflect on in the future I think.

classical_Liberal
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Re: SustainableHappiness Journal

Post by classical_Liberal »

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SustainableHappiness
Posts: 266
Joined: Tue Jun 28, 2016 6:39 pm

Re: SustainableHappiness Journal

Post by SustainableHappiness »

Ha! Another interesting phenomena I didn't understand until the past few weeks although it's a common retiree refrain, "free time" is relative, because even though my time is unscheduled, only in the first week did I have the feeling of boredom-based anxiety and my list of ideas has become unbound with less schedule (more free time) which eats up the time that was unlocked in the first place just with different (and so far more interesting) focus!

SustainableHappiness
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Re: SustainableHappiness Journal

Post by SustainableHappiness »

Third Week Off

- New workout routine of every other day very high intensity weight training, off day = more biking than just errands, or stretching/yoga, or just the regular nature walks and lazing around!
- Morning routine good
- Made and ate good food (incorporated more red wine than usual in cooking this week as we had a bottle open from the weekend...delicious, particularly with fried onions/mushrooms as a topping for falafal patties)

Biggest thing this week was another business opportunity materializing out of the blue. This time spurred by a tight network contact who was let go from their employer, but has the necessary contacts and know-how as well as positive reputation to start a business in our field. This spurred 3 days of a conversation topic for DW and I on how the semi-RE trial period has gone (only 3 weeks in), what we want as our 3, 5, 10 year goals, etc. My anticipated business timeline would be -> ~50-60K start-up expense, primarily in software licensing fees -> first year lock down 1-2 contracts worth ~$150K at an $80/hr billable rate -> second, third, fourth years scale business via freelance or co-op employees to perform hourly work and skim the profits... It was at this point in building the plan that I realized...fuck, I'll be FI well within 5 years and then what? Just walk away from the business? Put in effort to scale down? Sell my portion?

Essentially I'd be loaning ~60K to the business (with interest) in order to turn my current career into a fully mobile role (currently only work from home 1-2 days a week) with a highly likely ramp up in hours over 2 years to get things moving only to quit after another 3 years...is this worth it??

The conclusion was no, in fact the conclusion branched out to a couple of our income streams to lead to a resounding "NO". We are going to sell our rentals (already planned), I'm going to stop pursuing a structured digital marketing gig, I'm not going to start the business. Instead I am going to leverage positive reputation in current career when I go back to make that job more fulfilling via more work from home days and a different department that will allow me to use some of my new digital marketing knowledge and grow that skill set without taking a pay-cut.

The lost earning/profit potential is made up for through simplicity and knowing I will; have X number of hours every day to spend with my family, and 1 hour a day at lunch to workout for the next 3 years. At that time I'll shift to part-time teaching only and hopefully DWs business will be making some money and then we'll be semi-RE again. These days at home have been beautiful and revealed that a few more years building my corporate resume and skills to solidify our financial foundation for a half-assed 10 hour a week career in academia is worth it.

This feels solid and good decision making, however I have been told that I am "like a fart in a windstorm", so we'll see where the wind blows next.

classical_Liberal
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Re: SustainableHappiness Journal

Post by classical_Liberal »

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SustainableHappiness
Posts: 266
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Re: SustainableHappiness Journal

Post by SustainableHappiness »

@classical_liberal
Hahaha! Clearly my typing paints me in a more sound, knowledgeable light than I feel! Thank you though, your point on running to vs running from reminds me of the song "The Weight of Lies" by the Avett Brothers. I think of it whenever I consider running away (physically or mentally) from problems X, Y and Z.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ5isLBu_To

"The Weight Of Lies"

Disappear from your home town
Go and find the people that you know
Show them all of your good parts
Leave town when the bad ones start to show

Go and wed a woman
A pretty girl that you never met
Make sure she knows you love her well
But don't make any other promises

The weight of lies will bring you down
And follow you to every town 'cause
Nothing happens here that doesn't happen there
So, when you run make sure you run
To something and not away from 'cause
Lies don't need an aeroplane to chase you anywhere

I once heard the worst thing a man can do is draw a hungry crowd
Tell everyone his name, pride, and confidence
But leaving out his doubts
I'm not sure I bought those words
When I was young I knew most everything
These words have never meant as much to anyone
As they now mean to me

The weight of lies will bring you down
And follow you to every town 'cause
Nothing happens here that doesn't happen there
So, when you run make sure you run
To something and not away from 'cause
Lies don't need an aeroplane to chase you down

SustainableHappiness
Posts: 266
Joined: Tue Jun 28, 2016 6:39 pm

Re: SustainableHappiness Journal

Post by SustainableHappiness »

Fourth Week Off

- Our son, after 2 months of relative baby bliss, decided to stop sleeping for more thank 45 minutes at a time about 4 days ago
- This week went to complete mental chaos, particularly for DW
- Tears and subtle tension were the norm due to rough around the edges fatigue of ~4 hours of sleep a night broken into 1-2 hour chunks...Fatigue lowers awareness, and lowered awareness causes us to forget how connected we are
- Last night was better and normalcy actually returned in the evening last night, persisting through this morning
- only 1 day of the desired routine this week, although we still ate well
- instead of vigorous exercise I subbed out for 2 hours of walking each day with 13 organic lbs strapped to my chest (the best way to help Baby SH sleep), although I did get to play soccer one night as a call up for a friends team which was fun
- got invited and went to a full day networking event (with free lunch) where I may have potentially uncovered 1 or 2 more possible money making ideas (public speaking and a small business development side-hustle)
- Candidly declined a more full-time gig in my digital marketing side-hustle, however the owner liked my work and wants to throw me some more 2 to 3 week long projects while I am on leave...I now need to decide how much I am worth in this field.

Biggest takeaways:
1) Financial independence couldn't have prevented this weeks suffering
2) Public speaking can pay a ridiculous amount if I can garner a good reputation for little work (a mediocre speaker = $2500 for a 4 hour workshop) and my teaching experience is setting me up for this
3) In the past month of having no 9 to 5 job, 4 money-making opportunities have materialized through networking and existing expertise, but I can pick and choose what I do...I UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE WHO FIRE GO BACK TO WORK!!!!! Woooohoooooo

SustainableHappiness
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Re: SustainableHappiness Journal

Post by SustainableHappiness »

November 2nd Update

8.3% SWR
11.98 Numbers of Years in Hopper
25 Ultimate FI Goal
0.36 Years accumulated per month on average
0.33 Years accumulated this month

1st entire month off of work, although I did still get half a paycheque from my day-job in the first week. That being said, we still accumulated 0.33 years of work from this month! Market performance helped, rentals had 0 unforeseen expenses, teaching gigs paid more than anticipated, DWs EI all came in and we got our first baby bonus cheque from the Canadian gov’t…who knew you could get money just for having a baby? Well, I actually did know that, but I been fiddling around with the calculator on the Revenue Agency website and had no idea it could be like $4-5K per kid for lower income earners. Interesting stuff.

Even without the paycheque from my day job we still would’ve accumulated 0.28 years this month…!!!! This semi-RE test is continuing to embolden DW and I’s life strategies.

The House Debacle
Finalized the severance last week with the deeds signed and dated. We now out two houses instead of just 1 illegal property, yay! Haven’t received the legal and surveyor final bills yet, but in total I estimate it cost us:

2000 City/County Severance Application
1200 Survey Work Pt 1
800 Reference Plan and deposit/register from Surveyor Pt 2
2000 Legal Fees est.
0 Illegal Apartment Removal Work (Done by me, and a local construction charity)
2550 This is the missed rents for 3 months (850x3) after we evicted the tenants…could be a couple more months still
8550 Total

We forecasted $10K as a reasonable guideline from knowledgeable friends. So far coming in under budget, presumably because most knowledgeable friends were severing farm land which generally requires some sort of sewer/water hook-up and other expenses like that…granted they wouldn’t have experienced the $2550 income opportunity cost. Either way, it’s worked out roughly as planned, although it’s taken at least 6 months longer than expected.

I want to do a full work up of income vs expenses over the 3 years we owned the houses after we sell them and realize the gains to get an actual ROI % and CAGR. If I had to guess, it’ll be in the ~200% gains on initial investment. Now we just have to sell them!

Income Streams
- - First training month of digital marketing for free done. The client is very happy with the work completed, I gained a butt-load of knowledge and he wants to start throwing me paid projects. Hourly rate of $25 (that was my price given for a 1st year Analyst) was accepted and I get access to all training materials still too! If work is fairly consistent this could be another $5-6K of challenge and fairly invigorating work building a new skill set. I also may explore business development for digital agencies and leverage some of my contacts in a fun and profitable way that helps everyone out.

- Public speaking is a distinct possibility within the next 6 months, I have contacts to get at least 1 session which would probably be worth $500-1000. I need to build a presentation/workshop. This will likely work out to a very low hourly rate for the first one, but it builds reputation as well as being really fun/challenging and the beauty is after all the upfront work, I can use it multiple times.

- Teaching = Easy money… ‘nuff said, could be $10-15K of income for avg of 8-10 hrs a week of work. I’ve decided to not teach at all next semester in order to do a few high engagement things that require weeks of commitment (10 day Vipassana retreat and 2 weeks of staying with DWs grandparents in Florida, and maybe another adventure)

- Toying with the idea of building a highly specialized website in a white space I identified this month…Need to build up motivation, but I feel like I’ve got the skills required for a pet project like this…Actually have two ideas, one really crazy that requires carrying inventory or drop-shipping, one boring.

Life
- Regaining/gaining weight and muscle again after a 6 week hiatus from the gym when Baby SH was born
- Read Platos Apology, Euthyphro, Crito and Phaedo -> Never knew Socrates was a dick until actually reading Plato’s work. Worth it.
- Read Goodbye, Things…revived old tension on topic of throwing stuff out with DW, kinda maybe worth it
- Re-read Tao Te Ching as morning book -> so interesting/good and had some weird cross-over insights while listening to a podcast on Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, worth it.
- Read The Waking Engine -> Cool Sci-fi Fantasy book, worth it.
- Did other stuff (pickled beets, ate pickled carrots, walked 1+ hrs a day outside, got really tired when Baby SH stopped sleeping for more than 40 mins a day for a 3 day period, etc.)

Keep on rockin’.

SustainableHappiness
Posts: 266
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Re: SustainableHappiness Journal

Post by SustainableHappiness »

6th Week Off
Holy crow it’s been 6 weeks! Baby SH is 3 months old! He’s starting to play back with us a little bit and it is really interesting/fun. I for one, love rousing renditions of “Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes”…cl
assic.

Food and Expense Tracking
Yummy cheap food sustained, however we went to a cottage with some friends last weekend and it caused us to eat take out/fast food 3 times. Definitely not the end of the world since I can’t remember the last time we did that, but it was weird thinking about the $60-70 in relation to how little income we are bring in now. It caused a bit of anxious feelings, but again, we can’t remember the last time that happened so I am not worried. In fact…

I’ve stopped tracking expenses entirely for the time being. I actually did this a couple months ago. Sticking to just NW tracking each month. The reason I haven’t reported any expense levels on here is because with the rental houses, our true spending/income/saving is a little muddled as the income is untaxed and blablabla (basically I don’t care since I know we are kicking butt). After we sell the rentals I want to scrap our current sheet and start a new one

Status Anxiety
In term of that cottage adventure I talked about, it was our first time out with a group of friends for an extended period of time since we’ve both been off. Extended meaning long enough to get past the initial small talk conversations into deeper territory. This group of friends was really into the idea of me being off (2 of the couples are familiar with FIRE/MMM and 1 couple just got back from 3 months of WWOOFing) and it actually fired them up (excuse the pun). They also loved my pickled veggies…  So far, I haven’t encountered real resistance to the idea, but I feel like my “parental leave” excuse is much easier to digest than full FIRE.

The Productivity Dragon
Did nothing in terms of income generation this week. The union for the college I teach at is on so I didn’t teach, and digital marketing is in limbo as I wait for responses…I did help out a friend with a couple resume reviews/edits, no income, but I guess this could be classified as work. Oh, and I lined up a few events for the new business development side-hustle.

Unable to work up motivation to start my public speaking workshop powerpoint deck, I have an outline and ideas, but need to set a schedule to complete some more work on it

Work out heavy every other day routine sustained. DW said my back is looking bigger and stronger…Her casual ego boosts are always appreciated to battle any meddling insecurities! Plus, my back as been a focus…although she knows this too, whatever, my wife is amazing.

On another fitness note, I’ve been upping my calorie intake because I wasn’t seeing the results I would’ve liked and have so far gained 5 lbs in a few weeks. This is good! It’s been really tough to eat more than I was though, even though all I’ve really done is add in a really calorie dense smoothie in the afternoon. But hey, I’ll keep doing it for a little while and see what happens and if I simply revert back to my body’s standard weight after the experiment is done.

Other
- Reading Plato’s Thaetetus and a sci-fi/fantasy book from a free library box in my neighbourhood about a slew of famous Victorian England characters

- Walked a billion kms with DW and Baby SH and got Baby SH almost registered for his first swim lessons at a local indoor pool!

Key Takeaway:
This was without a doubt, my least “productive” week so far, I napped almost every day with Baby SH and DW, we spent a bit more money than usual on take-out a la cottage weekend, and I actually play a couple hours of videogames yesterday morning. That being said it was overall a good week, with a solid emotional state able to fend off the “must be productive dragon” with moderate anxiety and very little melancholy.

Keep on rockin'.

distracted_at_work
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Re: SustainableHappiness Journal

Post by distracted_at_work »

I too battle the productivity dragon. Few things have the power to cause such anxiety and dread like an unproductive weekend. I'm really glad to read you are winning the fight. What would you say has caused the shift in attitude?

Our of curiosity, what video games?

(....My productivity dragon most often battles with my video game escapism addiction.)

SustainableHappiness
Posts: 266
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Re: SustainableHappiness Journal

Post by SustainableHappiness »

Hmmm...I don't know if it isolates to 1 thing, but its a combination of, redefining my definition of productivity, eg. 1 hour of playing with my son is still productive, 1 hour of reading is still productive, in that vein 1 hour of video games sometimes is still productive. This has been spurred by the fact I am no longer working full time or studying at school (which equated productivity to work completed). Studying some Eastern philosophy, Tao te ching, The Tao of Pooh, The Te of Piglet, anything by Thich Nhat Hanh. Having a child...You don't realize how "little" you can do in a day and still feel like your day was completely full. Typically our accomplishments are akin to, "walked to get groceries, no one died today".

Typically I am a strategy guy, RTS (Dawn of War, Starcraft, Age of XXXXX) or turn-based (Civilization, Heroes of Might and Magic) on PC anyways. For console I do anything, but really like RPGs (Final Fantasy). However, the days of spending 50 hours playing through one are probably over.

For now, I am sticking to PuzzleQuest 2, it is simple, and I can play it for 1 hour on a Saturday morning, get my fill, be done and go on with life.

Video games are awesome. But there is no denying that they are created to stimulate you just the right amount and therefore tend to move towards addiction. I've been limiting myself to playing board games with friends lately (past 3 months) for my "gaming" fix (except the occasional PuzzleQuest as mentioned!). This means I get to be social and I actually find it a way better experience/feeling afterwards.

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Bankai
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Re: SustainableHappiness Journal

Post by Bankai »

SustainableHappiness wrote:
Wed Nov 15, 2017 6:34 pm
...Civilization... Heroes of Might and Magic... spending 50 hours playing through one...
Did you mean 500 hours?

SustainableHappiness
Posts: 266
Joined: Tue Jun 28, 2016 6:39 pm

Re: SustainableHappiness Journal

Post by SustainableHappiness »

@Bankai, Truth.

7th Week Off
- Signed Baby SH up for swim lessons…sweet
- Workouts went well
- Helped gather and move around wood supplies for in-laws for Winter
- Worked for my old employer for 1 day this week as they needed some help…no pay, but got a free lunch and happy feelings for helping out. Will be helping out again at least 1 day next week for lunch
- Taught class
- Didn’t move any other side hustles forward
- Still reading Plato’s Thaetetus for challenge and The Map of Stars for fun

Most Interesting Thing
Experienced a weird emotion about this forum in that I wrote something, realized it could be mean and then removed it. This doesn’t sound weird, but it signaled to me the importance I place on the forum as a spot for social interaction since the emotion of not wanting to harm either my own reputation as well as others feelings was so high. My guess this is likely because my level of social interaction has declined by about 8 hours a day since leaving work. I had no idea that becoming more emotionally involved in an online forum might be a consequence of that. It worries me, but I think with some habit tweaking I can reel it in. It also shows I need to join some sort of club, or organization where I can talk to people on a regular weekly basis if I was to fully RE.

suomalainen
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Joined: Sat Oct 18, 2014 12:49 pm

Re: SustainableHappiness Journal

Post by suomalainen »

House selling update?

Been following this with interest, particularly the emotional side of it / how your risk tolerance changes with the baby / how your risk-adjusted view of things changes / etc and what you end up deciding to do when the paternity leave ends. I have an opportunty to go back to a higher-paying/more demanding job and I have had the thought to take months off in between jobs. Not sure if that would be energizing for the new job or demoralizing (wage slave -> free -> wage slave). As I've been thinking about this opportunity, came across this gem that accurately describes me too!
SustainableHappiness wrote:
Sun Oct 22, 2017 9:25 am
This feels solid and good decision making, however I have been told that I am "like a fart in a windstorm", so we'll see where the wind blows next.

SustainableHappiness
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Re: SustainableHappiness Journal

Post by SustainableHappiness »

8th Week Off
@suomalainen, glad this is of interest and useful, it helps in my journal online vs offline internal debate. 2 months off has been a very interesting and fulfilling experience in understanding the lifestyle my family and I are aiming for. It’s also helped me understand I have no fear of getting bored, I have no issues finding more income (in the current business climate), social repercussions are limited with my current, “scaling back hours to take time off with family” narrative.

- Sold our T.V. last night to a friend that was over for $20…been thinking about doing this for a while and we were a bit drunk and the topic came up and BOOM. We haven’t watched a full show/movie since our baby was born and only about once a week prior to that. It felt like it was time to move on from that old addiction.
- Finished The Map of Time book. It was entertaining, however decidedly mediocre overall, with some cool ideas/storytelling
- Worked out to schedule, gained 8lbs since ending work based on new exercise and eating program. Typical training day involves, Bike ride, run or walk to gym with DW and baby, 4 mins of 10s-20s rowing sprints for warm-up, 3 sets of power clean and press 1 dumbbell each side, 3 sets of 1 legged squats, 3 sets of wide grip pull-ups, 3 sets of dips, 3km wind sprints or bike as fast as possible home.
- Got a new phone from work
- Found out I’ll be getting a new car through work soon even though I am off (sweet)
- College strike in Ontario is over, so I am back to work for both classes. Students were piiiiissed this week. I was also slightly upset since I was still getting paid for not doing work as I was not part of the union (sweet)
- Booked flights using aeroplan travel hack miles for Florida hot weather time in 2018 (sweet)

Real Estate Update
- We’re going to make excessive amounts of money on top of my conservative model that I built 3 years ago forecasting ~$50-60K capital gains after expenses…This makes me and DW happy. However, as they say, it ain’t over till it’s over. i.e. the houses are sold.
- Severance finalized last $2k in expenses paid to professional services, surveys deposited
- First duplex goes up for sale Monday at a higher price than I would’ve calculated using a viable capitalization rate for the area (5-7%), however the realtor (a family member) was correct in saying that we had nothing to lose since we are in no rush to sell
- 1 tenant has given 60 days’ notice after being told it was going up for sale since they have children and need security in where they are living…Understandable, but unfortunate since it might go empty for a month or two if it doesn’t sale right away
- Second house will wait a bit since the tenant is sick and I don’t want to put them through that stress right now, plus I feel like it would add more work than desired to have two houses up at the same time right now
- Excited to pull out of this investment at a peak and leave real estate behind for a while

Most Interesting Thing
Discovered a family of 3 older people was living in the woods beside our house while out for a little hike. I asked our 74 year old landlord if he knew anything about that and he proceeded to call the cops on them and their tent got slashed by a bylaw officer. I was torn, because on one hand I don’t care if someone lives in the woods and I feel like their lives just got ruined a little more than they already were, on the other they had strewn garbage everywhere which was really shitty.

Key takeaway: if we ever live in the woods, don’t throw garbage everywhere.

SustainableHappiness
Posts: 266
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Re: SustainableHappiness Journal

Post by SustainableHappiness »

December 3rd Update
8.3% SWR
12.02 Numbers of Years in Hopper
25 Ultimate FI Goal
0.35 Years accumulated per month on average
0.04 Years accumulated this month

Very, very spendy month on both mandatory and discretionary expense fronts. However still managed to grow net worth by just over a thousand bucks, despite our significantly reduced incomes…This is very promising again!

Crazy Mandatory Expenses
- $1600 emergent plumbing to replace on galvanized steel piping in the basement of one unit with copper…this same house went up for sale this week…shit timing. Fortunately when we bought the houses we had thought this would need to be done 2 years ago, so we were mentally prepared.
- $1700 to lawyer and surveyor for final severance expenses

Crazy Discretionary Expenses
- $300 in Christmas gifting…Content with about $150-200 of this spending (mainly RESP contributions or gifts for 6 nieces and nephews), however the other half I view as undesirable and silly gift-giving practice for people who neither want or need whatever we are giving them…hopefully this is changed next year (typically a multi-year process to work on changing established traditions without emotional trauma to participants)

Without the first two expenses, we would have upped net worth by most than $4K this month, with a non-passive income of only $2.9K. !!!

Most Interesting Idea
With 3 months of financial performance while only working ~10 hours per week and generally really enjoying this experiment called Life. DW and I are seriously considering trying a more alternative lifestyle instead of going back to me working 9 to 5 after parental leave. This was the thought process and outcome.

SH Ideal
- A good financial decision (i.e. inexpensive with low depreciation and cash outflow)
- Build a stronger community connection with neighbours
- Income generate about 10 hours per week, either as just teaching, or a hunter-gatherer mode of income generation and have at home flexibility where possible
- Continue all positive habits we have (eating well, exercise, outdoors, blablabla)
- Make 2nd baby within a year

Mrs. SH Ideal
- SH be home with babies and Mrs. SH until they go to school if possible
- Live beside a lake
- Stay near family and friends
- Start business as a Doula (labour coach)/RN, for scalable business
- Make 2nd baby within a year

We been perusing different options and have settled on becoming Junior Snowbirds until the kids hit school age (4 years from now)! No one will understand what we’re doing, but it’s going to be awesome. Hopefully it looks something like this.

- SH stops full time work with the aim of remote or contract work making >$10K per year (easy)
- Mrs. SH starts business
- By park model trailer in Canadian park in our current area for ~50-60K cash with full access to swimmable lake with free kayaking, canoeing, etc. + trails, forests, etc.
- Live in park for ~9 months of year
- Figure out what to do during 3 winter months when park shuts down (either move to a Florida park near grandparents or some other alternative)
- Expenses estimated to drop by roughly $400-500 per month

This idea blew our mind when we realized we have the means and mindset to accomplish it…We are keeping it under wraps from friends and family until we are actually going to pull the trigger, as there is a real chance it won’t happen. However, taking a break from work for 5 years to raise our kids seems like a really good decision, then when they are in school for 7 hours a day we can just focus on making some more money then. In the meantime we’ll probably be sitting at a sub-7% SWR which I view as acceptable to pull the plug on with the intent to work a little still.

Who knows, maybe the market will keep kicking ass and we’ll hit 4% without even trying. Either way, in our plan our SWR doesn’t even affect us.

Whew…long entry. Keep on rockin’.

suomalainen
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Re: SustainableHappiness Journal

Post by suomalainen »

SustainableHappiness wrote:
Sun Dec 03, 2017 10:57 am

Most Interesting Idea
With 3 months of financial performance while only working ~10 hours per week and generally really enjoying this experiment called Life. DW and I are seriously considering trying a more alternative lifestyle instead of going back to me working 9 to 5 after parental leave. This was the thought process and outcome... No one will understand what we’re doing, but it’s going to be awesome... This idea blew our mind when we realized we have the means and mindset to accomplish it.
This is awesome! Good luck! This is the primary reason I come to this forum - to see examples of people who have the courage, skill and motivation to break the mold and live an atypical life. Most people in the real world shit on the idea of doing it differently. This place is a respite from that.

classical_Liberal
Posts: 2283
Joined: Sun Mar 20, 2016 6:05 am

Re: SustainableHappiness Journal

Post by classical_Liberal »

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Last edited by classical_Liberal on Thu Feb 04, 2021 11:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

SustainableHappiness
Posts: 266
Joined: Tue Jun 28, 2016 6:39 pm

Re: SustainableHappiness Journal

Post by SustainableHappiness »

10th Week Off
@suomalainen and classical_liberal, thanks for the kind words. As you'll see below a positive development this week may have already shifted the breeze for this fart. As for the RN burnout, my wife literally cringes when she thinks about going back to work at a hospital now... However, she is considering seasonal flu shot clinics, casual doctors offices, casual retirement home-esque jobs in a similar vein to what you've described.

This week exemplified the apocryphal Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times”. The past 3 months have been wonderful doing very little and essentially having an existence lacking flare. Then along comes Week 10… This was Tuesday:

- Engaged in and evaluated a highly energetic series of roleplays for a Sales course for 3 hours with no breaks pretending to be an aggressive asshole in the Buyer role (this is more energy intensive than it sounds)

- Then received first phone call of day -> turns out the hot water heater was the issue, not the galvanized pipes. Dollar Cost - $1000, Emotional Cost - Anger at Plumber for misdiagnosing and replacing half the pipe anyways

- 5 minutes later received second phone call of the day -> We received not 1, but 2 offers for our house. Due to the competing offers, one of them actually came in over our asking price. To put this into perspective I’ll provide a few numbers. We paid $290K for both houses 3 years ago. We just sold (as long as conditions clear) 1 of the 2 houses for $272K. At a conservative valuation of the second house at $240K this means $222K (ex. realtor 4%, legal fees and capital gains tax) of profit….!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dollar Value – Upwards of 150K net worth increase, Emotional Cost – on verge of shitting pants

- 10 minutes later had to move quickly to a meeting I’ve been trying to get for a month with a Chair of Business at the school I teach at. Meeting goes exceptionally well, presumably because I am firing on all cylinders at this point. Chair tells me they potentially want me to teach more (9 to 12 hours per week), which is like best case scenario because I could pull in like $40K with these hours and basically do what I am doing now (i.e. lots of time at home and a little work I enjoy) indefinitely, with some savings and great pension…!!!!! Dollar value - ??? Emotional Cost – Need new pants

- 15 minutes after that, realize that 10 month trailer park and snowbirding dream is unrealistic if I want to be within walking/biking commuting distance of the school. Emotional Cost – “Fuck, I am a fart in a windstorm”

- Rest of Day – Meet realtor, counter offer with different conditions same price, get offer, realize that we’ve likely just surpassed our FU money goal and selling the next house will solidify that and shoves us towards FI territory, laugh, cry.

That was Tuesday. I realized at the end of Wednesday, that Wednesday (and almost every day for the past 3 months) although much more mundane, was a better day than Tuesday because it revolved around my wife, my son and whether or not I did a workout that day. I also got indigestion Tuesday night and didn’t sleep well.

May you live in UNinteresting times.

Edit - I also realized it exemplified #firstworldproblems.

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