Lemur Journal!

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

Post by Lemur »

Signed a new job offer. My salary will increase from $65k to $90k. Great day today! Looks like that degree paid off (which I paid $0 for due to military benefits).

Now the true test...keeping spending the same, avoid the lifestyle inflation, though moving closer to my job looks a bit more "affordable now".... Though not exactly the same. I think I'm gonna build a small vacation fund for the spouse and I. She has wanted to travel for a while now.

prognastat
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Re: Lemur Journal!

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Congrats, you must be very excited. Definitely avoid that lifestyle inflation though, but since you're here you should be pretty good at that already.

2Birds1Stone
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Re: Lemur Journal!

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Congrats, that's a big bump!

Scott 2
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Scott 2 »

That is a life changing bump. Congrats. You're definitely in the range now where it's easier to earn more than save more. Spending to gain extra time for leveling your skill set or performance can have big returns.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

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prognastat wrote:
Tue Jan 29, 2019 6:33 pm
Congrats, you must be very excited. Definitely avoid that lifestyle inflation though, but since you're here you should be pretty good at that already.
2Birds1Stone wrote:
Tue Jan 29, 2019 8:50 pm
Congrats, that's a big bump!
Scott 2 wrote:
Tue Jan 29, 2019 9:27 pm
That is a life changing bump. Congrats. You're definitely in the range now where it's easier to earn more than save more. Spending to gain extra time for leveling your skill set or performance can have big returns.
Thanks all. I'm certainly excited and will now have the ability to save a lot more. I still could not afford to move closer to work (well technically I could but I wouldn't be saving much money at all...). Working in Washington D.C. is a bit disheartening but the absolute dollar savings I will have is going to pay off one day.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

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I took the week off and I have probably logged in over 10 hours on this very addictive capitalism / business simulator:

https://www.capitalismlab.com/

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

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Did some Python exercises. Tonight is my last night of sleeping in and waking up when I'm ready. Back to work Monday. Also announcing my 2 week departure Monday for my new job in 2 weeks. Took my son to see the Smithsonian museums in Washington DC. That was fun and free for the most part - minus the transportation via metro.

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Lemur
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Loving my new job but actually haven't started yet...can't complain being paid to just do simple online training and basic administrative work. Looking forward to getting back into data analytics.

The commute to work sucks unfortunately. 90 minutes one way with 60 minutes allocated by car and 30 minutes by metro. Sometimes this can take 105 minutes depending on traffic. Debated moving closer to work but the metropolitan area is very expensive (DC/Northern VA). With a small family, I can't take the risk of living in risky places either...nor would I want to if I was single anyhow.

I could make a home purchase justification if I use the MMM commuting math...but I never trusted the idea of applying dollars to hours commuting. For example, I get the $0.34 cents a mile with a car, but if I were to add $25 an hour for my commuting time it would make purchasing a $400,000 home a no brainer; I would break-even from my current situation. Doesn't make any sense to me.

On another side note...at least I try to make these commutes useful by listening to pod casts and other learning materials...I'm liking the Marcus Aurelius fella.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

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Today I learned that In R, the sd() function (known as standard deviation) is actually the sample standard deviation (N-1 is used as the denominator).

If you work out this dataset by hand:

data <- c(9, 2, 5, 4, 12, 7, 8, 11, 9, 3, 7, 4, 12, 5, 4, 10, 9, 6, 9, 4) you get ~2.983 (2.983287 to be exact)
Source: https://www.mathsisfun.com/data/standar ... mulas.html

If you work out this same dataset in R Studio using the SD function:
sd(data)

You get .... 3.060788.

I was stomped here for a while until I started playing around with length(data) knowing that we've 20 data points. We can confirm that N-1 is the denominator used in the calculation because (length) data is 20; in R the length would be length(data) minus 1; therefore, I know its N-1 because you could take 2.983287 and divide it by the sqrt of 19/20 to get 3.060788.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

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Built a amortization schedule in Python that spits out a CSV file. Now I need to learn how to make the user inputs look fancy ...like a dialog box with some good font and all that Jazz. User input from the windows terminal looks like 1996.

Maxed the tIRA with my company sign-on bonus and a little bit more. Technically the sign-on bonus is a bit of a handcuff because, should I leave within a year, I have to pay it back in full and if I leave within 2 years, I have to pay 50% of it back. Regardless, I'm still going to be in the accumulation phase so this really shouldn't matter.

A quick back of the hand math and I'm up to $110,000 in savings. That is $4,400 a year at 4% and $3,850 a year at 3.5%. This is not counting the large pile of cash my spouse is sitting on (something like $40k or so?).

If I max out the 401(k) this year (pretty much guaranteed assuming no catastrophic health expense?) and contribute a bit more I should be able to reach $150,000. Should I convince my spouse to invest and with a little bit of luck it is possible, combined, we could be up to $200,000 by end of year. It is a lofty goal to shoot for.

I plan on my expenses being lower in early retirement...this is why I use absolute dollar amounts for now.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

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Reading "The Hungry Brain" by Stephan Guyenet. Excellent book and one that has motivated me to finally make lasting changes in my diet. From March 1 to March 31, I dropped from 196lbs to 183lbs. I always understood the physical aspect of dieting but not the mental and that is where this book really shines I think...by providing the mental framework through science. Not to mention but my eatings habits now are a bit more cheaper than my previous diet. My long-term goal is to get between 10-12% bodyfat which means I would need to weigh somewhere between 165-170lbs to do so.

Also I'm putting away a good chunk of money. Every two weeks just over $1000 is getting invested. $726 or so from 401(k) and $300 post-tax. I could probably push it even more...but must manage not 'depriving' spouse and son.

Doing good here. Everything is moving swimmingly.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

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Actually on second thought...after re-running my budget there is quite a bit of slack. The optimizer in me says to toss in in savings. The keep spouse happy says to save for a vacation haha. The 1st world dilemna is great.

At what point though do I make it cut-off for absolute dollar savings.....At the moment, just over $1000 is being invested every 2 weeks with potential to increase this to roughly $1500 every 2 weeks if I really pushed it and optimized.

Umm...I'll think about this over the coming weeks.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

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Well, it only took more than 5 years but my spouse finally decided to invest some of the cash she has sitting around.

Maxed out the spousal Roth IRA for 2018 and 2019. She still has a large bundle of cash sitting around...to which I told her she should just hold on to it until she studies up more. We may be considering land in her country of the Philippines as a longer-term investment / potential retirement place. Her business unfortunately is in a bit of a decline as competition has increased. Regardless, nice to have her on board to some degree.

Now to convince her to start eating lentils and beans with me haha...This will probably take another 5 years.

We're saving a bit for a vacation now to somewhere. Not sure where...not much of a traveling person myself but there are a few places I wouldn't mind ticking off if we get a long-term memory out of the experience. I've never been to Europe, South America.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

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Playing with some hypotheticals here:

My Current Salary: $90,000
Estimated Taxes (15%): $13,500
Post-Tax Salary: $76,500
Savings Per Year: $1000 every paycheck for 26 paychecks + maxing out my IRA each year at $6,000 = $32,000
Savings Rate (Reality): 41.83% based on Post-Tax.
Spending = $76,500 - $32,000 = $44,500
Assets Required @ 4% SWR: $1,112,500
=NPER(6%,-32000,-125000,1112500,0) = 15.73 years to reach FIRE Note* I currently have $125,000 in income generating assets so that helps.

Okay not bad. I would be hitting this goal at 43 years of age. Definitely not ERE style or even MMM style for that matter. Looks like a traditional "FIRE" lifestyle based on a normal middle class consumption...however, my plan has always been to retire less than my current spending possibly in my spouse's country which defaults you automatically to a lower spending level (some would argue that it is more difficut to retire to a lower spending level since you have not "lived" the lower spending level; I agree for the most part but I can also be stubborn and I would like to believe I am adaptable...and real life scenarios show some people are forced into retirement and subsequently they find a way to adapt anyhow). I also would love to hit my retirement goal by 35. I should push harder if I want to get there...

Adjusting the "FV" portion:

NPER 14.51 FV $1,000,000.00 Age 42.51
NPER 13.35 FV $900,000.00 Age 41.35
NPER 12.11 FV $800,000.00 Age 40.11
NPER 10.77 FV $700,000.00 Age 38.77
NPER 9.32 FV $600,000.00 Age 37.32
NPER 7.74 FV $500,000.00 Age 35.74

So if I keep current spending levels and savings the same, I would have to learn how to live on $1,666 a month @ 4% at $500,000 if I want to retire at 35. My spouse tells me in her country you could have a pretty decent life on just $1,000 a year if you plan things appropriately. I debate this point with my spouse a bit because not only have I never personally achieved such a lower spending, her spending has crept up over the years as she has adjusted to our current American lifestyle.

On a final thought this morning, I am incredibly lucky to make the money I'm currently making and should really use this to my advantage. I need to push it to not only save quicker and achive my goal quicker, but to also practice living on a lower spending level. I once optimized everything down to the wattage I used in my house but I've laid back in a way (greatest savings rate I ever reached was 65% on a $32,000 income..but only sustained for 2 months). One extra final final thought...I shouldn't assume that once I abruptly retire I'll never make money again so there is that. Certainly that variable can fit somewhere in the grand master plans.

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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by 2Birds1Stone »

As someone who embraced the gamification of lowering spending, and also has an easy-mode salary, I can tell you the short term sacrifice is worth it. You have the unique position with your income, to ramp savings rate to 65%+ and shave the 8-10 years off from being FI. Does the $44,500 include your spouses spending too? Are they bringing income into the household? It took us two years to pare down spending from ~$45k/yr to $36k/yr but it was well worth it, the time to FI dropped rapidly.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

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2Birds1Stone wrote:
Mon Apr 08, 2019 8:44 am
As someone who embraced the gamification of lowering spending, and also has an easy-mode salary, I can tell you the short term sacrifice is worth it. You have the unique position with your income, to ramp savings rate to 65%+ and shave the 8-10 years off from being FI. Does the $44,500 include your spouses spending too? Are they bringing income into the household? It took us two years to pare down spending from ~$45k/yr to $36k/yr but it was well worth it, the time to FI dropped rapidly.
Yes, the $44,500 includes all the bills and some of my spouse's spending as well depending on back and forth favors/trades we do with one another. I wouldn't retire without her :D My spouse is bringing in business income though variable and she has a family that requires money sometimes (its an asian thing...but my spouse covers it so I stay out of it). She just recently invested 2018/2019 for RothIRA...still has a ton of cash sitting in savings. She is not fully bought into the FIRE idea although she naturally leans frugal growing up from a 3rd World Country.

Our divider mainly is I don't want to travel versus she wants to travel. I compromised and started allocating towards a rolling vacation fund (basically our plan is to keep $5k in savings for vacations and everytime we take one we just build the account back up to $5k overtime). I figured this was fair given if she is willing to live with my frugal habits and savings, I could live with her desire to travel. While this isn't great for optimization towards ERE, it does keep my marriage very happy.

What I'm hoping for is after a few vacations, she will get the "travel bug" out of her and we could truly optimize together, jack up the savings rate real good and save much more of her net profits.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

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Calculating Post-Commuting Salary

(1) Salary $90,000 / 2080 Hours = $43.27 Per Hour
(2) Adding a 15 hour commute time per week because it takes me 90 minutes one way... 15hrs * 52 weeks = 780 Hours
(3) Salary $90,000 / (2080 Hours + 780 Hours) = $31.47 Per Hour
(4) $31.47 Per Hour * 2080 Hours = $65,457.6 Post Commute Salary

Umm....my takeaway from this... If time = money than I'm certainly wasting time & money (to the tune of $24,542.40 per year). Divided by 12, this is $2,045.20 a month which is actually just about the amount of money I need to rent a 1 bedroom near my workplace. Interesting...

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Lemur
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5 meals created this week for lunch. I've kept this habit up for a few weeks now. This week I experimented with a lentil soup...turned out terrible. In the interest of never wasting food, I must now eat this concoction for 5 days now. Sticking to tomato sauce next time. The chicken broth recipe did not turn out well...

prognastat
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by prognastat »

The one downside of meal prep, if you mess up a meal or try something new and it doesn't turn out well you're stuck with it far longer than one meal.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

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prognastat wrote:
Mon Apr 15, 2019 8:48 pm
The one downside of meal prep, if you mess up a meal or try something new and it doesn't turn out well you're stuck with it far longer than one meal.
Yep. It should teach me a valuable lesson though...that mix I made I will not do again lol.

Today's thoughts - I'm getting competent enough at SQL. Not dangerous but I can do my job. Was fairly easy to pick up after a few weeks. Also because where I work it is the only choice.

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