Basuragomi's journal

[basuragomi]

January 2022 update



- I've decided on my last day: July 29th, 2022. 178 days remain.
- My employer wants me to continue on as an occasional contractor as I'm basically the only person left on a lot of projects. I said I could handle 4 hours a week.
- I've applied for grad school. Fingers crossed I get in.
- I've also thrown my hat in for property management at my rental as the current managers are travelling long-term. It's a few hours of work but would bring in about $300 a month.
- Net worth dropped about 1.1% from last month, surprisingly less than expected.
- Got a raise, for what it's worth.
- While figuring out how to replace my role I realized that the company would likely need to hire three people. I feel very burned out.

If everything works out, I'd be looking at a 2023 income mix of:
- Investment portfolio: 1x expenses
- Grad school stipend: 1x expenses
- Occasional work for employer: 1x expenses
- Tax return from charitable giving: 0.7x expenses
- Property management: 0.2x expenses

[Chris]

- My employer wants me to continue on as an occasional contractor as I'm basically the only person left on a lot of projects. I said I could handle 4 hours a week.

Nice off ramp. In your first post, you planned for an exit in 2023 and working 5-10 hour/wk in semi-retirement. This is an excellent result.

[basuragomi]

Yes, I'm kind of amazed that this exit plan I first developed five years ago has gone so smoothly! Everything has changed but I'm still right where I want to be.

I received an informal offer for grad school placement today - won't tell anyone IRL until things are finalized but the internet can know. I'm excited, this is really happening!

[mountainFrugal]

Congrats on everything! Having the financial side of the equation figured out is going to allow you to focus so much better on your research project(s). Good luck!

[runnergirl]

I received an informal offer for grad school placement today - won't tell anyone IRL until things are finalized but the internet can know. I'm excited, this is really happening!

Congrats and good luck! I find your journal inspiring.

[guitarplayer]

Yeah @basuragomi, way to go! I remember reading the first post some time back, great that 'the plan' is still the plan and that it's going smoothly.

[basuragomi]

Thanks everyone! Living a frugal lifestyle definitely makes this possible - no million-dollar mortgage, two-hour commute or car payment to feed has left me in a great position to take this challenge on with minimal financial stress. I can live entirely off my stipend which wouldn't even cover three months' mortgage payments otherwise.

February 2022 update


I had to drop donations this month to build up some cash - I was living paycheque to paycheque for a while. Net worth is up a tiny bit.

I have officially been admitted to grad school! To contrast with my professional life, domestically everything has been pretty routine:

- Spouse replaced her laptop battery, and just needed some new torx screwdrivers to manage it. A few years ago she probably would've just gotten a new laptop instead, so I'll take it as a win.

- Bleaching caulk in the shower to lighten mould spots - does anyone else do this? I cut toilet paper into long thin strips, stick it right on the caulk and apply bleach with an old toothbrush. The toilet paper clings and keeps the bleach in contact with the caulk. After it dries it flakes off easily and everything is left a lot brighter. Easier and works better than the bleach+baking soda method.

- Did maintenance on my crampons, replacing some of the spirals with wire scavenged from a heavy spiral-bound notebook. I learned that replacing the netting works best when you have a physical spacer to help minimize deformation of the spirals when in use, since my netting *replacement* was ground to death pretty quickly while the netting *repair* lasted two years. I used an old disposable pen body around fishing line to replace the netting this time.

- My vacuum power switch melted again, so I swapped in the 2x-higher-rated replacement I previously bought. Took some careful fitting but it works perfectly. The vacuum actually feels more powerful, maybe because the current doesn't need to arc through a failing switch anymore. Before the old switch failed entirely, you could see an arc flash through the bodywork seams! The new switch arrangement is kind of ugly so I'm planning on 3d printing a cosmetic extension before showing photos.

- Pork shoulder was on sale so I got a few months' supply to freeze. I always break shoulders down:
--- Tasty dark meat is cut into chunks and frozen for cooking
--- Light meat and fat is ground up for dumplings/meatballs (chop the fat as finely as possible with a very sharp knife before blending if you're using a food processor for this to avoid stringiness)
--- Skin is rendered and salted into delicious crackling, lard used for frying
--- Bones are sawed open and turned to pho
--- Good wrappers weren't available at the store so I made my own for the first time! It was a ton of work, good exercise but I'd rather have spent $5 versus making ~100 dumpling wrappers.

- On the Lentofu front, I made some calcium citrate from some expired terrible "ReaLemon" juice in order to set alginate and tofu (lentofu plans A and B respectively) since calcium acetate is smelly. This was a big failure. Turns out that calcium citrate is barely soluble in water, 0.85g/L (the acetate salt is 600x more soluble!). This isn't even enough to set alginate. As the lemon juice reacted, the citrate was crashing out of solution. I had an excess of ground eggshells in there as per my calcium acetate production so I had no way to separate the citrate from the carbonate. I had to dump most of my product out. Lesson learned: use an excess of acid when doing this, or keep the eggshells in a cheesecloth.

- One thing I want to try related to Lentofu plan C: extracting wheat gluten, and using bean sprouts as malt to convert the remaining wheat starch into sugar->alcohol->plastic? Otherwise I don't have a use for the residue, it's not so great nutritionally unlike Lentofu residue.

[Chris]

Bleaching caulk in the shower to lighten mould spots - does anyone else do this?

Totally, after many attempts with other methods. Only I use paper towel strips, and apply the bleach using a straw. Not a lot of fun, but still much better than scrubbing.

[basuragomi]

@Chris: Good to know I'm not alone. Apparently some people just replace the caulking every year!

March 2022 update



- Continuing to donate, net worth ticked up to an all-time high. I'm going to delay the May and June donations so I can hit a spend target on my main credit card later in the year.
- I moved up my quit day to June 30. As of today, 85 days remain. It looks like I am going to be replaced with 2.5 FTEs. I still feel pretty burnt out, but things have been improving lately - I'm not sure if it's because my exit is rapidly approaching or I had some seasonal depression, everything started improving around the DST jump. I've already cleared out my office, and I'm spending some time reflecting on my decade-long experience at my employer.
- I canceled my gym membership since I will be able to use the school gym in the future. I haven't gone since the pandemic started but like the gym and wanted them to survive until the future, I may yet return. That's about $650/year saved.
- We caught Covid-19, no idea from where as we had been nowhere the previous week. I had a fever for a day and a cough for two weeks, my spouse had a cough and nothing else - she was hit far harder by the vaccine. It is crazy contagious and spreading like wildfire here, thank goodness for the high vaccination rate preventing even more tragedy.
- I tried a few new dishes: dry-fried curried okra and kimchi hummus. Both are delicious and I would highly recommend them. I'm thinking about trying out beansprout kimchi once I get some more gochugaru - home-grown beansprouts are cheaper and more nutritious than napa.
- I made real soylent steaks! Post to come soon. Apparently the Soylent Green movie is set in 2022, so I'm just in time.
- I finished memorizing the periodic table. It's a silly hobby but I'm really good at geography quizzes and this is just another kind of geography.
- I, along with everyone else, watched in horror as Russia invaded Ukraine. I have not shifted donations to the crisis though as it fails basically all my previously outlined donation criteria. In short, it's like a war of attrition and nation-states are the ones defining the situation - which makes opportunities to help less attractive than the initiatives I support currently. I did however place a bet on Ukraine prevailing - I bought about $6,000 worth of BKI at $0.12.

[sky]

Every time I watch a nature video that highlights some extremely beautiful wildlife, I remember the scene and remember what Soylent Green is made of.

[basuragomi]

Soylent Steak

This is soylent steak, AKA lentofu version 1.1b (I need a better name for this. "Lot dogs" was shot down). Effectively it is tofu with a ton of lentil protein concentrate added. The big question to be answered was if the concentrate would affect the coagulation or even stay in the coagulated soy matrix.

Soylent steaks also featured in the perennial Club of Rome favourite "Make Room! Make Room!" - interestingly, the loose movie adaptation Soylent Green was set in 2022. So I can finally say I've done my part in making science fiction real!

I made soy milk in the usual way, and made lentil concentrate similar to the previous post. The only change was that I added a screening and recirculating step to reduce the blended particle size and boost yield.

Interesting observation: If you keep the lentil whey covering the concentrate, it preserves the orange-pink colour and the albumin in the lentil whey forms a skin. Makes it look like meat. Soylent pink?



I portioned out the soymilk, squirted about 7.2g dry protein equivalent of concentrate into ~500g of soy milk, and added about 30 mL of 5% calcium acetate solution. I let it sit for a while and pressed the steak under about 380 Pa/0.06 Psi overnight. I then froze the soylent steak, a trick I picked up from this forum to make tofu extra chewy.



The answer to the big question is yes, the concentrate stays in and doesn't affect coagulation - the expelled whey was very clear.

I sliced and fried the soylent steaks. The neat thing about the lentil protein concentrate is that it takes a sear really well. The downside of the soylent steak is that it expels tons and tons of water! I had to boil it all off before the soylent steak would take a sear.



The soylent steak looked like cooked chicken, tasted like a mix of chicken and egg, and had a decent amount of resistance to a bite. It had no real chew, smelled quite beany while raw and the texture was kind of foamy. In raw format, there was about 37g protein in 300g of soylent steak. Cooked, it was more like 37g in 200g soylent. My spouse said that it is fairly indistinguishable from bottom-tier mechanically-separated chicken nuggets.



So overall, I would call this a success. Soylent steak is an edible product that is high in protein, tastes meaty, can be handled hot without disintegrating and takes a sear. Unfortunately, the texture isn't quite what I want, it is far too watery and is a massive pain to produce - soy milk is the most annoying thing to clean up after. This is an improvement over lentofu v1.0 and 1.1 in the hot handling and bulk texture aspect, but I think both can be improved.

Onwards to lentofu 1.1a!

[basuragomi]

April 2022 update



Very spendy month as we saw a lot of family and friends which involved too much driving. Not much else of import happened. I feel crushed by work and socializing with barely any time to do anything else.

I did my taxes and got an almost $17,000 refund. My tax refund was equal to about 95% of my 2021 spending. With this year's donations, I have the option to pay 0 tax for 2022 (which would mean a slightly larger return) but will likely not do so. I have enough future income that it is more efficient to reserve some credits and stay at the upper end of the first bracket rather than in the 0% bracket.

I will reserve some of the return for later donation, some to capitalize my incorporation effort, and the rest will form a working capital buffer.

I am incorporating in order to work the consulting gig and future endeavours. I was planning on doing this years ago but got stymied on the articles of incorporation. That's still a struggle but I'm going to just keep it simple and defer more complex structures for a new corporation if/when it's needed. I'm using a coworking space a few minutes' walk away for the address. It's looking like between insurance, office etc I'll need a minimum $2,000/year to match overhead.

Net worth ticked down as the markets go for a walk. I promise to start worrying when there's a 50% drop. I'm "retiring" in 54 days but won't be relying on my investments for 4-5 years at this rate.

I made choux pastry (eclairs and profiteroles) and pastry cream for the first time to celebrate a milestone moment which was pretty fun. I also spent time researching pastry fillings and made this chart:



I also bought a year's supply of garlic, peeled, pureed and froze it for cooking. I turned the garlic netting and a lot of yogurt tubs into new covered pots for my garden. The latest iteration of the yogurt planter is pretty much optimal for my uses. My compost attempt last year was a failure, but I actually started by piling a bunch of food scraps into a different bucket, hiding it in a bush and forgetting about it. It had turned into some great wormy compost. Mixed that into some underperforming soil and planted spinach in it.

Versions 1, 2 and 3 of the food packaging planter:

[basuragomi]

May 2022 update



26 days to go. I'm turning in my formal resignation Monday. I am excited! There is an occasional pang of fear. It's identical to the feeling when I swim in a deep lake and think to myself "I can't float in water and there is a lot of it, if I stop moving I will die." I still swim regardless.

Net worth ticked up a bit. I reduced donations and will send the last tranche in August. The total donated from starting this initiative is looking to be about $67k.

We had the last snow of the season in May, so have been enjoying the return of spring. I've been planting spinach from seed harvested last year, inaugurated bubble season, and enjoyed a few free events around the city.

I went backpacking, portaging and outdoor rock climbing for the first time. I needed a big-ass backpack and my current one is too ratty and small. So I did the ERE thing and made a 60L backpack from old rice bags:



I used aluminium stiffener bars I scavenged years ago from an old mouldy rucksack (they were being used to prop up my Zoom backdrop), and foam padding saved from an old shipping box. Total weight: 414g without the bars, 650g with. I also needed a new weight bag built to handle 40+ kg as that wrecked my old backpack, so this will serve as such now that the trip is over.

The trip was fun too, though outdoor rock climbing ended up being more expensive and ultimately not as enjoyable as just paying for a local gym. Ironically, since I spent so long working a wilderness job I'm considered the best in my friend group at fieldcraft, but I don't really like being out in the wilderness. I just enjoy paddling around.

[mountainFrugal]

Sweet pack! Love it.

[theanimal]

That is awesome! It looks like you used 2 bags and stitched them together where they overlapped? Have you tested the weight capacity? Can it really hold 40+kg?

[candide]

26 days to go. I'm turning in my formal resignation Monday. I am excited!

Congratulations!

Your escape almost timed to U.S. Independence Day, though I understand as a Canadian that might not be that important to you. Though it was also that day in 1845 that Thoreau began his two years at Walden Pond.

I think July is a great time for new beginnings.

[basuragomi]

@mF, @theanimal, thanks! It actually is 7 bags put together, one for each face and one for straps and the internal H bracing (there are exterior handles at either end of the H for weightlifting purposes):



The internal dimensions are 32 cm wide x 30 cm deep x 60 cm tall = 58-62L depending on how much you let it deform from a rectangular cross-section. I've tested it jumping around with up to 35 kg and it took it like a champ, we've been dipping into the water stash lately so couldn't get quite to 40. One neat feature is that it fits a garbage bag almost perfectly, which makes a great drybag.

@candide my first day of freedom is Canada Day. Not so much independence as "administrative restructuring to build resilience against the inevitable American invasion" - there's probably still a good metaphor for ERE there.

[Gilberto de Piento]

I like the bag too! DIY outdoors gear is great.

[basuragomi]

June 2022 update



I've been busier than a crackhead with a crowbar lately, working a ridiculous 65 hours last week. Last day was Thursday but I was so busy wrapping up at work and preparing for a trip that walking out felt like any other quitting time at the office. So far the most emotional moment was deactivating my morning alarm. I don't think it will really hit me until Monday.

I feel a little bit resentful that my exit plan was really the way I could get out while maximizing "professional" capital. I would have liked more time to relax and chill out.

Net worth dropped considerably. I've finished incorporating and have my tenth-time gig sorted out, so the market has not really concerned me lately.

I finished up some internal reinforcement to my bag to make it useful for weightlifting.

I also replaced my bike tube. I swore years ago to patch it no matter what, so when I ditched it there were seven patches already! The final leak occurred underneath an existing patch, and only occurred at high pressure, so basically precluded me fixing it - I can't pump up the tube that high without the tire confining it when it already has patches on, and can't identify the offending patch with a tire around it. I also had no idea how I would fix it with a good chance of success. Alas.

[candide]

Happy Independence Day!