seanconn's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
2Birds1Stone
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Re: seanconn's journal

Post by 2Birds1Stone »

Just tell your family you got a DWI and you're being extra careful now.

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seanconn256
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Re: seanconn's journal

Post by seanconn256 »

Monthly check up, last month went well. I was able to sell a bunch of old stuff I never used, and there were no other expensive purchases I had to make this month, so I made up the money I used moving. I even skipped going to the grocery store one week because I had enough dried food to last me.

I had a couple different efforts running at once this month, including tracking my car usage, non-consumable purchases and food spending.

I used the car 5 times last month, twice for dates, twice to see family, and once to go to the bike shop. Both of the times I saw family could have been covered by greyhound buses, the two dates needed a car either way, and the bike shop could have been covered by a bus ride. Next time, I’ll actually take the bus. I need to do things the exact way I would do them if I was sharing a car. I estimate that I biked around 45 miles this month.

Also I thought I might enunciate this goal here; I eventually want to do permaculture. I’ve been growing useless plants like ferns and succulents, and while I’ve had some close calls they are all still alive after a year. I want to grow herbs next, which I use a lot of in cooking. I’ve got grow lights from when I used to keep my plants inside, and extra pots and soil, those should do.

This months reading has been re-reading the ERE book, and reading "Introduction to Permaculture" by Bill Mollison

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seanconn256
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Re: seanconn's journal

Post by seanconn256 »

addition: here's my savings projection. This is based on a large excel sheet of my anticipated expenses/earnings until I hit 3.5%, which is my FI point.

Assumptions: 7% interest returns, 2% salary raise per-year, expenses staying about the same.

I have a loose idea that buying a house + property taxes will probably cost a similar amount as the money required to pay rent using interest, but I haven't actually done the math there.

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This will get updated with my real values as they happen, so in the future I may post a projection-vs-actual kind of thing

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seanconn256
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Re: seanconn's journal

Post by seanconn256 »

Triple post this month https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI; I wanted to post some statistics and goals. I've been reading through C40's journal and when I'm not envying his savings rate I've really enjoyed his charts and graphs.

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My takeaway from this is that rent is by far the largest proportion of what I spend. Next is the car loan and then various date related things and food. Last month was an abnormal month as far as spending goes (it was quite low).

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This gives a better overall picture. Light blue is rent, the large green is "misc" a category I've been trying to split up more as I go along. August was so expensive due the moving costs, which I put in "misc".

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This last chart is spending vs saving. Blue is spending and yellow is saving. As you can see I'm falling short of my 50% target on average. Pretty disappointing. I cant shake the feeling I can't cut any more spending. Not without causing serious damage to my relationship, or finding something creative to do about rent. Funny enough you can also see I'm a salary man from this chart, which was not intentional. The spike in additional income is from selling furniture and misc things, the uptick in amount saved is from increasing the proportion I put in my pretax accounts.

I apologize for omitting the actual spending part of these graphs, I'm sure that limits the interpretability of the graph, but I'm a private person.

After losing all my returns since investing with the debt ceiling fiasco, I've decided it makes more sense to pay off my car rather than invest. It will destroy my savings rate for the next two or so months, but after that they should get better.

Another thing I liked from C40's posts the goal settings he was doing both monthly and yearly, so I'm going to do that too. I already do that privately, but now I will post them as well.

Yearly goals (Oct 2021 - Oct 2022)
  • Significantly reduce my "big three" spending (rent, transportation, food)
  • Get a permanent work from home job
  • Improve at drawing/animation/3D modeling to the point where I can do commissions for extra money
Monthly Goals (Oct)
  • Drive as little as possible, log when I do
  • mend some more clothing
  • finish re-reading the ERE book
The big three spending should be reduced by
  • moving in with GF and splitting rent (we will likely stay in the same area)
  • sharing my car with my GF; we currently have agreed to have her take on all the costs of the car after we share it, meaning she pays for gas/oil/maintenance because I bought the car outright. This makes sense to me because she will use it more than me. We didn't mention insurance, but we'll get there.
  • I expect as my girlfriend gets in a more stable position after graduating she will want to eat out less. I hope so too. I don't think I spend extravagantly on food, I only eat out with her and I eat a lot of staple based foods otherwise. I've cut meat to a minimum as well. I don't buy anything name-brand or even brand associated.
For my monthly goals:
  • The driving thing is a very loose goal, I'm really just monitoring when I would need to use the car when I share one and what the would entail
  • Mending some clothing should be fun, I just bought more thread and it's a fun activity to do while watching something.
  • I'm re-reading the ERE book and understanding a lot more of it. It's funny how there is basically nothing about savings rates etc until the end and that was my main takeaway lol. I guess you take away what you can understand. Re-reading has already led to a greater focus in developing my secondary money-making or potentially money making skills. Hopefully something will come of that.
Last edited by seanconn256 on Fri Nov 19, 2021 11:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

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seanconn256
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Re: seanconn's journal

Post by seanconn256 »

Monthly post for Oct.

(please let me know if these images aren't loading; they are self-hosted)

This month, because of the negative real returns of my bond fund and the interest rate on my car loan being unchanged, I decided to sell some bonds and use it to pay of my car. It's a nice feeling, not owing anyone anything anymore, and being able to pay the entire term of my lease in cash if needed. And even more than that, being able to take a whole year off I wanted to. I'm still at the start of my FI journey, but I still have some accomplishments under my belt.

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Big thing here is the car loan payoff, here is the chart without it:

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The eating out budget is so large because I had to take my GF's family out for dinner as they helped me move. One of the very hidden costs of owning stuff, which I will be working on this month.

Update of the spending, compared to last month my spending on non-car loan stuff is about the same, even with taking 5 people out to dinner. Cars are expensive. More expensive than I think I realized. I also spend a lot less on food now (about half, from relying on staples)

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This chart gets a little screwy this month, because I spent more than I earned.
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Monthly Goals (Oct Review)

Drive as little as possible, log when I do:
I did a lot of driving this month. Drove to a renaissance festival (6 hours total), and to a restaurant (2 hours total), and on misc dates (1 hour total). No driving outside of that though, all bike riding other than that.
mend some more clothing: did some basic darning on some sheets, but other than that nothing needed repairs.
finish re-reading the ERE book: done. It's a great resource. I definitely did not get most of the insights in the first read-through.

Progress on Yearly goals:
Big three spending reductions:
housing: nothing new here.
transportation: paid off car, if that counts. Tried to minimize driving.
food: found an international grocer near me, I can now buy red lentils in three pound bags, and their spices are a lot cheaper in bulk.
Permanent work from home job: I have an interview this week! Should go well.
Improve drawing/animation/3d modeling: haven't had much time for this. The goal is to do this after the job search anyways, so no problem.

Overall I think this was a good month. Happy to be debt-free. I've been thinking about how to pre-empt a lot of the expenses I've been incurring, and that factors into my goals for Nov:

Nov Goals:
- go on at least two cheap or free dates
- go through all my junk and get rid of things I don't really need
- keep riding the bike (or walking) even though it's getting cold
- go through all the consumer products I've bought in the past two months and figure out diy/cheap/free alternatives for them, or how to change behavior to not need them

One extra note;

I've had this mental block for a while that I could just do "full" ere if only I didn't have a girlfriend. This was, and is, based on the idea that I need to cut out everything in my life that costs money. Some things need to be cut, for sure, but I'm making progress on those things and a lot of what I need to do is find smarter alternatives that are simpler in construction but more complex in my life usage. Reducing the stuff I have should factor into that, but should not be the one-size-fits-all approach. I need to think smarter as much as simpler.
Last edited by seanconn256 on Fri Nov 19, 2021 11:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

MeloTheMelon
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Re: seanconn's journal

Post by MeloTheMelon »

Hey, congrats on getting rid of that car loan and your progress in general!
Somehow this time of the year seems to be about decluttering :lol: Jacob reposted the post about getting rid of old cloths yesterday, you plan to declutter, and I did the same on the weekend. One backpack full of clothes less in my wardrobe.

Your view on having a girlfriend is really funny to me. As a single I'm always thinking about how a long-term relationship would make ERE a lot easier.
Double income for the accumulation phase, half the cost on stuff like a car, washing machine and so on. Also, why not do ERE things together. E.g. cooking something together and having a romantic dinner seems like a better experience than going to a restaurant.

PS: The images are working fine for me ^^

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seanconn256
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Re: seanconn's journal

Post by seanconn256 »

MeloTheMelon wrote:
Wed Nov 03, 2021 2:18 am
Hey, congrats on getting rid of that car loan and your progress in general!
Thanks! I'm pretty happy with what I've been able to do so far.
MeloTheMelon wrote:
Wed Nov 03, 2021 2:18 am
As a single I'm always thinking about how a long-term relationship would make ERE a lot easier.
It will hopefully work out like that in the future, but only if she has similar goals as me, or if I'm able to find stuff that meets both our needs. Right now she has no interest in ERE or FI. I like cooking together and eating in, and we do that, except the point of eating out for her is to not cook, go somewhere, and be seen. It's a huge compromise already only eating out once a week. I've been trying to think of something that fills all those requirements and doesn't cost as much money, but I'm coming up empty.
Saving half on life expenses is going to be nice, but since those life expenses will likely be inflated (2 bedroom apt etc) so it's a net zero financially.

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seanconn256
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Re: seanconn's journal

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Monthly post for Dec.

This month went really smoothly. Spending was on target. I got a ~10% raise from work, which puts this position more in line with other jobs at my experience level.

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Spending was less on other categories (dates, gas, eating out) and replaced with gift buying and my PC's motherboard failing (new one cost 100$).

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Just to reiterate last month; the big blue part is my car loan being paid off. This month is my second cheapest so far, with my spending hovering around 2000$. Yes I am sharing the spending numbers now, I've decided it would give people better perspective.

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Savings chart is good, raise doesn't kick in until next month so no increase the green yet.


Misc life things:

My GF and I had a talk and we decided that she will stop working for the next year and I will support her so she can finish college. She's already paid her rent with student loans, and has money of her own to spend, but I'll be paying for food gas etc for the time being. This impacts my retirement date by only three months (according to my spreadsheet), so it's no big deal in my opinion.

Also, she finally wanted to go through my financial plan for retirement. She had asked me about it very briefly before, but now she wanted to really get the details. I made a retirement estimator for her (~15 years at her current spending level and expected income), and she had me play around with it to see how the math worked out. She kept trying to increase her income, and was frustrated to see that the date only change by a month or two when she added a 100$ a month in savings, but that it moved by a year or so every time she took 100$ off her spending.

At the end I stressed that this is a loose plan (because it is) and she said it actually seemed very well planned out. I think she has general interest in trying to do FI. She was impressed especially by the idea of working, but working less, or in more favorable conditions, in retirement. I told her that extra money I make doing things that I enjoy during retirement could go to fun things for us to do, and I think that really made her feel better about the whole thing. I also told her she could give up at any point and just use the interest to pay rent or something. She liked that idea as well.

In my opinion, things are looking up.


Monthly Goals (Nov Review):

go on at least two cheap or free dates: this was a half win, we walked around the city and got some coffee, which cost around 7$ for a night. We didn't do any other cheap dates though; not for lack of trying.
go through all my junk and get rid of things I don't really need: I threw out about two trashbags worth of stuff, donated some old clothing, and generally cleaned up. I've got some stuff I want to put on freecycle that I've been procrastinating.
keep riding the bike (or walking) even though it's getting cold: done this as well, I have insulating clothing so it honestly has not been a big change.

go through all the consumer products I've bought in the past two months and figure out diy/cheap/free alternatives for them
: this mostly resulted in an analysis of my amazon purchases, and realizing that the vast majority of things that I buy are because of compromise stuff in the relationship. My PC parts were like 300$ the past year, bike stuff 100$, and 600$ GF related purchases. I wasn't able to dissect my walmart etc purchases because they are not itemized in my expenses.


Progress on Yearly goals:

Big three spending reductions:
housing: no change here
transportation: still riding the bike, only needed gas once this month to see family
food: eating lentils, making granola bars, got some food grade storage bins
Permanent work from home job: have two interviews scheduled, haven't heard back from the last people. My current job is WFH for at least a couple more months.

Dec Goals:

- keep biking, even if it snows.
- track non perishable expenses in an itemized fashion, so that I can look back at them later (aka instead of 15 dollars at walmart, 10$ phone chargers and 5$ of lentils)
- start drawing and doing 3D again, at least once a week
- finish the book I'm reading

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seanconn256
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Re: seanconn's journal

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Monthly post for Dec.

Another really good month. Got a new job, adding about 20% more to my salary. I've heard switching from a junior to normal engineer is normally a huge pay-raise, and I can now attest to that. My excel sheet now says 7 years to retirement; yay!

Image
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Misc life things:

Decided to get into woodworking. I have realized that I do too much last minute learning and planning when issues arise. I need to equip myself to handle them when they happen. If a piece of furniture breaks I should be prepared to fix it. I've decided to use all hand tools for the moment, they seem to be a slower and more difficult version of power tools, but it cost me about 100$ to get all of them so I consider that a win. Hand tools also seem to be much more of a skill than using power tools, not to gatekeep woodworking or anything but I think there is a major difference in skill between putting a board in a planer machine to make a board flat vs doing it with a square and hand planer.



Monthly Goals (Dec Review):

- keep biking, even if it snows: still biking, it's cold now.
- track non perishable expenses in an itemized fashion, so that I can look back at them later (aka instead of 15 dollars at walmart, 10$ phone chargers and 5$ of lentils); I made a walmart account and connected it to my credit card. I was actually able to see all my past purchases with it.
- start drawing and doing 3D again, at least once a week; this I failed on. I will try again next month.
- finish the book I'm reading; also failed. going to roll this one over as well.

Progress on Yearly goals:

Big three spending reductions:
housing: no progress here; my GF said she is probably going to get a job in the area after graduating.
transportation: shared the car with my GF for a week when her car broke, there were no issues. Looking good for the future plans.
food: Spent a little more on food this month, took the GF out to dinner and have been making some fancier recipes.
Permanent work from home job: This one is done! I start my new job this month. Go me.

Jan Goals:
- finish tool tote woodworking project
- resume drawing/3D animation hobbies now that the job search is over
- finish the book I'm reading

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seanconn256
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Re: seanconn's journal

Post by seanconn256 »

Going to keep this one short. I obsess about budgets too much and not enough about skills.
Here's my only chart for this month:

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About 1000$ more total spending this month, but that's just because I'm supporting my girlfriend. She plans on letting me know how much she actually spends of that so I can discount it from next month. Other than that, expenses are great. Quite low, compared to when I started.

I've been trying to learn new skills this month, namely woodworking. The woodworking is going well. I've found myself thinking about how I can make this or that with wood, and while it's usually not much cheaper it's something that will likely last and this quite fixable if it does break.

I also have been trying to reduce my electric bill, I've covered the windows in plastic sheets (1$ @ walmart, 3$ for the tape) and the temperature difference is night and day. They puffed up immediately and the house pretty much settles at 60 degrees (F) right now, without the heat ever kicking in. Quite excited to see the difference in the bill.

I've been thinking about how to survive short periods without electricity, and I've found that using a camp stove to heat water/cook food is the first thing I would need. I've bought a camp stove for this purpose. Got it for 35$ on Craigslist.

I feel like, for better or worse (not sure which), I've reached a stasis point on my ERE journey. I don't consider myself as somone who is actually doing ere. I'm spending like 30k a year, that's too much to consider myself in league with others on this forum. I'm frustrated that I'm not sure how to go further, do things cheaper, rely on money less, and retire earlier, but considering my spreadsheet estimates 7 or so years until I can retire it could be a lot worse. I want to do more, but I feel like I've hit a wall.

Monthly Goals (Jan Review):
finish tool tote woodworking project: not done. I'm about 20% done. It's difficult to find time for it. I will post it when it's done
resume drawing/3D animation hobbies now that the job search is over: This I've done, but also had a difficulty finding time for.
finish the book I'm reading: This one... is also not done lol. I'm reading 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' by William Shirer, and it's like 1500 pages so I guess I could have seen this one coming; it's an extremely interesting book however and I've been reading it regularly.


Progress on Yearly goals:

<no progress this month>

Feb Goals:
- actually finish tool tote
- try to increase resilience somehow, backup plans or backup skills. So I can trade money for effort if I need to. This may be a way to reduce my safe withdrawal rate (bad dividend returns? looks like I'm building the bookshelf instead of buying this month), without actually reducing my expenses during the saving period.
- keep reading my book

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Chris
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Re: seanconn's journal

Post by Chris »

seanconn256 wrote:
Tue Feb 01, 2022 10:50 pm
I feel like, for better or worse (not sure which), I've reached a stasis point on my ERE journey. I don't consider myself as somone who is actually doing ere. ... I'm frustrated that I'm not sure how to go further, do things cheaper, rely on money less, and retire earlier ... I want to do more, but I feel like I've hit a wall.
You're the victim of having made good progress quickly.

As you've mentioned previously, you're at a point where cutting more expenses is very difficult. Some expenses are locked due to your living situation, and you shouldn't feel bad about that. But as long as you can avoid lifestyle creep, any increase in income will fall straight to your bottom line (savings). So maybe focus on that?

You recently knocked 3 years off your FI date due to a job change. That's huge! What will it take to get to the next income level? New skills (I think you mentioned Linux admin before)? Any bonus opportunities you can take advantage of without needing to switch jobs again? Are you maxing out on company matches for 401k, HSA, etc.?

Once you have a bankroll to invest, you'll also be gaining income from that. Small at first, but pretty quickly it will start to equal some of your expense categories, then multiple expense categories, then it will cover your rent. And those days will feel like you're climbing walls.

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seanconn256
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Re: seanconn's journal

Post by seanconn256 »

Chris wrote:
Wed Feb 02, 2022 1:31 pm
Thank you for your kind words.

My current expectation for further gains actually does come from income increases, which should just come along as long as I do my job well and move up the ladder. And yes, I am maxing out all my employer benefits right now. (just a 401k, but it helps reduce taxable income)

Ive also seen in my spreadsheet that the interest from investments becomes significant after even a short period. Im sure Ill feel a lot better when my interest every month could pay my rent. In fact, when Im close to retiring, the amount of interest I earn will close to outpace my actual savings from income.

Ill just have to keep moving along. To be fair when I first started work the idea of retiring "early" at 40 was comforting to me, its rude to myself not to appreciate that Ive gained 10 years with about a year of planning.

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Re: seanconn's journal

Post by AxelHeyst »

If a +1 Mastermind Group crops up, I can verify that it's an excellent way to gain ERE 'velocity' and might be worth engaging with. But also, +1 what Chris said. It's so easy to quickly normalize and totally forget the real progress we've just pulled off.

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seanconn256
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Re: seanconn's journal

Post by seanconn256 »

thanks @axelheyst. I'm quite interested in a second mastermind group, but I don't really think I could lead one. So that means I'll be waiting until another crops up for now.

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Re: seanconn's journal

Post by jacob »

seanconn256 wrote:
Sun Feb 27, 2022 12:10 pm
I'm quite interested in a second mastermind group, but I don't really think I could lead one. So that means I'll be waiting until another crops up for now.
There's a few people who are still sitting around waiting for one person to take the initiative. This could take a long time :? The main "leading" required is arranging a time/date and maybe being the first person to say hello at the first meeting. Presumably, meeting is just attaching faces to forum handles. See e.g. viewtopic.php?t=12263 ... The Repair group is simpler than that.

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Re: seanconn's journal

Post by seanconn256 »

eh screw it; I'll give it a try. Worst case scenario we all learn how not to start a mastermind group.

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Re: seanconn's journal

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Doing my journal a couple days early;

This month I didn't have any strong objectives to keep, so I spent most of my time reading and trying to take things easier.

I finished a couple books:
  • Walden
  • The Memory Book (by Harry Lorayne)
  • The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
  • Anatomy of the State
  • And Then There Were None

One thing that I did that changed the amount I'm reading so much is I stopped doing these 'goodreads reading challenge' things, because I would end up slogging through a book I didn't like because I'm already halfway through and I just have to finish it so I can get to 15 books this year, and you can't count a book (in my mind) unless you read the whole thing.

I skipped small sections in The Memory Book (I don't need to memorize long numbers or remember dates, I have a phone), and of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (the allied advance through western Europe, I am already familiar enough with that).

It's also difficult to say that I've 'read' Walden, because I read the first six and the last chapters. I was extremely interested in his minimalist philosophy, and not at all interested in the nature part of transcendentalism.
I like nature, just not enough to read about someone's else's dense 19th century prose about it for 100 pages. His criticisms of western society, however, are still strikingly accurate today. All the wasted effort for what amount to social signals (large house, nice clothing, etc), and how you can focus on the things that really matter instead if you forgo them. Basically exactly what I think about today.

The book is also very quotable:
“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
Very nice.

As for my finances, they are going well. Here's my spending:
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The large red part is spending related to my girlfriend. We agreed to go on vacation once a year, and I'm also paying for her daily expenses to get through school.

Other than that, all my other expenses are small. That's really surprising to me because I didn't really do anything this month about that? They were just low because I'm staying the course. I have halved my grocery budget, going from 240$ a month to ~100 dollars a month, or 3 dollars a day. That's pretty good. I'm eating a lot of oats, lentils, beans, rice, and potatoes. I always have food and really only get veggies at the store. Crazy to think I can put in a little effort to learn to do something different and then just coast on it.

On my investments, I've decided to implement the permanent portfolio for now. I have no idea what markets are going to do in the future, even though it feels like I know things are 30-40% inflated from what they really are. I have heard the phrase "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent" which honestly sounds about right. I don't like investing in a nonproductive asset like gold, but it's performance during crashes and it's relative pacing with inflation are hard to argue with. I also am quite fond of the idea behind re-balancing; where it has you always buy low and sell high.
I see my investment strategy in the future as being an "informed passive investor". I want to understand the fundamentals behind my investments, even if they are not active, so I can tell when to try something else. Index funds won't last forever.

Oh yea... I finished the tool chest!
Here she is:

Image

Apparently the norm for woodworking designs is to cost money?? So I just made this one up myself. I have some left over engineering knowledge from high school, it's come in handy.

Goals:

Monthly Goals (Feb Review):
- actually finish tool tote: done!!
- try to increase resilience somehow, backup plans or backup skills. So I can trade money for effort if I need to. This may be a way to reduce my safe withdrawal rate (bad dividend returns? looks like I'm building the bookshelf instead of buying this month), without actually reducing my expenses during the saving period. : I didn't really do anything about this after I wrote it down. Kinda sad, but true.
- keep reading my book: finished! and more.

Progress on Yearly goals:

<no progress this month>

Feb Goals:
- understand the market fundamentals behind the Permanent Portfolio beyond a layman level. Understand why it works (or potentially if), not how.
- keep reading; next on my list is Siddhartha, a book on the Permanent Portfolio, and I may find something fun to read.
- stay the course and stop stressing about/thinking about money all the time
- start or at least pitch the mastermind group. conquer the stars with that collective knowledge

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seanconn256
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Re: seanconn's journal

Post by seanconn256 »

Since I'm making this less of finances log, and more of an actual journal, there's no reason to wait until the end of the week to post.

My girlfriend's mom came over for a couple days this week, and it gave me a great reminder of how off-normal I live. Everything I've changed or updated to be more efficient and less time consuming was commented on, and suggestions were made of how to put things back to normal. I argued that things work as they do, and despite not really having an argument against them, she rejected my solutions, I suspect primarily because they were not normal.

She noticed that I had some things in cardboard boxes, and she commented that I hadn't finished moving in. I said that a box is as good a storage medium as anything else, but the answer I got to that was a curt "no".

I explained that I only drink water and tea, and she lamented that she now has to go out and buy soft drinks. She also asked where the water was, which I found odd, and explained that it comes out of the sink. She said that now she'll have to buy bottled water as well, as tap water is bad for you. She asked what food I had, and I said I had made bean tacos (really good btw, black beans + lentils + taco seasoning + onions) and she said she 'doesn't eat beans'. She bought a couple pounds of steak to make stir fry, along with the soft drinks and water.

She mentioned that this apartment is nice but we really need more space. She suggested getting a house with a guest room, so she could stay over. Which is quite interesting, because she's staying right now without one? Also, every time I hear the phrase 'starter house' I get queasy.

She asked why it was so cold (~65F), I said she could try putting on a sweatshirt or socks, or use a blanket, and that was rejected quickly. She turned on the heater and now I had to put shorts on because it's a solid 75F in here.

We had some free time this weekend, and during the day she drove to four different stores and mall to get I don't even know what.
She then complained about the price of gas (4.25 at the time of writing) and how hard it is on her budget.
If I hadn't read Walden (in which the author says to not give people unsolicited advice about finances), I would comment that she could have saved about 100 dollars today if she just went to the grocery store once and found something different to do than shop.

I also haven't heard an advertisement in a long time, as I've got adblock on my browser and don't watch TV anymore. Did you know there are about 10 minutes of ads for every 20 minutes of content on TV? And every commercial is either selling a drug or trying to convince you to buy some random thing? Did I really used to watch TV regularly? How did I find the time? How did I stand it?

There was also a comment on how I don't have enough clothes, which is interesting considering I've never had to go without them.

She also said she likes this city because all the stores she likes are here and they are all so close. I have the exact opposite opinion, I feel like this city is one large strip mall with nothing in it but stores and parking lots, with no life in it.

I really try not to judge, I know that's they way people are trained by our society to live their lives. The only reason I got into personal finance in the first place is because I don't like working 40 hours a week, so I don't have the right to be all high and mighty. I'm really just impressed at the simplicity and relative harmony that I've been able to create for myself, despite not feeling like I've done much.

Also, on finances, I haven't bought anything yet this month. Not even food. I didn't notice until just now. Very interesting.

As a last note, I let my amazon prime subscription end this month.

Maybe I'm not doing as poorly as I thought?

zbigi
Posts: 968
Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:04 pm

Re: seanconn's journal

Post by zbigi »

This is hilarious (and congrats on your mature response), a good material for an amateur ERE filmmaker if we have one.

macg
Posts: 173
Joined: Tue Mar 31, 2020 1:48 pm
Location: USA-FL

Re: seanconn's journal

Post by macg »

seanconn256 wrote:
Sun Mar 13, 2022 12:49 pm
She noticed that I had some things in cardboard boxes, and she commented that I hadn't finished moving in. I said that a box is as good a storage medium as anything else, but the answer I got to that was a curt "no".
This made me laugh, I have a similar situation. I have 2 monitor boxes that I chose to keep, because when I leave this job, I'll likely have to ship the monitors back. They currently are on end in my bedroom, being used as a stand for a fan. :-) That and my bed are the only things in my bedroom.

So I get the same types of comments, like "You should buy a dresser." The fact that I don't need a dresser doesn't seem to matter, nor does the fact that the box stand works just fine.

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