Re: 3 yrs to FI: ertyu's journal
Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2023 5:20 am
I do not envy grading exams, but student feedback sounds good. Any open-ended feedback that you will use going forward?
---an online community leveraging 14 years of experience in resilient post-consumerist praxis
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https://forum.earlyretirementextreme.com/viewtopic.php?t=11044
Hey ertyu! How is the part-time teaching life treating you? Are you feeling any progress on the above?ertyu wrote: ↑Fri Oct 20, 2023 8:46 amI have started asking myself questions I was too exhausted to ask in the past. I'm having, "oh, yeah, -that- is something i used to be excited about that i never actually did anything to pursue, wasn't it?" types of thoughts more often. I'm noticing the many ways in which I'm assuming my own incompetence and I'm telling myself X activity can't possibly be for me because I'd certainly be bad at it. And so forth. So, the process of psychological manure excavation many report upon quitting is churning along, albeit in a muted manner.
- Slowly, I am taking steps to improve my life, but as of now these steps are small and isolated either in time or from each other, rather than being part of a well designed system.
I am very happy to hear that you found something that is more sustainable for you - that has to feel incredibly good after the past series of jobs you've endured. I know all is not perfect, but that is a very big positive.ertyu wrote: ↑Mon Apr 29, 2024 10:02 pmOn the whole, I am doing well in this job. For the first time in my life, I am working a job I can actually work - I get tired in the course of the work day some days, but I can get out of bed and show up without banshee-level insanity screeching, the desire to escape, and so forth.
...
While this job is alright, it keeps feeling precarious, temporary. My life feels precarious. I don't have any bright ideas about what I'd do if for one reason or another, this job were no longer an option. I don't have goals, or something I'm working towards, or a view of what viable options look like for me beyond the immediate present - I'm not sure this is a problem, but I am recognizing it as fact. The world feels too precarious geopolitically to make plans -- or maybe it always was and it is only now really sinking in, as my 42 y/o ass steadily approaches middle age. I also feel like my stash is not enough to make plans, in the sense of "FI in terms of freedom-to random life experiments" that was discussed elsewhere on the forum, I believe @AH's journal.
Let's see how this entire thing shakes out.
It seems like you're mentally juggling a few questions at a time:ertyu wrote: ↑Mon Apr 29, 2024 10:02 pm- Do I return to home country to visit Trash Place during the summer? I haven't been there since 2021, and I worry that the condition of the place may be deteriorating. I also haven't paid property tax etc. on it. I don't much feel like going, but it seems like it might be a good idea. Getting more serious about the repairs trash place needs is probably a good idea - or is it, just geopolitically? The bombed out buildings in Ukraine didn't look much different from what you'd see around you in my home town. It isn't hard to imagine war as a real possibility for my country of origin. Also, there's the plane ticket cost. And the fact that over there, there's no AC. What would you do?
If you call your place "trash", don't pay tax on it, and keep postponing repairs, that's three clear signs that you're not cut out to be a home owner. That happens a lot, it's quite common to get attracted to real estate for the wrong reasons! I'd learn the lesson, sell the place, and forget about real estate as an investment option.ertyu wrote: ↑Mon Apr 29, 2024 10:02 pm- Do I return to home country to visit Trash Place during the summer? I haven't been there since 2021, and I worry that the condition of the place may be deteriorating. I also haven't paid property tax etc. on it. I don't much feel like going, but it seems like it might be a good idea. Getting more serious about the repairs trash place needs is probably a good idea - or is it, just geopolitically? The bombed out buildings in Ukraine didn't look much different from what you'd see around you in my home town. It isn't hard to imagine war as a real possibility for my country of origin. Also, there's the plane ticket cost. And the fact that over there, there's no AC. What would you do?
Thanks for chiming in, Dave, excellent point. I did read the Daniel Ingram book and, at least in my estimation, I believe I'm unlikely to be advanced enough. Right now what's happening in my meditation is almost overwhelmingly psychological manure bubbling up as a ball of energy, then after ive been with it for a while, dissipating and floating away. I also emdr-move my eyes back and forth while I'm at it. Sometimes this results in intense emotional release but this is happening less and less. I'm not going to declare myself "done" because itense bawling-grade stuff is still happening; rather, more and more often, instead of on individual traumatic events, what comes up is e.g. the overall pervasive sense of sadness due to, say, childhood neglect. I'm having the sort of experiences which sound like, "I was working on what keeps me succumbing to cravings for sugary food, and my mother came out of my left lung, going, 'well, I still got what I wanted' at my father." Bonkers, in other words, unless you've been there and it's happened to you. Still very "they're not getting enlightened cause they're all doing therapy" realm, though.
.okumurahata wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2024 2:40 pmWhat would be your desired amount at this current moment? Now that you have a better work situation, would you retire once you reach that figure?
All three "signs" you pointed at have actual explanations which I won't go into (e.g. the appartment is called Trash Place the way a raccoon is a trash panda and the way to be "the trash of the thing" == to be a fan. Think "millenial who spends too much time online" language -- it's also called Trash Place bc it is a former hoarder home where a dude died, with all that entails.)delay wrote: ↑Thu May 02, 2024 5:55 amIf you call your place "trash", don't pay tax on it, and keep postponing repairs, that's three clear signs that you're not cut out to be a home owner. That happens a lot, it's quite common to get attracted to real estate for the wrong reasons! I'd learn the lesson, sell the place, and forget about real estate as an investment option.
Thanks for the kind words! What the change took for me was being fired from 2 jobs in a row, spending about 1.5 yrs unemployed for covid, going back to work in 2021, spending 2 years at yet another job an still ending up miserable, and finally letting go in the face of terror and accepting a huge pay cut. I did it kicking and screaming, and I'm still worried about money, so idk if I'd pitch myself as a role model -- but yes, there is at least one aspect in which the current job is working out. As a result of not being a neurotic disaster all the time, my overall self-efficacy and level of optimism has improved.
I get the geopolitical anxienty. Being based in Europe and knowing the history I am anxious too. I’ve always wondered why pre-war societies would seem so oblivious to danger but given that I feel to have no other options than doing what I am already doing I feel like I understand it a bit better now.
Thanks for explaining that. I guess you're not counting investment returns as an income stream?As per traditional ERE philosophy, my anxiety about money is caused by relying on a single income stream - the one that comes from my employment. I still estimate myself to be a WL3.5 - 4-ish, and rely too much on that one source and not enough on yields and flows from a stable network of activities. I guess if I'm to be taken as an example of something, it's that.
Not sure if this is applicable but in Germany if you leave the country and you paid into the state pension as part of your employment you can get that money back as far as I know. Not sure how other countries handle this but maybe it applies to you.Also, as opposed to many others, my erratic international work history means I'm not eligible for an "old age" / social security type pension in any country. In other words, that 442 euro per month is -it-: no state pension or other pension of any type.
That makes sense to me. Just to be clear though I didn't mean to imply people were calm and oblivious more than if I look at photographs and certain actions it may look that way. I didn't mean to paint them as oblivious people who didn't know what was happening. It's more me that is oblivious to their situation in some way.There's not knowing what else to do, there's a much higher level of religiosity which encouraged trusting God, there's just the magnitude of the change of upending your entire life and abandoning all your property etc. It's the natural tendency to be in denial when faced by overwhelming threat and hide your head in the sand - the freeze response. But also, we don't know that they were calm, it's just how it seems to us. When I read history, I'm always amazed by how easy they seem to have been to rise to rebellion and war, and how common it wouldve been for them to be subject to one military skirmish or another. I guess what's important is to remember is that those who made it were those who were the first to go. Towards the end of ww2, ships with jewish refugees were turned back from the US. So I've always cultivated the mentality, be the first to go.
Have you considered just slowly eating through the principal? What's the point of dying with all that money anyway? Assuming you don't want to live longer than e.g. 100 years old, your withdrawal rate could be much higher. It's really surprising for me that such an obvious idea is rarely discussed in FI forums, and everybody focuses solely on safe (perpetual) withdrawal.
Trinity study and related literature assumes a drawdown period of 25 years (meaning, a standard retirement rather than an early retirement) and defines "failure" as capital depletion -- the "eating away" of the principal is assumed. It also uses American data which is exceptional bc America (top power) + oil-fueled/cheap energy post-war growth. The situation becomes even more dire if you account for the possibility of degrowth over the next 40-50 years.zbigi wrote: ↑Sun May 05, 2024 3:02 pmHave you considered just slowly eating through the principal? What's the point of dying with all that money anyway? Assuming you don't want to live longer than e.g. 100 years old, your withdrawal rate could be much higher. It's really surprising for me that such an obvious idea is rarely discussed in FI forums, and everybody focuses solely on safe (perpetual) withdrawal.
Good argument. I buy this argument Again back of the envelope, 8-10 years for the numbers to converge, if we assume (+8/12) addition to savings per year coupled with (-8/12) per yr reduction in needs. Which checks out with what we know from the withdrawal rate literature: basically the most solid way to assure success is to postpone that start of withdrawals.guitarplayer wrote: ↑Sun May 05, 2024 6:43 pmThe good news is that each year that you still work, you can subtract 12k or 8k from the 600k or 400k, respectively - because you will be one year older so it will converge rather quickly. This is my personal back of the envelope theory, is that if extreme early retirement is maybe hard, less extremely early retirement is disproportionately less so.
Doesn't apply bc I've mostly worked in developing countries and I'm also from a developing country, so none of these places have social safety nets to speak of or tax treaties with each other. But it would if a citizen of a developed country worked in another developed country.
Valid, and an excellent callout. Thank you.2Birds1Stone wrote: ↑Sun May 05, 2024 11:44 pmAt 42 years old and still working, I would be much more worried about looking back 20-30 years from now and realizing that I was afraid for nothing and squandered the remaining years away worrying about the minutia of WR calculations vs. figuring out what I want out of life.
Thank you for reading and chiming in with a useful resource, I am off to read that.
You asked "What would you do?", so I tried to put myself in the shoes of the post. To me it radiates "I will procrastinate on this subject for as long as I live". So I wrote what I would do in that situation. Apologies if that was not helpful.
That seems quite generous! Over here 100,000 euros gets a 50 year old male 312 a month, or 3.7%, and there are no options that correct for inflation. If inflation halves the value of money in 20 years, at his 70th birthday the 50 year old male will have the purchasing power of 156 a month.