living out of my office in pursuit of ERE

Where are you and where are you going?
Jin+Guice
Posts: 1277
Joined: Sat Jun 30, 2018 8:15 am

Re: living out of my office in pursuit of ERE

Post by Jin+Guice »

I support you endeavors. I've lived at work for a total of several collective years (though I do not live at work now). They'll never take you alive.

Autotroph
Posts: 45
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2020 5:33 pm

Re: living out of my office in pursuit of ERE

Post by Autotroph »

@Jin - haha never.

So I broke the phone I was using for music when I exercise. In an effort to spend as little as possible, I resorted to using my laptop. At first, it was a major inconvenience because my muscles were weak from not being used (I was a desk jockey). My core and upper body hurt so bad, especially because I had poor posture due to weak/imbalanced muscles. There are two positions I use: (1) carrying just my laptop in one hand (a farmers walk) and (2) using my backpack. They emphasize different muscle groups ( (1) is a strong core workout) and so you can strategically switch between these postures to rest fatigued muscles.
So what I did was to start training those muscles for the task (i.e. functional strength training). It took me a while to figure out which muscles were the ones needed, but basically the entire upper body + core. So I made up a strength training and stretching routine using bodyweight exercises (i.e. free). These exercises are difficult, but they are so efficient (e.g. squat can engage like 200 muscles, far more than a machine). So now when I go for my daily walks, it's a full-body workout. I play little games like 'see how long you can walk in a straight line, now try it with your eyes closed' and so on.
Anyways, just another benefit of trying to spend as little as possible :-)
I figure, if I'm going to live out of a f***ing office to save money, I better tighten everything up.

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

Re: living out of my office in pursuit of ERE

Post by shaz »

I love that you are living at your office. Way to go all in.

singvestor
Posts: 205
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2015 12:48 am

Re: living out of my office in pursuit of ERE

Post by singvestor »

Stories like yours are the reason why I love the ERE community so much. It is fascinating to see these extreme lifestyle designs. I wonder what kind of office this is that you never get caught? But then I guess, even if you should get caught you can just make up some excuse, like you locked yourself out of your apartment etc. What type of job do you do?

RoamingFrancis
Posts: 593
Joined: Wed Oct 30, 2019 11:43 am

Re: living out of my office in pursuit of ERE

Post by RoamingFrancis »

This is awesome!!! Support you

Autotroph
Posts: 45
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2020 5:33 pm

Re: living out of my office in pursuit of ERE

Post by Autotroph »

singvestor wrote:
Sat Dec 04, 2021 11:48 am
Stories like yours are the reason why I love the ERE community so much. It is fascinating to see these extreme lifestyle designs. I wonder what kind of office this is that you never get caught? But then I guess, even if you should get caught you can just make up some excuse, like you locked yourself out of your apartment etc. What type of job do you do?
Thank you :-)
I think one day I'll post some pictures. I'm a graduate student, so my 'office' is a small cubicle in a private room I share with one other student. So the risk of getting caught, I believe, is quite low.
In the event, I did get 'caught' (i.e. they could prove I was actually living here), whatever. The worst case is they kick me out of the university, which would suck, but I'm okay with it. If they took legal action that would suck too, but I doubt it would get to that.


Yeah, I have plenty of excuses, stories, etc., on if someone looks suspicious. I like to think I'm pretty charismatic, so hopefully, I can talk my way out of any situation. I did lock myself out once and had a professor next door let me in, which was not a problem.

No one is really in either, because everyone is still working from home, which makes this much easier. However, it is not uncommon for graduate students (or faculty) to spend 60+ hours in the office, staying overnight at times. So, yeah. Seeing a student (or even faculty) who looks like they just woke up and haven't showered in a few days is fairly normal LOL


I will say, doing this is one of the best decisions I have ever made. I have tried to align my actions with my beliefs, which is pleasing to my mental health. My self-reliance has increased tremendously, and it has opened up a new world of possibilities. The best part of all of this though is not having to pay rent to these parasitic landlords. Where I live is VHCOL, awful zoning laws, etc. I had an apt on campus, but my guaranteed housing (which is like 5 years?) ran out, forcing me to fend for my-self. I hated the idea of being a part of some rich asshole's portfolio out here, so yeah, here we are. Part of me hopes I get caught, because I would try to spin it into a 'look, this is how little these people are being paid that they are resorting to this' LOL

I will say, I hope I can inspire others to make similar leap, whatever that might be! Maybe it's downsizing, moving to a cheaper area, etc. I didn't get here overnight (like this is some accomplishment lmao), it took a lot of planning, preparation, cost-benefit analysis, etc. A lot of baby steps were taken first, e.g., At my apt I experimented with various minimal sleeping setups, changes to my diet, adapting myself to the weather so I could be outside longer, etc.

In the event I get kicked out, I would likely urban stealth camp. Fuck society and fuck paying rent to already comically rich people.

User avatar
canoe
Posts: 85
Joined: Sat Nov 14, 2020 6:08 pm
Location: Canada

Re: living out of my office in pursuit of ERE

Post by canoe »

Is it wrong of me to root for you getting kicked out so I can read your eventual stealth camping journal? :lol:

Just kidding, this is really inspiring!

Smashter
Posts: 541
Joined: Sat Nov 12, 2016 8:05 am
Location: Midwest USA

Re: living out of my office in pursuit of ERE

Post by Smashter »

I love the hustle! I'm curious about this juxtaposition:
Autotroph wrote:
Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:22 am
I can feel/see the money going into the pockets of some rich asshole. So I feel great not having to do that anymore.
Autotroph wrote:
Sun Dec 05, 2021 9:22 am
The best part of all of this though is not having to pay rent to these parasitic landlords. Where I live is VHCOL, awful zoning laws, etc. I had an apt on campus, but my guaranteed housing (which is like 5 years?) ran out, forcing me to fend for my-self. I hated the idea of being a part of some rich asshole's portfolio out here, so yeah, here we are. Part of me hopes I get caught, because I would try to spin it into a 'look, this is how little these people are being paid that they are resorting to this' LOL

Fuck society and fuck paying rent to already comically rich people.
Autotroph wrote:
Wed Nov 17, 2021 6:05 pm

Then once I have some money saved up from the above, I am not sure what I would do next. Some options would be to get a nice house somewhere in socal and rent out all the spare bedrooms etc; buy some land in Ca/Mi either with a cabin/house or build one with some help, etc.
Emphasis mine. You're already considering becoming what you hate most! :P

No judgements, I'm just fascinated by how people have to navigate ethical situations in our tricky modern society. In your mind would you be a noble landlord, offering breaks on rent and stuff?

Anyway, keep on keeping on, awesome journal!
Last edited by Smashter on Sun Dec 05, 2021 1:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Autotroph
Posts: 45
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2020 5:33 pm

Re: living out of my office in pursuit of ERE

Post by Autotroph »

@canoe - No :-) Part of me is rooting for it too hahah. Give me pain! More pain!

@Smashter -- Thank you! yes, you bring up a great point. I've thought about it a bit, here is where I'm at so far:

I have been becoming what I hate most for the last few years. That's a novel in itself. But I'm okay with it.

As for navigating ethical situations, I'm not at this hypothetical point yet (i.e. owning an expensive house), and I may never be. So I don't put too much thought into it. But, yes, I actually would see myself as a 'noble landlord', if such a thing exists. It goes something like this:

When I hit a certain savings amount (i.e. become ~FI) then I would no longer be terribly interested in money. So let's say I have a 1M house and am FI. Then yes, I would rent it out to people at near cost, and show them how I was able to be in that situation. I would show them to how to invest the savings they have from not paying as much in rent. Ideally, I would help get them to a place of FI through cheap COL, and hopefully, they could show others, ad infinitum. I get a lot more value out of this then making a few thousand off the bottom of society. There's quite a bit of 'social capital' in this too which can be leveraged if needed.

In my head, I have this dream of empowering others to do what we are all doing with ERE, with the hopes that at some critical mass we could get rid of parasitic landlords and other positive societal change. So, yeah one of my dreams is to own an absurd amount of RE and 'rent' it out at cost, just to prove to myself and others it's possible.


All my life my friends/family accused me of being naive, which is fair. The beliefs above may change over time, I'm not a prophet or anything, just a human. So if you find me in 20 years doing lines of coke in a yacht, I'm only human :-)


At the same time, I'm not a philosopher so I try not to be *too* concerned with ethical dilemmas.
Thanks for not judging :-)

Autotroph
Posts: 45
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2020 5:33 pm

Re: living out of my office in pursuit of ERE

Post by Autotroph »

Some thoughts bouncing around my head lately:
Recently I had an experience where I saw a video of my posture (walking 3mph) and I was horrified. I knew my gait/posture/muscle imbalance was bad, but I had no idea *how* bad. Each step looked so unnatural and painful that I'm amazed I haven't seriously injured my body. This catalyzed the process of dialing in my posture. It's been a long, painful one, but well worth the investment. I feel better than I did when I was 'in my prime'. There are movements/postures that we routinely do, and if you don't do them properly, over time you can have a repetitive stress injuy (RSI). So it's important to do, e.g., functional strength training to avoid this. Sleeping is a great example of this, you want to get that one right! You don't have to wake up in pain every day!

It's similar to investing in the sense that you want to reduce risk (of injury) by making routinely healthy decisions (i.e. positive habits). This requires a lot of cognitive effort -- a lot of attention and knowledge is needed. Also like investing, it's a lifetime habit -- it takes a while to get the returns, but it's worth the upfront cost/sacrifice.

I have basically been re-learning to walk. Admittedly, it was pretty embarrassing. Here I am, 'walking' around with an advanced science degree thinking I know so much when I can't even walk properly. There aren't many things I've been doing longer than walking, so it's quite annoying I'm *still* doing it wrong (i.e. in a way that increases the risk of injury). Tremendous progress has been made though, and I've probably spent about 15 hours per week the past 1-2 months stretching and self-massaging to get all the knots out. I guess that's where a lot of stress of life got 'stored'! But the metamorphosis is starting to climax, I can stand up tall now, with no pain. My neck muscles are now balanced and can easily support the weight of my head. When I walk, my head is high, and all my muscles are engaged in the task, especially my core. My running speed has improved greatly from a better 'running economy' too.

I feel like a new person, perhaps similar to our ancestors who learned to walk and could now see the broad savannah landscape they inhabited. Now when I walk, my head remains fairly fixed and upright, allowing me to easily look in any direction/distance. I can scan the landscape, look at all the trees -- it's nice, far better than starting at the damn ground all the time. I have a new perspective now -- literally.

In my left foot, there were muscles that became very tight due to not being used. I think they became tight from poor posture (i.e not using them) and also just being fairly sedentary. Yesterday I kind of just bit my lip and went to town massaging my left foot. Phew, probably the most pain (but also joy) I've been in ever. But, wow. I could cry at the benefit it has made already just one day later.

Learning to self-massage (with a tennis ball and foam roller) has been one of the best things I've ever learned. Of course, I have done it before, but I never knew the proper technique so results were marginal. I get a massage a few times a year and have always loved it, but could never justify spending the money to go routinely. Now, I don't have to! In my experience, self-massage is actually better, because I can fully relax and apply some serious pressure.

The human body is an amazingly complicated system! This thing doesn't come with an instruction manual either, so we kind of have to all figure it out for ourselves.. A few days ago a friend introduced me to Kelly Starrett's books. I haven't gone through them, but they look promising.

Also of interest:
https://www.ptdirect.com/training-desig ... o-exercise

WFJ
Posts: 416
Joined: Sat Apr 24, 2021 11:32 am

Re: living out of my office in pursuit of ERE

Post by WFJ »

As stated from other posters, there are some contradictions in your actions and goals (not paying rent to parasitic landlords, then aspire to become one b/c you will be different?). House hacking/van life/squatting has unintended consequences that nobody can anticipate until they occur. These can be related to health (what if you get sick and then infect others at work), the relationships with other people you are forgoing that potentially are worth 10x more than rent savings, reputational costs if found out and lose job due to squatting, many others that are too numerous to count. I've couched surfed many times in my life, but would never squat at work as losing the job would cost much more than the savings in rent, paid to "parasitic" landlords who saved and invested their money to provide shelter to those who can't buy a home. "Pennywise and pound foolish" comes to mind.

Smashter
Posts: 541
Joined: Sat Nov 12, 2016 8:05 am
Location: Midwest USA

Re: living out of my office in pursuit of ERE

Post by Smashter »

Giving people cheap rent in SoCal and teaching them how to FI would be pretty incredible. With all that social capital you'll always have a place to stay even after you blow your stache on coke and yacht parties :D

Autotroph
Posts: 45
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2020 5:33 pm

Re: living out of my office in pursuit of ERE

Post by Autotroph »

Smashter wrote:
Sun Dec 05, 2021 6:19 pm
Giving people cheap rent in SoCal and teaching them how to FI would be pretty incredible. With all that social capital you'll always have a place to stay even after you blow your stache on coke and yacht parties :D
I try to stay prepared for all outcomes :-)

User avatar
Lemur
Posts: 1612
Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2016 1:40 am
Location: USA

Re: living out of my office in pursuit of ERE

Post by Lemur »

Try upgrading to golf ball after tennis ball if you’re a real masochist. 😝

Speaking of correct walking technique, what sort of resources do you’ve? My spouse has always told me for years when I walk I sort of lean/crouch left almost like my left leg is shorter than my right. I’ve always wondered if that was something I could correct but since I’ve never had pain from it (that I know of) I never dug further.

Autotroph
Posts: 45
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2020 5:33 pm

Re: living out of my office in pursuit of ERE

Post by Autotroph »

Oo now that sounds fun :-0

For books, I would suggest 'Becoming a Supple Leopard'. Disclaimer: I haven't actually read it yet. Looking at the table of contents though, it looks promising. Yoga helped a lot too. You should be able to get in certain postures and do certain movements. If you can't you either:
-lack the flexibility
-lack the strength

That's all I can think of (or both). But you can train these both with yoga/functional strength training.
I would highly suggest trying functional strength training, as it is designed to help you perform daily activities, e.g., walking.

You can measure your posture at home: https://www.csiortho.com/blog/2018/nove ... d%20spine.

'what gets measured gets managed'

If you want some real pain, film yourself walking on a treadmill at 3mph from your backside. It probably won't look very pretty. But you can very likely correct it through physical therapy (which you can do for free at home once you figure it out).

Funny enough, when I was a teen I was diagnosed with scoliosis. Later they attributed the cause to one leg being longer than the other. However, I either outgrew this condition, or I corrected it through physical therapy. I believe it was the latter.
Last edited by Autotroph on Mon Dec 06, 2021 9:55 am, edited 3 times in total.

Autotroph
Posts: 45
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2020 5:33 pm

Re: living out of my office in pursuit of ERE

Post by Autotroph »

Also @Lemur, if I had to guess, you have some weak muscles on your right leg that can't support your body weight. This would cause you to shift your weight onto your left leg. And then there is a feedback loop: poor posture leads to even worse muscle balance and vice-versa. And over time they get really 'tight' (although not literally). It's probably in your glutes (notice the plural, the glutes consist of three muscles) if I had to guess. Let me know if I'm in the right ballpark :-p

User avatar
Lemur
Posts: 1612
Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2016 1:40 am
Location: USA

Re: living out of my office in pursuit of ERE

Post by Lemur »

@Autotroph.

Thanks - I'll look into those resources.

...so I've chronic low back injuries from my teens when I herniated the L5-S1 disc (ended up having surgery) and luckily I'm mostly not in pain these days though I had a terrible bout January 2020. I've managed pretty well since then. I also have something like a 10% degree spinal curve according to my Doctor? Almost like minor scoliosis.

You're pretty much spot on - the sciatic nerve in my right leg was pinched on and off for about a decade so it is very possible my right leg is just weaker than my left. That would make sense if over the years I just adjusted subconsciously where my left leg does more work.

As for managing where the tightness is and resolving the problem; will probably take some work. It is strange but I do think my right glute is a lot tighter then my left. I can kind of test this sitting down when I bring my leg up.

For instance, when I do this I can get my left leg horizontal but my right leg I can not.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/r3cWRYVK8l0/maxresdefault.jpg

Autotroph
Posts: 45
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2020 5:33 pm

Re: living out of my office in pursuit of ERE

Post by Autotroph »

Yeah, almost certainly you have a weak muscle somewhere in your right glute.

Wow! Okay. I had the same problem. Here is how I got rid of it:

First thing every morning, get 5-10 minutes of walking in, the more the better. Walking will strengthen your glutes especially (when done with proper posture).

Now that your cardiovascular system is activated, start stretching -- you want to 'warm up' before you stretch, otherwise the risk of injury is higher. Look for imbalances -- like you pointed out, if there is a range of motion you can do on one side but not the other, you have 'tight' muscles you need to loosen up. For you (like it was for me) it's probably all the muscles in your glutes and groins

Once you find some weaknesses, gently massage affected areas, find where its tender (use a massage oil for this, otherwise the pain might be too much).

When you find a tender spot, slowly apply pressure, when it gets to be too much, back off a little and massage the area (I think this stimulates blood flow**)

You will probably feel your body start to contort -- let it, you'll probably feel some cracks/pops; when it does, the pain from where you are applying pressure should be alleviated a bit. Now hold that posture, and repeat this process. Go poking around more and you're going to find muscles you probably have never really used.

You are going to experience a fair amount of pain, depending on how hard you push it. Learn to distinguish eustress (good pain) from distress (bad pain). Also make sure you get in a good amount of protein because you'll be building muscle. Also I would suggest that before you massage to make sure you are hydrated. You might also experience inflammation, which is the body healing response -- totally fine. Often times the inflammation response 'overshoots' so it's recommended to take anti-inflammatory things (e.g. OTC medication, certain teas, etc).


** DEEP breaths will help manage the pain. Focus on the breath, just like in meditation/yoga.

Good luck and keep me updated!
Last edited by Autotroph on Mon Dec 06, 2021 2:12 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Autotroph
Posts: 45
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2020 5:33 pm

Re: living out of my office in pursuit of ERE

Post by Autotroph »

Another thing:

https://learnmuscles.com/blog/2017/09/0 ... er-points/

Trigger points (what we colloquially refer to as a 'muscle knot') is broken down as:
'Trigger points are often divided into active and latent trigger points. Latent trigger points require pressure to be applied to them for referral of pain to occur. Active trigger points can refer pain without pressure.'

So you probably have latent trigger points, which don't produce pain unless stimulated (which usually won't happen in your daily life, hence why you report no pain)

For me, when it comes to the physical activity I motivate myself by finding a move my inner-child thinks is cool. Like a backflip, or the splits, or a head/hand stand, etc. Right now my goal is to do the splits, I've been working at it for ~4-6 months now and can almost do it. Once I learn these the plan is to entertain bored kids with a spontaneous backflip. Out walking and see some kid who is bored out of their mind? check this out *boom does backflip*, and the crowd goes wild...

Gotta have fun...

Autotroph
Posts: 45
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2020 5:33 pm

Re: living out of my office in pursuit of ERE

Post by Autotroph »

For my own sanity: remember, I'm not a doctor. While unlikely, you can hurt yourself with self-massage, especially deep tissue massage. Usually not too bad...):

https://tricityveincenter.com/put-a-hol ... 20embolism.

Post Reply