ERE is Path to Meaningful Life - MMM style FI year 4

[suomalainen]

Man, that is stunning. Where is that?

[Stasher]

It is located on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, I tend to not leave the island and even the province that much as it is such a beautiful, rugged and wild place. I have been doing my best to experience so many remote destinations on the island over the last 10 years and have managed to only cover about half the region.

There is a lifetime of outdoor pursuits before me yet, this is where I focus my time and energy which is in greater supply thanks to ERE.

[mooretrees]

vancouverfruittree.com/

Found this and thought of you, go get that free fruit!!!

[Stasher]

vancouverfruittree.com/
Found this and thought of you, go get that free fruit!!!

Gleaning and food waste programs are huge here, the sustainable community in our region is amazing and inspiring. No lack of apples in the fall around these parts, thanks for this link and for the others who might read it. On that same topic here is a great program a little closer to me @moretrees

https://cowichangreencommunity.org/fruit-save/

[suomalainen]

@thef0x I think you did a good job on touching on 2017 for me when I finally left work, life extinguishes in an instant before our eyes and wasting a single precious moment for an arbitrary number that may or may not be realistic is flawed. I was 42 and my Uncle unexpectedly died at 52 and within a month of that my Dad died at 62. It was an immediate F this moment knowing that every minute I waited to stack an extra dollar on the pile was another minute I lost in a finite continuum that is my lifetime.

I may have had maybe 8% SWR accumulated at the time but I knew we would figure it out, that life would go on and I wanted to embrace as much of it as possible. Interestingly enough, I have experienced more places, more people and more activities in the last 8 years than I could have ever imagined. I have worked a fraction of what i did before that realization yet here I sit with 4% SWR accumulated.

Can you write more about this time of your life? Where your kids were at, what the move was like, etc? It's rare to have forumites in your/our age bracket and with kids, etc., so more voices like yours are awesome to hear.

[Henry]

Can you write more about this time of your life? Where your kids were at, what the move was like, etc? It's rare to have forumites in your/our age bracket and with kids, etc., so more voices like yours are awesome to hear.

You know, I'm figuring most people are like me. They come to Stasher's thread to look at the pretty pictures and take a moment out from the banality and horror of everyday life. And don't take this personally, but you're one of those people who hold up the line in art museums because you got to stop and read every stupid fucking wall plaque and discuss what fuck it means with your piece of ass girlfriend who's probably just Rorshaching your dick into every thing she's looking at. Now, maybe I'm wrong and we can compromise and just have a picture thread of ERE people enjoying the fuck out of their life without the constant fucking Q&A.

[ertyu]

What crawled up your ass Henry

From the peanut gallery, I'd +1 suo -- I am one of those people who freak out about finances and find it hard not to fall for the "one more year." So a different perspective is interesting. Being who I am, however, I can't help but think that the success of the 8% v much depends on sequence of returns -- the anxious side of me can't help but go, "but what if [disaster X] happens"

[Stasher]

Sometimes when you look at life and stop to think how quickly life can be extinguished you just jump at it Ertyu and Suomalainen you radically change it no matter the risks. I didn't want to be stuck in the "hanster wheel" of make money then spend money while not making the most of my life, there was so much I wanted to see and do as well as spend time with my family. I was 42 and my Uncle just dies at 52 and then my Dad 1 month later at 62...that puts things into perspective very fast.

I am now 51 and I have experienced more than i could have every imagined in the last 9 years, it still shocks me. I am grateful that I had faith that we would figure out the money side of things and when building a strong foundation of MMM/ERE mental muscle you can tackle anything. In North America we live such a privileged life and have so much opportunity, it screams at us to make the most of it and not throw the chance to fully live life to the wayside.

Also, in Canada having free national healthcare takes that side of the unexpected future concerns out of the picture. There wouldn't be a financial disaster from anything health related. This is one major part of living in Canada that changes the MMM/ERE landscape for us.

[Stasher]

I replied in the withdrawal strategy thread and figured copying that comment over here made sense.
viewtopic.php?p=300105#p300105

Currently in a semi-ere position as I have moved from doing 100% no work for a few years to doing various fun PT & almost FT income gigs since doing a "traditional" retirement in 2017. DW is loving her new late in life work pursuit and wants to keep working for another 2-3 yrs for sure, she is rocketing up the ladder in her job so why not maximize it if she is having fun and loving it was her comment.

So with that lets just say both of us full retirement at 55 in 4 years (2029) for the heck of it.

We have a full year built up in cash to start that year
We have a small business that we will possibly liquidate at that time to invest into our savings accounts
We have a rental property that will trickle in passive income or we sell to put into our savings accounts
We have a house with significant equity, will nearly be paid off so may downsize or sell to invest equity
We live in Canada so healthcare is free and covered, we now have national free dentalcare and pharmacare programs also.

We plan to draw just enough from both our RRSP (similar to an IRA) to meet annual cost of living plus extra to transfer full annual contribution limits into our TFSA (currently $7000/yr). This will easily have us below the ceiling to be in the lowest Canadian tax bracket of $57,000 per person

We will most likely both start taking CPP (govt Canadian Pension Plan) at age 65, eligible at 60 but for every year you defer the monthly payment goes up. (Our estimates right now have us receiving about $2100/month)

We will most likely both start taking OAS (govt Old Age Security) at age 70, eligible at 65 but for every year you defer the monthly payment goes up. This program is available to every Canadian and payment clawbacks start if you make more than $90,000/yr. The current amount is $727/month per person and is indexed to inflation. (This means at 70 between DW & Myself we will get about $1500/month)

At age 70 when we will be getting both CPP and OAS at which time I suspect we will have a low monthly cost of living (no debt paid of house etc) and it it will be hard to need to pull more from our RRSP because of the $3600/month in government program income.

That leaves us with our TFSA (similar to Roth IRA) which will be fully funded and we will be hard pressed to be spending from this. That being said it would be very wise of us from 55 to 70 to be pulling as much from the RRSP and fully funding our TFSA each year because at age 71 in Canada you must convert your RRSP to a RRIF and is also subject to minimum annual withdrawals.

This is our plan and basically the goal is to not target a spending amount each year other than covering our expenses, keeping cost of living low and avoiding lifestyle inflation & frivolous consumer culture.

[NewBlood]

I was 42 and my Uncle just dies at 52 and then my Dad 1 month later at 62...that puts things into perspective very fast.

I am now 51 and I have experienced more than i could have every imagined in the last 9 years, it still shocks me.

I'm 43 and occasionally getting annoyed about not doing more stuff when I was younger and feeling sad I only just found climbing, so this is very helpful and inspiring Stasher.

This is also compounded by witnessing my parents' declining health and my dad's severe loss of mobility.

I would also love to read more about that transition period if you feel inclined to share more stories. (I'm also checking out your blog, super cool).

[Stasher]

Housing (I own my house, owe about $235,000 and market value is $600,000)
$1051 Mortgage Payment
$110 Home Insurance
$174 Property Taxes
$128 Hydro (BC is over 90% hydro electric so every calls power "Hydro")
$106 Municipal Services (water, sewer, garbage, recycling, organics)
$107 FibreOptic Internet
$1767 Total

> $500/month for groceries. We are primarily vegetarian and don't drink or smoke etc
> $200/month all forms of food & drink outside of the house for my wife and I
> $357/month Auto - 2x insurance > SantaFe I bought used 8 yrs ago is paid, Nissan Leaf electric I bought used 3 yrs ago & has $166/month 0% interest loan, fuel/maintenance
> $400/month Miscellaneous for pets, charities, health, pharmacy, all shopping, any trips, donations and basically anything that doesn't fit above

This works out to roughly $3133/month or $37,596 annually
Divide between 2 adults and my share is $18798 for the year (about $15,000 USD)

I had a journal that went on for many years over at MMM and eventually deleted that to minimize my digital footprint. Shortly before that I created this journal here on ERE and fell off the radar for a bit due to some community commitments I endeavoured upon. That being said for my first expense breakdown for the average of the last 3 months as an update, I thought it would be great to compare it to this post from 4 years ago.

Mortgage rates have really jumped due to interest rates (bankrate thankfully down in Canada every month for last 6 months), property taxes/home insurance are always rising, inflation that last years since Covid have done a number and tariffs/climate change etc are impacting food prices. I've done a good job working to reduce whatever costs I can and don't have any major purchases planned this year, actually doing my best to do at least attempt the buy nothing year. Also working hard on the minimalist game Jacob started and I'm currently at about 80 items decluttered.

Anyhow, here is our current monthly cost of living. For any numbers that are 1x per year or say bi-weekly I calculated to monthly costs for this breakdown. Trailing 3 month averages for 2025 so far.

Core Spending
$1618 - Mortgage - currently at 4.41% on $180,000 owing
$134 - Home Insurance - climate events are crushing the insurance industry, big jump since 2021
$312 - Property Taxes
$51 - Municipal Services
$71 - Power - $71/month equalized annual plan
$151 - Internet - expensive in Canada in know
$72 - Car Insurance
$2409

Variable Spending
$660 - Groceries
$275 - Food outside of home; restaurants,cafes,coffee,fastfood,bakeries
$200 - Auto, mostly fuel tokeep loving our 330,000km Hyundai SantaFe )
$500 - Miscellaneous catch all for travel, sports, health supplements like vitamins/protein, pet food, garden supplies
$1635

This works out to roughly $4045/month or $48540 annually
Divide between 2 adults and my share is $24270 for the year (about $17,000 USD)

The big increase in our monthly cost of living is the mortgage. Since last update back in 2021 rates went from 1.9% all the way up to 6.9% and then now down to 4.41%, we are on a variable rate mortgage. I changed payments from monthly to bi-weekly to tackle principle faster plus 2 extra payments per year. I also took advantage of the banks 20% top up payment option which goes to the principle faster. This all works out to $6804 more a year than 2021. Housing certainly is a big liability in terms of unpredictable costs, if you then look at the jump in property taxes/insurance that works out to another $1944/yr (162/month) since 2021. That jumps me to $8748 more per year now.

So with my mortgage rates, taxes and insurance being out of my control if I subtracted that from 2021 cost of living then I'm roughly only up $2196 for DW and myself. That being said it would be nice to have that extra $8748 back in our pockets but in those 4 years our house has appreciated significantly up to about $800k and mortgage owing has dropped $55,000 so not all is lost.

I'll leave this update at this point for now and will post again shortly on where we are in life and what we are up to. Cheers

[Henry]

Oh, man. I was hoping for pictures.

[2Birds1Stone]

Sometimes a 1000 numbers paint a good picture.......

I love the financial updates from peeps who are on the other side of FI.

[Stasher]

Don't worry Henry, I will post a visual month of March update This time of year isn't the most exciting for mountains but the local emergence of spring in the local forests, countryside and of course around town is wonderful.

2B1S we have really gone with the flow of life since 2017 jumping ship at a semi-FI stage and now finally can honestly saw we are confidently across the full FIRE target. That being said we love the FI side and will continue to ride the rollercoaster of life, experimenting with challenges and opportunities, of which some of those generate income to help fund the lives of our future selves.

I am grateful that I posted back in here 2021 so I could paint that number comparison, made the rise of the cost of home ownership very visual yikes. We keep considering downsizing to mitigate this variability and liability exposure that comes with housing.

I was just on Jin&Guice's journal and really appreciated the recent chat on "modernity"

A large part of what ERE does is examine needs of modernity. A lot of the waste is created keeping up with needs that are illusory, exaggerated or caused by other facets of modernism (i.e. medical treatment for a lifetime of inactivity). Getting off of the consumer treadmill means stripping away the needs of modernity to reveal the needs underneath.

and of course Axelhyst's reply

The ‘needs of modernity’ are pseudo-manufactured needs to at sit on top of vast complex contrivances, like the ‘need’ for a car and a drivers license and a credit card so you can get a Netflix account… yeah?

Nobody intrinsically needs a drivers license, but *because* modernity over-solved other real needs and is trying to build complex systems to solve needs it isn’t good at solving (status, social, emotional), were in a situation where we ‘need’ drivers licenses and smart phones.

And ERE is a hack at seeing the real needs vs the fake needs and lets us fuflill our physiological etc needs while spending barely any money because we can just skip a lot of the “‘needs’ of modernity.”

For most of the topics and discussions here on the I lack the level of sophistication to bring more substance to the discussion or examine at the level you are all at but I can certainly grasp it and visualize what is being shared. It is discussion like this and all the journals that make me happy and grateful that I am back frequenting the ERE forums. I come from a resource industry trades back ground working with my hands and sometimes my noggin' but always try my best to keep up here.

[Stasher]

The month of March was good for decluttering and did the minimalist challenge in the community forum every week, well over 50 items have been sold, donated or recycled. This has been a fun challenge and great to be reminded on the cost of owning things, the inconspicuous creep of consumerism as well as the space things take up.
viewtopic.php?t=13320

I also just posted in the Excercise/Fitness Log thread, thought it would be good to post over here as an insight into what I'm doing with all my free time outside of the ERE lifestyle and financial side of things.
viewtopic.php?p=300888#p300888

The last couple years I was racing gravel bikes in long distance endurance events that were typically 100km long and around 1700-2500m elevation gain. They were awesome and what I liked about them was challenging myself even though you were racing against other individuals. Fast forward to last fall after a very active summer of backpacking and fastpacking in the alpine, my legs and endurance were at a high point. This got me stoked on trail running again and I signed up for 3 trail races and had a blast.

Building off the end of 2024 I decided to go all in for this year, I connected with a good friend who is a coach and adventure racers to help build out a program for me. I'm signed up and will be racing our west coast trail running series as well as an infamously cruel mountain summit half marathon and then an alpine 50k ultra. Why not go all in, with FI that gives me time to train and focus on being outdoors and having fun which I love.

So basically a week is 6 days of activity that can be called training but is actually a blast. This involves trail running which is sometimes mixed in with hills or intervals and then also lots of cycling including mountain biking for cross training. I then do bodyweight and kettlebell workouts 1-2x per week. As the races that start the season are just 11-14km (first race is 2 weeks away) I am currently only running 30-50km per week right now, with one of those runs usually around 15km long. As we get closer to June for the half marathon & July 50k my weekly long runs will get increasing longer to build that endurance base.

Everything is about building a bad ass zone 2 endurance base and working on getting the speed increased and heart rate lowered. I am stoked on the progress and always surprise myself how much faster I am now and how low a heart rate I can sustain because of the Z2 work. The science just works, I don't get crazy into it but watch all the youtube videos on the subject and know that to go fast and long you need to go slow. I'm currently 51 and am in the best fitness of my life which blows my mind. This past weekend I did a mountain summit run and beat my descent times down the trail from 2016 and 2019 which made my day!

Outside of my running and riding which I absolutely love, I walk or ride everywhere for as much as I can, leaving the car at home is better for the environment and the budget. Right now according to the Apple workout app (I wear an Apple Ultra2 Watch & never take it off) I am averaging 11km per day walking/running combined.



Saturdays trail run was 14km, I ran up the road as it is very steep and for a forestry road it is as beautiful as the trail that I ran back down. This is the run I mentioned above setting a personal best acheivement.



Yesterdays Mountain Bike Ride was 13km and about 2hrs, beautiful day in the "green zone" taking friends on tour visiting from Alberta who had never ridden here, the best kind of exercise is playing tour guide of the beautiful riding network here. Bonus is the perfect low zone 2 effort workout I get. I am quite frugal and sensible with my spending, but my bikes is where I invest as they are the single best investment into quality of life, fun factor and of course mental/physical health.

[delay]

$1618 - Mortgage - currently at 4.41% on $180,000 owing

Thanks for your journal update! Seeing different numbers from different countries is great. Now 4,41% of $180,000 divided by 12 months is $662. How do you get to $1618? If it's all additional payments, in terms of net worth that's not outgoing money, as it reduces your debt.

I notice your power costs went down from $128 to $71. What caused that?

[Stasher]

The 4.41% represents the current variable interest rate that the bank has me at for this current term of my mortgage. It comes up for renewal this summer and I am currently negotiating with another bank to try and get a lower rate to switch over to them for my remaining 11 years of amortization. I know countries all over the world are different on how home mortagages/loans work so here is a link on the Canadian system.
https://www.canada.ca/en/financial-cons ... tgage.html

For the power it is now just DW and I in the house and our adult children have moved out. We upgraded the final remaining old windows which sealed up the last cold air leak in the house and have converted every single light fixture in our home to LED. Also we have gotten very comfortable and habit built to keeping our home heating set at 17'c in winter. Our entire home is electric, no natural gas or heating oil or wood. Our heat is from a heat pump which is very efficient.

Also the province we live is nearly 98% hydro electric and has almost the cheapest residential rates in Canada. There are always incentive programs and credit programs that I take on, ERE types love a good challenge and goals. https://www.bchydro.com/powersmart/resi ... smart.html

https://www.bchydro.com/toolbar/about/s ... ystem.html

https://www.energyhub.org/electricity-prices/

[Stasher]

March is always a wonderful month being outside as the seasons change and Spring awakens nature from the wet west coast slumber of winter.

A small visual update of being outdoors everyday during the past month. Lots of walking, running and cycling

[Stasher]

Did my weekly drop off for the clean out decluttering of the ERE Minimalist Game Challenge
viewtopic.php?t=13320

For Week 13 on March 24 - 30 I rounded up the following 13 items
1 trail runners (thrift store)
1 mismatched pepper shaker (thrift store)
1 mismatched salt shaker (thrift store)
1 decorative basket (thrift store)
2 old quilts (donated to dog shelter)
6 packages of DW's unused beauty products (thrift store)
1 small zip loc of safety pins (thrift store)

I reinvested all of my Q1 dividends today that were recently paid out in my RRSP, I used all of the funds to buy up more VCN in self brokerage account. I changed my asset allocation from a 90/10 equity to bond split to a 70/30 equity to bond split early this month. With the stocks market tanking so badly my AA of bonds is substantially higher now, thus buying more Canadian equity index funds is the way to go.

Heard back from my new bank and things are all set with my new mortgage that I am getting as I move from my old bank with that mortgage coming up for renewal. I have opted for a 5yr term with a variable rate and with a 30yr amortization. My existing mortgage is down to 11yrs remaining but I felt I wanted greater flexibility to radically reduce my monthly expenses if the financial world continues to spiral downwards.

The longer amortization drops my current accelerated bi-weekly payments of $752 all the way down to $434 bi-weekly. That frees up roughly $7800 in cash flow per year for a nice safety buffer on my annual spending budget. That being said when the new mortgage starts I will immediately add on the allowable 20% extra payment top up option that goes straight to principle. I will then also take advantage of the annual 20% of principle lump sump payment option. Combined these options will help me pay down the mortgage quickly but with ultimate peace of mind if there is a SHTF moment.

[Stasher]

First off, how do I edit my journal title here on the forums again?
I don't recall and it should read year 8 now

Updated my efforts on the weekly minimalist game forum thread, reading some other journals and this challenge really give me the push to keep reducing more and more. ERE continues to be inspiring again for me.

For Week 14 on April 7 - 13 I rounded up the following 14 items
2 sets of mountain bike elbow pads (donated to local sports club)
1 backyard book shelf style greenhouse (set out for free curbside)
2 mason jar straw lid mugs (thrift store)
5 random water glasses (thrift store)
3 promotional event beer mugs (thrift store)
1 "groomsmen" champagne glass (thrift store)

I was hoping to buy nothing major or new this year but just couldn't replace the front tires on my Hyundai. It was 4 years and they lived a good life but I prefer not taking chances with safety or a mechanical on my old vehicle, it is one place that I spend money when it needs it, especially on proactive maintenance and repairs. Also not a cheap purchase at $660, but it went to a good local small business.

Ran my first trail race of the season and it went crappy but it went awesome. I was totally in the zone and effort/hr perfect for my plan for the first 4km but then my left quad had others ides when it cramped bad on a very technical long steep downhill section. I lost over 6 minutes on the next 1km recovering but then the upside was the mental perseverance to overcome it and push the best I could over the remainder of the race. Managed to finish strong and pass a bunch of the racers who over took me in my kilometre of misery lol

I think part of my quad issue was how much cycling I have brought back into my weekly activities the 2 weeks prior. With many rides both in the mountains and commuting, too much fatique in my quads was thew culprit....well thats my excuse anyhow. Next race is 3 weeks away and is another mountain trail race but we now bump up to the 25km distance.

A few sights from the past week