Funky Freedom's Journal

[FunkyFreedom]

Post # 006,12/31/24

Happy New Year’s Eve!

Here’s another one of my planned posts based on sections of the ERE book.

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Tl;dr (added 1/3/25)
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ERE 6.2 Shelter summary

-Rent is a bit above upper end of suggested range (16%)

-But only increased 1% average per lease renewal!

-And convenient location lets me not have a car!
. -0.1 mi or less to transit, gym, grocery store, bike rental
. -Average one way daily walk to work 0.12 mi (wfh 3/5 days)

-In-unit Washer/Drier & Dishwasher plus Roombas = awesome!

-Starting practice of not leaving lights on when out of room 1 min+

-Trying to find ways to keep temperature lower in winter & be ok

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Detailed post below
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-Section 6.2 - Shelter - “analyze my current apartment, whether and how it meets my wants/needs. Talk about how efficient/convenient it is. Include writing about lighting/electrical & heating.”

My home is an apartment that I share with my partner. We have one bedroom, a long kitchen, a nice sunny enclosed back porch that our cats very much love in the warmer months, a not too big bathroom, and two small rooms that connect via double doors. The book talks about the economic utility of adding the first additional person in a home, and splitting rent in two helps a lot! I think this setup is right where I’d prefer to be on the needs and wants list for shelter in section 5.2.1 of the book. One of our rooms is a bit underused but I think we’d feel too cramped minus that additional room. My half of the rent is about 16% of my income so just a bit over the ideal range put forth in ERE, but I do live in a HCOL area and at a time where I assume rents have increased a bit compared to inflation since the book was written. Our rent has increased by 1% per lease renewal so we feel good about that.

We are 0.1 miles or less of a walk to our closest supermarket, a bike rental station, and my gym (which I use in the winter to have a place to walk on very cold and windy days). We’re slightly over one mile from another supermarket that has 10 to 20% lower prices. I’ve just started being intentional about going there for most of my grocery shopping. Excluding the train ride, I’m a 0.3 mile walk from home to work but sometimes get off a stop early to get some extra walking in. All of this allows me to not have to have a car, which is a very big expense! If half the time you need to move your car is for street sweeping then maybe you don’t need a car!

The three most important things that matter for shelter per the book are:
- location relative to work
- location relative to grocery market
- cost

I’m pretty happy with the cost and the place overall, given how well we are doing on the first two items, and because the location allows me to do most everything I need to do without owning a car! On top of the 0.3 mile walk to work, I only work in the office two days a week, the rest being work from home days, so per workday my average walking commute is 0.12 miles!

We also have an in unit washer/dryer and dishwasher, which we didn’t have at the last place. They help make things easier for us and I think of them almost like free relationship therapists! We also have a Roomba vacuum and a Roomba floor washer that help in a similar way! So lots of conveniences. I like all of these things very much!

Lights and electric. I’m listening to the advice in the book and turning off the lights when I’m leaving a room for more than a minute, and am also turning electricity off at the power strip where that’s an option.

Heating. It’s winter now; we’re just recently starting to keep the house a bit cooler in the winter (like say 64 F) and instead doing things like wearing layers, wearing crocs to insulate my feet, and using electric back warmers/pads to stay warm. The cooler temperature probably makes the cats want to be a little bit friendlier with us too! We’ll see how much the lower temperature will bring down heating costs. I’d be interested in trying to calculate or research how to estimate cost savings per degree per square feet, or something like that. In past years I’ve put plastic over the windows. Maybe I can do that again.

With electricity and heating I’m more wanting to find ways to reduce my carbon footprint than cost savings, but if there ends up being significant cost savings that would be great!

Overall I’m very happy with our setup for shelter! And not having a car has been fantastic so far (a bit over a year so far)!

[delay]

The ERE book optimizes for saving quickly. I also like my shelter to have sun, a shed to store my bike and nearby nature

For house temperature, compare the cost to an unhappy partner or visitor. You may find heating is surprisingly cheap. You can also heat a smaller portion of the house. For example, I don't heat my kitchen, since I'm busy when I cook it never feels cold. When I look at my overall spending the usage related part of heating and electricity is surprisingly small. I spend 45 a month on heating, gas and electricity, and 25 of that is in fixed costs. Like you I do not own a car, and that saves me 10 times more than my entire energy usage spending.

Thanks for your journal and best wishes for 2025!

[FunkyFreedom]

Thanks for the feedback, Delay, and I appreciate the "thank you" for my journal! I need to get around to reading other's journals so I can get up to speed and participate more.

Yes, I appreciate the ERE book and the great ideas in there! I think I'm more on a LeanFIRE path, or perhaps Lean Semi-FIRE path than ERE. I'm not sure what the definition of ERE is but my savings rate is 50% or so and my annual expenses would be measured in multiple (but not too many) Jacobs. If there are folks here who have figured out ways to spend less than me in ways I could emulate then I feel like I'm in the right place, although I will want to make decisions based on a thoughtful understanding of my own value system.

$45 a month on heating, gas & electricity is fantastic! In the winter we get bills that are much higher than that, in the several hundreds of dollars per month. So, there's real opportunity for savings, both from an environmental and financial viewpoint. I will plan to look into what we should expect our heating bill to be based on square footage. It looks like I could probably borrow an IR camera from my library network and get a glimpse of how well insulated our place is (or not).
 
One of the things I'm thinking about today is how the cold affects my muscles getting tight and achy (I think this contributes to S.A.D. which for me has a big muscle ache/cramp component; I'm trying to go all-out to minimize or eliminate S.A.D. this winter), so heating and temperature is relevant. I'm back at working towards interval training today by trying to get to 100 pushups through the day (I increased my maximum number of reps per set from 7 to 8 so a 14% increase!). Bodyweight exercise may be helpful to warm me up throughout the day. I also did the red-light therapy at my gym today and every time I do it, I feel amazing afterwards (trying to stick to once every three days or so though, until I learn conclusively that I can do it more frequently)! I'm also starting to be mindful of what parts of my body feel cold when, and what I can do to warm them up, so that it doesn't get to the point of being cold. And if I start paying attention to this, and it does turn into muscle tightness or cramping then I'll be learning about cause and effect and can problem solve from there. I need to look into stretching as well. And my very close by gym has a weekly yoga class that I've been taking every week.

Happy New Year! Best wishes for your 2025 as well!

[FunkyFreedom]

Post # 007, 1/1/25

I am happily starting my year off with a good start by remembering to write the correct year the first time I write out a date in 2025. Hurray!

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Tl:dr (added 1/3/25)
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-Modeled how proximity to social security eligibility age affects what NW/AE I need to hit

-Note: I’m trusting 80%-ish of SS will be there when I’m eligible

-Figured I could semi-FI or try it out as a sabbatical with PT work in 3-4y at NW/AE of 12.5

-Figuring I’d be wanting to work up to 20 h/wk anyways

-Assuming I can earn the same amount as what I’d get in SS and then be able to stop working altogether at 67

-Don’t know enough about long term care risk (any suggestions to learn more?)

-Having more time & freedom at age 50 seems like a good call!
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Detailed post below
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So yesterday and today I started using Excel to look at a cash flow perspective of a semi-retirement scenario, accounting or the fact that I'm 16 years from social security eligibility (and the fact that I am willing to plan on 80% or so of my social security to still be there when I get to that point). Right now, I'm at about 6.4 NW/Annual Expense. In three or four years I am on track to hit a NW/Annual Expense ratio of about 12.5. Because my annual expenses are in Lean FIRE territory, and because I think I would like to keep working but only up to 20 hours or so anyways (not including hours paid to play music!), then I'm thinking a Lean Semi-FIRE approach might work for me. Since that wouldn't happen for maybe another three or four years, I'd have time to think and have lots of networking conversations about what I might want to do during a sabbatical or semi-retirement, as well as whether I'd want to go that route or otherwise continue to build my NW/AE ratio (and then still be able to work part time if I want but have choice in the matter). So, would I prioritize security, or freedom? Both are important to me. The sabbatical approach would be where I test out how this feels, see what happens, knowing that I could return to the job market if that's what ends up making sense after say a year or so.

In 3.5 years, I'd be 50 years old. If I were to get to half my 4%-rule FIRE number (NW/AE = 12.5), then I'd only need to cover half of my expenses through a part time job, multiple gigs, perhaps career 3.0, and/or performing music! I think this is very doable. Then once social security kicks in 17 years out (presuming I defer a bit) that amount would take the place of the part-time work; I'd cover my expenses with retirement savings plus social security. The risk would be leaving a job that allows me to have a pretty high savings rate, and at age 50 when perhaps there might be age-related concerns about how likely it might be to get as good a setup savings rate wise were I to decide to go back to full time work at a later time. Another risk that I don't know enough about is having enough money to be able to cover long term care later in life. But I feel like having freedom and joy and exploration and growth in my 50s would be the right priority! And I think having the freedom to try new gigs or businesses or careers could result in new work I'd be enthused to pursue and/or finding ways to cover more than half of my expenses so that my retirement savings could continue to grow!

If there's anyone here who has pursued this path, or otherwise if anyone has feedback, I'd welcome the outside perspectives!

Also, I recognize that if this path is something I were to move forward with, the I'd want to start planning now about how I could have funds in the right accounts to be able to withdraw from without additional unwanted penalties.

So, this is more of a big picture post. I'll return next to the series of posts on topics from the ERE book.

[FunkyFreedom]

(Tl;dr. Added on 1/3/25; EXERCISE update: 41 push-ups on day 1 ==> 65 on day 2)

Update on my exercise project.

I’m starting up interval training from the ERE book, starting with pushups. My first goal is to get to 100 push-ups in a day, by doing as many as I can in one set and then coming back to do more several times throughout the day. A few days ago was my first day and I did 41 push-ups total with my max reps per set at 7. Today I’m up to 65 total, with my max reps per set at 8.

So that’s a 14% increase in max reps per set, 59% increase in total reps, and I’m 65% of the way to that initial goal of hitting 100 push-ups in a day.

Also, I wanted to share where my user name “Funky Freedom” comes from. It comes from a Mighty Boosh skit ==> https://youtu.be/sQVCpgIeZrA?si=SxxwWqIO69jFbvPJ

Any Mighty Boosh fans out there?

PS if you don’t know the Mighty Boosh the above clip may seem a little weird!

[FunkyFreedom]

Post # 008, 1/2/25

This is another one of my planned posts taking about topics from the book. Yep, it’s a little long. Here’s a tl;dr:

6.4.1 Moving (tl;dr). WALKING - up 34% 2024 vs 2023! Utilizing a new (not too expensive) gym 150 steps away as a way to walk on even the worst winter days! Started HIGH INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING. Starting with pushups. Working towards 100 per day; 41 on day 1, 65 on day 2. Keeping it to one exercise to help ensure habit takes!

6.4.2 Eating (tl;dr) Inspired by not fun winter symptoms in recent years to revisit diet to (a) experience winter better, and (b) more generally be healthier! Have a history of reacting to food; previous attempts to address this were partially successful. Since October - using a food tracking app as a feedback loop to ensure I hit my nutrient targets, plus am working with a dietician. I pay nothing for the app + dietician! Losing weight (17 pounds since last March) by focusing on hitting my nutrient targets, not focusing on weight loss, and feeling good. Noting that in addition to the impact of food on how I feel, dealing well with the cold weather is likely a component (muscle tightness / cramps). Strength training may help with this! Optimistic that winter will be much better this year! Wintering better is my # 1 goal for 2025. I’ll learn more next few months.

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LONGER POST STARTS HERE
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Section 6.4 - Health - Moving & Eating. Talk about these items. Include new projects of interval training (just starting today!), improving nutrition, and saving money on groceries.

6.4.1 moving

-Walking

My exercise for a long time has mostly been walking. My phone tracks all my walking. For that mode of exercise, I’ve made efforts to increase my average distance walked per day. For the past 12 months my average is 3.9 miles, as compared to 2.9 miles for the previous 12 months. That’s a 34% increase! And it’s close to the number of steps that I’ve read give the optimal payoff for walking. I really notice that if I’m not walking enough it impacts how I feel, so this is something that is on my front burner and if I haven’t been walking for a while I’ll try to find a way to fix that. For this winter, I have a (not too expensive) gym that’s 150 steps away from my apartment - that helps me get steps in even on the worst winter day when I’d otherwise not want to go outside at all.

-High Intensity Interval Training

It’s been on my back burner to do strength training, mostly for the long term health benefits. Ability to deal with the cold is a new benefit that the book made me aware of, that I think will be important. I have been getting muscle tightness and cramps at least over the past few winters that I can recollect that has been a big component of the S.A.D. that I’m looking to significantly minimize or eliminate this winter. I’m two workout days into step # 2 from the book, which is do 100 reps throughout the day. I’m up to 65 reps doing push-ups. One of my strengths is starting and staying with new habits, so picking one exercise and getting that going makes sense for me. I hadn’t been prioritizing starting strength training this year, so it’s a bonus that re-reading the book prompted this challenge!

6.4.2 Eating

One of my biggest challenges over the past ten years or so has been that I’ve reacted to food in a way that I tried but failed to deal with until recently. My first attempt to deal with this involved doing an elimination diet, where I learned that I react to added sugar. I also know that I tend to react to red meat. At one point I succeeded at losing 30 pounds by following the Eat To Live diet (“nutrient dense plant based diet”). At the peak of that I was 18 pounds under my high school weight and some people were concerned I had lost too much weight. In general my weight has gone up and down depending on life stressors and my mental bandwidth available to pay attention to and do the work to stay on top of what I’m eating, I’m aware that I may have lost muscle mass through this process, so starting the interval training is very valuable!

My most recent attempt at figuring out a diet that will help me feel good and hopefully maintain a level weight over time started last year in October. The last couple of years I experienced pretty bad cramping towards the end of the winter. I don’t care for the resulting quality of life, and reached a point where I became determined to do everything I could to fix this! I realized had accepted a suboptimal solution from the last iteration of working with a dietician (though I appreciate the contributions!), so I revisited working with a dietician.

The major breakthrough working with this new dietician is that I am using an amazing app on my iPhone where I can track all my food and water intake (and also add calories burned via exercise, etc). We had initially talked about microbiome, which I’ve studied extensively, but with the amount of vegetable and other plant based food I’m eating I think caring for my microbiome is subsumed within the approach of just making sure I hit all of the nutrient levels!

The first thing I learned using this app is that even though I had been eating healthy food, I wasn’t eating enough to hit my nutrient targets. As a result my body was probably prompting me to go out and eat high calorie but maybe not super healthy amounts of foods like say cheese. So right away I just started eating more food. And then I started using the app as a feedback mechanism to go out and find foods that will help me hit nutrients I’m low on.

I’ve gathered a set of foods that work well to help me hit my nutrient targets. I don’t pay for the app. I’m meeting monthly with my dietician (who is amazing) and learning a couple of tweaks to make every month. I’ve lost 17 or 18 pounds since last March while focusing not on weight loss but eating healthily. I’m 4.5 pounds from my high school weight! Building muscle mass should help with weight loss too. We’ll see how all this contributes to me feeling better through the winter, which is the immediate goal, but so far this winter is much better than typical!

For meal preparation and buying ingredients, I’ve prioritized the biggest impact on my budget which is making it a project to walk to the 10% to 20% lower priced supermarket two or three times a week to buy most of my food. In the summer there will be some lower priced farm stands I can bike to. I’ll plan to keep an eye on how this brings expenses down and then maybe later I can consider waiting for sales at the lower priced supermarket. But that’s too much of a habit to develop at this point. I only have so much working memory. I’ll plan to continue to buy some of my ingredients at the super close supermarket when needed.

One last thing is that I recognize the utility for me to have this food tracking app. I’m aware that I can get my focus captured by some other priority and then the habit that I’ve built gets set aside (and maybe I gain weight and start feeling worse from eating badly). But I’m also someone who will stick with a habit forever if its upkeep isn’t too complicated. I feel like this app is the right level of “not too complicated” and all I need to do is remember to keep checking in with the app, which takes up little working memory, and the feedback loop established by doing this will keep me on track.

I realize my posts are rather long. Hopefully this is from being new and processing a backlog of information to be posted! And then maybe I’ll get to a point where my posts are more concise.

[NewBlood]

6.4.2 Eating (tl;dr) Inspired by not fun winter symptoms in recent years to revisit diet to (a) experience winter better, and (b) more generally be healthier! Have a history of reacting to food; previous attempts to address this were partially successful. Since October - using a food tracking app as a feedback loop to ensure I hit my nutrient targets, plus am working with a dietician. I pay nothing for the app + dietician! Losing weight (17 pounds since last March) by focusing on hitting my nutrient targets, not focusing on weight loss, and feeling good. Noting that in addition to the impact of food on how I feel, dealing well with the cold weather is likely a component (muscle tightness / cramps).

You might want to look into Vitamin D supplements if you have bad winter blues and muscle tightness. You can get tested to figure out if you're deficient in Vit D or not and then get supplements if needed.

Otherwise, hot water bottle, drinking lots of hot liquids, work for me to be comfortable in the cold.

[FunkyFreedom]

You might want to look into Vitamin D supplements if you have bad winter blues and muscle tightness. You can get tested to figure out if you're deficient in Vit D or not and then get supplements if needed.

Otherwise, hot water bottle, drinking lots of hot liquids, work for me to be comfortable in the cold.

Thanks, New Blood. I was low on Vit D one time years ago in the winter and I got these big blue 50,000 i.u. megadoses to take. They felt like sunshine! I take 2,000 i.u. per day now. But I came across a video yesterday saying much bigger doses can be helpful and perhaps not harmful. So I will look into that more. Will probably do a blood test at the worst part of winter (March); last winter I was ok for Vitamin D.

I remember the ERE book mentioning hot water bottles. Another option to look into. Maybe more able to be mobile with that setup than the electric back heating pad?

I hope to get to your journal soon to get current.

[FunkyFreedom]

Post # 009, 1/3/24

Hi Folks, so I just went back and added a tl;dr summary at the top of all of my numbered posts —- to help any of you all who want to skim my journal and get caught up.

RECALCULATION OF semi-RE (3.5 years ==> 3.0years)

So I went back and recalculated estimated years to semi-RE (or try out semi-RE as a sabbatical; with a target NW/AE of 12.5), based on the expectation of lowering expenses this year and a SR increase from 50% to 55%, and the timeline goes from about 3.5 years out to about 3.0 years out. I’m also calculating SR with after-tax job income in the denominator.

Short post today!

[Mousse]

I enjoy reading your long posts, especially as you go through the book as I'm also doing a (slow) re-read. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and insights! About the tl;drs, personally, I think a journal should primarily be helpful to the journal writer so I would focus more on what you find helpful/useful... Occasionally, when I catch up on old journals that are dozens of pages long I may wish for a summary line or two but in the end it's often in the more detailed thought process that I find something I want to chew on.

[FunkyFreedom]

Occasionally, when I catch up on old journals that are dozens of pages long I may wish for a summary line or two but in the end it's often in the more detailed thought process that I find something I want to chew on.

Thanks @mousse. I'm glad your reading through the book timelines with me writing posts based on different sections in it. Felt like a good way to generate topics and also start to clarify who I am and what I'm up to as it related to the subject of this forum.

I'm finding myself reading through folks journals who don't have as many posts! Because I'd like to get a full sense of their journey before I comment on it. But there are many journals that are very long, and I don't read as much as I used to! Hence I'm thinking ahead to provide a quick way for folks to skim through my journal, especially if it gets long. I've been posting daily for a bit; not sure how long I'll end up doing that. Probably life will get busy, I'll run out of as many things to talk about, or other priorities will come up. I hope to at least post on a monthly basis.

[FunkyFreedom]

Post # 010, 1/4/25

For today's post I want to lay out what projects I might want to periodically post progress on. I think they are:

Health

• Diet
  
  • Weight loss update (though focus = hitting all my micronutrients)
  • Anything relevant working with dietician and the amazing food tracking app

• Exercise (Interval Training)
  
  • For now, Max reps (per set) & total per day as I work towards getting to 100 in a day (starting with pushups)
  • Then progress on interval training on pushups once I get to 100 per day
  • Then any other exercises I decide to add in later
  • Maybe update on walking

• Wintering Well
  • Updates on how I'm doing this winter regarding minimizing / eliminating S.A.D.

• RE progress
  
  • SR for month, NW/AE
  • Progress on reducing expenses
    
    • Reduce food costs (by 10% - 20% of baseline?)
    • Cell phone savings (by 50 % - 80%)?
    • Stop paid monthly group (reduce by 100%)
    • Might see heating & electric costs go down?

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Here's my update for today
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Health

• Diet: Weight loss since March 2024 = 17 pounds. Preparing this weekend for a telehealth appt with my dietician.

• Exercise:
  • Progress in max reps per set over 3 days doing pushups (7, 8 ,9).
  • Total reps per day (41, 65, 71..and counting today as of 4:30pm...maybe I hit 100???) (update = Yes, I hit 100 push-ups today!!!)
  • Feels like I'm noticing how my muscles work when doing pushups & maybe that is helping me do them better.
  • Noticed my muscles hurt after the first workout day, but not after the second workout day!

• Wintering well:
  • Did "red light therapy" today. Always feels amazing when I do that (just started this year).
  • Have had some days where I don't feel great, but feels like I'm doing very well.
  • When I feel off I'm trying to discern why and problem solve. This is going well so far!

RE Progress

• Reduce Food Costs.
  • Planning to just add up my "Eating Out" + "Groceries" credit card categories & compare to past month baseline.
  • Keep analysis simple this way.
  • Noticing when I want to go 100 steps across the street to my supermarket to buy one thing (more expensively).
  • Instead saying "write up a grocery list & walk to the 10 to 20% lower cost market 1 mile away"
  • Walked 1 mile+ with a 29 pound bag of groceries today; walk home was windier. Did ok with this.

• Cell phone savings.
  • Learning about SIM card fraud with cell phones.
  • Thinking of doing "dumbphone" for phone service, as the ERE book suggests.
  • Will need to think about this; could be tough. Would keep cell phone for at home use via wi-fi.

[FunkyFreedom]

ENTJs liking "leading others to effective change". What does that even mean?! Well, ENTJ's likely enjoy being on an advisory board of some organization; mentoring people; having a column to dispense advice;...

[*]ENTJ (TeNiSe): Leading others to effective change Blindspot (Si): Respecting traditions

So I knew that there are a lot of INTJs on this forum, and that I initially tested as an INTJ a long time ago but since have tested differently at different times. So I was wondering how I might glean some actionable insights here on how folks who test differently on the MBTI reach RE differently, and/or do RE differently when they reach it.

I retested again and tested as an ENTJ. So “leading others to effective change” is the suggestion of what might be meaningful for me to pursue in RE, with “respecting traditions” being a weakness. This kind of makes sense.

I also bought a book “The Parthless Path” by Paul Millard, who somewhere was suggested as an ENTJ RE type. I did check the library first and there were only checked out e-copies. Thought this might be a book to read in paper. I don’t read as much as I used to but borrow lots of books that I just flip through and don’t read. I feel like typically when I buy a book it is more likely to bring good value into my life as compared to books I used to buy/read. Looking forward to learning from this book.

I didn’t find anything yet on how ENTJs might differently approach reaching RE, but maybe I can learn that by finding folks who said they’re ENTJs here and read their journals. Also, it might be good to think about how to reflect these differences into a web of goals that would carry through into RE.

Also, I’d want to be mindful of whether there might be weaknesses to the MBTI, or whether my actual type is different than ENTJ or whether it might change when life changes for me upon RE.

I’m glad I was inspired to think about this topic and was able to get some ideas so quickly on how to think about it.

[jacob]

So I knew that there are a lot of INTJs on this forum, and that I initially tested as an INTJ a long time ago but since have tested differently at different times. So I was wondering how I might glean some actionable insights here on how folks who test differently on the MBTI reach RE differently, and/or do RE differently when they reach it.

The fact that you've tested differently suggests that your preferences are balanced (as opposed to strongly biased in one direction or the other) or that you're mixing up your preferences with your habits or character that is answering according to how you think you ought to answer or that your preference changes with your environment and surroundings or any combination thereof.

Since response curves are Gaussian, most people are balanced in at least one if not more dimensions. It is rather unusual to be strongly typed in 3 or 4 dimensions.

In terms of actionable insights... No, these are not the droids you're looking for. Preference will say something about activities you'd probably be happy doing and activities you'd probably be unhappy doing based on statistics. It makes it possible to avoid learning from one's mistakes the hard way, but on the other hand that can be limiting too. However, preference doesn't say anything about what you would be good at doing.

Knowing one's preferences makes it possible to make strategic decisions about what would likely be satisfying in life and what wouldn't be.

IOW, I don't think step 1 should be to seek out other ENTJs and copy what they're doing. Having balanced or moderate preferences suggests more that you can do anything you want but also that there's no specific activity that will be be instantly flow-generating or quickly result in anxiety or boredom.

The fact that we have a lot of INTJs on the forum explains why there's so much discussion about skill-building and competence, even to the point of theorizing about competence or being competent at theories. INTJs find a lot of meaning in increasing their understanding of the physical world and their ability to control it. Whereas other types do not find this activity very addictive or satisfying instead preferring a more practical focus and/or being more interested in people than skills, say. Thus, knowing if/that your type is different explains why it might be a bad idea to copy those INTJs in the pursuit of happiness. OTOH, if you're a strongly typed INTJ and you've been copying the cruise ship contingent of FIRE (that's a real thing), it would also explain why you don't seem to be as happy about it as your fellow passengers. This also implies that mistakes can be made in mistyping oneself.

Add: I don't really think I explained it well. The short story was that making a decision to act based on an inconsistent observation/orientation (test) is a bad idea.

[FunkyFreedom]

IOW, I don't think step 1 should be to seek out other ENTJs and copy what they're doing. Having balanced or moderate preferences suggests more that you can do anything you want but also that there's no specific activity that will be be instantly flow-generating or quickly result in anxiety or boredom.

Thanks, Jacob! I’m more thinking that since there are way more INTJs here than ENTJs and as I’m currently picking folks journals to catch up on, it might be good for me to selectively pick a few people who said they are ENTJs so that I make sure I get some representation of that personality type. But now I know that I actually tested as an entX, it might be interesting to also choose to consciously read journals for other NT types.

You did a great job of explaining it. I appreciate it!

[FunkyFreedom]

Post # 11, 01/09/2025

So I've been trying to explore this forum and learn interesting things. I received the book "Pathless Path" which was mentioned by someone in a post I read. I downloaded "ToGoodToGo" which is an app where you can order and pick up foods that are slightly past their sell by date at a deep discount (but I haven't ordered any yet). I learned a bit more about MBTI. Once again today I caught myself almost buying some food at the extremely conveniently located but 10 to 20% more expensive grocery store and instead walked to the one a mile or so away and saved probably $5 plus had a reason to get some exercise (up to 4 miles so far for a very cold day is pretty good!). The red light therapy which I get to use every three days at my very conveniently located gym seems to be super helpful keeping my historical S.A.D at bay.

For my post today, I noticed the 21 day challenge and decided to read/skim through all of those, see what I'm dong well already, and see where opportunity might be to do better. I'll talk about just some of the days.

What am I doing well on already?
-Hobby (day 5); I get paid to do music and am connected to lots of people through it!
-Clothes (day 6); I don't care too much about appearances, and though maybe I can do better, I buy new clothes 2-3 times per year.
-Car (day 7); No car for over a year. Loving it!
-TV (day 14); No TV for 10+ years. Very grateful for this!

What could I do better on this year?
-Groceries (day 3); I already started shopping at the 10 - 20% lower cost super market. But the suggestion here which might bring grocery costs down to $115 or say even double-ish that at $200 would be a way bigger savings. So that's from buying in bulk from a few ingredients that I assume between those ingredients provide all needed nutrients and optimize for cost to get required nutrients. This is something I think I could do. This would be my biggest possible next opportunity for savings. I am fine eating the same thing over and over, and the recipes seem reasonable. I'll need to plug those foods into my food tracking app to see how they'd do for hitting all the micronutrients. Very interesting...
-Cell Phone (day 4): I was already thinking of getting a flip phone with a $15/mo or so plan but keeping my smart phone for use with wifi. I think the recommendation was for something less expensive, but I don't want to go all the way on this item.

What could I do better on but I don't want to, or not yet?
-Shelter (day 1). I'm already doing great on proximity to work (via public transport with little walking) and grocery store. I live in an apartment with my partner in a HCOL area. It's not too big for us. We could go smaller but we have cats and I don't think she'd go for it. I don't think I would either. We could also look at alternative options, but I don't think we'd be up for those at least now. But the big impact is from splitting rent for a one bedroom.
-Health Insurance (day 13). I'm working on getting healthier. Maybe an HDHP + HSA this could be an option to consider after I semi-RE?

I hadn't seen the potential cost savings for the groceries Day # 2, and that's a big impact item for me to look into. We'll see whether it makes sense and I'm able to work on this!

[jacob]

Maybe an HDHP + HSA this could be an option to consider after I semi-RE?

Keep in mind that this blog series is ~15 years old. The contemporary solution requires understanding ACA in combination with the tax system not much different that understanding Roth conversion ladders, etc. Health insurance is even cheaper today than it was back then.

[FunkyFreedom]

Keep in mind that this blog series is ~15 years old. The contemporary solution requires understanding ACA in combination with the tax system not much different that understanding Roth conversion ladders, etc. Health insurance is even cheaper today than it was back then.

Thanks, Jacob, for bringing this to my awareness! Yes, utilizing the ACA is what I've heard people talk about. Semi-RE is probably a few years out so plenty of time to learn.

Plugging your bean, onion, raisin, rice, kale, etc recipe into my nutrition tracker now to see how it scores.

[jacob]

Plugging your bean, onion, raisin, rice, kale, etc recipe into my nutrition tracker now to see how it scores.

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=4495

[FunkyFreedom]

Thanks, Jacob, for connecting me to a very relevant page!