mathiverse's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
mathiverse
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Re: mathiverse's journal

Post by mathiverse »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Sat Feb 05, 2022 11:58 am
... when I try to embody that mindset now I just… indifferently spend too much money. Because for too long, my income meant that I truly was indifferent to ‘high’ spending. My brain requires reconditioning. Must learn the numbers in order to forget the numbers.
Yeah, spot on for me. Not focusing on the numbers results in increased spending since my default mode is still being a consumer.

mathiverse
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Re: mathiverse's journal

Post by mathiverse »

ERE Mastermind Group Update

Prior Two Week Plan
mathiverse wrote:
Sun Jan 23, 2022 2:46 pm
  • Update price book to include prices from grocery store around the corner from my house
  • Decide on parameters for challenge to eat through my pantry and then begin the challenge
I updated the price book with prices from the grocery store around the corner from my house and I updated it with prices from the Aldi.

I decided *not* to do a challenge to eat through my pantry. I went through the pantry and put all the food I want to give away in a box and I also made a mental inventory of the food I had in there that I wanted to eat. Once I had the mental inventory, I naturally started eating down the food I already had in the pantry and I started avoiding buying things I already had. I'll naturally eat down the rest of the food and I'll take the stuff to give away to the food bank around the corner from me.

Plan for the next two weeks

This will include goals for my original Mastermind group and the repair cafe group that I joined.
  • Go to one ethnic grocery store near my house and add the prices to my price book
  • Make homemade beef jerky
  • Post the fix for my lamp in the Fixit thread (EDIT: Posted!)
  • Look up how to replace a zipper on a coat, seek supplies to do so, then attempt the replacement (My original second project was to fix a sewing machine, but I want to tackle that after I learn more about electronics.)
  • Get an Electronics for Dummies book or similar and read through it in preparation for dealing with the sewing machine.

mathiverse
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Re: mathiverse's journal

Post by mathiverse »

mathiverse wrote:
Tue Feb 01, 2022 2:24 pm

Code: Select all

Milk, cream, chocolate bars (no receipts)	$122.52
Frozen strawberries				$115.28
Eggs						$95.22
Chicken						$84.23
Chocolate bars					$65.26
Beef jerky					$51.46
Delivery tips					$41.51
Cheese						$35.88
Tea						$34.99
Honey						$30.50
Shepherd's pie					$26.00
Shipping fees					$25.00
Salt						$24.48
Frozen blueberries				$21.28
Coffee beans					$20.99
Shredded Coconut				$20.41
Sweet potatoes					$14.40
Amazon Prime					$14.18
Yogurt						$14.00
Ground beef					$13.98
Butter						$13.29
Frozen onions and peppers			$12.90
Milk						$11.50
Pre-baked Goods (Cheesecake and pumpkin pie)	$7.99
Bottled drinks (coconut water and choco milk)	$7.49
Heavy cream					$5.99
Green bell peppers				$5.48
Chili powder					$5.29
Yellow onions					$4.87
Frozen peaches					$4.79
Mushrooms					$4.77
Rosemary leaf					$4.59
Celery						$4.58
Frozen broccoli					$4.38
Asparagus					$4.23
Cream cheese					$3.79
Carrots						$3.28
Tomato paste					$3.16
Bananas						$1.37
---
Total						$985.31
...

That list adds up to $558.93 of fairly easy and direct savings for at least the next month. I have some non-direct savings opportunities listed there as well. With the direct changes, I'd be at $426.38 in grocery costs. Given this information, it seems like I'm on track for spending less than $400 on food next month.
For the last few months, I've been volunteering at a food bank near my house. I enjoy helping out, get to meet new people, get some exercise unloading and restocking shelves, and I feel good after doing good. Today, I learned there is another significant benefit: Volunteers are allowed to take whatever they want in whatever quantity they want! The food bank has fresh fruits, fresh veggies, many canned and packaged goods, staples (rice, lentils, beans, baking soda, baking powder, sugar, etc, etc, etc), meats, eggs, frozen fruits, frozen veggies, and toiletries of many sorts. I can take any of this!

I will go through my old grocery list and see what else I won't have to buy this month given this new information. I won't partake in all of the food because I really prefer grass fed/organic/free range meats, eggs, and dairy, but I'd be okay eating non-organic fruits and vegetables that are free.
  • All fruits and vegetables from last month could have been received or substituted with those at the food bank. (-$60.26)
  • I can get diced tomatoes which are frequently available at the food bank instead of tomato paste. Sometimes there is tomato paste too. (-$3.16)
  • There is always ground coffee available and I could potentially substitute that. I think I prefer whole bean coffee bags and they aren't often available. I will try the pre-ground coffee and if it's acceptable, then I can get coffee for free.
  • I could get fresh whole milk if I want. I'm not sure it's organic.
  • I could get tea.
  • I could get frozen strawberries and frozen blueberries.
  • I could get chicken and eggs, but they are not free range and organic. (probably 2 lbs/week would be reasonable to take).
  • I could get ground beef, but it's not grass fed and organic.
  • I could get butter, but it's not from grass fed cows and organic.
  • There are various spices and herbs available that I could substitute to avoid buying other spices and herbs.
  • There are always bread, bagels, and pastries available.
  • If I really wanted bottled drinks, there is a lot of fruit juice, boxed milk (including chocolate and almond), and other drinks available.
  • Sea salt, honey, olive oil, coconut oil, coconut milk, baking supplies, etc are all available regularly.
  • This isn't a part of my grocery bill, but I don't need to buy toiletries while I work at this food bank given all the toiletries they have in stock.
If I take the figure from the end of the last post: $426.38 and subtract the additional direct savings identified in the list above. Then my grocery bill should be $362.96 or less this month. I suspect it will be much less. I've already spent $158.12 this month and that includes several items I could have gotten for free at the food bank (fruits, veggies, tomato paste, vanilla extract). I'm going to add a new rule for this month considering what I can get from the food bank and considering the fact I have a bunch of meat in my freezer.
  • Limit my remaining food purchases to eggs.

mathiverse
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Re: mathiverse's journal

Post by mathiverse »

mathiverse wrote:
Sat Jan 29, 2022 4:10 pm
January 2022 Update - ERE Progression

Total Personal Expenses (w/ caveats above)
$3,107.74

Let's look at how that breaks down.

Code: Select all

Rent			$1,250.00
Food - Groceries	$1016.08
Travel			$328.33
Clothing		$144.95
Food - Eating out	$124.17
Household supplies	$108.28
Books			$95.00
Internet		$69.99
Cell phone		$30.93
---
Total			$3,167.73
...
Final January 2022 Spending
I am going to update January's spending because I returned the boots and got a refund.

Total Personal Expenses (excluding healthcare, gifts to family, and utilities)
$3,022.78

Break down:

Code: Select all

Rent			$1,250.00
Food - Groceries	$1016.08
Travel			$328.33
Food - Eating out	$124.17
Household supplies	$108.28
Books			$95.00
Internet		$69.99
Cell phone		$30.93
---
Total			$3,022.78
Also I won't get any rate increases on my internet for another year, so the $69.99 for internet per month won't change this year unless I get a job that reimburses me for the expense.
Last edited by mathiverse on Wed Feb 16, 2022 12:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

mathiverse
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Re: mathiverse's journal

Post by mathiverse »

mathiverse wrote:
Sun Feb 06, 2022 11:22 am
ERE Mastermind Group Update

Plan for the next two weeks
  • Go to one ethnic grocery store near my house and add the prices to my price book
  • Make homemade beef jerky
  • Post the fix for my lamp in the Fixit thread (EDIT: Posted!)
  • Look up how to replace a zipper on a coat, seek supplies to do so, then attempt the replacement (My original second project was to fix a sewing machine, but I want to tackle that after I learn more about electronics.)
  • Get an Electronics for Dummies book or similar and read through it in preparation for dealing with the sewing machine.
I'm updating this plan. Given my findings regarding getting free food from the food pantry I volunteer at, I'm no longer going to focus on improving my price book. It's good enough for now. I have prices from the Aldi and the closest grocery store that I frequent. With that and the free goods from the food pantry, my grocery bill should be lower than $200 per month starting next month. If this turns out to be wrong, then I'll refocus on my grocery bill since that will mean I missed something important.

I will continue to learn to cook substitutes for expensive goods I used to buy. Also I'll remove from the list things I've completed.

ERE Mastermind Group Update

Plan for the next week and a half
  • Make homemade beef jerky
  • Make plans to enjoy a trip to Austin, TX without spending much money
  • Figure out what area to focus on next that will allow my cost of living to decrease or that will allow my standard of living to increase while maintaining my cost of living
  • Seek supplies to fix the zipper on my coat, then attempt the replacement
  • Get a Non-Contact Voltage Tester Pen as suggested by jacob
  • Read enough of the two electronics books I got from the library to be comfortable plugging in the sewing machine I want to fix

mathiverse
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Re: mathiverse's journal

Post by mathiverse »

mathiverse wrote:
Thu Feb 17, 2022 12:27 pm
...
1) non-monetary ways to get what I want... 3) the building blocks of the things I want/need to see if I can make them from parts I already have...
I wrote a post in MBB_boy's journal that made me realize that the above two aspects of the buy nothing period have really influenced what skills and knowledge I acquire while I try to get closer to ERE. Before I started concentrating on my specific needs and wants via trying to substitute during the buy nothing period, I thought about skills in broad categories of potential usefulness without specific applications for myself and also sometimes I would just copy the list of skills others while thinking I'd find a use if I learned them. Now that I have focused on specifically meeting my needs and wants in non-monetary ways the useful skills for me to learn became more obvious and they also are more integrated into my life (since they are learned to solve immediate needs/wants) instead of... an assortment of hobbies I want to eventually learn that might eventually be useful if I ever get good enough at them.

mathiverse
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Re: mathiverse's journal

Post by mathiverse »

We started a new round of Mastermind group projects. This go around me and two other members chose to give kickoff presentations about what we plan to do during this round.

The reason I chose to give one was in order to receive feedback and ideas about my plans. I gave a five minute presentation on my fairly fleshed out plans and then I got ten minutes of feedback. I got a bunch of good ideas and also an interesting question about the ethics of taking food from a food pantry that I volunteer at when I don't have a strong need.

I plan to give a wrap up presentation at the end of this round too.
Last edited by mathiverse on Sun Feb 20, 2022 6:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

mathiverse
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Re: mathiverse's journal

Post by mathiverse »

ERE Mastermind Group Update

Previous plan
mathiverse wrote:
Wed Feb 09, 2022 2:48 pm
  • Make homemade beef jerky [**DONE**]
  • Make plans to enjoy a trip to Austin, TX without spending much money [**DONE**]
  • Figure out what area to focus on next that will allow my cost of living to decrease or that will allow my standard of living to increase while maintaining my cost of living [**DONE**]
  • Seek supplies to fix the zipper on my coat, then attempt the replacement [**Got supplies, must attempt replacement**]
  • Get a Non-Contact Voltage Tester Pen as suggested by jacob [**NOT DONE - will likely put off**]
  • Read enough of the two electronics books I got from the library to be comfortable plugging in the sewing machine I want to fix [**NOT DONE - will keep this for the next two weeks**]
Plan for the next two weeks
  • Attempt zipper replacement on at least one garment
  • Attempt finishing a piece of wood with coconut oil, evaluate results to determine if I'd like to finish the remainder of my bookshelf with it
  • Read enough of the two electronics books I got from the library to be comfortable plugging in the sewing machine I want to fix
  • Spend less than $250 on the trip next week
  • Make a beef roast in my slow cooker

mathiverse
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Re: mathiverse's journal

Post by mathiverse »

mathiverse wrote:
Sat Mar 05, 2022 6:49 pm
I used to not understand people who wouldn't study for interviews given the monetary rewards involved. Now that I'm better set up savings-wise and now that I'm more along the ERE track, I can understand why someone might not study and I've been encountering a lot of personal resistance to studying for my current job search myself. I'm still in a personal, internal battle over whether I will go the whole nine yards with studying to maximize compensation during my current job search. Studying is gradually winning out. I still am finding it too hard to say no to grasping for better compensation when it seems close in hand.

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Re: mathiverse's journal

Post by jacob »

mathiverse wrote:
Sat Mar 05, 2022 6:49 pm
I used to not understand people who wouldn't study for interviews given the monetary rewards involved. [...]
For an example of the opposite side of the coin, see:
viewtopic.php?p=255184#p255184
I can barely be motivated by money anymore. Whatever I'll make will not make much of a dent in what I have compared to my earnings potential (which I think is much smaller than yours). But now I think I have a better understanding of why CEO salary is ridiculous: It's the only way to motivate people who only need the money to keep score and the difference has to be high enough to make a difference.

mathiverse
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Re: mathiverse's journal

Post by mathiverse »

Hm. Maybe a big part of my problem is not being FI yet and having a small net worth compared to my earning potential. If that changes in the next two or three years from working a bit longer, then perhaps my prioritization of earnings over other things will naturally decrease.

The current internal battle is a sign that I've already started caring less about money than before, but reaching FI and beyond might remove the last resistance.

mathiverse
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Re: mathiverse's journal

Post by mathiverse »

Quick update about why I am not writing a longer update for now: I am still tracking expenses in general and food expenses in detail. I will do a detailed breakdown of February and my trip at some point, but I can't right now. I'm no longer doing a no buy period because the job search is taking a lot of mental bandwidth. I am trying to minimize how far I go off it, but for now I only do what I can. I want to finish up the search before the end of April and that means being fairly single minded about it and sacrificing other areas.

I think this will be the last time I job search so singlemindedly. Once I start at my next position, I will be FI within two years. I'm planning to join the FI MMG that Fish is starting since I'm trying to drive toward FI ASAP. I'm hoping true and full FI will remove the last thread that pulls me toward maximizing compensation.

mathiverse
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Re: mathiverse's journal

Post by mathiverse »

I know the above post contrasts greatly with my more recent posts about the job search, but the situation with my old job is such that it makes more sense to do a full job search than I anticipated before seeing their offer. I found that once I received the offer from my old job, I had enough motivation to do the interview preparation song and dance.

mathiverse
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Re: mathiverse's journal

Post by mathiverse »

Well as salaried, part time offers come in, I am wondering again if I should try consulting. The problem is that I'm talking to these companies about part time and they seem to still want a lot of emotional investment in the company mission. I'm looking for an interesting role to make some money during part of my week to cover expenses and save up. I'm not looking for purpose or a mission.

I'll probably interview more before making a decision.

MBBboy
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Re: mathiverse's journal

Post by MBBboy »

For what it's worth, they probably aren't really looking for buy-in to their mission. They are looking to check a box they've been told is important and they are supposed to recruit for, so you say yes and then everyone gets to move on.

In my very informed opinion, HR is the source of most company problems. My firm (and later departments) have made hundreds of millions of dollars during my career cleaning up after things that are HR failures at their core.

mathiverse
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Re: mathiverse's journal

Post by mathiverse »

February 2022 Update

Spending

Code: Select all

Travel			$272.47
Food - Groceries	$199.61
Household supplies	$164.40
Food - Eating out	$78.27
Internet		$69.99
Cell phone		$30.93
---
Total $815.67
I wanted to spend less than $750, but I ended up at $815.67. Overall, not too bad. I'll post the results for March soon which were far worse haha.

I'm happy with where this ended up. If I hit around this level from April onward, I'll be happy even if I don't reach my initial goal of spending less than $750 per month.

Goal Retrospective
mathiverse wrote:
Tue Feb 01, 2022 4:15 pm
Goals and Plans for February 2022
  • Continue the no buy period until February 22, 2022 excluding buying a winter shoe solution.
  • Spend less than $400 on groceries. Stretch goal: Spend less than $300 on groceries.
  • Spend less than $250 while on a trip at the end of the month excluding lodging which is already locked in at some price that my friend will tell me when I get there.
No Buy Goal

I did not meet this goal. I ate a couple times during the period I was attempting the no buy period. I also bought zipper repair supplies. There are ways I could have tried to get these for free, but in this case, since it's overall a win to repair a zipper myself, I thought the purchase was a fine exception to the no buy period. And finally I bought chocolate with my groceries. Not too much though!

I'm happy with this in general even though I didn't meet the goal 100%.

Grocery Goal

Nailed it. Spent about $200.

Trip Goal

In total, I spent $362.76 on the trip when my goal was to spend less than $250.

The main factor was poor day to day planning. I ate out a lot more than expected because I didn't plan ahead with groceries. I forgot my night guard at home when I was sleeping at a new location for a single night and I bought an over the counter night guard to replace it, when my friend couldn't walk as much as I planned we ended up taking Ubers.

All in all, I really enjoyed the trip and I learned a few things about how to spend less next time.

mathiverse
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Joined: Fri Feb 01, 2019 8:40 pm

Re: mathiverse's journal

Post by mathiverse »

Thoughts on the Job Search

Assorted and Incomplete List of Things I've Learned
  • Contracting is easier than expected to get into. I know how I'd line up several contracts in a few months if I ever decide to get into that. This is a big ERE win.
  • If I am okay accepting comp around what my old company offered me right away and a mid-level title, then I can get a job quickly even at new companies. I probably didn't even need to prepare for the interviews for these roles.
  • If I want a senior title and bigly comp, then it'll take a few extra weeks or maybe months of interviewing. Maybe this won't happen given my current experience. The main thing I lack is the team lead experience. I probably need to work another job again before these roles will be easy to get since I've already studied the study-able parts.
  • Even if I end up taking the offer I got before doing any interviewing, I am glad I interviewed to confirm what was easily within my reach and what was not.
  • Doing interviews at companies I'd never join is a waste of time given that there are > 50 companies that I would be willing to join. I won't start a future job search with that again.
  • Two day-long interviews a week is probably too many.
  • Recruiters and managers say the darndest things during negotiations.
Last edited by mathiverse on Wed Apr 06, 2022 10:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

mathiverse
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Re: mathiverse's journal

Post by mathiverse »

March update coming soon

mathiverse
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Re: mathiverse's journal

Post by mathiverse »

March 2022 Update

Spending

Code: Select all

Food - Groceries	$948.61
Food - Eating out	$615.13
Travel			$370.29
Household supplies	$76.07
Internet		$69.99
Cell phone		$30.94
---
Total $2,391.03
So I wanted to spend $750 for the month, but I ended up at $2,391.03. Yikes!

Let's break this down.

Groceries

I don't have an itemized breakdown for this, although perhaps I should do one to the extent I can. I'll talk about the big costs here.

I bought bulk staples that I can use for the rest of the year and a bunch of beef roasts that I froze for later consumption. So that partially explains why this is high. Most of this food will be consumed in the rest of the year.

I also started buying meat at $12.99/lb that was pre-sliced and marinated. I probably spent $150 on this. I plan to continue this. Basically a $20 package of this works as a great substitute for eating out which normally costs me closer to $30 while also being less satisfying than the marinated meat.

I bought the staples via online delivery and it came with a $100 delivery fee that was included in this category.

Travel

This was mostly a deposit for a trip I'm planning for May, but it turns out I may not be going on that trip. Whoops! $250 down the drain. I really need to plan better. :)

Eating out

I had a very busy month interviewing. Interviewing is really stressful for me which means I have less mental bandwidth, energy, and time to cook. I also have a habit of rewarding myself with eating out. So I ate out a bunch this past month. I'm not sure it was worth it given the offers I've received so far, but it is what it is. The marinated meat mentioned above has cut down on the eating out by a lot, so looking into April, I should eat out less. Also I'm slowing down the pace of my job search which means lower stress and more time and energy to cook.

---

If I look at my expenses, my biggest expense is generally groceries and eating out. Fortunately, I don't buy much else. It's easy for me not to spend on everything else lately. There hasn't been anything I really wanted.

There is possibly a useful trade off I can make with food spending: spending $500+ on groceries, but in return not wanting to eat out at all. This isn't an easy thing to just pull off. I got lucky and found a good substitute for eating out. I had tried others like frozen dumplings, pre-made soups, etc, but finally one clicked. Now that I have a decent substitute, I will try to go all in on avoiding eating out using this substitute which will increase my grocery bill, but will hopefully result in my not eating out. So my new plan is to try to spend a lot more on groceries to get my eating out to almost never, then from there I will work again on lowering my grocery bill.

I have seen that I can lower my grocery bill pretty easily when it's my main focus as I saw in February. I can also avoid eating out with a lot of focus on avoiding that.

However, the problem is that most months keeping my food spending down won't be my main focus. Whether it's the job search in March and April or ramping up at a new job in May or June or something else, I can't always count on being able to put full attention on my food spending. Therefore, I think trying to go more incrementally by spending a lot on food, but mainly groceries, and then taking the steps to lower the grocery bill might work better.

That's what I plan to try at least!

mathiverse
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Re: mathiverse's journal

Post by mathiverse »

Updating my goal for the year

If you've seen my latest monthly updates, I have a problem with my goal for the year.
mathiverse wrote:
Sun Jan 23, 2022 2:46 pm
Goal for 2022: Spend $24,000 or less excluding utilities, health care costs, and gifts to my family. (ie $750/month on non-rent stuff)
I spent over $1k in January on non-rent stuff and over $2k in March on non-rent stuff when I wanted to spend less than $750 during each of those months. Of course some of that spending was food that can be consumed in the future, so maybe my future monthly grocery expenses will be lower, but I don't think it's likely I can still reach this goal for the yearly average of $2k per month of spending. I'd have to spend less around $430 a month (excluding rent) for the remaining 9 months of the year. Plenty of users here could do that. Given my track record for the last three months, not me! :)

So I will update my goal to something new: reach a trailing six month expenses of $12k. A single spiked month won't kill me, but also early months in the year where I'm still trying to figure out how to keep my spending lower will eventually no longer be counted in the total. By the end of the year, I want my TSM (trailing six months) to be $12k or less.

I also considered a goal of trying to spend less than $2k per month including rent for the remaining 9 months, but I want to be able to deal with spikes in a given month due to bulk purchases or a project that will be spread over many months, etc.

Goal for 2022: Reach a trailing six months total spending of $12k or less excluding utilities, health care costs, and gifts to my family.

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