GreenMonsta Journal

[GreenMonsta]

About me:
37 year old male;
-2 income household
-Children
-Currently saving 50% of gross income
-Plan to reach ERE along with DW at 45

I am very happy to have joined the forum and equally happy to have a community to share my journey as well as learn from. As for my journal, it seems appropriate to go back in time to tell my story working my way forward to the present.


Federal grants, a small scholarship and paid employment were instrumental in me earning a bachelor’s degree without debt. The bachelor’s degree was attained right in the middle of the Great Financial Crisis and job opportunities were not abundant. I decided to pursue a Master’s degree in a rewarding field with good long term prospects.

As many know, graduate school has a high price tag and in many programs working is difficult and often discouraged. To put a long story short, I finished graduate school with just shy of 6 figures in debt. My spouse’s college debt, which not quite as high, was also significant.

Student loan payments were ~1500. At first the debt wasn’t burdensome. But after a couple of years of minimal payments, a home mortgage, 2 new cars and the expenses of a growing family, I felt overwhelmed and crushed financially. The climax of pain came when I realized that my household amassed an additional 10k in credit card debt where there was nothing to show.

Debt in 2014:
Car 1: (2%) 20k
Car 2: (1%) 27k
Student loan: (6.7%) 88k
Student loan:(6%) 45k
Credit card: (?) 10k
Mortgage:(3%) 111k

Total debt: 301k

I was simply trying to live the American dream. Family home was modest. While new, our cars were “responsible”. We took 1 vacation per year. I couldn’t understand what I did or was doing wrong.

At that point in time, I had no dreams of financial independence. I did however, with a burning desire, want to get out of consumer and student loan debt.

While it’s still not perfect, I am glad to say my story improved very much since these days. I look forward to reflecting more in future journals.

[Henry]

Interested in seeing the "after" picture.

Red Sox fan?

[GreenMonsta]

I should also say that household net worth was -301k since there really weren’t any assets except a little home equity around that time.

Thanks for the reply Henry!
Isn’t everyone a Red Sox fan. Lol

[Henry]

Your negative net worth was Carl Yastrzemski's 1968 batting average.

[GreenMonsta]

That’s an awesome observation! I wonder if my username becomes click bait to baseball fans?!

[Mister Imperceptible]

Good enough to lead the league in the second Dead Ball Era.

I went to Fenway for a Yankee game this year and the crowd is not the same crowd as 20 years ago. The working class fans who screamed have been priced out. Same as difference between old / new Yankee Stadium.

White-collar, well-dressed, effete. Ethnic demographics have changed as well, you used to not be able to escape a drunken McDouche on every side yelling “Yankees suck.”

[unemployable]

I went to Fenway for a Yankee game this year and the crowd is not the same crowd as 20 years ago. The working class fans who screamed have been priced out. Same as difference between old / new Yankee Stadium.

My mom's side of the family are South Shorers and when I visited my cousins in the 80s we would go catch games at Fenway. The way you bought a ticket was to go up to the ticket booth an hour or so before game time, tell the guy where you wanted to sit, then he riffled through a wad of tickets until he found something that matched. Bleacher seats were $3 I think and decent seats in the infield were $7-8. For games against the Yankees you had to buy in advance or from a scalper; I remember paying $20 for bleachers in 1994 and that was a LOT back then. Simpler times. And they did cheer "Yankees Suck".

[Mister Imperceptible]

Taking this there only because you chose the name GreenMonsta

https://www.irishcentral.com/news/bosto ... ng-out.amp

Raise the rents and bring in different immigrants and there is virtually no way to resist this…..obliteration of identity.




LOL…..I mean, they had to take away the baseball too

@GreenMonsta ask me to delete this if it is highjacking

[Henry]

Fuck Greenmonsta. He pretty much hung a "Please HiJack" sign on the cockpit door.

The Brooklyn Dodgers were the first team to integrate in 1947. The Red Sox? 1959. That's all of Truman into the last two years of Eisenhower, essentially all of The Happy Days. Think about that when considering the records book. I'm sure Unemployable's Southie family had nothing to do with it but I'm not so certain about their since Departed neighbors. Also, Tom Yawkey was not exactly Abraham Lincoln. Furthermore, the first African American star player for the Red Sox was Reggie Smith who didn't arrive until 1966 which from a U.S. history perspective was like walking onto a porn set during the bukkake scene. So my family moves into the suburban neighborhood in which Reggie still lives in 1974 despite Reggie being traded to St. Louis after he and Boston had enough of each other. I become friends with Reggie Jr. and fuck around the neighborhood with him. One day we are all on the school bus and things get abnormally fucking quiet. I look up and there is Reggie Sr. his body stooped half way over, but his afro still brushing the ceiling of the bus. He was wearing a pale blue jump suit. I had never scene a grown man wear a pale blue jump suit. I did not fully piss my pants but there were more than a few drops. This was Samuel L. Jackson walking into your apartment while you're enjoying your Big Kahuna burger. After a few moments of silence, he scans the bus and in a tone of voice I never heard before and never want to hear again declares "If anyone messes with Reggie Jr. they will be messing with Reggie Sr." I knew I wasn't one of the culprits but it didn't matter. That was the quietest bus ride in American middle school history.

[unemployable]

South Shore is not Southie. Southie is a part of Boston, South Shore is the suburbs all the way down to Plymouth. Presumably you know this but others may not.

Mom was born in Quincy and grew up in Mansfield. He sister raised kids in Braintree and she still lives there. Those kids now live in Easton, Providence and the Cape, sort of the "extended South Shore".

I don't doubt your experience in the least, but don't recall Sox fans not wanting, say, Jim RIce on the team because he was black. Bill Russell had stories though.

[Mister Imperceptible]

If we are bringing up old stories, you still haven’t identified the 1 of the 23.

I saw Jim Rice at the airport in Charlotte and he found it extremely inconvenient when I knew who he was.

[Mister Imperceptible]

Some links for people who do not know and therefore might not understand:

1967: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_K2USAKaSJc
1976: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ohQaOO_mTzs
2003: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AsuYIN7y8Ew
2004: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IGuF-Wy_QUc

This one from 1998 not Yankees-Red Sox but too good not to post:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKIHNsf8O_A

The ball players were working class and they cared (even though they cannot throw a punch for shit hahaha). The fans were working class and they cared.

Now, the ball players look at themselves like shareholders (in a financialized economy). These brawls do not happen. Why bother getting hurt, when you are worth millions? But that attitude carries over into quality of play, and it is not imperceptible to those who care.

The shareholders and the players and the fans are now all flaccid. And it shows. The product is garbage.

[Henry]

South Shore is not Southie. Southie is a part of Boston, South Shore is the suburbs all the way down to Plymouth. Presumably you know this but others may not.

Sorry for the unmerited aspersion. I was at a game in the mid-80's sitting in the bleachers, when, hand to God, someone yelled at Ellis Burks the word that should not be uttered as he was shagging fly balls. I'm not saying it's indicative of Boston or MA as a whole but they always had these issues. Jim Rice always felt he was treated less than his gold dust twin Fred Lynn, and he was on the team during the busing crisis in 1976 when the infamous Stanley Forman Flag Pole Photo was taken. That being said, Jim Rice was a known to be a complete asshole.

David Halberstam wrote a book "October, 1964" that documents the Cardinals/Yankees World Series where he confronts the integration issue. It was a passing of the torch from the dynastic Yankees to the St. Louis Cardinals which cannot but helped seen at least partially along racial lines ie Maris, Mantle, Ford (lol @ Whitey) vs. Gibson, Brock, Flood. The National League benefitted from their willingness to integrate - Mays/Aaron/Banks/Robinson/Gibson etc. before the American League.

Poor GreenMonsta. At this rate, he's going to be older than Tom Brady before he retires.

[Henry]

If we are bringing up old stories, you still haven’t identified the 1 of the 23.

Based on what I know of both of you, I'd go Roger Hornsby.

[Mister Imperceptible]

I cannot wait to watch a bunch of Euro-types roll on the ground Sunday begging for yellow cards.

What entertainment.

They need to pay Zinedine Zadine to run around head butting people in the chest to make that shit watchable.

[GreenMonsta]

I feel like I must come clean and admit I know little about Boston or Baseball. I grew up with little exposure. Most of what I know came from The Sandlot. Lol. However during my college years I became interested and jumped on the Red Sox band wagon. Not sure if y’all know, but they won a game in 2004 that was a pretty big deal. Anyways I wore a Green Monster shirt many days of the week. Mostly to the gym and enough to catch the nickname Green Monsta for a brief period.

I image if I was from the North East, I would have been a huge baseball fan. The history of those parks are amazing. As an adult, I have been to a few Braves and Astros games. Catching a game at Fenway or Yankee Stadium would be an amazing bucket list experience. But probably a one and done type of experience since I’d be sweating at the cost.

I enjoyed reading about your experiences in the replies.

[Mister Imperceptible]

I feel like I must come clean and admit I know little about Boston or Baseball.

No worries.

The history of those parks are amazing.

But it is the history of the fans that is interesting. The history of baseball and America are inextricably linked.

Catching a game at Fenway or Yankee Stadium would be an amazing bucket list experience. But probably a one and done type of experience since I’d be sweating at the cost.

That's the thing. It used to be a thing for everybody. Regular people. The community. People could go without sweating the cost. It was not a thing reserved for oligarchs and spendthrifts.

I refer to some quotes regarding the new Yankee Stadium:

Although Yankee Stadium has been praised for its amenities, it also has been widely criticized for high ticket prices. Seats within the first eight rows in the lower bowl, called the "Legends Suite", are among the highest-priced tickets in professional sports. Tickets cost $510 on average; the most expensive tickets cost $2,600 each. Legends Suite Seats have been regularly empty, with many ticket holders in this section having given up their tickets, and others remaining unsold, despite most other seats in the ballpark selling out. This has created an embarrassing image on television of the seats behind home plate being almost completely vacant. Consequently, a surplus of tickets for Legends Seats have emerged in the secondary market, and with supply exceeding demand, resale prices have dropped. Empty seats in the Legends Suite could even be seen during the 2009 playoffs, including World Series games. Even though all playoff games were sellouts, Legends Suite ticket holders were in the lounges and the restaurant underneath instead of their seats. Overall, the average ticket price is $63, the highest in baseball.

Legends Suite seats are also separate from the other lower bowl seating and are vigorously patrolled by stadium security, with the divider being described as a "concrete moat." Fans who do not have tickets within this premium section in the front rows are not allowed in the section. This includes standing behind the dugouts during batting practice and to seek autographs. The least expensive seats, the bleachers, initially left many fans disappointed, as the indoor club seating area in center field obstructed the views from bleacher seats on both sides in sections 201 and 239. These severely obstructed sections would ultimately be removed during the 2016–2017 off-season in favor of outdoor bars and patio called Franks Red Hot Terrace in left center and Toyota Terrace in right center. These new areas are complete with standing terraces accessible to all ticket holders, in addition to replacing the seating on top of the center field club with standing terraces, drastically reducing the number of obstructed views from center field in the process.

.....

The stadium has also been criticized for its lack of fan noise. During a Sunday Night Baseball telecast in 2012, commentator and former Red Sox manager Terry Francona spoke about the different atmospheres in the old and new stadiums saying that "As a visiting team, especially for the Red Sox, by the time the (national) anthem was over, you couldn't wait to get back in the dugout. Now (there is) a little different (kind) of fan sitting around down there by the dugout." Games at the new stadium do not feature the same deafening crowd moments and often sound eerily silent. The lack of fan noise was noticeable in the 2012 playoffs as well, with thousands of unsold seats for Game 5 of the ALDS and Games 1 and 2 of the ALCS. "This is a very easy place to play now," said Quintin Berry of the Detroit Tigers, the Yankees' ALCS opponents. "Coming from Oakland, the fans there were so rowdy. It was easier to come here." In his autobiography The Closer, the Yankees' longtime relief pitcher Mariano Rivera wrote about the new stadium's atmosphere: "It doesn't hold noise, or home-team fervor, anywhere near the way the old place did. The old Stadium was our 10th man—a loud and frenzied cauldron of pinstriped passion, with a lot of lifers in the stands. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's hard to see that the new place can ever quite duplicate that." Derek Jeter echoed this sentiment in a September 2014 article in New York magazine, in which he said he missed the original Yankee Stadium: "It was a different feel. The new stadium, it's second to none—all the amenities. For the players, it really doesn't get any better. The old stadium, if you were at the stadium, in the stands, the only place you could see the game was in your seat. Now there's so many suites and places people can go. So a lot of times it looks like it's empty, but it's really not. The old stadium, it was more intimidating. The fans were right on top of you."

Compare Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS at the old Yankee Stadium to Game 5 of the 2012 ALDS.

2003 ALCS Game 7:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St3WF3_xaWk

2012 ALDS Game 5:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRyhHSImzl0

At the old stadium, you have 57,000 mostly working class men (taxi cab drivers, construction workers and other manual laborers, restaurant workers) whose felt experience in going to the game is near-mortal combat.

With the new stadium, you have white-collar men, intermixed with many women and children, who are going to the park for lack of anything better to do with their surplus of fiat money.

The crowd noise at the former stadium was the full-throated roar of these men who cared, as Rivera and his co/ghost writer said, “a loud and frenzied cauldron of pinstriped passion, with a lot of lifers in the stands.”

The crowd noise at the latter is the yawn of bored Roman oligarchs.

I bet Sam Bankman-Fried’s parents have 2 tickets to the many empty seats you see in the Legends suite behind home plate at the new Stadium, but you do not see them because they are too busy chortling in the backroom suites about the implementation of Global Fully Automated Luxury Communism.

Catching a game at Fenway or Yankee Stadium would be an amazing bucket list experience. But probably a one and done type of experience since I’d be sweating at the cost.

You are not going to get the bucket list experience. It is gone. Even if Fenway Park has not been replaced, the fans have been. What is left is a derivative, a shadow, a dried-out husk. You would be paying 5x or 10x the cost for that derivative experience. Just as you jumped on the bandwagon, the tide was cresting. Fans before 2003/2004 were the “geeks” of baseball. What has followed are the mops and sociopaths. If you read the comments on the 2003 ALCS Game 7 link, you will see everyone saying "the players don't seem to care anymore, they (opponents) actually like each other." Just like today's fiat Cantillionaires...disconnected from reality, and indifferent. Just like Democrats and their controlled opposition, the Republicans.....they like to share books like "Against Democracy" and congratulate each other on having "transcended" in their hot air balloons. The real fans are priced out and are told to enjoy eating their pinecones. Baseball is no more.











Welcome to the forums!

[Mister Imperceptible]

I am sitting with my grandfather. Huge Red Sox fan.

He went to Fenway 3-4 times a year for many years. Took the wife and kids sometimes, and other times went with his friend. When he went with his friend, there was still enough time and money left over to stop by the Combat Zone.

He has not been to a game since 1988. 34 years ago. Cannot afford it.

Merry Christmas.

[GreenMonsta]

In 2018 our household made significant progress towards paying off debt and the accumulation of invested savings.

Financial picture in 2018

Car 1: (2%) 5k
Car 2: (1%) 14k
Student loan: (6.7%) 59k
Student loan:(6%) 43k
Credit card: (?) 0
Mortgage:(3%) 100k
Liabilities: 221k

Savings/investments: 35k
Home equity: 65k
Assets: 100k

Net worth: -121k

With a combination of debt pay-down and rising home prices, the picture improved. The cars should have been sold and replaced with vehicles that could be bought in cash. That would have saved much energy and time in the process. Our household was still caught in a lifestyle based in consumerism and thus the journey was slow moving. One positive from that time was the significant monthly payment towards debts. It wasn’t realized at the time but the foregoing of large monthly payments kept our lifestyle expenses relatively constant during years when otherwise it would have crept up.

[GreenMonsta]

At the start of 2020 financials were still improving. However, at this time I had grown significantly less content with my daily work. I accepted a promotion leading to advancement from “worker bee” to supervisor of the hive.

What made this new role challenging is that I essentially kept all my old responsibilities but was given the new roles of scheduling, managing payroll, conflict resolution etc. Looking back, I could certainly see where my superior was likely grooming me for a much larger role within the company. I quickly learned that I did not enjoy nor inspire to climb the corporate ladder. I was spending long days at the office, working evenings and weekends and learning the true nature of the salaryman. I started having nightmares and waking up with anxiety over challenges at work.

While I struggled with my own work/life balance, and frankly, mental health. Our oldest child started college. I always planned to help him in his college endeavor via cash flow from work. He earned a small scholarship (like ole dad) but didn’t have access to public grants as this parents income was too high.

I was balancing mounting conflicting ideas. I wanted desperately to leave my current work role; I tremendously wanted to help my child go to college; I aspired to get out of debt and be free of the shackles of past decisions. An ERE lifestyle was not on my radar at this time. Only a work, work, work mindset to spend on all of today’s necessities and those of the past.

Car loan (2.9%) 14k
Student loan1 (4.5%) 46k
Student loan 2 (6%) 36k
Mortgage (3%). 93k

Liabilities:189k

Invested savings: 50k
Home equity: 100k
Assets:150k

Net worth: -39k

Between 2018-2020 we had actually paid off both vehicle loans. However, I totaled one vehicle and replaced said vehicle with a new(er) vehicle. While we were making progress, there were some bad habits that were hard to break. Earn>spend on vehicles was still a problem.

On the student loan front, I refinanced a federal loan into a fixed low rate private loan.


Next I want to input a journal entry that will entail my household positioning and mindset as of late 2022. After that, I would like to journal my real time experiences and progress toward my desired ERE life going forward.