Bytore's Journal of Musings

[Bytore]

Today is Saturn's day, my second favorite planet - Earth being the first! Fitting that I should start my personal ERE journal on the first Saturday of this new year.

This will be the first year that I focus on my savings rather than on a budgeted dollar value.

Beginning the year, my current plan is to have a 0% SR until my high-interest debt is paid off. That pay-off date is 3/31/25. After that, my current plan is to have a SR of 75%.

Five years from my 43rd birthday I should theoretically have about $180,000 in savings. That would be enough to cover my expenses at least until my 62nd birthday.

Some of my personal goals for the future:

• 1. Write out a simple list of what I want out of life while my flame still kindles.
  • a) Adventure
    b) Experiencing the joy of pushing myself physically.
    c) Developing more and/or stronger social contacts and social capital.
    d) Fitness on as many levels as is realistic.
    e) Learning (in no particular order and incomplete)
    • i. Economics/Finance/Business/etc
      ii. Another language
      iii. Cooking
      iv. Meditation
    f) Regularly singing with other folks. I really want to regularly experience this!
    g) Always taking care of my personal space; cleaning, organizing, improving the structure and design.
    h) Try out the nomadic living thing.
    i) Buy and fix up my own mobile tiny home (e.g., a converted box truck)
  2. Write out a list of future scenarios that I may encounter and describe how this might effect me (financially, emotionally, socially, etc). Some examples immediately follow:
  • Scenario a: One or both of my parents start needing more assistance/care within the next 5 years.
    Scenario b: Death in the immediately family.
    Scenario c: Personal job loss due to cuts in government spending.
    Scenario d: Major earthquake or worsening fires.

Tchau for Now,
Bytore

[Bytore]

First off, a big shout out to Jacob for hosting this excellent forum. The more I read other folks Journals, the more inspired and educated it feels that I am becoming.

Thanks to C40 for the inspiration from their excellent graphs and tables!

I realized I should probably recap a bit about myself in this journal; I did post a fair amount in my 'Introduce Yourself' thread; but anyhow, here's a recap and fill out.

About me:
Early 40s, single, no kids, currently live with my parents. I feel the cultural pressure at times not to live here and for most of my adult life I lived on my own. I owned a house a few years ago, that I ultimately lost money on. For the time being, I believe it makes more financial sense just to stay here. I can help them with their household and I can really stack the savings. I would like my own space, but that is not a true need. Eventually, I see myself building out a mobile home of some sort (e.g., box truck, van, etc) or buying some cheap land, or possibly a combination of the two.

Some of my prior career paths included:
- organic farming
- light rail operating
- historic/antique window restoration
- UPS employee

Currently, I am a janitor at a public institution. It is a decent job but I am not a big fan of all the chemicals that I have to use and I would rather work outside in the elements.

Liabilities are 2 credit cards and 1 student loan. The student loan should hopefully be forgiven in about 1.5 years.
Assets are currently just my checking account. I am starting to learn more about investing. Starting off with some of those recommendations from Jacob. I have the textbooks. Also, reading through forum posts on the subject.

I have a paid off 1st gen toyota sienna that I use for commuting, hobbies, and travel around Oregon. I have an expensive hobby, well it doesn't have to be; but there are some tools that help that cost money. The hobby is trail maintenance. I would like a chainsaw or crosscut saw, but I can't afford it right now. Trying to figure out ways I might be able to make that hobby cost neutral. The USFS doesn't pay me to do the work, although there are some perks.


Here's a sampling of charts from my Excel workbook that I have been revamping for the 2025 year. I could also share what it used to look like at some point but gotta get ready for work here shortly.

I know I need to get more of the ERE principles into my head. Reading through these forums is helping!

This is my first time sharing images on a forum and also first time using flickr. Apologies if it doesn't come out right!

Chart of my liability account balances over time.
Liability Account balances by Bytore Quallins, on Flickr

Chart of my historical income vs expense; going back to January of 2023.
Historical Income vs Expense by Bytore Quallins, on Flickr

The chart immediately above was a little disturbing to me. I hadn't been aware that my expenses were slowly increasing; but the trendline seems to suggest that. This year I am working to make that expense line radically lower and more flat. I believe it is possible; given my living arrangement. One area where I need to adjust my projections, I just realized, is that I did not include vehicle maintenance in the recurring costs sheet. I will work on that later.

I am planning to possibly reduce my vehicle maintenance by walking to and from work. I can get there in 3.8 miles, I believe. At a brisk pace, can probably do it in under an hour. I will do some things like meditate. I don't want to listen to any digital stuff as my town is not safe to walk in and I do not want to invest in transducer headphones.

Chart of my projecting savings assumed from a projected budget from 2025 and onwards.
Projectios by Bytore Quallins, on Flickr

[black_son_of_gray]

I am planning to possibly reduce my vehicle maintenance by walking to and from work. I can get there in 3.8 miles, I believe. At a brisk pace, can probably do it in under an hour. I will do some things like meditate. I don't want to listen to any digital stuff as my town is not safe to walk in and I do not want to invest in transducer headphones.

Is cycling an option for you? A general rule-of-thumb is that cycling is about 3x faster than walking for the same effort. So that puts your commute at ~20 mins each way and saves you ~1.5 hours a day (unless you just like time spent walking). I get that biking isn't always safe on certain roads...

[Bytore]

@black_son_of_Gray

Thanks for the question!

Cycling is an option, but not one I am considering. I have biked and also walked to this worksite a few times. Walking is far more pleasant. Depending on which route I take, up to 3/4 of it is on 4 lane undivided roads. Technically the speed limit is 35/30 but people often go much faster. The route I plan to take has about 1/3 of it on 4 lane undivided roads with one section containing 4 freeway entrances and exits... <sarcasm> Urban design is so great in the USA </sarcasm>

[delay]

I am starting to learn more about investing.

Thanks for your journal update! Your Flickr images look great. Investing can lose you money in the short term and not everyone has the mental makeup to stay invested during a slump. So investing is recommended for after you have an emergency fund, when all your debts and credit cards are paid off, and you've got a downpayment for a house.

Judging from your post, you're looking at past spending and projecting future income. The key to getting better with money is to forget about the past and the future and to focus on the present. YNAB is not a bad place to start. How many dollars do you own, and what do they need to do until you next get paid? YNAB will teach you how to answer the question "Can I afford this?" and help you "embrace your true expenses" like insurance and car repairs. This inevitably leads to a more comfortable financial position.

[Bytore]

...investing is recommended for after you have an emergency fund, when all your debts and credit cards are paid off, and you've got a downpayment for a house.

Copy that, solid advice.

The key to getting better with money is to forget about the past and the future and to focus on the present. YNAB is not a bad place to start. How many dollars do you own, and what do they need to do until you next get paid? YNAB will teach you how to answer the question "Can I afford this?" and help you "embrace your true expenses" like insurance and car repairs. This inevitably leads to a more comfortable financial position.

Thanks for the advice. I can modify my spreadsheet so it focuses on tracking the present. As far as YNAB goes, I really really really enjoy messing around with spreadsheets so I will stick with that for now.

[delay]

Thanks for the advice. I can modify my spreadsheet so it focuses on tracking the present. As far as YNAB goes, I really really really enjoy messing around with spreadsheets so I will stick with that for now.

Thanks for your reply. I do the YNAB method in a spreadsheet myself. It's also known as "envelope budgeting" or "zero based budgeting". Good luck!

[Bytore]

Thanks for your reply. I do the YNAB method in a spreadsheet myself. It's also known as "envelope budgeting" or "zero based budgeting". Good luck!

Do you track your income & expenses? I have been tinkering with my more recent spreadsheet. How I have things set up right now is that I have a sheet for "Transactions", "Recurring", "Accounts", and "Analysis", "Report", as well as a few other sheets with other stuff.

I have some reports, some of which I have shared. Using what I believe was your advice; I made a pivot table to display a month's worth of income and expenses, as well as the % of income. I think I will switch to having a simple table with some filters. That way I can both view the data quickly but also modify things.

[delay]

Do you track your income & expenses?
...
Using what I believe was your advice; I made a pivot table to display a month's worth of income and expenses, as well as the % of income.

Thanks for your reply. While tracking is helpful for zero based budgeting it's not the central aspect. The important thing is to Give Every Dollar A Job (as YNAB used to say.) So for every dollar in my wallets or accounts, I have a job assigned like "Pay Rent", "Be Ready For Bicycle Maintenance", or "Yearly Insurance Payment". These jobs are called "Envelopes" and they work exactly like a physical envelope with cash in it. When I track income and expenses, I distribute what comes in over envelopes, and take expenses out of envelopes.

This way when a bill arrives, I have cash ready for it. When I wonder if I can afford something, I can look at its envelope to see how much cash is in it. When my bicycle breaks down, I have some cash ready for repairs.

[Bytore]

Thanks for your reply. While tracking is helpful for zero based budgeting it's not the central aspect...

I appreciate you clarifying things for me!

So, from the perspective of using a spreadsheet software one way this could be implemented might be with atransactions table, then a table with monthly "envelopes"? The monthly envelopes could have an attached 'slicer' so a single month could be viewed. The way I have this currently implemented is slightly cumbersome. If an envelope did not have enough money in it, I could create a column called 'Adjustment' or 'Transfer' and use that to move money from one envelope to another. Ideally, that would not be necessary.

The way I understand YNAB is that the prior month's income is used to put money in the current month's envelopes.

[delay]

The way I have this currently implemented is slightly cumbersome. If an envelope did not have enough money in it, I could create a column called 'Adjustment' or 'Transfer' and use that to move money from one envelope to another. Ideally, that would not be necessary.

Why not just adjust the amount in the envelope? The sum of the envelopes should equal the number of dollars you own. You don't need a history of movement between envelopes. You can empty the envelopes at any time and redistribute your dollars fresh.

The way I understand YNAB is that the prior month's income is used to put money in the current month's envelopes.

Yes, that used to be their fourth rule, "Age Your Money". The goal of that rule was to help people escape the paycheck to paycheck cycle.

It took me a long time to understand the YNAB method. I never had trouble paying bills, but having an envelope ready for them is a level up.

[Bytore]

Why not just adjust the amount in the envelope? The sum of the envelopes should equal the number of dollars you own.

Is the number of dollars I own equal to all of my liquid Assets?

May I ask how you implement this in your own spreadsheet(s)?

Thanks for taking the time to interact with me on here, I really appreciate it!

[delay]

Yeah, each dollar you assign should be in your wallet. If you have more money than is relevant on a monthly basis you can leave it out of the budget.

My sheet has a transactions tab for each account and for cash. An account tab looks like:

Code: Select all

Date          Category            Amount     RunningTotal
2015-01-01    Starting balance               500
2015-01-01    Rent                100        400
2015-01-02    Groceries           20         380
2015-01-03    Groceries           30         350

Then there's a budget tab like this:

Code: Select all

Category   SubCategory    LeftFromLastMonth    ThisMonth     Assigned    Spend    Available
Fixed      Rent           0                    100           100         100      0
Immediate  Groceries      25                   75            100         50       50
True       Car Repairs    250                  50            300         0        300

The sum of Available is equal to the sum of the RunningTotals. I own 350 dollars, 50 of which are in the Groceries envelope, and 300 are in the Car Repairs envelope. In YNAB speak, all my dollars have a job.

If I overspend on Groceries, I have to take money from Car Repairs to cover the spending.

In LibreOffice you can grab the last value in a column with an arcane LOOKUP(). I sum expenses by category with SUMIF().

I thought YNAB was more than worth the money to learn the system. The reason I moved back to a spreadsheet is to avoid being dependent on a third party. Paid subscriptions always seem to end in tears.

[Bytore]

Yeah, each dollar you assign should be in your wallet. If you have more money than is relevant on a monthly basis you can leave it out of the budget.

I thought YNAB was more than worth the money to learn the system. The reason I moved back to a spreadsheet is to avoid being dependent on a third party. Paid subscriptions always seem to end in tears.

Thanks for sharing this Delay! I took the ideas you shared and came up with a new spreadsheet that is working out pretty well for me. I set it up in Excel so that my transactions are automatically pulled in from a folder containing csv files.

May I ask how you share your tables efficiently here on the forum? I would share mine on here but, when I try to share my table's, it ends up looking like a jumbled mess. When I try to use bbcode it doesn't seem to work properly.

This month's budget is higher than subsequent months will be. I purchased some books and walking gear. I did walk to work one day this week. Today I have a project to work on that will make bike parking much more convenient. Planning to bike or walk to work a majority of the days each week. After walking to work I realized that I can bike safely to work, there is some danger but overall; it's not as bad as I had initially thought.

[delay]

May I ask how you share your tables efficiently here on the forum? I would share mine on here but, when I try to share my table's, it ends up looking like a jumbled mess. When I try to use bbcode it doesn't seem to work properly.

Use an editor with a fixed-width font to make the tables (I use vim), then copy / paste in a "code" block.

[Bytore]

Use an editor with a fixed-width font to make the tables (I use vim), then copy / paste in a "code" block.

Thanks for the tip! I messed around a bit with it and it works. Decided I'd try sharing a part of my spreadsheet details via a screenshot.

[Bytore]

Here's a screenshot of the newest method I am starting to use to get a better handle on my finances:
budget overview by Bytore , on Flickr *note: I whited out some of the subcategories also edited so the image shows up properly.

The new spreadsheet owes it's existence to @C40 and @Delay. Thank you both for the inspiration!

The debt payment, other than student loans, will stop about March of this year. From that point on my savings/month should be closer to $2,000. The discretionary expenses this month were not planned and pretty impulsive. At least they were book purchases. I bought Axel's book (great btw!), Micromastery, Learning How To Learn, and a couple others I have seen recommended. Why not use the library? Well, a few years back our library shutdown. It reopened, but with a drastically lower inventory. The inventory is great if one wants to read murder mysteries and other pop fiction. They do have some books, but generally; most of the books I want to read are not available. I am going to sell some of my existing book collection, should probably cover the purchases I made this month.

Other than the spreadsheet, a personal update for January:

This year I decided to switch to a Lacto-Ovo-Pescetarian Diet. Doing it for health and financial reasons. Years ago I was vegan and then the LOP Diet. Last time I was LOP I felt the best I have ever felt in my life.

Started off with some tasty meals. Made a fisherman's stew with that rice/lentil/onion pilaf, a seafood broth (from salmon heads and mussels), tomato sauce, vinegar, and topped it all off with a can of sardines. That was really delicious. The next week, I tried to make that again. Almost successful, I used too much rice so it wasn't a stew. Lost all the appeal. This past week I made Mexican style refried beans and rice from scratch. That is one of my go to meals of choice. Love myself some beans! Getting better at cooking the rice.

Today I started a batch of fermented red onions. I found out, years ago now, that they are my favorite fermented veggie. Probably because they go really well with beans!

Sometime soon I am going to try my hand at making tempeh. I have extra coolers lying around. I might use one to make a fermentation chamber.

Did a bit of trail work on MLK day. The person hosting the event offered me a free vintage crosscut saw! I am not in a rush to take them up on the offer yet as it would take up a lot of space and I would need to buy some handles for it.

Walk commuted to/from work one day so far. It was invigorating! The winter weather helps as I would have probably been very sweaty if it were warmer. Got about 16 minute miles on the way in to work and 15 minute miles on the way home.

Got it setup so I can more easily get and park my bike. Bike looked ok, other than some rust. This week I will take it for a spin around the neighborhood and check if it is up to a longer commute. I might need to replace the rapid shifters on the handlebars; currently they are Shimano Acero paired with aShimano Deore derailleur. They seem to shift well, but the little plastic window on one of the shifters is broken. Perhaps I can DIY a fix...

Worked on a small garden patch where I live. I have a ton of vegetable seed in the freezer. I mentioned I had a farm; well, the seeds are the remnant of that. I will eventually have 3 ~16'x30" beds to work with.

The garden area is tarped off to try and kill the mint and bulbs that are currently growing there. Today, I spread about a foot deep of woodchips as paths and brought in some more dirt from an area where I will be putting in a clothesline.

Current garden thoughts as to what I will plant are:
-- try to succession plant spinach, cilantro. Perhaps do this mixed in with widely spaced kale plants. May also plant some mustard greens. Mostly, I would focus on rotating the beds through various leafy green vegetables throughout the year. The thought just occurred to me to try a small area of succession cropping wheat grass.
-- I would love to eat more Nettles, currently have a couple plants in pots; the garden spot I have isn't good to grow more though. I have considered doing some guerilla gardening with them.

Messing around with my new spreadsheet, I have noticed the big difference it would make if I did not have a car. It is a tough one for me to give up. The biggest reason I hesitate to get rid of it is that my city has no transit connections to outside areas and if there were a natural disaster I could not easily leave or help family to leave the area. That said, some of the natural disasters might not allow for that anyway. The last time this happened was 2020, a wildfire got to within 8 miles of my home. It traveled 40 air miles in less than 2 hours. The whole area where I live is a tinder box. Thankfully, high wind events like we had in 2020 are rare; at least since I have been alive. The other natural disaster is the big Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake. That one happens, I doubt the roads will be open so a car would probably not matter too much.

As it stands, I am gonna keep the wheels for now and have a lower savings rate.

Did something really fun today with my Mom, made hacky sacks! I am going to use them to practice juggling. Got the idea from the Micromastery book.

[delay]

The new spreadsheet owes it's existence to @C40 and @Delay. Thank you both for the inspiration!

Thanks for sharing the screenshot, that looks like my sheet! Paying off debt first is a good choice. My sheet doesn't have FIRE statistics as that's not something I like to think about every month. I make it a point not to look at money I don't want to spend.

This year I decided to switch to a Lacto-Ovo-Pescetarian Diet. Doing it for health and financial reasons. Years ago I was vegan and then the LOP Diet. Last time I was LOP I felt the best I have ever felt in my life.

After doing some 20 diets, I finally figured out diets don't work for me. My diets results in see-saw weight graphs, where I lose weight quickly, and then regain it just as quickly, often ending at a higher final weight.

I'm having more success with "intermittent fasting", or eating only between 14:00-20:00. I've been at a good weight for almost 2 years now.

[Bytore]

After doing some 20 diets, I finally figured out diets don't work for me. My diets results in see-saw weight graphs, where I lose weight quickly, and then regain it just as quickly, often ending at a higher final weight.

I'm having more success with "intermittent fasting", or eating only between 14:00-20:00. I've been at a good weight for almost 2 years now.

Aren't diet's in the modern sense of the word are rather silly? I think a lot of things are silly, including myself! For me, I think part of it is about changing habits. I guess part of it is also that I have a hard time killing critters besides fish. Seems to align a little bit more closely with my values.

I often kinda eat IF, I just don't think about it much. I explicity did it for a year and also did some alternate day stuff a long time ago. The alternate day stuff kinda messed up my digestion. Seemed to slow it down, at the time I was also vegan so maybe it was a problem with too much raw food.

Most of the time I eat my first meal around 12:00 or 13:00 and then eat my second around 20:00.

[delay]

Aren't diet's in the modern sense of the word are rather silly? I think a lot of things are silly, including myself! For me, I think part of it is about changing habits. I guess part of it is also that I have a hard time killing critters besides fish. Seems to align a little bit more closely with my values.

Haha, yes, looking back I certainly feel silly for the 20th time I started a diet My values allow for eating meat. If I were to become a vegetarian, a messenger would go to a farm, and next year there would be a cow less in the field.