Anesau - Just Starting Out

Where are you and where are you going?
Anesau
Posts: 54
Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2023 4:27 pm
Location: Hurricane Alley, USA

Anesau - Just Starting Out

Post by Anesau »

Who Am I?
My name is Anesau. I'm a young-ish office worker interested in FIRE (and ERE more generally).

Where Am I?
Right now, a lot of my life feels like I've given up control. I live in a pedestrian-unfriendly city where there are no sidewalks/crosswalks on many paths, and no dedicated biking infrastructure; I can write basic code, but I don't know how to get to the point where I am a major contributor to an existing project; and I like writing but have published little.

This is not meant to be too much of a downer — my day-to-day life is actually pretty enjoyable! I like my work, and I have enough time to myself outside work to be building toward my long-term goals.

Where Am I Going?
I want to be FI because I have so much I want to do, and ERE seems like the clearest path to both the necessary economic freedom, and the overall self-sufficiency ethos.

Specific goals:
  • Publish 500,000 words total in a public places (book, blog, etc. Not sure yet whether to count forum posts.)
  • Build 3 public software projects that are at least somewhat useful/interesting to others
  • Live somewhere where all my basic amenities (groceries, park, library, etc) are within walking distance, and where I like the local culture (i.e. more people close to my age who are active in community events)
How Will I Get There?
I need to restructure. I've settled into the local attractor of acting like a consumer, letting myself bleed money in dumb ways instead of using my dang brain. Current thoughts:
  • Even though the infrastructure is not built for walking, I should be making more of an attempt (both because I dislike cars, and for my health)
    • The closest grocery store is only a 25 minute walk away. Its across a very busy street, but there's a painted intersection, and I only plan on shopping during the daylight
    • Work is theoretically walkable. The only problem is that the only entrances I have taken are through vehicle gates that have specific "no pedestrian" signs. I need to either figure out where the pedestrian gate is, or else get a bike so I count as a vehicle.
    • The closest library is a 30 minute bus ride away. If I need somewhere outside my apartment to think, maybe it's worth going there instead of an expensive coffee shop? Surely there's somewhere closer to me I could work
  • I need to be actually producing something instead of just saying I theoretically want to. Probably this means starting a blog, and building some sort of public coding project I can share on GitHub / a website.
  • I need to be cooking more so there is less temptation to order carryout food, and less temptation to buy overpriced stuff from work's cafeteria
I'm sure I could come up with more, but part of the goal is to start actually doing the obvious stuff instead of philosophizing about the possible stuff, so this is enough to start on for now.

In my next entry (<= 1 week from now), I plan on quantifying my current financial position, and looking at how it would change after the 21-day makeover (on the main ERE blog).
Last edited by Anesau on Fri Mar 10, 2023 10:12 pm, edited 5 times in total.

mathiverse
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Re: Anesau

Post by mathiverse »

Exciting! Welcome to the forum! Looking forward to reading your journal as it progresses. I think the tactic of focusing on what you can do right now instead of theory will be fruitful.

Dakotan
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Joined: Fri Feb 03, 2023 9:04 pm

Re: Anesau

Post by Dakotan »

Anesau wrote:
Sat Feb 11, 2023 8:05 am
part of the goal is to start actually doing the obvious stuff instead of philosophizing about the possible stuff
Ooh, this is good. I think that's my hangup a lot of the time. I haven't made any major shifts in my life in the past couple years, and this could be why I feel stuck. Thanks for putting it so clearly.

I live in a pedestrian-unfriendly locale too, so it will be interesting to read how you're dealing with it.

Anesau
Posts: 54
Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2023 4:27 pm
Location: Hurricane Alley, USA

Re: Anesau

Post by Anesau »

Mathiverse, thank you for the warm welcome! And Dakotan, I'll keep you posted.

This week my goal was to spend time looking at how I currently spend. I don't keep a budget, so it was a lot harder than expected to track down some of the details, but here's my breakdown:

Of the 100% of my income last month:
7% - groceries
11% - restaurants*
6% - social*
3% - entertainment
1% - subscription (to my local makerspace to share tools & supplies)
1% - upkeep (haircut, socks, whatever)
25% - rent and utilities
4% - pet**
7% - transportation
???% - health***
30% - savings

* I'm using "social" to refer to all the stuff I only spend money on for social reasons. E.g. preparing stuff for visitors, buying tickets for myself and a friend to go to something, taking someone on a date. Some of the "restaurants" section probably goes here instead, because I semi-frequently get carryout at a place my brother and I enjoy, and don't charge him for his portion.
** I got a rehomed hamster off Craigslist in the past month, and the 4% is for him and a couple supplies he didn't come with (more sand and bedding). I anticipate this being ~1% most months, since I have enough food for the rest of his life and now only will pay for vet visits.
*** I got sick enough to require going to urgent care for the first time in as long as I can remember. The bill and medicine would have been ~15% of my income, but I have an HSA, so it didn't decrease my paycheck or savings at all.

What to change:

Easy to change:
  • I could decrease my utilities by a bit under 1% by switching my cell phone provider. Currently I pay for 1GB data on a nicer plan. However, I basically never use data, and I don't care if my messages send slower, so I might as well cut 2/3 of my phone bill by switching to the cheapest plan I can find ($8 a month).
  • I could easily reduce my grocery spending by both switching to a cheaper store and buying less stupid stuff (pre-made iced coffee, fancy margarine, whatever). I'm guessing I could easily get it down to 4% without giving up the stuff I actually care about.
  • I expect pet spending to decrease without any effort. I have enough basic supplies for the rest of my little dude's life. And his treats are mostly scraps of fruit/veg, which is ~free. My only expense going forward is vet stuff.
Medium to change [a.k.a. easy except for mental hurdles]:
  • Restaurant and social spending would be very easy to cut immediately, except that I am attached to the idea of being perceived as a good host, generous sibling, etc. I value things like paying for my date and picking up restaurant food for my brother when he's super busy with classes.
  • Entertainment should be pretty easy to decrease. The biggest portion of this is food that I buy for taste (rather than nutrition), so keeping to more "efficient" food would solve most problems in this section.
Hard to change:
  • I have two roommates, and already live in the cheapest rent setup I can find (without increasing my transportation time & cost enough to no longer be worth it, or sharing a bedroom with people I don't know). The only cheaper option I can see nearby is moving into a mobile home/RV park, but the one close to work is a retirement community for 65+ and I'm in my 20s.
  • I'm very attached to my local makerspace subscription.
  • I don't think I'm particularly extravagant with upkeep, so it would be hard to reduce. The biggest change here would be reducing haircut costs.
  • Almost all my transport cost is fixed unless I can get rid of my car. I already buy very little gas.
Conclusion:

In the Networthify calculator, my current savings rate gives me 28 years until I have enough saved for retirement.

The goal for next month is to save >= 45% of my income; I think this can be done by just changing the stuff in the "easy" category (with a bit less waste from "medium"), and would cut 9 years from my retirement date.

Anesau
Posts: 54
Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2023 4:27 pm
Location: Hurricane Alley, USA

Re: Anesau - Just Starting Out

Post by Anesau »

Just realized my car insurance (almost my entire transportation budget) costs more than I need. I had assumed it was pretty much a fixed cost.

I already have health insurance, so I don't think I need "Uninsured Motorists Bodily Injury", where it pays for my medical/unemployment costs in a crash. I'm counting my own savings as self-insuring against unemployment.

It only takes ~10 months of no collisions to make up for the cost of me raising my collision deductible. I have not had any collisions yet and hope to drive even less in the future, so this seems like a reasonable move. I could cover the deductible if I had to.

Just making these couple changes reduces my monthly premium from $315 per month to $244 per month(!!!). Other people seem to have much cheaper car insurance, but I'm not sure how most people are doing that. Do I still have a lot more coverage than usual?

The biggest remaining expenses in my updated car insurance coverage are bodily injury liability (100,000/300,000) and property damage (100,000). I don't feel confident enough to mess with this for now.

There's also a choice to download an app to save 10% by having details about your travel automatically logged. I think I'm an okay driver so this would be a good deal, except that trading away my privacy so easily makes me uncomfortable. (Though my smartphone probably already collects this data and sells it to Google anyway.)

zbigi
Posts: 978
Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:04 pm

Re: Anesau - Just Starting Out

Post by zbigi »

Just making these couple changes reduces my monthly premium from $315 per month to $244 per month(!!!). Other people seem to have much cheaper car insurance, but I'm not sure how most people are doing that. Do I still have a lot more coverage than usual?

The biggest remaining expenses in my updated car insurance coverage are bodily injury liability (100,000/300,000) and property damage (100,000). I don't feel confident enough to mess with this for now.
From Polish perspective, those numbers sounds like a rip off? My mandatory car insurance is about $120 PER YEAR, and it covers up to 2 million euros in body injury liability.

On second thoughts, it's probably because the US medical system is so expensive and the society is so litigous (and compensations routinely awarded in courts so high) that makes the premiums so much higher.

ertyu
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Joined: Sun Nov 13, 2016 2:31 am

Re: Anesau - Just Starting Out

Post by ertyu »

zbigi wrote:
Thu Feb 23, 2023 4:29 am
On second thoughts, it's probably because the US medical system is so expensive and the society is so litigous (and compensations routinely awarded in courts so high) that makes the premiums so much higher.
Also, on average they just drive more, and on highways/higher speeds. Distances in Europe are smaller and commutes that are 30-40+ min drive down an actual highway each way are much less common. While I haven't actually checked the data (e.g. I wouldn't be surprised if we in the Wild Wild East drink and drive more), it is quite probable that the likelihood of accident + the severity of trauma one incurs on average is higher in the US

Anesau
Posts: 54
Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2023 4:27 pm
Location: Hurricane Alley, USA

Re: Anesau - Just Starting Out

Post by Anesau »

Wow, after you mentioned how much less expensive your car insurance is I looked up average costs in my area to make sure I wasn't getting fleeced, and apparently I'm paying less than half the expected cost. Someone my age/gender in my state is expected to have an average cost of $600 for car insurance every month.

If it helps explain it at all, I'm in one of the age/gender demographics with the highest number of accidents, and I live in one of the states with the deadliest roads. The actual infrastructure is okay(ish), but people here are terrible drivers, and apparently kill each other (and pedestrians) at way above average rates.

Also, yes, health care costs. I recently got a bill for $500 to see a nurse for <15 minutes (when I already knew exactly what issue I had, because my symptoms could only be exactly one thing, and they didn't need any equipment to confirm my diagnosis except eyes and a brain). I'm sure other Americans have much worse medical bill stories and I shouldn't complain, but still.

white belt
Posts: 1452
Joined: Sat May 21, 2011 12:15 am

Re: Anesau - Just Starting Out

Post by white belt »

Anesau wrote:
Thu Feb 23, 2023 7:17 pm
Wow, after you mentioned how much less expensive your car insurance is I looked up average costs in my area to make sure I wasn't getting fleeced, and apparently I'm paying less than half the expected cost. Someone my age/gender in my state is expected to have an average cost of $600 for car insurance every month.
What is the make, model, and year of your car? That will be the biggest factor in how expensive it is to insure, although geography and demographics will also play a role. My insurance is $25 a month for one tier above state minimum liability. My car is a 2005 that I bought 7 years ago for $4k cash, so I have no need for collision insurance. If I total my car, I'll just buy a new (used) one.

There are marketplaces online where you can plug in your vehicle information and get quotes from multiple insurance companies, so I'd recommend starting there. Before I did that, I was paying double for the exact same coverage from a different company.

Anesau
Posts: 54
Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2023 4:27 pm
Location: Hurricane Alley, USA

Re: Anesau - Just Starting Out

Post by Anesau »

Thanks White Belt, maybe the problem is a mix of my car & my insurance selections. For my current car, if I get the minimum legally-required coverage, I can get it down to $58 per month (sticking with USAA seems cheapest; other car insurance companies quoted me a minimum of $92 for the same coverage). In my state this means no help with paying for damage to the car, but also zero bodily injury liability and only $10,000 max property damage liability.

I hadn't considered this as an option (when I became an adult, my parents' wisdom was to never go below 100/300 bodily injury liability), but it would make the numbers make sense on how everyone else here has much cheaper car insurance.

Maybe it follows the same logic as not buying larger pants when you gain weight, to force yourself to notice & do something to actually fix the root problem. I can guarantee that legal-minimum car insurance would make me drive less :P

I have a 2018 car - got it used, but it's still much nicer than I need. Maybe I should look at swapping to a cheaper car. (Though my eventual goal, if I can move somewhere bike-friendly, is to not own a car altogether.)

white belt
Posts: 1452
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Re: Anesau - Just Starting Out

Post by white belt »

Anesau wrote:
Fri Feb 24, 2023 12:27 pm
Maybe it follows the same logic as not buying larger pants when you gain weight, to force yourself to notice & do something to actually fix the root problem. I can guarantee that legal-minimum car insurance would make me drive less :P

I have a 2018 car - got it used, but it's still much nicer than I need. Maybe I should look at swapping to a cheaper car. (Though my eventual goal, if I can move somewhere bike-friendly, is to not own a car altogether.)
My car insurance has no bearing on how I drive; I already drive carefully and I wouldn't drive recklessly with more insurance. I'm not recommending you buy a cheaper car or get cheaper insurance, just that insurance can be a a big expense for certain vehicles. Most people on these forums minimize car expenses that by driving an older car, doing their own maintenance, and driving less, but those aren't the only solutions. The insurance math changes if your car is worth $15k vs if your car is worth <$5k.

Edit: Really what I'm saying is just do your research regarding insurance (and everything else) to determine your risk profile and other considerations. I am fine with state mininum coverage because my car is worth ~$3k and I have comprehensive health insurance. I also have the majority of my assets in accounts that are shielded from bankruptcy and don't project "wealthy" in my daily life. Everyone has their own circumstances.

Anesau
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Location: Hurricane Alley, USA

Re: Anesau - Just Starting Out

Post by Anesau »

I don't drive recklessly, but if I had (much) worse car insurance I'd probably avoid many events/places that made me drive at all. I'm not too worried about replacing my car or health effects for myself, but looking at online insurance-quote tools, it looks like insuring for damaging someone else/their property will be comparatively very expensive for me, even if I had a much older car.

I think I'll leave my car insurance alone for now, but also be building the skills & stamina to be bike only, for when I hopefully move somewhere I don't need a car in the future.

macg
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Re: Anesau - Just Starting Out

Post by macg »

Anesau wrote:
Wed Feb 22, 2023 6:44 pm
There's also a choice to download an app to save 10% by having details about your travel automatically logged. I think I'm an okay driver so this would be a good deal, except that trading away my privacy so easily makes me uncomfortable. (Though my smartphone probably already collects this data and sells it to Google anyway.)
I had an option for something similar to this back when I last had a car, but the fine print had a minimum number of miles I had to drive per month in order to get the discount. The minimum was more miles than I drove for almost a year LOL, hence me getting rid of the car. Just an FYI to check for that before you sign up...

Anesau
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Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2023 4:27 pm
Location: Hurricane Alley, USA

Re: Anesau - Just Starting Out

Post by Anesau »

@macg it's strange to me that there's a minimum number of miles driven to get the insurance benefit. Surely fewer miles = lower likelihood of an insurance claim? Why would they incentivize more driving?

Anesau
Posts: 54
Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2023 4:27 pm
Location: Hurricane Alley, USA

Re: Anesau - Just Starting Out

Post by Anesau »

February savings rate: 36.5%

--

Upon review of how I spent my money (previous post, running Jan 14-Feb 14), I realized how bone-headed my food spending was. Something like 15% of my income was spent solely on "fun" food, over double my grocery budget while providing only a small share of my calories. I didn't go out for food in the end of February and haven't done so yet in March either, and it's surprising to me how little I miss restaurant food — mostly I am glad to be rid of the transportation time of sitting in traffic driving to a restaurant.
Last edited by Anesau on Wed Apr 19, 2023 8:33 am, edited 2 times in total.

Anesau
Posts: 54
Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2023 4:27 pm
Location: Hurricane Alley, USA

Re: Anesau - Just Starting Out

Post by Anesau »

To the surprise of probably nobody except myself, walking wasn't a big deal at all. There weren't sidewalks along the path — but shockingly, a healthy human body can walk over slight bumps in the terrain. There was no crosswalk / pedestrian infrastructure at the intersection — but by keeping an eye on the traffic light & turn lanes, it was super easy to go during a wide-open gap in cars. The only other people I saw either ignored me or were very friendly.

In retrospect, I'm not sure why I built this up in my head as much more difficult than it actually is.

Anesau
Posts: 54
Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2023 4:27 pm
Location: Hurricane Alley, USA

Re: Anesau - Just Starting Out

Post by Anesau »

I don't think I realized just how much random food I had stocked away. In addition to not buying restaurant food for the past ~month, it's been somewhere between three and four weeks since I bought groceries. There is just so much food tucked away in my apartment. I tried to eat my fruits/veg as fast as I could, but still didn't make it to everything before they went bad. Potatoes and onions survived into week 2. Carrots and celery are possibly still edible(?), though I haven't checked in a few days.

Mostly I've been eating the absolutely massive amount of random inefficient items in both the pantry and freezer. Easy microwave/oven meals, canned vegetables, premade fancy soup, whatever. I have a lot of ingredients I need to figure out how to use well as the normal stuff I'm used to runs out — if anyone has thought on how to eat a giant box of Textured Vegetable Protein, let me know :lol:

In the future, I want to be more intentional about what I keep stocked, and be much more thoughtful about what (and how many) perishables I buy.

--

My project I'm setting for myself this weekend is making hardtack. My area usually loses power for ~2 weeks of the year which means I lose the ability to cook. Last time, I ate room-temp bags of microwave rice, and hardtack seems like the more obvious version of the same theory. It will be nice to have an easy, dense emergency food that I'll need nothing but clean water to eat. And it would make a super easy backpacking/biking food

jacob
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Re: Anesau - Just Starting Out

Post by jacob »

https://www.supercook.com/ may be helpful in finding use for those weird ingredients.

It's one of the few linked sites in the ERE book. Amazingly it's still around after all these years.

Anesau
Posts: 54
Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2023 4:27 pm
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Re: Anesau - Just Starting Out

Post by Anesau »

Wow I didn't expect much given the weird assortment of stuff that I have, but it gave me a couple good recipes I used this weekend. Thanks for the link!

Anesau
Posts: 54
Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2023 4:27 pm
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Re: Anesau - Just Starting Out

Post by Anesau »

I and went to the grocery store today for the first time in 4-5 weeks. I missed having uncanned vegetables. I still have a lot of basics sitting around begging to be cooked so I only brought $20.

Though this was also my first time getting to the grocery store on foot, and probably the bigger limiter was how much food I could comfortably carry on my back, in the only bag I had on hand (old high school backpack). This was a good point of evidence that my current lifestyle has made me way too soft, because I was only carrying ~10% of my body weight, and my back was getting pretty tired on the way back.

--

My current biggest temptation is rock climbing - just tried it for the first time ever for a work event, and it was extremely enjoyable. But the membership seems pretty expensive and getting to the gym would require a car, so I'm not sure it's worth the cost. It seems like the kinds of exercise I enjoy most are all both expensive and impractical (ex. rock climbing and ice skating).
Last edited by Anesau on Mon May 22, 2023 11:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

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