guitar player's journal

[guitarplayer]

An attempt to have an active journal. Welcome everyone, here is more about me viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11227

I have been looking at the website of Tim Moss and his Database of Long Distance Cycle Journeys https://thenextchallenge.org/ldcj/.

Looking at the median cost of cycle touring per person which is £450/month/person. Median is better in this case because there are some world record attempts in the database - these people spend a fortune on their trip. If we were to go on a full blown cycling journey without any extra income and work, we would probably run out of money in about 7 years. I would be 40 and DW 37, oops that would be quite a middle life crisis!

So I had a look at the median cost per kilometre from the database, this is £0.31/kilometre. With our current savings and SWR of 0.03 we could cycle ~7250km/year, which is roughly 140km week.

Of course, cycling 20km/day instead of 70km/day will not solve the financial struggles of a long distance cyclist It would more likely be a regulating mechanism for organising some free stay/work in the trip.

One way to think about it would be to cycle 140km for two days and then find a warmshowers or couchsufring hosts for 4/5 days. This means free place to stay in exchange for changing out and being socially active (though some hosts just let you be and do whatever you want)

Another way would be to cycle 500km over 7 days and then stay with a helpx or workaway host for 3 weeks. This would mean free place to stay and food in exchange for 10-25h of casual work every week.

Yet another way would be to do a conventional cycle touring trip for about 20 weeks totaling 7250km (to have an idea, this is more or less Edinburgh-Istanbul-Edinburgh, or San Francisco-Mexico City-San Francisco), followed by a conventional employment for about 7 months. In this option, the investments would not be touched, because 7 months of conventional work would be more than enough to finance 5 months of cycling adventure. Where we work now, accommodation and food is provided and the organisation would most likely be happy to have us back. So maybe this is the way to go!

[guitarplayer]

A quick follow up. Everyone is talking about maxing out their ISAs and contributing to SIPPs to optimise income tax. In the US it would be 401 Roth?

Another take on optimising income tax in the UK would be to earn below the tax free allowance of £12500/year. Between two people, this would mean earning up to £25000 gross (this would be around £24000 net because of the national insurance contributions). DW and I could do it in 7 months, and spend the other 5 months pursuing whatever we feel like - developing other resources, learning stuff, getting to know people (on a cycling trip?)

I have been playing with this idea for a while. Stuff like this is possible in our current line of work. I am not sure how easy it is to secure a 7 month contract in other fields.

[guitarplayer]

On keeping one's body in shape: Jacob's HIIT workout routine is very cost effective and time efficient, and works well for looks and well-being. Thank you Jacob. I use the variant with burpees, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-sB3o7LCPo, as no equipment is needed. For those who have not picked up on it:

* You aim to do 200/100/50 (to accommodate various levels of fitness) burpees every other day.
* The burpees are done divided into one minute intervals.
* Start with 5 burpees at a time. The first minute starts, do 5 burpees and rest until the beginning of the second minute. Then do 5 burpees again, and so on.
* Carry on for 40/20/10 min (corresponding to the number of burpees). When you have done them all, you are done for the day.
* Once comfortable with it, start doing 6 burpees at a time. It will take you less time to reach your total number of burpees
* Then increase to 7, and so on.

I started about 6 months ago, 200 burpees with 5 burpees at a time, this took 40min. Now I do 200 burpees with 11 burpees at a time, it takes me 18min.

Cold shower after this is excellent. I don't take hot showers anymore.

DW tells me I look athletic. This is new compared to 6 months ago, even though I was fit back then from running for hours and hours.

It takes me 18min every second day, compared to running for hours and hours every week. I still run every now and again, but now more to enjoy the landscapes or to accompany DW, rather than to do 30min in a particular heart rate zone etc.

[guitarplayer]

I was thinking about the state pension in the UK. Many things can change in decades to come, but I do not think the state pension will be scrapped, maybe reduced in real terms.

The state pension starts coming in at 67, but by the time we are near that age it will likely be 70 or maybe even 72. At the moment, the full state pension is £8767.2/year. One gets the full new state pension after having 35 qualifying years of contributing to the National Insurance. A qualifying year is when one has earned at least £6136 between 6th of April of year A and 5th of April of year A+1. It is possible to get a fraction of the new State Pension, but only after having a minimum of 10 qualifying years. Then, one will get 10/35 of the full state pension, i.e. £2504.91/year.

The minimum for a qualifying year is earned by working just over 4 months a year on a minimum wage. At that level of income, 100% of earned money ends up on one's bank account.

It is also possible to pay voluntary national insurance contribution, this costs £780 for each year.

The state pension would equal to £6136/year after 25 years of national insurance contributions. Me and my partner can happily live on £6136/year/person. We currently have around £75000 of investments. These investments might rise in the next 25 years to £157000. This would be enough to burn through until the state pension age.

One plan to maintain our current standard of living would then be to:

* be salaried workers for 4.5months/year working a minimum wage job for the next 25 years
* after 25 years stop being salaried workers
* spend the savings until we reach the state pension age
* start spending the state pension

The assumptions:
* we must not perform an income generating activity for 7.5months/year in the next 25 years and for 12months/year thereafter.
* we must only earn money in minimum wage jobs

[guitarplayer]

[EDIT: an answer to a deleted post] Ah, it is not my mindset, just assumptions for the plan above. In reality hopefully the job won't be a minimum wage one, and interesting enough to stick around for longer than 4.5 months.

I think there was something along those lines in one of the posts on ERE blog or in the book. And one way of calling what's in the last bullet points could perhaps be 'boundary conditions', though I might be wrong.

Yes, I was very sore in the beginning as well! It'll get better, or it got better for me anyway.

I remember that particular muscle parts were more sore than others at different points in time. This forced me to work on the technique. For example at one point my legs were particularly sore. I had discovered that while getting up, I was landing in a squat position. However, while getting up, you can jump back to reasonably straight legs by engaging abdomen muscles better to 'pull the legs back'. My legs stopped being (more) sore (than the rest).

It is an excellent workout routine, beauty in its simplicity. No equipment other than a watch and you don't have to keep any plan written down.

And those cold showers are just like swimming in a lake in the Alps on a hot summer day

[guitarplayer]

Recently we went for a concert of Beethoven's Symphonies, (6th 'Pastorale', and 7th). I particularly enjoyed the 3rd movement of Symphony no 7.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lYWoVCfi5M

Though enjoyable, it turned out to be an expensive business. Tickets for two with a booking fee = £37.5. Commute from our countryside location = £22.32. In total, £60 for an hour and a half of delightful music at a beautiful venue.

This provoked me to think of yet another retirement plan, this one for classical music lovers who enjoy going to concerts. As it turns out, the price of tickets for classical music concerts can vary a lot in the EU, there is lots of room for geoarbitrage. In Usher Hall, Edinburgh, a minimum price for a place with limited visibility is £12.5, £18 for full visibility. The lowest price I could find in Sofia, Blugaria is around £11. But in the Poznan philharmonic in Poland, one can buy an 'entrance' ticket for £3! This ticket allows one to enter the hall but with no seat allocated. One can though take a free seat once the concert has started. The cheapest ticket with a seat = £6.

So, if you are keen on classical music then there are retirement places in the EU where you can get much more of it than elsewhere!

I know that in the age of technology, music of great quality can be purchased at a fraction of the price and listened to endlessly. However, one can claim that live music is superior in its uniqueness, immediate display (and admiration) of skill, and probably a few other things.

Someone could say that if it costs less then it is probably of poorer quality. I would disagree again, more a case of the country's economy dictating prices.

[Cheepnis]

That concert sounds delightful. £30/p isn't cheap, but doesn't seem unreasonable to me. After all, depending on the level of symphony you attended, you're witnessing the result of a combined 1,000,000+ hours of practice.

Live music is certainly it's own ball game. Even heavily amplified live music (rock concerts) can have many superior sonic qualities, though even those are blown out of the water by acoustic music played in its appropriate venue. The sound of a symphony in a concert hall, or small jazz group in a tiny room, is really unsurpassed and has an aura that cannot be captured on a recording. The experience of the sound coming at you from all directions, reverberating off walls, really helps put you in the center of the music. Listening on earbuds removes this experience for obvious reasons, but even listening to a superior recording on a superior stereo cannot fully replicate it since there's a second order room & stage (your listening space, placement of your speakers) that complicates things.

[guitarplayer]

@Cheepnis, thanks for commenting!

Live music is certainly it's own ball game. Even heavily amplified live music (rock concerts) can have many superior sonic qualities, though even those are blown out of the water by acoustic music played in its appropriate venue. The sound of a symphony in a concert hall, or small jazz group in a tiny room, is really unsurpassed and has an aura that cannot be captured on a recording. The experience of the sound coming at you from all directions, reverberating off walls, really helps put you in the center of the music.

What you write is very true.

Looking more broadly at enjoying live music, one way to pull the price down would be to learn how to play an instrument! Of course this then narrows down the experience to some genres, and like you say, there are lots and lots of hours of practice before this can be enjoyed. Yet, could be a worthwhile project.

[guitarplayer]

A bit about financials (attempt for a summary further down), and possessions (yet further down):

On 15th of Feb 2020 I bought another £20000 batch of dogs of the FTSE100. That was the second batch, so altogether these are £40k invested in 10 stocks giving the highest dividend on the day of purchase. Sadly, there is a 0,5% stamp duty on stocks purchased, but dividends and capital growth are not taxed. I pat £5 per transaction.

Now this must stand much lower because of the bear market, I am however not too bothered as it will likely recover sometime in the future. In fact, I am getting slightly excited at the prospect of buying shares at a discount in the future! Must read more of the forum and wait and see to gather when there is a rebound.

We also have deposited £8000 (max per tax year) into cash Lifetime ISA accounts this tax year (In the UK tax year runs until the 5th of April). Money in these accounts is immediately topped up with 25% by the government. So we deposit £8000, but tomorrow we will have £10000! This can be used for a deposit to purchase of one's first property, or withdrew at no penalty at the age of 60 I think. After discussing the topic for maybe 3 years, we have decided to set these up as it might be likely we would be buying a property at some point in our lives.

Actually, I am contemplating transferring those LISAs to stock and shares option, so that the money can grow over a decade or so (also diligently observing the current recession to enter at the right time!). Then we could capitalise on the 25% bonus and on the compound interest from market investing. Cash LISAs have a 1% ROI.

It is a shame that one cannot buy a property with LISA money outright, I guess it is beyond comprehension for the policymakers! However, the smallest mortgage can be even £10000, which makes the 25% gov bonus worth the hassle I think.

Someone could argue that property prices already take into account the bonus from LISAs. In my experience of talking to people that should not be the case. People are either not aware of LISAs or too impatient to wait for the money to be accumulated on these. So I think we will be the winners here.

We also have around £2100 invested in a private property venture. The company claimed they would deliver a return of 6-8% a year and the investment should complete in a year or two. I have this because in the very beginning of me thinking about passive income, I was aiming at building a portfolio of properties and this was meant to be a foot in the door. Later I realised the tax advantages of investing in stock and shares in the UK.

We also have about £10500 that is owed to us because we saved a property of relatives from being sold way under valuation in order pay off an external debt. The way we arranged it, we should be hopefully getting back this and some more later this year (when the property is sold according to its valuation).

I also have a saving account that I have set up maybe 9 years ago, paying in £20/month with 6% interest rate. This will be worth £3000 in 2021.

Dogs of the FTSE100: £40k (atm perhaps closer to £31k?)
Property related: £12.5k
Locked until summer 2021: £3k
LISAs: £10k
Cash: £10k

Combined assets £75.5k

Our tangibles are mostly two touring bikes: Dawes Karakum and Ridgeback Voyage. Together with other gear, we have perhaps something like £1500 worth of it but not planning to sell it. We used to cycle to work but now we live at work so there is no need for a commute. The wear and tear on the bikes is much slower. In June 2020 we go on a one month adventure cycling the length of the Rhine River.

My second most expensive tangible is a Yamaha electro-acoustic guitar which I have purchased second hand pretty much unused for half the price - £300. It gives me and others a great deal of joy, excellent investment.

Otherwise we are pretty mobile, could pack into a rented car and move to a new location (while sending bicycles with a courier). Alternatively, we could pack our belongings in 3 suitcases and send them with a courier, while cycling to a new location (could be a bit more tricky logistically because of the guitar, ha!)

[guitarplayer]

I started about 6 months ago, 200 burpees with 5 burpees at a time, this took 40min. Now I do 200 burpees with 11 burpees at a time, it takes me 18min.

200 burpees at 12 burpees a minute for 16min and 8 burpees in minute 17.

[jacob]

Join the forum burpee competition!

viewtopic.php?t=6588

[guitarplayer]

Oh yeah I will give it a go!

Btw I am really curious if I will manage to pull off 100 after I have reached the 15 burpees a minute over 13min.

[guitarplayer]

Recently I have located some relatively cheap second hand Crosso bicycle panniers (model 'dry' for the curious ones). Four of them for £60, pulled the price down to £50.

Crosso is a company from Poland, they do bicycle panniers that are better value for money than Ortlieb (mainstream). I already own two Crosso's (model 'expert') and after 8 years they are still excellent.

Model 'dry' is not as good as 'expert', but the £50 price tag for 180l capacity (60l front 120l back) has convinced me. They will need a bit of fixing with tenacious/gaffa tape. I like to think though that I contribute to not creating more stuff for the overstuffed world. I think with them we should have enough gear to keep ourselves entertained for a long long time with very little money!

By the way, in June we plan to cycle for a month along the Rhine River, starting in Andermatt, Switzerland. Mostly wildcamping or warmshowers I hope. If anyone has suggestions about nice spots on the way, please write!

[guitarplayer]

Recently I have located some relatively cheap second hand Crosso bicycle panniers (model 'dry' for the curious ones). Four of them for £60, pulled the price down to £50.

Not very nice, but the seller had contacted me the day before the purchase date and told me that he had sold the panniers to someone for £60.

A set of 4 new Crosso panniers which will surely last +10 years (better quality model) is £238. I need to think about whether to get them or not.

The trip along the Rhine river in June 2020 is under a question mark - the ferry might get cancelled! In which case I think we might be heading to the Outer Hebrides.

[guitarplayer]

I don't feel that I know all that much about evaluating shares' price, and this is why ! use a buy and hold strategy 'Dogs of the FTSE'. It is a UK approximation of the Dogs of the Dow.

* On Feb 15th 2019 I launched a £20k venture into my passive income portfolio and this returned a nice 13.74% annual.
* On Feb 15th 2020 I added a further £20k. By now, sadly, it stands at -33.51%

I was ready for wild swings and since we are still accumulating +£20k a year with the intention of continuing the strategy, I am sure it will smooth out. In many ways I am very happy that we are hitting those volatile times now, almost at the beginning of our accumulating stage!

However, it does not feel good to see or say that from our £42748 six weeks ago, suddenly £28419 is left. So I am trying to come up with some mental strategies to tackle the sad/bad feeling.

I have done lots of simulations, assuming wild volatility swings to feel comfortable about them. I also had a side hustle where the volatility was so wild that the 'profit' would vary from -£1000 to £2000 within a month (ending up in the green each time). I would perform lots of operations, and each one of them would have a theoretical, average value (if repeated over N times). Volatility would get me up and down a lot, but I could still look at the value of my operations over the long term. The same way, I can look at the average return of the Dogs of the FTSE strategy.

Another way of easing my mental pain is to think of how it would feel if I owned studio flats instead of shares. This was my plan some years ago. Surely, if I had studio flats and renting them, I would not be checking the price of those flats every month. I would be interested in the rent that is coming into my account.

And so the above reflections make me think that this bear market is gonna be long gone in 10 years, but the dividends will keep on coming in all along!

Then there is the argument that if I urgently need the money, it will not be £40k but £28k. This I can tackle by taking care of myself and those dear to me. Also not making stupid things like getting loans etc. And having some cash aside. I feel I am fairly well prepared for lots of life scenarios and know how to deal with them money-less as well.

On a different note, where we live there is this gorgeous 72m x 65m walled garden on a south facing slope with a view of surrounding hills. We went yesterday and today to collect our leeks and have a peek at the purple sprouting broccoli that should flower sometime soon. Looking forward to investing in useful skills in the coming months!

[guitarplayer]

200 burpees at 12 burpees a minute for 16min and 8 burpees in minute 17.

today 200 burpees at 13 burpees a minute for 15min and 5 burpees in minute 16.

My DW got seeds for this season. We did not do much seed collecting last year, only managed to preserve raddish seeds. So this year we still bought seeds from the Seed Cooperative. Yesterday I dug out a bed just outside of my window and planted flowers that attract bees, I am hoping for a spectacle in 1-2 months!

[guitarplayer]

I upped the burpees to 14/min and 15/min in the last four minutes. I am not sure I can go any further than that with having breaks in between! But hey, this journal is not supposed to be only about exercise.

We have planted quite a few things in the last couple of weeks: peas, broad beans, raddishes, onions, lettuce, mizuna, rocket, kale, kohlrabi, potatoes (just six, for fun), broad leaf beets and a few others I don't remember now. We plant in rows, no permaculture design, following our gardener. The garden is excellent, walled and on a south facing slope. It is being treated with compost the community produces over the year - and it has been this way for decades. You can imagine the quality of the soil.

Also, following a link to the Cornell Small Farms Online Course provided by @sky in the Garden Log, I am nearly finishing the course about outdoor mushroom cultivation. We have quite a lot of European Beech growing on the estate so I asked the estate manager to cut me some logs. Now I have about 10 logs waiting to be inoculated! The dowels with Shiitake spawn are going to arrive within days. It is going to be an interesting project.

We also have yield from purple sprouting broccoli we have planted last year. It is nice to harvest something at the beginning of the season, when it is mostly about sowing.

On the job front, there are quite a few changes that result from tighter infection control measures. The change brings some resistance from staff so the atmosphere at work is not as good as it used to be. Still it is a nice place to be and work.

Care sector in Scotland is regulated and one has to have a vocational qualification in order to be able to work in the field for more than 5 years. I am doing such training. My thinking is, once I have it I will always have this career route as a back up. I know the pay could be better, but on the other hand there will always be vacancies in the field.

There is an option of doing a nursing degree in Scotland and be paid a bursary of £8000/year for three years and a little bit less in the fourth year. I thought about this for some time, but then I crunched the numbers and the opportunity cost seemed to be too high. Nurses in the UK don't earn nearly as much as in the US, or perhaps they could but with years of experience. I am not convinced I would be willing to stick to this career for 10 years+!

Another field where there will seemingly always be vacancies in the field is programming, which makes me think that I should learn how to do it. After high school I studies acoustics (physics) for a year and that was quite interesting, I also had good grades. Then I swapped to studying psychology and years later also studied political science. I wonder if this perhaps was a one big sunk cost fallacy and me just following this path that 'was so worth it because I changed my majors after one year of physics for it.'

I think I could learn programming to land a job quickly, perhaps with a tiny bit of guidance. I have learned many things on my own (with the help of books/DVDs/internet), including swimming, skiing, playing guitar, English and bits of whatever I need (like bits of bicycle maintenance for example). Maybe I will ask @bigato for some guidance on learning programming as I read somewhere on the forum that he was happy to offer it to another forum user!

Programming would be cool to know, because it looks like it pays better than care without getting into managerial position and jobs are abundant and could possibly be location independent in the future. And I think, that maybe I would more easily get into the 'flow' doing programming rather than doing care?

I am going to try to write a financial update next month, maybe something similar to what @wolf or @Bakai writes. It will be painful because my dogs of the FTSE100 are now something like £16000 down. I don't know that much about investing and have a long term horizon so will just stick to the Dogs of the FTSE100 strategy.

[guitarplayer]

Today we have inoculated 8 logs with shiitake spawn, they should be ready next summer. 5oz of shiitake every week from June to October 2021!

[EDIT: As of Jan 2022, this experiment sadly failed]

[guitarplayer]

(EDIT: answer to a deleted post) Thanks MEA for your perspective! Glad to read.

The savings rate may well be around 68%, but in absolute numbers way less than some here on the forum - £24000 a year (for a couple. We don't divide finances so all the numbers here are for DW and I). Also, COL is very low with the setup, roughly £6250 per annum for food and bills (£5750 for leisure = total £12000). I remember that when we were renting a flat three years ago, we would spend £12000 per annum on rent, bills and food alone. To move out somewhere to a city and maintain the savings rate and the way of life, we would both have to have a salary north of £30k/year. This I think would be possible only having an in demand skill useful for someone who has money. Care skills are in demand but there is not much money in the field. Programming skills are in demand and there is much money to pay for them.

But yes the setup is pretty sweet! Also, once we have enough assets we might not want to live in the UK anymore, ha! Then we would very easily find a place that is more livable for £12000/year. Though I would like to be linked to the UK somehow, perhaps get citizenship or have a flat here.

[guitarplayer]

I have done the last two burpee sessions (with a pushup and a jump) in two sets of 100! I am not quite sure where to go from here. Maybe @Jacob can suggest a good equipment free progression.

Meanwhile, I am going through the Cornell University Course on indoors mushroom cultivation. We are chatting with the DW that mushrooms could be a good business opportunity for some family members.

Our logs are inoculated and really looking forward to harvesting Shiitake next year. This year we will do our usual foraging for chanterelles and porcinis.

Yesterday I also started harvesting sap from a nearby birch. The tree purifies and enriches the water. It tastes a bit sweet and has some difficult to describe pleasant flavour. I am getting about 0.5l per day.

When I finish the course about indoor mushroom cultivation, I am going to push hard to finish the vocational qualification I do for the job. This should be finished around June 2020. Then I am planning to re-read through Viktor K's Journal (An American Millenial) and somewhat copy his way of learning software developing (and maybe eventually landing a job in the field).