ER(E) with a disability

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Jean
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Location: Switzterland

Re: ER(E) with a disability

Post by Jean »

switzerland is cheaper than london. i think if you need excellent transit for non-drivers, and good healthcare, netherland is the best bangs for bucks. but no mountain there.

recal
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Re: ER(E) with a disability

Post by recal »

Where I Am On the Wheaton Scale, or Who Am I Really?


Apart from the disability, who am I? What do I value? Who do I aspire to be?

In "Get out of the system bloggers," I am probably most amenable to Robert Wringham over at New Escapologist. I have read every word he's ever written, own all of his magazine issues in print, and just find his lifestyle to be the ideal of what a modern starving artist can be. His yearly recaps are aspirational.

However, he has never had to worry about health care, and aspired to get out of the system to make enough money via his own passions, and in that respect, I follow Tanja Hester at Our Next Life, who planned conservatively with the goal of never having work built into her financial plan, and with true healthcare in mind.

Balancing those two, here's my ideal lifestyle:

- I want to continue to live in a large, urban area. There are HCOL urban areas rather than VHCOL where I live now, but it's best to plan with the finances of VHCOL.

Speaking more on this, what this means is that my rent is a fixed cost of $19,800 (this will continue to adjust to inflation, my lease is up in July so we'll find out soon). I have very little desire to buy unless necessary, and if I did someday, it would probably be an apartment, which would still have HOA and building fees. These monthly fees often cost as much as rent in L/MCOL cities anyway, so... Best plan with that in mind.

- I enjoy comfort, and have no desire to live in uncomfortable situations.

This seems a bit controversial in this community, but all I'll say is that if you went from living in a house where you couldn't leave your room, and were forced to writhe in discomfort for years simply because other people in the house would not accommodate your health, you would want to live in comfort, too. And more specifically, you would want to live alone, because every time you've lived with other people, they've gotten very, very mad at you for not being able to do chores and such properly, which you physically can't do.

Work is extremely uncomfortable to me, but there is not a single iota of my being that would choose to leave work to live with other people again. The thought sends my nerves on fire.

- I consider myself a frugal hedonist.

I live alone, but in a rent-controlled, modest studio. I buy nice things, but I do so very occasionally, and specifically when I know they'll last me forever.

I have an idea of how I'd like my life to look like post-retirement. I recently had to take a month off of work for health reasons, and it was a good trial run of if I would get bored with doing nothing. This was a less than ideal situation since I had to spend a lot of it sleeping for recovery reasons, but I believe the point still stands.

I read, watched films, played games, hung out with friends, had my "build a bike" project going, played sports and exercised, and never felt tired of this curiosity-centered life. I would probably add in regular volunteering (something I'm starting to build into my life now), but no part of me wanted paid work or "problem-solving" back. I believe where I differ from a lot of people in this regard is I did spend 7 years of my life doing a whole lot of nothing due to my disability, and I never accidentally started doing or pursuing paid work. I did it very purposely since I was trying to find the most efficient way to maintain that lifestyle for the rest of my life.

I would say I'm around Wheaton Level 4 - 5. I've wavered between these over the years. I think the isolation of covid brought me back to 4, and my savings rate of 70% is just due to my income level, not because I'm necessarily efficient.

So, what's the the new formula for financial independence given both the disability and who I enjoy being as a person?

($20,000 (fixed rent) + Life Spending + $8,000 (current in-network healthcare estimate) * 33 (3% SWR)) + $100,000 (out-of-network surgery stash)

Currently, that number adds up to $1,552,000. (Age 36, assuming no income increases, which is unlikely, but let's just make our mathematical model simple.)

But, you know what? I think the lifestyle spending is actually kind of ridiculous. I have no idea how I'm spending $16,000 a year apart from my rent. If I cut this in half, the retirement number would be $1,288,000. (Age 34)

Honestly, I haven't cared much about my lifestyle spending because at my income, the age of retirement between these two numbers (or even the original $2m, which is age 39), hasn't seemed drastically different. Cutting $2m -> $1.3m seems like a huge difference in age, but what's the difference between 36 and 34, really?

I'd like to decrease it for anti-consumerism reasons, but every time I go out to eat with friends, it makes such a small impact on my wallet that it doesn't really matter to me.

Maybe it's time to re-read ERE.

Scott 2
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Re: ER(E) with a disability

Post by Scott 2 »

recal wrote:
Sat Jun 04, 2022 12:36 pm
- I enjoy comfort, and have no desire to live in uncomfortable situations.
Two years ago, I could have written this same sentence. I favored operating from a robust position. Why suffer, when I can leverage my comparative advantage?

Between the lock down in 2020, and then cutting off my full time income in early 2021, I was forced to reconsider. My robust systems stopped working. They couldn't absorb the change. Dealing with it was unpleasant.

That's when I learned, the infatuation with discomfort on these forums, is a proactive angle on maximizing long term comfort. People are favoring antifragile strategies out of experience. Constantly absorbing the small disruptions leaves one in a much stronger overall position.

Taleb provides a great overview of the concept in his book, Antifragile. James Clear covers nuts and bolts implementation in Atomic Habits. I might favor those over re-reading the ERE book. It's a keystone concept, IMO.

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Lemur
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Re: ER(E) with a disability

Post by Lemur »

James Clear covers nuts and bolts implementation in Atomic Habits. I might favor those over re-reading the ERE book. It's a keystone concept, IMO.
+1 FWIW - I found this book to be very powerful for me. I've been gaining/losing the same 20+ pounds the past couple of years until just recently I lost 24lbs and have kept it off. This book has helped me establish exercise habits, eating habits, work habits....definitely recommend.

recal
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Re: ER(E) with a disability

Post by recal »

Scott 2 wrote:
Sat Jun 04, 2022 3:23 pm
Two years ago, I could have written this same sentence. I favored operating from a robust position. Why suffer, when I can leverage my comparative advantage?

Between the lock down in 2020, and then cutting off my full time income in early 2021, I was forced to reconsider. My robust systems stopped working. They couldn't absorb the change. Dealing with it was unpleasant.

That's when I learned, the infatuation with discomfort on these forums, is a proactive angle on maximizing long term comfort. People are favoring antifragile strategies out of experience. Constantly absorbing the small disruptions leaves one in a much stronger overall position.

Taleb provides a great overview of the concept in his book, Antifragile. James Clear covers nuts and bolts implementation in Atomic Habits. I might favor those over re-reading the ERE book. It's a keystone concept, IMO.
Yeah, I read Antifragile when it came out, so actually years before I ever read ERE.

I still stand by enjoying comfort in the way that I do. It's funny because a lot of the self-help style literature that encourages embracing discomfort uses disabled people as a reason why you should go out of your comfort zone. "If Matt with one leg can become a champion marathon runner, why can't YOU sitting on your couch in comfort right now?!" As if disabled people themselves aren't reading self-help.

I go through enough volatility with my health day-to-day (and year-to-year) to ever want to purposely embrace more. It's very difficult to care about deliberately keeping the heat down when there's pulses of pain rushing through my body.

And the question that these sorts of stoic-oriented books pose -- well, what will you do when the heating goes away?

And the answer is, I don't really care, every day I face the question of what will I do when my body stops functioning? Every day that I've been on these band-aid solutions is a gift, I've come from so much worse.

It's also worth noting that I grew up in an ancient eastern religion that inspired stoicism. All of this modern western repackaging of it isn't nearly as hardcore as the kind of fasting I've done since I was a child as a devotional exercise. :D

chenda
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Re: ER(E) with a disability

Post by chenda »

recal wrote:
Sat Jun 04, 2022 4:15 pm
It's also worth noting that I grew up in an ancient eastern religion that inspired stoicism. All of this modern western repackaging of it isn't nearly as hardcore as the kind of fasting I've done since I was a child as a devotional exercise. :D
Would you mind saying what religion? I am interested in religion and like to talk about it with practitioners.

recal
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Re: ER(E) with a disability

Post by recal »

chenda wrote:
Sat Jun 04, 2022 4:22 pm
Would you mind saying what religion? I am interested in religion and like to talk about it with practitioners.
Sure! I'm Jain. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism

It is notoriously the most ascetic "big" religion in the world. (I often joke that converts to Buddhism prefer Buddhism because it's is often Jainism on easy mode. Don't take this too seriously, there's obviously a lot of different variants of Buddhism.)

Specifically, this means I grew up vegetarian - eggs. I developed a lactose intolerance as a child so I'm vegan now.

We do a fast every year that lasts 8 days. This would involve my vegan diet, but then not allowed to eat greens as well during this time. (Most people scoff, what's left to eat then?) My family would eat just one meal a day, and no water after the sunset. But, I knew several families who all ate nothing for the entire 8 days, just drank water. There's no feast at the end or anything either, because we're never supposed to indulge our desires.

Once stoicism got popular within online circles, I read a book about it, and realized this is just everything my religious teachers have been telling me since I was 5, but my religion has a bigger focus on non-violence and withdrawal from the world than Buddhism or stoicism.

chenda
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Re: ER(E) with a disability

Post by chenda »

recal wrote:
Sat Jun 04, 2022 4:29 pm
Sure! I'm Jain. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism
Great! I got very interested in Jainism a few years ago. Jeffery D Long wrote a good book on the religion, the concept of Anekāntavāda was particularly appealing. I didn't know about the suggested link between Stoicism and Jainism, although I have heard of Buddhism influencing Epicureanism.

Anyway, its nice to meet a real Jain :)

recal
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Re: ER(E) with a disability

Post by recal »

chenda wrote:
Sat Jun 04, 2022 4:45 pm
Great! I got very interested in Jainism a few years ago. Jeffery D Long wrote a good book on the religion, the concept of Anekāntavāda was particularly appealing. I didn't know about the suggested link between Stoicism and Jainism, although I have heard of Buddhism influencing Epicureanism.

Anyway, its nice to meet a real Jain :)
Clarifying for specificity: There's suggested evidence (take it as seriously as you can that we're talking about 3000+ years ago and nobody knows) that there was a link between Alexander the Great's entrance into the Indus Valley Civilization and the cultural assimilation leading to influence on Greek philosophy in general.

Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism would all probably just be variants of being "Vedic" at the time, it's impossible to know how their inter and intra-development as religions went. All I can say for sure is both Buddhism and Jainism's founders had established their various religions 150 years before Alexander came to India.

For me, reading stoic thought felt very Jain. But, I have no other frame of reference, really!

Either way, I'm a practicing spiritual Jain who grew up as deeply enveloped as a layperson in the US can be. I don't believe in the mysticism (specifically because under Jain universe laws, it's my own past life's fault I'm disabled today), but agree wholeheartedly with the principles and practices. Happy to talk more about it anytime!

chenda
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Re: ER(E) with a disability

Post by chenda »

recal wrote:
Sat Jun 04, 2022 4:56 pm
Either way, I'm a practicing spiritual Jain who grew up as deeply enveloped as a layperson in the US can be. I don't believe in the mysticism (specifically because under Jain universe laws, it's my own past life's fault I'm disabled today), but agree wholeheartedly with the principles and practices. Happy to talk more about it anytime!
Thanks Recal! Yes that concept of Karma has never sat well with me for the reason you mention, but Jainism has some great teachings. Ancient east/west influence is a fascinating topic. Its interesting the Buddha and Mahavira were contemporaries, there seems to have been a lot of religious development around that time.

recal
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Re: ER(E) with a disability

Post by recal »

How I Became More of a Consumerist As Time Went On


Let me tell you a fun story... When I was 15, I had a single goal. Make $40 a day. I could live off of $40 a day.

The year before, I had developed my first disability, and was forced to leave school due to the effects of the painkillers on my focus and memory retention. I knew that college and maybe even a high school diploma weren't in my future, and I was mostly confined to my room, and I knew what my dream was. I wanted to work as little as possible so that I could spend all of my time doing what I loved -- meeting friends, doing interesting things, making stories happen, reading, watching films, etc..

That girl and me, we're not so different. But, a few things happened in the 10 or so years since that have inflated that $40 number a day.

#1: How I estimated $0 in health expenses to $8-20k a year in health expenses


For my first disability, doctors were all useless. I had a rare condition nobody could answer for, and I eventually fixed it myself through asking for something from a specific specialist and doing a ridiculous amount (more than full-time) of recovery exercises for 3+ years. It never fully went away until about now, where I'm seeing a doctor (of my own choice, out of network) again and we've gotten to the point where I'm no longer on the medication, and in a few months more I will be adjusted to that without pain.

Right around when I recovered from my first disability (which everyone around me said was the worst thing that would ever happen to me, boy were they wrong), my second disability started. This one was so much worse. There's no scope for self-recovery with this one. It's medical or bust. For years, because of medical incompetency, I had accepted that I would never be functional again, and I would be doomed to rot in my childhood bedroom where I was basically locked away and only acknowledged when given food by my mom.

A few years after that, I had my first surgery, I went to an extremely expensive doctor (he charges my insurance $1,000 per visit), I got extremely expensive treatment (we are currently ordering another $600-1,500 treatment to test it out, if it works, it lasts 6 months. Insurance covers this, but it's very unlikely ACA or Medicare will, from my reading), and I got my life back. Not only did I get my life back, I got a normal life back.

All I desperately wanted after 3 years of my second disability was to live a normal 9-5 and blend in with the crowd. I no longer wanted to be a vagabond, scrounging around to make my $40 a day and getting into messes and making stories. I wanted my life to be boring and safe.

#2: How I wanted to pay the premium of living alone


Boring and safe meant I no longer had to pay for the volatility of living with other people. I went through my surgery recovery in a home that never felt like mine, with the people I lived with not accommodating to the environmental variables I needed for recovery. I got through my surgery recovery by nearly dying because of the lack of environmental accommodations, and then just taking sleeping pills and waiting for the weeks to pass. It was horrifyingly depressing.

When I moved to get my first job in a safe transitory city, within 2 months, I moved into my own place. The feeling was incomparable. There is no part of me that ever wanted to give up the control I had over my environment. It cost over 2x as much in that city to move into my own place.

Where I live now, it doesn't cost 2x as much, more like 1.5x, but even then, waking up right now on a Sunday to look outside of my large window and hear nothing but the silence of the rain and be obligated to no one else is happiness to me. This is my greatest expense and my greatest luxury, and although the math would be so much simpler if I was fine with just having my own room rather than my own apartment, I can't seem to let go of it.

This would be fine if I wasn't doing #3 as well!

#3: How I moved to a VHCOL area

I grew up in a VHCOL area and thought it was overrated.

I left.

I regretted it.

I came back to a VHCOL city near home and can't imagine the naivety that ever led to leave major metropolitan USA.

When I was first planning to vagabond and make my $40 a day, I had planned first to travel to cheaper European cities for longer periods of time, and I couldn't see any scenario in which that would go wrong. It was cheap, they were walkable, what more did I need?

I think I had been desperately lonely for a long time, and since I didn't have any real friends, I didn't know that leaving your friends (especially rapidly) is a pretty bad move.

So, I moved to a MCOL city after my second disability where I had one true friend. In a way, that was all I needed, and it's still an option to move back there if I'm ever housebound again, but if I'm not housebound, man... That city made me miserable.

I didn't know the advantage of the diversity of big cities in the US until I left it. I felt so isolated and so invisible and I could barely find anyone who I could conceivably hold an honest conversation with anymore. I moved back here where I live now, suddenly people saw me for who I was, and have so many friends and many more potential friends once COVID passes and I'm willing to get out there again. I even feel social buzz from the everyday conversations at the bus stops, the grocery store, the street, and in my sports interactions.

This may be something that a lot of people on this forum have a hard time relating to as well, considering internet dwellers tend to be extremely introverted. I am not, and self-expression without judgment or fear is very important to me.

Combine #2 with #3, and we have probably the biggest obstacle from switching from FIRE to ERE/leanFIRE.

If I had to choose between the 2, I think #3 is more important. I honestly don't think life is worth living in isolation, and all but 10 cities in the US feel very difficult for me to even want to visit. Filter those by the ones that have good public transit, and we're left with 3 major areas, which all cost about the same.

What if I got over one of these?


I said in a previous post that reducing my yearly "life" spending by 1/2 to $8,000 a year ($650 a month) seems like a useless goal when it doesn't affect my retirement number that much.

Well... What if we got rid of the problem of living alone?

The new math on my retirement number is:

($12,000 (fixed rent) + $8,000 (Life Spending) + $8,000 (current in-network healthcare estimate) * 33 (3% SWR)) + $100,000 (out-of-network surgery stash)


That adds up to $1,024,000. Let's just round that down to $1m.

I can reach $1m in savings at about age 30-31, depending on how the markets go. Point is, that's the first time I've reduced my estimated retirement number to an age I'm actually interested in achieving.

By not living alone, I would shave 5+ years off of my retirement number. But, not just that -- my 30s would be free. I would only be working in my 20s.

I can't get over these blockers in my head, though... I don't have a partner to split these expenses with (and I'm never aiming to get one), I don't like roommates, I have not found in-law units at this price... I don't know! That's the conclusion of this: I don't know!

I just wanted to put out there that I seem to have gone in the reverse direction as I aged, but man, I really am so much happier now than I used to be. The freedom that money gives me is incomparable. I don't have any attachment to my job or career title or whatever because I simply spent 7 years outside of the prescribed American system, but money saved my life, money allowed me access to safety, etc.. Money did solve my problems. It really did. The anti-consumerist in me is always fighting against the person who looks outside of her large window from her nice couch.

recal
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Re: ER(E) with a disability

Post by recal »

Current Finances as of August 2021:

Net Worth: $323,906
Spending in June: $3,112.72
Spending in July: $2,869.39

I apologize for the lateness on this. I am planning to continue monthly updates, but late June and early July were a very busy time with my only travel of the year and a family funeral.

There's a lot I'm thinking about, the main bit is as follows:

I had almost two weeks without work, and it almost made my disability feel like an annoyance rather than a ticking bomb above my head. Work makes my disability worse. I go back and forth about going for a higher paying role, because I think it's still going to be about the same rate per hour, but involve more hours. I'd like to enjoy what I have of my youth, so I think I currently get paid very well per hour.

With a savings rate of 65-70% after taxes, what I do day-to-day doesn't make a huge difference unless I pick up a very expensive new habit. Which I have, lately...

I've been in very expensive physical therapy for these past couple of months. I was finally able to hit my deductible so it's been $45 per session instead of a full $130, but I go twice a week and I'm not shy about it. It's been quite life-changing, as I've been able to get off of $300 a year custom inserts and wear whatever shoes I want. It'll pay for itself with time.

In celebration of the transition (I'm still in treatment, but I'd say I've passed the halfway mark and now we're making sure these rapid changes are safe and solid), I've spent about $300 on various new sports and lifestyle equipment, and so far have sold about $110 worth of stuff that feels outdated to me.

I replaced $150 huge boots with $15 flexible sneakers and $75 fashion boots, upgraded from a $15 "I'm not sure if I want to commit to this" tennis racket to a $110 carbon racket, and finally got a "nice" $15 water bottle for future sports.

These kinds of "I feel my life has changed overnight and I need to spend to accommodate that" tend to happen quite often as I just turned 25 and I don't feel a lot is set in stone yet. I don't have a problem with it, in fact, I'm quite happy with it. I want to be more sporty and healthy and I'm quite happy that nothing will hold me back now.

If you asked me 2 years ago if I'd consider myself sporty, I would've said I can't, because of the problems I went to physical therapy for. Now, I have sports equipment for 2 sports I do weekly (cycling and tennis), and am still planning to do one more once my body catches up, which won't involve equipment, but will involve a monthly membership.

I wish this was my whole life. I wish these kinds of activities and healthy feelings around my body and disability were open to me 24/7. But, as I said above, I don't think there's much I can change in my life since I'm working at the best job I can and saving as much money as possible. If I want to get out of this and save my health, I have to pursue something more drastic, like moving out of California. I desperately don't want to do that.

Some other smaller thoughts:

- We are in a recession now. I am lucky to be in a recession-proof company and I don't feel at risk for layoffs unless my personal life keeps making me take extraordinarily long breaks from work with no notice. (It's happened twice this year.)
- I've eaten out or frozen foods almost every day this past month due to grief-related depression and a seeming inability to get my life back on track. I picked up a crate for my bike (woo! $40 saved instantly by not buying a basket from a company) and although that makes groceries easier... It feels inevitable that I need to budget for times like this, of meals costing $10-15. Anytime I spend less than this in a day/month is a plus, but I have to budget for the higher end.
- I bought almost $60 worth of laundry supplies recently (it will last a year) because I've found my clothes just really are NOT clean. I hope that using stronger detergent and adding softener and dryer sheets will help my clothes.

In general, I go back and forth on making a radical escape from here. I often fantasize about moving to a large Asian city because preferring to eat out is a lot easier on the wallet there (even relative to net incomes there). I'm a very urban-loving person unlike a lot of people on this forum, so I don't know how to reconcile that with the fact that work is literally killing me...

recal
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Re: ER(E) with a disability

Post by recal »

The Tiers of Early Retirement with a Disability

I think I've finally cracked the key on what retiring early with an unknown future should look like -- tiered levels of net worth leading to early retirement. Assuming I do nothing radical (I've already discussed non-negotiables above), at what point can I retire early and with what level of security and spending?

Tier 1 -- Technically Frugal FI / BaristaFIRE -- $625,000

Income: 625,000 / 25 = 25,000 = $2,000 per month + $1,000/yr budgeted for healthcare.

Lifestyle: This would involve getting a room for $900-1,100 within the Bay Area and keeping non-fixed costs to $700 a month. Honestly, this isn't a bad life and isn't that different than my current lifestyle. It's really nice to know I can technically retire on less than $1m!

Security: I would not feel secure with such a small healthcare buffer and the 4% rule. I would ideally work part-time for $1,000 a month until I reached the next milestone.

Tier 2 -- Breathing Room Frugal FI -- $825,000

Income: 825,000 / 33 = 25,000 = $2,000 per month + $1,000/yr budgeted for healthcare.

Lifestyle: Same as above.

Security: This security covers one of two scenarios I'd like to budget for, the 3% rule or a $200,000 cash(ish) healthcare buffer. It isn't peak security with this lifestyle. I would probably take income as it comes with this lifestyle but wouldn't need to actively search for work.

Tier 3 -- Most Secure Frugal FI -- $1,025,000

Income: $825,000 / 33 = 25,000 = $2,000 per month + $1,000/yr budgeted for healthcare + $200,000 buffer for major surgeries.

Lifestyle: Same as above.

Security: Is this oversecure? Maybe, maybe not. I need the freedom to pay for a surgery out of pocket with the insurance network not covering it. You never know what could happen.

Tier 4 -- Proper FI -- $1,500,000

Income: $1,320,000 / 33 = 36,000 = $3,000 per month + $4,000/yr budgeted for healthcare + $200,000 buffer for major surgeries.

Lifestyle: This increases my budget to be able to afford my own studio apartment and live without much effort for frugality. This is my lifestyle right now, basically.

Security: This allows a lifestyle buffer AND a cash buffer. This is the ideal situation.

Tier 5 -- Super Secure FI -- $2,000,000

Income: $2,000,000 / 33 = 40,000 = $3,333 per month + $20,000/yr budgeted for healthcare

Lifestyle: This is such a large amount of money that I would basically never have to worry about money. This is peak luxury to me.

Security: This is assuming I am maxing out my out of pocket max every year. It is extremely conservative and assumes the worst in basically every situation. This is the amount of money that would never fail me.

...

My current goal is Tier 4. But, it's really nice to know I can make it work on Tier 1 as well. My health has been getting progressively worse faster than I expected, and since I currently have about 325,000 saved, being over halfway there to a version of this future is amazing. I only thought this was possible after reading ERE and the conversations I've had on this forum. I don't need a million dollars to retire, let alone 2, even in the beautifully expensive Bay Area!

Scott 2
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Re: ER(E) with a disability

Post by Scott 2 »

I like the tiered milestones. Does your profession lend itself to part time work?

Awhile after I stopped working, I poked around for something part time. Without fail, once I disclosed my max availability as 20 hours per week, interest would dry up. I'd either need to establish myself as a niche expert, retool, or accept a low hourly rate. Instead I let the idea go.

Had I managed my career in that direction, I could have retired with part-time as a much stronger option. I was so focused on freedom from, that I never considered the angle of part-time marketability.

recal
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Re: ER(E) with a disability

Post by recal »

Scott 2 wrote:
Thu Aug 18, 2022 10:13 pm
I like the tiered milestones. Does your profession lend itself to part time work?

Awhile after I stopped working, I poked around for something part time. Without fail, once I disclosed my max availability as 20 hours per week, interest would dry up. I'd either need to establish myself as a niche expert, retool, or accept a low hourly rate. Instead I let the idea go.

Had I managed my career in that direction, I could have retired with part-time as a much stronger option. I was so focused on freedom from, that I never considered the angle of part-time marketability.
It sort of does. I know of a couple hard-to-get-into companies that offer this. Even if not, there's freelancing, and I've had freelance gigs before that regularly bring in a couple hundred a month. Get a few of those going and I'm set.

Problem is -- if I end up doing a retirement in Tiers 1-3, I would not have the functionality to pursue that kind of work and would probably pursue a more service-oriented menial job. Assume minimum wage in California ($15, or $1200 a month).

There's another middle-ground here of a sort of semi-retirement (assuming I am not forced to take an earlier tier). Reach Tier 3, work part-time in my field ($3-4k a month, 20 hours a week at $50 an hour post-tax). However, with my progressing health, I am less and less willing to take that risk. I'd rather be comfortable never as a proper professional again than aim for enough health to make part-time for 2-3x as long.

One cool option: Tier 2 early retirement also unlocks the ability to float around Asian cities for longer periods of time. The cost of living is the same (or less) than $25,000 a year, but I would still need the cash buffer in case I need a last-minute $2,000 flight back to California for some reason. I'm still floating this around... If I get laid off anytime soon, I'd like to spend 2-3 months in an Asian country (but I'm still committed to paying my rent here, it wouldn't be permanent or even semi-permanent). I just need the option to always be able to move back to the US, I don't see myself ever settling abroad.

zbigi
Posts: 978
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Re: ER(E) with a disability

Post by zbigi »

Scott 2 wrote:
Thu Aug 18, 2022 10:13 pm
I like the tiered milestones. Does your profession lend itself to part time work?

Awhile after I stopped working, I poked around for something part time. Without fail, once I disclosed my max availability as 20 hours per week, interest would dry up. I'd either need to establish myself as a niche expert, retool, or accept a low hourly rate. Instead I let the idea go.

Had I managed my career in that direction, I could have retired with part-time as a much stronger option. I was so focused on freedom from, that I never considered the angle of part-time marketability.
I've worked part-time in software jobs on three separate occasions. One of those jobs was weird/unique, but in the other two were bog standard. I started full-time and built enough domain- and company-specific knowledge to be very valueable even part-time. I think it's probably the only guaranteed route to part-time without a big rate cut, other than being a super rare niche expert - but even then, such people are usually brought for limited engagements as consultants, and not put on staff as part-timers. That is because basically being part-time is just super inefficient for any kind of intellectual work (ideally, you'd like entire problem to fit into one person's head, and the more people in team, the higher the communication overhead and fragmentation of understanding).

recal
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Joined: Sun Nov 14, 2021 12:29 pm

Re: ER(E) with a disability

Post by recal »

Every Dollar I've Spent in 2022 (So Far)

This is of interest probably only to me, but I've noticed my personal rate of inflation go up 10% since last year. I don't budget for myself because it doesn't affect my savings rate to fluctuate between a couple thousand dollars of spending. However, now that I have the tiered early retirement plan, my spending becomes vitally important. Why? Lifestyle inflation.

If I can keep myself to $30k spending ($20k rent + $10k life spending) -- not counting medical spending, I will be able to retire with 1.2-1.3m (estimated age, 32). If it goes up to $36k spending a year (as it is right now), I need 1.5m, which is estimated to occur at age 34. The problem with getting comfortable with 36k is I'm worried next year it'll be 40k... 45k... so on. I feel I should be spending the most I ever spend right now, on accumulating a home's worth of comforts and going out to eat all the time with friends. It shouldn't keep going up!

So, I sat down and tracked everything I spent this year so far. This doesn't count cash, as everything with cash came into my hands through some kind of income and left my hands through some kind of spending. It's evened out.

Rent: $13,200
Medical: $2,300
Gifts for Family: $716
Food Delivery: $570
Restaurants: $1,931
Groceries: $742
Pharmacy/Toiletries: $496 (This might be a little bit inaccurate as I get toiletries from Amazon sometimes in bulk because I had a gift card this year. ie. It may be higher. This is expected because of my disability.)
Electricity: $212
Internet: $326
Insurance: $40
Dental: $33
Concerts: $227
Headphones: $110
Patreon/Online Memberships: $76
Online Services (Domains, etc): $92
Magazines: $54
Donations: $78
Streaming Services: $97
Bike: $606
Electric Toothbrush: $100
Cash Withdrawal: $20
Lyft/Uber: $169
Video Games: $8
Kitchen: $15
Movie Theaters: $96
Home Gym: $36
Tennis: $122
Books: $76
Clothes: $177
Travel: $541
Sports (Single-Use): $166 (This is not sports equipment, but rentals.)
Fees: $12

Total: $23,444

We are currently 63% done with the year, so $23,444 is 63% of $37,213.

I realize this is beyond the categorization that most people do, but I wanted to make it very clear to myself EXACTLY what I spent money on.

So, now let's break this down:

If we remove medical, travel, gifts for family, three things I consider outside of normal cost of living, it goes down to $19,897 which is 63% of $31,583. This is a relief -- I'm only about $1,000 over my spending goal!

What are the obvious places to cut?

Food delivery & restaurants -- I know, I know. The problem is, I've been sick a lot this year and it's genuinely come in handy. I think there's a way to cut the cost of this (Trader Joe's frozen food) and restaurants in particular would go way down if I didn't work in the office (every day I don't bring lunch costs $15-20). I think this can be cut by say, 50%, but aiming for more than that is just going to lead me to starve. So, there's over $1000 done.

Putting a hard budget on misc stuff: I bought a lot of expensive stuff this year. Headphones, bike, electric toothbrush, and my tennis racket all add up to $938, when in my mind this is the same misc category as concerts, movies, sports rentals, books, etc.. come from. I have to choose one or the other -- big ticket items or the small things that bleed me dry.

I put no budget on this right now as a working person, but I believe I could given the free time that early retirement brings. I'd be older and already have a lot of this stuff (like a bike!), and I truly feel there's only so much you can buy before you feel you have more than you need. I have an audio system, an air purifier, a printer, a mandolin, a monitor, etc.. How much longer will I keep finding new stuff that I want when I live in this tiny apartment? I feel that everything I've bought is reasonable thus far, although a few mistakes have been made along the way. (Sold my PS4, trying to sell 2 skateboards right now, etc..)

So, what's a theoretical budget I could have to reach 30k?

Rent: 20,000 / 1650 a month
Bills: 1,200 / 100 a month
Groceries: 2,400 / 200 a month
Restaurants: 2,400 / 200 a month
Toiletries: 1,200 / 100 a month
Transportation: 1,200 / 100 a month (higher than my current spending, but currently train fares are taken through a pre-tax account through work)
Everything Else: 1,600 / 130 a month ("experiences," "things," books, clothes, and any travel fees that can't be covered with credit card points)

Medical comes outside of this budget because I can't really budget for it and I would cut off all family gifts, all other spending is included here.

This is a pretty strict budget, but honestly, the only part I find difficult right now is cutting restaurants by almost 50%.

How far away from this am I right now? Transportation and groceries are lower than this, the rest are about the same, and let's see how much higher restaurants and everything else is...

Restaurant / Food Delivery Estimated Spending 2022: $3,970 (Currently $2,501 as of today)
Everything Else Estimated Spending 2022: $4,203 (Currently $2,648 as of today)

Well, there it is. There are the plugs in my spending. That's... a lot of money. That's a huge adjustment to go down over 50%.

The most important goal for the rest of this year is to start behaving as if the budget is already at 30k.

My goal from September-December is to spend $200 a month on restaurants and $130 a month on everything else. Rollover is allowed!

I guess it's time to install a budgeting app! I'm still very, very high up on the Wheaton scale.

mathiverse
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Re: ER(E) with a disability

Post by mathiverse »

Good luck cutting back on eating out! That's been the bane of my budget for a long time. I know how hard it can be to cut back there.

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Slevin
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Re: ER(E) with a disability

Post by Slevin »

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head with the minimization of "eating out". As someone who went from eating out multiple times per week and now only "eats out" on special occasions, I try and keep it simple with a few strats.

1. Meal prep: 2-3 hours on Sunday (or whatever day, just 1x per week) can make you meals for the whole week, if you are okay with eating similar meals. My old strat when i ate meat was "make rice, beans, meat, and then bake potatoes / sweet potatoes and a few sheets of veg / root veg / whatever to mix in".

2. Failsafe meals: Meals you can make in 15-20 mins for times you ran out of food prep food and didn't prep more and you are hungry right now.

3. Extra Failsafe meals: Stuff kept in the freezer for when you really really don't feel like cooking. For me this is Veggie burgers and tots. When I ate meat it was salmon and sweet potato tots.

Just focus on improving the % of meals you make every week and you will improve fast. Since you are sick a lot of the time from health issues, maybe focus on getting that meal prep day in on days you feel good / have the time, then have more of the frozen meals / whatever in the freezer for backup. An ultra pro strat if you don't care about eating frozen food is to make 2 of a lot of the big food prep meals you make if it is like a lasagna or casserole or something, then cut up and freeze one for those sick times meals.

recal
Posts: 80
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Re: ER(E) with a disability

Post by recal »

Slevin wrote:
Fri Aug 19, 2022 12:30 pm
3. Extra Failsafe meals: Stuff kept in the freezer for when you really really don't feel like cooking. For me this is Veggie burgers and tots. When I ate meat it was salmon and sweet potato tots.

Just focus on improving the % of meals you make every week and you will improve fast. Since you are sick a lot of the time from health issues, maybe focus on getting that meal prep day in on days you feel good / have the time, then have more of the frozen meals / whatever in the freezer for backup. An ultra pro strat if you don't care about eating frozen food is to make 2 of a lot of the big food prep meals you make if it is like a lasagna or casserole or something, then cut up and freeze one for those sick times meals.
Yep, I think the key here is learning how to freeze meals. I currently meal prep but I'm sometimes out for a months at a time (this year I had a month where I had to take it off completely from work, add in the 2 weeks before I got to that point, and then I had 6 weeks of grief recovery) so I need to have both my own frozen meals that can last 2 weeks, and then accept that I will eventually have to do the Trader Joe's meals. Still, Trader Joe's costs around $6 per meal (let's round it up to $7 if we include the delivery costs) vs an average of $12-15 for DoorDash.

When I eat out at work as will inevitably happen, I should commit to only eating at places that will cost $10 or less (cash-only Indian food, burger & fries, etc..) rather than the fancier work places that are $15 average.

Just doing these two things will shave a thousand dollars off of my yearly spending. Zero effort.

Image

Budgeting app has been downloaded! These are my inputs so far this month. I'm counting everything but medical, donations, and gifts to family. August will be the most going-out expensive month of the year (peak summer!), so with the envelope system, by next August I should have the rollover money in place to afford all of the activities and things I've been spending on.

Clarifying in case anyone is confused: Anything with a - in front is that much over budget. ie. I spend $240 + $130 so far this month on "Everything Else."

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