Freedom through Frugality: Sabaka's Journal

[Egg]

Hey Sabaka. Probably quite belated in terms of how it feels in your life but:

- Sorry to hear you felt you had to drop from the Army. I left the RN after a fairly short stint too (about 5 years in my case) but, like you, not in the way I would have chosen. You may wish to consider joining the Int Corps as a reservist, if you haven't already, on account of your linguistic aptitude.
- However, it sounds like this has also all turned out to be a classic case of "when one door closes, another door opens". I'm delighted to hear everything going so well for you, and congrats on your engagement
- If I can offer any advice on your tech career, being at a similar stage of seniority, it's that testers always seem to be the poor cousins of developers, even if they do nearly 100% coding/automation tasks. As a developer myself, I'm biased, but I'd recommend a pivot into dev work if you can find a suitable opening. Even if your desire is to do SRE/DevOps, coming from dev feels easier than coming from test. A good chunk of my dev work is to use Terraform to create infrastructure (admittedly all AWS so not as intense as managing traditional infrastructure) and have found this experience to be one of the things that is now starting to open doors to higher pay; that and having some demonstrable experience of cloud-first system design. If you can get that experience as a tester, great, but I haven't seen this sort of task be given to testers in the places I've worked

[Sabaka]

@Slevin

Thank you for the advice, it's encouraging to hear that someone has broken out of manual testing! I'm basically trying to do what you've laid out, anytime there is a more backend/devops type task available at work I try and get involved, as well as doing some frontend e2e tests using Cypress (I see what you mean about flaky! ).

@Egg

Thank you for your advice! I feel the military door is certainly closed now, especially with an upcoming relocation to the US (unless I join Uncle Sam's forces... ). Tbh, I think that what I miss most about the military is the friendships I formed with other people. They're lots of ways to form such friendships (I hope to find some), but for more introverted people the military puts you into an environment where it just happens.

I agree with you regarding how testing is viewed. Even at my current company, where everyone is pretty cool, when I put my hat in to help with some code reviews I was pretty quickly shut down When I first get to the U.S I plan to use the 3-6 months where I cannot work (waiting for a work permit) to improve my dev skills. I will then apply for a pretty wide range of jobs (ie. automated test roles, junior dev roles, security, sys-admin stuff) and see what lands.

Happy new year to you both (and anyone else reading )

[Sabaka]

Time to set out some goals for 2024...

1. Get married.

2. Hit 100 Munros (Scottish mountains over 3000ft - a popular pastime is 'bagging munros' - I am currently on 32).

3. Hit $10,000 cash savings, currently on $ 2,300 (I have started saving in USD in preparation for my move to the U.S).

4. Finish my degree

5. Produce at least 1 youtube video

6. Read 1 book per month.

7. Complete at least one IT certification

8. Get a cushty I.T job in the U.S (cushty being defined as salary over $65k pa).

How this all plays out:

1. In the process of getting a visa to move to the U.S (Texas) and get married. Predict I will make the move in late summer/early autumn.

2. I plan to leave my current job a few months before the move to the U.S, and will therefore be able to devote all my time to hiking Munros. Last hurrah in Scotland before leaving!

3. This looks low, but factors in that I probably only have 6 months of earning left, and I am paying off my degree upfront.

4. Hope to finish the degree by May 2024. This is gonna be a lot of work, but I think I can do it!

5. I liked making youtube videos, and want to start again. This will probably be towards the end of the year, once I have finished the degree.

6. Again looks low, but lots of time will be studying for the first half of the year!

7. I like IT certs .

8. This will probably be right towards the end of the year (it could even be 2025...). I hope that with a fresh degree, 2 years of experience and a stack of certs (as well as not being too picky) this will be possible.

Summary:

I predict that I'll probably be finishing 2024 with a lower networth than currently, but hopefully will have some wicked times and also set the foundations for strong savings in the future. My fiance works, but high family obligations mean it is unlikely that she will ever be able to save significant amounts for the future. I also want this year to be one where I develop more friendships, so I have some plans in place to that end.

Looking out 5-10 years from now, my plan is to use a good paying IT job to set the foundations for a future in which I can do the following things:

- Have a family homestead.
- Transition into a Coast FIRE lifestyle, where I have sufficient financial resources to work in a lower-paying but more meaningful job (outdoors related) whilst supporting a lower-middle class lifestyle on a single income (I favour an approach which reduces monthly required expenditures - pay off a mortgage, reduce food and energy bills, etc).

Happy new year to everyone, and I wish you luck with all your plans!

[shelob]

Happy new year to you too, and good luck with your plan!

[fiby41]

Time to set out some goals for 2024...

6. Read 1 book per month.

Personalised recommendation for you: How the Scots Invented the Modern World

[Sabaka]

Personalised recommendation for you: How the Scots Invented the Modern World

Thanks for the recommendation! Scots are certainly an inventive bunch!

Well another quarter year has passed since the last update, the weeks/months/years fly by...

Let's have a review of where I am with my goals:

------------------------------------------------------------

1. Get Married

Not yet, but still on track for this year (unless I get dumped )

2. Hit 100 Munros (Scottish mountains over 3000ft - a popular pastime is 'bagging munros' - I am currently on 32).

Currently on 39... 100 is not gonna happen. Perhaps 50, fingers crossed.

3. Hit $10,000 cash savings, currently on $ 2,300 (I have started saving in USD in preparation for my move to the U.S).

Currently at approximately $6,000 cash savings... again, unlikely I am gonna hit this savings goal, for reasons I will explain below.

4. Finish my degree

Done! Finished my bachelors in February. Quicker than expected. Just waiting on official conferral in the next few weeks.

5. Produce at least 1 youtube video

This... probably no longer a goal. In fact I deleted my old youtube channel. Maybe at some point down the the line I will consider youtube again, however it would have to have a strong purpose behind it (homesteading perhaps?).

6. Read 1 book per month.

Currently on track.

7. Complete at least one IT certification

Not yet, and I am unsure this will happen this year. Never say never however...

8. Get a cushty I.T job in the U.S (cushty being defined as salary over $65k pa).

Unlikely this will happen this year due to visa timing.

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So like most New Year's resolutions mine are mostly not going to be achieved. But life constantly changes, so what can you do?

Changes for me:

I have nominally sold my flat, bar the contract being concluded and me moving out. This is expected to take place in the next couple few weeks.

It has sold for a good price, better than I initially expected.

Due to this, if the sale does complete without a hitch, I will probably take the opportunity to resign from my current job a bit earlier than I had previously thought, finishing in June or July. I expect I will then be moving to the U.S in September/October. So I will have a couple months to make use of cheap flights to Europe and have some cool experiences (with my Fiance, who as an employee in the education sector gets quite a big chuck of the summer off work )

Lots happening!

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Other thoughts:

- I am considering changing the title of my journal, because I am a very bad example of frugality . I am semi-frugal in some areas, but I still spend far too much money in others...

- Long term, I feel like I am gravitating to much more of a Barista/Coast FIRE type mentality. Basically, use a cushty IT career to supercharge an early start to financial independence (low mortgage, healthy retirement accounts) so that I can move into a more enjoyable/purposeful career. I worry however that any job will have similar downsides, and that therefore my efforts are best placed finding the job with the greatest financial award for the least amount of effort. I'm still trying to work this out.

[Sabaka]

Another month passed!

The flat has officially sold. It was such a relief, and I am loving the (perhaps illusionary?) freedom of the large chuck of net worth now sitting in cash and other liquid investments...

Talking of net worth, it now sits at just shy of £95,000! So close to the £100,000 milestone. Although I am unlikely to reach this until at least next year, as I have now handed in my notice at work, finishing in mid June. Then it will be a mixture of travel and preparing for America, where I will likely move in September.

With potentially a year out of work from June, I have set aside a large chuck of the net worth in cash (approximately 20%) in order to tide me over and to pay for a couple big things, ie a holiday and a wedding! The aim is not to use this money completely up, in fact I am hoping that less than half of this amount will suffice.

I also plan to use this 6-12 months to upskill to hopefully land a more technical role in the US. Top of the list is improving my programming. My preference would be for a devops or cyber security role, but both of these can be hard to get into at my current skill level. So it might mean first starting in a developer/test engineer role.

I just really want to avoid having to start again in a help desk/support role...

[Slevin]

You have an uphill climb ahead of you, moving to the US for a tech job in what’s considered a massive tech job slump (tons of layoffs of technical and qualified people have made the competition fierce, and most companies have frozen hiring and will only hire seniors rn if they have to hire anyone). It’s a ballsy move and I wish you the best of luck. For devops, I would personally recommend learning GitHub actions and AWS terraform really heavily, which is what smaller companies will probably lean on, as well as a scripting language, bash, docker, and monitoring tools. Also Linux if you aren’t using it already.

[delay]

Thanks for your journal update!

Congratulations on selling the flat. So £20,000 for a year in the US, a wedding and a holiday? Sounds extreme enough for ERE

Top of the list is improving my programming. My preference would be for a devops or cyber security role, but both of these can be hard to get into at my current skill level. So it might mean first starting in a developer/test engineer role.

The relation between skill and job in IT is a curious one. My experience is that the majority of people just wing it. This is even more notable in cyber security. The promotion process prefers employees with people skills over IT knowledge.

[Sabaka]

Thanks for your journal update!

Congratulations on selling the flat. So £20,000 for a year in the US, a wedding and a holiday? Sounds extreme enough for ERE


The relation between skill and job in IT is a curious one. My experience is that the majority of people just wing it. This is even more notable in cyber security. The promotion process prefers employees with people skills over IT knowledge.

Haha, £20,000 got blown out the water straight out the gate Mainly due to a car purchase...

So I find myself in the USA. Having a good time so far, liking the very mild Texas winter in comparison to Scotland! Good news and bad news:

• I have alread received my work authorization. Much earlier than expected, so I am now good to go out and earn some money.
• Unfortunately, the beater car that we were using promptly died. Had loads to do and needed a car. Used car market seems weird in the U.S. A Honda fit that would cost me $3,000 in the U.K is costing $10,000 here. This led me to to purchasing a Honda Ridgeline under CPO warranty. For $35,000. This is the most UNFIRE thing I have ever done. To be clear, I could have got a near-new car under CPO warranty for a $25,000. So why the extra 10k? Well, I loved driving the Ridgeline in the test drive. It has a truck bed which can tote stuff around. Supposedly a reliable truck, and I am hoping that over a 10-15 year period this purchase makes more sense. Atm, it is just hurting my wallet
• I had my wedding, which actually was under budget. Had a great time. But with the car purchase and everything else, I'm probably looking at close to $45,000 being spent.

Life is taking lots of twist and turns.

You have an uphill climb ahead of you, moving to the US for a tech job in what’s considered a massive tech job slump (tons of layoffs of technical and qualified people have made the competition fierce, and most companies have frozen hiring and will only hire seniors rn if they have to hire anyone). It’s a ballsy move and I wish you the best of luck. For devops, I would personally recommend learning GitHub actions and AWS terraform really heavily, which is what smaller companies will probably lean on, as well as a scripting language, bash, docker, and monitoring tools. Also Linux if you aren’t using it already.

As Slevin observed, The U.S job market is fierce, especially in tech. I feel like a big fish that has come out of a small pond, and instead of going to the bigger pond has been directly thrown into the frying pan. I sometimes have doubts that I have what it takes to make it in IT.

Fundamentally, I am just not passionate about it. But then I can't think when I have ever felt passion for any job. I don't think you need to be passionate to be good at the job, but it does help. I think the bigger thing is purpose. For some reason, I have always felt the need to find purpose in my work. A sense of satisfaction that my tiny little part has made a difference.

In my last IT role, my entire year was spent doing testing for a product that by the time I had left had only just been released to beta customers. What impact have I had there? What is my legacy? By the time the product is actually fully released, it will have no doubt gone through a hundred more iterations, and be wholly different from the product I worked on.

However, is it a fools errand to chase meaning through one's job? Now that I have a wife and a dog, and in the next 5 years perhaps a family, will the concern about finding meaning from a job go away? I don't know.

I feel at my current life stage, this is the last real chance for me to do a 180 and retrain etc.

I will keep applying for IT jobs. But I have also looked into doing a season as a wildland firefighter. Life will continue along regardless

Other than that, focus currently is on finding a little bit of money each month to help us tide over. Have a great week everyone!

[Sabaka]

Nice lil update is due.

I have accepted a verbal offer to become a part of a wildland firefighting crew based out in Utah. This is a seasonal position, running from late spring to winter in 2025. I am looking forward to it, whilst being a little nervous. It will be hard, physical work. I think I am up to the task, but I am also not 18 anymore Body takes longer to recover at 27 then it did then...

My wife's full time remote position and willingness to support me in my never-ending quest to find something I enjoy is helping with this. I am very grateful. Finding a good partner and marrying them is truly a massive booster to life.

In the meantime, I am exploring options of what I could potentially do. I will be honest, once I finally made the decision to pause in IT, I felt a massive weight off my shoulders. The need to continuously learn and self improve, to sit for hours in front of a screen. I say pause because I am not 100% certain that I will never work in IT again. In fact, maybe one season of hard labour will change my mind

So currently I am awaiting late spring and a new experience. I am looking forward to working with a crew, embracing the suck, and being in nature. In the meantime, I have begun doordashing and picking up odd jobs. Luckily, and again thanks to my wife, I don't need to bring in a truckload of money. Just enough to cover some additional expenses and save a little.

I am considering completing an EMT certificate. One, because it will allow for a greater variety of potential jobs during off-season, and second, because down the line it could help me in transitioning from wildland firefighting to structural firefighting. But whether I would even want to do that is still undecided.

I am also considering perhaps a GIS certificate, or CDL. I will spend the next month or so really considering all these new options. I am still applying for different IT jobs in the meantime just to see what options are out there. I am also reading a lot more, which I felt like I haven't done for a while. And reading for enjoyment, not just "personal development".

I am still filled with doubts regarding if all of this is the right move. But who knows? Life will take its course.

Wishing everyone a happy new year!

[Western Red Cedar]

Wildland firefighting sounds like a great option to engage in something interesting and make some decent money while giving you more time to figure something out. It is a job that will take you to some amazing places in the US that you would have never had access to. You'll probably be working a bunch of overtime while fighting fire, and you won't have the ability to spend much money.

You may also get some ideas about new careers after working in the field for a while. GIS, geospatial modeling, and other tech skills could make for an interesting and competitive combination with field experience. As fire is becoming a larger issue in the western US (and elsewhere), resource agencies are becoming more savvy with technological solutions to prevent or mitigate fires.

Good luck!

[theanimal]

Have you taken a WIlderness First Responder course before? If not, that's a good, quick way to see if you'd be interested in taking the EMT course. An EMT course is really just an extension of that with a couple other things like emergency baby delivery and overdose drug injections tossed in. It'll also be an asset for your time as a wildland firefighter.

[Sabaka]

@Western Red Cedar

Thanks! Yes I am hoping that potentially a season or two in wildland fire gives me some breathing room to work things out in my own mind. My only fear is that I am seeking to find something (meaning, purpose, etc) where it cannot be found. But the best I can do is give it a go!

@theanimal

I wish I had found your comment before committing to an EMT course! In the end I signed up to do an online/hybrid certificate. I am sceptical as to how EMT can be taught at all remotely, even if it includes some in-person skill days. But it was an option, and the in-person options didn't quite fit into the "must be finished by May" timeline. Even then, it is gonna be a race to complete this course before May, but doable.

It looks like the same providers of the Wilderness First Responder certification also offer courses that can be tacked onto traditional EMT, so that is something I will definitely consider, so thanks for making me aware!

[Sabaka]

Life continues on, and I should really get better at updating this journal...

I've nearly completed my EMT course, just my clinicals and national test to go. Hoping to still get it done by May when my season as a wildland firefighter starts.

It will likely be one season only as a wildland firefighter, due to the fact that the DW is pursuing her teaching certification which would then require we stay in Texas. Tbh, Texas was looking to be in our future in any case, due to my love of barbecue and hot weather and DW close family links

So what happens when my season finishes at the end of 2025? As of yes, I don't really know. One option I am leaning towards is to pursue becoming a structural firefighter. I will have already (fingers crossed) completed the EMT requirement, so I would just need to attend a firefighter academy. The pay and benefits are good, but I worry if I would not be a good fit for a Texan firefighter culture wise.

I think the fundamental issue is that my interests are too wide-ranging and too unprofitable for any one true career path. I lack the discipline/desire to hyper-specialise in any one subject to the degree that I can make a middle-class career out of it. We recently visited the NASA space center in Houston, a visit which in one part inspired with great admiration for all these extremely clever people who had combined their abilities in a great effort to achieve this extraordinary thing. But it also made me feel inadequate and average.

I started to have delusions that if I had worked/studied harder than I too could take part in the great efforts of today. Maybe I could have worked at NASA or on AI or etc etc.

But fundamentally, I came to the realisation that that ship has now sailed, and in all likelihood I could never have gotten on it in the first place. So, I will content myself to help and contribute in any small way that I can, and I hope with time that these feelings that I am missing out on something will subside.

Other than that, to summarise the last few months:

- Working doordash and taskrabbit, beer money really.
- Bought dehydrator and made jerky - 10/10, much cheaper and better than commercial stuff.
- Started a ginger bug - made my own fizzy drinks - 8/10, pretty good, but not super cheap and not as nice as Olipops.
- Sourdough bread - 7/10, when it works well, it is delicious, other times normal breadmaker bread with dry yeast is better.
- Apartment balcony garden - enough for a small bowl of salad so far, which with the cost of soil and seeds will be the most expensive (but freshest!) garden salad I've ever had.
- Joined strava group with my other future wildland fire teammates - now 90% cardio instead of 90% calisthenics. 10/10, feel much better for it.
- Not reading nearly as much as I'd like, due to laziness but also having to read dry EMT textbooks

Good luck to all who stumble across this post

[ertyu]

Good luck back, Sabaka. Immediate future looks exciting, and long-term, it seems like right this moment you might not have a precise idea what you will be doing but that things will settle down and line up once you and wife settle down in a location. Fingers crossed!