Candide's Journal

[candide]

I could be a cautionary tale about trying RE, but I think the whole situation was really just a bummer [1]. I've tried to RE before twice before, but they both just became breaks. I had given up on alternative lifestyle and resigned myself that some people just really can't handle freedom, and I was one of them.

Well, everything has changed with a child on the way. Next year, my wife wants to take a year with the the child. I'm glad to be able to return the favor of going to work and letting her try a year of not working.

After that, the options are open -- at that's really what the FI pile of money is for. My wife loves her career as a teacher, and she thinks that summers off will allow her to bank enough quality time after that first year, so she thinks she'll go back to work. .But if my wife ends up liking being at home, I'll make that work.

I have 30X my current annual expenses invested, but I don't know what the new average cost will become with a child, and I have no desire to cut it all that close when things come up.

If my wife goes back to work after our child is one, I want to take an additional year and then mini-retire until my child goes off to school. I also hope to make a lifestyle business so what I am looking at is more of semi-retirement, but I really don't have any real faith in my abilities to stay with ambiguous and long-term projects (what I meant by "can't handle freedom" above).

But I do know that saving on childcare, selling my car and not having to pay for maintenance and taxes will defray most of my other costs in not working.


====


[1] Short version: after much tragedy and death in my family, I had a period where I had what became two mini-retirements, working a year-and-a-half of a there year period (the plan on the second mini-retirement was to barista FIRE, but I lacked the social skills and motivation to even make that work). It was the worst time of my life.

My wife was supportive of me the whole time (note: emotionally supportive. . . I paid my side of the bills during this time), but our life still felt pretty sad. It looked like it was going to be defined by death and caring for our elders. It really looked like now that my side was done for a while (grandpa, dad, uncle, grandma) we'd have maybe a 5-8 year lull and then it would be time to care for her parents, and then it'd be my mother. We pushed out of our mind that this isn't how we wanted life to go, but at least it was us against the world.

[candide]

Weekly groceries: $73.28

I think weekly groceries are a good anchoring event to use for this journal. It is ritualized -- when it is going well -- and will help keep me mindful of my costs.

This haul wasn't as cost efficient as I'd like, but it looks better than it should because we have two meals taken care of us this week, the second one coming from traveling to Tulsa to receive a bounty of gifts for our baby from that branch of DW's family.


Garden
======

A few nights ago the forecast was 36 F. I knew better to leave the peppers and tomato out, but I had already potted them up the 5 gallon buckets, so I just had let myself forget to bring them in. When I went to my car in the morning I saw bits of frost on the ground. What I did not expect was the bigger plants -- the largest pepper and the cherry tomato to have survived with the three smaller peppers dead. I assumed it was going to be all or nothing here.

We're past the last average frost date for my region (then again, we already were -- so much for averaged) so perhaps everything will be fine from here on out.

In any case the real point of all of the experiments is to try to find a way to be self sufficient in greens and then herbs, so no big matter that the peppers didn't work out; I had just never grown them from seed before, so I was trying it out. I pulled out the peppers that had died and pricked out some lettuce and mustard seedlings that I had been growing for baby greens; they are now getting their chance at the big time.

I wouldn't be gardening again if it wasn't for having a child on the way. There are just some powerful nesting instincts that have kicked in. This gardening season has been all about experiments. I have experimented with spacing, finding that I don't think microgreens are worth it (with the exception of growing lentils greens).

I have three main methods of self-watering that I am testing in order of cheapness: 1) kiddie pool as reservoir with 5 gallon buckets and grow bags 2) cut large milk container on top of off-brand "tupperware" as reservoir 3) plant growing through a solo cup mounted on a 1/2 gallon milk container turned on its side.

I like system 1 for the convenience -- if I want to make more in the future, I will buy pond liner and use scraps and salvage to make my own big containers.

System 3 is dead cheap, and by virtue of that alone is the nearest one to my heart.

I have no complaints about system 2, but the tupperware is more expensive than the solo cups and we have stopped buying a milk in full gallons, so I'll have to find additional ones on my walks, which is usually easy enough, but less predictable.


Portfolio
=======

One day when I imagine I'll catch up on writing up my portfolio, but that will be motivated by interest, whether mine or someone else's.

Well, I am starting to believe the Fed. My thesis had been that the Fed would let inflation go, seeing as raising interest rates would cost the government so much, and deleverage now would shred baby boomer accounts just as the most vulnerable years of draw-down begins. Oh well. It looks like the central bankers see they need to get some slack back on interest rates for future, bigger problems. Neato, but this might just be the big one.

It just so happened that this video fell into my lap and I think I finally understand how to construct my portfolio:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nicheWorld/com ... &context=3

"Dragon Portfolio" for those who use internet searches and reading to learn.

https://www.investwithfire.com/dragon-p ... ur-wealth/

I'm not too far off on the inflation suggestions. Inflation I have always feared. It is the ramifications of deleveraging that I didn't really understand, or at least how to play. At least I timed getting out of bond funds relatively well. But cash only works as a dampener. . . I want things that actually gain when the system falls apart. Last I week, I turned around and opened a position on TMV for 2% of the portfolio. This is a 3X inverse long-bond. My exit point is set at a 20% gain.

Also, I'm opening a position of SARK at 2% of portfolio -- short Arkk, which I think will build into a good hedge for some of things I am leaving long.


Baby
====

Last night my wife thought that there was enough kicking from the baby that I could feel it if we were patient enough. She was right.

It really emphasized for me how tiny this tiny little being is. The experience didn't really re-orientate anything as nearly all of the re-orientation has already happened. Still, it was important moment in that it made my wife happy.

[andy]

You are much further along than I am on the FI journey, but I have somewhat of a similar investment approach. I have a poor man's version of the dragon portfolio. It seems to work well for me. I use VXZ for my long vol exposure (+7% YTD) , PQTAX for commodity/currency trend following (+11% YTD), REMIX (+7% YTD) is commodity/currency/equities/etc all-in-one, and of course SPY. I have a four others as well but those are the big ones.

So 30x expenses, that's awesome! Nice to have that kind of a buffer. Family stuff aside, was there any other reason think you weren't as happy in FI? Did you get bored at all?

[candide]

@andy

In a moment I will try to put the family stuff aside to answer your question, but the way the family stuff played out left me with PTSD. The first mini-retirement featured lots of flash-backs, ruminations, overwhelming feelings of guilt . . . Very much a mental health thing.

The second mini-retirement went better for quite a while. But it really does seem to be the case that without enough human interaction, I stop doing anything. I guess I'm just not capable of being fully self-directed. . . I get as many hobbies done when I am working as when I am not -- so it seemed clear to me that I should just work and make money/be insured.

Another big thing is my sleep. When I have no set time that I have to be at work, I can't really make my brain turn off, so I get very online -- which even at the time doesn't feel like what I want to be doing. But -- so it seemed to me -- what else are you going to do at 4 am? At one point during the second mini-retirement I got in a zombie hell of neither being awake nor asleep. Several times in the night/early morning I would try to lay down, only to be jolted up with a "thought." But the thoughts weren't any good, as at no point was I really awake enough to think clearly, let alone get things done.

So in a way, "bored" isn't quite right -- rather, it was an inability to function.

I have high hopes that a child to care for will be enough to prevent me reaching this point. I would like to be around as much as I can of her special years of wonder and discovery.

[andy]

Oh well I think you are right. I'm sure the kid will keep you very busy. It sounds like creating your own structure is the hardest part of retirement (only based on what I've read). School and work always provide that structure early in life, along with some sort of identity, especially in countries where a person's job is a big part of their identity. I took sailing lessons last summer and there were a lot of retired guys. They said something similar about how you have to build your own routines and how it was tough after work because their job consumed so much of their time previously. Sailing was fairly time consuming for them with boat maintenance, boat club activities, and actual time on the water so that filled their days pretty well. Good luck to you! I imagine having the kid will be a cool time in your life!

[candide]

Andy,

I also want to go back and thank you for the tip on VXZ. I've opened a position and I'll start doing some more research to see how much I want to size it. Probably a good deal bigger. I want to have my long vol eggs in several baskets, as I want to maximize the chance of getting my insurance paid off in what I think will be some gnarly situations. So also TAIL and IVOL built out of my cash positions that I have been building for the last month.

The investing needs to get to closer to autopilot by July, as it will then become a time of screwed up sleep, bottles, and diapers.

[andy]

I used to own IVOL but I dropped it a year ago. It didn't perform consistently enough for me. A lot of products that say they are designed to hedge in a sell-off can be a let-down in reality. I use portfoliovisualizer.com (it's free) to evaluate ETFs and funds and you will see IVOL wouldn't have saved you at all this year and really underperformed in 2nd half of 2021. I had high hopes for it for a while. Also, just a caution with VXZ. You have to view it like insurance where you are paying premiums each month. Volatility normally deteriorates, and occasionally you will get a big payoff.

I try to do 20-25% VXZ in my overall portfolio. Rebalancing is key with VXZ. I used to do monthly but now I do quarterly (if I need to). VXZ mostly just smooths out the ride and takes away the fear of total loss in the event of a catastrophe, just like insurance. For fun, try to do 75% SPY 25% VXZ on portfoliovisualizer and rebalance quarterly compared to 100% SPY. You will see all the metrics are better by a lot. The only downside is that rebalancing is a taxable event unless you are in a retirement account. I tested my VXZ mix in a small account at first to get used to it before I applied to my whole portfolio. At the end of the day, to each their own. Portfolio construction is kind of fun and everyone does it differently so my way isn't best by any means. I hope you make some $$$!

[candide]

Also, just a caution with VXZ. You have to view it like insurance where you are paying premiums each month. Volatility normally deteriorates, and occasionally you will get a big payoff. . . I hope you make some $$$!

I'm down with looking at this as insurance. I'm not in a building phase, but instead looking to protect my purchasing power so I have maximum options over as many timeframes as I can. The logic of the dragon portfolio makes sense to me, but it's now about implementing this long vol part.

I have a lot of research to do before I build the positions much further, but I'll take your suggestions on IVOL and using portfolio visualizer.

[candide]

Garden
======

Another light frost after the last average frost date. Also, one that was not predicted in by typing in "weather" in google. But this time I put some blankets over my tomato and surviving pepper plant, and they are doing fine.

I have been happy with my kiddie pool reservoir system. Video of someone else's
https://youtu.be/n2u0p-ZZhL0

It is going to be a much more efficient system than making each pot self watering, each with their own self-contained reservoirs to fill.

The downside of any kind of pool of stagnant water is mosquitoes. I didn't implement the solution when I put the system in, but knew I had some kind of ticking clock. I debated between using pea gravel, which I had seen others use in the system, or wood chips, which I had not. I went with pea gravel, cursing the extra $12 added to the set-up, but well aware of my civic duty to deal with pest spawning grounds.

In transplanting the pea gravel out of the car, I remembered that toward the end of last season, I had finally blown a hole in the cheap plastic cart/semi-wheelbarrow I got from my parents and have been using since my 20s under the principle of not getting something new until the previous thing is completely worn out. Hell, I simply found a large piece of cardboard and crudely cut it to fit and was able to still use the darn thing to transport bags of gravel. So do I even need to a new wheelbarrow?


Project: Wheelbarrow
====================

Well, I'm making one.

Steps taken so far:

* salvage some plywood
* use jigsaw to rough out dimensions

I used to have a strong preference for hand tools, but I found myself immediately grabbing the jigsaw to do this one.

* laminate two pieces of plywood for the wheel
* locate a thin metal rod -- no clue where I got it from, maybe a printer.
* go through grandpa's old stuff to find an appropriate sized drill bit
* salvage sides/handles -- 1X1s from an old bed
* used a hacksaw to get the rod to size
* use scroll saw to get the wheel cut out
* a bunch of drilling

[basuragomi]

Maybe scavenge the wheel bearing/frame/wheel from the current wheelbarrow?

You could also try a different type of wheelbarrow, maybe having the centre-wheel type and repairing your current one would be more useful overall?

[candide]

Groceries: $83.01

This is a more fair sample of what it takes to feed my wife and I for a week.

I don't think I'm in a position to get this much lower as my wife is both a picky eater and wants a high variety in her food. I have figured out a pattern that works well enough, however. I have about 15 meals that I can make that she finds acceptable. As long as they are spaced two weeks apart, she doesn't balk. Heck, we even discovered that we can do leftovers/repurposing the same week as long as there is then a two week gap.

Some of those dishes can be pretty low-cost, but not all. Beans and rice can happen one week, omelettes another, lentil soup the third. But no, variations on these dishes will not be treated as a new dish. We are still left with quite a few semi-homemade options to fill the gap, but at least we've got eating out down to a minimum.

Edible Weeds
============

Speaking of food, the chickweed and dandelions are going strong right now. I removed some chickweed from my garden area and decided to make it into a full snack. It's nice to have lettuce going strong as it allows for a nice base, making me have to go to less effort in the foraging, but allowing those foraged plants contribute the flavor. I grabbed a few mustard leaves, some dandelion flowers and it was a nice little salad.

My wife doesn't eat weeds unless very much hidden in the dish -- which I sometimes do.

[candide]

@basuragomi

I am extremely interested in making a Chinese wheelbarrow one day. I am a fan of the Low-Tech and No-Tech magazines, and I had thought of the Chinese wheelbarrow as an option, but initially I rejected it because I wanted the new creation to go fit under my standing workbench like the old cart had. That was the thought at the time, at least. It turns out that the "design" I am doing doesn't fit under it, either, so I could have tried out the Chinese pattern after all. (When I build, I don't really design very much, but more work with my hands, improvising and sculpting).

I'm going to save the Chinese wheelbarrow for another day, probably first making a smaller version like this "Honey Badger" Wheel featured in No-Tech Magazine

https://www.notechmagazine.com/2016/03/ ... wheel.html

I think I'll try out a few model/toy sized prototypes (beats television). Before that, the biggest thing I need to work on is a mobile for the baby's crib. I am having a bit of a maker's equivalent of writer's block as this can't just work; instead, it the final version will have to look fairly nice as well.

This might become a a kind "structured procrastination" where I end up getting a ton of things done as I avoid facing the challenge of making a good, quality mobile head-on.

[candide]

Project: Wheelbarrow
=================

So far, the frame, from a bizarre perspective:



Closer look at the rigged-up wheel assembly



Linux
====

This is just about the only place where I can say I don't have a smart phone, and that is a kind of flex.

Thus (forsooth?) so you guys could see my monstrosity, I went all sudo apt and got myself the program "cheese" to take these photos.

[jacob]

How long do the wooden wheels last on these things? I'd absolutely make sure that the axle can be pulled out so wheel can be replaced later. Maybe put some studs on the rim? Like coins or washers screwed into the wood?

Here's one I made. It's not very big:

[WFJ]

I could be a cautionary tale about trying RE, but I think the whole situation was really just a bummer [1]. I've tried to RE before twice before, but they both just became breaks. I had given up on alternative lifestyle and resigned myself that some people just really can't handle freedom, and I was one of them.

====

This is similar to my experience. My antidote to the above issues is to move somewhere completely different, disconnecting from previous life, basically move to solve new problems. If I stay in the same environment, my mind continues to try to solve the same problems in the environment, even if I've left a job. Have a friend who has become a MAJOR night owl after he stopped working a few years ago and now is at a point where he sleeps almost all day and is up all night. I don't know if this causes health issues, but time will tell.

[candide]

@jacob

I’m not sure how long the wheel will last, but now that I know there is some interest, I’ll be sure to provide updates. I think I’m going to try duct tape as a kind of tread. After all, what act of redneck engineering would be complete without duct tape?

Good point about building something so that I can maintain it. So far all of my fasteners here are screws, and I’ll just make sure to make it so the whole thing can be pulled apart for repairs, replacements, and redesigns.

. . . That toy wheelbarrow is beautiful. I assume that you used a scroll saw for it, rather than a coping/fret saw.

I absolutely love my scroll saw. It’s become the centerpiece of my shop. Sure, the motorized feature is nice and saves my arm and back, but really what I like more about a scroll saw is 1) two-handed control of piece as it moves through the cuts 2) getting the vertical axis cut at 90 degrees. I kept finding that my cuts wobbled off axis with my coping saw, especially on the turns.

I think one day I'll try to build a foot-powered scroll saw. Here's the easiest version I've seen:
https://youtu.be/LmEHuTgtcvw

@WFJ

Moving does sound like a solution that could work, and I'm glad it did for you.

Also, that's a very good insight about how the brain tends to ruminate on the same problems unless acted upon in dramatic ways. My problems were those of mortality and cruelty. And I'll never really have a solution for either. Instead, I needed other stuff to do.

[theanimal]

I don't have any valuable insights to add, just wanted to say cool project! I'm following along and interested to see how you progress.

From my knowledge, Jacob still uses all hand tools for woodworking progress. Unless he's switched to the dark side. Who knows, maybe we'll find out he's stopped eating lentils too.

Beautiful wheelbarrow, Jacob! Your skills have progressed quite a bit since that first rake.

[jacob]

I absolutely love my scroll saw. It’s become the centerpiece of my shop. Sure, the motorized feature is nice and saves my arm and back, but really what I like more about a scroll saw is 1) two-handed control of piece as it moves through the cuts 2) getting the vertical axis cut at 90 degrees. I kept finding that my cuts wobbled off axis with my coping saw, especially on the turns.

Yes, I have an Excalibur16 with variable speed. Pretty much for the same reasons. I also caved and acquired an old drill press for the same reason. Otherwise it's still hand tools in the planing and sawing department. This way I also get to keep all my fingers.

I don't do much ornamental stuff or bowls (you can make bowls if you set the angle right and saw out concentric circles. First time since high school, I've used tan() in a calculation ) anymore. These days I mostly make mechanical gadgets. I think if it as my 3D printer.

Here's my latest unfinished project. It's come a little further than the picture (it's on the test rack in the workshop) but it still only runs for about 1-2 minutes. I've remade the escapement a few times now. It's my second clock and it's driving me nuts.


The first clock, which is much simpler, is now capable of constant operation. It hangs in the living room.
Check out viewtopic.php?p=228754#p228754

I've also made a bunch of these: https://www.rbguns.com/

PS: I've currently reading Aldous Huxley and came across this quote

For particulars, as every one knows, make for virtue and happiness; generalities are intellectually necessary evils. Not philosophers but fretsawyers and stamp collectors compose the backbone of society.

[candide]

Now that this is a dead thread, I am going to use the real estate to store contributions I make to other logs, such as garden, make stuff, etc.

Make Stuff
========

* Nickle roll counter
viewtopic.php?p=258718#p258718

* Baby stuff shelf
viewtopic.php?p=258964#p258964

Garden
======

* Potato and trench composting
viewtopic.php?p=259377#p259377


Investments/Trade Log
==================

* Fewer decisions for baby-mode with long vol as insurance
viewtopic.php?p=258722#p258722

Comments
==================

* Semi-ERE as real ERE
viewtopic.php?p=258741#p258741

* Time Management with ADHD
viewtopic.php?p=259243#p259243

* Tools for Thinking
viewtopic.php?p=259279#p259279

* Monism's Tools as Just Tools
viewtopic.php?p=259425#p259425

* The Nameless and Timeless Qualities
viewtopic.php?p=259453#p259453

* Persuasion Algorithm
viewtopic.php?p=259560#p259560