grundomatic's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
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Slevin
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Post by Slevin »

grundomatic wrote:
Sun Jun 19, 2022 7:26 pm
I recently got quotes on home insurance, but nobody wants to insure us with our old roof, so nothing to be done there, though we did discuss changing the deductible. It may be worth evaluating our car insurance situation.
I got a pretty killer deal with Lemonade, and they seemed to be pretty chill with the current exterior issues we had. Maybe worth checking out if they insure in your area.

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grundomatic
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Post by grundomatic »

June SR 55%, IR2 2.14 New tires on the car plus vacation spending set savings back. Also scared me some (see below).

My sabbatical year has been put on hold. A new position became available at the school I was supposed to be leaving, and a perfect storm blew me right back to it. Reasons I cited to my MMG:

-Chance to push entire household to FI
-Domestic harmony
-Worried that it'd be hard to go back after taking a year off
-Worried I wouldn't find something else better to get into
-I like the kids and my coworkers
-Powder in the keg to buy discount assets
-Vacation brain doesn't remember work being sooooo bad
-Personal problems and pandemic stress that also contributed to burnout are improving as well
-Straight up efficiency of salaryman job--it was going to take a lot of side gigs just to pay health insurance
-I'm super popular at work. It's like being a rock star, except very localized.
-Voluntarily being there should hopefully make it easier to weather the difficult situations that do arise

I am determined to keep working on the expense side, too. This summer we vacationed first in a mountain town, then in California. Groceries were pricey, but I let it slide in favor of keeping the vacation mellow. Today I'm back home and grocery shopping and I'm feeling the price increases. Formerly 99 cent kale is now $1.49, ditto with lentils. I'm pretty sure I spent an extra $1 on olives just for being in a different neighborhood. While the absolute amount isn't that much, that's a large %! I wonder how the average family is coping, as most don't have much slack in the budget. I came home and started a price book. I'm not overpaying for things again. I had forsaken extra frugal grocery shopping as our NW grew, but I am bringing it back--even more hardcore this time. Also going to calendar picking olives from my friend's tree this year.

Did a book club on Radical Simplicity by Jim Merkel. Just when I thought I was doing well (I spend soooo much less than everyone else I know), I get a kick in the teeth that my lifestyle is still Radically Unsustainable. There was lamentation about the difficulty of living differently than everyone else around you.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

I feel you on getting tied to work because you become a miniature celebrity. Software is like that majorly. It's hard to walk away from a situation where recruiters and employers treat you like a miniature superstar, especially because it doesn't often happen elsewhere in life. :lol:

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grundomatic
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Post by grundomatic »

I resisted saying so at first, but it would be nice if being adored by the students and recognized by admin as a great teacher resulted in better compensation. I guess I am coming back for both the feel goods and the money, and I refuse to retool for a career that I'm in just for the money, so I was right initially. I shouldn't be complaining.

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Mister Imperceptible
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Post by Mister Imperceptible »

grundomatic wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 11:17 pm
Powder in the keg to buy discount assets
I think you were looking for “keeping powder dry.” “Powder in the keg” sounds like you are accumulating gun powder but I support that also.

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grundomatic
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Post by grundomatic »

Yup, that's what I meant. I need to make more money and keep it in cash so I can buy another property when this housing bubble either pops or deflates. Paid off the primary residence last week, and rental properties are the agreed-upon method for financing early retirement. Another option is buying within walking distance to work and turning current residence into a rental. Even years into being frugal and saving money, it feels like I'm playing Monopoly--dropping by the bank to pay off a house with thousands of dollars that were just sitting around? Certainly feels like I am playing with Monopoly money.

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grundomatic
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Post by grundomatic »

Forgot to mention that my impov troupe's first full-length show was a success! We packed the house (40+ people), had a blast, and even got laughs from the audience.

Working on my price book for groceries has been kind of fun, or at least rewarding knowing that I'm not overpaying for stuff that could be had cheaper right down the road.

I showed DW the quick 300x monthly expense trick to evaluate expenditures. Her mind was blown. She now wants me to start categorizing the monthly expenses so she can see them totaled up that way.

sky
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Post by sky »

How did you explain it to her?

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grundomatic
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Post by grundomatic »

The discussion had built incrementally over the past week. It started last week when we paid off our house and she asked me to remind her how many houses we need to retire (I had put it in these terms in the past). I told her, and then asked if she wanted to see our financials. She did, so I showed her our average monthly spend, what that translates to per year, and briefly explained how one needs about 25x their yearly expenses to retire. I showed her how much that meant given current spending, and how much we had as of January.

A couple days later I put together a table showing the years needed to retire given different levels of spending, and asked if I could show it to her. When I did, she picked the spending level that equated to her retiring at 50 (her previously stated goal) and said that's where she'd like to be. It is a little lower spending than where we are now.

A few days after that, we were discussing the value we get from different activities, and I asked if she wanted to hear about how I sometimes judge whether something is worth it to me. She did, so I related it back to the 25x expenses, and said just make it 300x for monthly expenses. I then used the example (demonstrated on phone calculator) of how that means $100 worth of eating out (or anything) per month requires $30,000 worth of savings. I asked if she would pay that for $100 a month worth of eating out for the rest of her life. She wasn't sure she would, and looked a little upset. I asked if I just broke her, and she said "maybe". I said "Well, that's just a tool to help decide what's worth it to you.", and left it at that.

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grundomatic
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July SR 79%, IR2 3.19

Expenses a little high due to vacation spending, but work bonuses plus tutoring plus a super generous gift from my mother made it a solid month despite higher spending. I also got a hefty refund from the tire store because the tires DW had replaced on the car had half of their warrantied life left. I had lots of time to hunt down the old receipt while riding in the passenger seat on our trips. While I had to wait a long time in the store, the hourly rate still beat my rate at work by at least a factor of 3.

I missed much of "mandatory" training at work this past week by going to play business consultant, but that means I have 2 days to get ready for students to be in my classroom. I'm neither dreading it nor looking forward to it, and I don't quite know what to make of that.

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grundomatic
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Post by grundomatic »

I've been back working at the school for 2 weeks. The new position satisfies my desire for variety -- 3 different grades, 15 different classes in a week. It's also fewer teaching hours, which I partially have to make up for by parking lot duty, which I don't mind, again because it provides some variety in the day/week. The kids are excited to see me again, and my coworkers are happy that I'm there instead of the [difficult] teacher previously in that position. My coworkers say I seem happier. I feel better than I did last year. Given discussions around here on the current work climate, I should probably count myself lucky that my job provides me more than just money.

After work, however, has not changed. It's exactly like before--absolutely wiped at the end of the day. Yesterday I thought I was doing well, getting some reading done. Then I feel asleep at 6:45. I woke up less than an hour later, but then of course had trouble getting to sleep for the night. I'm also afraid of riding that 2nd wind, staying up way too late and then getting too little sleep overall, as I physically cannot seem to sleep in. I may just have to accept that as a teacher, there are times of the year when I will be wrecked, namely the beginning, middle, and end of the school year.

None of this would be a problem at all if it weren't for my darn Ne wanting to do all the things. Even if I cut myself some ERE slack and just did "fun" things, I don't have enough time on the weekend (or energy during the week). I guess I have to prioritize, but the paradox of choice makes for feeling bad about the things that don't get done.

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grundomatic
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Post by grundomatic »

"There is usually an inverse relationship between how much something is on your mind and how much it's getting done." - David Allen in Getting Things Done

I picked up the book this weekend when I went shopping with a gift certificate at the local used bookstore. I'm only 23 pages in, but hoping it will help me, you know, get things done. The above quote rings very true for me. Thanks to everyone on the forum that mentions this book. I also picked up Ken Wilber's A Brief History of Everything. Just finished Spiral Dynamics and loved it.

In the spirit of focusing on things other than money, I joined DW for a run and an ab challenge she has been doing, even though I do not like running. Struggling to do some basic stuff lets me know that I have gotten WAY out of shape. I think a perfect [aspiring] WL6 undertaking is to work on my fitness instead of spending the little energy I have left trying to squeeze a few tens (maybe hundreds) of dollars out of my lifestyle. Probably a better return on effort.

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seanconn256
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Post by seanconn256 »

Definitely agree on focusing on fitness over money, one thing I've noticed about increases in fitness is that they increase your overall energy level over time. Adding exercise to an already strained routine will be a net negative on your energy levels in the short term, but after time it can be a net positive because the endurance gains that will apply during the rest of day eventually overtake the cost of the workouts themselves.

I think the energy cost can be also reduced by somehow getting more out of exercise, so that the energy spent is serving multiple purposes. The easiest way to do it, and the only thing I've been able to work out, is to find workouts you enjoy. I think there are potentially other ends that can be met through different types of exercise? A social aspect maybe, if you join a club?

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grundomatic
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Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by grundomatic »

Aug SR 86%, IR2 2.97 Thanks to a rework of annual bonuses, DW and I cleaned up in August for both being good at our jobs and sticking around. Also came in just under desired spending level, so that's even better than the windfall.

@sean
I absolutely need to integrate exercise with something else, because exercising for long-term general health benefits doesn't motivate me. I know it should, and I wish it did, but...it doesn't. My secret sauce for anything is typically "just add people", and often that'll push me to do things on my own to work towards it. Like if I had a weekly tennis match, I could see myself pushing some weights to improve the power of my stroke, and running wind sprints to improve my endurance. It's way harder for me to do those things because they might give me energy. Typically any hard exercise gives me a low-grade headache that lasts the rest of the day and sometimes into the next, so I need an immediate, or at least short-term, reason. General feel goods doesn't really do it, because it's often more like general feel bads. But, YES, I need to integrate it! Should be obvious, but my systems thinking is still weak.

In other news, I let a new friend from improv borrow my copy of Early Retirement Extreme. When I found out that he had previously been a monk and was familiar with the FIRE movement, I made it a point to to set up a time to get together and talk. When he said he likes to learn the general principles of things then figure out how to apply them to his life, I figured it was ok to just straight hit him with ERE. We walked around the park for hours talking. Maybe I'll see if he wants to do a weekly walk-and-talk. It'd be so nice to have an IRL ally (that I'm not married to) for frugal fun.

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grundomatic
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Post by grundomatic »

I guess I'll take a turn commenting on "A Dent in the Universe". https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/02/18/a ... -universe/
If you’re extroverted, even being a sociopath won’t help you.
Well, thanks for giving me the bad news straight up.
The problem that makes you hit the ceiling of the esteem stage is not that you don’t have enough of it, but that it attaches to a social persona you increasingly do not identify with: the mask...The person getting all the praise, prizes and adulation is somebody else not the “real you”.
When @AnalyticalEngine would talk about the mask in their journal, I couldn't relate. I pretty much thought I was authentically me, walking around, doing what I want, and being popular. When I read this, it resonated immediately. This describes my experience at work when I was at my lowest--I was miserable and hating my life, yet my [apparently amazing] mask still got the highest marks possible from admin and I was still loved by the students.

So how to integrate the mask and the daemon? I still need to actually do the exercises in Wild Mind. I'm not 100% sold, but I don't know of anything else with explicit instructions for doing this sort of thing, though to be fair I haven't tried that hard to find something else...worried about falling down a google/youtube rabbit hole, or just ending up at something even more "woo".

I appreciated the distinction between imagination and creativity. I then got lost in the freedom/generativity discussion--spending and generating freedom? If others don't value it, it isn't self-actualization? What?

It leads me to thinking about work. If work provides all of my needs up to and including esteem, maybe wanting it to meet my need for self-actualization is too big an ask? In my now 3 different careers I've always looked for work to provide me with learning opportunities and challenge, while mostly coasting and just having fun in my personal life. No reason I couldn't flip the script. Well, besides the work being exhausting. Though, in my current position, I can probably downgrade my career to a job, and work on finding my vocation. Using the terms as defined by Elizabeth Gilbert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g7ARarFNnw I also really, really need to stop making other people's problems at work my problem.

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grundomatic
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Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by grundomatic »

Sep SR 75%, IR2 3.38

This represents a very good month of spending. Other months have had high savings rates due to bonuses, gifts, stipends, tax returns, etc. This month we were efficient enough with our spending that our rental income plus either 4% of our portfolios or DW's 4hr/wk side gig would have covered expenses. This doesn't include health insurance which is currently paid by our employer, but it feels pretty damn good nonetheless. Also, this number is after-tax savings, and I recently doubled the withholding percentage on my 401k. So, yeah, things look good right now.

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grundomatic
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Post by grundomatic »

Oct SR 39%, IR2 1.79

Rental payment not posting in October plus surprise dental work made this month's numbers seem a little rough. Then I remember the days when a large unexpected bill would have been a huge stressor. Now it's a tiny sad face on the day when I count up our money, probably to be forgotten by tomorrow morning.

Work is still simultaneously boring and exhausting. Playing my Halloween character was pretty fun, why just dress up when there is a funny voice to practice and character work to do? It was even more exhausting than a regular day, though. I've been telling the students my favorite candies for weeks now, and I already have a decent stash. The rest of the week I will be reaping loads of candy that I don't need, but will have no problem eating thanks to the frustration and boredom.

DW and I signed up for a Thanksgiving 5k. It gives me a reason to move my body. Run-walking in intervals has helped me not totally hate it, but I'd like to lengthen the intervals and run it straight through on race day. Also been doing some super quick circuit type workouts with weights/bodyweight. I rode my bike to work last week one day--felt great and I may try to keep doing it once weekly when riding with DW doesn't make sense due to timing. Working out has done more to loosen up the hamstring spasm than just stretching was doing.

My social calendar is starting to fill up, which I love, but I definitely feel the squeeze in other areas of my life. I'd say something about needing to integrate parts of my life, but I just wrote about eating candy followed immediately by workout talk. It's probably pretty clear I need to ditch the heterotelic goals.

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grundomatic
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Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by grundomatic »

Nov SR 63% IR2 2.41

I increased my 401k withholding so this after-tax number is going to be lower than it has been. Two months now with no payment from the rental house. So considering these things, this was a good spending month--2nd best in the past 12 months.

I sold some gaming supplies that lose their resale value when a new edition comes out. It feels good to not be the bagholder. It makes me want to execute the same move with my portfolio (currently indexed MMM style), but I lack the confidence to pick where to go instead. I have the basic, broad knowledge of economics, finance, business, etc from my MBA, but actually building my own portfolio? Scary. I guess that's being an adult. I suppose I haven't hated myself for the super conservative moves we've made so far--paying off 2 houses in the past 4 years because the stock market seemed overvalued, and just investing enough to get the 401k match. With the bleak economic outlook I want to hide in I-bonds, T-bills, and insured CDs now that they actually have a (nominal) yield. What I don't know is if I'm confident enough to move money from equities over. I'm trying to catch up on the investment reading, but I just feel like I'm not going to "get there" in time to avoid disaster/snag opportunities in this environment.

I'm trying hard to avoid maximizing sale price when selling on ebay. Being willing to take less than the "market rate" has moved stuff, but I find myself still wanting to hold out for a few extra bucks. I have to remind myself over and over that it is more about creating space than making money. So hard to let go of the maximizing money mindset.

I had 6 days off total at Thanksgiving, and I noticed having a much better mood going back to work. A couple long days later and that has evaporated. I took naps after work both yesterday and today, and that does give me the boost I need to be able to read in the evenings.

The kids brought me so much candy. So much. Over 500 pieces of my favorite candies. Popularity measured in "fun-size" candies. Parents that sat next to their kids during COVID school are still complimentary about my lessons when they meet me in person (this happened today). DW says I should feel good about my acting skills, given how miserable I was during it all. The theme of this school year is "everyone wants me here but me".

Speaking of acting, I've put a hold on playing with my improv troupe. Not getting what I want from it and it's hard to get everyone on the same page. I'm probably going to take several classes next year, cost be damned. It's how I'm going to get better--immediate feedback from a veteran player, rather than a bunch of noobs messing around, reinforcing bad habits.

I did the Thanksgiving 5k run with almost no training. I worked out a couple weeks, then got sick, then it was Thanksgiving. Put in a few workouts since, much easier with time off.

This weekend should be the start of discount veggie season around here. My cooking has been on autopilot, and hopefully this puts some pizzazz (and more veggies) back into meals around here. And zucchini bread...mmmm!

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

grundomatic wrote:
Thu Dec 01, 2022 1:10 am
Speaking of acting, I've put a hold on playing with my improv troupe. Not getting what I want from it and it's hard to get everyone on the same page. I'm probably going to take several classes next year, cost be damned. It's how I'm going to get better--immediate feedback from a veteran player, rather than a bunch of noobs messing around, reinforcing bad habits.
This has been my experience with learning a lot of skills like that too. The issue is you need someone to correct you when you mess up, which is difficult if you are learning a skill on your own or in a group of inexperienced people. I have found, however, that my local community rec center offers a lot of classes pretty cheap. They're not really of professional quality, but they're better than nothing. Plus networking with people who do actually have real skill can be the benefit of a higher environment.

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grundomatic
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Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by grundomatic »

Repetition

I was observed at work this past week. In the “debriefing”, I expressed that I felt lost as to what I was actually supposed to be accomplishing in my class (I went from strictly formulated curriculum in last year’s position to nearly total freedom this year). I was told that the value in my class is the students getting to practice things they have been learning–getting to measure things, having actual reasons for calculations, etc., and that it is valuable even if they don’t “master” a given skill in my class. This was a great relief, because I often feel like I’ve failed when students can’t perform tasks we’ve worked on for over a year. The value is apparently in the repetition, year after year.

If the forum is supposed to be some sort of school where we learn from each other, I guess I’ll keep writing about the same old things in my journal and hope the repetition is valuable to someone, even if it is only myself. Doubtful, but I guess I’ll try trusting the process.

Time*energy

Time continues to be the limiting constraint in my life. Actually, maybe it’s energy. In any case, time*energy (life-energy?) seems to always be low outside work. It seems like I can feel this friction–this may be my biggest problem with work. It leaves me with little time*energy for other pursuits, and way more “popularity” and money than I can use in the present. Of course the money can be invested and used for FI, but there is an opportunity cost of the time and energy not being used for health and relationships, for example. It’s also hard for me to know what is a legitimate limit on my energy, and to what extent I’m just being a whiny baby.

When I am new in a career field, work usually provides learning and “engagement” as well, which seems to make the work not require as much energy input (or causes it to have energy as both input and output), leaving it available for other things. The struggle with full-time salaryman jobs is that most of the resources input and output from the job are unknown at the outset. Money is explicitly spelled out in the employment contract, and time usually is too. The input and output of everything else are uncertain, at best only able to be estimated when not currently in that job. For personal projects that can be scaled up or down, it doesn’t matter. Try things out and adjust. Not nearly as easy to just try out salaryman jobs. Or maybe it is and I just need to get on with it. Or switch to a different quadrant.

Leveling Up

In the spirit of continuing along the ERE progression track (aka WL 5→6), I decided maybe a week or two ago to focus on 3 skills to develop: cooking, investing, and improv. The idea was that they represent skills currently at different levels.

Cooking

My cooking skill could be described as “good enough”. My knife skills aren’t going to impress a chef, but are apparently better than many of my peers. I can bake bread, but I’m way out of practice. I can improvise with stuff laying around, but typically just rotate through the same handful of recipes because it is easy (see time*energy discussion above).

Where I live there are opportunities to buy boxes of “rescued” produce that otherwise would have been sent to the landfill at the Mexican border. My plan was to let whatever is in the box dictate what gets cooked, and then also work backwards in the value chain for the more expensive items that we buy–first up was yogurt and bread. The yogurt was liquidy but fine, and the bread turned out ok, but took way too much time*energy. In addition, I overestimated the amount of time*energy I would have to be creative with making new meals from the veggies after work, or even just find new recipes. There also wasn’t much variety–so many zucchinis and cucumbers. It left me scrambling all week. Kinda fun, but exhausting when I’ve had cooking optimized for ease for so long. Don’t know if return is what I need it to be. All it takes is one meal ordered out when I haven’t cooked enough ahead of time or don’t feel like cooking to negate the few dollars I saved on the grocery bill. Hard to know whether I should stick with it and get better, or just let it be and look for better returns elsewhere.

Investing

Up until now we’ve just been putting away money in index funds in addition to paying off mortgages on two houses. I know the basics of investing from my business education, however, and now seems like a good time to learn more by, you know, actually making decisions and doing things. Over the past week I’ve taken about a quarter of my total portfolio out of index funds and put it into short term treasuries. These are living in my brokerage IRA. This gives me some months to figure out what deals I’ll be looking for in what I’m anticipating to be a bear market. I also changed my 401k contribution to just buy money market funds rather than more equity or bond funds. If I had a little more guts I would have sold the existing index funds here, as well.

Improv

I had planned on taking the first of 5 classes that came highly recommended at a different improv theater. The class filled up before I signed up, which is probably for the better, because “by the book” ERE warns against paying for hobbies. The question now is whether to return to practicing with my troupe (which still entails a small outlay for practice space), or just letting it go. I am leaning toward the latter, simply because I’m just not feeling it.

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