White Belt's Military Journey to FI

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Lemur
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by Lemur »

@White Belt

I was just thinking maybe you're just apathetic lately because you need a break from work and a chance to re-energize and the ensuing post is massive overthinking on my part but ... I'll post anyway:
Cooking all my own food for a month, cutting my own hair, microgreens, tempeh, compost worms, solar cooker, etc etc. I know I have the capability to do all that stuff, but yet I just choose not to. I don’t feel great eating at restaurants or paying for haircuts and yet I still do it.
Recently I started re-organizing my room and ultimately decided that it was going to take some consumer solutions to solve it or else I was just never going to get to it. So, I bought a small shelf for my monitor and recently bought a few storage shelves from Amazon. Sure, I could’ve DIY’d shelves or scoured FB marketplace to get a used set, but I also knew that would take weeks and put me at risk of further procrastination. I don’t feel great about buying something new from a factory when lower-footprint alternatives exist, but I feel like it’s more valuable to get my space in order while I feel the spark to do it.
The "Decentralizing FI for Strategic Reasons" thread and the ensuing conversations in that thread had me thinking a lot about the psychology of the value-action gap. https://effectiviology.com/value-action-gap/ Where our knowledge/values don't always align with our behaviors and actions. Sometimes they do in a general sense but its easier to pick out specific behaviors when one is trying to live deliberately.

I'm really starting to believe this is a big part of it:
AxelHeyst wrote:
Thu Jan 19, 2023 11:43 am
It occurs to me that the carrot of FIRE is very distracting. The problem is that it is at WL5 ish. So if it really is the carrot of FI that attracts you to ERE, well, you get the reward at WL5. And then for most people there is no other visible carrot. The reasons for going on to WL6 or 7 or whateverthehell 8+ is are... opaque, fuzzy, even repellent to some. So you get the carrot at WL5, and then you're good, and you're basically done.
There is a value jump from the WL1-5 cohort to the WL6+. The carrot for the first group is mostly based on financial capital. Values like freedom, financial independence, escaping a job, and having more money to invest will align easily with actions such as eating at home, cutting your own hair, riding your bike to work, etc.

But do your behaviors hold up after you're already accumulated large multiples of annual expenses in compounding investments?

If the behaviors change, say from mostly eating at home to getting takeout food a few times a week, then I will propose the main cause is that carrot has already been won (money) and that counter-incentives such as convenience become stronger over-time. There might be other causes to the value-action gap that are more individual and worth meditating on and exploring. Easy to justify a restaurant meal that was previously against your values when you already have so much money saved up. It also might be worth exploring what the carrots are for WL6+.

Recognizing the misaligned value to action behavior can sometimes lead to mental distress - especially when one prides themselves on aligning logic and reason to their behaviors. In other words, it is a distress to realize that your values are not aligning with your actions at all times. Its a double-edged sword - this constant rumination of values and its meanings leads to accomplishments and success in some areas of life but one can be hard on themselves in other ways.

A potential solution might be a change of values. Recognize that this is a long process:
First, people must acquire the necessary knowledge on a certain topic.
Then, people must process this knowledge in a way that causes them to form relevant values.
Next, people must translate these values into intentions to take action.
Finally, people must translate these intentions into real actions.
I'll add that the final step needs to be repeated over and over again until a true habit is formed. But the value needs to be strong enough to begin with. And the carrot has to change as well.

7Wannabe5
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

It doesn't help that my day to day life is so far removed from being any sort of physical challenge.
I was feeling so sick last year the only projects I could take on or maintain were of the "brain in a box" variety. I kept asking myself "What would much lower rent (in terms of IQ) Stephen Hawking do?" It dawned on me that it really is a perverse incentive landscape when the highest paying activities are the worst for your health and social life. I was too sick to take a walk in the woods, but I could still work at a computer.
It also might be worth exploring what the carrots are for WL6+.
I've been thinking about this a bit myself and one answer would definitely have to be "curiousity." Or whatever the word would be that means "The perverse desire to not want to solve problems in a way that has already been proven to work." So, obviously, when under stress of any kind, one will resort/?regress? to "most expedient solution known to work", which in our culture is almost always going to be purchased with $$.

mathiverse
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by mathiverse »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Wed Jan 25, 2023 8:52 am
So, obviously, when under stress of any kind, one will resort/?regress? to "most expedient solution known to work", which in our culture is almost always going to be purchased with $$.
Can a person change their regression floor? In other words, can someone get good enough at "higher level thinking/acting" that their lowest functioning state doesn't result in purchasing via money?

I don't know. I often revert to "just buy it" when I'm not functioning very well.

Maybe what you resort to depends on what potential flows, slack, and stocks you have more than your functioning level out of context? Getting some pre-cooked food out of the fridge might be resorted to more easily than spending money if your higher functioning self prepared for it. Getting a friend to come to your house for a haircut is probably easier than going out for a haircut, but also necessitates having "prepared". Letting your hair grow long is also an option sometimes which is obviously easier than going out to get a haircut. (Although this may not be an option in white belt's case since he is in the military.)

Of course, given a long enough crisis/low-functioning-time-period, your extra stocks and slack may run out which may mean purchasing with money (usually) becomes the best option as you said.

Dave
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by Dave »

Sorry to hear about your ennui/difficulties @whitebelt.

Never had your specific work setup challenges, but I've had phases with some of those feelings and it can be tough. I'm hopeful the next phase of work/life for you is kinder w.r.t schedule.

Scott 2
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by Scott 2 »

Why does your gym time need to pursue a real program? Punch the clock at 70% effort. Enjoy yourself. Do whatever random stuff looks fun.

Dave Tate wrote about the cost of a "blast or dust" mindset. It could apply to your situation:

https://www.amazon.com/Under-Bar-Twelve ... B000H9RLBA

Maybe growth in other areas of life, has reduced the need to prove yourself physically. We all give it back eventually. You can still enjoy the activity.

guitarplayer
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by guitarplayer »

Please ignore if the below makes no sense.
white belt wrote:
Tue Jan 24, 2023 5:18 pm
My job is mindless work and long periods of boredom, which has started to seep into the rest of my life. I've found that I'm the type of person who gets motivation from getting something done [...] I'm the type of person who can maintain habits very easily (e.g. I once went a whole year without ever missing a workout), but has trouble adjusting to new habits. I'm very driven by routine, but I find it hard to structure my life when I'm on a rotating shift schedule.
For what it's worth, adaptability is our edge against faster, stronger, more specialist and so on, forms of life. It is unappreciated these days, because many things are standardized. Maybe a rotating shift schedule could be an opportunity to rediscover the edge.

I worked a varied shift pattern for a few years. Now that I work 9-5, I cannot believe how easy it is. The ways I have developed then allow me now to be very efficient with time and use free slots of time here and there almost as if these are cracks in a pavement that plants use to grow through whenever the sun's up.

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

mathiverse wrote:
Tue Jan 24, 2023 5:37 pm
I talked to my boss this past week and he said that my replacement kept getting delayed, which is why I didn't move off shiftwork in January. That person is due to arrive any day, but it's a 2 month process to get access to our office and trained on everything. So maybe in April? I'm not sure.

Lemur wrote:
Tue Jan 24, 2023 7:50 pm
There is a value jump from the WL1-5 cohort to the WL6+. The carrot for the first group is mostly based on financial capital. Values like freedom, financial independence, escaping a job, and having more money to invest will align easily with actions such as eating at home, cutting your own hair, riding your bike to work, etc.

But do your behaviors hold up after you're already accumulated large multiples of annual expenses in compounding investments?

If the behaviors change, say from mostly eating at home to getting takeout food a few times a week, then I will propose the main cause is that carrot has already been won (money) and that counter-incentives such as convenience become stronger over-time. There might be other causes to the value-action gap that are more individual and worth meditating on and exploring. Easy to justify a restaurant meal that was previously against your values when you already have so much money saved up. It also might be worth exploring what the carrots are for WL6+.

Recognizing the misaligned value to action behavior can sometimes lead to mental distress - especially when one prides themselves on aligning logic and reason to their behaviors. In other words, it is a distress to realize that your values are not aligning with your actions at all times. Its a double-edged sword - this constant rumination of values and its meanings leads to accomplishments and success in some areas of life but one can be hard on themselves in other ways.
Yeah I think that's true. I'm still trying to figure out my value system if money is no object. I do still want to live a low environmental impact lifestyle, even if it's just for my own conscience. But also it seems I have no problems spending money on eating out when I'm lazy. I think my ideal lifestyle is basically minimizing the big 3 expenses (housing, transportation, and food) so that the occasional drinks or meal out for social purposes is no big deal and my grand scheme. Of course something I've struggled with is exactly what that grand scheme looks like. Right now it's more like a list of daily things I know that gives me a sense of satisfaction. Things like exercise, spending time outdoors, working on my engaging projects, eating home cooked meals, and so on. But I don't necessarily follow that list everyday, even if I could in theory.

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Wed Jan 25, 2023 8:52 am
I was feeling so sick last year the only projects I could take on or maintain were of the "brain in a box" variety. I kept asking myself "What would much lower rent (in terms of IQ) Stephen Hawking do?" It dawned on me that it really is a perverse incentive landscape when the highest paying activities are the worst for your health and social life. I was too sick to take a walk in the woods, but I could still work at a computer.
I think that's true. It's like I have to fight every step of the way to incorporate physical activity into my daily life. Note that this is unique because most of my previous military assignments were physically demanding. I know the web of goals way is to combine activities (e.g. make all transportation human powered), but sometimes it's not feasible due to other constraints. One slightly depressing realization is that, when I look back at my past 18 months or so, I don't really feel like I've accomplished all that much with my career. I've turned into the guy that only talks about things he did in past tense because I haven't done much of value recently. I was expecting that sort of thing to happen eventually in the autumn of my life, but not at age <30.

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

mathiverse wrote:
Wed Jan 25, 2023 10:18 am
Can a person change their regression floor? In other words, can someone get good enough at "higher level thinking/acting" that their lowest functioning state doesn't result in purchasing via money?
I think so, at least in theory. For example, when I think about other domains like diet or physical fitness, my "regression" floor is still what the average person would consider very healthy eating and high level fitness. Like, I am still muscular with abs despite my diet and exercise efforts having fallen off quite a bit recently.

The haircut thing is relatively minor. The biggest issue I ran into (other than laziness), was that sometimes using multiple mirrors to fade the sides and back of my hair would give me a headache. I still clean up the hair around my ears and back of my neck weekly so that I can go longer in between haircuts and still meet appearance regulations. One of the hardest things to do on yourself is the outline around the ears, but I've had DGF help me with that the times that she has been here, which leads me to believe that if we lived together full time I could probably go back to cutting my own hair. I know in the ERE book it mentions changing your hairstyle, but I figure I only have a few more years until MPB requires me to just shave my head so I'd like to enjoy keeping it longer on the top and faded on the sides while I can.

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

Scott 2 wrote:
Sun Jan 29, 2023 7:58 pm
Why does your gym time need to pursue a real program? Punch the clock at 70% effort. Enjoy yourself. Do whatever random stuff looks fun.
I think that's pretty much what I've been doing for the past 18 months. So now I'm ready to get back into things, at least in theory. I do better when following a structured program.

guitarplayer wrote:
Wed Feb 01, 2023 7:13 am
For what it's worth, adaptability is our edge against faster, stronger, more specialist and so on, forms of life. It is unappreciated these days, because many things are standardized. Maybe a rotating shift schedule could be an opportunity to rediscover the edge.

I worked a varied shift pattern for a few years. Now that I work 9-5, I cannot believe how easy it is. The ways I have developed then allow me now to be very efficient with time and use free slots of time here and there almost as if these are cracks in a pavement that plants use to grow through whenever the sun's up.
Yeah that makes sense to me. The nature of my work has just made it very hard for me to feel that way. Paradoxically, if my work was more engaging I would probably feel motivated to excel with all my other goals. At least that has been my experience in other times of my life. I also find it hard to get much done without uninterrupted blocks to focus, and that's not something that I can have at work since I'm always a phone call or email away from having to put out a "fire". The symptoms of shift work sleep disorder also just make me feel lethargic in general. My life is essentially this cycle: 1) Work first 3 days of shift and feel jet lagged, 2) work 3 days where I'm somewhat adjusted to the schedule, 3) have 4 days off where I'm trying to either live on a schedule that is conducive to my personal life or a schedule that tries to ease me into the next shift. Go back to step 1 and repeat for 18 months.

There was a time when I felt what you described in your last paragraph. It was when I left my first assignment that included only 6 days off in an entire month and most of the time spent in the field. Being able to sleep in my bed every night and work in an office felt like a cake walk after that.

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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by jacob »

white belt wrote:
Wed Jan 25, 2023 10:18 am
One slightly depressing realization is that, when I look back at my past 18 months or so, I don't really feel like I've accomplished all that much with my career. I've turned into the guy that only talks about things he did in past tense because I haven't done much of value recently. I was expecting that sort of thing to happen eventually in the autumn of my life, but not at age <30.
Are you per chance moving vertically currently as per viewtopic.php?t=12598 ? It's easier to talk about accomplishment in terms of what one has done or where one was been or even who one has met than it is to talk about having new ideas. Are you now thinking thoughts/about things you didn't 2 years ago?
mathiverse wrote:
Wed Jan 25, 2023 10:18 am
Can a person change their regression floor? In other words, can someone get good enough at "higher level thinking/acting" that their lowest functioning state doesn't result in purchasing via money?
One can get to a point where "purchasing via money" is an entirely alien way of acting. Consider that the concept of "buying solutions" is actually a trained response that kids spend many years learning before it becomes so natural so as to become unconscious/unseen. This [paradigm] can be replaced and forgotten to the point where one has to relearn buying the solution. The paradigm of not buying stuff is not a higher version of the paradigm of buying stuff. It is a different one.

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

jacob wrote:
Wed Feb 01, 2023 5:45 pm
Are you per chance moving vertically currently as per viewtopic.php?t=12598 ? It's easier to talk about accomplishment in terms of what one has done or where one was been or even who one has met than it is to talk about having new ideas. Are you now thinking thoughts/about things you didn't 2 years ago?
In a sense, I am thinking about things differently than 2 years ago. I looked back at my old journal entries and there have been some "idea changes" I suppose. I am in a serious relationship with DGF which is quite different than my single days and has required a lot of both individual and interpersonal development. Out of necessity, I now think a lot more about finding fulfillment outside of my career. It seems like towards the end of 2021 I was moving horizontally on the chart; building up my cooking skills, getting my bike setup for commuting, learning about options and active investing, tinkering with efficient/off-grid cooking e.g. solar cooker, and so on. I was also still learning new skills at my job since it was my first time working in such an environment.

Looking at my post history, it seems like I stopped doing a lot of that horizontal learning by summer of 2022. That makes sense since usually around the 1 year mark is when military jobs start getting stale and repetitive. Similarly, I think this was when I started to backslide in terms of stuff like cooking. I distinctly remember feeling refreshed after attending a class which allowed me to live with DGF for a month. However, after a month or so back at work, I started to feel a sense of dread because I realized there wasn't much more to learn in the role and that I was likely facing at least another 6-12 months of the same monotony. Around this time I started pursuing transfer options but my efforts were stymied by unsupportive leadership.

Around that time, I also started a new (old) hobby in Magic: the Gathering. This gave my analytical brain something to focus on and started to give me a sense of development/progress. In October or November, I shifted my focus to competitive playing. I started to record screen captures of my online matches to Discord in order to solicit feedback for improvement. By December, I realized that people were interested in watching such videos, so I bought a microphone and associated equipment to develop my Youtube channel. I've been uploading 2-3 videos a week since then and have learned some rudimentary AV recording and editing skills. Right now my channel has enough watch hours for monetization, but only ~150 subs so I'm a long way from the 1k needed for monetization. But like I said, my original intention was to improve as a player and it turned out starting a channel just fit well into my web of goals. I found that I played more deliberately when recording content because I had to explain my thinking in real time and that in some cases the pressure helped me to play better in stressful tournaments.

However, I also have been thinking less about personal finance topics. I haven't been tracking my spending in recent months and I haven't been actively trading nearly as much as I did before. Likely that's because MTG itches the same part of my brain that I was using for trading and investing. I do still follow markets, but I haven't put on any new trades in a while. I still try to live frugally, but I spend money on eating out regularly.

Recently, I finally decided to make my room more aesthetically pleasing for me. My room has a large plant now and DGF helped me to set up curtains to cover where I hang my clothes up since the room doesn't have any closets. I started thinking about things like cable management for my desk, mostly because I now have some extra peripherals that I use for recording videos a few times a week. Everything looks tidier and makes me feel a bit better. I went with the consumer solution for almost all of these problems (plant was free) because at a certain point I realized that rather than solving problems with DIY/bodging/ERE skills, I was just going without or ignoring the problem (in some cases for years). DGF helped me to realize this pattern; I didn't want to buy new things because of my frugal/ERE tendencies but I also lacked the motivation/skill to DIY or source other solutions, so entropy just ended up taking over and I pretended it didn't bother me. I had clothes with holes in them, worn out pants and shoes, things that didn't quite work right, drawers that couldn't fit my clothes (even after getting rid of ill-fitting/worn-out clothing), and so on. Some of these things I was able to fix while others I finally replaced. Things wear out, such is life. Now at least I have shit that works. I'd even go as far to say my room feels cozy, although it is still probably a bit more utilitarian than most would prefer. After all, my desk is still a plastic folding table I've had for 7 years which is propped up on reams of paper to get it to standing desk height (one side has to be elevated 2 inches higher because it seems one side of the legs have bent over the years?!).

I'm not really sure what all of that has to do with the original question, but I guess my point is that there is some sort of transition occurring in fits and starts. I'm just not really sure where it is going or how it ends. Maybe getting my external life in a bit more order is helping to get my inner self in order? Or maybe I'm just changing my home environment because it's one of the only areas I currently feel I have agency? I remember hearing an anecdote from someone who used to work a miserable job in construction; they said that some days they would come home from work and move their mattress from their bed frame to the floor or vice versa because it was the only thing that gave them a sense of control.

7Wannabe5
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

mathiverse wrote:
Can a person change their regression floor? In other words, can someone get good enough at "higher level thinking/acting" that their lowest functioning state doesn't result in purchasing via money?
I'm going to say "Yes" and "No." OTOH, it is often the case that if you do regress under stress, it is because in the realms where you experience regression, you only had "scaffolding"* rather than "skillz." The skillz needed would be inclusive of maintenance of overall self-aware self-care, as in not ignoring your wardrobe until everything is ragged, not ignoring your social needs until you are a stranger in strange land, etc. The skillz needed would also be inclusive of planning for all the "knowns" and researching the "known unknowns" that might impact you in the future. For instance, I'm sure that Jacob has some kind of plan/"insurance" for keeping his spending very low even in the unlikelihood of a month where Mrs. Jacob leaves him to participate in Biosphere 8 project, he breaks his leg while bending over on icy patch to pick up quarter, and his kitchen is rendered useless when pressure cooker full of black beans explodes. But, there are always those "unknown, unknowns" that might creep up on you, and cause you to remember how to use money to solve a problem.

*This can even be a bit more complex. For instance, I have decades long experience in being able to cook very inexpensively for myself and/or family of 4, or even large group on occasion, but in recent years I became accustomed/spoiled by the luxury of being taken out to eat by the men I date, so when I broke up housekeeping with last partner, I had to "take myself out to eat" for a while to break myself of the habit/dependency, and once again consider what I enjoyed about eating out beyond the food itself, etc. etc.

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

I've been thinking more about hobbies and hobby businesses. My YouTube channel continues to grow slowly and I find myself contemplating where I want to go with it. The channel naturally evolved from my interest in improving as a player, but at some point I will have to clarify my purpose with it all. I think I'm interested in playing MTG competitively, but my current schedule hasn't allowed me to play in a whole lot of events because I am usually either working or traveling on weekends. It seems like those who become the most successful at some point have to make the decision of whether they are primarily competitive players or primarily content creators.

On a related note, I find myself feeling a bit of ambivalence with regards to my hobby activities. Playing a deck to improve for a tournament is a hobby activity I would do for free. But if I record (relatively little effort), edit (a bit of effort), and post (a bit of effort) the video to YouTube, then that could be considered more of a business activity, although my current business doesn't make me any money so I'm not sure. In a sense I do produce something (entertainment/education value for other people), but it's not currently monetized because I don't yet have enough subscribers (although I have enough watch hours). To make my business more legitimate, I should diversify to different platforms, create products for Patreon, and spend more time doing things like social media interaction. However, those activities might take away from time that I could spend playing and improving, which is really what I enjoy doing. The easiest next step for me would be to start streaming on Twitch, which requires about the same time commitment but provides me another income stream. I currently don't because that requires a consistent schedule, which I don't have at the moment.

I'm curious how others with hobby businesses have thought about how they structure their activities. There certainly seems to be a lot more blurring of lines than in a salaryman career field. Am I doing an activity for business, pleasure, both? Should I count X as a business or personal expense? Etc, etc. I'm also wary of taking all the fun out of a hobby by turning it into a business.

7Wannabe5
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I recently started re-reading "The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It." One big problem, which you are touching on in your post, is that most people who start small businesses do it because they have skill or passion related to being some kind of "technician." For instance, you love baking delicious pies, so you open a bakery. You enjoy playing MTG, so you create a Youtube channel. etc. However, when you move from hobby into business, you have to start to take on a variety of other "technician" tasks that might not really be you forte. For instance, the baker might not really enjoy the task of "direct customer service", and you might not really enjoy the task of "video creation." More importantly, there are also the tasks related to being an entrepreneur or a businessman that must be applied to any sort of business. For instance, when you started listing all the other markets, sources of funding, and product variations that might apply to your MTG business in the post above, you were doing some of the entrepreneurial tasks of your business.

As an entrepreneur or small business owner, you can form partnerships, hire employees, find suppliers, etc, divide and delegate away all possible tasks related to the business, except the tasks that are those of the entrepreneur or small business owner. However, if it is your intention to create a lifestyle business based on a hobby you find enjoyable, then you will likely choose to continue to make use of your own technician skills to the extent that you find it enjoyable. For instance, when my rare/used book business was at peak profitability, I chose to pay others (my kids and their friends) to do the sort of routine tasks I dislike (pulling and packing books for shipping, data input) and focus on the activity of book scouting which is more my realm of mastery/enjoyment, and entrepreneurial thinking and management. In terms of a micro-business such as mine, this might just be making decisions such as whether or not to rent an old barn for storing inventory or calculating the likely profitability of traveling all the way to Florida for a giant book sale, etc. etc.

I think there are two easy ways to determine whether you are engaged in a hobby vs a business. The first would be your own intention as exhibited by at least the creation of a new expense/income tracking column on your personal spreadsheets. The second would be what the IRS or other such entities would likely have to say about the situation as is if they were to be made fully aware :lol: For instance, although most people wouldn't do this, I have a business column for the master's degree I am currently working on , but education expenses related to topics I have no intention to develop to the point of profitability, I tally under the Edutainment category of my personal expenses.

If/when you engage with other humans in your business as partners, investors, employees, clients, customers etc. with stated contract/purpose of making some kind of income/profit or exchange of funds then that would be another clear demarcation between hobby and business.

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mountainFrugal
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by mountainFrugal »

white belt wrote:
Sun Feb 26, 2023 9:52 am
I'm curious how others with hobby businesses have thought about how they structure their activities. There certainly seems to be a lot more blurring of lines than in a salaryman career field. Am I doing an activity for business, pleasure, both? Should I count X as a business or personal expense? Etc, etc. I'm also wary of taking all the fun out of a hobby by turning it into a business.
Maybe start with having the hobby business pay for the hobby entirely? If you have some revenue from streaming games maybe you can just have the goal that it will pay for travel, entry fee to some small tournament, and a few cards? Starting locally with tournaments and then gradually expanding outwards if you go to others? This way you can meet broader and broader groups of people within the MTG community and rep your channel at the same time. It will also let you see if you even like the business side of things enough to keep your hobby interest high.

I second the E-Myth Book @7 recommends.

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I am in the process of re-reading the E Myth Revisited, which I read many years ago. So far, I find myself nodding along and the concepts are pretty well known these days, but it does take on a bit more applicability since I currently am an entrepreneur.
Over the past month my business has become slightly more legitimate. I now keep track of business expenses separately, I have a logo, a website (still work in progress), and even a PayPal link to accept donations. These start up costs mean that my business is very much still in the red, although my playing profits make it slightly closer to neutral.

The tricky thing I am still working through is how to allocate time towards professional playing (think poker) tasks vs content creation tasks. Although there is quite a bit of overlap, the overlap is not perfect. Growing as a player means grinding a bunch of online and in-person games, both for the practice and because of the high-variance nature of the game. Growing as a content creator might mean playing entertaining decks, writing articles, engaging on social media, and producing scripted video content that requires extensive preparation and editing. The content creation is likely a bit more lucrative than the playing over the long run, but it’s also a rockstar business where profits go to the well-established names. Right now, I’m trying to focus on the overlapping tasks. For example, this weekend I might attend a paper (in-person) tournament. To maximize my efficiency, I should probably film a vlog throughout the day, promote my own content with everyone I see at the event, stay focused enough to play optimally in the tournament, and then after the tournament write a blog post and edit/publish the vlog. I haven’t tried doing that yet but it makes sense in my head. Things are easier if it’s an online tournament that I can stream.

Working on my business has made me realize I really need to implement some kind of Getting Things Done time management system. Before, I already had some things slip through the cracks, but now I am juggling salaryman work, my own business, the ERE “business” of DIY, and a crowded social calendar. So far, I have just been putting everything on my calendar and hopefully soon I will have a good rhythm established.

Speaking of ERE, I have taken the first baby steps towards diversifying my income beyond just my salaryman work. Other than my business, I did a few hours of landscaping work at $20 an hour for my landlord. I’m unsure if that’s a smart working wage for me, but it is the kind of work I’d end up doing for free if I was at DGF’s house. It was also a nice day out so I enjoyed being able to do some productive activity outside. I told him I’d be willing to do more work around the house, so we’ll see if that develops into anything.

On other ERE fronts, I’m not doing as well. I continue to eat out a bit too much, have had to travel a lot for social reasons, and haven’t been tracking my expenses closely. Thanks to my high income, my savings rate should still be quite high but I'd prefer to keep expenses low. The positive of something like the BNM and tracking expenses closely was that it really gave me a feel for where every dollar was going. The downside was that it made me a little too focused on financial capital while disregarding other forms of capital. Perhaps it’s time for me to do another BNM to get me back on track.

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

It's been a month since my last update. I know I must be procrastinating on something because I find myself researching ebike conversion kits. I can turn my current bike into an ebike for $700 with one of the Bafang kits and battery. I'm tempted because I think it would be the thing to push me over the edge to bicycle commute everyday. Right now, I have no issues riding to work with the ~250 ft decline in elevation over a ~3 mile ride. The ride back is pretty brutal because most of the elevation change is on 2 really long climbs. It's also worse because at that time I'm tired from working my shift. After night shift, I'm getting my heart rate elevated right before I get home and need to go to sleep right away. After day shift, I'm usually trying to lift at the gym and have to bike during one of the hottest parts of the day. The afternoon shift is perhaps the most pleasant for bicycle commuting purposes, but that's only 6 days out of the month.

Financially, the ebike conversion probably only make sense if I could justify getting rid of my car. When DGF and I move in together next year, it's likely we'll be a 1 car household and she may frequently car commute to the hospital, which leaves me with only my bike. But for now I bought some cycling shorts so I'm going to be giving bike commuting a try (I had some chafing the last time I tried to resume bike commuting).

I purchased a used crossbow for deer hunting this Fall. I have broadheads that should arrive in the next few days and then I can begin practicing at a nearby range in preparation for the urban archery qualification. I wish I could just practice in the backyard with some DIY targets, but county code forbids it on a property this small.

Scott 2
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by Scott 2 »

Even if not financially optimal, the ebike conversion lets you explore freedom to, immediately. You'd know if that's a viable long term transportation option. I like the idea.

Even if not going car free, there's value in having transportation redundancy.

Some might say - walk the bike up the hill.

jacob
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by jacob »

white belt wrote:
Tue May 09, 2023 2:48 am
Right now, I have no issues riding to work with the ~250 ft decline in elevation over a ~3 mile ride.
That's a 1.6% grade. After you get used to riding, this should be close to a nothing burger. IOW, after mounting the conversion kit, you might want to unmount it again after just a few months to save the weight. The $700 might be better spent on clipless pedals or straps or thinner tires.

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