Lemur Journal!

Where are you and where are you going?
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jennypenny
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by jennypenny »

Maybe next time you can get her to split the contribution between a Roth and TIRA. It's a compromise and then she'd get to see the effect of a TIRA on your taxes.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

Will try. I think I could try to persuade her to put the other $2,500 (if she so decides to contribute) to a tIRA. I think a Roth IRA is fine though. She may have plans to expand her business so we think it is best to be flexible the first few years.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

One of my watermelons sprouted :) I was excited to see it. On the bad news, my Squash are still more or less dying. Trying my best to get them revived but a few are dead for sure. Lesson learned here is to find a way to control grass/weeds that does not involved too much manual labor. I was all about manual labor until I started losing time (well overestimating the amount of time I had on my hands). I also got lazy and didn't maintain that area like I should've. I watched some videos on how some gardeners cover up areas with mulch, dead grass, cardboard, newspaper, etc..Pretty much anything that can cover up the areas from sunlight.

My job is still fun (never thought I would be saying this). Really enjoying automating my work processes with R. I'm also leveraging myself into more interesting work and successfully avoiding being promoted to management hehe.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

Lemur wrote:
Sun Jul 01, 2018 5:48 pm
One of my watermelons sprouted :) I was excited to see it. On the bad news, my Squash are still more or less dying. Trying my best to get them revived but a few are dead for sure. Lesson learned here is to find a way to control grass/weeds that does not involved too much manual labor. I was all about manual labor until I started losing time (well overestimating the amount of time I had on my hands). I also got lazy and didn't maintain that area like I should've. I watched some videos on how some gardeners cover up areas with mulch, dead grass, cardboard, newspaper, etc..Pretty much anything that can cover up the areas from sunlight.

My job is still fun (never thought I would be saying this). Really enjoying automating my work processes with R. I'm also leveraging myself into more interesting work and successfully avoiding being promoted to management hehe.
Out of the 11 squash I got growing, 2 I pulled (they were dead) which leaves me with 9. About half of those are wilting. Independence Day gave me a day off since I work for the government so the good news is I spent a good 4 hours in my backyard getting my Garden maintained. I pull all weeds and grass (by hand) and mulched around every vegetable plan with a mix of compost/leaves that occur naturally (I live next to a wooded area which is a nice benefit).

I'm positive now my wilting squash might revive. Weeds pulled, mulch to prevent new weeds, and I watered them good and placed good compost around the roots and watered with a "nitrogen tea" which is like a 5 gallon of bucket that has been filled with dead grass and water for a few weeks.

On my watermelon, she is growing fast! The one I had was a golf ball just a few days ago and now it is about the size of a baseball. I also have another watermelon that sprouted - its about the size of a pea.

Financial Status

I am at $99k. Very close to $100k saved up. Not bad for a 27 year old....I remember thinking a few years ago I wanted to have $100k before I am 30. Baring some catastrophic market downturn, it looks like that goal will be met. Actually, if I combine my spouses savings we're over $140k. At the moment, I do not count my wife's assets. Mainly because the money is tied up in business and my spouses goal is not to RE anytime soon.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

I always find it hilarious that my spouse is liberal until she has to pay quarterly taxes for her business; at which point she transforms into a tea-party don't tread on me ultra right-wing republican lol. Federal (15% for us) + State (7%) + Self-Employment (15.3%) sucks but it is what it is right?

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

Spending a lot of my Saturday doing homework for my master's program. BLEH! I love learning...behavioral finance is an interesting subject but essays kill my motivation. I'm swearing off school once my Master's is finished this year. At least for a while. A big part of me wants to start some sort of side business when this is all over.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

Today's grocery shopping - Dry black beans, Dry Chick Peas, Bananas, 10lb bag of brown rice, Salad spring mix, can of tomato sauce, some bread. Came out to $44.07. I'm pretty confident, with discipline, this could actually last me 2 weeks. Not from scratch show - my cupboards and fridge are filled so its basically cheating, buttttt this is a start to controlling food costs.

I don't believe in throwing things away so I will be slowly chipping away at foods in my cupboard and diet sodas. Diet sodas, I'm practically addicted. I drink about 3-4 of those a day. When I run out....just gonna try not to buy any.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

Good video I found on double digging a garden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2RKlI8gC98

Also learned a bit on how to maintain my squash. Perhaps there is a chance I could get some of my squash to revive?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydtk2RaKzlE

We shall see...

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

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I like my remote days. I got up early to work on my garden for about an hour. I cut off all the dead leaves / stems on my squash plants and added compost support for all of them. This is my last effort to get them revived. If this fails, I'll probably just pull them all out and start that area fresh with another plant. I want to find time to double dig a garden now...

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

I'm not sure if you'll be able to see well, but it looks like 3 new flowers are growing off this squash where I had to cut off a lot of dead leaves. So it looks like the method I posted above is working. I do have a few squash that have no leaves at all which makes me think that they might not grow back (do all plants require at least one leaf? or is it possible to spawn new stems/leaves/flowers without a single leaf...)

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Kriegsspiel
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Kriegsspiel »

What kind of squash are you growing and where at?

I double dug a couple beds now (one for peppers, one for carrots). It'll get you sweating.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

Kriegsspiel wrote:
Sat Jul 14, 2018 3:27 pm
What kind of squash are you growing and where at?

I double dug a couple beds now (one for peppers, one for carrots). It'll get you sweating.
These are summer squash and I'm growing them in Southern Maryland.

I still haven't gotten started with a double dug garden yet. I may do that soon - I'm waiting until July closes out to plant some greens which I haven't been successful in growing yet but I believe double digging will get the job done this year.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

A friend asked me what I would do with all my extra time in the hypothetical scenario where I only worked 20 hours a week. My answer was fairly simple: I would devout more time to my garden, start working out a lot more, read more books, play video games. Fairly simple I think.

I have also pondered this: Would I work 20 hours a week until normal retirement age assuming the wage can cover all my expenses; however, I could not allocate towards savings?

I do not know the answer to that question yet. I will have to think about it.

Kriegsspiel
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Kriegsspiel »

Lemur wrote:
Sun Jul 29, 2018 6:55 pm
A friend asked me what I would do with all my extra time in the hypothetical scenario where I only worked 20 hours a week. My answer was fairly simple: I would devout more time to my garden, start working out a lot more, read more books, play video games. Fairly simple I think.
That's pretty much what I do :lol: Except I go over to my brother's house to walk his dog and then play Battlefield 1 only every once in a while.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

Kriegsspiel wrote:
Sun Jul 29, 2018 8:15 pm
Lemur wrote:
Sun Jul 29, 2018 6:55 pm
A friend asked me what I would do with all my extra time in the hypothetical scenario where I only worked 20 hours a week. My answer was fairly simple: I would devout more time to my garden, start working out a lot more, read more books, play video games. Fairly simple I think.
That's pretty much what I do :lol: Except I go over to my brother's house to walk his dog and then play Battlefield 1 only every once in a while.
I would love to get behind and blow massive amount of time on a RPG....I loved those as a kid but I think if I started that now I would get bored rather quickly realizing that the goal posts just keep moving. I like games like Skyrim and Fallout 3. These game still have RPG elements, but they're more of a way to relax imo.

Today I checked on my networth since it is the beginning of the month and discovered I am at over $100k now. I've been at this goal for a long-time and looking forward to the next milestone. I'm at about $102,000. At a 3% withdrawal rate, this would get me $3,060 a year or $255 per month.

My savings rate is still at 25%. I wish I were in a position to increase more but this will have to do for now. I also just finished reading "One Million in the Bank" by Michael Slavin. Great book imo. I'm still unsure if I would start a business; my work at the moment, while causing me great anxiety every now and then due to meetings/presentations (I'm getting better at this at least), is very easy most of the time.

The takeaways I got from the book are:

1.) If I am going to start a business, I should build it while keeping my day job.
2.) Utilize many resources
3.) Learn marketing and sales tactics
4.) The best business models are ones that are not built off of innovation or a brand-new idea. Many are just existing ready to be copied and spun on.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

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I may be out of a job at the end of August due to my company (a sub-contractor) renegotiating a contract that is about to be expired with the prime contractor. Interestingly enough, I am at peace with "losing" my job. I learned that my market value is a lot higher and at worse I find another job with the same salary and at best I get a new job or contract with more money. We shall see what happens but being financially independent at roughly 4x expenses is enough to put me at ease in these situations.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

Bad luck comes in 3's I guess. Recently had a plumbing clog and yesterday my Civic went down. The timing belt snapped and in doing so, some valve stems bent and needs a new head. I would have loved to have tackled this one on my own and get it fixed; however, due to time constraints and the fact that I need a car to get to work, I had it towed to a mechanic. Its a painful one - $1300 after parts & labor. My emergency fund is only $1k at the moment but will have to use monies from next check plus savings to cover it...and start slowly building my savings up again.

Ugh. Lessons learned here .... this could have been prevented. I ignored that squealing sound for a long time and ended up with a far worse problem.

Also if I was in a position where I would only need a bike, this would have never occurred :lol:

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

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Civic in the shop
Bought a used 2012 Toyota Prius.

Was nice to pay for a car in cash. I'm under $100k again though.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

I have not done this in a while and glad I did. I need to re-focus my efforts on savings and spending wisely. At the moment, I save 25% of my gross wages into the 401(k). This gives me savings of $16,450 annually, $1370.83 monthly, and $45.69 daily (divided by 360).

As far as spending goes, after running my budget line items, I spend $28,904.88 annually, $2,408.74 monthly, and $80.29 daily. I find these calculations particularly interesting because the daily spending can be attacked directly by doing a comparison of my "fixed costs" versus my "variable costs."

I am in control of these costs but they're all essentially fixed unless I do something "drastic" to change them: Rent, MyGym, Spouse, Spouse Family, Internet, Phone, Water, Trash.

I am in more control of these costs and they're variable: Food, Car Gas & Maintenance, Electricity, Car Insurance? and my catchall budget item "other expenses."

Food (15.8%) and "Other Expenses" (5.29%) make up just over 20% of my spending that can reasonably be allocated more efficiently....cooking more, buying wholesale, and cutting my energy drink + eating out at work habit <--I used to be good at this one...than I started socializing more at work.

Hobbes
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Hobbes »

You earlier mentioned you were having issues with controlling food costs: have you considered going to ethnic markets? There's an Indian store nearish me, and I've found that their prices for spices, rice, dried beans, and whatnot is just stupidly low in comparison to more mainstream stores.
Because of this I've more or less adopted an Indian diet :lol: , but it's reduced my personal food expenditures significantly.

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