Early Retirement Extreme Forums

.

.

.

Hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong... the severity of missing shingles depends on the amount of snow/ice buildup you get in your locale. And how many layers of roofing are on your current roof.
Here in the valleys of the pacific northwest where it mostly rains, missing shingles are no big deal provided you can see roof coverage. But I can well imagine the havoc that an ice dam would cause if my area was prone to them.

I've considered laser eye surgery as well. I'm reaching the age (24) where my eyesight is stabilizing, and should remain stable for a decade or two, before the inevitable decline. I've been holding off and hoping the state-of-the-art continues to advance. If I decide on long-term travel or camping, I would get it done immediately. Personally I also think it's a better investment than the solar panels. One thing to consider is that there might be side-effects (the .001% that has something go seriously wrong, or 'starring' at night, or dry eyes).

"Where bullet holes literally appear in houses overnight--anyone seen The Wire?"
Yes, The Wire as absolutely great! I can recommend it. Though for non-native English speakers (like me) subtitles are advised due to the used slang
Good luck with your journey!

.

.

What have you decided as far as accelerated payments toward mortgage vs. investing more?

.

.

> (I was also able to rationalize this as a dating expense.
LOL, and so it should be! I started out with a hand-me-down queen mattress laying on the floor and didn't upgrade to a real bed and new mattress until I bought a house 10 years later. The new bed is still with me, 15 years later, but it's past due for a new mattress... think we'll treat ourselves to one soon (don't they go on sale in January?).

.

.

Great job! It looks like you have no problem meeting the financial related goals. I'm in a similar boat. I have all my finances on auto-pilot and need to start focusing on something else. I feel like I'm becoming a boring automaton waiting for my checks to come in so I can invest them and wait for them to compound all while eating rice and beans.
It's great that you have concrete goals for becoming an author. Is your long term goal to become fully FI, quit and write full-time without worrying about income? Or do you want to quit before becoming fully FI and use your writing to generate income?

.

Wow you get really big raises. Are these with promotions, or just performance increases in your current position?

.

That sounds pretty nice. In my company, you only get a real raise if you get a full-on promotion. So while you're in the same position our performance only has a small impact on our yearly salary increase. Everyone gets around 2-3%.

.