Jobs are overrated

[dara]

Hi,

Welcome to my journal. It's mainly to jot down my thoughts, to keep me somewhat accountable, to connect with like-minded individuals and last but not least, to entertain as I - hopefully not delusionally - believe I have an interesting enough story to tell. I've been lurking for long enough (a few years now) that I decided to finally join and start this journal. I've been putting this off for months now because it looked like too much effort (how should I start, what should I write about?). I've experienced this with other things as well (analysis paralysis maybe or just simple procrastination?). It can be something surprisingly easy but if it involves a few steps you just don't want to start. So what's the solution? Just start somewhere. Do something however tiny it might be that moves you in the right direction. Once you start you'll probably do more. Well, on Monday I finally started. I registered and I thought I'd be able to post but a moderator needed to approve my registration which took nearly two days (today is Wednesday). I was quite surprised by this. In this fast-paced, instant gratification world that we live in this felt more like 15-20 years ago which is not necessarily a bad thing but it begs the question: are there so many bots that manage to register despite the security question (which requires human intervention and even I needed to google it)? Well, this is done. I just wanted to say hi. But if I started writing I guess I'll do a little introduction.

I don't want to bore anyone who happened to stumble upon this thread too much with superfluous details. Let's start by explaining the title. My journey towards FIRE has been a bit different than most people's. I'm in my early thirties and I have never had a job in my life. Ever. Not even an unpaid internship. So I can only imagine how much people stuck in a cubicle doing their daily grind want to get out. But that's not me. I don't hate my job. I don't even have one. Yet I do believe one can live a happy life and save enough money even without one to never have to work again. Jobs are overrated. You don't have to work one for decades. Hell, you might not even need one.

I guess the previous paragraph raises more questions than it answers. I started playing online poker when I was 18. This was during the poker boom in the 2000s when it was very easy to win at online poker and the bonuses the sites offered were amazing. You didn't even have to be really good, the bonuses and rakebacks brought in enough that you could win handsomely if you broke even. I never deposited any money, I started with freerolls which were (are? I don't know if these still exist) tournaments without any entry fee and they paid out a few dollars if you managed to finish in the top 15% or so. This I turned into around $10k in a year or so, then I got bored with online poker. Definitely not an amazing income but for an 18 year old it surely was! Had I stuck with it and had I taken it seriously I could have made big bank in a few years but I wasn't that much into it and I didn't want to keep doing it just to make money - I had it clear even at that young age. I guess the typical story would be that I blew it all on stupid shit - alcohol, cars, electronics etc but luckily I didn't. I kept living the same (I guess for some) poor student life. Ah yeah, forgot to mention that I went to university because that is what you do. I studied at a really good high school, had good grades. You go to uni, study hard, get a good degree, get a job, buy a car, get married, buy a house, pop out a few kids, advance in your career, bla-bla, retire at 65 (I guess for my generation that would be more like 70+). Reminds me of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaP7qmsQbSI

Well, I went to university and chose software engineering because I liked computers. Turns out I hated university. With very few execeptions I was never too much into any of the subjects. It's not that I didn't like programming - I didn't like the mindless exercises they made us do. This has always been my main issue with traditional education. It's boring, it's repetitive. Homeworks and tasks are far away removed from the real life to be meaningless and irrelevant. I also wasn't the typical nerd. I stopped playing video games in high school and even before that it wasn't what I did all afternoon. I wasn't neither overweight nor skinny fat. I have always been athletic and did a bunch of different sports growing up. I really didn't fit into the nerd crowd. If I could do it again I definitely would choose a different major, putting more emphasis on social life, partying and girls. I graduated, got my bachelor's degree but it was a real slog and I didn't enjoy any part of it. When I finally finished it was like breaking out of prison after planning it for years - I felt free and I swore myself that I will never have to wake up early in the morning ever again only for someone else to tell me what to do with my time. No, thank you, I knew that traditional employment wasn't for me. I suppose that's enough for now. Thanks for reading it until the end. Next time I'll tell you what I have been doing ever since and what I do to support myself.

[Crusader]

OMG we want more (with absolutely no rush)! Welcome!

[Veronica]

Welcome to the Forums! I look forward to hearing more about your experience with having no formal employment at your age.
I was the total opposite, doing anything I could to make money as a kid, and grabbing my first job at 16 and not taking a break since then. Even worked part time through all of my schooling too.

[dara]

Thanks Crusader. Maybe I gave off the impression of having an ubercool lifestyle. That's not really true. It's just quite unconventional.

Thank you Veronica. That's more typical, I have yet to meet such a slacker as myself.

Yesterday I was listening to Green Day's Dookie (a great album!) and noticed the lyrics of one of the songs: "My mother says to get a job / But she don't like the one she's got". Hehe. It quite brilliantly sums up the average person's feelings towards their job. They hate it but they need it to pay the bills. Imagine as a teenager seeing an example like this. Definitely not what I'd like to transmit to my own children. I have nothing against having a job but working a dead-end 9 to 5 just so you can buy stuff you don't even need... life's too short for that. I guess we've all realised here that is not the way to go. If you have a job that you actually like and it is fulfilling, congratulations! You're one of the lucky few.

So we left off last time with me graduating from university and feeling free. I made it very clear to those around me that I didn't intend to start working in my field. Of course the question from my parents were: what are you going to do then? I've always liked sports. It must have been my brother's influence as my dad was never very athletic. With my $10k bank I started sports betting during university. A lot of people do it for fun, not me. I really don't see the point in playing a wildly negative expected value game, be it lottery tickets, roulette or sports betting (although the last two are still way better than the first!). I started looking at odds movements, why and how they happen at certain moments in certain sports. I focused on live betting as I believed they provided the best opoortunities. Things can change dramatically within seconds and it's harder to know the real price compared to pre-match betting when everyone and their dog has a ton of information and the market has enough time to correctly price everything in (or at least those markets are very hard to beat). I started small and slowly scaled up the operation. I focused on peer to peer exchanges as they are the only places where you can win long term. Don't get me wrong, traditional bookmakers can be beaten but one thing hidden from most people is that they don't let you. If you lose it's all fine and dandy, you can place huge bets. If you're a consistent loser, they might even let you stake hundreds of thousands of dollars per bet (!), if not more. But if they notice that you take odds that would make them lose in the long run - they will either limit your stakes to a few dollars or even a few cents or outright ban you. It's a very broken industry preying on the weak (addicted to gambling) and the ignorant (the average punter). If you bet without having a clue, we'll let you put your house on and get into debt and you can lose all. But if you show some skill and constantly take the best available prices? Then we'll show you the door. These we call soft bookmakers. The only exceptions are the sharp bookies that let you win in exchange for the information that you provide. If a consistently profitable, sharp bettor is willing to stake a significant sum on a particular outcome at a certain price that means the odds are too high and the bookie should move their lines. They move the odds based on all the bets that come in. That means the closer we are to the off, the more efficient the lines are. There are only a few bookmakers like this left.

Well, after being banned from every reputable online bookmaker that I could exploit I started creating accounts in my family's name. After those were gone I moved onto friends'. After a while it got too tedious and it was too much work, plus I ran out of people to ask (you need a certain amount of trust that someone gives you a photo of your ID and bank statement). So I started focusing on the exchanges which work differently. They provide the platform where you can place the bets. You can choose to either back a selection (this is the same as with a traditional bookie) or lay it (where basically you are the bookie, you win if the selection loses). The exchange is indifferent to who wins (it's a bit of an oversimplification but let's leave it at that for now), they just collect their commission from the winning side. This is excellent news because it means you won't get limited, theoretically you can win as much as you want if you have a winning system. So I started betting on football (soccer for you yanks!) mainly and also some other sports like tennis. Very quickly it became obvious that I'd rather do this than focus on my studies that I didn't even enjoy. It provided me with unparalleled freedom compared to normal employment as I could take off time whenever I wanted, the only restriction was that I had to sit in front of the computer when the matches were played (I was betting in-play). This meant a lot of evenings and weekends. That's the trade off. I was fine with that. I could wake up whenever I wanted (no more alarms!), do whatever I wanted in the morning. I could essentially get paid for watching sports. And I could make way more money than if I got a job in my field. What's not to like?

[Crusader]

I have heard of a person with a bunch of satellite TV dishes that apparently offer less live lag compared to what typical betting sites have... enough for them to place bets and win consistently (especially if the game is far away). But as you said, not getting banned becomes a problem. They have to keep the ratio of their wins vs. losses below some threshold as to not arise suspicion. (All of this sounds too much trouble with questionable morals for my own taste, but to each their own...).

[dara]

Morals are an interesting subject.

This is not an easy subject to talk about within gambling as a whole. As someone very wise said to me recently; ‘Its funny how everyone seems to draw the line just above whatever it is they do’.

Lets’ be very clear that it doesn’t really matter what area of gambling you work within, you have to accept that it is a very morally questionable industry to be involved with. The whole industry is in essence funded by people losing money and therefore losing gamblers.
No area within the industry is exempt. Do not think for one moment that because you are in engineering or marketing or operations or the cleaner that it makes any difference. You ultimately earn your wage from people losing money.

The same applies for racing tv presenters, tipsters, racing journalists etc. Whole industries are dependant upon the general public losing money. It is just an uncomfortable truth you have to deal with when you are a pro punter. Your success is often at other peoples expense. It doesn’t matter if you are winning at bookmakers/exchanges/poker tables. They are all funded in essence by losing punters.

From a personal POV I think games of skill are very much fair game and if you beat someone else, so be it. We are all grown ups and that’s just life. The only thing I really object to are games that are highly likely to see the individual lose in the long run. By that I am really talking about casinos and similar. See where I have drawn my moral compass. Just where it suits me! If you don’t like the morals in the industry you have to make decisions. No one forces you to work in it.

That being said I do think that are different levels of morality within the industry. Those who benefit directly from affiliate deals and alike where they earn money on the amount people lose really need to have a look at themselves. An abhorrent practice.

You do just have to accept that if you are going to do this job for a living that there are some very uncomfortable truths along the way. To pretend otherwise does you no favours and the only person you are kidding is yourself.

If anyone wants to read more about this world, this guy has a twitter thread writing about the industry and educating the average punter: https://propunting.co.uk/topics/

I would describe myself as having strong morals (so would people around me). I definitely put things before money, yet I have no problem doing sports betting, hence the quote above and the part in bold. I once read a comment someone critisising people who play online poker saying "How can you win from these people? What if someone loses the money that they'd need to buy diapers for their baby?". In my opinion it's a ridiculous notion. No one is putting a gun to the person's head. It's their choice to gamble. If I'm not cheating and it's a fair game, they can win my money if they are better. Winning money from bookies is a bit different. They operate horribly, it actually makes me feel good winning from them, I like to think that money is in a better place. Also, instead of banning winners they could offer less markets (instead of literally hundreds of thousands per week that no one can manage correctly) and only offer prices they are willing to accept bets on.

I don't really think that many people working for big organisations should feel morally superior. If you work for Coca Cola or H&M or similar you also receive your salary built on exploitation (unhealthy product, human rights violations, etc).

Satellite dishes i have heard about also. I guess that you could see it as cheating, although the person is more resourceful and has faster feeds. There is always someone having access to faster pictures. The problem with not winning too much... no one really knows what the treshold is. Sometimes they even ban mug punters accidentally.

[guitarplayer]

Welcome! If you have any good resources about strategies that cover the fees and then some specifically for exchanges, I am all ears. Or you might be sharing these as you go perhaps.

For the morals when winning with bookies, I totally felt like Robin Hood when I was making my thousands!

[dara]

Thanks guitarplayer. I can share some general pointers later on but unofrtuantely I cannot go too deep into the details of what I do exactly as it would erode my edge. Edges unfortunately don't last forever, you always have to adapt, come up with new things and analyse. I hope you undertand. Some things I used to win a lot of money with don't work anymore. In general I wouldn't recommend getting into this game now in 2023. I can go into this later on but I don't want this to be the main focus of my journal. It used to be much easier a decade ago and 20 years ago one could have filled their boots with very simple strategies as bonuses were big and bookies slow to react. Beating the soft bookies with bonuses, special offers, boosts, etc. is much easier albeit not sustainable. Maybe I can tell you what to bet on and we split the profits.

For the morals when winning with bookies, I totally felt like Robin Hood when I was making my thousands!

Oh absolutely I feel the same. It gives me deep satisfaction to win from those bastards!

[Dave]

I'm really enjoying this journal so far, @dara! Glad to have you here.

The ethical considerations of profiting off such situations is interesting. I'm a full-time private investor and it's somewhat analogous...my excess returns (alpha) have to come from someone earnings below the aggregate market return, be that naïve retail investors, institutions following (situationally unfortunate) mandates, overly emotional professionals, or traders zigging and zagging trends and creating opportunities for long-term value-oriented investors. I don't have an ethical issue profiting here, but I do believe it's almost completely socially useless (not negative, just barely positive in creating liquidity) at the societal level...unless I tried to make an argument that I will direct the capital upon death more productively (notably, according to me) than those who would have had it, and while I think that's true, I'm aware enough to realize this is extremely subjective.

I've often wondered how I'd feel if my game was poker or something similar, so I appreciate the discussion.

[guitarplayer]

Thanks @dara!

Thanks guitarplayer. I can share some general pointers later on but unofrtuantely I cannot go too deep into the details of what I do exactly as it would erode my edge. Edges unfortunately don't last forever, you always have to adapt, come up with new things and analyse. I hope you undertand.

Yes I understand one hundred percent.

In general I wouldn't recommend getting into this game now in 2023. [...] It used to be much easier a decade ago and 20 years ago one could have filled their boots with very simple strategies as bonuses were big and bookies slow to react.

Also, thanks for the overview of the field as it is today, I get that it is not nearly as easy as when bookies first went online when it had been quite a wild west as one can read on forums (for both parties I suppose). I came to the game relatively late, that is within the last decade. Still it was a boost to saving accounts.

I can go into this later on but I don't want this to be the main focus of my journal.

Nah don't feel obliged at all, it's maybe a coincidence that I had some thoughts around it relatively recently. as per @Dave's comment, it is essentially trading risk, same as trading (not investing) on the stock market. In some (all?) countries there is no tax on profit so there is 'only' the 2% commission on profit to beat.

But you go ahead and write hopefully about ERE stuff here

Maybe I can tell you what to bet on and we split the profits.

Afraid I have no functioning accounts anymore, at least with the bookies

[dara]

I'm really enjoying this journal so far, @dara! Glad to have you here.

The ethical considerations of profiting off such situations is interesting. I'm a full-time private investor and it's somewhat analogous...my excess returns (alpha) have to come from someone earnings below the aggregate market return, be that naïve retail investors, institutions following (situationally unfortunate) mandates, overly emotional professionals, or traders zigging and zagging trends and creating opportunities for long-term value-oriented investors. I don't have an ethical issue profiting here, but I do believe it's almost completely socially useless (not negative, just barely positive in creating liquidity) at the societal level...unless I tried to make an argument that I will direct the capital upon death more productively (notably, according to me) than those who would have had it, and while I think that's true, I'm aware enough to realize this is extremely subjective.

I've often wondered how I'd feel if my game was poker or something similar, so I appreciate the discussion.

Thanks for the kind words. Stock trading is very similar to what I do, so I guess the same things apply to that as well. The only difference is as you said providing liquidity is somewhat valuable when it comes to stocks (I guess less so when it comes to sports betting ) and probably addiction plays a bigger part in betting. I undoubtedly must have benefitted from problem gamblers in the past.

I don't claim the moral high ground and I'm perfectly fine if someone draws the line below what I do. I just find it interesting that morals always seem to come up in a discussion about gambling, even if we're talking about games of skill (like poker or sports betting) but never when someone works in an industry with questionable ethics (just from the top of my head - oil, tobacco, fashion, insurance, etc.). Working for facebook is something you should be extremely proud of but if you're a professional sports bettor you should be ashamed of yourself. As if stealing people's personal data is somehow better than winning their money (that they are willing to gamble). Go figure. I guess society's view of gamblers stems from this. My mother's friends mostly pretend to not know what I do, they prefer not to talk about it. Which I'm completely fine with. I don't particularly care about others' opinions, nor do I seek the validation or appreciation of society. If I wanted that I would have become a doctor or a lawyer. I guess that ties into what has drawn me to FIRE and especially ERE.

See, I've always been pretty frugal and never that much into money or status. I made some stupid purchases when I was younger but never something particularly big (like a car). I lived with my parents for quite some time, that also allowed me to save a lot. When I moved out I kept living a simple life. I just really cannot wrap my head around how most people can live month to month spending all their salary. If you bring this up in a normal conversation people tend to point out that it's because the average person simply doesn't make enough money. As if those that earn median wage and above did save a high % of their income...

I first heard about FIRE like most people stumbling on Mr. Money Mustache's blog. This really opened up my eyes that if you accumulated enough capital you could live off the income it produces. A simple yet brilliant idea. At this time I was already closer to ERE than MMM. Betting was going really well back then and my expenses were low enough. I figured if I kept doing this for a few more years I'd actually be able to FIRE.

I guess that's maybe enough background information for now. The rest I'll fill in when I start writing about my web of goals and other topics.

Nah don't feel obliged at all, it's maybe a coincidence that I had some thoughts around it relatively recently. as per @Dave's comment, it is essentially trading risk, same as trading (not investing) on the stock market. In some (all?) countries there is no tax on profit so there is 'only' the 2% commission on profit to beat.

But you go ahead and write hopefully about ERE stuff here

Unfortunately that couldn't be further from the truth, I don't know where you got that from. In general you have to pay taxes on any kind of income, including stock trading or gambling. The UK is one of the few exceptions where gambling winnings are tax free, in virtually all of Europe (and the rest of the world AFAIK) it's not the case, unless we're talking about bookies and casinos owned by the state. These bookmakers are almost impossible to beat. Just to illustrate my point: let's take a fair coin toss (50-50%) as an example. A normal soft bookie would provide odds of around 1.909 (52.4%, -110 in American odds and 10/11 in fractional but I'll use the decimal/European odds from now on because they are much more intuitive). Pinnacle, a sharp bookmaker would have it as something like 1.95-1.95 (51.3%). On an exchange like Betfair it would be 2.00-2.00 (evens, 50%). They charge a 2% commission if you win, so in reality it's 1.98 (50.5%). Where as a state monopoly bookie would have it as 1.85 (54%). That means the vig is 4.77%, 2.56%, 1% and a whopping 8.1% respectively. Long term that is the bookmaker's profit that you have to overcome. A few percent is hard enough, 8% is almost impossible. Tax free winnings don't mean much if you cannot win.

Just to nitpick: in general the exchanges provide much better odds but even there you'd have to overcome the spread between the back and lay prices (bid-ask spread in stock market parlance). If the fair odds were 2.01, you could buy it for 2.00 and sell it for 2.02, meaning that even before the commission you'd make a small loss. For bigger odds (and less liquid markets) the spread is even bigger. Just to show that it is not as easy as it seems.

But I'll pm you with some tips.

[guitarplayer]

Sorry I failed to mention I do write from the UK perspective, though as it turns out extrapolating to other countries did not work in this instance at all. But don’t want to pull your journal in this one particular direction so I’ll shut up now !

[dara]

No problem. All comments are welcome. I guess the topics will be a bit all over the place as I plan on writing about finances, language learning, cooking, living in different places, self-discovery, and of course gambling.

[Crusader]

I would like to revise something I said. I don't know exactly what you do, Dara, but I don't think it's immoral to steal/make money from people who profit off of people who exploit people with a gambling addiction. Of course, it's not all black and white, as you can argue that even casinos (where the games are designed so that you lose in the long term) provide entertainment. And if someone considers casinos entertainment they are paying for, then all is good. But, I fear that in practice, the casinos prey on the people with a gambling addiction.

I am a moral nihilist, in the sense that I don't think any objective way to measure morality exists, but I do have personal preferences. If I had a choice between working for a Casino or working for Facebook, all else being equal, I would choose Facebook. If I had a choice of working for Facebook and working for Microsoft, I would work for Microsoft. And I think something like the Red Cross would win against Microsoft. These are not all equal. And a zero sum game is not the same a non-zero sum game either (e.g. betting vs. the stock market).

I also don't think that one can completely isolate themselves from the consensus of the society one lives in, because one/the society would then never change. The alternative would be to justify anything as OK (e.g. slavery) because I consider it OK. (Not saying that's what you are doing). The balance between the consensus of society I live in vs. my own moral framework (and how much it should be influenced by the latter) is something I think about often and I don't have a good solution.

[dara]

Ah, it's been many months since I've updated this journal. I've been meaning to do it but the days turned into weeks and then into months without me actually doing it. I don't really have many excuses because if I have time to browse the internet I could just as well write an entry here. I have a baby at home though which sometimes leaves me without any energy. I'd like to try again and do better this time - I have a lot of different ideas to write about in the future.

Regarding what you said (and you've probably already forgotten about it ), Crusader: I guess it's the sensible choice to work for facebook rather than a casino but I'm not sure the actual benefit of either outweigh the harm they cause - it's just FB has a much bigger (negative) impact. But I guess if you ask most people they think it's a net benefit to their lives, although a gambling addict might think the same also about their source of addiction.

[dara]

I really hate elevators. It might be the the the most misused useful invention of humankind (the other candidate is the car). It's absolutely great if you have something really heavy that you need to move up many stories - but that doesn't even constitute 0.01% of the usage of the elevator. Most people use it to avoid taking the stairs a few floors up or even down. Normally I use it only a handful of times a year. We live on the 5th floor, there is just no need for it (maybe if I lived higher up on a skyscraper I'd change my mind but I think I'd mostly be fine until 20 stories or so). I take the stairs even if I'm carrying groceries, I like to see it as a free workout.

Now, the elevator is broken. This is literally the only time you meet anyone in the staircase. How crazy is that? People around here are so lazy that even on the way down they take the elevator, be it one story or 6. Not surprised most of the population is overweight and a good chunk of it is obese (I'm currently living in South America). Even during the craziness of covid when people were led to believe that this virus will obliterate the human species ( ) there was no one taking the stairs. Everyone was so scared of getting close to people but breathing in the same air in an enclosed space where who knows who was there moments before is fine. Go figure. Well it's been a few days now without elevator and people are already complaining that this is horrible. Unless you can't move well or you're carrying something very heavy or maybe if you're in a real hurry there is just no need to use the elevator, especially on the way down which doesn't even require much effort. Many years ago I came across a book titled "Take the Stairs". I don't remember much of it but the author was advocating for the use of the stairs, as they are a metaphor for doing something that causes (mild) discomfort but is actually really beneficial in the long run. Couldn't agree more, stairs rule. Eat your veggies kids and take the stairs.

[dara]

I'd like to share a bit about my situation. Currently living somewhere in South America as my wife is from the continent. Betting getting harder and harder each month it seems. One of the reasons is governments trying to squeeze more tax money out of gambling. I understand that this is in their interest, the problem is the actual implementation which is in most cases not well thought out or very short-sighted. Because the laws are made without considering the interests of the bookmakers or - ironically - the ones they are allegedly trying to protect (the players) what happens is most of the big trustworthy companies rather just leave the country as it's no longer worth it for them to operate under the new laws. This leaves a handful of either state-run casinos/bookmakers or mostly local ones which is frankly pretty bad for the average punter (not that they care that much I guess). As a professional you have less and less websites to access each year (not talking about the black market which is an option but because it's unregulated basically they can just take your money and you don't have any recourse). The other issue is hidden from the public, namely that you are not welcome if you're a winner and they will very quickly limit you. The short-term solution to this is multi accounting but that's hardly sustainable.

Also having done this for nearly a decade I'm longing for something different. Don't get me wrong I don't dislike what I do and I'd very much rather do this with all the freedom it allows me to have than getting a mundane 9-5 job. But it has become a bit boring and too routine. So I've been planning for some time now what the next step should be. My mother is telling me to just get a normal job (as if I had any marketable skills lol). I see a few options. Let's say if shit hit the fan I could get some kind of job. Of course, mostly undesirable ones. I guess I could leverage my betting knowledge and get a job working for a bookmaker or a company that provides odds for bookies but I'd really not go down that route. One, because it would be similar to what I do, yet without the freedom of working for myself, instead I'd be making someone else rich. Moreover, I'd be one way or other working for the "enemy" and getting a paycheck from them would make me not want to look into the mirror. I wouldn't even consider this as an option really.

Now let's look at the more realistic ones. For years now I've been interested in doing art. I have memories of myself drawing when I was a little kid and really liking it. Then like most children I just stopped at one point and an art teacher even told me I had no talent (duh), so that must have really dampened my enthusiasm towards the subject. I even considered studying graphic design but since I couldn't draw I didn't apply. I had the belief like most people that either you were lucky to be born with the talent or you had no chance. I learned a few years ago that unsurprisingly this was total bullshit. Surely natural inclinations play a role, some are just naturally talented and have better hearing or better eye-hand coordination or whatever. But this isn't a deciding factor in becoming really good at something, hard work is. Those that end up being better at drawing/music/etc. are the ones that have spent countless hours practicing it because it was fun for them. So they practiced more, got praised for how good they were thus practicing even more which becomes a vicious cycle and makes them better and better. So I picked up the pencil a few years ago and learned how to draw. I'm still not very good because I couldn't stick to it long enough that it becomes a daily habit but I'm definitely not a complete beginner. More about this later.

I'm also interested in learning 3d art (Blender, Maya, etc). So an option could be 1) git gud at drawing/3d art 2) $$$. Now this of course very much oversimplifies it. The problem with this is realistically it takes years to get good at anything worthwhile learning and making money mostly means getting a job. I'm still making good money betting and I basically have enough saved to be financially independent without having to work anymore. I also expect to make enough money from betting for the next few years to cover my living expenses (at the very least, this is a pretty bad case scenario, I expect it to go better for at lest a couple years). So I can do whatever I want basically. Do I really want to get a 9-5 job? It's funny I'm considering this when most go the opposite direction (job->FIRE->do something else). Most art related jobs (other than teaching it somewhere) are in the gaming and movie industry. I am quite indifferent to both. I haven't played any games in 15 years or so whereas from what I read online most people getting into these industries are gamers and dreaming about jobs like these (hence competition is quite fierce and pay relatively low). Add to this that remote jobs are not available until you reach senior level (which is understandable, they don't want to take the risks on fresh recruits) which takes quite a few years. In your first few jobs you are expected to move. Gaming hubs are Canada (Vancouver, Montreal), CA/Bay area, Austin in the US, some Western European cities and UK. Movie industry London and mostly US (Hollywood). Salaries seem to start at $30-40k which obviously doesn't get you very far in those places but with an ERE mindset definitely doable and money isn't even among the most important factors for me. What bothers me more is that work probably is not that interesting when you start out because they only let you do the more boring parts.

I think I could enjoy doing a lot of different things if I only had to do them 10-20 hours per week. Obviously this is not how traditional employment works. Another option could be freelancing which would be more suitable to my lifestyle but it's really hard to get into that without first cutting your teeth in the industry by getting a job and networking obviously plays an important role.

A bit long but that's about it in a nutshell. I will go into more details later on but I didn't want this entry to get too long and boring. I understand that I'm in a quite unique situation and it might be difficult to relate to but any advice is very welcome.

[dara]

Food & health: I cook every meal from scratch for our family. I even bake chocolate chip cookies for my wife, so she doesn't have to buy chocolate (the processed stuff full of sugar that people call chocolate). With this we save so much money (the cooking part). Here it's very common to order food, especially if you're middle class or higher but I cook higher quality food for way less and it tastes better (and the amount of trash food delivery produces! ). We eat lots of fruits, veggies, eggs, lentils, fish, some meat. I bake sourdough bread for my wife. I don't see that much room for improvement in this area. I've been getting into lacto-fermenting (sauerkraut and some black beans so far) and sprouting (lentils) lately. I would like to explore these more.

I also do intermittent fasting which frankly right from the start I never found difficult but for others (including my wife) it sounds very extreme that you skip breakfast. I feel very good eating in a 6-8 hour window only. Would like to do it stricter (4 hour window) but we usually have lunch together with my wife and after my son finishes dinner I eat his leftovers (like bits of beetroot, fish and blueberries mixed with yoghurt), so it's hard to do.


Physical activity: I work out 3x/week. Weight training at friend's home gym (we don't have the space currently for something like this) plus at home with resistance bands and cardio (running up the stairs or planks). I'd like to get out and walk more. Also was considering picking up running again although I'm not sure how good that is for the joints, walking is a nice low-impact activity. In this area if I can keep my workout routine I'm satisfied, maybe some more walking/running would be nice

Mental activity: I'd like to read way more. I used to be a voracious reader back in high school and for a while duringuniversity too. Unfortunately as it happens to a lot of people this has slowly fallen by the wayside as the years have gone by. I recently started reading+listening to audiobooks again while cooking/doing chores. Goal: read at least one book per week (seems ambitious right now but completely doable).

Housing: I really miss having a garden but here in this South American city it's not really a reality. There are few houses and they mostly don't have gardens, only small front and back yards, mostly paved. Add to this the high costs of buying a house (it's hard to compete with developers wanting to build high-rises) and it's much cheaper to own/rent a flat. We live in my wife's flat, she has a few more years left on her mortgage. It's situated nicely in a relatively green area, most things are within walking distance. We own a car that my wife uses to drive to her work but we don't use it much and the car is small and economical. I walk everywhere. Not much to optimise here, unless we moved to a less pleasant part of the city which just doesn't seem to be worth it.

Learning new skills: this is the area that I'm most lacking in (other than social interactions) and I'd like to focus on improving this. I speak several languages, including Spanish. The problem is I've reached a high enough level that I can do basically anything that I want but I'm far from native level. I'd like to improve but it's hard to find motivation to do so. I should read Spanish books and listen to more native media. Other skills: as I mentioned in my previous entry I'd like to learn new skills that I can maybe monetise further down the line.

Social life: It's hard to make friends after university but especially more so if you're a foreigner in a different country working from home. I really don't know how to improve in this area. We get together from time to time with the friends of my wife and they arenice enough but have completely different values in life than us. The culture here is extremely status driven and a good deal of it is copied from American culture (mostly the negative aspects). One of the reasons I'm writing here because I think it's easier to find like-minded people on this forum.

Music: I bought an electric piano recently and started learning it. Need to practice and improve

I have a son. He's small and very cute but needs a lot of attention, so I can never make enough progress with my own projects.

Finances: my wife and I have seperate finances. I tried to explain to him the principles behind FIRE and she mostly gets it but cannot imagine herself saving such a huge amount (hundreds of thousands of $) and she really likes her job, so has no plans of retiring any time soon. This is really nice to see. She is maybe the only person I know that genuinely enjoys what she does for a living and she's trying to make the world a better place. Kudos to her. Having our finances seperate means we don't have any quarrels about expenses (she has some habits that I find excessive but nothing too bad compared to the average person). I have enough saved that I don't really need any stable income and here we have a very comfortable life but we plan to relocate in the next few years to Europe preferably which would mean moving to a higher cost of living city. She has a well-paying job here and she could easily find another one because she has a good network but less experience working internationally, so if we moved she would have to start lower. It's a concern for me that maybe I'm not financially independent in a HCOL place while having to contribute more to support my family if we move to such a place.

[sodatrain]

Hola! I found your comment in the travel thread and looked up your journal. Interesting read so far.

@AxelHeyst knows 3D software I'm pretty sure... not sure what specifically. Maybe @MountainFrugal too?

Are you comfortable sharing any info about your current expenses or expense targets? Sounds like they are well managed but it's always interesting to hear some specifics. No pressure.

How's the thinking on finding work?

[guitarplayer]

Thanks for sharing @dara. I think you could potentially be in a good position to try teaching English as a sort of hobby job to see how it goed, if you had not tried it yet. I know from chatting in my journal that you have objections towards teaching but also understand you are not completely dismissive of it.

From what I gather, teaching English as a foreign language in a third country in either a language school or a university does not have to come with lots of paperwork or office politics. Or you could follow your own suggestion and give private English lessons for people who are really keen to learn the language, which you could wrap around hanging out with your son. You have a good setup for this as you are already in South America and have your living situation sorted okay. This would get you interact more with locals as well and potentially help improve your Spanish.

When we went for a month to South America last year DW's friends were telling me that the level of English language teaching is really low, and I can also tell by the level of English of the said friends (and also DW when she'd arrived to the UK many years ago). So I think the entry threshold is pretty low. I also heard that the pay is low, but this then somewhat links to what @sodatrain was asking about. When in South America, we were hanging out with yuppie local upper middle class sort of people so understand how for them teacher salary is low. But for a seasoned ereite this should be more than enough - it would be for me.

I am aware of general perception of the job of teaching English in South America / Asia / etc as a gap-year sort of job for people who don't know what to do with their lives, but I would not turn my back at it without considering it. I would for sure have done it (and for a number of years rather than just one gap year) in the past if not the fact that I am not a native English speaker. It is still somewhere at the back of my mind now that I have been living in the UK for so many years and am pretty comfortable with the language + getting UK passport soon (which is not insignificant when applying for this sort of job with institutions). However, meanwhile I also got a degree in Maths and Stats which you will know makes me think about venturing to teach Maths. I think combining the two and teaching Maths in an international school somewhere could be pretty sweet.