AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

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7Wannabe5
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I don't know how you are going to find fun young people to hang out with in any neighborhood where studio apartments are $2000/month.

bostonimproper
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by bostonimproper »

Why not move and keep the condo for a year and see how you feel about it then? AFAICT there’s no reason these decisions need to be coupled and you’ll know in a year whether you like being a landlord and have stronger feelings about moving back someday (or not).

Frita
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by Frita »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Mon May 29, 2023 7:16 am
I don't know how you are going to find fun young people to hang out with in any neighborhood where studio apartments are $2000/month.
Speaking from our downtown Denver days, a lot of the fun will not be frugal. People were friendly and not uptight for the most part. We’re glad we did it in a “Been there, done that” way…and miss the progressiveness daily(!).

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

That's for the feedback everyone. After thinking about it for a few days, this is what I've decided.

I still think moving is the right choice for me. This has been a decision I've been sitting on since before COVID happened that got pushed aside due to other circumstances in my life, so it's been a long time coming. Nevertheless, it's probably not wise to rush into this, as renting any random apartment to get out of the suburbs is not really a solution in the same way picking any random job to get out of a bad one could lead you into the same situation all over again.

Now Denver is just a HCOL city, so the numbers for rent might look shocking if you are from other parts of the country. It's one reason why I've thought about just moving to NYC because that wouldn't even cost much more. $1.5k-$2k/mo is pretty much the market rate for a studio or one bedroom apartment here.

What I'm going to do is take an approach that balances other items on my web of goals with this move so that I'm not making a choice that might be counterproductive to other things in my life. This means it's going to take me a bit longer to find the right place, but when I do, my life should hopefully be in better alignment. Unfortunately, I have major career burnout from all of software that's still a problem right now. I've been coping with this by trying to change my attitude and keeping up with good lifestyle/hobbies, but it's nevertheless a persistent problem. I'm trying to manage the burnout/depression without letting it hijack my behavior. This is more difficult than it sounds because depression is a condition where you just can't trust how you feel about anything. You often have to force yourself to do everything, so knowing what needs to be cut and what needs to be forced is a tricky line.

I would ideally like to quit, but of course, you see the problem if rent is $2k/month. This again gets back to the problem of the web of goals needing to be aligned.

So the plan is, therefore, to double down on all the healthy lifestyle stuff, which is mainly diet/exercise/sleep. As well as keep up with a regular meditation practice, as that tends to make the angry depression thoughts shut up easier. And then write down a list of all the neighborhoods in Denver I would consider moving to and go visit one a week. I think getting out there and actually seeing this stuff pulls it out of the hypothetical/too abstract freedom-from and gives me much more concrete freedom-to experiences that I can work off. Plus with a better tuning of the web of goals, I'll be able to see if the rent price tag is set in stone, if my job is something I really have to keep, or if there's another way to get what I'm looking for in a more strategic way. But the key here is to actually go develop the concrete lifestyle more so than being hand-wavy or too hypothetical about it. No plan survives contact with the enemy and all that.

Jin+Guice
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by Jin+Guice »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Mon May 29, 2023 7:16 am
I don't know how you are going to find fun young people to hang out with in any neighborhood where studio apartments are $2000/month.
jacob wrote:
Thu May 25, 2023 11:38 am
This moving decision strikes me as being similar to those who seek FIRE because they want "freedom-from" work. That's almost always a bad idea.
A few years ago my friend was complaining that there were "no good dudes" around to date. My other friend pointed out that she was mostly hooking up with dudes she met in bars at 6a. His advice was "if you're looking for the yoga dudes, you might want to try going to yoga."

True access can rarely be bought.


I think getting out of the suburbs asap will put you closer to the people you seem to want to find. I do see you potentially setting yourself up to live near a bunch of other professionals with kids or just a bunch of high-spending urban professionals. Do you know what your ideal lifestyle looks like? Do you know what you are hoping to find in the city?

Also, what's up with your job? Could you potentially take a year or two off to decompress?

macg
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by macg »

AnalyticalEngine wrote:
Mon May 29, 2023 6:34 pm
Nevertheless, it's probably not wise to rush into this, as renting any random apartment to get out of the suburbs is not really a solution in the same way picking any random job to get out of a bad one could lead you into the same situation all over again.
I'm just going to throw this out there, I don't necessarily agree with this. Change is good, and major change usually forces you to learn things about yourself you otherwise wouldn't have.

I ended up living in an RV for around 5 years, wandering aimlessly, purely because I had decided the winter before that I was selling my house and leaving the cold. About 2 weeks before I was leaving, a friend told me about an RV for sale for $6k. I had just planned on leaving, wondering aimlessly in a car, staying in hotels, trying to find the next place to live. I had never been in an RV before, but figured screw it, let's try it, worst case I don't like it. Ended up loving it.

I'm not saying don't think things through, I'm not saying don't research things. I'm just saying that thinking and researching too much can also be a way to avoid change, and that spontaneity can be great, getting yourself out of your comfort zone can be great.

I guess that my theory is if you don't like the change you make, you can always change again.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

@J+G, @macg - Both of you bring up very good points here. I've been thinking about this for a few days so I can clarify my thoughts.

Part of my current struggle is that depression can be the symptom of a bad environment but it also can be a primary genetic condition where your brain is just lowkey fucked. I have a pretty significant family history of mental illness, so my genetic factors are not doing me any favors. But like any condition, depression can be made worse by environment and lifestyle circumstances, so the difficulty is knowing where to put my energy. Do I only feel like I hate the suburbs because depression makes me feel like I hate everything? Or do I genuinely hate the suburbs and being here is just making my condition worse?

I have read every book on the topic, tried multiple antidepressants, been to therapy, read even more books on the topic, and to be honest, I don't think there's a single paradigm that explains depression because it's really a very wide spectrum of experiences under the same label. So I want to be careful I'm not making an impulsive choice because I feel bad that's not actually going to solve the problem.

Which is why this can be broken down into two problems: problem one is lifestyle-shit-togetherness (what you might think of as traditional lifestyle treatments for depression) and problem two is being in the wrong social/work environment. Yes, these are the same problem on some level, but the distinction is helpful when trying to come up with a solution.

Now, it is also absolutely true that I can sit here and over plan my life all day and therefore never actually get out there and do anything because I'm spending way too much time planning.

I do have a rough "freedom-to" lifestyle in mind, which would look like this:
1. Work toward becoming a published writer.
2. Enough free time to travel and study because I write historical fiction and these two activities are time intensive but also critical for writing a good story. Also I just like history and enjoy traveling to see it.
3. Be embedded in some physical and social environment that makes making friends and maintaining social connections easier.
4. Supports healthy lifestyle factors (diet/exercise/sleep/etc).

And these four things are things I'm already doing a lot of, it's just work/constant low energy are getting in the way of doing them at a higher level.

Work is becoming a problem because I have negative 10,000 interest in software development at this point, and if I never see another computer again as long as I live, that would be fucking fantastic. I just have limited energy and get absolutely nothing except easy money from work at this point. The economy being a bit dicey right now is the main reason I don't quit, and also because easy money makes things like moving or traveling easier because I'm not pressed for cash.

But I'm not sure. I could just quit work, sell my house, move somewhere LCOL, and be FI and just focus on writing. Which is a tempting solution. And even if I end up hating this, soul crushing software jobs are a time a dozen once you have my level of experience.

I think I'm going to take some time to fix some lifestyle factors and then try to move toward this in a more concrete and actionable way.

Jin+Guice
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by Jin+Guice »

How do you want your life to look like? Why doesn't it look that way right now? What could you do today to move your life in that direction?

Would making a drastic change be likely to move you towards that life?


I read your whole journal like a month ago and you've been dithering about making a major lifestyle change for awhile. I agree with @jacob that putting all of your mental health eggs in one basket isn't wise. But I also don't think carefully fine tuning hell is the best solution when you are miserable. The more unhappy you are, the less you have to lose by making changes.

I think the lesson is that perfection is not waiting on the other side, bc it does not exist. Moving won't solve all of your problems, but it might solve some of them? Do you enjoy your environment and can you find your people where you are or not?

Personally I fucking hate the suburbs, so if I was in your situation I would do everything in my power to sell my house as quickly as possible while renting a place in the city.... but I have strong opinions.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

Jin+Guice wrote:
Fri Jun 09, 2023 3:02 pm
How do you want your life to look like? Why doesn't it look that way right now? What could you do today to move your life in that direction?

Would making a drastic change be likely to move you towards that life?
I just took a trip to the PNW region of the country last weekend, including Bend and Portland, and I gave this question a lot of thought during the trip. I also tried to imagine myself actually living in all of the cities I visited and what my life would really look like there.

Traveling has been good for me because the sharp contrast between the places I visit and where I live now helps remind me of all the reasons I want to move. I have a habit of procrastinating this decision because upending my entire lifestyle I've been living for nearly a decade is difficult, but the more I travel and push myself out of my comfort zone, the more I think moving is the right choice.

To be frank, the biggest problem with my life right now is the combination of Conservative Suburb and working from home is just too socially isolating. I've been trying for nearly a year and a half to make friends where I live, and while I have indeed made some, the effort of putting myself out there and traveling has made me realize that my current location is just not a great fit for the lifestyle I want to live. I want to live somewhere where there's more cultural events, more access to the arts, less car dependent, and easier to meet people. This will very likely mean an urban location.

In particular, I noticed Portland was about a 180 degree difference between where I live now, and you don't really see all the little ways where you live is determining your lifestyle until you leave that area.

So with all that said, what I'm going to do is travel to a bunch of cities in the US and decide where to live from there. I'm holding off on changing jobs until I move because my current job is remote and tolerable if I'm doing other stuff and not thinking about it. The biggest priority is location.

The logistical details of how to do this are more complicated, but I like @mF's suggestion of staying overnight in various cities before committing to some sort of longer stay there. It's hard to know what something looks like until you're there, and I've definitely been to cities I liked way more on paper than in person.

I think my next two destinations will be Washington DC/Virginia and NYC. I don't actually want to live in DC but I do want to spend some time there to go see all the national monuments as well as all the civil war battlefields in that area. And then NYC is some place I would actually consider moving to. I've been to NYC a bunch but never longer than a long weekend, so I know enough about it to commit to at least a month in NYC, and then I can see if that's a lifestyle I like.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

As I've been wavering about the condo decision, the universe decided to send me a sign in the form of a complete electrical blackout going on a week now and a condo HOA refusing to cooperate.

We've been getting an ungodly amount of thunderstorms and torrential downpours this month, and this weather caused a fence post the HOA installed to sink into the ground and smash together the main electrical line between my house and my neighboring condo. This massively ruined my entire electrical system by reversing the ground wire and the neutral wire and blew up all of my appliances and the electrical breaker box outside my house. Hell, it blew up the breaker on the damned meter.

This fried everything just an ungodly amount. Like, I turned off the main breaker to my house AND the main breaker on the meter, but power was STILL coming into my unit on the messed up ground wire.

Needless to say, I've already spent >$1.5k on hiring electricians to diagnose the issue and had three linemen from the power company come out to look at it on their end. My electrician system is well and truly a hot mess.

Now, I do have homeowners insurance, and they will be paying for a lot of this, but the problem is the damned HOA and my neighbor just refuse to deal with the issue. Like I've tried 80 times to knock on my neighbor's door and leave them notes such as "your electrical system is probably slowly frying everything you own, please call" but they don't. The fucking electrical company has left them notes and they don't respond.

Then there's the HOA, which is notoriously slow about fixing anything. It took them an entire month and a half to replace a rotting support bean on the property and instead just leaned a 2x4 in its place. And they're dragging their feet on this issue when it was their fence post that cause the entire problem.

My issue at this point is I don't know who's responsible for paying for this. Like we're looking at $20k in repairs given the line is broken, the meter is broken, my electrical box is broken, all my appliances are broken. Should the HOA pay for it because they installed the post bad?? Is this my homeowners insurance?? Help??

I am this close to talking to a lawyer and looking into suing the HOA.

Needless to say, as soon as this is fixed, I am selling the condo and getting the hell out of this condo complex.

zbigi
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by zbigi »

In Poland, in such cases typically the insurance pays you and then they have a claim against whoever caused the damage. There's even a name for this in the insurance world lingo, but it escapes me now.

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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by theanimal »

zbigi wrote:
Sat Jun 24, 2023 9:14 am
In Poland, in such cases typically the insurance pays you and then they have a claim against whoever caused the damage. There's even a name for this in the insurance world lingo, but it escapes me now.
Subrogation.

You should contact your homeowners insurance and report the claim right away if you haven't already. They will do their investigation to determine who's at fault, you'll receive payment depending on your coverage, and they'll likely pursue charges to reimburse their payment to you from whoever is at fault.

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grundomatic
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by grundomatic »

The HOA will continue to ignore you. Start with the insurance company, because if this is covered you can at least start the process of getting your money back.

If it's not covered, call the Bar association for CO who can point you to an attorney that handles cases like this. They'll likely give you the first hour free or deeply discounted and let you know if you have a case.

But again, don't expect the HOA to be helpful in this situation at all. "Act of God" they'll probably claim, releasing themselves of responsibility. I'd let either your insurance or attorney deal with them from here on out.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

Thanks for the tips. I have already submitted a claim to my homeowner's insurance, and I've already surpassed the deductible with diagnostic fees from electricians. They will pay for it, but the issue is the electrical line is in the common area and is also messing up my neighbor's electricity (and possibly the entire row of condos, I just have the worst of it). So if the line is broken for everyone, my insurance would not pay for everyone's electrical line.

But some good news, I did get a hold of my neighbor, and she says she's having electrical issues too. She also mentioned the power company called her. She's renting the unit from a small, private landlord, and I'm hoping her landlord is going to be as anxious as me about this because the electrical is also killing his unit. So if I can get myself, the landlord, the power company, and my insurance company, we might be able to light a fire under the HOA and make them get their act together. It's also a major safety issue. There are live wires that are broken underground and it keeps raining everyday.

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Slevin
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by Slevin »

AnalyticalEngine wrote:
Sat Jun 24, 2023 5:31 pm
So if the line is broken for everyone, my insurance would not pay for everyone's electrical line.

So if I can get myself, the landlord, the power company, and my insurance company, we might be able to light a fire under the HOA and make them get their act together. It's also a major safety issue. There are live wires that are broken underground and it keeps raining everyday.
Yeah the HOA is probably trying to align everyone on the problem, make sure they have the money in the coffers / putting together a “one time assessment” / getting in touch with their homeowners insurance. Coordinating people in any HOA board is always annoying, and the more serious the problem, the more they have to make sure all their political + insurance + legal + contractor bits of their responses are all in a row before they can respond to you with how they can fix it.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

@Slevin - That all makes sense. They're still not returning my calls or my emails, and at this point, I'm going to contact my insurance and see if they can get the HOA to move faster. I've been completely without electricity for a week and a half now, and this is getting ridiculous.

I don't want to overreact but I'm about at the point where I'm going to move my stuff out anyway and find somewhere else to live then sell the condo as soon as this is fixed. The only issue is I don't know where I'm going to go. Either I get a lease on an apartment in Denver or commit to making the nomad thing work somehow with both the cat and the dog. I definitely do not want this condo any more and I can't get out of this place fast enough.

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Ego
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by Ego »

AnalyticalEngine wrote:
Mon Jun 26, 2023 12:36 pm
I've been completely without electricity for a week and a half now, and this is getting ridiculous.
Does the homeowners insurance cover temporary housing? Perhaps you can get the beginnings of your nomad life covered by insurance. This seems like one those gray areas where the question comes down to habitability. Live wires shorting underground and constant rain with no power to your apartment seems like it might be a habitability claim. This could be an opportunity.
Last edited by Ego on Mon Jun 26, 2023 1:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by jacob »

AnalyticalEngine wrote:
Mon Jun 26, 2023 12:36 pm
I've been completely without electricity for a week and a half now, and this is getting ridiculous.
Ridiculous because the fix is getting slow-walked or because of struggling with the transition/situation? I've usually found that I get a lot more done around the house when the electricity/internet is out. Apparently, electricity powers a lot of distractions in my case. 10+ days is long enough to begin to consider the long-term viability of living without or with very little electricity ala the low-tech magazine solutions with a small panel on the balcony to power a few high-value devices like a laptop and an LED light.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

Update - I managed to schedule a fix on July 6th by hiring my own electrician and then promising to provide photographic evidence of the conduit break once we dig it up to my insurance and the HOA. The problematic part here is all 8 condo units use the same conduit, and I already know my neighbor's is broken too, which probably means other people have bad lines, but I'm only replacing my line. I think my electrician is going to attempt to sell his services to my neighbors once he digs up the conduit but I'm not 100% sure how this is supposed to go. I'm only responsible for my line.

I've tried to talk to my neighbors about it and they don't seem to really understand how our electrical system works and therefore don't see the problem, but having half broken wires inside the conduit, even if mine is fixed, can't be great.

@Jacob - The no-electrcity itself isn't so much of a problem, although I've mostly just been living at the library or the gym. It's not unlike work WFH on long road trips where you just have to basically live in public space. The real issue has been food, but that's probably solvable with more research now that this is a long-term issue and not just a short outage. I actually think I could live on low electricity by charging devices at public spaces pretty easily, and that might be a worthwhile solution to look into.

@Ego - That's also a good idea and something I thought about. What makes the situatuon dangerous is the fact the power is all mixed up inside the neutral and ground wires, and my breaker doesn't turn the power off. I know I'm insured a couple thousand for "loss of use," which means I might be able to get the insurance to pay for an air BnB or similar. They probably wouldn't pay for something out of state, but I might be able to pull off an argument for something in a Denver neighborhood I'd like to try.

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Re: AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

Post by shaz »

The insurance company may have a maximum daily rate they will pay for temporary housing and not care where it is located. It is worth asking their policy before you suggest any locations.

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