FWIW, kids don't automatically imbue your life with "meaning", even if they do automatically and immediately swamp your life with never-ending distraction. As I've been learning, meaning doesn't exist "out there", it's found / created " in here." In other words, you try to do things that you personally find meaningful - things that align with your interests and values. As to kids, it seems that mothers may be hard-wired to find a bit more meaning in their children than fathers, but variation may be so wide as to make that stereotype meaningless. In any event, my condolences to you and your wife for the pain experienced in not being able to conceive in the way you had wanted. I know that such disappointment may be very bitter indeed.
Smashter's Great Adventure
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suomalainen
- Posts: 988
- Joined: Sat Oct 18, 2014 12:49 pm
Re: Smashter's Great Adventure
Re: Smashter's Great Adventure
Thanks @Suo.
It's definitely good to keep in mind that if we end up adopting (or miraculously getting pregnant) that my personal version of the meaning crisis is not automatically solved. I certainly fall into that line of thinking sometimes and I know my wife does as well.
It's definitely good to keep in mind that if we end up adopting (or miraculously getting pregnant) that my personal version of the meaning crisis is not automatically solved. I certainly fall into that line of thinking sometimes and I know my wife does as well.
Re: Smashter's Great Adventure
Some Updates
Finances + House Stuff
Family NW at ~630k.
We are about to move out of the in-laws basement and into a 6 month rental, so expenses will go up significantly.
We are on the prowl for a house, but sheesh, it’s crazy out there. We offered 50k over asking for one house, cash, with no inspection. Didn’t get it.
We (but especially my dearest wife) got way to emotionally attached to the house we put an offer on. It went from “look at that cute house” to “we must have it by any means necessary” way too fast. I think we dodged a bullet in not getting it.
We’d had a plan for a long time to get a rental to explore a specific area and then decide if we wanted to buy based on putting our boots on the ground in more places. It just made so much sense. Then, next thing I knew, we were about to be on the hook for every bit of cash in our bank account + we were potentially going to take a penalty and pull some money out of an IRA.
Stuff that had been non-negotiable mere weeks ago (“we’re never living in the suburbs again!”) all of a sudden was not a big deal.
We made huge decisions that would have affected our lives for long periods of time after not too much deliberation. That’s not always a bad thing, but in this case it’s almost like we went a little manic. Like the thrill of trying to win became as important as what we were even winning. I want to be better in the future about sticking to plans that we methodically thought through instead of casting them aside the moment something shiny pops into our field of vision. Kind of like investing.
I’m not saying we won’t jump at another house that fits what we want, but we’ll at least be able to check out the area much more thoroughly beforehand now that we won’t be living so far away from the places where we want to buy.
Multi-generational living
This is the longest DW and I have ever stayed with either of our parents. I was nervous going into it, as DW and her mom don’t always do the best spending day after day together, and then that wears on me as well. But it all turned out great.
I think the key was buying good will by trying to be as helpful as possible the whole time. We ran errands, helped around the house, took care of the dog, cooked food, etc. That both smoothed over a lot of potential areas of tension and allowed us to feel good about not paying rent.
It also just so happened that we were there while DW’s grandma was dying. She lived down the street from DW’s parents. It was really nice to be there to support the family and help out during that time. It brought us all closer.
It also really helps that both DW’s parents stay really active. Even though one of them is retired, they stay busy. It seems they always have a sport to play or a thing to work on around the house. They stayed out of our hair and they also valued their alone time more than I would have guessed.
Fertility journey
DW and I still have two embryos leftover from IVF that we can transfer. We’re going to do that over the next 6 months or so. I don’t have high hopes it will work. I more so see it as one last thing we can check off the list before finally (finally!) being done with infertility interventions.
Work
I got a significant raise. While the job is by no means my passion, I’m proud to be doing well in a tough economic climate for tech startups. I have many weeks where I don’t put in more than 2 hours a day. Work life balance is off the charts. Plenty of time for exercise, dog walks, meditation, and writing projects. That said, my company also has been laying people off and we’ve struggled to raise money in this frigid VC climate. Things can change quickly.
Freedom to
I don't have much to say here. This is more of an aspirational placeholder. Given how things are going financially I need to start giving this more thought.
Finances + House Stuff
Family NW at ~630k.
We are about to move out of the in-laws basement and into a 6 month rental, so expenses will go up significantly.
We are on the prowl for a house, but sheesh, it’s crazy out there. We offered 50k over asking for one house, cash, with no inspection. Didn’t get it.
We (but especially my dearest wife) got way to emotionally attached to the house we put an offer on. It went from “look at that cute house” to “we must have it by any means necessary” way too fast. I think we dodged a bullet in not getting it.
We’d had a plan for a long time to get a rental to explore a specific area and then decide if we wanted to buy based on putting our boots on the ground in more places. It just made so much sense. Then, next thing I knew, we were about to be on the hook for every bit of cash in our bank account + we were potentially going to take a penalty and pull some money out of an IRA.
Stuff that had been non-negotiable mere weeks ago (“we’re never living in the suburbs again!”) all of a sudden was not a big deal.
We made huge decisions that would have affected our lives for long periods of time after not too much deliberation. That’s not always a bad thing, but in this case it’s almost like we went a little manic. Like the thrill of trying to win became as important as what we were even winning. I want to be better in the future about sticking to plans that we methodically thought through instead of casting them aside the moment something shiny pops into our field of vision. Kind of like investing.
I’m not saying we won’t jump at another house that fits what we want, but we’ll at least be able to check out the area much more thoroughly beforehand now that we won’t be living so far away from the places where we want to buy.
Multi-generational living
This is the longest DW and I have ever stayed with either of our parents. I was nervous going into it, as DW and her mom don’t always do the best spending day after day together, and then that wears on me as well. But it all turned out great.
I think the key was buying good will by trying to be as helpful as possible the whole time. We ran errands, helped around the house, took care of the dog, cooked food, etc. That both smoothed over a lot of potential areas of tension and allowed us to feel good about not paying rent.
It also just so happened that we were there while DW’s grandma was dying. She lived down the street from DW’s parents. It was really nice to be there to support the family and help out during that time. It brought us all closer.
It also really helps that both DW’s parents stay really active. Even though one of them is retired, they stay busy. It seems they always have a sport to play or a thing to work on around the house. They stayed out of our hair and they also valued their alone time more than I would have guessed.
Fertility journey
DW and I still have two embryos leftover from IVF that we can transfer. We’re going to do that over the next 6 months or so. I don’t have high hopes it will work. I more so see it as one last thing we can check off the list before finally (finally!) being done with infertility interventions.
Work
I got a significant raise. While the job is by no means my passion, I’m proud to be doing well in a tough economic climate for tech startups. I have many weeks where I don’t put in more than 2 hours a day. Work life balance is off the charts. Plenty of time for exercise, dog walks, meditation, and writing projects. That said, my company also has been laying people off and we’ve struggled to raise money in this frigid VC climate. Things can change quickly.
Freedom to
I don't have much to say here. This is more of an aspirational placeholder. Given how things are going financially I need to start giving this more thought.
Re: Smashter's Great Adventure
Housing update
We got a small house with a yard and a 2 car garage in a great part of Milwaukee for less than $275k. THF, bless his little hot-tempered Gen Z heart, would have been proud. It could use some updates, but it’s been very well maintained. We are thrilled to have a nice, affordable place, and we’re happy that the house search madness is over with.
I am so glad our previous offer on a different house was not accepted. This one is $80k cheaper and we genuinely like it more.
After the first offer didn’t work, DW and I had a lot of conversations about what we want out of life.
In retrospect, when we put our first offer in, it felt like we were trying to make compromises based on what other people wanted out of our life. Like we were afraid of having to explain ourselves if we didn’t live in a more conformist style, even if that meant paying money for things we didn’t actually care about.
The more we thought about it, the more we became excited about finding something much cheaper than we had originally planned on. We wanted it to be high quality, but it could be small, and we didn’t need to find a specific kind of place just because it would make other people in our live’s happy.
We paid cash. I don’t know if that will end up being the financially optimal choice, but I’m happy to be doing it. It was also probably the only way to get a house at this price point in this market.
I told myself when I paid off my student loan that I would never again take on 6 figures of debt at an interest rate higher than 6%. I still have vivid memories of watching how quickly the 6% interest accumulated on my $160k student loan. It was not a good feeling.
I know a mortgage is different because you live in the house and you can’t live in a diploma. And we have much better jobs now. We could pay it off quickly if we wanted, and there’s mortgage payment tax breaks, lost investment opportunities, etc. We could have talked ourselves into taking a loan.
Another point against paying cash was we had to sell a couple Roth IRAs for ~$30k to make it work. This was annoying, as we could have easily had the cash on hand had I not put some money in iBonds about 10 months ago and if we’d contributed a smidge less to our retirement accounts. But such is life. I also could have 10x the money if I’d only ever invested in Apple. It’s not productive to think like that. One of my mental health failure modes is beating myself up for not making perfect decisions instead of just trusting I did the best I could at the time.
All in all I am super proud of me and DW for saving as much as we have. And I’m very grateful to this community for providing so much wisdom over the years. I am not (yet) doing an MMG or getting specific advice or on anything from any forumites. I don’t have the most active presence here. But I read posts just about every day. Hanging out here over the last 6+ years has had a strongly positive effect on my life, finances, thought processes, and overall well being. I appreciate you all.
It already feels great to pay cash and we haven’t even moved yet. The mere fact that I don’t have to work with a lender, do all that paperwork, and pay all those loan fees is a win.
Some people scoff at the squishy noting that it just feels better to not have a mortgage. But now that I am one of the mortgage free, I get it. I can already tell that the the conversations I’m having with DW have a more ERE-flavor to them since we made this decision. It’s a lot of talk about having a newfound sense of freedom, and how we won’t feel as pressured to do jobs we don’t want.
Now I’m excited to get the transaction done and build the cash savings back up.
Great city, bad roads
We’ve now officially been in Milwaukee for about a month and we’re really liking it. It’s got a really great blend of nice people, walkable neighborhoods, accessible nature, and enough big city amenities to scratch our itch without the accompanying traffic and prices. Plus we are just a couple hours drive from DW’s parents, for when we we want an escape into the land of rolling hills and barns.
The biggest Milwaukee downside so far is that the some of the roads are truly terrible. So many potholes, bumps, and cracks. I’ve never experienced anything like it, and I’ve been a lot of places. You’ll turn off a normal street and all of a sudden be confronted with a road that makes you feel like you’re in that part of a post apocalyptic movie where the 10 years later chyron flashes on the screen and you see the protagonists pushing a cart through a city whose infrastructure has crumbled.
Businesses replacing shocks and tires must be doing well for themselves.
I also find it fascinating and kinda sad how the roads are much generally much worse in the less wealthy areas. In theory, the road replacement funds should be allocated based on need, right? Though counterexamples abound, as my current rental is in a great area yet has a road so bad I feel the need to warn friends about it before they visit.
Getting out of my comfort zone
Last week, I had an idea for a post I want to write for a different forum. It’s a place I lurk around, but rarely contribute. I wrote up my piece over a two day and started to feel really good about it. I put a lot of effort in and I thought it was unique and valuable.
Then impostor syndrome kicked in. I got worried about critiques that could be levied against it by all the smart people on the forum. I convinced myself for a while that there was actually no value in posting it because I wasn’t saying much that was new, I was merely relaying my personal experiences on a topic. I slept on it. In the morning I decided to post it anyway. DW’s encouragement helped. After about the third time I asked her what she thought I should do, her response went from exceedingly supportive to “just do it or don’t, but stop asking me every 5 minutes!” Which was totally fair, and helped get me to do it.
The post ended up getting a great response. One person told me it “made their day.” That felt awesome.
I want to keep working on my self confidence until I can post something like that with much less hand wringing.
We got a small house with a yard and a 2 car garage in a great part of Milwaukee for less than $275k. THF, bless his little hot-tempered Gen Z heart, would have been proud. It could use some updates, but it’s been very well maintained. We are thrilled to have a nice, affordable place, and we’re happy that the house search madness is over with.
I am so glad our previous offer on a different house was not accepted. This one is $80k cheaper and we genuinely like it more.
After the first offer didn’t work, DW and I had a lot of conversations about what we want out of life.
In retrospect, when we put our first offer in, it felt like we were trying to make compromises based on what other people wanted out of our life. Like we were afraid of having to explain ourselves if we didn’t live in a more conformist style, even if that meant paying money for things we didn’t actually care about.
The more we thought about it, the more we became excited about finding something much cheaper than we had originally planned on. We wanted it to be high quality, but it could be small, and we didn’t need to find a specific kind of place just because it would make other people in our live’s happy.
We paid cash. I don’t know if that will end up being the financially optimal choice, but I’m happy to be doing it. It was also probably the only way to get a house at this price point in this market.
I told myself when I paid off my student loan that I would never again take on 6 figures of debt at an interest rate higher than 6%. I still have vivid memories of watching how quickly the 6% interest accumulated on my $160k student loan. It was not a good feeling.
I know a mortgage is different because you live in the house and you can’t live in a diploma. And we have much better jobs now. We could pay it off quickly if we wanted, and there’s mortgage payment tax breaks, lost investment opportunities, etc. We could have talked ourselves into taking a loan.
Another point against paying cash was we had to sell a couple Roth IRAs for ~$30k to make it work. This was annoying, as we could have easily had the cash on hand had I not put some money in iBonds about 10 months ago and if we’d contributed a smidge less to our retirement accounts. But such is life. I also could have 10x the money if I’d only ever invested in Apple. It’s not productive to think like that. One of my mental health failure modes is beating myself up for not making perfect decisions instead of just trusting I did the best I could at the time.
All in all I am super proud of me and DW for saving as much as we have. And I’m very grateful to this community for providing so much wisdom over the years. I am not (yet) doing an MMG or getting specific advice or on anything from any forumites. I don’t have the most active presence here. But I read posts just about every day. Hanging out here over the last 6+ years has had a strongly positive effect on my life, finances, thought processes, and overall well being. I appreciate you all.
It already feels great to pay cash and we haven’t even moved yet. The mere fact that I don’t have to work with a lender, do all that paperwork, and pay all those loan fees is a win.
Some people scoff at the squishy noting that it just feels better to not have a mortgage. But now that I am one of the mortgage free, I get it. I can already tell that the the conversations I’m having with DW have a more ERE-flavor to them since we made this decision. It’s a lot of talk about having a newfound sense of freedom, and how we won’t feel as pressured to do jobs we don’t want.
Now I’m excited to get the transaction done and build the cash savings back up.
Great city, bad roads
We’ve now officially been in Milwaukee for about a month and we’re really liking it. It’s got a really great blend of nice people, walkable neighborhoods, accessible nature, and enough big city amenities to scratch our itch without the accompanying traffic and prices. Plus we are just a couple hours drive from DW’s parents, for when we we want an escape into the land of rolling hills and barns.
The biggest Milwaukee downside so far is that the some of the roads are truly terrible. So many potholes, bumps, and cracks. I’ve never experienced anything like it, and I’ve been a lot of places. You’ll turn off a normal street and all of a sudden be confronted with a road that makes you feel like you’re in that part of a post apocalyptic movie where the 10 years later chyron flashes on the screen and you see the protagonists pushing a cart through a city whose infrastructure has crumbled.
Businesses replacing shocks and tires must be doing well for themselves.
I also find it fascinating and kinda sad how the roads are much generally much worse in the less wealthy areas. In theory, the road replacement funds should be allocated based on need, right? Though counterexamples abound, as my current rental is in a great area yet has a road so bad I feel the need to warn friends about it before they visit.
I can't wait for this to eventually happen in Milwaukee. This is maybe not the best comparison, but seeing LaGuardia airport in NYC go from a complete dump to very nice gives me hope. I really wasn’t sure it would ever happen. Sometimes the glaring things that need to get fixed actually do get fixed.jacob wrote: ↑Sun Jul 02, 2023 11:34 amThe "infrastructure bill" paid for a lot of new roads around here. It's practically up to first world standards now!
Getting out of my comfort zone
Last week, I had an idea for a post I want to write for a different forum. It’s a place I lurk around, but rarely contribute. I wrote up my piece over a two day and started to feel really good about it. I put a lot of effort in and I thought it was unique and valuable.
Then impostor syndrome kicked in. I got worried about critiques that could be levied against it by all the smart people on the forum. I convinced myself for a while that there was actually no value in posting it because I wasn’t saying much that was new, I was merely relaying my personal experiences on a topic. I slept on it. In the morning I decided to post it anyway. DW’s encouragement helped. After about the third time I asked her what she thought I should do, her response went from exceedingly supportive to “just do it or don’t, but stop asking me every 5 minutes!” Which was totally fair, and helped get me to do it.
The post ended up getting a great response. One person told me it “made their day.” That felt awesome.
I want to keep working on my self confidence until I can post something like that with much less hand wringing.
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Western Red Cedar
- Posts: 1227
- Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 2:15 pm
Re: Smashter's Great Adventure
Great update Smashter! It sounds like you dodged a bullet on the housing situation and came out the other side in a better position with both DW and the new house. Sometimes the optimal financial decision isn't necessarily the optimal lifestyle decision - so enjoy your mortgage free life.
Re: Smashter's Great Adventure
Thanks @WRC! Well said.
Re: Smashter's Great Adventure
I recently had some interesting exchanges with an old friend who went from broke to rich. I want to write down what happened so that it can remember it and learn from it.
One of my very first friends, who I met when I was 6, got into crypto and NFTs during the pandemic. He went from losing his job as covid ravaged his industry to being very wealthy in a short period of time.
Recently, I saw on social media that a project he was involved in was doing really well. His life seemed particularly fun/bizarre/unique at the moment, so I decided to give him a call on a recent walk. It’s always fun to catch up with him because he’s hilarious and his life is so insanely different from most people I talk to.
Then a weird thing happened. A couple minutes in to our chat, he asked if I knew about the big project he was involved in. (Which, again, was the whole reason I called.) For some reason I feigned that I did not. I played dumb.
It wasn’t really a choice. It just happened. All of a sudden, I found myself pretending that I’d heard about his project, but I didn’t know any details.
He was happy to explain it all to me. We had a pleasant but short conversation, as he had to get back to work.
When I hung up, I thought, “wtf did I just lie about that for?”
I’m still not sure. I think it was some combo of
- I didn’t want him to think I was trying to get something out of him
- I didn’t want him to think I was only interested in talking to him because he was semi-famous online and rich
We texted more throughout the day, and I continued to be a little weird! I felt like my responses were a touch cloying, flattering, and sycophantic. Everything was HILARIOUS, all the ideas he was throwing out were GENIUS. I didn’t push back at all when he said concerning stuff about some of his followers being idiots. I laughed along when he made offensive jokes that might have bothered me had it been any other friend. And I didn’t ask any of the really interesting questions on my mind, especially around whether he ever kinda sorta felt like he was promoting a Ponzi scheme.
In short, I was treating him differently than I would other people. If I’m being honest, I think it’s because there was some part of me deep down that wanted him to help me make money. Like maybe, just maybe, he’d give me some secret to get crypto riches like him. Perhaps he’d give me the early scoop on a project I could invest in.
Part of me was acting like Homer Simpson when he delivered one of my favorite lines from the series: “After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I’m going to get rich with this scheme. And quick!”
I did not ask my friend for any tips, nor did he offer any. I'm sure he would generously help me learn about his world if I asked him, but is that how I want to spend my time?I I suppose it might be if I could make a bunch of easy money and then use it "for good", but is that how things ever work out in reality?
When I step back, I rationally understand that I am doing incredibly well financially. And my life is full of rich experiences and deep connections. I have a loving and amazing wife who I wouldn’t trade for any amount of shitcoin wealth.
And I by no means would trade places with my friend! He gets death threats. He doesn’t sleep a whole lot. He is not the healthiest, physically. He seems pretty manic and more than a touch self-absorbed.
I have always struggled with FOMO, and with the perfect being the enemy of the good, and wanting more more more. I am grateful to be able to recognize quicker when I’m acting like a doofus in that regard and that I’m able to take steps to correct it.
I want to continue to be grateful for my unique little journey and not get sidetracked wondering what it would be like if I lucked into obscene wealth.
One of my very first friends, who I met when I was 6, got into crypto and NFTs during the pandemic. He went from losing his job as covid ravaged his industry to being very wealthy in a short period of time.
Recently, I saw on social media that a project he was involved in was doing really well. His life seemed particularly fun/bizarre/unique at the moment, so I decided to give him a call on a recent walk. It’s always fun to catch up with him because he’s hilarious and his life is so insanely different from most people I talk to.
Then a weird thing happened. A couple minutes in to our chat, he asked if I knew about the big project he was involved in. (Which, again, was the whole reason I called.) For some reason I feigned that I did not. I played dumb.
It wasn’t really a choice. It just happened. All of a sudden, I found myself pretending that I’d heard about his project, but I didn’t know any details.
He was happy to explain it all to me. We had a pleasant but short conversation, as he had to get back to work.
When I hung up, I thought, “wtf did I just lie about that for?”
I’m still not sure. I think it was some combo of
- I didn’t want him to think I was trying to get something out of him
- I didn’t want him to think I was only interested in talking to him because he was semi-famous online and rich
We texted more throughout the day, and I continued to be a little weird! I felt like my responses were a touch cloying, flattering, and sycophantic. Everything was HILARIOUS, all the ideas he was throwing out were GENIUS. I didn’t push back at all when he said concerning stuff about some of his followers being idiots. I laughed along when he made offensive jokes that might have bothered me had it been any other friend. And I didn’t ask any of the really interesting questions on my mind, especially around whether he ever kinda sorta felt like he was promoting a Ponzi scheme.
In short, I was treating him differently than I would other people. If I’m being honest, I think it’s because there was some part of me deep down that wanted him to help me make money. Like maybe, just maybe, he’d give me some secret to get crypto riches like him. Perhaps he’d give me the early scoop on a project I could invest in.
Part of me was acting like Homer Simpson when he delivered one of my favorite lines from the series: “After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I’m going to get rich with this scheme. And quick!”
I did not ask my friend for any tips, nor did he offer any. I'm sure he would generously help me learn about his world if I asked him, but is that how I want to spend my time?I I suppose it might be if I could make a bunch of easy money and then use it "for good", but is that how things ever work out in reality?
When I step back, I rationally understand that I am doing incredibly well financially. And my life is full of rich experiences and deep connections. I have a loving and amazing wife who I wouldn’t trade for any amount of shitcoin wealth.
And I by no means would trade places with my friend! He gets death threats. He doesn’t sleep a whole lot. He is not the healthiest, physically. He seems pretty manic and more than a touch self-absorbed.
I have always struggled with FOMO, and with the perfect being the enemy of the good, and wanting more more more. I am grateful to be able to recognize quicker when I’m acting like a doofus in that regard and that I’m able to take steps to correct it.
I want to continue to be grateful for my unique little journey and not get sidetracked wondering what it would be like if I lucked into obscene wealth.
Re: Smashter's Great Adventure
Financial Assets
Cash: $30,000
Investments (mostly stocks in retirement accounts): $390,000
Paid off house: $270,000
Feeling pretty great about where we’re at, money-wise. It’s now just a matter of deciding how much cash we want to accumulate before we semi-ere and either take a long break or switch careers. Or both.
Career
I continue to make great money without putting too much effort in, but there’s still inevitable stress that comes with being in sales. I have been thinking more and more along the lines of like, is this the exciting and meaningful life I envisioned for myself when I’d daydream in bed as a kid? Selling software as a service to giant corporations to help them boost widget product by 7% in Q3? It is not.
I am considering applying to a program that trains people to run their own charities and gives them seed funding.
I think it would be super interesting and allow me a graceful exit out of full time tech work. But I’m wondering if I’d rather take some time off when I stop working before jumping into the next thing.
Currently the golden handcuffs are on quite strong. It’s so easy to convince myself to keep grinding away. We want to make updates to the house, I could set aside money for a struggling younger sibling (more on that later), I could start setting aside money for hypothetical future kids, what if I want to make a big charitable donation, what if we want to buy a van to travel in, what if letting just a few more stocks vest ends up netting me tons of money down the line, etc.
Fitness
I continue to work out almost every day. Lately I’ve had the stretch goal of wanting to dunk a basketball again. I haven’t done that in 12 years. I’ve been adding in some more hill sprints, calf work, and jump work and doing a bit less distance running.
I bought a little device so I could start doing Nordic Curls at home. Trying my first one was a humbling experience. I was astounded at the difficulty. I’ve worked my way up to being able to get about halfway to the ground. I want to be able to do a full one by the end of the year.
Sibling Finance Struggles
I learned that my younger sister has $10k in credit card debt and can’t even make her minimum payments. She’s an amazing and brilliant person who had many awful, despicable things done to her by our parents growing up. I want to help her if I can. But I am hesitant to give her money. She’s an alcoholic, and I worry that until that gets fixed giving her money is sending it into a black hole. I recently realized I can’t help her get sober no matter how hard I try, and it was affecting me to care so much. (I should probably go to Al Anon meetings.) So I’m kind of at an impasse there. She is visiting in a couple months so I’ll hopefully get a better sense then of how stable she is and where I might be able to help.
To be clear, she’s not asking me for help either financially or with her addiction issues. I just want so badly to help her, and I know all of a sudden giving her a bunch of money would make her incredibly happy. And it feels kinda bad sometimes for me to have all this money when I could be helping out my family more.
Building a family
Still no luck with getting pregnant. We are going to transfer our final two embryos from our initial IVF rounds toward the end of this year or early next. It’s pretty wild how they can just sit on ice for years and be ready to go when we need them. I don’t have much hope this will work given everything else we’ve done, but the embryos are sitting there so we might as well use them. Funnily enough, the family we are buying from had 6 kids in this 3bd 1bath, though two of them are adopted. Maybe this house is blessed by the fertility gods, haha.
One thing I want to try is uploading every bit of testing and health data we have into ChatGPT and asking it to analyze it and look for anomalies. I think it has those capabilities now? It’s probably not the greatest thing to give such sensitive data to Open AI, but on the off chance it helps I think it’s worth it. As of now we both still have perfect numbers across the board by every metric imaginable and there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to conceive. After the last embryos go in we’ll start talking more seriously about adopting. We’d put those conversations on hold until we had a house. I’m gearing up for a frustrating and expensive process, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Other stuff kicking around my brain
Can insects feel pain? From my initial review of the literature it seems quite plausible, which is surprising. That opens up a whole can of ethical worms. I'm not saying I'm about to start feeling bad for mosquitoes. It does make me think something like the burgeoning insect farming industry might be quite bad.
Do I spend too much time on Twitter/X? If I have to ask, the answer is probably yes. But I also find such good stuff to read there, such intellectually stimulating content! I wonder if I should try an experiment where I only read longform content for a month, see how that makes me feel.
Can I digital computer produce consciousness? Seems really important to figure out as AI improves. I lean toward no. I think you need the substrate of a brain and the accompanying electrical fields it produces in order to make a unified, "bound" experience. Fascinating stuff to consider.
Cash: $30,000
Investments (mostly stocks in retirement accounts): $390,000
Paid off house: $270,000
Feeling pretty great about where we’re at, money-wise. It’s now just a matter of deciding how much cash we want to accumulate before we semi-ere and either take a long break or switch careers. Or both.
Career
I continue to make great money without putting too much effort in, but there’s still inevitable stress that comes with being in sales. I have been thinking more and more along the lines of like, is this the exciting and meaningful life I envisioned for myself when I’d daydream in bed as a kid? Selling software as a service to giant corporations to help them boost widget product by 7% in Q3? It is not.
I am considering applying to a program that trains people to run their own charities and gives them seed funding.
I think it would be super interesting and allow me a graceful exit out of full time tech work. But I’m wondering if I’d rather take some time off when I stop working before jumping into the next thing.
Currently the golden handcuffs are on quite strong. It’s so easy to convince myself to keep grinding away. We want to make updates to the house, I could set aside money for a struggling younger sibling (more on that later), I could start setting aside money for hypothetical future kids, what if I want to make a big charitable donation, what if we want to buy a van to travel in, what if letting just a few more stocks vest ends up netting me tons of money down the line, etc.
Fitness
I continue to work out almost every day. Lately I’ve had the stretch goal of wanting to dunk a basketball again. I haven’t done that in 12 years. I’ve been adding in some more hill sprints, calf work, and jump work and doing a bit less distance running.
I bought a little device so I could start doing Nordic Curls at home. Trying my first one was a humbling experience. I was astounded at the difficulty. I’ve worked my way up to being able to get about halfway to the ground. I want to be able to do a full one by the end of the year.
Sibling Finance Struggles
I learned that my younger sister has $10k in credit card debt and can’t even make her minimum payments. She’s an amazing and brilliant person who had many awful, despicable things done to her by our parents growing up. I want to help her if I can. But I am hesitant to give her money. She’s an alcoholic, and I worry that until that gets fixed giving her money is sending it into a black hole. I recently realized I can’t help her get sober no matter how hard I try, and it was affecting me to care so much. (I should probably go to Al Anon meetings.) So I’m kind of at an impasse there. She is visiting in a couple months so I’ll hopefully get a better sense then of how stable she is and where I might be able to help.
To be clear, she’s not asking me for help either financially or with her addiction issues. I just want so badly to help her, and I know all of a sudden giving her a bunch of money would make her incredibly happy. And it feels kinda bad sometimes for me to have all this money when I could be helping out my family more.
Building a family
Still no luck with getting pregnant. We are going to transfer our final two embryos from our initial IVF rounds toward the end of this year or early next. It’s pretty wild how they can just sit on ice for years and be ready to go when we need them. I don’t have much hope this will work given everything else we’ve done, but the embryos are sitting there so we might as well use them. Funnily enough, the family we are buying from had 6 kids in this 3bd 1bath, though two of them are adopted. Maybe this house is blessed by the fertility gods, haha.
One thing I want to try is uploading every bit of testing and health data we have into ChatGPT and asking it to analyze it and look for anomalies. I think it has those capabilities now? It’s probably not the greatest thing to give such sensitive data to Open AI, but on the off chance it helps I think it’s worth it. As of now we both still have perfect numbers across the board by every metric imaginable and there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to conceive. After the last embryos go in we’ll start talking more seriously about adopting. We’d put those conversations on hold until we had a house. I’m gearing up for a frustrating and expensive process, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Other stuff kicking around my brain
Can insects feel pain? From my initial review of the literature it seems quite plausible, which is surprising. That opens up a whole can of ethical worms. I'm not saying I'm about to start feeling bad for mosquitoes. It does make me think something like the burgeoning insect farming industry might be quite bad.
Do I spend too much time on Twitter/X? If I have to ask, the answer is probably yes. But I also find such good stuff to read there, such intellectually stimulating content! I wonder if I should try an experiment where I only read longform content for a month, see how that makes me feel.
Can I digital computer produce consciousness? Seems really important to figure out as AI improves. I lean toward no. I think you need the substrate of a brain and the accompanying electrical fields it produces in order to make a unified, "bound" experience. Fascinating stuff to consider.
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mathiverse
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Re: Smashter's Great Adventure
I feel you with respect to your struggles when it comes to giving money to family. I haven't come up with any solutions for dealing with family members who are monetary black holes, but that I still want to help. It'd probably help if we lived closer to family day to day because then we could provide non-monetary help frequently (eg meals, couch to sleep on, etc) along with an example of a different way to live. But unfortunately I don't have the choice to do that right now given other choices I've made.
One friend of mine suggested giving those family members money in an IRA, assuming they have earned income, since many people leave retirement accounts alone, by default, and the money can help them retire when they are older. I have some family members where this might work, but my friend underestimates the savviness of some of my siblings who, I have no doubt, would liquidate a gift like that and take the penalties ten minutes after the deposit cleared.
One friend of mine suggested giving those family members money in an IRA, assuming they have earned income, since many people leave retirement accounts alone, by default, and the money can help them retire when they are older. I have some family members where this might work, but my friend underestimates the savviness of some of my siblings who, I have no doubt, would liquidate a gift like that and take the penalties ten minutes after the deposit cleared.
Last edited by mathiverse on Fri Aug 04, 2023 4:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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jacob
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Re: Smashter's Great Adventure
Humans have a very wide range of discount rates. When it comes to money, it's less than 3-5% for forumites. For those who struggle with their finances it might be 30-40% or more. The latter will easily do tomorrow with their asset allocations what the former would have waited 10 years to do! However, the abstraction of discount rates apply differently to different kinds of values. For example, food has a different discount rate than credit-card money. If one can easily repair and get stuff, one's discount rate on stuff will probably be quite high.
I suggest helping people along the dimension where your mutual discount rate vectors match up close enough where you example can be inspiring rather than extreme or "in another world". For example, grocery shopping at Aldis rather than Krogers, depending on where you each are. Just get them one step closer, don't demand or help with two or more steps at once.
I suggest helping people along the dimension where your mutual discount rate vectors match up close enough where you example can be inspiring rather than extreme or "in another world". For example, grocery shopping at Aldis rather than Krogers, depending on where you each are. Just get them one step closer, don't demand or help with two or more steps at once.
Re: Smashter's Great Adventure
Every confrontation I've ever had with a mosquito was started by the mosquito. I never once saw a mosquito and said "Hey, I'm going to fuck with that mosquito." They are the shit starters. You swat them away, and they still keep on coming. I hope they do feel pain. They are the assholes of the insect world. When I successfully swat one and see their crushed bodies on the back of the swatter, I have a deep sense of fulfillment. Like bowling a strike or purchasing a stock the day before blow out earnings. Ants ruin your shit. Touch my shit, you going to get flattened. Want to live, stay outside. I never killed an ant outside. But they break into my house, they are going to be treated like any intruder. I'm guessing they do feel pain because they run like little bitches when they get spotted. They must have some sense about what's coming to them. And anyways, I'm not going to waste my time trying to talk them out of whatever the fuck they are doing because it's not like they are going to change their mind and doing something fucking useful for you. All they care about is themselves. Narcissistic ingrates.
Re: Smashter's Great Adventure
Have you ever tried leg curls on a stability ball? I'd be interested to know how the nordic curl compares to something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuM7OBHSVow
When I'm lifting at home, I usually do a set with both legs, then a couple sets with one leg. I like doing them barefoot. I haven't tried a Nordic curl though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuM7OBHSVow
When I'm lifting at home, I usually do a set with both legs, then a couple sets with one leg. I like doing them barefoot. I haven't tried a Nordic curl though.
Re: Smashter's Great Adventure
I never tried the leg curls on the stability ball before. They are pretty fun (and pretty difficult! But more difficult from the balance perspective than the strength perspective). I'm gonna be adding em to my repertoire.Scott 2 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 04, 2023 8:34 pmHave you ever tried leg curls on a stability ball? I'd be interested to know how the nordic curl compares to something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuM7OBHSVow
When I'm lifting at home, I usually do a set with both legs, then a couple sets with one leg. I like doing them barefoot. I haven't tried a Nordic curl though.
A large difference between those and nordic curls is open chain vs. closed chain, and also with the leg curls on the stability ball, you use your back for stability. In the nordic curl, the only thing stabilizing and holding you up is the tension through your hamstrings to the stable point at the ankles/feet. As you lower down in the motion, obviously this becomes tremendously more difficult because of lever length. The taller you are the more it sucks (because levers). I would hazard that a full nordic curl is like an order of magnitude more difficult. And if you can end up doing a full Martin St Louis nordic, which is like an order of magnitude more difficult than a good full range nordic, you are a god.
Re: Smashter's Great Adventure
@mathiverse I appreciate the input, thanks. I actually helped her setup a Roth IRA account probably 7 years ago. I should see if she’s raided that yet and use that info to inform future plans.
Also, for what it’s worth with all this sister stuff — she’s almost 10 years younger than me. So I feel almost a parental obligation at times.
@Jacob all good points. Maybe as a first step I should literally walk her through the implications of not paying the minimum on a credit card. I asked her what the interest rate was and she didn't know
It’s in my nature to inspire by being extreme. I honestly thought I could get her to stop drinking by doing a sober October with her 4 years ago. I haven’t had a drink since, she didn’t even make it through the month. I like to try to get her to do non-drinking challenges, to do hard workouts, to eat specific foods, or to take Antabuse (the pill that makes you nauseous if you drink). And if I am living around her for an extended period of time my approach seems to rub off on her a bit. Not so much from 2000 miles away.
@scott2 I have done curls like that in the past. Like @slevin says, they are great but not comparable in terms of difficulty.
That full Martin St. Louis is badass. It’s now on the fitness dream list.
My issue with the under-door strap I got is that it’s hard to keep my feet on the ground. I am already craving the more expensive device where it’d be a lot easier to lock my feet in. Another challenge is that I currently live in a very old apartment. Judging by the creaking, I don’t think these doors are meant to hold a 6 foot 200lb man doing nordic curls
I don’t know if it’s super basic to be following the work of Knees Over Toes guy, but he’s the one who inspired me to try the nordic curls. I’ve been incorporating lots of his workout and seeing good results. I like his story, as a fellow person who used to have debilitating knee pain but found ways to overcome it and is now knee-pain free.
@Henry I have heard we are close to being able to develop gene drives which could alter the genome of mosquitoes and make them unable to breed, or unable to pass along malaria. The unintended consequences are potentially devastating (I can hear Taleb screaming from here) but man, if that worked, what a win for humanity.
Still, that doesn't mean I wouldn't feel bad for the trillions of crickets we might start farming over the next century. If they can feel pain then then the sheer magnitude of the suffering we'll inflict on them will be astronomical.
Also, for what it’s worth with all this sister stuff — she’s almost 10 years younger than me. So I feel almost a parental obligation at times.
@Jacob all good points. Maybe as a first step I should literally walk her through the implications of not paying the minimum on a credit card. I asked her what the interest rate was and she didn't know
It’s in my nature to inspire by being extreme. I honestly thought I could get her to stop drinking by doing a sober October with her 4 years ago. I haven’t had a drink since, she didn’t even make it through the month. I like to try to get her to do non-drinking challenges, to do hard workouts, to eat specific foods, or to take Antabuse (the pill that makes you nauseous if you drink). And if I am living around her for an extended period of time my approach seems to rub off on her a bit. Not so much from 2000 miles away.
@scott2 I have done curls like that in the past. Like @slevin says, they are great but not comparable in terms of difficulty.
That full Martin St. Louis is badass. It’s now on the fitness dream list.
My issue with the under-door strap I got is that it’s hard to keep my feet on the ground. I am already craving the more expensive device where it’d be a lot easier to lock my feet in. Another challenge is that I currently live in a very old apartment. Judging by the creaking, I don’t think these doors are meant to hold a 6 foot 200lb man doing nordic curls
I don’t know if it’s super basic to be following the work of Knees Over Toes guy, but he’s the one who inspired me to try the nordic curls. I’ve been incorporating lots of his workout and seeing good results. I like his story, as a fellow person who used to have debilitating knee pain but found ways to overcome it and is now knee-pain free.
@Henry I have heard we are close to being able to develop gene drives which could alter the genome of mosquitoes and make them unable to breed, or unable to pass along malaria. The unintended consequences are potentially devastating (I can hear Taleb screaming from here) but man, if that worked, what a win for humanity.
Still, that doesn't mean I wouldn't feel bad for the trillions of crickets we might start farming over the next century. If they can feel pain then then the sheer magnitude of the suffering we'll inflict on them will be astronomical.
Re: Smashter's Great Adventure
Female mosquitoes are the only ones that bite. The males are pollinators and are responsible for pollinating flowers, berries and more. Many birds, other insects and amphibians eat them as one of their main food sources. Eradicating them would be an ecological disaster.
That being said, I've probably killed more mosquitoes than most. In Alaska, people will judge how thick the mosquitoes are by how many they can kill with one swat with one hand. The most I have ever heard is around 150 (!!), from an acquaintance of mine this past summer as he was traveling through Denali National Park.
That being said, I've probably killed more mosquitoes than most. In Alaska, people will judge how thick the mosquitoes are by how many they can kill with one swat with one hand. The most I have ever heard is around 150 (!!), from an acquaintance of mine this past summer as he was traveling through Denali National Park.
Re: Smashter's Great Adventure
@smashter KOT guy is pretty popular now, and thank god. Now I can have an actual interesting conversation with people about how different exercises work and a everyone has a reference frame of a much better model of “fitness” than “go do starting strength” where everyone, including the people who just want to work out for health reasons and don’t want to get huge, start training like bodybuilders and drinking a gallon of milk per day (what it was like 15 years ago). Now we have more nuance, and more people training for different reasons. Personally, at this point I’m just an addict myself, so I can’t and won’t ever stop. It’s a very important part of my self definition loop. But I tell people I’m doing it for longevity reasons, and most people think that’s reasonable.
As to the Nordic stick, yeah I’ve fallen on my face once or twice using it over the years, but nbd. And I’m also a 6+ft almost 200 lb guy. I always throw some interlocking puzzle gym floor mats down for my knees and face just in case. I wouldn’t and didn’t actually use the KOT approach to getting a full Nordic, because IMO it’s bad (not scaleable) methodology for building the strength. When you are just starting out, feel free to hinge at the hips and touch your nose to the floor at a certain spot that marks a good tension for your strength level. Mark it, and progressively try to get further and further forwards over time, until you end up with a full Nordic. The Martin St. Louis you start training when you have 12+ full nordics. Start with a big ol pile of supports raise yourself up and make the Range Of Motion smaller, then remove them over the months and months as you can until you get the godlike full range one.
As to the Nordic stick, yeah I’ve fallen on my face once or twice using it over the years, but nbd. And I’m also a 6+ft almost 200 lb guy. I always throw some interlocking puzzle gym floor mats down for my knees and face just in case. I wouldn’t and didn’t actually use the KOT approach to getting a full Nordic, because IMO it’s bad (not scaleable) methodology for building the strength. When you are just starting out, feel free to hinge at the hips and touch your nose to the floor at a certain spot that marks a good tension for your strength level. Mark it, and progressively try to get further and further forwards over time, until you end up with a full Nordic. The Martin St. Louis you start training when you have 12+ full nordics. Start with a big ol pile of supports raise yourself up and make the Range Of Motion smaller, then remove them over the months and months as you can until you get the godlike full range one.
Re: Smashter's Great Adventure
@theanimal I hear you, but I still think it's complicated. We are always making tradeoffs as a society as to what we'll tolerate when it comes to intrusions from nature that threaten human health.
Given mosquitoes are the deadliest animal in the world, killing something like 2 million people a year, I think it’s at least worth considering what life would be like without them.
@slevin workout addicts unite! Thanks for those nordic curl tips. If I’m being honest I didn’t dissect the videos or the form. I’m more the type to just start doing. It doesn’t seem like rocket science — just keep grinding until you get strong. Maybe I should be more thoughtful in my approach.
Agreed, I love the popularity of these more functional workout models. I basically had a 4 year war with my strength coach in college who wanted us all to train like we were NFL Linebackers despite being basketball players. My constant questioning did not go over well. (He did go on to become an NFL strength coach, so good for him, I guess.) I would have killed to have known about these KOT type training methodologies back then.
Also, most people in my circles think that working out a ton is a good thing. They marvel at my fitness levels and come to me for tips. Why do you feel the need to justify this “addiction” by talking about longevity? Do people thing you’re wasting your time by working out too much?
Finally, I would love to hear more about your self definition loop if you’re so inclined.
Given mosquitoes are the deadliest animal in the world, killing something like 2 million people a year, I think it’s at least worth considering what life would be like without them.
@slevin workout addicts unite! Thanks for those nordic curl tips. If I’m being honest I didn’t dissect the videos or the form. I’m more the type to just start doing. It doesn’t seem like rocket science — just keep grinding until you get strong. Maybe I should be more thoughtful in my approach.
Agreed, I love the popularity of these more functional workout models. I basically had a 4 year war with my strength coach in college who wanted us all to train like we were NFL Linebackers despite being basketball players. My constant questioning did not go over well. (He did go on to become an NFL strength coach, so good for him, I guess.) I would have killed to have known about these KOT type training methodologies back then.
Also, most people in my circles think that working out a ton is a good thing. They marvel at my fitness levels and come to me for tips. Why do you feel the need to justify this “addiction” by talking about longevity? Do people thing you’re wasting your time by working out too much?
Finally, I would love to hear more about your self definition loop if you’re so inclined.
Re: Smashter's Great Adventure
To start, an important mosquito update: I read that only about 3% of mosquito species transmit malaria. Maybe we can use gene drives to get rid of just those species without harming ecosystems too much? Who's with me?
Wheaton level musings
I have to accept that for the next couple years we are not getting past a Wheaton level ~3.5 as a family. We have had spurts of being higher, such as when we really buckled down to pay off my student loan. But lately, spending has been high. And with a new house to spruce up plus another round of IVF on the horizon, it probably won’t drop a ton in the near future, even despite the fact that we won’t be paying rent. I’m grateful that we make enough money to still save a lot in the face of it all. To our normie friends and family we still come across as eyebrow-raisingly frugal, which shows how far at the end of the bell curve this forum is
Sometimes I feel bad, like I should change the name of the journal from “Smashter’s great adventure” to “Smashter chugs along with a high income and no debt until he has the desire and courage to jump in to something new.” But I’m happy overall, and I know that we’re both smart and capable enough to be able to buckle down if we really need to.
Also, you know what, anything can be a great adventure with the right attitude. Figuring out how to navigate the ups and downs of startup life — great adventure. Same with changing careers and cities multiple times. Or creatively battling the demon of unexplained infertility with DW, which I just read can be as damaging psychologically to women as a cancer diagnosis. And through it all, learning new meditation practices, getting into the best shape of my life, writing essays that got millions of views, making new friends, raising happy dogs, saving money, donating money, and constantly trying to learn about myself and improve my happiness.
Okay, I’ve talked myself back into the title
Finances
Net worth ticked down a tiny bit with the stock market going down, but it’s still sitting comfortably above the $400k mark. I’m excited to max out my 401k on my next paycheck.
I do have to figure out why my employer randomly put $75 extra dollars into my HSA after I already maxed that out. We now have to fill out some annoying tax forms. But talk about first world problems — I am super grateful to even have an HSA and to be able to max it out, this is my first job that has allowed for that.
My job is showing some signs that it could turn into something far less enjoyable, so I’ll be monitoring that over the rest of the year. I am in a very strong position to semi-ERE and start something new should I choose to go that route.
Housing
We finally move into our house this week. We got out of our rental lease early with minimal penalty, which was very exciting. So, given we paid cash for the home, we are officially done paying rent forever if we so choose. Pretty cool.
That said, we’ll almost certainly be putting more into house updates over the next few months than we would have been putting into rent. But once those are done, NW should go up really quickly if we keep our same jobs.
Misc semi-depressing life stuff
I have not made much progress on what to do regarding helping my sister out financially. I keep sort of casually saying things to DW like “should we just pay off all her credit card debt, a one time jubilee situation?” and she basically laughs me off even though I’m only half kidding.
I carry around a bit of guilt for not helping her more when she was in a super vulnerable state after my parents had their violent split, and this feels like a good way to make amends. But it could also put me out $10k with nothing to show for it.
I read the “Invisible Child” NYT series from 2014 recently and found it riveting. A journalist follows a family living in free public housing for homeless people in Brooklyn for a period of years. One part that stood out to me was when the mother (of the 8 kids) got a $49,000 inheritance check. The family moved out of the homeless shelter and into an apartment. Within about a year they were all back in the homeless shelter, possibly worse off than before having thought they were done with it forever.
The parents had no good habits. The money went straight into buying a bunch of drugs.
If you’re not addressing the root problem, giving people money is just a bandaid. But bandaids are still important sometimes!
Dog spending
My dog spending is a little out of control, y’all. You do not want to see my Amazon bill over these past couple months. I’d get booted straight off the forum.
The first issue was with their digestion. They both started having GI issues and simultaneously started refusing their dog food. Instead of calmly waiting for the situation to blow over, we decided to buy every possible treat, topper, and fancy food to see if we could get them to eat. Like some kind of petulant toddlers disguised as dogs, they turned their noses up at pretty much anything besides hot dogs. And we had all kinds of food to either throw away or donate.
They are mercifully back to eating their regular kibble. We basically reached a point where we just said “it’s this or you starve” and once they got hungry enough they ate it. We still put a little fun stuff on top to jazz it up a little, but nothing too crazy. Lesson learned, we’ll do that from the beginning next time.
The other piece of the spending equation is on toys. I am a sucker for getting them new toys. It’s just so freaking satisfying. The sheer joy emanating from their puppy bodies could warm the heart of the surliest grinch. But these dogs chew like they are part shark, and most toys don’t last long. If anyone has ideas for low cost or homemade toys that keep dogs entertained and can sustain a decent amount of very aggressive chewing, I would love to hear them.
The great ERE long walk
I know I posted in the thread about the walk with @Dave and @jacob in Chicago, but I’ll mention it here again as it was a highlight of my August. Spending hours going deep on interesting conversation topics while walking around in nature is my definition of a good time.
I have lots of friends I play basketball with, but few walking/hiking buddies, so hopefully this can become a regular thing and scratch that itch for me.
Given Dave and Jacob are both professional investors, I kind of feel like I should open a Robinhood account and see if I can make gains that impress them for the next time. Maybe I’ll start with buying Chewy and Petco, I can’t be the only schmuck treating my dogs like royalty.
Reading
I started “The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West”
Very fascinating, very sad. The most notable parts to me so far
* The Indian tribes were basically constantly at war with each other. The tribes that were in the midwest/rocky mountain region when US white settlers started showing up had only recently displaced a much older tribe. There was no notion of “Indianness” and this lack of Indian solidarity was a huge reason they could not put up a very effective defense. I didn’t realize just how many tribes actively worked with the US Army to help them battle other tribes, using the thinking “an enemy of my enemy is my friend”.
* The average army soldier out in the west at that time was extremely prone to drunkenness, sloth, whoring, and desertion. The big exceptions were the few all black regiments. They were model citizens because they wanted to represent all black people in an exemplary fashion. They did this in the face of tremendous racism and while being handed the worst assignments. Very inspiring.
* The way the Indians structured their cultures around being warriors was so goddamn intense. From a very early age they were trained to fight and to withstand hardships of all kids. A male’s status in society was determined by his fighting prowess. It’s like reading about ancient Sparta, except it wasn’t that long ago and it was happening in my backyard.
* The act of counting coup is bizarre and cool. To count coup was to touch another warrior in battle without harming them, sometimes using a “coup stick”. You had to count coup by a certain age in order to progress through the stages of adulthood.
Fitness
I trained pretty hard this month. I can jump and grab a 10 foot basketball rim with two hands again, which is a fun milestone. I also strained my lower back chasing around high schoolers playing pick up hoops. That was less fun. It’s the second time that has happened in the last couple months, and I’m still trying to figure out why. My working theory is that it all comes back to my hip flexors. When those feel tired and overworked, I need to hold off on full speed basketball. On a more vain note, I went to a friend’s lake house recently and got to talk to a bunch of people I just met about how I can be both ripped and a vegan. (They brought it up, to be clear, I am not a raging narcissist). I think as you enter your late 30’s you become more and more of an anomaly if you are in good shape and have large muscles. Doubly so if you’re vegan. It can be a little awkward when people start encouraging their husbands to work out with you, haha. But overall I really enjoy upending people’s expectations of what a vegan is supposed to look like. So many people simply cannot fathom that you don’t need animal protein to get jacked. At least, not everyone does. I’m sure genetics play a big role.
Wheaton level musings
I have to accept that for the next couple years we are not getting past a Wheaton level ~3.5 as a family. We have had spurts of being higher, such as when we really buckled down to pay off my student loan. But lately, spending has been high. And with a new house to spruce up plus another round of IVF on the horizon, it probably won’t drop a ton in the near future, even despite the fact that we won’t be paying rent. I’m grateful that we make enough money to still save a lot in the face of it all. To our normie friends and family we still come across as eyebrow-raisingly frugal, which shows how far at the end of the bell curve this forum is
Sometimes I feel bad, like I should change the name of the journal from “Smashter’s great adventure” to “Smashter chugs along with a high income and no debt until he has the desire and courage to jump in to something new.” But I’m happy overall, and I know that we’re both smart and capable enough to be able to buckle down if we really need to.
Also, you know what, anything can be a great adventure with the right attitude. Figuring out how to navigate the ups and downs of startup life — great adventure. Same with changing careers and cities multiple times. Or creatively battling the demon of unexplained infertility with DW, which I just read can be as damaging psychologically to women as a cancer diagnosis. And through it all, learning new meditation practices, getting into the best shape of my life, writing essays that got millions of views, making new friends, raising happy dogs, saving money, donating money, and constantly trying to learn about myself and improve my happiness.
Okay, I’ve talked myself back into the title
Finances
Net worth ticked down a tiny bit with the stock market going down, but it’s still sitting comfortably above the $400k mark. I’m excited to max out my 401k on my next paycheck.
I do have to figure out why my employer randomly put $75 extra dollars into my HSA after I already maxed that out. We now have to fill out some annoying tax forms. But talk about first world problems — I am super grateful to even have an HSA and to be able to max it out, this is my first job that has allowed for that.
My job is showing some signs that it could turn into something far less enjoyable, so I’ll be monitoring that over the rest of the year. I am in a very strong position to semi-ERE and start something new should I choose to go that route.
Housing
We finally move into our house this week. We got out of our rental lease early with minimal penalty, which was very exciting. So, given we paid cash for the home, we are officially done paying rent forever if we so choose. Pretty cool.
That said, we’ll almost certainly be putting more into house updates over the next few months than we would have been putting into rent. But once those are done, NW should go up really quickly if we keep our same jobs.
Misc semi-depressing life stuff
I have not made much progress on what to do regarding helping my sister out financially. I keep sort of casually saying things to DW like “should we just pay off all her credit card debt, a one time jubilee situation?” and she basically laughs me off even though I’m only half kidding.
I carry around a bit of guilt for not helping her more when she was in a super vulnerable state after my parents had their violent split, and this feels like a good way to make amends. But it could also put me out $10k with nothing to show for it.
I read the “Invisible Child” NYT series from 2014 recently and found it riveting. A journalist follows a family living in free public housing for homeless people in Brooklyn for a period of years. One part that stood out to me was when the mother (of the 8 kids) got a $49,000 inheritance check. The family moved out of the homeless shelter and into an apartment. Within about a year they were all back in the homeless shelter, possibly worse off than before having thought they were done with it forever.
The parents had no good habits. The money went straight into buying a bunch of drugs.
If you’re not addressing the root problem, giving people money is just a bandaid. But bandaids are still important sometimes!
Dog spending
My dog spending is a little out of control, y’all. You do not want to see my Amazon bill over these past couple months. I’d get booted straight off the forum.
The first issue was with their digestion. They both started having GI issues and simultaneously started refusing their dog food. Instead of calmly waiting for the situation to blow over, we decided to buy every possible treat, topper, and fancy food to see if we could get them to eat. Like some kind of petulant toddlers disguised as dogs, they turned their noses up at pretty much anything besides hot dogs. And we had all kinds of food to either throw away or donate.
They are mercifully back to eating their regular kibble. We basically reached a point where we just said “it’s this or you starve” and once they got hungry enough they ate it. We still put a little fun stuff on top to jazz it up a little, but nothing too crazy. Lesson learned, we’ll do that from the beginning next time.
The other piece of the spending equation is on toys. I am a sucker for getting them new toys. It’s just so freaking satisfying. The sheer joy emanating from their puppy bodies could warm the heart of the surliest grinch. But these dogs chew like they are part shark, and most toys don’t last long. If anyone has ideas for low cost or homemade toys that keep dogs entertained and can sustain a decent amount of very aggressive chewing, I would love to hear them.
The great ERE long walk
I know I posted in the thread about the walk with @Dave and @jacob in Chicago, but I’ll mention it here again as it was a highlight of my August. Spending hours going deep on interesting conversation topics while walking around in nature is my definition of a good time.
I have lots of friends I play basketball with, but few walking/hiking buddies, so hopefully this can become a regular thing and scratch that itch for me.
Given Dave and Jacob are both professional investors, I kind of feel like I should open a Robinhood account and see if I can make gains that impress them for the next time. Maybe I’ll start with buying Chewy and Petco, I can’t be the only schmuck treating my dogs like royalty.
Reading
I started “The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West”
Very fascinating, very sad. The most notable parts to me so far
* The Indian tribes were basically constantly at war with each other. The tribes that were in the midwest/rocky mountain region when US white settlers started showing up had only recently displaced a much older tribe. There was no notion of “Indianness” and this lack of Indian solidarity was a huge reason they could not put up a very effective defense. I didn’t realize just how many tribes actively worked with the US Army to help them battle other tribes, using the thinking “an enemy of my enemy is my friend”.
* The average army soldier out in the west at that time was extremely prone to drunkenness, sloth, whoring, and desertion. The big exceptions were the few all black regiments. They were model citizens because they wanted to represent all black people in an exemplary fashion. They did this in the face of tremendous racism and while being handed the worst assignments. Very inspiring.
* The way the Indians structured their cultures around being warriors was so goddamn intense. From a very early age they were trained to fight and to withstand hardships of all kids. A male’s status in society was determined by his fighting prowess. It’s like reading about ancient Sparta, except it wasn’t that long ago and it was happening in my backyard.
* The act of counting coup is bizarre and cool. To count coup was to touch another warrior in battle without harming them, sometimes using a “coup stick”. You had to count coup by a certain age in order to progress through the stages of adulthood.
Fitness
I trained pretty hard this month. I can jump and grab a 10 foot basketball rim with two hands again, which is a fun milestone. I also strained my lower back chasing around high schoolers playing pick up hoops. That was less fun. It’s the second time that has happened in the last couple months, and I’m still trying to figure out why. My working theory is that it all comes back to my hip flexors. When those feel tired and overworked, I need to hold off on full speed basketball. On a more vain note, I went to a friend’s lake house recently and got to talk to a bunch of people I just met about how I can be both ripped and a vegan. (They brought it up, to be clear, I am not a raging narcissist). I think as you enter your late 30’s you become more and more of an anomaly if you are in good shape and have large muscles. Doubly so if you’re vegan. It can be a little awkward when people start encouraging their husbands to work out with you, haha. But overall I really enjoy upending people’s expectations of what a vegan is supposed to look like. So many people simply cannot fathom that you don’t need animal protein to get jacked. At least, not everyone does. I’m sure genetics play a big role.
Re: Smashter's Great Adventure
Vegan Athletes are scary
They just look so unnaturally happy and healthy ^_^
You disgust me with your success LMAO.
Also, what size dogs are we talking? Because I've had pretty good experience with kong toys; they hold up pretty well and you can put treats or peanut butter or whatever inside to give them something to screw around with for a few hours.
But mine also have a bad habit of playing fetch with themselves... so when they grab that kong and throw it across the room it sounds like a cannonball hitting the floor.
They just look so unnaturally happy and healthy ^_^
You disgust me with your success LMAO.
Also, what size dogs are we talking? Because I've had pretty good experience with kong toys; they hold up pretty well and you can put treats or peanut butter or whatever inside to give them something to screw around with for a few hours.
But mine also have a bad habit of playing fetch with themselves... so when they grab that kong and throw it across the room it sounds like a cannonball hitting the floor.
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bostonimproper
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Re: Smashter's Great Adventure
Re mosquitoes we more or less do this already for other mosquito-borne illnesses: https://www.cdc.gov/mosquitoes/mosquito ... itoes.html
For what it’s worth, this is not an uncontroversial practice.
For what it’s worth, this is not an uncontroversial practice.