Vaikeasti to ERE - Family Journal

[Vaikeasti]

@jacob, thank you for that! I have to check out those links with proper thought.
So thinking about what others will think of me when acting in a certain way is Keagan level 3 then?
And that's average. I am pretty average on many standards but it is always nice to have scientific explanations for that.

If I understood correctly:
Keagan 1 would be just existing and not thinking? Reacting maybe?
Keagan 2 Me thinking of myself (I'm so clumsy)
Keagan 3 Me thinking of Bob (Bob is nice)
Keagan 4 Me thinking of what Bob is thinking of me (Bob probably thinks I'm clumsy)
Keagan 5 Me thinking of what Bob is thinking I think of him (Bob probably thinks I hate him 'cause I sneered at my clumsiness while he was looking)
Keagan 6 Me thinking of what Bob is thinking about my thoughts of his thoughts about me (I wonder if Bob detests me because he thinks I hate him)

I guess that is oversimplifying things too much.

[Vaikeasti]

I went through our expenses so far this year. They are not as detailed as I would like because I've been avoiding all money related issues this year.

In 2018 I still managed some how to write down our expenses once a quarter or so. I think it's interesting to notice that it took me several years of neglected finances and over half a year of not thinking about money and at least two very consumerist friends to start having consumerist thoughts. It was really scary to lose myself like that. I hope never to experience that again. Then again hopefully this helps me find a balance between these two. I don't want to live my life a consumerist but I don't want be a grumpy tightwad either. A happy frugal person I guess?

But back to basics, our expenses from January to August:
Averaged monthly expense (1..8 months sum/8) / percent of total / extrapolated total for the year (averaged month*12) in euros
490 / 12% / 5875 cabin (electricity, water, taxes, mortgage, internet for the security cam etc.)
190 / 4.6% / 2250 car (diesel, some repairs, taxes)
340 / 1% / 510 charity (we have had a goal of ~600 euros/year for charity)
150 / 0.5% / 225 clothes (this year we’ve bought seven pairs of new shoes)
190 / 4.6% / 2240 fun (this year we’ve done some extraordinary spending, includes all memberships and old hobbies too)
65 / 1.6% / 790 gifts (birthdays mostly, average 20+-10€/gift)
680 / 17% / 8130 groceries (we’ve been eating too much processed stuff lately..)
260 / 6.4% / 3120 hardware store (mostly renovations at the cabin but something for the car and home too)
45 / 1% / 550 health (doctor and dentist visits)
720 / 18% / 8660 home (electricity, water, taxes, mortgage, internet etc.)
insurance (house, cabin, kids health insurances and car, also a insurance on the home mortgage, I should see if that’s still mandatory)
180 / 4.5% / 2180 kids (yeah, totally spoiling the kiddos)
340 / 8.3% / 4055 misc (not really sure where this went..)
60 / 1.5% / 720 pharmacy
35 / 0.9% / 415 phones (I should ask around about these prices again)
255 / 6.2% / 3045 restaurants (I eat at school regularly and SO eats out almost every work day due to travel and odd work hours, and we eat out too often also)
62 / 1.5% / 735 transport (local public transport and a few longer train trips)

There was also a funeral which we had to pay for ( grave and such) estimated total cost 3000€ of which we got back around 2000€. (If anyone is interested I will gladly open these expenses in more detail. But roughly I would say ~2000€ is the cheapest you can do regarding death in Finland. Unless you don’t care at all, then you can either take shortcuts to around 1500€ or walk away and roll over all expenses to the state.)

There was also some debt collecting fees of 75.50€, because I missed a bill. I would categorize this as stupidity, but I hope I don’t need a category for that!

Total monthly average: 4090€
Extrapolated yearly expense: 49 080€ (around 50 000€, that’s huge!)

Looking at this I can see few easy places to trim (phones, insurance) and I can totally see the stress and fatigue taking it’s toll too (fun, kids, eating, misc).

Our liquid and semi-liquid assets are at 44 000€ so I could say we have around a years worth saved.

[jacob]

If I understood correctly:
Keagan 1 would be just existing and not thinking? Reacting maybe? *Yes, like an infant*
Keagan 2 Me thinking of myself (I'm so clumsy) *Yes*
Keagan 3 Me thinking of Bob (Bob is nice) *No, that's also Kegan2.*
Keagan 4 Me thinking of what Bob is thinking of me (Bob probably thinks I'm clumsy) *This is Kegan3. Recognizing that other people have independent thoughts.*
Keagan 5 Me thinking of what Bob is thinking I think of him (Bob probably thinks I hate him 'cause I sneered at my clumsiness while he was looking) *Kegan4, now being able to change your persona based on what others think in a given situation.*
Keagan 6 Me thinking of what Bob is thinking about my thoughts of his thoughts about me (I wonder if Bob detests me because he thinks I hate him) *Kegan5, now being able to influence others and their relationships based on what they think you think.*

That is a simplification as it considers only one other person in the universe. When there are more, higher Kegan levels also account for relationships between those persons. This is not present at lower levels. For example, Kegan2 does not have relationships because there's no awareness/concern for the other person relating back. There's just a one-sided relation. Kegan4 is capable of being a different person dependent on which other person they have a relationship with. Kegan3 is always the same person regardless of which other person they have a relationship with. Kegan5 is capable of changing the relationships depending on which relationship they relate to.

[Nuuka]

To be honest, the cabin looks pretty expensive. Is there possibility to lower monthly electricity cost by turning off heating when not in use?

[Vaikeasti]

@jacob, thank you for the clarifications.

So Kegan5 would be ( Alice would be thrilled if she’d hear that Bob hates me for hating him.)
Or
(I wonder what Bob would think if I tried explaining that he misinterpreted the situations and is unjustly hating me?)
Or is that still Kegan5?

I find it a little reassuring that the pokerology link seems to state that thinking above level 3 is usually overdoing it.

I did a little digging and our areas public library has one Kegan’s book, but not the one you mentioned. But I did manage to download The Evolving Self through my schools connection with an e-library. It’s going to be a real challenge to read it as it seems to be very high on theory and difficult english. (As is to be expected of course.) We’ll see when I get around reading it. I was planning on re-reading the ERE book and I must read some books regarding my thesis. :roll

While searching for the book I found this site that gave me some new food for thought. I’ll have to re-read it with time. It messed up my view on the Kegan levels. https://medium.com/@NataliMorad/how-to- ... 3f4311b553

@Nuuka, thank you for your input!
I've suspected that the cabin is very expensive but I haven't yet managed to compare with any data.
It's the maintenace fees of the electricity (35eur/m) and the water (25eur/m) that are especially expensive I think.
Property tax is 145eur a year (this will probably rise since it doesn't account for the running water yet) and the security camera is 1eur/m.
I've included our mortage (270eur/m) as an expense as well.
So thats ~345eur/m or 4120eur/year even if we never visited there.
And that doesn't include the mandatory waste disposal fee or the fee for docking of our row boat. And maybe some other fees that I just can't remember right now?
And SO has been there almost every weekend so far which means there are actual electricity bills and such.

It is true, as has been said, that I really need to take the time to look at this expense critically.
There must be cheaper way to achieve the same results.

[Vaikeasti]

We had a small conversation about future with my SO and it has left me feeling quite disheartened. We promised to elaborate on this with time. And we have scheduled the time to be in a few weeks. (Living with small children time really flows differently and faster than I'd like.)

I'll just write down some points and elaborate them maybe later.
Kids social and educational schedule has a few natural sweet points where to relocate and make bigger changes. (Starting kindergarden/school ect.)
With us those sweet spot are:
Next summer (6-8/2020) for all of us
Summer of 2021 (6-8/2021) kinda for all of us
The next sweet spot will be in 6-12/2030 and a partial one in 8/2025-8/2026. So now really is the best time figure out what we want and where and when.

Of course it is possible to change things at other times too but the cost of change is significantly lower at those times.

Whats driving up the costs of change:
-me not having a drivers licence
-SOs demand for the e-car if moving out of urban area
-all the stuff we've accumulated
-the cabin
-being lazy and scared
-healthcare issues

[Nuuka]

If you move out of town, unless you can find your next home in a suburb/village with a close (walking distance) kindergarten and school, you will need 2 cars and 2 drivers. With one car and one driver there are too much logistics and timing dependencies to resolve and it will soon start to annoy you both.

As to the reliable family carrier e-car, it will cost at least 30-40k€. One alternative is to go for hybrid such as Toyta Prius/Auris wagon which is very reliable, you can get pre-owned for 8-15 k€. If you don’t count global warming hysteria, there is no reason for full e-car, hybrid is better from tax and operational (heating) point of view in Finland.

[Vaikeasti]

@Nuuka, Those are precisely some of the concerns I'm having. I do not have a satisfatory solution to those problems yet.

[Aspirant]

Thank you for your journal. I was excited to find someone writing from Finnish perspective. And now there are two Finns

I am wrestling with some of the same issues that you have, so it’s nice to see your insights.

It’s really hard to scale back lifestyle inflation. I also got tired and expenses started to creep up.

[Vaikeasti]

@Aspirant, thank you. I must caution you that I'm on a very low level and most likely will not succeed. Ever. At anything.

And I think there are more than two finns in here but most are acting more like proper finns and not talking so much.

[Vaikeasti]

There's still over a week for the datenight with SO where I'm planning on having the talk again. Feels such a long time but then again maybe I'll manage to prepare my case a little.

At the moment my thoughts are that the current situation does not encourage full time employment. I wish to work only part time when my kids are in kindergarden and have managed that quite well so far. My SO is also thinking of asking for a four day work week. But being bit of a workaholic that means doing five days worth of work in four days...
I hope the extra day off would give more energy to SO and that some of it could benefit the kids too. I still have some mourning to do over the fact that our familylife is not what I envisioned. (Mental health issues take a huge toll on our energy levels.)

My long term (next five years) plan at the moment is to have us both work part time and spend as much time with the kids as possible.
Strive for FI when they're both in school.

Short term plans (next year) include:
Finish my own school
Think about what I want of life.
Take a writing and sewing class.
Increase physical activity. (I got sore muscles from bouncing on a see-saw the other day!)
Decrease spending and all sort of clutter in our life.

What has happened recently:
-Returned a homework assignment on time! (I've been putting it off due to general anxiety)
-Started a study group with classmates (increases motivation and the chances of graduating)
-Successfully delegated away certain monthly meetings (means I lose part of that income stream but reduces a lot of stress, and I still have an option to get back)
-Succesfully attented one meeting (lifted my spirit a little and a small income)
-Cancelled some unneeded insurance (savings ~600eur/year)
-Started to prepare for christmas (I'm practicing my knitting skills by trying to make some socks and mittens for presents. Last year we tried the one present per person christmas in my side of the family but that didn't go as well as hoped. But it was still a good step in the right direction.)

[Aspirant]

”My SO is also thinking of asking for a four day work week. But being bit of a workaholic that means doing five worth of days work in four days... ”

This is exactly where I am at the moment. Spending less time at work will shatter the last remnants of retirement savings. But it might benefit other life goals (spending more time with family and getting fitter).

[Vaikeasti]

@Aspirant, going from full week to four days is a big pay cut (1/5=20%) so I can totally understand the reluctance to try it. If it means eating away your savings I would highly guestion if it is worth it. Then again spending time with your family is valuable in it self.

Our expences regarding the cabin renovations have really soared but I'm still hoping (read: lying to myself) that the extra day off would give SO more energy to find cheaper solutions to those problems.
At the moment we have a very low savings rate but I am working only a few days a week. If we would both work for four days a week we would probably be saving more and have more energy so I'd consider it a win-win for us.

[Nuuka]

Three days allows stress level come way down if you compare to normal 2 day weekend.

From my experience, the employer and the co-workers don’t remember someone is on 4 day week. But you can always say that ”I am on 4 day week so things may pile up on Friday, so if you are busy let me know in advance earlier on the week”. This excuse means actually pushing the hurry back to its source.

[Vaikeasti]

@Nuuka, I too think the extra day off gives more to relaxing than 24 hours.

I got free winter boots from our local craigslist equivalent. They're pretty dry and have a few tears from the dryness so I don't know if I'll be able to rescue them. (Never done any shoe maintenance other than sporadic polishing.) But they are in better shape than my old pair (safety boots, paid by employer, used for 7 years). It is getting too cold and wet to walk in summer shoes so my motivation on fixing either pair is rising constantly.
I realized that 7 years ago I thought that real boots were too heavy for me but now they seem very natural.

I've spent money on food on the go thanks to bad planning. Many expenses could be lowered with proper planning and routines. I usually carry some snacks with me but if I'm in a group I find it very difficult to not go with the crowd. I need to plan some ways to deal with this.

I enjoyed a few days with a good friend and had some nice conversations about future goals and I think I accidentally gave some new ideas about spending money. I told that most of my kids toys are from our craigslist equivalent. I think the idea of looking for specific items used was appealing but we'll see how the different time frame of that versus just walking to the store works in their case.

I've taken a few small steps toward my thesis. So far I'm not behind on any subjects at school. I will enjoy this nice feeling while it lasts.

I've started rereading the ERE book. I tried and failed at wolfs idea of thinking up new ideas about every page. I tried and failed even at writing down thoughts on every page. But at least I'm still reading. This second round feels very different from the first. It not constant moments of enlightenment this time but more like soothing my soul with acceptance. It's delightful to see how many of my current values and world views are actually from ERE.
Reading has strengthened my "fake it till you make it"-mindset. That in order to become something you just need to start acting accordingly. Family father made the point somewhere in his journal on visualization and on reviewing what went well. And I found the NATO attitude (Not Attached To Outcome) really insightful.
Reading and rethinking has also made me really question how I wish my kids to grow up. Is it really easier to be a conventional consumerist or could it be that it is especially important for your kids to learn to look at the bigger picture? Kids have the ability to be flexible and enjoy the free things until we teach them that spending money equals happiness. By my empirical studies I postulate that kids have to be taught to expect gifts wrapped in paper or to eat cake at parties or to look at videos nonstop.
(I also did the math and by that calculation I have managed to roughly keep half the money that I've ever been given. I was actually positively surprised by this. I also calculated that at I'm never going to be FI or RE with the current way of things.)

This is my motivational phrase at the moment:
Of course you can do it. There are no laws of physics that forbid it. Or laws of society either.

I've been thinking about why I chose my current career. People used to ask me that and I didn't know the answer. But I think I can now see a few reasons:
Dream of an off the grid sustainable house + no desire or capital to outsource the building process -> the need to learn about buildings and construction
the self build goal + no knowledge of construction + no self control to self study -> go to school to study construction
Construction themed school + the wish for an indoor office job -> engineering school

I was a janitor before and I used to bike from one site to another. My colleague took pride in driving all the occasional heavier loads of equipment to the sites and all of the normal tools were at the sites all the time. I think it was a mutually beneficial arrangement. But the biking was still highly discouraged by my boss.
There were many good things in being a janitor: work was quite autonomous and physically but not mentally demanding; you got to see instant results and feel useful; you could leave work at the site at the end of the day (this was not completely true, we were on call from time to time); clothes being provided by the employer; the possibility to visit government offices etc. easily (shifts also on evenings and weekends meant that I was off duty during office hours for ~50% the month); pay by hour and extra pay on evenings, nights and Sundays was really motivating for me.
But the pay was quite low and there was no way to advance in my career or to affect the work in any meaningful way. Also the need to operate at high output in any situation or weather and the bad supply of temporary employees was quite strenuous.
There were other problems too with myself and the working environment and I burnt out. The cost of staying in that situation was so great that change was easy. (Still I do not advice anyone to get burnt out in order to make changes "easier". )

EDIT: Or maybe I'm giving myself too much credit. I might have just read the ERE blog post about Myths and future and taken it a bit too literally:

The future “degrees” will be in construction and engineering.

[Vaikeasti]

I've recently had an urge to study. Though mostly it has manifested in me reading around the forum but sometimes I have managed to slip in some ERE book and some background material for the thesis. If only I would find time to study the actual school subjects...
Reading the forum has been both enlightening and devastating. I'm really in such a low "level" that I easily get discouraged when I read about how people that are not almost experts should shut up and go read things before posting. And there are some threads that just make me feel sick since the discussion is so mean or thoughtless.
I feel contrary ideas are vital to personal growth so I guess the idiot/thoughtful post ratio suffers as a side effect of allowing such a wide range of free speech. And as the saying goes: there's always a possibility for conflict when more than one person is involved.
Still it makes me sad.

I bought an on-the-go breakfast with the kids one morning. They wanted some donuts topped with sweet popcorn but I told them they were too messy go eat on the road. In the evening I went to the store and bought some donuts. We made popcorn at home and I coated them with colored sugar+syrup ooze. I failed to take out the unpopped popcorns so eating the sugar popcorn mess was quite unpleasant. The kids were still delighted. If there is a next time I'm going to try making the donuts from scratch too. I'm almost certain that just buying the donuts they wanted would have been cheaper but I truly believe this experimenting, learning and spending time together we had cannot be calculated only financially.

I took the kids to see my parents dog (it's old and not going to last long and it was it's birthday). I bought treats for all of us. I haven't looked in to homemade dog treats but I certainly could've squeezed time to bake a pie for us humans. Buying gifts and sweets are certainly areas of growth for me. In my family giving stuff has been the primary sign of affection and I can see I carry that with me. I usually give (homemade or store bought) pies/cookies if I do not know what the other person actually wants. Some times I have managed to visit a friend or a relative without bringing anything so I feel it is my own demand and not my hosts. It is mostly an inner demand that comes from low self esteem that makes me try an "earn" my worth. It is definitely an issue that requires closer attention at some point.
SOs primary language of affection is clearly doing. SO keeps pointing at things I haven't done. And whenever I try to point out things I am not satisfied with in our life, it results in SO doing the laundry.

I also seem to have a weird relation with pharmacies. My kid was sick so I went to pharmacy and asked they give something for the symptoms. They strongly suggested seeing a doctor but did give something. I bought the medicine but ended up (again) not administering it to the kid. Seemed to fair fine without it. This is completely unnecessary spending. Why do buy things I know I most certainly will not use? My guess at the moment is that it is some kind of magical thinking (like if you carry an umbrella with you it's not going to rain). Also there could be a paranoid aspect to it. Knowing that doctors can see your pharmacy records makes me want to look like a normal symptom treating "good parent". I do not want be mistaken for an anti-vaccine person.

I slipped up and gave in to peer pressure at work. I signed on to a workplace well being trip. It's basically a partly company payed 3-day vacation (Company pays for the flights and the hotel and one dinner). I got really stressed afterwards for all the uncertainties and the fact that I really do not like travelling. I do not enjoy being in large crowds, being somewhere where I cannot understand people around me, being in an unfamiliar surrounding, knowing I'm probably breaking some local social norms, spending money on myself, not knowing expenses in advance etc.
I am also pretty environmentally challenged so the idea of flying some where just to look at stuff and to network with colleagues was distressing.
But thankfully the HR contacted me and it seems I signed on too slow and so I did not fit to their quota and I'm being left out. I told them it was a win-win because I realized I really didn't want to come.

I checked our electricity bills for last month (September)
We used around 190 kWh at home and 350 kWh at the cabin. Both seem like there are some easy trimmings to be done.

I've also been thinking about our date-night. I've been trying to translate my objectives to SOs language. (Biggest difficulty is figuring out my objectives actually.) I casually said the other day that buying stuff used or making things yourself from used stuff is good practice for SHTF situations when bartering and DIY is the only possibility. I'll ask whether this idea resonated or not during our date-night. I also forced a discussion where we calculated how much we spend on soda and how much we would need to buy soda company shares to be "FI" on soda. The number was actually pretty low and they idea of having "free company paid soda for life" really appealed to SO. I'm thinking about enduring this date-night and doing the typical movies and dinner or the sorts and reserving a new night soon to force SO to actually invest in the soda companies. I hope there will be a positive effect if the shares and dividends are under SOs name.

[Nuuka]

When I have to make decisions and choices I try to formulate them in a form of two-dimensional value-analysis table.

The columns are quality of life (QoL) criteria, i.e what you want to achieve in life, such as more free time, cost saving, increase income, less travel, environment, spirituality, community,...

Rows are your past and future choices that are being considered to be changed.
At intersections you can use ++, +, 0, -, — symbols as how well choices support particular QoL criteria.
Thus you can calculate scores of pluses,subtracted with minuses for choices and also for criteria.

This analysis will reveal if you have right choices under discussion.

[Vaikeasti]

@Nuuka, thanks for reminding me of that tool. I've recently only used "which choise would I regret the least" and "what if I knew I was dying in a week/month/year/five years time" to guide my decisions.

Date night went well. We didn't engage in very deep discussion but that was expected. I talked too much as usual.

We talked about sustainability and SO listed things we are already doing (avoiding air travel, avoiding new clothes, recycling..) and suggested things we could buy to be less taxing on the environment. (Bio-fuel, e-car, hectares of forest or moss to offset our footprint.) I tried to hint that maybe buying is not the answer...

Talking to SO often makes me feel so stupid and frustrated. We are on different planes on many things. But there are things in common too.

And we managed to get the soda company shares bought SO's name. Oh, the rejoicing there was. I blame myself for not forcing SO to doing this earlier.

PS. I saw a thread here where

Now for the ~5 people in the world that have an interest in both the finance and ecological aspects of ERE..

That can't be right. Right?

There was an ERE indicator there so I wanted to calculate that:

To compute, take each independent source(*) of dollar income and divide it by total expenses. If the number is >1, reduce to 1. Add them together.--(*) Obviously a source of debate.

At the moment:
student allowance= 0,08
My job income = 0,15
board of directors 1 = 0,003
board of directors 2 = 0,005
board of directors 3 = 0,02
investments = 0,009
SO job income = 0,63
= 0,897

Well, that is. Um. Shouldn't two people that save something make the number around two? Below one means we would be spending from our savings if SO wouldn't constantly work overtime (that extra income is not in the numbers). That's a bit disturbing. EDIT: I didn't calculate the student allowance because it's basically a loan so that explains how the number is so low but were still not using our savings,

I'll have to calculate the consumer part in another time because I don't have my data sorted in the necessary way.
But I have been doing comparisons to the Finnish average spending for a few years.
In Finland the average spending (also the average income) was 29 540 eur in 2017 (that's 32 965 USD). So that's 20 k eur per person or the same amount as Fish got in USD.
Statistics Finland uses 0,5 times the expenses per the next adult (or person over 14yrs) and 0,3 for all children aged 0-13 years.
So that makes 30k eur for a couple or 42k eur for a couple with two kids.

EDIT:
Checked that we've used 940eur on fuel in the past 9 months. That's over 100 eur per month or 1255 eur for the whole year. That's maybe a bit too big sum for a next step (in being FI of) for my SO. Hm.

[Nuuka]

I also hold some shares of a distillery company to compensate for my consumption patterns

[Vaikeasti]

A short update of what I've spent money on lately:
60eur for the date night restaurant (we used to have a budget of 100eur/month for spending like this, before kids..)
30eur on yarn (I have a way too big inventory of yarn as it is and they weren't really on sale or cheap or anything.)
8uer evening picnic with the kids
15eur for a "Halloween" party for the kids and a few of their friends (bought candy, pumpkin and such)
20eur for take out after a field trip with the kids
40eur of spontaneous shopping with the kids (bought my very first mango for example). This should have not happened, we didn't have the time or the money, but I was tired, cold, stressed and so on. Made me wonder how often does this happen and if I just haven't realized because I haven't been writing things down before. On the bright side this event gave me the motivation to locate my winter clothes and start wearing them. Though the shoes are still waiting to be dealt with..

Made it to school on several occasions this past week. Some studying happened also. Mostly I spent time reading or arranging my calendar or talking to school mates. I actually ended up talking to a school mate for over four consecutive hours one day. And at the time we had to stop we were just starting to get to topics we might disagree on. It was really refreshing talking to someone that shared the similar views on so many topics. The feeling when someone actually understands anything you say. The delight you get from talking about topics you find interesting and without needing to censor yourself all the time.
I'm still hoping to find a person that I could talk to about anything with negligible censor and feel like I'm being understood and accepted even if we'd disagree. I used to have lengthy discussions about reality and moral and such with one friend of mine and that was really close. Maybe some day. I know I'm not yet that person who can always shine the light of acceptance to someone even while disagreeing on topics.