It feels good to have September behind me since it marked the 3rd quarter and almost 1 year of ERE. My first journal entry was for October 2020.
Things on the ERE front have definitely slowed for me. I can feel momentum of posting here going down even though I am still committed. Also what ERE means to me changed quite a bit over the last year. I started with ERE because I liked the combination of FIRE and the overall sustainability/environmental philosophy. I think the carrot was definitely the financial aspect though and that has become less important over time. I re-discovered my environmental streak for which I am really thankful. It wrapped my tiny/nature living goals with my overall life trajectory and ambitions.
Having the prospective loss of income at the end of last year got me to overcompensate on the work front this year and it really has been an eye opener. It was interesting how much it didn’t really matter. The month with less work was one of the nicest one in hindsight. The rest of the year turned out to be much more busy than last year and I feel like I’ve worked and still am working too much. It’s affecting my mood and quality of life. Having more money and reaching my savings goals was nice but also didn’t leave me as satisfied as I thought it would. I’m glad I started tracking things like electricity, water and space. It really provided a counterbalance to all the financial planning and reaching those goals make me feel much better than reaching the savings goal.
I spend some time reflecting on that this month and decided to be less focused on the FIRE part of ERE. I’ve realized that my planning/tracking/etc. takes a lot of brainspace. I want financials to be more of a third order effect. I will still track them but not try to worry about it so much. I think I’ve spent a lot of time on building spreadsheet models. Mainly to calm myself down and feel more secure. They were more used as therapeutic spreadsheets than really making a difference or providing new insights. I think what provides insights for me are the longer term trends and goals and not updates on the order of weeks. It’s really more fear and anxiety driven behaviour than anything else. I also kind of want to see what happens when it let go a bit. To support this, I’ve used the month to come up with a simpler tracking system and automated some savings/investments that I did manually before. Since I have to write bills to my clients each month anyway I landed on trying to do 1 financial check in per month and otherwise not caring. It’s unlikely that I will buy a Tesla by accident and wipe out my savings in between two check-ins. So this will still give me plenty of time to course correct. I will also try to tie up some loose ends on the finance front this year so I don’t have to think about it in 2022: I want to set up a tax advantaged retirement plan. It will basically make up to roughly 20K each year of investments tax deductable. I don’t plan to put that much in since having a chronic disease with long term health effects puts things in perspective but using it for some part of my savings seems smart.
I hope these actions will free up my brainspace to focus on other things. Mainly figuring out what I want to do with my life. How to grow spiritually, emotionally and intellectually. How to live more sustainable and in line with my inner values and bearings. How be less fearful and more present.
I suspect it will take me some time to shift the focus but it feels good having made the realization that this is the direction I want to go in.
So this will be the focus until the end of 2022.
In terms of a monthly review: I feel like this post is already quite long. My girlfriend moved to france and it took us some time to get everything sorted and come up with new routines but it is actually going quite well. I will visit her in November for 2 weeks and she is here roughly every second weekend. I am quite happy with how things are going. I also started planning some adventures for next year. Running and biking is still proving to be difficult and work is intense. I think it will stay intense for the rest of the year so I will try to make the best of it. I hope my re-focusing will help a bit.
Goals
Completed
- Obtain cooler box (ERE Skills)
- Savings rate of 50% (Financials)
- I want to counter the movement stress with some nice experiences (Enjoyment)
- October will mark both the end of Q3 and also 1 year of ERE. I want to have some concrete goals for Q4 and also finish up V1 of my tracking sheet. I think the goal is to have two "workshops" to come up with concrete things. (ERE Skills)
- Go on more bike rides (at least 1 a week) (Enjoyment,Health)
- Savings rate: 58%
- Spending went up because of move and stuff
- I kept the 50% reduction in stuff / electricity / water
- Got rid of some more stuff to make space for my girlfriends stuff
- Running: 90 KM
- Cycling: 40 KM
- Nothing really
- Went to the movies
- Planned vacation
- Don’t check finances more than once a week for 5-10 minutes (mainly to see if anything bogus hapened) (Financials)
- Sort out retirement plan, so it’s done (Financials)
- Sort out taxes, so it’s done (Financials)
- Switch from fridge to cooler box (ERE Skills)
- Have all parts for Solar System and plan (ERE Skills)
- Get rid off stuff in hallway (Reduction)
- Reach running & biking goals (Health)