seanconn's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
shaz
Posts: 417
Joined: Mon Aug 02, 2021 7:05 pm
Location: Colorado, US

Re: seanconn's journal

Post by shaz »

Is the chicken wire to keep rabbits out?

User avatar
seanconn256
Posts: 109
Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2021 8:04 pm
Location: Laniakea Supercluster

Re: seanconn's journal

Post by seanconn256 »

shaz wrote:
Mon May 30, 2022 9:53 pm
Is the chicken wire to keep rabbits out?
Yes, and other small animals.

shaz
Posts: 417
Joined: Mon Aug 02, 2021 7:05 pm
Location: Colorado, US

Re: seanconn's journal

Post by shaz »

That's a good idea. I might try a full enclosure over a pot to keep deer out. I have been failing at keeping deer fenced out of a garden in general; maybe I can succeed one pot at a time.

User avatar
seanconn256
Posts: 109
Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2021 8:04 pm
Location: Laniakea Supercluster

Re: seanconn's journal

Post by seanconn256 »

shaz wrote:
Tue May 31, 2022 9:19 am
That's a good idea. I might try a full enclosure over a pot to keep deer out. I have been failing at keeping deer fenced out of a garden in general; maybe I can succeed one pot at a time.
yea I have extra chicken wire that I intend to enclose the top with if I have issues. One thing about bunnies specifically (not sure about deer); they will chew through the plastic chicken wire, so I would get the metal kind.
Last edited by seanconn256 on Tue May 31, 2022 2:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

shaz
Posts: 417
Joined: Mon Aug 02, 2021 7:05 pm
Location: Colorado, US

Re: seanconn's journal

Post by shaz »

Thanks for the advice.

User avatar
grundomatic
Posts: 411
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:04 am

Re: seanconn's journal

Post by grundomatic »

Sorry to hear about the breakup. Even if things are for the best, I know it's not easy.

I, too, will be looking to implement more "doing" into my ERE journey. I recently read somewhere that reading a book on bicycle riding isn't going to actually teach one how to ride a bicycle. My understanding is that WL6 is about developing skills, which as I understand are best learned by learning a little (about), then doing (to reinforce/solidify), and then repeating the cycle. I sometimes find myself not doing anything, as I think I need to understand everything about the subject first. I think you have done a good job jumping in with your woodworking and your gardening. I know you'll find other things to get into.

User avatar
seanconn256
Posts: 109
Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2021 8:04 pm
Location: Laniakea Supercluster

Re: seanconn's journal

Post by seanconn256 »

@grundomatic : thanks.

Just realized I skipped doing a journal post for June; whoops.

Things have changed a lot for me again. I have been going as hard as I can with the ERE stuff, but work has been taking up a lot of my energy.

Now that I am living solo for the time being I have made some serious changes towards simplicity and frugality that I formerly had to compromise on.

I haven't turned the AC on in about a week now, and it's been going well. I was expecting acclimating to the temperature to be much harder than it was. Running a fan seems to give an instant 10 degree (F) drop in apparent temperature, when that fan is quite close. It sits at about 75 degrees (F) in my apartment, which is surprisingly low. I think it's because the apartment is bordered on four sides by air conditioned apartments/hallways, and that the exterior doesn't face the sun directly for most of the day. The main problem I've been having is with humidity. I know for a fact that keeping my apartment this humid will cause issues over time. I have turned on the AC for short periods, exclusively to rid the house of humidity. I have also tried a passive rock-salt dehumidifier, which seemed to have no effect. My most successful strategy other than the AC has been to wait for periods of low humidity and blow that air inside, and to limit humidity creating activities like hot showers.

I have also been trying floor sleeping. I have a 3" foam mattress pad, some sheets, a pillow, and that's it. It's been a huge success. I was expecting a long transitional period, and was even anticipating giving up. First night was a little hard, second night onward has been the same comfort level as sleeping on the bed. I have, because of the aforementioned humidity, been dissembling the bed during the day however, to prevent moisture buildup. There is also a 3 degree (F) difference in apparent temperature on the floor, which is quite comfortable.

I am also line drying my clothes. Because of the high (~75%) humidity outside recently it has taken them a while to dry, but it is not at all inconvenient.

My savings rate for June was 73%, which is a record for me. This is before I made all the changes I just described, so stay tuned. This is also with my payment of my yearly auto insurance premium and somehow spending 100$ at walmart? This is what i get for tracking expenses a month late...

Moving forward, I'm going to start a no-buy-3-months starting next Monday (June 1st), until the end of September.
The formal rules I will be holding myself to are as follows:
- no buying anything unless one of these rules applies
- no buying anything with a brand name or commonly associated with a brand name (this applies mostly to food)
- it's a perishable item (examples include food, gas, toothpaste, shampoo)
- it's a replacement for a computer part ( I have my limits)
- it's required for some sort of social event or gathering, e.g. coffee with friends

I am also going to make every weekend a no-internet weekend from now on. It's been a seriously good thing for me. I basically don't watch/read anything online unless I'm eating. No twitter, youtube, TV etc. Because of this, I read more, do more art, am more productive, have more energy, etc. It's been great. It forces me to 'produce' my own content. I look forward to my weekends often.


As a last note; I had another run in with normal people. My work flew me down to go see them a couple weeks ago. It was a bunch of software engineers going to the office for a week post-covid so we could actually meet one another. It was a lot of fun, and I like them a lot, I just am baffled by their lives. They eat out for most meals, have new cars, large houses, expensive hobbies, and new furniture. They know the name of every bar within a 30 mile area, and are caught up on all the latest TV shows. I spent 50$ going out to a bar with them and getting just two drinks.
I have often wondered how it would be possible to actually spend my salary, but I think I can see now. It looks like a lot of work, but they seem to be enjoying it, so good for them. To each their own.

User avatar
seanconn256
Posts: 109
Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2021 8:04 pm
Location: Laniakea Supercluster

Re: seanconn's journal

Post by seanconn256 »

quick tip for those dealing with humidity; just open a window + run a fan. Fixed my problems immediately, despite the humidity outside being really high. I think as long as the air is fresh, even if it's humid, it is much better than stale humid air.

User avatar
seanconn256
Posts: 109
Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2021 8:04 pm
Location: Laniakea Supercluster

Re: seanconn's journal

Post by seanconn256 »

July savings rate: 74%

The 80/20 rule held true for electricity costs. Line drying clothing + runnning AC ~95% less often + taking cold showers has lead to a 75% drop in energy costs.

The humidity has made me turn on the AC twice, not out of personal comfort but from concerns regarding mold and electronics. This is only something I resort to when I can't just open the windows at night, as occasionally the humidity persists and it stays at about 80 degrees through the night. I have to say I prefer the cold.

My main life-improvement focuses right now are fitness and general low expense life skills. I have not had the energy to take on anything else, as work has been stressful recently.

The mastermind group is going to start meeting again, and I am excited for that.

User avatar
seanconn256
Posts: 109
Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2021 8:04 pm
Location: Laniakea Supercluster

Re: seanconn's journal

Post by seanconn256 »

I was finally was able to figure out why I've been having energy problems; burnout.

I have been aware of burnout as a concept, but I have never actually considered I was capable of it for some reason, or that if I did have it that I would not be able to tell immediately if I was experiencing it.

It manifested itself as a lot of headaches, quasi-sicknesses over stretches of a couple days, and general lack of physical and mental energy. I'm still working out what caused it, but primarily I think I've been pushing myself too hard for a while, not given myself any breaks, any recognition of successes, or had any space for incremental progress.

It's something I've always struggled with; when good things happen I do nothing, and when they anything goes wrong I see it as a personal failing. Funny enough my swim coach in high school always said that "the best athletes aren't the ones that love to win; they're the ones that hate to lose". This has been my mindset for my ERE journey as well. I've made a lot of improvements over time and always moved onto the next thing without stopping for a break or giving any recognition. I think negative motivations come more easily for me ('I don't like working', 'I could have avoided spending money on X if I just did A+B+C+D+E...') and positive motivations ('I just reduced my work time by two years', 'I cut my electricity bill by more than half') are something I need to work to reinforce.

Another part of this mental reorganization is rethinking how I conceive of wheaton levels. It's extremely attractive to see them as a checklist to success, or a path to lifestyle design enlightenment. It makes things mentally simpler to organize. It may be good for most people, but is it good for me? I've found that because I think about it as a track, path, or sequence of movements, I then try to finish as fast as possible. Because I'm trying to do it as fast as I can, anything less than record breaking speeds is unacceptable. The MM group picked up on this, recognizing that I compare myself to other people's performance as if ERE is a game or race.

I need to think of ERE and my general lifestyle design practices as a set of optional improvements and additions to my life. I need to recognize that solutions to problems with lifestyle design are so personal it's not healthy to make direct comparisons. The point of this whole lifestyle design thing is to live a good life, not to win the ERE game and lower the monthly spending number or have the lowest SWR or income robustness score or whatever else.

And when it comes down to it, if things stayed the same as they do now, I would be more than okay. I have improved my working environment dramatically over the past year and half, to the point where 5 or even 10 years doesn't sound so bad anymore. I could stop working for three years right now without any additional money. I need to take a breath and realize it's not a race.


---

On the month to month stuff, I spent 2200$ this month. I was, originally, annoyed by this, because more than last month. I expected a serious dip this month.

In reality there was actually a dip, it was just overshadowed by some financial events that tipped the scales. Firstly, I paid my yearly car insurance payment this month, ~350 dollars. Secondly, I bought a mattress. The sleeping on the floor stuff was great on the start, but really did not work out in the long term. It was comfortable enough, but I often found it when combined with not turning on the AC to be too uncomfortable to bear. Considering I am trying to recover from burnout, I think it's perfectly reasonable to pay for some comfort right now. At the very least I've learned that I can go periods of time without a mattress if I really need to. This is useful because one thing I've found out about cheaper solutions is that they usually take time to materialize. You have to wait for a deal etc.
Lastly, I mistimed when my electricity bill would come in, so I am still paying my pre-AC rate, which for reasons I really don't want to get into, was 250$ a month instead of the 60$ a month it is now.
If those things hadn't happened I would have spent only 1500 dollars, which is about what I was expecting.

In other words, I would have to buy a mattress + pay my yearly car insurance rate every month to get back to around my old spending level (assuming this month is not a fluke, which I checked for). That's a serious improvement and I need to take time to fully realize that. It will be hard to feel real until the actual monthly spending number goes down over a couple months, but it is still something I can see as at least possible if it's not immediately replicate-able.


On more long term goals, I am still trying to do a no-buy-three months. I've cheated once with the mattress, but I'm not going to give up because of that. (I also bought a metal file for 3$, but I bought that with money I got from selling a hat to a friend so I don't think that counts).

So far, as a result of the month, I've traded hanging up a shelf for a friend for 1$ of rope (that I didn't end up needing) for the clothesline, and used the aforementioned file to retrofit an old bike part when I lost the current one.

Also, lastly, I am really excited the MM group is starting up again. I look forward to our discussions.

User avatar
seanconn256
Posts: 109
Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2021 8:04 pm
Location: Laniakea Supercluster

Re: seanconn's journal

Post by seanconn256 »

I've been focusing almost entirely on health these past couple of months, and I think I've got something workable figured out. I have been losing 1.5 pounds a week for the past month, with no specific effort being put in. Running is great for stress, gets me outside, I can listen to music I enjoy, and it's great for cardiovascular health, and that makes me actually want to do it. I like high rep body weight workouts for similar reasons. I also have found recipes that I really enjoy, aren't really all that expensive, and are quite healthy. I think that this area is satisfactory for now.

I said that I would focus on investing next, but I will be taking a quick detour into some more theory, as the MM group is reading "The Listening Society" this month and the next, and I will be joining them. I have had questions about how climate change and lack of consumerism would actually work practically, if we move to that, and I hope this book will help me with that.

After that, I'll be taking a serious look at investing. This is something I've desperately needed to do for a while, as I have the minor shame of having pulled myself out of the market right at the June 2022 relative minimum. I was invested in the Permanent Portfolio, and it suffered pretty hard then, considering most of my investing has taken place over the last two years, when most assets were at their highest. I saw a 20-25% drop in my portfolio at that point, which hurt.

I think I pulled out because I thought "this time was different" in respect to the Permanent Portfolio's fundamentals. The idea behind the Permanent Portfolio is that there are generally four economic conditions, and that each asset class in the fund does well (or just doesn't do poorly) in those conditions. When something gets too high in value, you sell it and redistribute the funds into the other assets, keeping them mostly balanced. I thought this sounded nice, and thought I had trust in it, but when something bad actually happened, and things started doing poorly I wasn't confident enough to stick with it.

I was invested in a total stock market ETF, 20+ year treasury bond ETF, and gold ETF. (and cash). They all did poorly, the treasury bonds especially, and while I knew that was a condition the portfolio planned for, they got so low it triggered a re balance from my cash into those falling assets, and I just didn't trust that it was the right thing to do.

Before I sold, I wanted to contextualize the recent losses, so I programmed a PP simulator and ran it. It went through the available data (last ten years or so), and told me that this was one of the worst times for the portfolio in that period, but that other times had been worse. It also told me that the gains the portfolio would have made over the past couple years more than covered for this drop. I programmed it to simulate regular withdraws from the portfolio, and the SWR was within expectations, even with this drop.

I think the reason all this didn't change my mind was if "this time is different" no historical numbers are going to matter. I think that if I have better fundamental knowledge about economics it would help, and I always saw the Permanent Portfolio as a temporary measure anyways. I read part of a textbook on investments before, and that gave me some great information on how funds/etfs/exchanges work that increased my confidence greatly in choosing what type of financial product to buy, and what some risks and costs were. I would like the same knowledge for the larger market, so I'm going to read about economics. I plan on starting with "Man Economy and State" and from there supplementing that with some Keynesian readings.

theanimal
Posts: 2622
Joined: Fri Jan 25, 2013 10:05 pm
Location: AK
Contact:

Re: seanconn's journal

Post by theanimal »

Regarding balancing, you can do it on a longer time scale, up to a yearly basis. Or alternatively if you are still working, you can allocate your deposits into investments into each segment proportionally so that they balance out regularly. I use golden butterfly for a portion of my portfolio and that is what I do.

Also, are you keeping cash as in physical cash/checking account? You can use short term treasury bonds instead. They have suffered as much as the long term bonds this year, but theoretically it can provide more of a return than just physical cash.

User avatar
seanconn256
Posts: 109
Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2021 8:04 pm
Location: Laniakea Supercluster

Re: seanconn's journal

Post by seanconn256 »

theanimal wrote:
Tue Sep 13, 2022 1:50 pm
I should be smarter with my rebalancing, yes. I do currently rebalance with my deposits, and it makes the process easier. What scared me before was the idea of putting money into an asset dropping in value, without having any idea how far it will go down.

On the cash, I have most in a savings account, but I have increasingly been using I class bonds. They seem to be a good cash alternative right now, as they are returning 9 percent or so (!). You get taxed on the difference, so the real return is always a bit negative, but it beats cash.

For the cash portion thats in my retirement accounts, I do use short term treasury bonds. I vaugely remember having cash in my retirement account for tax reasons, but I'm not sure specifically why. I should re check that.

User avatar
seanconn256
Posts: 109
Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2021 8:04 pm
Location: Laniakea Supercluster

Re: seanconn's journal

Post by seanconn256 »

Sept savings rate: 80% (personal record)

My no-buy three months is over now, and I understand why people often do longer periods for this challenge. There wasn't really much I even considered buying other than perishables for these three months, other than some replacement parts, and broadened my thinking, as I can almost always solve problems with things I already have, but I'm sure over a longer period I would be given some more interesting challenges.

I've also started doing note taking with obsidian, which has helped me keep track of my daily activities, projects, and their connections. I read about it on the forum, and it's been great so far. I haven't done much reading into note taking methods, right now my intuitive ideas and five minutes of googling about how to write about things and connect them has been enough.

Most of my focus right now is getting my life activities ordered so that they complement each other and comprise a manageable workload. My 'system' as it were is pretty simple right now, but I do feel pretty productive nonetheless. Journaling daily helps me recognize the relationships between things I do and the effects they have, so I've been better able to manage energy/stress that way. Energy has been the major limiting factor for me recently, so I'm taking it quite seriously.

To be more concrete, I'm working on:
- posture (running, sitting at a desk, typing, yoga, during meditation)
- meditation (for peace of mind, to reduce, stress, gain insight on how i think)
- mental frameworks (reading The Listening Society, trying to structure thoughts and activities to harmoniously tackle multiple problems without wearing myself out, conceptualize progress in a healthy way)
- stoke (enjoyment makes everything easier to stick to, I can't rely on willpower to power my daily life, aligning stoke and concrete goals is like the secret sauce of getting shit done)
- social skills (support network, I enjoy it, have a psychological need for it, have a lack of skill currently that hinders other things)

User avatar
seanconn256
Posts: 109
Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2021 8:04 pm
Location: Laniakea Supercluster

Re: seanconn's journal

Post by seanconn256 »

Oct savings rate: 71%
Nov savings rate: 79%

Haven't posted in a bit; my work has been really draining these last couple months. With that and the rest of my personal schedule, I am right at my limit energy wise.

I have had to make my daily schedule quite variable to handle fluctuations in my working hours and available energy.

My spending has been on autopilot during this time, but has remained low. I thought it would be a good idea to share some updated charts. I am going to keep them more simple

Amount Spent vs Amount saved:
Image

"S"WR over time (log scale, real data before today, projection afterwards, target is 3.5%):
Image

User avatar
seanconn256
Posts: 109
Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2021 8:04 pm
Location: Laniakea Supercluster

Re: seanconn's journal

Post by seanconn256 »

As for my current ERE research status, I am focusing on investing. I read the guest post by Jacob, "How I invest", and, going against his advice, decided to read "Mastering The Market Cycle: Getting the Odds on Your Side".

I finished it quickly, and found it very repetitive, but invaluable. I found it so useful because it was a perfect way to illustrate how much I don't know about economics/finance/investing. One of the most striking things that kept coming up is that he is obviously 'doing the math' with the things he buys to see if they are good deals or not. As someone who doesn't, and can't, do that math, it seems irresponsible for me to be invested at all, unless I trust the market price, or hold on to axioms like "the market always goes up".

Given that he spends the entire book explaining ways that psychology can drive market behaviors, where the market frequently behaves irrationally and ignores/explains away/misuses the math, with prominent examples, this proposition seems much less sane than it used to. The idea that the market always goes up eventually may be fine if you plan to withdraw along with social security 60 years from now, but for early retirees, the problem, and therefore the investment strategy, is much different.

So after reading this book, I realized I am basically blindly throwing money into the market, portfolio or not, and as a result thought of these questions that I want to answer:

- where does the market look to be in the various cycles? what indicators can tell me this? (for each cycle type listed in the book)

- for all the investment products I own, what is the current market price compared to an honest evaluation of the fair price?

- what is the composition of market investors (for a given market, or security)? Are they retail, institutional? Who are they? How do the purchasing decisions of these investors change over time? how rational does their decision making seem?

--

So my plan is to go and get a mathematical foundation, and see where it leads. I read the first part of "Investments" a while ago, but starting with Economics knowledge instead of going straight to learning about investing seems like a better plan. As a result, I'm reading "Economics" by Campbell R. McConnell. I want to read this book by the end of March.

User avatar
seanconn256
Posts: 109
Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2021 8:04 pm
Location: Laniakea Supercluster

Re: seanconn's journal

Post by seanconn256 »

Also, a note on my energy, I am quite sure at this stage that while I was definitely 'burnt out' for a period, the main cause of my issues is poor sleep.
I borrowed a friend's fitbit watch to track my sleep (social capital), and noticed that 9 hours of blocked out sleep meant 7 hours of real sleep, with only about an hour of REM sleep, which is apparently below average. Hopefully I can make improvements to this quickly now that I have found the issue, if something ends up working I will make sure to share.

User avatar
grundomatic
Posts: 411
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:04 am

Re: seanconn's journal

Post by grundomatic »

I also read Mastering the Market Cycle, as well as More Than You Know, which reminded me of Thinking, Slow and Fast (for investing). I have some foundational knowledge from business school, but it has been a bit, and me worrying if I know enough is probably a good sign that I don't, or could at least use a review. I have Economics, Investments, and Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management all in my ebay cart. I can pull the trigger and we can do (yet another) book club...

User avatar
seanconn256
Posts: 109
Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2021 8:04 pm
Location: Laniakea Supercluster

Re: seanconn's journal

Post by seanconn256 »

@grundomatic Nice to see some reading-list symmetry between us. I have had "Thinking, Fast and Slow" on my reading list for some time, but for reasons other than investing.

Also. I'm not sure how well a textbook works with a book club, considering it's more raw information than interpretable, big-picture type stuff. It would definitely help to have some sort of accountability, I'm just not sure what we could actually discuss.

Some of the higher level books, like Mastering the Market Cycle, could definitely work for a book club, so when we choose a next book to read, I will have to consider something like that.

Also, if I follow the jacob-investment-cirriculum to the letter, the next stage would be to evaluate old guru books, and book club would be great for that. It could generate some interesting perspectives and disagreement.

User avatar
grundomatic
Posts: 411
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:04 am

Re: seanconn's journal

Post by grundomatic »

Yeah, textbooks might not the best discussion material. Do problem sets and compare answers? Write quizzes for each other? Seems a lot like school...

Discussing the old guru books would make for a fantastic book club!

Post Reply