Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Where are you and where are you going?
bryan
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by bryan »

TopHatFox wrote:
Wed Mar 06, 2019 8:49 am
For those further along the path than me,when did you notice that your hard work accumulating was paying off?
A year or two after university when I had concrete savings percentages. From there it was basically confirmed, elementary. From there it was more blurry, not really noticing anything drastically different from a low networth, high savings to high networth, retired.
theanimal wrote:
Wed Mar 06, 2019 10:39 am
There's plenty of evidence on this board and elsewhere demonstrating that the opposite is true. More money or freedom isn't going to make you happier if you aren't happy now.
> "you don’t need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Take a look at my cousin. He’s broke, don’t do shit."

I agree w/ animal, they are fairly independent, depending on circumstances. One example of where they might be correlated is if you need some sum of money to achieve your means beyond subsistence and some leisure; for instance if your happiness, extended leisure is more like what Ben Krasnow does.

Personally I'm trying to reconcile my barebones lifestyle with my more expensive, potential hobbies. Ideally I'd have a cheap plot of land to build a lab and such but live in a van?
Salathor wrote:
Thu Mar 07, 2019 4:47 pm
I went to the RV show last year to see if we could find anything that we could bear to live in. It was TERRIBLE. I spent my youth RVing with my parents and everything we could see now was cheap pressboard garbage even at the ~$130k level for a new RV. The class Bs were nice, admittedly, but they cost the same as a condo in most of the US.

Obviously you could buy used, but man was I disappointed in the cost:value on the ones I saw.
Yeah, I'm consistently amazed at the crap RVs available at retail. I highly suggest DIY or buy used, especially for ERE, barebones folks. I mean, I lived in a cargo van for two years (no toilet, shower, fridge, etc) and it wasn't really that bad, so long as you have a friend or two and a gym membership (and live near the coast of CA, LOL). But really, you can make something pretty nice pretty quickly and pretty cheap. One of the vlogs I follow (@technomadia) mentioned wanting to get a class B recently.. and the crap they were looking at was.. crap. AND EXPENSIVE. I think it's just that when your are at such a small scale (e.g. tiny house, class B RV), any single drawback is extremely amplified. I expect prices to fall as more competitors get into the "cheap living" market in the next decade+.

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C40
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by C40 »

On the subject of RVs, retail RVs are incredibly overpriced. It's insane. So crazy that a guy I know can buy new 4x4 Sprinters, do only 40 hours of conversion work, and sell them for like $50-70k profit. Because a factory sprinter RV is $160k or whatever.

THF, if you're thinking about buying an RV, read the book "Vanabode" by Jason Odom. He's a little.... quirky, but he basically describes a very simple, ERE-style of van conversion and living. Read that to at least see and example that doing things on the simple end can be great for some folks.

wolf
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by wolf »

Gilberto de Piento wrote:
Fri Mar 15, 2019 6:54 pm
Wolf giving a suggestion to Fox; it's like a children's book in here. :)
To be honest, I don't know the actual problem anymore. Many things have been mentioned already (remote work, salary man, RV, ...).
I tried to ask a question about his motives and virtues, because I think that it is important to live&work in alignment with them.
I would need more information about the problem at hand in order to give a specific suggestion, because otherwise it would be just guessing.
With my last post I wanted to show that you (Fox) know already so much. You have gained so many experiences and lessons already, that I believe you could narrow down possible options by yourself. What would be the Top 5 options you have in mind?

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

hahaha, where’s Red Hare? Making fables over here.

I think I need to stop confusing depression with stress and exhaustion. 12 hour sleeping on Sat is the best.

————-

Top Five Paths:

1. Finding a remote job that pays 30-50K
2. Finding a vertical job in CO after MPA
3. Getting a PhD in Psych while working in CO

Other two paths excluded:

4. Just thru hiking (I’d feel poor w/o portfolio)
5. Just cheapass van living like Odom (“)

2Birds1Stone
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by 2Birds1Stone »

C40 wrote:
Sat Mar 16, 2019 12:52 am
THF, if you're thinking about buying an RV, read the book "Vanabode" by Jason Odom. He's a little.... quirky, but he basically describes a very simple, ERE-style of van conversion and living. Read that to at least see and example that doing things on the simple end can be great for some folks.
Darn it, I was hoping my library would have a copy......cheapest I've found is $25 on Amazon

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C40
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by C40 »

I wouldn't recommend paying $25 for it. (Unless you're definitely about to design and van and are trying to decide how simple vs complex to do it)

THF - I don't think I'd call Odom's style cheapass. I'd just call it simple. (Some of his advice and behavior is weird and maybe on it's own could be seen as cheapass, but I believe it is just his own 'weird' more than anything)

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

haha I meant ‘cheapass’ as a compliment. I think it’s brilliant.

I just hate that I’d personally feel poor if my portfolio isn’t growing steadily, which is what would happen at around 80K van living. I got his book sometime late-college.

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

Saw How To Train Your Dragon Hidden World and absolutely loved it!!! The entire trilogy is tear-worthy tbh. Another date down, but I try not to name the people since you statistically never see them again, even if it’s a good date. Hm.

In other news, I’ve figured out that humans have little bars for happiness. There’s one for:

1. Hunger
2. Thirst
3. Sleep
4. Sex
5. Stress/Eustress
6. Socializing/Alone time
7. Intellectual stimulation
8. Meaningful Work
9. Novelty/Travel
10. Financial security

Fill the buckets and you tend to be happier. Run them on empty and you tend to be less happy.
Last edited by TopHatFox on Sun Mar 17, 2019 2:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Quadalupe
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by Quadalupe »

Another interesting question to ponder: when three buckets are full, three buckets are empty and three are half full, do you feel

- completely happy (take the max filled value of the buckets)
- completely unhappy (take the min filled value of the buckets)
- medium happy (take the mean filled value of the buckets)

i.e. happy despite some things going bad, or unhappy despite some things going well

Furthermore, have you read a little bit about Positive Psychology? Martin Seligman was the founder of this field and also runs a course on Coursera titled 'Positive Psychology Specialization Project: Design Your Life for Well-being'. Might be interesting!

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

Probably medium happy. I don't know about positive psychology. My system seems to be pretty basic. "Feeling sad or unfulfilled?" When was the last time you ate, slept, relaxed, had sex, felt love, did something new, worked on a project you liked, enjoyed time with friends, felt secure in your budget, etc.?

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

Also been thinking that the biggest difference in savings doesn’t necessarily come from salary differences, but also just from working compared to not.

For example, in college I remember having to make the decision of whether to work for the Summer and get to 25K, or use 5K to travel and be left with only 15K. The difference is pretty big.

Likewise, now that surgery is done and braces come off soon, I could bail for a year and use 10K to travel and return at 75K, or I could work for a year and be at 120K. Not to mention that that 9-mo unemployment stint in NYC cost me another 30K too.

Yeah...working v not-working. It’s a big fucking deal.

——

P.S. bitches, I get my braces offffff in early MAY!!!

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

So through my keywords on OKc and hella persistence, I found a kinky PCT Thru-hiker and a raw-vegan entrepreneur in MIAMI. They've called me love and dear already. I can get used to that. ;)

Let's seeeeee what haaaapppeeens.

Stahlmann
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by Stahlmann »

Whats pct in this context?


Position 4 from urban dict?

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

Must be. Add in some rope, consent talk, and...

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C40
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by C40 »

Dude, just wait 'til you get those braces off. (I don't mean to literally "wait"... I mean it's going to help a lot)

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

DATING

Okay, so turns out kinky PCT thru-hiker had a [[[secret]]] daughter of 1 yo, and raw-vegan entrepreneur had a fairly low IQ....probably from too many drugs.

AND Back to the drawing board.

Good news is, I found a 30 yo fit woman who is on the MMM path and has travelled a bit. She kinda looks like Mrs. MMM lol. Hopefully this lead turns out better than the two above. Online dating is full of false-hopes so I try to dampen expectations. First dates used to be fun, now I'm expecting people to have a third around jutting our of their forehead. lol

--------------------------

VIDEO GAME...ADDICTION?

In other news, I think I may try to put away the Xbox. Like, I definitely used it to cope post-grad, and it did help A LOT with calming down depression/suicidal ideation typically associated with unemployment and graduating to the real world from the freedom of undergrad. But now that I have a full-time job and do grad school, sometimes I find myself just stuck in my room for hours playing games at the expense of other things I could be doing, like reading. I've switched the games' language to French and that's been a cool way to make the time productive, but still.

Granted, it makes sense that I'd be using video games because my parent's live in suburbia and most everybody else in the world is addicted some form of internet-based drug (e.g. social media, video games, porn, reddit, yada ya da). I even have explored many of the boroughs of Miami on weekends, including things like Ren Fairs, concerts, museums, parks, etc. Still, I don't want this to be my life? And yet, video games or TV fit so well with the 9-5 life. Break your brain for 8-10 hours only to numb it out for the remainder of the day, and then do it again the following day.

PORN USE?

I'd say porn use is kind of synonymous with video game use as well, at least for guys. For a relatively average woman, she can go online and get attention and sex fairly quickly through any dating app (maybe not good sex, and maybe not commitment, but definitely still sex). But for a guy of even above average status, getting to sex can be hard. And so millions of us use porn to cope. And again, it fits so well with the 9-5 life. Get stressed out for 8-10 hours a day, only to relax using the addiction-machine that is a smart phone. This isn't to say I use it to the detriment of everything else in my life (definitely not), but again, it just doesn't feel healthy.

To some degree, it seems like life in 2019 is meant to get you addicted as hell on something, and it takes some serious will power and well-thought out systems to keep yourself on the FI path, not to mention nurturing healthy habits. And ultimately, barring unlucky calamities, the difference between a successful person and a non-successful one are healthy habits v. unhealthy ones.

-------------------------------

MOVING OUT?

Along a similar vein, I miss having my own apartment. Ironically, I felt so much more responsible when I lived under my own apartment, even if it was in a 8' by 10' room with two roommates. I was responsible for paying rent, utlities, keeping the place fixed, etc. But fuck man, even just a room around Miami would cost me 7-10 K/yr, or around 20% of my salary.
Last edited by TopHatFox on Mon Mar 25, 2019 9:53 am, edited 3 times in total.

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Jean
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by Jean »

Try to play more demanding games? I'm struggling with it too. Cutting Access to it works, but if you need a computer, you'll Always make them availlable somehow.

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

APRIL 2019

@Jean, I mostly like games I can play alone that are apocalyptic, like Fallout or Resident Evil. I like resource management and optimization (go figure), so these are good for that. Iused to do MMOs when I was younger, but that is the strongest drug, so I've stayed away from them. Perhaps the next step is to curb even single-player games.

The bigger question is what to replace them with? Because, c'mon, 9-5 is often boring or stressful as fuck, and classes are just classes, so video games offer something unique, larger than life. If I try to replace it with just reading, I may want to quit the 9-5 lifestyle altogether (because I realize that it is a humdrum lifestyle), as opposed to being satiated because of video games and continuing the lifestyle until FI.

-------------------

Networth: 85K

prognastat
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by prognastat »

Hope things go well on the relationship side.

My amount of gaming has reduced as I became busier at work, working out and other hobbies. I still play a little every week, but probably have gone from 15+ hours a week to generally averaging maybe 5 hours a week. In my teens I was probably closer to 20+ hours a week though.

If it's something you enjoy I probably wouldn't give it up, but it definitely can't hurt to alternate with other hobbies some.

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

I'm going to try quitting video games cold turkey for a few months and see what happens. I'm still okay with watching French or Portuguese movies on Netflix though.

I think I might at least take a look at what housing options are out there within walking distance of work. Maybe I can find a room with similar-age roommates for <= $500/mo. Soooo tired of living with the parents. It just fuckin' reminds me of high school like 200%. Not to mention my parents' are always stressing me out with their damn financial problems. I thought I wanted to help, but damn, I have enough shit to deal with on my end thank you very much.

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