My retirement scoreboard, Part II

Where are you and where are you going?
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unemployable
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Re: My retirement scoreboard, Part II

Post by unemployable »

unemployable wrote:
Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:17 am
But something's gonna blow up. I can feel it, and have already heard rumors.
Our first casualty comes from the land of pretend internet money. So it begins.

ertyu
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Re: My retirement scoreboard, Part II

Post by ertyu »

oh? what happened? I thought crypto had its blow-up already

edit: ah.

Image

bitcoin fell under rainbow

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unemployable
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Re: My retirement scoreboard, Part II

Post by unemployable »

The reason the price of pretend internet money is down is FTX is going out worthless. Quite a few putatively sophisticated investors are bagholders.

ertyu
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Re: My retirement scoreboard, Part II

Post by ertyu »

im not into crypto but im listening to a podcast on the ftx blowup right now. how likely do you think it is that this goes systemic?

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Seppia
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Re: My retirement scoreboard, Part II

Post by Seppia »

It depends on Tether.
If they can keep up the facade and hold the peg things will not go to zero.
If they can’t, look out

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unemployable
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Re: My retirement scoreboard, Part II

Post by unemployable »

ertyu wrote:
Thu Nov 10, 2022 5:42 am
how likely do you think it is that this goes systemic?
People should've learned "not my keys not my coins" by now. So I'd hope most larger investors don't have exposure to an exchange going down.

And I don't think it's a big enough asset class compared to, say, US or Chinese real estate.

But it's pretty clear crypto is a risk asset — the opposite of what its promoters have promised. And it still doesn't have much of a use case. So doubt we're seeing a meaningful recovery anytime soon.

ertyu
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Re: My retirement scoreboard, Part II

Post by ertyu »

unemployable wrote:
Thu Nov 10, 2022 9:35 am
doubt we're seeing a meaningful recovery anytime soon.
Agreed. Crypto seems to be going up and down with overall liquidity; there could be another speculative wave but not until the spigots are turned on again

CS
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Re: My retirement scoreboard, Part II

Post by CS »

Honestly, it’s hard to see crypto surviving the climate crisis. Unless something changes with the fundamentals of its creation, my money is on it going the way of the tulip.

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Ego
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Re: My retirement scoreboard, Part II

Post by Ego »

This is crypto's 2008. But with one big difference. People who did dumb shit with crypto are paying the price. As it should be. The same cannot be said for those who did dumb shit in 2008, or allowed others to do dumb shit in their name. We all bailed them out and allowed the problem to fester.

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Re: My retirement scoreboard, Part II

Post by chenda »

Good riddance.

+1 @Ego.

Now to ride the Lemuria Real Estate boom.

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unemployable
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Re: My retirement scoreboard, Part II

Post by unemployable »

I ended November with $710k. This was +5.6% for the month, very slightly ahead of the SPX.

I don't feel like calculating my expenses. I fortuitously got paid for one of my housesits, then adding back in dividend and sublet income they were only a few hundred. Net worth imputes a $2366/month drawdown and I was *way* under that. My housing expense for the month was either $90, for one night at a hotel, or —$1070, for the hotel minus what I netted subletting my summer place and housesitting.

I'm in my old stomping ground of North Carolina now. I have three inside cats and at least one outside cat to car for over the next couple weeks. (I've seen at least two other outside cats visit the yard in the day and half I've been here, but I'm nominally responsible for only one.)

From Colorado I drove straight across the plains and Midwest, then toured Appalachian coal country. I've been fascinated by the area ever since I had a car in college and had the freedom to get around. People like to talk about collapse here — well coal country has collapsed and is still decaying, and I can't think of a possible escape route for it. I can take only so much; after a full day of driving and a little picture-taking I get weary of it.

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Image

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As with economic prosperity and southern West Virginia, the discussions on this board seem to be receding from me as well. I'm all for resiliency, alternative living and finding non-monetary solutions to problems most people solve with money — housesitting exemplifies all these. But I'm perfectly happy using version 1.0 of ERE and staying at whatever Wheaton level I'm on, or at least advancing to the next one at my own goddamned pace. And I hope most consumerists keep on consuming. That's how they end giving away furniture and begging me to live in their house and walk their dog while they take the kids on vacation. That's how they buy all the products whose stocks I own. You can keep your colors and your scalability concepts and I'll just worry about myself, because it's not as if anyone else is. Oh well, it was enlightening while I had a use for it.

ertyu
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Re: My retirement scoreboard, Part II

Post by ertyu »

I find your updates interesting and worthwhile, so I hope you keep checking in with what you've been up to. If not, best of luck :)

mathiverse
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Re: My retirement scoreboard, Part II

Post by mathiverse »

I hope you stick around and keep updating your journal and commenting on other threads that you are interested in. I read all of your updates and find them interesting even if I don't typically comment.

I'd also like the forum to still have less theoretical and more grounded ERE 1.0 content, so your journal is much appreciated for that too.

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Re: My retirement scoreboard, Part II

Post by theanimal »

mathiverse wrote:
Fri Dec 02, 2022 7:09 pm
I hope you stick around and keep updating your journal and commenting on other threads that you are interested in. I read all of your updates and find them interesting even if I don't typically comment.
+1

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mountainFrugal
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Re: My retirement scoreboard, Part II

Post by mountainFrugal »

Do you ever stop and talk with folks in these towns? I would be curious if there are themes in the things they want to talk to an outsider about.

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Seppia
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Re: My retirement scoreboard, Part II

Post by Seppia »

Whatever you decide to do with the board (I really hope you stay!), keep being awesome!

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unemployable
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Re: My retirement scoreboard, Part II

Post by unemployable »

mountainFrugal wrote:
Fri Dec 02, 2022 9:46 pm
Do you ever stop and talk with folks in these towns? I would be curious if there are themes in the things they want to talk to an outsider about.
Not much. I'll sometimes walk around the towns a bit — they're generally safe in the daytime — and stop to take pics but don't do much exploring of abandoned sites. If you start poking around old structures anyone watching (some get reopened, or have security or people living nearby) might wonder what's up.

I visit only sporadically, as I'm a couple time zones away, and at times have gone about a decade between trips. But I'll be back in another month or so, as I'll have some time in between sits and it's on the way. I'm far more often in the NC/Tennessee mountains. There's much more to hike, winters are milder and the rough parts are far less depressing. North of there (PA/upstate NY) has worse winters and hasn't historically fit my travel/living plans as well.

I could see myself living in some of the towns along the I-81 corridor. That highway, not coincidentally, is roughly the southern extent of mining country.

An amateur website, http://www.coalcampusa.com , may be of interest.

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unemployable
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Re: My retirement scoreboard, Part II

Post by unemployable »

ertyu wrote:
mathiverse wrote:
theanimal wrote:
Seppia wrote:
I'm not going to promise anything either way. My effusion wasn't meant as a ragequit. But I did finally check out the darknetting thread. Which illustrates my point — I don't care whether ERE is on the darknet, the brightnet or the butterfly net; it's not as if whatever net it's on will cause me to stop doing it. You have to internalize the higher Wheaton levels, and determine your terminal Wheaton level, yourself. Nor was it intuitive that that particular thread is serving as the storm drain for whining about forum drift. But I do see many longtime posters have raised similar concerns to mine.

I'm reminded of my seasonal residency at my mom's old house on the Gulf Coast. The ERE boards have embodied and reflected part of my identity. When that changes, part of my identity goes away. And that's what hurts.

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mountainFrugal
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Re: My retirement scoreboard, Part II

Post by mountainFrugal »

The images you posted (and this website) remind me of the mill towns around here. There is seemingly large variance in how the homes have been kept up from fully restored near mainstreet to abandoned on the edge of town. If I were to live East of the Mississippi, I would live in Tennessee. Beautiful country. I have visited Knoxville a handful of times at the Southern end of I-81. The access to the Smokey's is a great plus. My cousin lived in Asheville for a while, but I failed to visit her. I also hear it has good hiking access. I seem to remember you doing many of the Colorado 14ers, does the Appalachian Trail appeal to you?

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Re: My retirement scoreboard, Part II

Post by unemployable »

mountainFrugal wrote:
Sat Dec 03, 2022 1:30 pm
I seem to remember you doing many of the Colorado 14ers, does the Appalachian Trail appeal to you?
I have done all the Colorado 14ers and some two-thirds of the 584 13ers. I joke that if I ever start caring about 12ers it's time to move.

I like having an objective, such as a summit, and start longing for civilization after about three days. And my least favorite thing about backpacking is carrying all that crap. So no to thru-hiking anything, not at this point in my life at least, although I thought about it for the summer I eventually decided to move to Colorado.

I've done substantial sections of the AT in the South and in New Hampshire, though, where I've hiked all the 4000 footers.
There is seemingly large variance in how the homes have been kept up from fully restored near mainstreet to abandoned on the edge of town.
You see that in coal country, too, but with a lot of abandoned houses in the middle of what is otherwise a lived-in neighborhood. In that first picture above, which is the town of Welch, a house directly opposite the courthouse (the large tan stone building at bottom center) still stands but has trees growing through it. Adjacent to it, where the car parked on the left side of the street is, is a still lived-in house, but next to that is another abandoned one.

This is still Welch; many of the houses back on the hillside are abandoned, and it's safe to say all the now-empty spaces used to have houses on them:

Image

Quite often, too, you see something that looks abandoned and then notice a light on or a car with a current license plate parked nearby and think, Wait, someone actually lives in THAT!?

A fair number of houses, more than I remember on previous trips, sit in a burned-beyond-habitability state. The other debris visible tends to imply the house it was lived in when it burned, so probably a space heater or kitchen accident rather than arson. I don't think it's like Detroit with Devil's Night there. People just leave old houses to decay. Pretty sure these are all occupied though:

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