3 yrs to FI: ertyu's journal

[ertyu]

Did check it out, thanks PBW!

To address some of the things people mentioned above:

- Not interested in baking at this point. I have no oven or baking supplies and don't want to get any. I would like to move towards eating less sugary things rather than more, though obviously it's been a struggle. What can I say, I must come from some ancestors that were really really really successful at making it through famines.

- I have picked working on sewing now because the items i find myself in need of can be mostly made through sewing. I am also from a developing country and grew up poor, so I have basic clothing repair skills and this isn't the first time I hold a needle. I can sew a button and mend a hole. In addition, one can sew while sitting on one's butt and listening to podcasts. So, strange as it might be, sewing projects are actually more in my comfort zone than household repairs, which require tools I don't own and that I have never worked with before, and which also require physical labor.

Things I have made over the past week or so:

- new water bottle sock (disassembled old torn one and used it as pattern to cut up the pieces for the new one from salvaged t-shirt.
- a coin purse to replace the one that got stolen (literally 2 ractangles of sweatshirt material sewn together + zipper repurposed from ruined trousers)
- a laptop sleeve (also literally 2 rectangles of sweatshirt material sewn together. Sweatshirt material, I think I mentioned, is fairly thick and comes from some kid's former middle school uniform which I found curbside. Also used zipper from sweatshirt. Youtube featured multiple variations of, "diy pocket with zipper" tutorials.)

Overall, results aren't professional grade looking but are serviceable and can be used for purpose, so I am calling them a success. I also took my time to make the stitching secure. Overall, feeling good about how these turned out.

No longer planning to do:

- salvaged mattress foam into seat padding. Found a discarded pillow curbside, filled with small pieces of ordinary sponge, so pretty easily washable. Well, I washed it and am currently sitting on that. Mattress foam might instead go into a pair of house slippers - many nice indian ladies making tutorials about those, too.

Still to do:

- 2 pillow cases from second hand store piece of fabric + salvaged zippers (one from second kid uniform sweatshrt, one from the packaging for the comforter i bought.

- 1 pillow case from t-shirt pieces joined together.

- slippers

- found 2 shirts of good quality which fit curbside, but these have caulking stains on them. While the stains aren't large, there are multiple stains. If I could remove those and use the shirts, that would be nice. Of course, even if I can't remove the stains, I can still wear the shirts around the house. They're long-sleeved which will help with layering during the winter.

Also, I dipped into rent money to buy fruit and coffee. While I don't expect this to result in financial ruin, it does reiterate that the main threat to me pulling off ERE is currently my inability to control my appetites. I seem to be doing ok on the cheap rent front and on the DIY front (yes, I know I am still staying in my comfort zone, but baby steps. Or something.)

Edit to keep track of good intentions:

1 pillow done, 2 to go (1 large fabric with zipper, one small from t-shirt).
house slippers.
sleep mask.
covid cloth face mask.

[Zanka]

Been catching up on your journal today, so nice to see that you have been moving to your own place.

[Gilberto de Piento]

Also, I dipped into rent money to buy fruit and coffee.

Could the sewing be a source of income? It seems like you enjoy doing it. I see occasional social media posts asking for repairs and alterations. Maybe you could offset the food expenses with some basic patching jobs.

[Alphaville]

haha i also have ancestors who survived many famines and could use some weight loss, but i’m trying to convince my wife to learn how to work with enriched doughs (i concentrate on lean doughs).

this is for weekends only, because we like our fun and it’s better to diy than to pay a premium for someone to mix and cook flour, milk, eggs, butter, sugar, yeast, salt.

coffee is important and should not be fucked with. cheaper than meds too. i just had a cup and it’s suddenly a glorious morning

[ertyu]

@GdP: my current mood seems to be that as worried as I am about money, I'd much rather return to work full time for 1-2 years. Let's see if that will happen; corona has been changing many things lately especially for those who, like me, rely on geoarbitrage. Have discovered that I'd rather just bite my teeth and do my time, then loaf about and do nothing -- and also, that I really really don't want to go back to work.

Really, the part where I eat cheap and healthy, lose some weight (possible sleep apnea - I snore) and quit my 5 cups a day caffeine habit seems much preferable to figuring out how to earn money to service it. 2%WR is feasible if I am frugal, DIY to meet my needs, and don't spend money on crap. An example here is, this oily, bready feta cheese pastry I love for breakfast, even before the associated cup of coffee, costs the same as a lb of lentils + a carrot, a tomato, and a pepper. With the coffee, I've got a lb of nice basmati rice. A lb of rice + a lb of lentils + some veg to make it delicious is a meal which I actually like which can feed me for 2-3 days. I am just massively, massively inefficient and the reason isn't that I don't know what to do, but that even if I make a plan I somehow always manage to talk myself into getting the pastry. It's a 'get off sweets and junk food and don't overeat just because you feel like it" issue. I think people nailed it -- I used to self-medicate with food while I was working full time and now lizard brain is kicking and screaming and not wanting to give up large quantities of highly palatable shit which tastes good in favor of clean, frugal, self-cooked meals. A tub of caramel ice cream just tastes good, alright? We can always start again tomorrow. That sort of deal. Rational solutions don't work because the problem isn't rational. I've just learned this as a method to make myself happy and to feel good and lizard brain really isn't buying that it should be swapping it for jogging and lentils wih brown rice, even if all of youtube tells it that's going to make it feel way better .

[ertyu]

bahahaha @Alphaville you made me laugh so hard. "enriched doughnuts"

life is hard strength to us both

[Alphaville]

hahaha! thanks, i aim to amuse.

enriched dough, not doughnuts though ... basically there are 2 types of bread dough: lean and enriched.

lean dough: flour, water, yeast, salt
enriched dough: the above plus fat/emulsifiers/protein/sugar (milk, egg, butter, lard, etc, depending)

lean doughs are your baguettes, your pitas, your bagels, your rye boules, your sourdoughs, etc.
enriched dough yields some really fun shit like croissants, cinnamon rolls, brioches, etc. this is where the party happens.

i have thoughts about the self-medication angle, and some hypotheses, but i’ll mull it over a bit before spewing nonsense.

[ertyu]

Honestly, in my case I really think the issue is psychological. Rationally, I know eating cleaner and cheaper and not working is going to make me happier and healthier than working so I can afford to subsist entirely on coffee, pastries, pizza, and block cheese. But addiction is reliable whereas trying to get healthy might or might not lead to a better outcome at some point in the future. Furthermore, change hasn't worked in the past: I have sustained good habits, suffered through various withdrawals, only to find myself back on my bullshit. It's less motivating each successive time, because I have less and less faith that I would actually succeed. Further-furthermore, wouldn't losing weight and getting to the gym make my father right? Plus, we know that getting healthier might result in trying to seek happiness with other people, and as we all know, this is dangerous and that way lies psychological hot coal. So far so good with the textbook escapism--and then the depression whispers kinda quietly and in the background, but can't we just give up on all this struggle, be happy, and wait to die; if you're unhealthy you'll need less retirement savings because you'll need them for shorter anyways.

A lot of this is therapy-grade. Rationally, I also know that virtuous cycles are a thing that exists--that if I do manage to take off, it is possible to be proud of my accomplishments once I start feeling better, which I almost certainly will when my health improves and when I can start experiencing small "wins" wrt getting fitter and stronger. I am really very textbook case.

[Alphaville]

yeah i hear you there, and i agree with the root cause, but the failure as i see is not that the psychological issue exists-- the failure is how it's being treated.

have you considered that a moralistic self-flogging approach to indulgence-denial... might be part of the problem in itself? i'm not saying "go ahead an eat a kilo of butter sugar," but rather try to examine and address what is behind the craving.

i don't think it's so much "lizard brain from the past" but rather not feeling good *today* that is driving you to compensate with cookies. and then you blame yourself for not being tough enough/ere enough/not going to the gym/ etc.

this judgmental attitude in my view is at the core of the depression itself. {ETA: *and i say this from personal experience*}. the fingerpointing and scolding of a lifetime gets internalized and runs automatically in an infinite loop. which drains you of neurotransmitters. which get replenished by fat sugar and salt. which fuels the blamebox again. ad infinitum. exhausting!

how about trying something else for a change? no charge i promise

[AxelHeyst]

Oh hell, just realized I'm not subbed to your journal. Fixed.

Hey so obviously the psychological therapy-level stuff is root-cause and ought to be addressed with greatest attention and immediacy. I have two cents to offer on habits, which occurred to me in catching up on the last couple pages:

Fixing all the habits at once is hard! If you can handle the pain of hammering through the early part of the sigmoid curve, yeah it's faster/better. But obviously that isn't working out. Going from 5 cups of coffee to zero, PLUS going from 5 slices of cake to lentil gruel only, PLUS cold showers PLUS...., god man that sounds horrible. I don't think James Clear could pull that off.

I wonder if, *in addition to focusing most of your energies on the psychological root issues*, taking a graduated ramp-down approach to negative habits would be helpful, or at least less psychologically traumatizing? It's almost like your setting an impossible goal for yourself, and then using your inevitable failure to ascend Mt Everest from your couch in a day as a reason to lock yourself back in ("See? Knew it. You're a failure. Don't even try"). The impossible goal-setting is part of your self-sabotage, it's Prime Strategy Numero Uno.

When I want to cut alcohol out, from being habituated to 2-4 drinks a night, I buy sparkling water and put it in a rocks glass and drink that every night. Is that my end goal? No, but the fizzy water soothes the "I need a drink" cravings enough so that I (probably) don't cave, and after a couple weeks of that I stop buying fizzy water. And - I won't stack any other habit changes on top of that.

So maybe, forget everything else: drink all the coffee you want, take hour-long hot showers, BUT, find a couple palatable foods that aren't quite as expensive and packed with sugar as the fancy cakes down the street. Butter and honey on a flour tortilla. Honey on cornbread. Toast and jam. Whatever you can keep on hand that will still provide some of that "treat" vibe, and you can have as much of that stuff as you want. Is that the end goal? Obviously not, #lentilgruelislife, but it's a step in the right direction while being more attainable. After a few weeks of that, you may realize you haven't craved the fancy cakes in a few days, and have spent slightly less on food.

And then maybe, do a similar scaled experiment with coffee. Don't go off coffee, just do 4 cups a day.

[Alphaville]

my suggestion for the root cause, outside of professional settings or support groups, would be to experiment with radical kindness to one’s self. no judgment, no blame, no condemnation; but simply acceptance, compassion, understanding, forgiveness. it’s hard to do when one is programmed by blame and shame, but it can be quite a revolutionary and mind-blowing experience.

[7Wannabe5]

As somebody who has been on and off the pastries for years, one thing I have learned is that it is helpful to take a minute to thank the pastries for the pleasure and coping mechanism they provided for you while you were focused on other priorities or processing traumas.

Another thought structure you might consider is thinking about the microbes in your gut that thrives on such treats and produces cravings as your current enemy number one. You are not depriving yourself of the treat. You are depriving the doughnut loving microbes of the treat. Hunger pangs are just the feeling associated with your successful kill off of the microbes like in a video game.

[Alphaville]

As somebody who has been on and off the pastries for years, one thing I have learned is that it is helpful to take a minute to thank the pastries for the pleasure and coping mechanism they provided for you while you were focused on other priorities or processing traumas.

alléluia! hallowed be the éclair

also there’s such thing as not eating for stress, but for sheer enjoyment... which is what you can do when you’re relaxed and at peace and in france

[ertyu]

This happened to an american friend of mine and was shared elsewhere. I am copying it here so it may be a reminder to myself.

The shower broke, apparently stuff was stripped. More work than what I can do so I called a plumber and my grandma has saved all of grandpa's stimulus money to do this and the kitchen sink. They quoted her an estimate of $200 for the shower alone plus a service call fee of $95 an hour and didn't say anything on the sink. She agreed to that fee and the estimate. They were here an hour and a half, left for an hour to get a part, came back and worked 20 more minutes. Said they couldn't do the sink today. Gave a price of $349. Grandma lost her shit. I've never seen her lose it on strangers like this before. She went final evolution karen on them. Like, they charged us for the hour they were gone, they went to the next big town twenty minutes away for the part which was dumb since there is an Ace Hardware here but I dunno, maybe they didn't have it. I told grandma to relax and asked them to break down the charges. She got more insane and told me to pay them then. I told them, they got here at 9, left at 10:30, came back at 11:30, he went to his van at 11:50, and sat there for 15 minutes writing up our bill. It isn't okay to charge three hours of work when it isn't there but that I wasn't going to yell about it. Grandma haaated I said that of course. She refused to pay. He brought it down to $299. Which I think is appropriate. $200 estimate with $95 service fee of actually one hour. Which they worked at least a solid hour and fifty minutes. She still refused to pay and he wasn't leaving without payment so I maxed out my credit card to fucking pay him.

If you don't have skills, you're prey. I'm out of my comfort zone when it comes to household and electrical repairs that go beyond the basics, mostly because they make me feel weak and bumbling and incompetent, and with electricity in particular because it was ingrained into me from an early age that I may watch my father work, but people who do not know what they are doing must never touch anything electrical upon risk of death. 350 dollars for a shower. RIP.

Edit to add: after watching some youtube videos it seems like the biggest issue is caused by crap screws that corrode in place and then either need to be drilled out or the shower handle needs to be broken off. Might be a good idea to replace these occasionally to avoid this.

[Hristo Botev]

Really good illustration of how over specialization and a consumer mindset can screw you.

[Alphaville]

If you don't have skills, you're prey. I'm out of my comfort zone when it comes to household and electrical repairs that go beyond the basics, mostly because they make me feel weak and bumbling and incompetent, and with electricity in particular because it was ingrained into me from an early age that I may watch my father work, but people who do not know what they are doing must never touch anything electrical upon risk of death. 350 dollars for a shower. RIP.

if i may offer a third option: if you don't have the skills or tools or authorization, you can a) still understand what's going on, b) find a trusted professional who works for less, rather than work with a generic outfit from the yellow pages.

in my rental i don't have to worry about any of this, the owner takes care of everything. i have 24h maintenance and i'm actually penalized if i touch stuff.

in the area where i have my cabin, i have a number of family acquaintances who perform various services for a lot less money

one is a licensed electrician who worked for the state. only he can connect my meter to the utilities. i understand how the electrical system works and have worked alongside him as his helper, but he's the pro and won't burn my house down. also, i pay for his supplies tax free, so i get a discount.

another is a welder who worked for the state. he helped me rig my wood stove and did other work for me with gear i don't own or could hurt myself with. included in the price was a sandwich and a cup of coffee.

another is a mechanic who used to work for a chevy dealer and saved me a tow with a $2.50 bolt. he also moonlights in semi-retirement.

another is a mechanic who works in a shop for immigrants and low income people and doesn't have a diploma but has been working in cars since he was a little kid and charges 50% from the other shops.

in every case here (except for the welding) i know and understand what's going on, i get a good price, and i'm allowed to help/purchase parts/bring my parts.

i guess it's part social capital (knowing people and getting along with them) part intellectual capital (knowing how it works).

e.g., i know how a car works, i can do some repairs, i lack tools + skills for *every* repair, i know when i'm being scammed, i can use this knowledge to identify a good value, i have social networks to help find it.

we can never do *everything,* but we can improve our odds of finding a good deal with a bit of knowledge.

if your dad is an electrician i'd ask for an introduction to his buddies.

[Stahlmann]

viewtopic.php?p=203543#p203543

Above post was fascinating. Any new developments in heterodox goal achievement psychology?

And where is your magnum opus about anti CBT? Write something on what helped on you and start your own school of psychology. At least start with 50 page .mobi on Amazon. (just kidding).

(On more serious note, I can't find what have worked for you. I also tend to be very stiff guy on many mainstream things.)

[ertyu]

So, it appears I have put in an offer on a 1 bedroom flat. €40k. At verbal agreement stage - nothing is signed, no papers have gone through, etc., but if I were to buy a flat in my home town this is precisely the flat I want, in the building/neighborhood I want. It's close to the central park and to the regional university, which makes me hope if I do want to sell in the future, it will keep its value. with all associated fees etc., this will be 20% of my NW. Repairs to be done, as well (not included in %NW calculation). There is a worrysome burst pipe in the kitchen ceiling that is likely to be problematic. Other than that, all furnishings are from 1970 . I plan to keep the flat as close to its original condition as possible. E.g. it is currently fashionable to rip out the wooden window frames and replace them with PVC plastic windows -- which, by the time I'm ready to sell, will have depreciated and would contribute nothing to the resale value of the flat as the new owner is likely to want to rip them out, too.

A minor good point is that I am inheriting the flat as it comes, after an old guy died. Treasures to be found in drawers At the very least I will have things to do and skills to develop fixing it up

Another good point: as the apartment is in a good building in an affluent part of town, it is likely to be safe if I go work abroad again (which I think I should, to pay for flat).

[Alphaville]

nice! and congrats?

i hate depressing surroundings, so “good part of town” is a huge plus in my view...

[guitarplayer]

Great stuff ertyu! Happy for you.

I especially like the bit about treasures to be found in drawers. While at uni, friends were renting a huge flat in one of the old buildings in the city centre. They managed to fish out a(n old WW2?) tea spoon with a swastika on it from one of the storage rooms. I don't necessarily wish you to find such teaspoons, but dabbling with old things can be exciting.