grundomatic's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
sky
Posts: 1726
Joined: Tue Jan 04, 2011 2:20 am

Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by sky »

Do you have a financial target when you can transition out of your job?

User avatar
grundomatic
Posts: 413
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:04 am

Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by grundomatic »

So ideally my household would end up with 25x expenses saved and DW and I could FIRE at the same time, with "incidental" or "fun" income being the safety margin. As I began to like my job less, DW said once the mortgage is paid off, I could quit. At the current savings rate, that's around a year away. I've had such a rough time recently she has suggested I could just finish the school year and then leave, or even quit immediately if that's what I need to do. At 9.6x current expenses saved, with only the most basic ERE skills, and an addiction to the (small) fire hose of cash flow our DINK situation provides, part of me says that quitting is irresponsible. Another part of me says "this is not fun anymore". I've always managed to find another career path when I get bored, but as I get older relying on "something will work itself out--always has" does not seem like a good plan, or even really a plan at all.

User avatar
grundomatic
Posts: 413
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:04 am

Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by grundomatic »

I want to keep working on this:
jacob wrote:
Sun Sep 29, 2019 10:52 am
...I think for those, who feel stuck at Wheaton5, having/developing an awareness of the branching aspects of the node that would otherwise just be optimized (with money) is the first step. Always be thinking, "what else does this [node] bring me/result in" or in the language of the ERE book: "Which side-effects does this action/choice have?"...
I took a drop-in improv class Monday evening and my back-to-work-after-break sour mood was completely replaced with joy. DW encouraged me to sign up for an 8 week intro course. I think in the past I may have declined since it costs money, and I'm "supposed" to have free hobbies. Then I thought--what does this bring me? Well, first of all, it's fun. It gives me energy that I can put into other things. It takes time that I can't use for other things. I takes money to do the class. I'll meet new people and be exposed to a new community. If things go well, I might be able to join a team and not have to pay to do improv. The skills learned could help in my job. The skills learned could help improve relating with other people. It should improve my D&D game from both sides of the screen.

The identified negative goals are time and money, but it seems like energy constrains me more than time these days, so right now I'm happy to trade time for energy in this module. Spending money is obviously not great, but if the outflow of fun, skills, and energy can be routed to my job to keep me from doing something rash like throwing away a perfect good career, it's probably well spent. Or I could be rationalizing and just driving to another box to have my needs met. I'd like to think I'm training to become a producer of live theatre art. I signed up for the class.

theanimal
Posts: 2628
Joined: Fri Jan 25, 2013 10:05 pm
Location: AK
Contact:

Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by theanimal »

Sounds like a good choice, especially with just a commitment for now of 8 weeks. I've wanted to do improv before for many of the reasons you've provided but haven't had the opportunity. If you haven't read the book Impro by Keith Johnston, I'd highly recommend it.

User avatar
grundomatic
Posts: 413
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:04 am

Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by grundomatic »

@theanimal Thanks for the recommendation! I wish the library had it, but if you are recommending it so highly, I'll just pick it up.

Yesterday after my improv class I felt very energized. I used some of that energy to write my post from yesterday, and some of it to work on sorting out my core values. I had attempted this in December by looking at a list then eliminating ones that didn't belong. This time I made it a single elimination bracket and tried to make a decision (fairly) quickly. I did this twice. I then compiled the results and grouped things together that seemed related. Here's what I came up with:

Fun/Humor--IRL I usually play the role of comedic relief. I am the "fun" teacher. I relish these things.
Community/Friendships/Love--I see this as relationships, ordered from breadth to depth. Locking myself up during the pandemic nearly ended me.
Learning/Growth/Wisdom--I am bored and miserable if not learning something new. In the past I switched careers to get paid to learn new things.
Service/Meaningful Work/Recognition--I want to make a difference and be recognized for my contributions.

Overall, I feel like the exercise of distilling what is really important to me will help me build my web of goals and be a lot happier. It seems obvious now.

In an earlier post, I wondered if fun was a "legit" ERE goal. Not surprising that it made my core values. I'll end with something I found in a thread about inflation:
Mister Imperceptible wrote:
Wed May 12, 2021 7:49 pm
...The banks are also unable to devalue your sense of humor. If you can keep it (while others lose theirs), it should appreciate in real terms as everything else gets worse, like gold.

User avatar
grundomatic
Posts: 413
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:04 am

Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by grundomatic »

I reread The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, and I forgot that at one point I was going to reread it, Early Retirement Extreme, and Refuse to Choose! on a yearly basis. Anyhow, it hit me right where I am, especially the part about choosing better values and upgrading problems.

I continue to think about my values. I wonder whether my list is incomplete, or I'm acting on some other values that are secondary or maybe weren't on the list when I did the exercise. For instance, I bought a box of "rescued" veggies from a food bank. In my mind I did this because I want to eat more vegetables and buying the same amount at the store would be much more expensive. I also like that I took something useful out of the waste stream. However, I don't see "health", "frugality", or "minimize waste" on the top of my list, though I obviously value those things. I do like the challenge of finding a way to use everything--I might call it "kinda fun", so maybe that's why I did it. Maybe this is a Perceiver problem, "How do you pick just a handful of values!?! There are so many!". I feel like I'm missing something.

So I cooked dishes with loads of veggies, baked several items using squash, made salsa, and gave some away. I stopped at the store Thursday to buy feta to make greek salads with vegetables that still remained. That was so successful that I stopped at another store on Friday in order to get stuff to make our own veggie pizza for Pizza Friday, rather than our standard frozen (but still good) pizza, which turned out pretty delicious. It was a good demonstration (to myself, now hopefully it helps someone reading this) that just doing something will often lead to doing another thing. It broke the inertia of just sitting, allegedly "too tired" to do anything after work. I had also decided that maybe doing things while tired and ending the day even more exhausted was better than sitting around and resenting work for making me so tired. I did cut myself washing a knife late in the week, which I directly attribute to being run down, so there's that.

I've also planned my yearly ski trip with a college friend after skipping last year. Positive effects: I anticipate it being fun, it helps motivate me to work out because hitting the slopes completely out of shape sucks, and it's a great chance to bond with someone that has known me for so long. Negatives are large cash expenditure, potential for injury, and burning of jet fuel to get there. This is an example of where prioritizing values helped me make a decision and feel better about it. In past years I felt very guilty both about the $ and the jet fuel, and I never would have posted about it here. Now I accept that it's an imperfect thing that has enough positive value for me that I'm just going to do it and enjoy it for what it is. Can't decide whether this is me moving forward or backwards in my ERE journey.

On the work front, 2 weeks ago I was crying at the end of a day, but this past week I have tried to think about the other things work brings me. Previously I have always looked to get paid to learn about something that interests me. Once I had learned all about the thing, I moved on, but not without a misstep both previous times I changed careers. I'm trying to avoid the misstep, and also having to start at the bottom again in something new. So I thought "Ok, what if instead of being paid to learn, I was paid to have fun, build relationships, and do meaningful work? Then learn stuff outside work?" Essentially just moving one thing out of the work module. It weakens that module, but maybe that's ok. If I keep building new modules or reviving inactive ones, maybe I find something better, or if I can move 2 levels up build a web that doesn't require that module at all. To complicate matters, I have the option to move to a 4th grade science position next year. Options are good, but making decisions is not easy for me. Here's another choice to make.

I tabulated the household income and expenses for December. It's ironic that I'm now doing this when I've stated that I'm trying to think about things not just in terms of money. I didn't go as far as YMOYL suggests and evaluate each expense, but I may do that in the future. It was enough work just tracking everything down, laying it out, and thinking about whether I should use cash or accrual basis and what I should amortize and what can just be expensed. Also, should costs related to the rental simply come off income? I calculated a monthly "Income Robustness Score":

Source Income Robustness Score
My salary 1.00
DW salary 1.00
Rental House 0.45
Online Tutoring 0.06
ebay monthly total 0.04
Gifts 0.06

What struck me is that just making $10s of dollars selling some stuff on ebay and DW tutoring 1 hour a week covered 10% of our expenses. Framing it like this may help me develop these or other income streams. We'll see. I need to input our 401k portfolio as well. I also need to track our cash spending/income. While it isn't a lot, I've seen it doesn't need to be. I'll have "consulting" income to put on the report next week, though I don't know if doing that is "cheating", as it is very much dependent upon me still being employed where I am.

Quick hits: Improv class is going great. I'm currently reading Thinking, Fast and Slow. In a funny turn of events, I told DW I was taking a break from Warhammer 40k, then that same morning a friend messages me to ask if I want to join a league. When I told him what I had just said, he replied "I felt the disturbance". I've been practicing guitar just a little bit for a performance I will give in my class at the end of February.

I'm potentially interested in joining a MMG. I'd probably be most interested in a +1 WL group for all the ~5s trying to jump that moat to 6, though I'd be open to other focuses, maybe something about personality types--an ERE support group for all the Idealists trying to live amongst you Rationals? A study group for all the development/spiral dynamics stuff coming up around here? I'd mostly be looking for moral support--honestly the hardest thing about all this is there is nobody IRL to talk to about this stuff. Don't know if I've been active enough on the forum to qualify. Usually I'm the person that would get something like this started, gather the people, get folks excited, etc., but I'm concerned about my ability to follow-through in getting it executed. If I flake on writing in my journal, I've really only let myself down. If I flake on this, I've wasted the time of others, which is not cool. OTOH, it's easier for me to get pumped about face to face interactions (even over the internet) than about writing something here that maybe people are reading and maybe it benefits someone. I've almost talked myself into it...

mathiverse
Posts: 788
Joined: Fri Feb 01, 2019 8:40 pm

Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by mathiverse »

You're definitely active enough to qualify to be in an MM group!

A WL + 1 group for those going from WL5 to WL6 sounds like it'd be very fun and interesting. I'll be looking forward to hearing about the progress of you and the others who join you! ;)

User avatar
grundomatic
Posts: 413
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:04 am

Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by grundomatic »

January totals tabulated

Source Income Robustness Score
My salary 0.97
DW salary 1.00
Rental House 0.55
Online Tutoring 0.04
ebay monthly total 0.01
Gifts 0.15
Consulting 0.13
401k portfolios/300 0.22
Total 3.08

Including the Consulting income is not in the original spirit of this metric as it is tied to my job, but since I can control my hours I have included it to (hopefully) encourage myself to increase it. Added the portfolio for this month. Maybe next month I'll clean this up so it looks better.

User avatar
grundomatic
Posts: 413
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:04 am

Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by grundomatic »

Separating out the consulting was a mistake and is misusing the score, which is supposed to measure independent sources of income. It won't be counted anymore, as it is very much tied to the day job. Extra money does affect savings rate, so I calculated that--73% in Dec and 65% in Jan. Even though I'm not even close to FI yet and the hourly rate is great, I have a hard time spending my limited remaining energy (after work) making more money, when it's obvious we don't need it (in the current moment).

I have until April 1 to decide if I am going to return for the next school year, at least as far as leaving on good terms goes. Previous career decisions were much easier because I was so miserable, or maybe because I was young and reckless. I do have the option to teach science for 4th grade, but that position would end up being more work and has testing pressure, too. Not sure that's the solution to my burnout. I want so bad to try and live a non-salaried life, but DAMN, it's scary to walk away from the salaryman gig. Maybe I'll list my concerns later. DW seems to think I should consider it a sabbatical year and just go back if it doesn't work out, but that doesn't come without risks, either. I'm just scared.

This past weekend, just as I was wondering "How can I keep doing improv without just signing up for more classes?", a classmate invited me to join a relatively new troupe. I practiced with them and it was a blast--I was acquainted with most of them from drop-in classes at the theater. Still costs involved since I'll need to contribute to help pay for practice space rental, but it won't be much, and I'll have a new social circle and performance outlet that isn't work. WHEE!!!

User avatar
grundomatic
Posts: 413
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:04 am

Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by grundomatic »

Feb stats: SR 61%, IR2 2.42
I expected things to be worse with my super-spendy ski trip last month. Savings rate is trending the wrong way, but it could have been worse.

As of yesterday I am officially not returning to my position next school year. I've billed it as a year off to take care of myself, hopefully leaving the door open if I fail terribly. I feel very relieved having made the decision. It was gut-wrenching and emotional. I can now at least enjoy my remaining time with my coworkers and students.

After taking the summer to recover, I'll be looking to add or revive life modules to replace the giant one I just kicked to the curb. I remember better times when I enjoyed doing things and hope to get there again. I had my improv student showcase, and a coworker that watched commented that they hadn't seen me that happy in a long time, so it's in there somewhere. Also found out that I can volunteer at the theater and earn credits which I can use to take classes, so that makes my new hobby even more frugal-friendly. There will still be a small outlay for a practice space with the troupe I joined, but it's pretty small potatoes so I'm not even going to worry about it.

CDR
Posts: 57
Joined: Sun Sep 06, 2020 9:45 pm
Location: Canada

Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by CDR »

Congrats on pulling the trigger for the year off! Looking forward to seeing what happens for you in the next year :)!

User avatar
grundomatic
Posts: 413
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:04 am

Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by grundomatic »

I spent spring break traveling to my hometown (origintown? previoustown?), visiting family and friends. Returned home and continued spending time with friends. Despite having the sleep schedule disrupted, this morning I actually felt like working on my "desert restoration project". I try not to say "yardwork", because that's way more yucky. This fills me with hope that I will be able to recover from burnout...I'd been putting this off for a long time, and it's something I (kinda) like. I should figure out how to post pictures to share the changes in the yard.

Met with the MMG2 yesterday. It was cool to meet others on a similar journey. I should have prepared a little more. I need to nail down more precisely what I am trying to accomplish.

User avatar
grundomatic
Posts: 413
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:04 am

Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by grundomatic »

March stats: SR 78%, IR2 3.81
The numbers are inflated due to tax return. 62%, 2.81 without.

Our monthly household spending is approximately one of our salaries. I wonder, if we did the same jobs but made different salaries, would our spending change? Is it just chance or have I internalized the "save 50%" message of the general FIRE movement? Would it have been different had I just reread ERE over and over again and internalized that message instead?

I've noticed that friends have many ideas for jobs I can do when I tell them I'm not going back to teaching next year. It's nice that people are concerned for me. The most interesting opportunity was offered up by a friend starting an engineering company in the decarbonization field, who wants my help with the business side. I plan on spending a week working with him when DW goes back to work for next school year. He said something along the lines of me being too talented to just sit around doing hobbies. I guess ERE is hard to explain. He said he'd be remiss if he didn't try to recruit me. I guess I'd be remiss if I didn't see what he has in mind.

Improv continues to be a blast. We did our second variety show at the local theater, and were slotted in the penultimate spot, which is encouraging. There are tryouts for a spot on the house team at the end of the month, which I intend to do just because we were invited. I finished reading Impro as recommended by @theanimal. Some really good stuff in it, applicable to both improv acting, writing, and just life in general. There was also a section about mask/trance work that was beyond my wheaton level in the area, I guess.

Somewhere here on the forum it was recommended to write a letter to oneself about why one is retiring from their job. I think it's a good idea and I should work on it, and if it gets done I will post it here.

User avatar
grundomatic
Posts: 413
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:04 am

Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by grundomatic »

Dear grundomatic,

Maybe you should have written this letter to you a few very long months ago, but better today than never. You are leaving your job because your “experiencing self” is miserable. You’ve had doubts, but that’s because you once enjoyed your job tremendously. Not anymore. Thanks a lot, “remembering self”--about 2 years too long here, thanks to you. Breaking down and crying is not a healthy response to having to go to work on a Monday (or any other day). You are barely holding it together when first graders do typical first grader stuff. It has sucked all the fun out of the rest of your life, too. It had to end.

To top it off, management has lost their minds. The worst employees are protected, supported, and even promoted, while the people that give a shit about the kids (like your wife and your friends) have ever more dumped on them, and any concerns brought are turned right back around on the person expressing displeasure at the bullshit that is happening.

Ideally you are going to put together the start of a renaissance lifestyle with a variety of things to get into and get paid for, and never have to go back to work full-time again. That way when you get tired of something, your entire life isn’t disturbed like it is now. It won’t be easy, but neither is what you are going through now. If you do end up working full-time again, get out when it starts losing it’s appeal and don’t even feel bad about it. Maybe plan for it the day you start. Here’s to hoping you don’t have to write another letter like this.

Sincerely,
grundomatic

User avatar
grundomatic
Posts: 413
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:04 am

Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by grundomatic »

April stats: SR 71%, IR2 2.93

I'll probably get to the point where I start posting the monthly spend amount here, too, as reducing the monthly spend will be part of my new "job" come fall. Spending was a little lower this month, which surprised me, as I would have expected it to increase with increased stress--ordering out on tired nights, unable to fight an impulse purchase, etc.

The MMG continues to be helpful. Connecting with others doing similar things has helped push me just that little bit that I need. Today I rode my bike to run a couple errands, including picking up the groceries, and I credit the MMG meeting from yesterday. There was a discussion about thinking in systems, and the suggestion was to think about bigger systems you are a part of, and "groceries" was the example given. I'd been thinking about riding my bike (again) for a while, but that was the nudge I needed to follow through. I found that while I didn't do much else today, I was happy with what I did do, because I accomplished more than one thing at a time. They also gave me some good ideas on surviving stressful times.

User avatar
grundomatic
Posts: 413
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:04 am

Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by grundomatic »

Last Saturday I auditioned for the house team at a local improv theatre. Having only been doing this for a few months, it shouldn't be surprising that I didn't get a spot. However, I have learned enough that when we started playing scenes with the team, I was able to see what made those players better than myself and most of the other auditionees. After feeling disappointed for a little bit, it's actually really good for me. Sometimes things come pretty easy for me, and this motivates me to actually work to get better. I can't remember the last time I felt this, and this might be the first time that I want to be better just for myself, and not to "win" some sort of competition. I even feel the desire to be better seeping into other areas beyond improv.

User avatar
grundomatic
Posts: 413
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:04 am

Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by grundomatic »

I'm on my 4th day off work, at home from being sick. Yesterday and today (once I started feeling better) I have started to spin out of control, unable to focus and/or decide on what to do with myself. I'm torn between all the things that have been piling up over the past years while I've had zero energy to deal with them. I came to the forums and started searching for answers, and started to put things together. Here are the inspiring threads, if anyone is interested:

viewtopic.php?p=100215#p100215
viewtopic.php?p=113609#p113609
viewtopic.php?p=246982#p246982

Previously in my journal I wrote about working out my values, and also mentioned how it seemed like I was missing something. I think I have accurately identified my top values, but I need to add a few. At first (or maybe always), I was thinking of these things as "negative" values, something to avoid:

1. Resource use
2. Obligations
3. Health degradation

I realized that these could simply be flipped to be positive values.

1. Resource building
2. Freedom
3. Health building

Making my value list something like:

1. Fun
2. People
3. Learning
4. Meaningful work (which probably just means living my values)
5. Net resource accumulation
6. Freedom
7. Health

Let's see if how I'm feeling about things makes sense. Sunday when I felt sick I spent almost the entire day lounging and reading The Fifth Discipline and was happy about it, because I was 3 & 7 when I couldn't 2 or 1. Yesterday I sold some warhammer models to a guy that had posted he was looking for some things. Having been stuck at home, it was a chance to 2 and probably 5. However, I have many more models I could sell, but I've been dragging my feet, and I think it's because there's no guarantee of 2 (a buyer), and instead of 5 accumulating resources, I feel like I'd just be trading time+models for $, which I don't desperately need at this point, so just trading resources for a probably net neutral outcome, or net negative given how highly I value my free time right now. Similarly, I've struggled putting in time on my consulting work even though it's great for 5, because it is boring (anti 1&3).

Now let's see if I can use this to make some decisions on what to do. First of all, I'm bulk selling the leftover Pokemon cards I have from a school club. I had been dragging my feet, thinking that I should maximize the $ value by selling them individually or in small lots, but of course this will take way longer. The problem here is focusing on only the $ value. Unlike selling warhammer models, I don't see these as a useful-to-me resource, so I need to minimize the time spent, take the $ I can get, and get them out of my hobby space. It also clears an obligation, so now it's 6 and 5.

I also need to buckle down and get my consulting work done as, that will clear an obligation 6 and the hourly rate is great 5. However, with it being anti-1&3, I need to find something to counteract that--maybe 1:1 time doing something that's straight 1 and not worrying if it's nothing else? Not a great systems solution, I know, but I just need to buckle down and soon I will be done with that module forever. The key will actually be making the time 1:1--yesterday I took a 2 hour break after 15 minutes of work.

While I'm not convinced the list is completely right at this point*, focusing on my values has helped me stop worrying about what I "should" be doing. Maybe in the future I can write out a daily list of all the things I want to do and "should" do, then rank them based on values and just do the top things on the list. Then even if I end up doing "shoulds" instead of "wants", I'll have a good "why" to tell myself. I've at least found it useful today. I'm calling the time spent on thinking and writing about it 3.

*maybe 4 is just doing things I value? should 7 just be rolled into a resource of 5? should I list the resources of 5? are these in the right order? how are they weighted? some of these don't seem like "values".

shaz
Posts: 420
Joined: Mon Aug 02, 2021 7:05 pm
Location: Colorado, US

Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by shaz »

I struggle with a lot of the same questions that you list at the end. FWIW I will argue that health should not be rolled into resources because it is such a big thing and it will impact all of the others.

User avatar
grundomatic
Posts: 413
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:04 am

Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by grundomatic »

May stats: SR 67%, IR2 2.99

I've been off work for a week now, and I'm in full-blown vacation mode. Sometimes it feels like any other summer break, but yesterday I had a tiny freak-out when thinking about how I'm not returning. "Oh no, I need a J-O-B to make some money! What am I doing!?!" Fortunately DW was there and talked me down. "Um, no. You wanted a year off, so that's what you are doing." I'm lucky to have someone so supportive.

We are house/pet sitting someplace much cooler (temperature-wise), and it's been an amazing experience. I'm able to loosen up and enjoy spending a little money on treats since there isn't a giant hotel/AirBnB bill. DW seems to be able to relax and not feel like the days have to be jam packed. Lots of reading, talking, games, and walks. I'm going to bump the thread where housesitting was recommended to help others find it.

The MMG has been great for me, and I hope our group continues past our next meeting, which was scheduled in the beginning to be our last. I haven't been aggressively pursuing ERE goals the past three months, but just seeing and talking to others working towards similar things is very helpful to me.

User avatar
grundomatic
Posts: 413
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:04 am

Re: grundomatic's journal

Post by grundomatic »

I continue to coast through the summer. I figure it's what I would do if I were going back to work at the end of the summer, so my new endeavor (whatever it ends up being besides cooking and cleaning) deserves the same treatment. Relationships are improving. I've found myself wanting to do things that had totally been dropped in the past months. I've been reading books, playing games, and even painting some miniatures.

Image

DW seems to be on a mission to reduce spending on anything that bills monthly. A while ago it was getting us a smaller trash can, now we have a new phone plan with Mint, and then today she mentioned dropping her gym membership. I recently got quotes on home insurance, but nobody wants to insure us with our old roof, so nothing to be done there, though we did discuss changing the deductible. It may be worth evaluating our car insurance situation. I think I may also start categorizing our monthly expenditures and sharing those details rather than just giving her the executive summary, as the bigger opportunities lie in our "optional spending".

At improv practice we had someone come in and coach us, and they brought up many of the things I had observed during my audition. I am at least "seeing" the right things in this realm, even if I don't always execute properly when performing. I guess it comes down to reps. Our troupe managed to secure a venue for our own show in a month. It's pretty exciting.

Post Reply