m741's ERE Journal

[DutchGirl]

I hope you'll feel better soon, m741.

Recently I had to remind myself that I didn't need to get it perfect - I just had to do it well enough. Maybe that helps with your plans as well. You don't have to get it perfect, just start making some changes and do your best at them.

[m741]

@Chris - Yeah - I feel good when I'm not doing bad things - not just bad when I do them . For me, that's less of a driver of behavior, or at least not a motivation to start improving behavior.

The sensor thing is actually something that would work well for me when doing dishes (I leave the water running because it maintains the right temperature and so I don't need to repeatedly hit the faucet handles with soapy hands), but it's too complicated - at least for a rental. I'll probably just try a plastic bucket or something.

@CS - We just moved but actually have a bunch of friends in the area who we'll see for drinks or to go to some event. But these are basically acquaintances - it's nice to see them but I have to admit that I just don't have many close friends; it's not different here compared to NY.

@Gilberto - It's funny because I'm really not busy (beyond travel/visitors), but I've found that having *any* event that breaks up a day leaves me unhappy. I've always been like that but I think it may be getting worse. Like if I have to go to a concert on a Saturday night I feel like that "ruins" the day. Which is a super-weird mindset, but having that on the horizon means that I know I'll have to get ready at 5:30 to leave at 6, and I can't start a movie at 4:30, and then if I have to run an errand at 11am, I feel like the whole day is so carved up I can't focus. It's a weird mindset I'd love to get out of.

I actually already have an alternative to Drano that I've been using for two months. It's a kind of shower plug called a "Tub Shroom." Nearly all the blockages were caused by the gf's long hair and this does a great job of catching hair and it's easy to use. It's probably saved two bottles of Drano. Previous I'd tried a little plastic snake, which wasn't that useful. It was also gross.

@bigato - I'd love to go vegan eventually, but I find that while being a vegetarian is limiting, vegan leaves almost no options at restaurants. Lots of cheese on stuff here. Overall I feel like the suffering of chickens is much worse than cows, and they also produce much less per creature. Also although eggs are in a lot of things, it's mostly pastries/baked goods/unhealthy stuff I shouldn't be eating. So I'm starting with eggs, though maybe eventually I'll get a chicken or two and try to get my own eggs because I do like them.

@DutchGirl - Thanks! I think I mostly need to relax...

[jacob]

Right temperature? Running water? How are you guys doing your dishes anyway. What am I missing?!

Use one of these: https://www.amazon.com/STERILITE-065780 ... B0039V2G5E
And if you feel like needing to rinse, use a second one with cold water. Or reuse the first after emptying it.

[m741]

@Jacob - I'll probably switch to that.

I let my dishes sit with water in them to loosen everything up. Then I run warm/hot water for a quick rinse, scrub, and rinse again. While rinsing I move any dishes that wouldn't fit in the sink from the counter and let them fill up with the rinse water. I'm pretty quick and can get through a sinkful of dishes in ~5 minutes.

I've always been a bit grossed out by letting dishes sit in one of those bins with whatever food waste floating around but I'll probably figure out a system.

[CS]

@Gilberto - It's funny because I'm really not busy (beyond travel/visitors), but I've found that having *any* event that breaks up a day leaves me unhappy. I've always been like that but I think it may be getting worse. Like if I have to go to a concert on a Saturday night I feel like that "ruins" the day. Which is a super-weird mindset, but having that on the horizon means that I know I'll have to get ready at 5:30 to leave at 6, and I can't start a movie at 4:30, and then if I have to run an errand at 11am, I feel like the whole day is so carved up I can't focus. It's a weird mindset I'd love to get out of.

I feel the same. Now that I'm writing from home any event or errand is a huge annoyance - especially since I have to drive everywhere. And this is *without* the mental drain of talking to people. I like to keep the trips down to one or two per week, tops. Seriously. (Also, I now much prefer winter in this location because I don't have to listen to the infernal racket of the ever-present landscape equipment and the children running and screaming (why do they only have one volume?))

This is probably not as unusual as you might think. I've give myself permission to accept this in myself after reading about the founder of Burt's bees:

“A good day is when no one shows up and you don’t have to go anywhere,” he tells the camera, looking exactly like the drawing of the bearded old hippie that adorns the packages of lip balm and other natural beauty products.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/17/gard ... eeper.html

[jacob]

http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html

[herp]

@jacob - A great breakdown of two different types of schedules that I never really thought of. It makes perfect sense as getting interrupted at work is the single biggest source of professional frustration.

[C40]

I've started compiling a big list of things that each cause me even just a little mental anguish or guilt: using Drano, eating eggs, running water continuously while I do the dishes, drinking 2 red bulls and wasting 2 cans rather than brewing tea with just a compostable bag or reusable strainer, and so on. And I'm working on resolving them. Mostly they're things where I can make a decision and after a week or two I'll have made a habit, or there's just something I need to scavenge/buy/clean and I'll be set to follow the new pattern.

There's a huge one to add to your list - bigger than all the others you listed combined - all that air travel (I assume) to the weddings. I don't have the link handy for you to show numbers, but it's a huge impact. Fortunately, that one is super easy to resolve. "Sorry, I won't make it to that wedding". Doing so will likely make your life better in numerous ways. You don't have to pay for it, don't have to spend time making all the related decisions and preparation, and don't have to spend time doing it. You can just spend that weekend going to the park and having more sex with your girlfriend.

Also, for those who haven't seen it, there is a documentary about the Burt's Bees guy. It is interesting, inspiring (specifically ERE related), and also fairly sad.

[Gilberto de Piento]

There's a huge one to add to your list - bigger than all the others you listed combined - all that air travel (I assume) to the weddings. I don't have the link handy for you to show numbers, but it's a huge impact. Fortunately, that one is super easy to resolve. "Sorry, I won't make it to that wedding". Doing so will likely make your life better in numerous ways. You don't have to pay for it, don't have to spend time making all the related decisions and preparation, and don't have to spend time doing it. You can just spend that weekend going to the park and having more sex with your girlfriend.

Something tells me that m741 saying he isn't going to his girlfriend's friend's wedding isn't going to result in more sex with his girlfriend.

[m741]

July 2019

Work/Life

July was relatively quiet, especially since the gf was traveling for work, for a while. August will be pretty busy.

I made some changes since my last update, about 20 days ago. I think the biggest one was to start working out again. I'd stopped mostly due to back pain a few months ago, and then I'd delayed because I thought a coach at work would be able to help me plan workouts, but that seemed to fall through. So I've been going fairly regularly for two weeks. I've noticed mood improvements when working out before, and that's the case now. It seems like I have no choice!

Luckily I can go in the middle of the work day, and this is super-helpful. My natural rhythm is to get sleepy around 2pm-3:30pm. I'm not very effective and it can take a while to snap out of. So I just walk over to the gym during that time period and return showered and a bit energized. It's also a nice way to break up the day. I usually eat at my desk, so the day can feel like a long slog. Knowing I can duck out for 45 minutes in the middle, and then get back and power through the last two hours, is a nice change. I've felt pretty good about it - I had a similar realization as when I started with guitar: I don't need to rush. 30 minutes in the gym 3-5 times per week (with almost no commute), and I do 3-4 exercises while there, so it's pretty casual. Much less of a time commitment or difficult to shrug off. Right now I actually want to go.

I also talked to a "life coach," for lack of a better term. This is one of those weird perks at work that you really have to dig to find, and which seems useless, but it was suggested to me by the doctor I saw, who has lots of patients from my company. 90% relatively obvious stuff that's prompting me to do things I procrastinated on, and 10% super-insightful questions or observations. I've found it a worthwhile way to spend 3 hours.

Finances

I saw a 1.1% gain in net worth the past month, mostly due to a strong stock market. It's a first-world problem, but there's a lot of stocks that I own that I want to sell - positions I got into 5+ years ago, but I don't want to pay the taxes. I can't find anything with losses to offset them (knock on wood)! The solution I've used is to do all my donations through stocks at Vanguard Charitable, and it's been a good way to (A) donate more, which I want to do, and (B) not pay taxes. Besides that, I've regular investments set up, while I try to remain relatively cash-heavy.

I guess the final bit of news is that I'm likely to do my own taxes again next year after 4 or 5 years using an accountant. I moved to Washington (no state taxes vs NY and NJ tax prep), but the rate would have been the same. And I usually met with the advisor for 1 or 2 hours each year to discuss what I should be doing, but he's decided to start charging for that. Finally, my tax situation has simplified over those 4 or 5 years. I felt it was expensive, but worth it, and I no longer do. I'm waiting until the end of the year to notify him, in case any audit requests come in...

Goals

I keep chugging along. I've been reading a ton (maybe too many) graphic novels. I'd been going through some big-name series with 5-10 books and it was a lot of characters to keep track of, lots of visits to the library. I'm starting to see that taper off. Actually if I finish the series I'm reading now, I'll hit my yearly goal by the end of the month (25 graphic novels).

Outside that, I've watched a few movies (Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, The Adventures of Robin Hood (Errol Flynn), and some Ray Harryhausen). I'm far behind schedule but I have The Sting, The Shining and Solaris checked out. I'm unlikely to hit my end-of-year goal and I don't much care. I'd wanted to see 52 culturally important movies this year; I should be at 32 and I'm at 12.

I play guitar regularly, about 30 minutes per day. I've played 112.5 hours this year, and my target at this point was 120. I also finally saw a guitar teacher. I found someone close to work who was willing to do an alternating-weeks schedule. I'd talked to three places before that demanded weekly lessons, sometimes with 1 cancellation allowed per quarter - pretty crazy. I enjoy guitar and I can see myself making progress.

I've slacked on Spanish. I'm unlikely to hit my yearly goal, which was pretty aggressive (300 hours of practice). I still have a weekly hour-long conversation and read/watch half an hour a few nights a week, but I've just felt busy with everything else and this is where I've found extra time.

Finally, I continue to eat relatively healthy. There's a definite trend. Lately I've been cooking a ton of stir fry and I discovered that I really like some things in stir fry, which I hate in the large chunks like you'd find at restaurants: mushrooms, cauliflower, broccoli, spinach. These tend to arrive in big fork-sized bites at restaurants, and I never like their texture. At home I dice them into rice-sized bits and can really load up a stir-fry with healthy food. I'm also being more moderate, snacking less at work and taking smaller plates of food at home.

[take2]

Finally, I continue to eat relatively healthy. There's a definite trend. Lately I've been cooking a ton of stir fry and I discovered that I really like some things in stir fry, which I hate in the large chunks like you'd find at restaurants: mushrooms, cauliflower, broccoli, spinach. These tend to arrive in big fork-sized bites at restaurants, and I never like their texture. At home I dice them into rice-sized bits and can really load up a stir-fry with healthy food. I'm also being more moderate, snacking less at work and taking smaller plates of food at home.

Cutting then up small is definitely key. Increases surface area so they get coated with more olive oil (or whatever oil/fat you cook with) and it’s much more tasty. My SO thinks I’m crazy when I dice everything up and heap on the olive oil but it tastes so much better than large chunks.

[theanimal]

How do you determine what movies are culturally important?

Any more push ups lately?

[m741]

@bigato - I don't think it's my culinary technique that needs improving, although I'm not a skilled cook. It's something I feel at pretty much any restaurant I go to: if there's mushroom, it's like someone just cut a mushroom in half and it still has that rubbery texture, or for example the free salad dish on an airplane - it'll have a full 1/4 of a tomato. I just hate these large chunks. Any Chinese food I've had has full 3-4 cm broccoli pieces that are half stalk, etc.

@theanimal - I had some concepts in mind and I wasn't looking for something objective or comprehensive. In part it was an excuse to see older movies. I looked at "Top 100 Movies" lists and added movies that I'd heard of. I've not seen enough famous movies that I had to at least have heard of it. I skipped many movies that I'd seen here, because this is a more forward-looking list. But for example, AFI has The Deer Hunter at number 79. I've heard of this with some regularity, I've heard brief plot references. I think I could name an actor or two in it, despite not having seen it. AFI also has Wuthering Heights at 73. I read the book in high school, but I've never heard of the movie. I never heard anyone talk about it.

From these lists I eliminated movies I had zero interest in, usually because of their genre. For example, I have no interest in horror movies (outside of Hitchcock or zombies). I also pulled in some lists of canonical foreign movies. Some of these were on "Top 100" lists (eg Truffaut, Fellini), but many were not (Akira). I also added movies from famous directors that I have not seen, even if they are not highly regarded, and summer blockbusters/popular movies that I might have missed. Finally I added some pulpy movies that I'd heard of as frequent inspirations for filmmakers, such as Jason & The Argonauts. I have almost no movies from the past 15-20 years. These are "easy" to watch, the pacing, acting, etc are all very comfortable. It's also unclear which of these will have any legacy. So they're not on my list.

As an example, the top movies on my list that I have not seen yet are: Godfather Part II, Gone With the Wind, Some Like It Hot, Ran, Beauty and the Beast, Taxi Driver, Bonnie & Clyde, La Dolce Vita, The 400 Blows, The Creature From the Black Lagoon.

I haven't started with the pushups, though I have done some dumbbell bench press. I'm adding pushups to my list for next week.

[George the original one]

As an example, the top movies on my list that I have not seen yet are: Godfather Part II, Gone With the Wind, Some Like It Hot, Ran, Beauty and the Beast, Taxi Driver, Bonnie & Clyde, La Dolce Vita, The 400 Blows, The Creature From the Black Lagoon.

Put Some Like It Hot at the top of your list for a light-hearted evening.
The Creature From the Black Lagoon is best seen in 3D. It's really quite a dull movie without the 3D.
Ran is definitely not the best Kurosawa flick and likely had the least cultural impact; if you've not seen any others by him, you should exchange it.

[m741]

August, 2019

Work/Life

A very busy month - three weddings, several trips, and lots going on. It's been chaotic, and it will remain so through mid-September, when the gf's father comes to visit us.

It's not been as bad I expected but I'm still exhausted. The good news is that I will soon have caught up with pretty much everyone (friends, family) who are located outside Seattle.

Work is a little less interesting than before, but still good overall. I may have an update in the next month depending upon how some conversations go. I don't have too much to expand on in that area. I'm actually looking forward to the regular work/life routine to be honest.

Finances

Basically flat for the month in a mixed market. I didn't take too much action this month, but the biggest thing I did was make some serious donations. I've been wanting to donate more and my plan is basically to donate 2x (20% of post-tax income) every other year, and nothing on the in-between years. This allows me to improve my deductions (itemizing my deductions one year and not the next). And I smooth out the difference because donations are through a donor-advised fund, so the actual amount dispersed to nonprofits every year is about the same. I'm also donating stocks that have appreciated, so it's a nice way to balance the portfolio and not take a hit (or just get rid of holdings I'd otherwise feel "stuck" with). Let me know if it sounds like I don't understand the tax system, because otherwise I'll be donating pretty heavily for the next few months.

I also helped the gf out with her 401k - she's a novice financially - and it felt good. I think without my pushing she probably wouldn't have realized how much of a match she was giving up. This brought something else to mind: I'd like to work on some sort of personal finance summary video (animated) for YouTube. I always hear people on these boards say that personal finance should be taught in high school, and while I agree I think you can get like 90% of the information in one 40-minute video: basically one class period in school. I might have a separate post about that in a month or so.

Goals

I've made progress overall, sporadic or not (mostly sporadic). In mid-September I hope to have another update. I have a pretty nice set of goals/projects that I hope to work on and which I'm really excited about. This is something I was hoping to figure out during the year and I'd really really love to be working on them right now - but life is in the way. Within a week I hope to be back to a semi-normal schedule and ready to get started.

[m741]

September, 2019

Work/Life

September saw the (near) end of our busy summer. We had no weddings (after three in August), but were traveling for about two weeks. Also the gf's father visited for a week. We have one more wedding in October and then almost nothing at all planned, which I'm really looking forward to.

Work was pretty mixed. Some interesting work, lots of drudgery. It's the last (kinda) phase of a project and to me the most interesting part is when there's still some problems to solve beyond scaling things up. I think October may prove to be either rewarding or interesting, and maybe both.

I have a renewed interest in both guitar and Spanish - it's amazing what a few small habits or tweaks will do to help you keep on track (in this case, finding a good slowly-spoken Spanish podcast that I can listen to on my commutes and having a fun amp to use for guitar).

Although I'm excited to attend the wedding of one of my college friends, I'm also really looking forward to a (mostly) uninterrupted 3 months without any long-term plans.

Finances

Mostly stable, slightly down overall. But that's not to say unchanged. I have two projects I'm working on financially which I haven't seen much discussion of.

1. Charitable donations. In 2017 I opened up a donor-advised fund (DAF). It's basically a pool of money that gets invested at a time of your choosing. You take tax deductions when contributing. I used that in 2017 to make a bunch of donations, since I knew I'd be traveling in 2018 and not getting a huge income. I've decided to donate 10% of my income per year. Now I'm trying to make two years of donations in one year, also for tax purposes. I'm well on my way to achieving this. With a DAF you can donate investments, getting a deduction for the full amount appreciated, so it's a good way to both make a donation and adjust your portfolio.
2. Trying to figure out what my portfolio should be. I had a lot of individual stocks from ~2013 or so when I was focusing on dividend investing. Now I'd prefer to hold indices. I've sold off a lot of stocks, but my feeling is that it would be better to have a basket of 10-20 assets than a single one (since you have more flexibility in terms of what to do - there will be a wider spread of outcomes). I'm thinking about tweaking stock investments to be in sector ETFs, but I have more research to do.

Goals

I'm doing pretty well. Still behind on almost all the goals, but catching up. I'm expecting to finally be on track with guitar practice this month, after a bit of lagging. Spanish - I have a busy month planned but I may not hit my yearly goal. Finally, I think I'm ready to start running again. And I've been pretty consistent with my diet.

[wolf]

Thanks for the update m741.

Currently I also do some researche on my prefered investment strategy. It's the other way around. I thought I wanted to hold up to 15 index ETFs in my portfolio. But then I reconsidered due to some documentary about BlackRock and the talk here in the forums. My current idea is that I only hold 55% of my portfolio in ETFs and the other 45% in about 40 individual stocks.

So I'm interested to here more about your thought process, why you change from individual stocks to ETFs? Was dividend investing not as expected? (too much effort, too less outperformance, too small total return, ...?)

[m741]

I had mixed feelings about dividend investing.
The pros:

- Dividend stocks naturally tend to be pretty stable unless you're really chasing yield (which I did a little of...).
- It was super-rewarding to calculate monthly/quarterly income and to see that go up. I would calculate dividends ("I received $200 in dividends this month!" And that was reinvested so next month it will be 10 CENTS MORE!) It felt much more concrete than working off of SWR percentages and this was appealing to me. Literally every month I'd list out the dividends and I tracked a rolling average. This was the line I really trusted for calculating how close I was to being retirement-ready.
- For this reason I thought it was a good start for someone who wanted to do a little bit of legwork (ie, not "settle" for index funds), but not really dive all-in to investing. It kept me motivated and I don't regret it.

The cons:

- If you want to diversify at all, you'll end up holding 10+ stocks. More likely 20. It's a lot to keep track of. Many will be purchased for some reason or another (good yield or something), when you know nothing about the underlying business (gas pipelines, etc). Then you may get stuck with them (don't want to realize gains yet...) I understood after about a year that researching purchases and keeping up to date meant wading through a lot of BS and salesmanship, and that this wasn't really a hobby I enjoyed. Ideally you'd buy+forget but that's a dicey for individual stocks compared to index funds.
- Individual stocks are simply riskier than index funds.
- You can't buy individual stocks in most retirement accounts.
- I didn't need income (I'm still working right now - took a year off but had a lot of cash).
- Getting dividends is a taxable event. So I was getting all these dividends and paying taxes on them when I could have been holding an ETF with much lower yield and not getting taxable gains.
- Getting dividends is a taxable event. Which meant taxes were obnoxious. Some of the most appealing assets were MLPs (which I owned a few of) and these had special tax rules that were even more onerous.
- Some dividends are taxed at the income tax rate rather than capital gains tax rate. I'm working, so that's higher.

I still like dividends, and that they are more stable companies, so I own a dividend mutual fund - but most of that is held in a tax-advantaged account.

[m741]

October, 2019

Work/Life

This was the end of a very busy year of weddings, so the gf and I were traveling one weekend. I'd really hoped to stop but I have two work trips coming up (both tied to work/family events with the gf - it's handy working for a large company with offices everywhere). I'd rather stay home for these.

In spite of my best efforts, my career seems to be advancing. I think I landed in a very good area for me. I'd previously been on two teams at my current company. One was extremely well-organized, with very very smart engineers, but the work was methodical and slow. The second was poorly-run but with good engineers, the work was interesting, but the team didn't fit into any group in the company and was also remote from management.

My current team has smart people who are somewhat sloppy engineers. The product area is very interesting and while the team is remote, the whole larger group is scattered across the company and we're a large office in Seattle so it doesn't feel remote. I'm a pragmatic programmer - I like clean code but I really want to deliver, and neither previous team was a good fit for that. I think my manager (who joined the team two years before I did) was looking for someone like me. So I think I have a chance to really contribute and help improve the culture here and also do interesting work and learn a lot.

I'm still really unclear about my future, maybe more than in the past. I have a great day-to-day life situation here. I had not planned to work longer-term and was seriously considering cutting hours, but I may delay that now. I work 8:30-5, with little pressure to work longer or later, and have a short commute, and this is enough to put the work below my "pain threshold." And as I'm donating more there is another motivation to work a bit more that goes beyond myself.

I'm also enjoying Seattle, but it's unclear whether I'd want to live here "long term" (5-10 years). Maybe that's a bad way to look at things... looking so far ahead, and being so picky. It's what kept me from ever wanting to fully put down roots in NYC, it's a very limiting mindset. Maybe nowhere would satisfy my biggest concerns (have a little space, decent public transit, good outdoors opportunities, clean welcoming environment) and my gf's biggest concerns (city with interesting cultural events, large enough to support her industry, decent public transit, liberal political environment). I'd be 100% happy with Seattle (or the Seattle area) except for one thing: chronic homelessness and the drug situation (opioids) is extremely bad here, though it's thankfully focused around the downtown. It's far more visible than NYC. And I also realized that Seattle is the first place I've lived that's more liberal than I am; some of the policies around homelessness make no sense to me. The homelessness just weighs on me - and I don't commute through the downtown. Outside of that it's a good place to have a family. But we'll see what happens over the next few years; everyone in the city is aware of the problem, although there is a wide spread of opinions about how to deal with it. And in other respects Seattle is doing much better than the rest of the country. Particularly around transit - yes, there's traffic problems, but it's no LA or Silicon Valley, and there's actual progress on improving public transit and roads. IMO the transit is better on a daily basis than NYC, though it's obviously a smaller city. There's a lot of NIMBYs but there's also a lot of zoning changes that are adding housing and densifying the city. And I like the $15 minimum wage.

Finances

A good month with gains across the board due to the strong stock market.

I've continued to push charitable donations into my DAF, as well. It's accumulated a sizable amount and it's growing, even as I make grants to nonprofits.

Goals

I'm doing well on my goals. I spent 20 hours this month speaking Spanish online and feel like I've reached "fluency," at least with reading and speaking. My grammar is mediocre and my ability to listen depends on the person/accent.

I've also been getting more and more into guitar and music generally and I'm looking forward to all the things I have to learn.

[George the original one]

I'd be 100% happy with Seattle (or the Seattle area) except for one thing: chronic homelessness and the drug situation (opioids) is extremely bad here, though it's thankfully focused around the downtown. It's far more visible than NYC. And I also realized that Seattle is the first place I've lived that's more liberal than I am; some of the policies around homelessness make no sense to me. The homelessness just weighs on me - and I don't commute through the downtown.

You'll find this is true of Portland, too. Evidence of homeless population, the encampments and sidewalk occupations, has more than tripled in the past decade. I'm not sure if the actual population of homeless has grown that much, but their visibility definitely has... the last count of Portland homeless was only 2,000-3,000 people.

Smaller towns (e.g. Medford) have populations of homeless, but it is easy to avoid seeing their camps. Small towns on the coast, like Seaside & Astoria, have homeless, too, but they pass through rather than continue staying in the area. Here they are usually living out of a car.