My retirement scoreboard, Part II

[Laura Ingalls]

Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a memoir written my someone that spent her adolescence there bring raised by mentally ill parents and father with a severe ADU disorder.

It was a fascinating read and a decent movie.

In my current state of residence the smaller and more rural the town the more meth zombies there are shuffling around. It really decreases the attractiveness of some otherwise very good places for country style ERE life.

[jacob]

From Colorado I drove straight across the plains and Midwest, then toured Appalachian coal country. I've been fascinated by the area ever since I had a car in college and had the freedom to get around. People like to talk about collapse here — well coal country has collapsed and is still decaying, and I can't think of a possible escape route for it. I can take only so much; after a full day of driving and a little picture-taking I get weary of it.

We recently drove through WV and the SW part of PA. A similar area is upstate NY. It's a strange form of collapse though. A string of dilapidated ticky-tacky houses with flaking paint and junk piled around the lawn is followed by a newly built ticky-tacky house with a prized collection of functional vehicles, also on the lawn. I somewhat suspect that the latter eventually turn into the former. I refer to them as lawn housing. A house on a giant lawn carved into the trees with a driveway hooked into the county road. An occasional McPalace built by someone with money, who always wanted a horse farm, and is now living the dream.

Residents likely do some daily commute to a Dollar General in the next town over. Downtown is often boarded up. Old empty buildings still advertising "Bob's Radio. The best in car stereos!" or "Sons & More Sons. Machine shop". Current business activity is mostly muffler service, towing companies, churches, someone running a one-person law firm out of their bedroom, ...

Humans are rarely seen outside their houses or cars. Most of the cash flow seems to go into the vehicles. In fact, gasoline appears to be the lifeblood of these areas. Expensive trucks (plural) parked next to a house that's slowly falling apart. Add a trampoline or two that serve as a small pond of rainwater covered with leaves.

I wonder how much of this is driven by loans and disability payments and how much is driven by people who have made a bunch of money and now want to live in the country side.

[Laura Ingalls]

Some of the pick-up culture is driven by the fact that roads can be so poorly maintained. If you need a reliable vehicle to get to your town job you probably have a truck payment that keeps you in your town job. Both of my last two dwellings have had neighbors that worked for the state DOT. If you are the dude that plows the road you need a 4 wheel drive truck.

What I always find fascinating is where people put cars in garages and people store crap in their garage. People in truly cold climates use garages to store vehicles. People in more temperate climates store crap. We live in the transition zone presently. People reorganize when its forecasted to be cold.

[mountainFrugal]

I have done all the Colorado 14ers and some two-thirds of the 584 13ers.

Do you have a top 3 list of each? Also, what ones were the most surprising?

[unemployable]

Do you have a top 3 list of each? Also, what ones were the most surprising?

Top three 14ers would be Sneffels, Uncompahgre and Handies. Favorites in each major range outside of the San Juan: Holy Cross in the Sawatch, Capitol in the Elk, Crestone Needle in the Sangre.

Favorite 13ers... the ones that stick out are mostly in the San Juan and Gore. You can't go wrong in either range. Arrow and Vestal are a more memorable outing than any 14er to me, and you can add the adjacent Trinities to that. Eagles Nest is arduous but worthwhile. Pole Creek is hard to get to without a rugged vehicle but has the best view of any I've been up. Anything in the Ice Lake basin (Vermilion) is spectacular.

I'll throw out Emma Burr in the Sawatch, Silverheels in the Front Range, Peak of the Clouds in the Sangre and Treasury Mountain in the Elk.

"Memorable" generally doesn't come with good connotations for me. Like having a ground strike of a formative lightning bolt course through me, (separately) thinking I was going to fall all the way down the mountain but then only dropping 15 feet and accidentally going up the wrong mountain two or three times. The day I did Belford I went for Oxford and got stormed on during the way back. I hid under a boulder while contemplating which of three or four different ways I was going to die.

[unemployable]

We recently drove through WV and the SW part of PA. A similar area is upstate NY. It's a strange form of collapse though. A string of dilapidated ticky-tacky houses with flaking paint and junk piled around the lawn is followed by a newly built ticky-tacky house with a prized collection of functional vehicles, also on the lawn.

Most of the old housing stock is no newer than the 1950s. Much of it was built without running water, electricity or a toilet; those would have been added on piecemeal and it's safe to say the ethos of upgrading your kitchen every decade or two never came to these parts. And the houses were built to last only as long as the mines had coal. So tearing down and plopping a mobile on the lot is the best option.

There's still mining in the area — WV is the #2 state for coal production — and those jobs pay pretty well nowadays. Then there are the government jobs and people with pensions.

ATVing is popular and the vehicles serve both a utilitarian and recreational function. One thing they are trying is promoting ATV tourism. I think mountain biking and ultrarunning would fit well too, especially if it were promoted as a way for people in colder regions to participate in winter. Winter sports are out, not enough snow.

[zbigi]

Humans are rarely seen outside their houses or cars. Most of the cash flow seems to go into the vehicles. In fact, gasoline appears to be the lifeblood of these areas. Expensive trucks (plural) parked next to a house that's slowly falling apart.

Sounds like some rural redneck version of Mad Max

[mountainFrugal]

These are great suggestions! Thank you. I really want to explore the San Juan. I have been mountainbiking/running in and around the collegiate peaks, but have yet to explore the San Juan. The Hard Rock 100 goes through the San Juan. It is considered a major ultra-running accomplishment to finish a race like this: https://hardrock100.com/hardrock-course.php

The lightning and thunderstorms in the Rockies are no joke. Glad you survived! Any lasting effects of the lighting strike besides respect?

[unemployable]

I like to think running 1.21 gigawatts through my brain knocked sense into me.

As much as we lecture about the risks of lightning, all hardcore Colorado climbers have a few stories.

This is my current wallpaper. It's the "backside" of Arrow (left) and Vestal. Most pictures of these peaks are shot from the north, but this shows the south faces, shot from Graystone Peak to the west, this year on July 4.



A 1920x1080 version is at https://i.imgur.com/hjMx9r9.png

[mountainFrugal]

Beautiful shot. Thank you for the high resolution image. I have been playing with linocut style art lately (digital and ink). This could be a cool one to use as reference. I will post here if I complete it.

[unemployable]

I end the year with $696k. This is —2% for the month and +6.7% for the year. The SPX total return for these periods was about —6% and —18%. VTI rang up about —19% for the year and 60/40 did around —17%, depending on what you count as "bonds" (I calculate 60% VTI/40% BND at —16.6%).

So I outperformed most indices and passive portfolios in the range of 25%, and almost matched inflation (7.1% using Nov/Nov CPI-U).

This is the not the first time I have had this kind of performance in what most people would call down years: I was mostly in deep value stuff and cash going into the 2000-02 and 2008-09 declines. Now that I'm 3-for-3 I do have the pretense than I can time these bubbles deflating. The flipside to this is I tend to underperform during the biggest risk-on years, although I matched the market's return in 2020 and 2021.

Anyway, I've spent the month in North Carolina. I've lived in and traveled around the state for large parts of my life but this has been my most comprehensive visit in almost 30 years. I have another housesit on the coast next month, but never spent much time there, and would like another sit here in the mountains, although probably wouldn't have too many new experiences to add to what I've encountered so far. It's been interesting in that so much of it serves as a sort of museum of where I used to go and what I used to do. Parts have become much more crowded. Hikes I used to have to myself in the winter now have fifty cars parked up and down the road because the tiny parking lot is full. Lots of stuff is new or gentrified, and some stuff has been repurposed or torn down. This includes some public statues and monuments which have become victims of political correctness. Leaving aside whether doing this was a good idea, they're part of my former landscape and mindscape and their absence leaves a hole. I guess it's not my North Carolina anymore.

So I've felt some heartbreak, but some things haven't changed. The suburbs I and my high-school friends lived in seem to have merely added a few more stop signs and speed bumps. The houses all look the same and I still feel a warm embrace from the neighborhoods, even though at this point in life I can forget about ever affording to live there. So still heartbreak. I drove by my old crush's house; it was getting a gut remodel, torn down to the studs, so I was compelled to park in front and look around. The building permit indicated her family still owns it. More flashbacks. More heartbreak. More "not mine".

But I've found a small town I like a lot. As I travel, I often get out and walk around, checking out neighborhoods, trying to get a mental image of how the area formed and evolved. My trip last month around West Virginia coal country is one example. But sometimes I'm looking for a potential place to live. Well I discovered a new-to-me place that felt perfect — that's now two in the state. Only problem is my grand plan is not to move back to North Carolina for another twenty years or so, as the "hiking" isn't really that challenging at this point in my life — it's barely going for a walk — and I'd rather spend summers in the West while I have the health to climb the good stuff out there.

But the good things never last. I'll keep it in my back pocket, but won't count on it staying the same when I'm ready to call it home. This must be the way Boston Red Sox fans used to feel. Eternal hope followed by inevitable heartbreak, but always coming back for more.

[unemployable]

I don't have a lot of goals for 2023 yet, other than to secure enough housesits in the first half of the year that I'm not sleeping in the car too much. This isn't unusual — my 2020 plans didn't fall into place until after corona struck. My original move to Colorado in June 2010 materialized in May of that year. But I will experience a new twist to my financial situation.

Starting in 2023, my income probably will be so small that it will be beneficial to "make" more — i.e., create income that I otherwise wouldn't — in order to maximize the amount on which I am paying zero income tax. This is not something I have to decide upon until the end of the year, but will probably involve some combination of cashing I-bonds and converting part of my traditional IRA into a Roth. (Starting a 72t is another option, but that's a card you typically don't want to play until you have to.) An additional constraint may be a desire to "make" enough to be priced out of shitty Medicaid and instead be eligible for slightly-less-shitty Obamacare. In this respect I'd call my last 12 years of financial planning a success. As recently as late-2020 I was seriously considering leaving the US to keep from going broke, like I was ranking countries. Another scoreboard!

But I'd still like it a lot if houses got cheaper.

[Henry]

This is still Welch; many of the houses back on the hillside are abandoned, and it's safe to say all the now-empty spaces used to have houses on them:

So this is the place that they will pay you $833.33 a month to Mountain Bike for a year?

[unemployable]

So this is the place that they will pay you $833.33 a month to Mountain Bike for a year?

One of them, if you have a job. The nearest chain stores are about an hour drive, however.

[unemployable]

I had a good year this month. Up 10.6% to a new all-time high in net worth as of the 31st. By the end of the day it felt like a blow-off move, what with most of it coming from oil companies and the Fed announcing tomorrow, and I had suspected I'd be giving it back during February... only for one of my oil stocks to make an announcement that has sent it up another 6% after the close so far.

Housing expense was zero. Spent two nights in hotels, but used free-night certificates which were about to expire anyway. Four nights in the car.

Housesitting has been mostly good to me. I'm in Appalachian Virginia right now. Some ERErs may consider this house a dream: smallish house, large lot, big garden, owner does a lot of canning, solar power (still on the grid though), mostly rustic furnishings but modern where it helps the most such as in the kitchen, very rural setting, some 10 miles and 15 minutes away from the nearest town with large stores. Walmart is more like double that distance. Three cats. I like it here.

One sit this month went sideways, and resulted in my leaving it a couple days early. I was out very little extra money, mostly from spending the extra free time driving around and exploring parts of North Carolina I wasn't already familiar with. The stakes weren't high but I was strong enough not to panic and try to solve the problem with money. Or to insist on staying longer once I determined leaving was in my best interest. It's instructive in that it wasn't the most attractive sit to start with, and not geographically convenient to my other sits. But when I took it I had less experience and it filled a hole in my calendar. I think I can be more choosy and stay away from the red flags as a result. I'm on my ninth sit now, and assuming this one continues to go well that's not a terrible failure rate.

I'm discovering that no matter the size of the house I'm sitting, I really only use about 800-1000 square feet of it. Kitchen, dining area, living/TV watching area, bedroom, bathroom. My last sit had the door closed to the master bedroom and at no time in two weeks did I ever even open it. Also, I don't mind house maintenance, consider it a point of pride even to keep everything looking good and fixed up. I knew this from living at my mom's place but I keep fixing lots of little things at each new house. Or sometimes big things. Don't leave me with a pressure washer if you don't want your concrete surfaces cleaned.

On other housing related fronts, I discovered trailer parks are not necessarily a dying phenomenon. I saw several new ones on the North Carolina coast, built certainly within the last 10 years and likely within the last five. Large parks, some with over 100 units. The trailers on them are a bit more luxurious: nearly all have an upper loft level for sleeping/storage and generally nicer exterior furnishings, and the parks themselves are well-maintained with some amenities. Not sure about the wisdom behind building them on the coast in hurricane country, however — some are right on the beach. If they're a bit sturdier than stereotypical trailers, they still don't seem like they'd handle 120-mph winds as well as a stick-built house would, and they're still somewhat fixed to the land and certainly can't be moved on a couple days' notice. I can't blame people for wanting their piece of paradise and wanting it cheaply, but that certainly isn't how I'd go about it.

[theanimal]

What do you consider red flags for housesits?

[unemployable]

What do you consider red flags for housesits?

Well I've only had the one bad sit, but have gained some secondhand experience reading other message boards and the like.

High-maintenance pets seem to beget high-maintenance owners. Sits where the pets are overscheduled like they're trying to get them into Princeton.

Any weird policies about the house, or wording used that is vague or not immediately rectifiable with the pictures included. "We use only natural products in our home"... so pursuing my latex fetish is out buy why are at least two large TVs visible in the pics? "No meat products allowed in the house"... they're probably freaks in some other way too. It's OK if you're vegan, but damnit I want my tacos.

Dates and location that aren't an easy fit with your other sits. You may end up getting preoccupied with travel, unpacking and packing take time and effort and you might not adjust to all the house's and pets' idiosyncrasies in time to get comfortable there before it ends.

Sits that stay on the market for a long time. Christmas and Thanksgiving have more sits than sitters, but the rest of the year pet owners can generally pick and choose. There's probably a reason people have shied away. Anything that returns to the market after being removed, I'd absolutely ask what happened there.

Reading between the lines on the reviews from past sitters, or multiple reviews that don't say too much in the first place, or the few that flat out say what they didn't like.

Just looking at the pics of the house. Usually we do a video call and you can see around their house a bit too.

An owner on his or her first time hiring a sitter may be more nervous about the entire experience and less stoic when something doesn't go (to them) perfectly.

[unemployable]

From Appalachian Virginia, this month I traveled to a housesit in Asheville, then down to the Alabama Gulf Coast for Mardi Gras, then up to a sit in Birmingham. I was going to go back down to the Gulf Coast for the first week of March, but I found another housesit in northern Alabama and right now I'm holed up at a hotel in Chattanooga. I was supposed to be at that sit right now in fact, but her flight got delayed and we agreed it would be better for me to arrive tomorrow. I am now scheduled out to the middle of May with housesits, so by any measure that has gone pretty well.

Housing expense for February was zero. I spent one night at a hotel on the Gulf Coast using points and 10 nights sleeping in the car. Total expenses for February were under $600 and the majority of that was gas.

Also while I was down on the coast, I fasted. Nearly five full days, 114 hours, of zero calories. I did drink black coffee and the occasional diet soda. This was over Mardi Gras! Except for one morning, I never felt hungry and broke the fast more because I was bored and had a house to eat and prepare food in again.

I can understand why my mom moved away. If you don't hunt, fish or golf there's not a lot to do there. Her network of friends had shrunk over the years — basically. they die off — and I experienced this too as I was able to meet with only one of them. Mardi Gras is fun but then you have the other 49 weeks. And the weather (including the humidity) was close to the limit of what I am able to withstand being out all day and car sleeping at night. That still doesn't mean I liked the decision but I see why she made it, and that was without a house to care for. The last-minute decision between another week down there in the car and one in a house on the other side of the state was an easy one to make.

Back in Colorado, my condo's owner and the unit below's have to fix some water damage that is costing them some $20k combined. Neither their insurance nor the HOA common insurance covers it. The units have more than tripled in market value in the past 11 years or so, but what a headache. Although I'm now a bit concerned he may try to recoup this cost by raising the rent to closer to market. Not that I can't afford that if I'm paying it for less than half the year.

Oh, assets. Down 3% for the month, very slightly worse than the stock market did.

[ertyu]

Good month. Travel and house-sitting sounds fun and so does the fasting. Seems like fasting combines well with "those random 2-5 days i won't have access to a full kitchen so i can't be fucked with food."

[unemployable]

Seems like fasting combines well with "those random 2-5 days i won't have access to a full kitchen so i can't be fucked with food."

Yeah that and not finding the bagful of food thrown at me from Mardi Gras floats appetizing enough to want to eat.

The sit I'm supposed to be on already might now not happen at all, but I do have backup plans, namely go back down to the Gulf Coast. My next sit is on the Florida panhandle anyway.