Loutfard's journal

[loutfard]

I have plenty of time while recovering from an accident. Sounds like a good time to start a journal

Being bored with mostly nothing to do, I went through our recurring expenses today with a fine-toothed comb. I thought I had cut things down to the bare minimum, but I still found a few places to trim an iny tiny bit of fat.

Here's what I already implemented:
- natural gas. Our natural gas supplier silently recently introduced an online-only type of contract. I switched over and saved us about 18.70€/year or 1.56€/month.
- mobile phone. I did a comparison on my mobile phone plan. I switched providers, for a savings of 60€/year or 5€/month.

Here's a list of changes I'm proposing to my wife I make tomorrow:
- Mobile phone. She should be able to save 48€/year or 4€/month switching providers.
- Bank. Additional set of common accounts and cards at a different bank. Savings:
- more interest on our emergency funds in the new savings account: 45€/year or 3.75€/month
- active account and debit card usage incentive: 30€/year or 2.5€/month
- Travel insurance. We're canceling our 71€/year or 5.92€/month insurance. Not really needed. Plus we're getting a better one for free with the credit card at our new bank.

Total projected savings: 272.76€/year or 22.73€/month. All of this is recurring and automated, so even if the individual amounts look tiny, they're somewhat worth pursuing. Should be worth >10k€ invested in 20 years. Not bad for an hour or two of fiddling between rests...

[loutfard]

My body is my most expensive machine. It needs better care. I've not done very well at keeping up with maintenance. I lost the yearly dental appointments routine when my next appointment got canceled during covid-19 and I couldn't immediately book a new one. My body mass index is around 30. l have a suspicion that might be causing me a light form of apnea.

It's not all bad. I cycle a lot for example, and my wife and I walk a lot. It's just maintenance is everything on an out-of-warranty machine like my body.

Making my web of goals more explicit has provided me with more and stronger motivation to maintain my body very well. I want to maintain my teeth super well because the alternative is spending far too much on dentistry at the expense of savings or activities aligned with the purpose I see in life. I want to lose weight because the alternative is a sleepy loutfard losing energy and intellectual sharpness. Too abstract as a motivation to many I guess, but very helpful to me.

[loutfard]

A few things I have to say today, in no particular order.

1. Spending cuts. I'm on track to trimming 94.31€/month or 1131.72€/year recurring from our household budget this month by making minor changes:
- change natural gas provider: 1.5€
- cancel superfluous insurance: 5.92€
- change mobile operators for both of us: 9€
- add a free bank with better interest rates and incentives: 12.17€
- change health care admin fund: 18.84€
- drop our subsidised cleaner: 52.8€ (I'll start doing the cleaning.)

This has not been a walk in the park. Each of these proposed changes drove my wife into a panic mode. First, she'd ignore my proposal. A few days later, she'd be angry if I brought it up and told me I should email her this kind of thing as that would be easier for her. I'd email her. She'd ignore my email. A week in, I'd ask her if she has seen my email. She'd go completely crazy for a few hours, whining this is hard for her and she like things to stay as they are. I'd gently explain there are only advantages and no disadvantages to her. She'd go crazy again and finally ok the proposal. A bit later, the changes made, she'd say sorry and thank you. She's an otherwise stable and happy adult, but this is just super difficult to her. I try to tolerate her tantrums. I very much suspect they're linked to child trauma. I try and appreciate her approval.

I hope my wife will slowly come a bit more on board with the ERE way of life. She's not spendy at all, but she's not on board with the meaning I derive from trying to live simply. She'll order expensive meal delivery for herself very often when I'm not there, usually once a week. The cuts I'm making will not be able to pay for that spendy habit.

2. I'm stealing candide's gamified akrasia fund idea, with minor adaptations. Rules:
- I earn dice rolls by practicing a good habit (one dice roll), trying/starting a good habit (one dice roll) or earning side income (one dice roll per 10€).
- I add the pips to my balance.
- 100 pips can be redeemed for 25€ serendipity spending or a 40€ fiscally deductible gift.
- 150 pips can be redeemed for 25€ silly spending.

By the time I can redeem my pips, I've earned a multiple in savings through good habits or side income. The 40€ fiscally deductible gift costs us 20.80€ net after taxes. I'm particularly happy I came up with the idea of a higher balance required to redeem pips for silly money. An extra incentive to spend wisely.

3. Total spending. We currently spend ~2200€/month living in the center of an expensive city in western Europe. Not a lot of fat to be trimmed there. On top of that, we spend ~1600€/month on our link with my wife's Nordic home country: a holiday home, transportation and communications. I hesitate to call the holiday home an investment yet because we're finishing construction and it has not yet yielded a single cent. I, not my wife was responsible for spending on significantly more holiday home than we needed. Facepalm. It's a very illiquid purchase. Double facepalm. The only ERE way forward is to make it cashflow by renting it out. If all goes well, it's paid off in about three years. Rental cashflow should then pay for our link with DW's home country and then some.

[dustBowl]

I hope my wife will slowly come a bit more on board with the ERE way of life.

This thread might be worth taking a look at: Significant others: Having the talk...

It's specifically about what approaches worked (or failed) for other EREers who were trying to get their partners on board with ERE.

[loutfard]

This thread might be worth taking a look at: Significant others: Having the talk...

It's specifically about what approaches worked (or failed) for other EREers who were trying to get their partners on board with ERE.

Thank you for the hint. I've read it from front to back already, but I very much appreciate you pointing me at it. I stole a few good ideas from it and made notes. I should probably reread it once more.

Slightly off-topic, I can't let go of the impression that this is a rather civilised corner of the internet, as if it were the late '90s, full of helfpul and friendly strangers. I mean that in the most positive way possible. Hat tip to all of you people making that possible.

[dustBowl]

Slightly off-topic, I can't let go of the impression that this is a rather civilised corner of the internet, as if it were the late '90s, full of helfpul and friendly strangers. I mean that in the most positive way possible. Hat tip to all of you people making that possible.

This is the exact feeling that drew me to this community (well, that and the fact that I hated my job ). It's a credit to Jacob and the other long-time members of this forum that they've managed to sustain a culture of civility and constructive dialogue given what the rest of the modern internet has turned into.

[loutfard]

Just got an update from the city on parking policy. The city is expanding the paid parking zone to include our street. We get 200 free parking vouchers per residence for guests, valid for the entire city center paid parking zone, value: 500€.

We live on the very edge of the paid zone. Our rare car driving guests can park 200m away, in the free parking zone. The vouchers are simple text strings. I think we all see where this is going: the local craigslist equivalent

[loutfard]

I earn slightly above national median full time pay, with 80% of normal working hours off. I am looking to increase my working hours to median for the next few years. My wife encourages that too. There's a problem with earning extra though, and it's not the hard work.

As an regular employee, I'd keep ~40% of my additional pretax income. There's a fiscally advantaged alternative for employee side jobs regime that comes with all kind of strings: specific sectors, irregular hours, almost exclusively boring entry-level jobs, only elegible on top of at least an 80% regular employee job, ... Decent net pay though: 11.81€/h, or in health care 15.39€/h, quite good compared to the sub-15€/h national median. I recently spotted a qualifying not extremely mind-numbing entry-level health care job offer with a regular schedule. My wife warned me to stay away from it. She's afraid I will catch a combined bore-out by taking it, and she's probably right.

In a self-employed side job, I'd keep ~37% of my additional taxable income. To break even with tax-advantaged employee jobs, I'd need to charge at least triple: 46€/h excluding or 55€/h including VAT. The only way to hit those or higher rates re-entering self employment after a ten year hiatus from formal it jobs is b2b it. There's also a turnover based taxation regime that allows one to keep ~58% of the first 18k€ billed. To break even with tax-advantaged employee jobs, I could get away with billing 30€/h for the first 600h, accounting for 10% admin and actual expenses overhead.

If I want to do b2c, I see one possibility only that's not fiscal suicide. My wife could set up a business in a sector elegible for tax advantaged employment contracts. She'd then hire me as a tax-advantaged employee. I might be able to do actually interesting work, getting taxed only 20% that way, as opposed to 60-63% otherwise. I'd have to be careful for the business activity not to expand outside of that sector or risk getting taxed around to 100%...

I have no problem paying tax. At all. I just hate having the government tell me where I should work, and how. I hate having to circumnavigate these overreaching government policies. With a passion.

[ertyu]

because the alternative is a sleepy loutfard losing energy and intellectual sharpness

untreated sleep apnea also causes heart disease - this in addition to any effect excess weight has on heart disease. the low blood oxygen causes the heart to beat too fast and work overtime - you spend 8 of each 24 hours with high blood pressure.

[loutfard]

untreated sleep apnea also causes heart disease - this in addition to any effect excess weight has on heart disease. the low blood oxygen causes the heart to beat too fast and work overtime - you spend 8 of each 24 hours with high blood pressure.

Thank you for this helpful comment. I'm definitely taking preventative body maintenance seriously. Weight loss is at the top of my list. It's what I'll start with. With some luck, that will take care of the snoring and improve my sleep. If not, I'll have to do more complicated things than limiting energy intake.

[Biofact]

I read briefly through the thread, I am curious if you could list all of your income streams, I really liked the cycle to work to get paid you mentioned elsewhere, can you elaborate more on that.

[loutfard]

Biofact, a tax free cycle allowance is a right for most employees in Belgium right now. From May 1st, a cycle allowance for home-work travel will be a right for all employees. The universal right will be capped to 0.27€/km and up to 40km return, depending on home-work distance. See https://archive.is/1nFO8 .

Mine is 0.21€/km at one employer, and 0.24€/km at another, with no distance limitations. My travel distance to work is about 135km return to either. That means 30€ per bicyle return trip.

[loutfard]

I had this strange flashback today: the character "Jennifer Honey" in Roald Dahl's book "Matilda". Quoting wikipedia: "Miss Honey has to live in poverty in a derelict farm cottage, and her salary is being paid into Miss Trunchbull's bank account for the first 10 years of her teaching career while she is restricted to £1 per week in pocket money." This miss Honey was smart, finding tricks to live off £1 a week. I remember finding that fascinating, exciting even as a child.

[loutfard]

We had a used kitchen robot standing in the back of a kitchen cupboard for years. I got it for free ages ago, before I even met my wife. I never used it, neither did she after she moved in. I sold it on the local equivalent of craigslist today. This felt like a little victory. First time I sold anything in years. Pleasant buyer contact. Earned 100€.

100€ extra into investments, I thought. I proudly showed my two 50€ bills to my wife. She immediately forced me to give her 50€ for personal spending, contradicting our investment plan. Confusing. She's less on board than she just recently said she was. Then again, she has recently made some frugal changes, like getting cheap and lazy boil yourself noodles instead of expensive takeout when I'm not there. And after much nagging how I should direct my energy elsewhere than cutting recurring expenses by 125€/month with zero sacrifices, she apparently had a conversation with a colleague that changed her mind. She's now somewhat proud of me doing that.

Selling the kitchen robot was a win. Some other things I was happy to give away. Happy to see those avoid the trash. Proud of what I did.

[loutfard]

The theme turned out to be kitchen this week.

I already told you about the expensive kitchen robot I sold last week.

I cooked in our slow cooker four times. My dear wife was very happy every single time.

I also baked my first fruit cake, rescuing a recipe she had botched the filling for and abandoned.

It's often a mess in and around our dishwasher. I felt compelled to do the dishes myself multiple times. I even took out the bit already in the dishwasher. A finish eating, do dishes routine is good.

The next step might be further clearing out the kitchen cupboards. We're two. We have fifteen tea mugs, ten coffee cups, twenty large plate, thirty smaller ones, and twenty tiny ones, thirty glasses and a pack of fifteen unused one in the attic. We had 8 frying pans until recently, four or five soup ladles, a separate egg boiler and whatnot. A lot of that is gone already, and as far as I am concerned, more is to follow.

In non-kitchen news, my wife is stressed because she's wrapping up her job and starting a new one at the beginning of April.

[Anesau]

I relate to the kitchen thing. Cups and mugs seem to multiply whenever I look away, and I'm still not entirely sure how. Luckily dishware is easy to either give away for free or sell at local rummage sales.

Your city making central parking more expensive & encouraging biking seems like a very cool step! I'd be interested to hear how that changed your own commuting experience, if it does. I'm generally in favor of changes that make it easier to gt around without a car, but I've never lived somewhere where either of those measures have been tried.

Overall, I enjoyed reading your journal so far. Looking forward to seeing where you go from here

[loutfard]

Your city making central parking more expensive & encouraging biking seems like a very cool step! I'd be interested to hear how that changed your own commuting experience, if it does. I'm generally in favor of changes that make it easier to gt around without a car, but I've never lived somewhere where either of those measures have been tried.

This is a medieval city, so ring shaped. Where the city fortifications used to be, those are almost entirely gone now and replaced by a ring road. From where we live, we can walk everywhere within in half an hour. Cycling within ten minutes. By car it's often slower because the ring has been cut into pieces of cake. You need to get out of the city and back in if you want to get into another piece of the city cake. And then you haven't found a parking spot yet...

There's a few reasons I'm thinking of bike commuting to work instead of going by train and folding bike:
- good for my physcial condition
- makes me some money if I play it well
- slightly faster door to door than by train
- wonderful improvements in fast cycle route infrastructure in the past few years ánd planned for the near future

[gettingfired]

Great to read you, particularly as I also live in Belgium!

The kitchen stuff is annoying…. Specially if you have, like we do, 10 people over once every few months so there is a reason to have a lot, but it still feels ridiculous most of the time. My sister in law was saying they will give us more silverware for Christmas but we are two adults with a baby on the way, 6 of each sounds good enough to me!

[loutfard]

@gettingfired: I agree. I will have to convince my wife though. She finds throwing things out slightly more difficult than me. She has a bit more mental breathing space now she's slowly getting used to her new job.

In other news, I'm now at our holiday home. Found a local contractor for the finishing work. Happy about that, because a half finished place only loses money. A holiday rental with on-site support from our good friends and neighbours was always the plan. We bought the place with that in mind. We - mostly I - rebuilt more house than we needed. Cheap per square meter, but expensive in absolute numbers.

I could see us living there all year in the future, but my wife not (yet?). I did somewhat successfully dangle a toy idea in front of her:
- let my expensive house in Belgium. Just that would cover >80% of our current expensive city expenses, although not robustly or resiliently.
- move to our holiday house up north from April to September. Arriving with the storks, leaving just six weeks after them. We might also tack on some deep winter time.
- live in Belgium some of the colder months. We might be able to stay with friends and family for quite some time for very very cheap or free. Both my parents and my best friend for example own houses with ample somewhat independent guest quarters. I could easily pick up some relaxed interim jobs there and try to get started with some remote work. Same for my wife.
- travel to cheap, warmer regions the coldest time of the year. Portugal, remote parts of the Canary islands, Laos, whatever. Friends from up north travel south for winter very cheaply every year. It actually saves them money in the coldest and darkest time of the year.

[loutfard]

It seems like something suddenly clicked in my wife's mind. We were discussing the recent progress on our holiday house. I dropped my surprise at earning slightly over 1k€/month from the remoteable part of my tenured job, while it barely costs me any effort at all.

Unexpected sudden excitement on the side of my wife: "So... we rent out our primary residence, you keep earning that 1k€/month woking a few hours a week, and we can live like kings at our countryside place, in the near future if we keep on saving well? Plus you could concentrate on building a lifestyle business working on techy things that excite you? And I could surely find some part-time remote and interesting job. And we could grow our roots in the local community too and do something nice there!"

She was spot on. Planting the seeds here and there helped. I just needed to give things time...