Starting from zero in Scandinavia

[urgud]

Hi

I figure I have to overcome my fear of doxxing myself and just get started on the forum.

I first stumbled on the ERE website back in 2015 or 2016, while I was still a student. I got quite into the idea, as I have a propensity to do with many ideas and philosophies, and even read the book. However, being a student, there was little to save, so I kind of shelved the concept mentally for a few years. Having completed my master's degree in a humanities subject and even begun a paid doctoral gig (that I ended up dropping out off relatively early on), I finally got my first regular job at the ripe young age of 29: an ordinary unskilled labor office job.

At this point, I had zero net worth and zero liabilities. The job netted me about 2.2k USD/month - relatively close to the minimum wage, and not much more than unemployment benefits. Having recently returned to the country, I ended up finding an uninspiring studio apartment, approx 400 sqft., on the outskirts of the city that cost me the market rate - $1200/month. It felt pretty bad to spend 55% of my take-home income on rent. In fact, it felt like being in a hole I couldn’t get out of - why bother if the starting conditions are as god-awful as that? The dream of a >75% savings rate seemed like that - just a dream.

As I emotionally worked through abandoning the prospect of an academic career (and perhaps even the concept of a career itself) and settled into my new reality of low-paid, low-skill labor, I remembered that I had once sublet a very cheap type of cooperative housing. It was quickly becoming obvious that I was drawing no (or even negative) satisfaction from conventional living arrangements, so I reached out to some old contacts, and some time later, an offer materialized: a 75 sqft room in a building with shared amenities, unparalleled location, and best of all: $280/month.

Small digs, sure, especially seeing as I had to fit a WFH setup in there as well, but overall, a massive improvement on my previous setup. Talk about breathing room - taking rent from 55% to 13%. However, I’ve never really had savings or debt - I’ve always just inflated or deflated my lifestyle depending on my income. So this time around, I inflated my lifestyle and enjoyed the easy life. The insanely low rent gave me the purchasing power of someone with a much higher income, so I had a blast just firing on all cylinders: fine dining, travel, clothes, being spontaneous.

Lately, though, I’ve mostly lost the appetite for mindless consumption, so I think I want to see if I can find a version of ERE philosophy that I can be at peace with. I have never been a person to track things, or even write them down, but I do want to create a forum journal. I haven’t entirely finalized what I would want it to include. At first, my desire for privacy led me to conclude that I would do a strictly numbers-only journal, but the more I think about it, the more I also want it to be a space where I can lay out some of my thinking on the subject - particularly because I think I process the world somewhat differently than most ERE people (you’ll never catch me trying to label/categorize my own personality with a personality test!)

A few topics I want to explore in my forthcoming journal:

1) FI or wealth building with no notable career advancement, i.e. just using a steady, simple job
2) Doing ERE without being a super intense ~systems thinker~

Thanks for taking the time to read this! Here’s to hoping I finally get to put some of my thoughts into writing.

[ertyu]

Hi and welcome. Congrats on finding the cheap room, sounds like an awesome solution!

Having a "whooo!" period once one finally finds oneself with money is quite common - you got it out of your system, you buit up a bunch of belongings you can keep using now, cool.

I wanted to speak to doing ERE without being a super intense systems thinker. Some benefit from having an elaborate theoretical model for things, some don't -- for ERE, the way this looks without having an elaborate theoretical model is repeatedly asking yourself whether what you're doing in a given area of life is the best you could be doing, and why. What does your current behavior give you? What does it cost you? What opportunities is it making you miss out on? What else could you be doing that gives you the same benefit or greater, costs you less, and results in more opportunities? The "systems thinking" part comes when you consider not just the thing in isolation, but the thing as it impacts all other areas of your life.

[Jean]

hi, welcome, and congratulation for finding a lower rent.
I think i would have rather lived in a tent than paid 1200 for a 40 sqmeter appartment.
You don't need to track things to do ere. You could just write down what is difficult for you, and later, you can reread and see how.much you've been able to turn easy. Sometimes, we lose hope because we feel like we are stuck in place, but a journal can help to see that we do go somewhere.

[urgud]

...for ERE, the way this looks without having an elaborate theoretical model is repeatedly asking yourself whether what you're doing in a given area of life is the best you could be doing, and why. What does your current behavior give you? What does it cost you? What opportunities is it making you miss out on? What else could you be doing that gives you the same benefit or greater, costs you less, and results in more opportunities? The "systems thinking" part comes when you consider not just the thing in isolation, but the thing as it impacts all other areas of your life.

Hmm, I guess I am wary of viewing my life too much as an optimization problem. I definitely do it to some extent, but it is not a mode of analysis that I want to rely too much on. For instance (and this is something that I'll try to flesh out in more detail in my future journal), I do view my life as a greater interconnected system with various subcomponents: socialization, sex, economics/income, stress, health, etc. As much as I value my connection to other human beings, I don't want to consider hanging out with my brother something that has to fit into a payoff matrix. I hope this makes sense.

[loutfard]

Losing oneself in micro-optimisations is easy, but there are other options. I try to guard the big picture choices and experiment with what feels right in terms of micro-optimisations.

[jacob]

Someone once said that "it's more important to do the right things than to do things right" ... or something like that.

[ertyu]

I don't want to consider hanging out with my brother something that has to fit into a payoff matrix. I hope this makes sense.

It does make sense, I'm also on the low-formal-optimizing end when it comes to forum culture. There are definitely many measure-and-optimize type of people here than elsewhere but it's not a requirement. Welcome!

[Stahlmann]

How about going into Lazy Robert mode?