Rube's journal

[rube]

171 days = 122 work days (Mo-Fri) target
@J_ @Bluenote and @DutchGirl thank you for all your comments. They all make sense and I probably stress out too much.
I have to remind myself: 15 years ago I did dare to quite my job with only about 2 years of my expenses saved and no other income and all went fine.
This time: the net rental income is covering with some margin our expenses. On top of that we will have about 7 years of living expenses mid 2020 in cash/invested which we can use to survive for 7 years in case of no income from the rental at all and/or will provide additional income/grow our NW. In about 25 years we are likely to receive social security and some additional pension (something like a 401K). If needed, or because it is fun, we will work either as salary man or entrepreneur now and than to make some side money. And "worst case" we need to adjust some FAT fire wishes or work a bit more here and there. Well, if you look at it that way, we're in a great position, I don't understandwhy I stress myself out so much simetimes .
Edit, probably I do know: I always look how to improve things, be more efficient, make more money, have better results. Both in work and private life. It is a bit in my genes as I remeber I already was like this when I was a very small kid. But now I need to learn to look broader and morew with an ERE view and less MMM / FAT FI view. Oh well, never too old to learn.

Thank you again, I will put in serious effort to see if I can get some RE-deal in the coming 3.5 months to be able to make use of very good mortgage conditions. But if not, well than that is fine as well and we'll find other deals, opportunities somehow and enjoy life in the mean time.

[rube]

165 days = 117 work days (Mo-Fri) target
Work
Another work week passed by. It is going now pretty quickly, I have to give notice 2 months in advance, which would mean only 3.5 month before I would have to give notice (still with the possibility to come to some parttime / consultant agreement during those "last" 2 months).

Investments-real estate
Just when I was saying last week it would be hard to find in this time frame another good Real Estate deal, I got a deal offered on Monday evening. Within 30 minutes I analyzed it and said yes before another investor was able to snatch it. It is still only verbal, so it can still fall through but I have good hopes it will materialize. Expected net rental yield is about 7% (=gros rent minus all fixed costs, it is an HOA so major maintenance is included with that / total investments). We could buy it completely in cash, but I am planning to use a mortgage in order to keep a large "cash" buffer available. Since interest is very low (about 2%) it does not hurt the total yield too much (and yield on the amount invested in this apartment is obviously even higher, becomes about 12% on own investment at 50% financing). This might become the most hands off deal so far, this means only arranging the paperwork (appraisal, mortgage, signing for the transfer at the notary) but all the other work (=small improvements, finding renters, managing the rental) is outsourced. The fees for that are included in the investment and monthly operations and the mentioned percentages.

ER(E)
ER, not so much the extreme part though, seems to come closer.
After our move, we found out that the space we have to dry our clothes is not well ventilated/warm as we used to have. We have plenty of space on other locations but I don't like that (the house is still and will be fore some time "a mess" due to our move and with 2 kids and both working I prefer to not make it even worse than that). One of the easiest options, which I don't really like but am really considering now, is to buy a dryer. It is the easy non ere solution, just throwing money to a problem, and I don't like to buy more energy users. Still, taking everything in account I might choose this route (yes, I have read the How do you dry your clothes? topic viewtopic.php?f=7&t=10970). Once we have more time for taking care of this and implementing other things, we would use it in a limited way.

[rube]

159 days = 113 work days (Mo-Fri) target
real estate Deal is off. Seller did forgot to mention the land was leased. The lease was payed for the next 33 years, but it was unclear what would happen after 33 years. I only became aware when I received the contract and papers.

[rube]

157 days = 112 work days (Mo-Fri) target
I went yesterday to a three day Millionaire mind intensive" program (www.millionairemindevents.com). I was curious if there was anything new/interesting for me, you do not know what you don't know, right? And just like ERE is for some people something that seams unreal (too many wheaton levels away) I thought, be open and see what it brings me.

But in the evening I decided I would not waste another two days on it. Some of the information were good reminders, but overal I didn't learn anything really new. At the end of the afternoon there were a few things which made me decide to step out and not return.
At one moment they showed a table what the results of investing would be after investing annually 5K for 20 years with a yield of 5%, 15% and 25%. And yes, that it is really possible to get this 25% as a risk free return. Because if you can't get this risk free, it is because you don't have enough knowlegde, and this is how the real rich people do it! Another moment was when the presenter said that it would be ridiculous to live on 8K per year, that is not even sufficient for the bare neccessities (@JLF still some promotion work to do for the 1 Jacob unit I guess). And the last straw was when the presenter told about his trip with 7 others in a private jet, because who wouldn't want to fly in an private yet (no, I wouldn't do that because of the environment!). In any case, I tried to be open for other/new views but had to decide that it wasn't for me.

Luckily I got a free ticket and it didn't feel like a complete day wasted because it was nice to meet some new people, to walk for some time in our capital to get to the train station and the whole experience. But not again for me.

[rube]

156 days = 112 work days (Mo-Fri) target
DS has a hobby which involves using a specific software program. So far he has used the "family" laptop, but this laptop is old and his program simply requires quite a lot of processor strength and now he is progressing, it doesn't really work well anymore.
Because he is now doing this for over a year (including lessons) and he still enjoys it a lot, we decided he needs to get his own laptop for this. So this afternoon I have been looking into different processors, cores, speed, ram, SSD etc. and after carefully comparing I have ordered one. Cost is 510 euro.
I hope it helps him to develop himself further in this, which does have the potential to earn him some money in the future. And if not directly in this hobby, I still think it is good for his development.

If I am no longer employed after 156 days, I would need to do a similar research in order to buy a laptop for myself. I have currently only a very old laptop myself which I have not turned on in 2 or 3+ years and is probably 8+ years. It might not even work anymore...During all this years I have been able to do almost everything on my work laptop by using online services and/or the standard office programs. Only a handful of times I had to used the "family" laptop when if I needed to install a specific program. I guess that will add around 10 euro a month to our expenses (500 euro / 48 months). I would like to continue using excel, I have to see how I can do that without it is costing me an arm and a leg.

[simplex]

Hi @rube,
I've got very good experience getting used professional laptops (i.e. Dell Latitude, Lenovo Thinkpad) from marktplaats in NL.
My recommendation is to buy them 3-5 years old, and keep them another 3-5 years.
This only works for "standard" workloads like office and software development, not for gaming/graphics.

[rube]

Thanks Simplex, that might be a good option for myself in a couple of months. I'll keep that in mind.

[rube]

142 days = 102 work days (Mo-Fri) target
Our heater stopped working earlier this week. At least, no central heating, only hot water. I thought it should be the three way valve. I opened it, checked some things and.... made a mistake which resulted in water all over and short circuit .
Spend a couple of hours to wipe up all the water, drying all the electronics. After putting things back in place and now, for a couple of days, it seem all to work again. I hope it will keep on working for a 1-2 more years till we have other things in place so we can replace this old one.

I like weekend: do a couple of things from my "to-do" list, walk to the super market, cook, meet some people, take a relaxing bath etc. Just in the speed as I want with too much pressure. But now it often still feels a bit like wasting-time-because-you-have-only-the-weekend-to-get-"this"-done. I hope this feeling will disappear when I quit or have PT work.

[Cheepnis]

You're getting so close!

Once the tankless water heater in the house we were renting stopped working. Our landlord came over and started tinkering with it and somehow put a screw through one of the circuit boards! Put himself out $1300. Felt bad for him but we were out of hot water for two weeks while the new board came.

In order to get anything productive done while working 40 hours a week really does take high levels of preparation and planning. I too sometimes feel I'm wasting time if I decide to spend my limited evening/weekend hours doing anything that isn't on my mental list. Sometimes I'll simply want to stop and smell the roses, but the knowledge that I won't have time for the next x days to get y done keeps me from slowing down. As I have quite a few years of work left I'm doing my best to design my life in a way where I can get everything done in a slow manner anyway, but that's harder than it sounds!

[rube]

133 days = 95 work days (Mo-Fri) target
Many things happened in last couple of days but no energy to write it all down and none is trivial.
Keywords or bullet points: leakages and lots of other stuff at rentals. Another rental - cancelled. Leaning towards part time work, current company or other lead? Holiday? Investments? Business trip. Corona virus. Family visit. FIRE Meetup. 133 days only!!

Thanks @cheepnis good luck with you journey.

[rube]

124 days = 88 work days (Mo-Fri) target
The closer I get to my target day, the more I see work (and perhaps life) as a game.

Another rambling: one day holiday-away with the family last weekend and Monday, now a few days alone at home (feels nice to be alone now and than), ordered a new expensive winter jacket, suppose to be good quality (my current one is 9 years old), spoke with forum member Simplex (thank you), will travel soon for business for a few days to a place I have never been before. I will have the Sunday to explore the place. Company is restricting traveling more and more, but I expect this trip won't be cancelled. Will have an update from HR later today. Work is okayish - just takes too much time
I hope the virus won't impact our live too much, but it is getting closer and closer. What to do with the cash we have? Our Real estate loans (mortgages) are 2% only at 10 and 20 year fixed interest. Besides our rentals, we have so far a little in a stock fund and a little in gold, but still another 300K in cash right now. Real estate is difficult, everything else seems expensive also. There are always opportunities, but after we sold our house it feels a waste to have so much cash doing nothing but on the other hand I don't want to take big risks with this and just throw it all in an indexfund or lend it to others (mortgage secured, 5-ish% for 60LTV is possible).
3 leakages at 6 different rentals in a <2 month period! And other things going on, but seems to getting all under control again without too much costs.

[Ego]

3 leakages at 6 different rentals in a <2 month period!

I'm sorry to hear this as I know how hard it is to deal with water intrusion issues. It disrupts the lives of your tenants and can be extremely costly. I don't wish it on anyone. Good luck and stay dry.

[rube]

122 days = 87 work days (Mo-Fri) target

Thanks Ego. So far costs are limit and it probably will stay pretty limited after all is done. Most important is there are no urgent stressing issues at the moment for the tennants and myself.
Btw, it was of course 3 leakages in 3 different rentals (out of 6 rentals total), not at 6 rentals. But with 18 people in 6 apartments with in total 6 toilets-bathrooms-kitchen-heatingsystems and numerous locks and keys, now and then something will happen.

On my way to the airport for a business trip now. I am taking the opportunity to enjoy the Sunday in this city.

DW was off for a few days and she just said, maybe I will quit before July/Augustus here (here=current company). And I will look for something else again after a few months. I guess a few days off from work sometimes gives you another (better) view/perspective on things.

Yesterday I send an order to buy an index fund. My first (small) buying order in 4 years time. I don't think the stocks are very cheap now, but at least 15% cheaper then last week. And with all the cash we have I think it is good to move some of it to stocks. I probably will buy more in the coming weeks/months, and I am curious to see if we (finally, as in after the longest bull market) we'll enter a global recession/bear market or if the central banks are still able to put more money into the system to avoid this.

[rube]

113 days = 81 work days (Mo-Fri) target
Last week might have been my last business trip for the foreseeable future. After coming back on Wednesday evening things are rapidly changing in Europe with the virus. Probably all three trips planned in the next couple will be cancelled.
I am on my way to the office right now, but depending how this goes I might want/have to work (more) work from home in the next weeks.

This time it is different!! The question is where is the bottom (in the market) and how much from the cash I want to move into it. I am pretty sure though that this will create a recession. How bad it all might be, it is an interesting time.

[rube]

111 days = 79 work days (Mo-Fri) target
111 days on the 11th of March.

Work: I have to formulate my goals this month for 2020. I don't know yet what to do about this. I feel fatique. Perhaps it is similar to the last days before holiday, you know you're almost there.

Health: covid-19. Spreading now fast. Apart from how bad it all is and might even become, it it interesting and fascinating how people, governments etc. (re)act.

Investments: bought a little more today (index fund). Still 95% of the cash we have available.

[DutchGirl]

I had to formulate goals for the year as well. Ultimately, I came up with a goal to improve my training of new colleagues. That is a skill that I want to develop more, but will want to use in other areas of my life when I quit working.

One other goal I formulated was a productivity goal. I have no idea whether I will make it or not, but it doesn't matter as I don't really mind whether or not I'll make it. It won't affect my job status anyway. (And for me, I'll do my best at my job anyway).

What did you come up with?

[rube]

Hi @DutchGirl I still need to finalize my goals. I might also not publish them or only vaguely to keep some privacy.

106 days = 76 work days (Mo-Fri) target.

Work and covid-19: we have to work for (at least) 4 weeks from home. I am used to work from home, but not for so long. And many of my colleagues around the world normally work in office of 100+ persons. They almost all will work now from home. Interesting how this will go.

Work - company: just before the large sell off on the stock market started, the company published pretty disappointing Q4 figures. The stock price fell about 40%. And it went more down with the global sell off. Incredible, it lost more than 60%, which was already half of the peak of about a year or so!! And with the current outlook, supply chain challenges and shops closed, though online is perhaps offsetting this a bit, this might be a real challenge. We'll see how far and how quickly this goes. I would not be surprised if there will be lay-offs.

Investments: It might become much worse. Airlines stop flying, everything shut down. Etc. On the other hand, if we have this under control and not too many business will fall down, it can go up fast again. I don't know, so I am buying slowly. I think I can handle it if it goes down another 20-30% (extreme panic or lots of business bankrupt...).

[rube]

105 days = 75 work days (Mo-Fri) target.

Especially for those in Europe: Have you also noticed the reduced or almost complete lack of contrails? (the white stripe after an airplane in the sky) . And with that the reduced amount of noise?

I noticed the same in 2010 after some time when the vulcano in Iceland erupted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_trave ... l_eruption

[McTrex]

Yes, and loving it. I’m hoping something good comes from this mess.

Are you still planning to quit soon? Or are you revisiting your plans due to the circumstances?

[simplex]

Your work from home might allow you to stretch your work and keep on a little longer. This reduces the risk of the economic consequences of Covid-19 bec. of sick pay. Sounds harsh, but I would make such a calculation.

Good luck.