What I Spend

[theanimal]

For what it's worth, I got a lot more out of what you wrote than the Chat GPT summary.

[Scott 2]

Nuance was lost. The Chat GPT writing style becomes like cafeteria food after awhile. It's kind of a problem in material about AI. The word calculator can pump out overwhelming volumes of mediocre content.

Beyond prompting, I think generating a writing style enters into territory of fine tuning and training models. Like maybe I build a persona and feed all my posts as training data. Deeper than I'm ready to go at this point.

I could also have a prompt library, for structured data, like a monthly budget report.

I told it to make the last journal entry funny instead. It's technically amazing, but not great to read. The book I'm reading leans towards asking for critique, then cherry picking the good ideas. Understanding limitations is an important part of levering the tool.

Here’s a funnier version of the original blog post:

---

**How I’m Surviving Contracting (and Life in General)**

1. **ChatGPT Plus: My New Brain**
I caved and got ChatGPT Plus. Why? Because my brain sometimes feels like a hamster on a wheel after a three-day bender. This thing helps me gather my scattered thoughts and actually *do* something with them. It’s great for summing up long-winded articles and giving me creative ideas when I’m out of steam—which is, let’s be honest, most of the time. Plus, I’m learning all these nerdy things like “prompt engineering,” which basically just means trying to get ChatGPT to think I’m smarter than I am. Welcome to the future, folks, where robots can organize your life better than you can.

2. **Manning Tech Book Subscription: Netflix for Nerds**
I’m also now $25/month poorer thanks to Manning’s tech book subscription. It’s basically an all-you-can-read buffet of tech books, plus one shiny eBook credit a month. The coolest part? Some of the books are still being written, so you get to read them *while* the authors are writing them. You can even give feedback, which feels a little like shouting suggestions at the TV during a cooking show, but hey, they might actually listen. I’m knee-deep in AI stuff right now because, apparently, I like to pretend I’m living in a sci-fi movie.

3. **The Great Text-to-Speech Experiment**
Reading actual words on a page is hard when your attention span is like a goldfish’s and your vision decides to play “double or nothing” with everything you see. So, I decided to dip my toes into the magical world of text-to-speech (TTS) tools:
- **Free**: Microsoft Edge’s “Read Aloud” feature is like having a robot read to you. It’s not bad, but it does sound like it might offer me tech support at any moment.
- **$16**: Readera on Android uses the phone’s built-in voices. It’s like asking your phone to read you a bedtime story, but it’s a bit robotic.
- **$110/year**: Natural Reader is the crème de la crème of robot voices. It’s smooth, smart, and way better than me reading out loud, which sounds like someone speedrunning through a textbook. The catch? You need internet. So when your Wi-Fi dies, it’s back to trying to make sense of the squiggly lines on paper.

Speechify? Too flashy, felt like it was trying to sell me a timeshare. Voice Dream? More like Voice Nightmare—those Android reviews don’t lie.

4. **TaskRabbit to the Rescue**
My executive function is like a toddler in a candy store—easily distracted and prone to meltdowns. Ask me to do something simple, like building shelves in the garage, and suddenly I’m a master at procrastination. This time, I finally gave in and hired a TaskRabbit. For $80, some poor soul sweated it out in my garage, pounding parts together like a furniture-building gladiator. It would’ve taken me twice as long and probably involved several trips to Google “how to not ruin your garage shelves.” We tipped him $40 because he actually *did the thing*, and I felt like a lazy overlord.

Honestly, I could’ve afforded all this even before I started contracting, but now I don’t feel guilty about it. This feels like what self-care looks like when you admit you can’t do everything yourself (and when you’d rather spend two hours watching YouTube than assembling shelves). If I’d made accommodations for my limits sooner, maybe I wouldn’t have burned out so hard. Burnout was inevitable, but maybe it didn’t need to hit me like a freight train.

[ertyu]

I demonstrate a pattern of demand avoidance. Ask me to do something simple, like help build a set of garage shelves, and I will avoid for ages. I don't want to.

Ah, so this has a name...

Of all the accommodations, the task rabbit is probably my favorite one: it is a win-win, rather than a win-corporate win: it directly improved your and another person's life both materially (income + assembled shelves) and in terms of providing you with the opportunity to be generous and express appreciation by tipping, and the opportunity for whoever you hired to see his work appreciated and feel like he made the 120 dollars for directly making someone's life better. Plus, it creates a relationship and creates the potential for serendipity: now you can contact him again off-platform and prevent the platform from skimming off his income. And if I were in his shoes, this would motivate me to do a good job to preserve my relationship with a good customer.

[Scott 2]

Ah, so this has a name...

Of all the accommodations, the task rabbit is probably my favorite one

Yeah we deplatformed. The service caps tips at 20%, on top of taking a disproportionate cut. They provide no insurance, so beyond the initial referral, I see no reason to keep them in the loop.

My wife wanted the shelves, but her health makes building them an extremely steep withdrawal. So it was a triple win. I wasn't repeatedly rejecting her needs.. Getting help is a much better pattern. Our weekend was improved.

The framework of interest vs importance based nervous systems describes my motivations perfectly. I spent most of a day trying text to speech software. I delayed the 5 minutes to submit last months invoice by a week.


Bringing it back to financial independence - I'm now more willing to pay others. In hindsight, I would have adopted some of these behaviors sooner. Delaying financial milestones to provide better supports would have been wise. The reduced drain might have leveraged my earnings higher anyways.

I'm trying to learn from the experience, to look for ways I can deploy the contracting earnings. Moving to a tiny condo would be the environmentally friendly solution. That's not where we're at though. Spending a little more for quality of life helps. Spending a LOT more is probably the true answer, but my internalized financial insecurity isn't ready.

[suomalainen]

FWIW, I moved to a tiny (newish) condo after my divorce, and although the condo association fee is expensive (and doesn't really get me much), I basically don't have to think of anything. That housing is basically set and forget.

[Scott 2]

My wife really loves the space we have. We looked into alternatives several years ago. The trade offs don't make sense. For the most part, she coordinates the extra work. But certain problems benefit from my help, especially as we've gotten older.

[Lemur]

@Scott 2

I read your entire journal over the past 2 or 3 days. Interesting stuff. I can't relate much to the spending side but definitely can relate to the benefits of having some form of paid work for some types of people...I may do something similiar when the day comes that I quit full-time employment. I can see more clear now why my Spouse won't quit work. She runs her own business, has full autonomy, and she basically sets her own hours. There is a direct correlation between effort & reward - which is different from salary.

I found it very interesting how many years ago, somewhere in the first few pages of your journal, you left your job and could only describe it as being very anti-climatic. Do you still share that same feeling? Are you able to elaborate further?

[Scott 2]

I found it very interesting how many years ago, somewhere in the first few pages of your journal, you left your job and could only describe it as being very anti-climatic. Do you still share that same feeling? Are you able to elaborate further?

@Lemur - wow, I'm amazed.

I now strongly disagree leaving work is anti-climatic. My perspective was colored by short duration breaks. It made the time a poor representation.

I'd say upon stopping in 2021, decompression took most of a year. I was unknowingly recovering from autistic burnout, so my window may have been extended. It was another year before I'd really dug into freedom to and had perspective. That lead to another year of life changing mental discovery.

My key lesson - it's not about the money. @bostonimproper touched on this in her journal recently. Chasing FIRE is a proxy for other unmet needs. Reaching FI did not expose those needs. Until I stopped work, I simply didn't have the capacity. I couldn't even recognize the gaps.

Even with hindsight, it's hard to say what I'd have done. Addressing my mental health 20 years ago, it would have changed everything. Obviously I'd pick that. But I was not in the mindset to execute, way back then. I don't think I could have received the help.

[Scott 2]

After leaning into the contracting hard, it looks like things may be winding down. My wife and I talked through trade offs this weekend. There's not a 100% preferred path on our end, but the client may be deciding for me. I'd say it's 80/20 in favor of stopping anyways. Opportunity costs, in short.


Tomorrow, I'm picking up an optiplex 7070, running an 8th generation i5. We are going to try Ubuntu. The old Win 10 box is failing. Due to the contracting, I impulsively grabbed a $1000 Win 11 beast last week. I figured at that price, everything would just work. Nope.

After spending most of my weekend on setup, I'm not happy. The box is bigger than I expected, louder, has like 6 fans, etc. Win 11 sucks. It is constantly pushing software and services. All configurable, I'm sure. I tried cleaning things, getting most of it, but not all. I bet updates will bring more. Sealing the deal is little annoyances. My wireless mouse won't stay connected. Some motherboard app demands admin rights every time I log on. What?

Again - all probably solvable, but if I'm going to fight the OS - why not Ubuntu on a $300 box? My wife's on board after using Win 11, so we're taking the ride. Best experience stays, the other box goes back. We already ripped off the Office bandaid with Libre last year, so I think it will be smooth. Much less compute power, but other than gaming, I don't see a need. I'd throw any intense computing to the cloud anyways. And I prefer a console for gaming.


Mental health treatment continues. Today's day 4 on half the tiniest Rx'd dose of Ritalin. The difference is incredible. I can point myself at anything and just do it. No will power. No losing myself on the phone for an hour. I simply pick and go. It's hard to imagine this is permanent or sustainable. It's so good. I am enjoying the near term impact.


And on a totally random note - I've been drinking loose leaf tea for 20+ years. This month, I learned I've been brewing it sub-optimally. Upgrading from a tea ball to an open basket tea infuser - game changer. The leaves need space to unfurl! So much wasted potential. Ridiculous.

[jacob]

Tomorrow, I'm picking up an optiplex 7070, running an 8th generation i5. We are going to try Ubuntu. The old Win 10 box is failing. Due to the contracting, I impulsively grabbed a $1000 Win 11 beast last week. I figured at that price, everything would just work. Nope.

After spending most of my weekend on setup, I'm not happy. The box is bigger than I expected, louder, has like 6 fans, etc. Win 11 sucks. It is constantly pushing software and services. All configurable, I'm sure. I tried cleaning things, getting most of it, but not all. I bet updates will bring more. Sealing the deal is little annoyances. My wireless mouse won't stay connected. Some motherboard app demands admin rights every time I log on. What?

I'm still enjoying the Optiplex I built. If you decide to go that way/size for that era (ca 2016), I have some leftover memory sticks + 1GB/no-fan graphics card you can have. Might improve a stock model a bit for office use (See original post below for details.)

Here's what I ended up with (shipping included, tax not included):

• Dell Optiplex 7020MT with an i7-4790 CPU ($105 used)
• HP 512GB 2.5" SSD ($30 new)
• 4x4GB Crucial Ballistix Sport ($7 used)
• ASUS Geforce GTX 1060 OC Dual-fan 6GB ($115 used)
• MSI MAG A550Bronze PSU ($50 new)
• 24pin->8pin optiplex power adapter ($15 new)

Total: $322

It has one case fan, one CPU fan, one PSU fan, and two GPU fans. I usually leave the case open. I wouldn't call it loud.

[bostonimproper]

I've been drinking loose leaf tea for 20+ years. This month, I learned I've been brewing it sub-optimally. Upgrading from a tea ball to an open basket tea infuser - game changer. The leaves need space to unfurl! So much wasted potential. Ridiculous.

If you don’t have one already, I highly recommend getting a variable temperature electric kettle. So much easier to avoid burning your tea.

[Scott 2]

I'm still enjoying the Optiplex I built.

Thanks - I went for the easy route and grabbed this 7070 micro refurbished:

https://www.microcenter.com/product/683 ... furbished)

My hope is to avoid modifying it, though I took the case off to see inside. Just one screw, very easy. All we do is web browsing, spreadsheets and simple photo editing. I can't help but think the days of a PC are numbered. My phone docks to a monitor and picks up the attached usb keyboard / mouse. If I was willing to abdicate to Google entirely, we're already there.

I'm still working on booting the Ubuntu installer. By default a flag in the bios was off - "boot from USB". That threw me for a bit. Now there's some issue with my USB boot stick. I'm currently flashing a different thumb drive and have another copy of the LTS iso on download. Failing those, I'll try making it with rufus instead of balenaEtcher.

Edit - the different thumb drive worked. It was an older one. No idea why.

If you don’t have one already, I highly recommend getting a variable temperature electric kettle. So much easier to avoid burning your tea.

The popular Cuisinart is sitting in my cabinet, unused. Once I got it, I realized I never measured the water temp. in my mug. Turns out boiling water from the kettle, ends up about 180 F in my mug. I'm drinking primarily Chinese greens, steeped around 2 minutes. Maybe longer on the 3rd infusion, or when I forget. The temp. seems ok.

Eventually, I'd like to explore other steeping styles and break it back out. Maybe try some more esoteric options like Pu-erh as well.

[Scott 2]

Linux file permissions are a headache. I burned the evening trying to replicate the windows file share my wife and I use. Create a group for us, give it recursive rights to the shared directory, all should be good??? Not quite, also need to set the SGID bit so new directories are cool.

But what about copied files? Oh, no, those are different. Maybe you can get them with an ACL?

What, you want to MOVE a file??? Well, that's completely different. Those permissions are coming with. You could use a cron job to reset them periodically. Anyone's guess how that performs over your lifetime's worth of shared files though. For _real_ sharing, better use Bindfs:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Bindf ... LocalUsers


Tomorrow I decide if I screw with that, or just give up and we both run under the same user. It feels crazy how hard this basic task is. Like I must be doing something _fundamental_ wrong.

[delay]

It feels crazy how hard this basic task is. Like I must be doing something _fundamental_ wrong.

Your fundamental mistake is trying to make things secure.

Put "umask 000" in /etc/profile and everything will be readable and writable by everyone. See What is "umask" and how does it work?.

[Scott 2]

Your fundamental mistake is trying to make things secure.

Thanks, I came to a similar conclusion. I fell back to a shared user account. Beyond the permissions struggle, multi-user was also complicating our real time encrypted cloud backups.

I was digging into running the application headless, via a cron job or systemd. Then I started thinking through concurrency patterns when I use the GUI app.

I realized my approach failed the "if I die" check. There's no way my wife could maintain it, or even tear it down.


The new setup is simple. Everything my wife and I do is under the home directory of one non-admin user. So the backup app can run as us, when we login. A separate non-admin user for a guest, who can't see our stuff. The only tricky bit is using Firefox profiles, so we can each run an isolated password manager plug-in.



More of a learning curve than I expected, but I've been running Windows for 30+ years. A couple days to ramp up feels ok. I did _not_ like my experience with Windows 11.

FWIW - I came around on the permissions aspect. Absent decades of intermingling files, I'd keep everything distinct. Windows engrained some bad habits. Unwinding them isn't worth the pain.

I think I could set this up again in a couple hours at the keyboard. Moving around 400 gigs of data is the only painful part, but that's independent of operating system.

Our demand for that shared files blob complicates getting away from a single household computer. Long term I'm guessing it'll be some sort of cloud storage synchronization, with copies stored on each of our phones, plus maybe a cold storage manual backup.

[Scott 2]

Ubuntu has spousal blessing. It's in as the primary computer.

I'm wiping the win 11 beast tomorrow. I'll return it and get the $1000 back. I saved some money and crashed through the basics of Linux. I bet over a few years, I come out ahead on time too.

My wife's had multiple friends confirm their files are only on their phone and the cloud. "My pictures are in Facebook".

[ertyu]

"My pictures are in Facebook".

incredible

[macg]

Our demand for that shared files blob complicates getting away from a single household computer. Long term I'm guessing it'll be some sort of cloud storage synchronization, with copies stored on each of our phones, plus maybe a cold storage manual backup.

It's just me using my setup, so I don't know how it would expand for a family, but I just use a Raspberry Pi connected to an external USB drive as my "local cloud" storage. Currently I mainly use it for backup (ssh/sftp) and videos (Plex), but several years ago, with the 1st or 2nd gen Raspberry Pi, I had an elaborate setup where I/others could connect and share ... Had a tunnel configured through my router, the whole nine yards. I don't need that type of setup anymore.

It's been way too many years for me to rehash that setup, things have changed so much, so if you're interested, just Google for more recent ways to do it ... But I do recommend the raspberry pi, it's cheap and fun if you like experimenting with that type of stuff.

[Scott 2]

I just use a Raspberry Pi connected to an external USB drive as my "local cloud" storage.

I use an external USB as my cold storage. I considered a NAS (sounds similar to what you've cobbled together with the Raspberry Pi). I didn't want to manage another computer. Learning is fun. Care and feeding over the long term, not so much.

I like the offsite aspect of a paid cloud provider. Spider Oak offers zero knowledge encrypted backups, with versioning. Changes are identified for upload within a couple minutes. The downside is I pay $125 per year.

Proton drive has promised a Linux client over the next couple years. I'll watch for that, to see if it's worth switching. Spider Oak had a significant outage earlier this year - weeks long. But the solution works quite well typically.


Returning the windows 11 box is done. It bit me a few more times, while wiping our data. For a 12th generation i9 processor, with 64 gigs of RAM, performance wasn't very good. The 8th generation i5 I'm running on Ubuntu is more responsive. It's quieter too.

[zbigi]

I bet over a few years, I come out ahead on time too.

In my experience, it's not the case with Linux. Every small stupid thing can turn into a multi-hour time sink with Linux, while with Windows it's usually not even an issue in the first place.