White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Where are you and where are you going?
AxelHeyst
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by AxelHeyst »

Scott 2 wrote:
Sun Sep 19, 2021 9:58 am
If the goal is environmental, can't you have greater impact spending intentionally?
Maybe, but the counterargument is that you can also look beyond your self-boundary and notice that if you spend $100 on an ethical/green jacket or local food, lets say, the person you pay that money to might go spend $100 on gasoline in their jeep for a yeehaw trip. Obviously trying to track every dollar you touched once through the economy is an exercise in futility, so you can just take the average carbon footprint (or ____ footprint) of a dollar, averaged over the whole economy. So if you zoom out a bit, every dollar spent has a footprint of X kgCo2e/$. Where you choose to draw the dashed line of environmental ethical control volume is subjective, so I'm not sure there's an objective, definitive answer to your question I quoted.
Scott 2 wrote:
Sun Sep 19, 2021 9:58 am
If your goal is to influence societal change in any direction, interdependence through specialization will have much more impact.
Jacob's second Stoa talk argues that if you want to influence society in a positive direction, in the 21st century, your best bet is gap-filling via transdisciplinarity (and that specialization is in fact a causal factor in the wicked problems we find ourselves).

7Wannabe5
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Well, even if you engage in barter with another human being and no money exchanges hands, you are de facto leaving them with more cash in their pocket which they could spend on gas, twinkies, or bowling lessons. So, secondary effects pretty much rule out all human trade, with possible exception of trade with other humans who currently spend less than 1 jacob/year themselves. OTOH, the fact that this sort of accounting tends to fall apart the closer you actually get to 1 jacob does not recommend return to rule of "efficiency is all."

To recommend getting out of narrow silos of specialization is also to recommend increased trade/communication between humans. The same hyper-capitalism and hyper-urbanism that results in a store in NYC that sells nothing but buttons, will also result in a Korean-Brazilian fusion cuisine cafe on the same block. Although we may imagine communication between a physicist and a biologist and a theologian towards greater understanding/solution as "free exchange", that does not mean that such an exchange has no cost.

Jin+Guice
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by Jin+Guice »

white belt wrote:
Wed Sep 15, 2021 10:13 pm
On the other hand, I have heard of many people who keep commercially bought eggs at room temperature.
I've stored dumpster dived eggs unrefrigerated in an unairconditioned trailer in New Orleans for a month in the middle of summer and, as far as I can tell, I'm still alive. Maybe I'm just lucky though.


IME, living with an SO is not significantly cheaper or more expensive than not living with an SO, the expenses just shift a bit.

It's hard to get below 1 JAFI if you've got a car, don't cook all your meals and aren't living in the cheapest possible/ most creative housing you can find.

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

Thanks everyone for the comments. Lots of food for thought.
7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sun Sep 19, 2021 7:11 am
Yeah, in my experience, global collapse is an even less popular conversation topic than inflammatory bowel disease.
Right. This relates to the common advice of focusing on freedom to vs. freedom from in the FIRE sphere. I think in general it's a good idea, especially when it comes to marketing/signalling my lifestyle in a more positive light. The homemade pizza boosted some of my brand, but I definitely need some more work on focusing what I'm gaining but not spending as much money.

I settled into the recent focus on reduction first after thinking a lot about a buy nothing exercise and the crowbar approach that Jacob recommends. One strategy is cutting out spending now (Fast ERE), which will result in reduced quality of life initially but force me to develop skills and create solutions quickly. Another strategy is the more typical path in the FIRE sphere which seems to be gradually build skills to be able to maintain current quality of life with less expenses (Slow ERE). I seem to be vacillating between the two as the way forward at the moment which is what is causing some of this teeth gnashing. There was a discussion about this (complete with graphs) in @AH's journal from awhile back: viewtopic.php?p=206169#p206169

Along with temperament, I suspect that a major factor that dictates one's approach is external obligations and perhaps even age (due to inertia/old habits die hard). The older and more external obligations you have (whether they be social, family, work, etc), the harder it will be to deal with the disruption Fast ERE will inevitably cause within the first few months. It's uncomfortable altering your lifestyle in such a way because it brings into question who you really are. Your social group around you will also question things every step of the way and you will probably have to shed some friends/activities in exchange for new ones.* The motivation for environmental or other imperative has to be strong enough to motivate one through such adversity.

* = This of course also depends on where you are starting from. If you are a broke student surrounded by other broke students spending <$20k a year then this might be an easier transition compared to if you're a mid career tech or finance worker making >$100k a year. Focusing on absolute spending rather than just savings rate means you don't benefit as much from easy mode that normal FIRE on above average income offers.
Last edited by white belt on Sun Sep 19, 2021 7:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

Scott 2 wrote:
Sun Sep 19, 2021 9:58 am
I get the renaissance man ideal, but low spending is a byproduct, not the driver. Chasing 1 Jacob is an attempt to back into it. It's not the only path there. That lifestyle has time demands that also come at an opportunity cost. Broadly diversifying your sinks of human capital is expensive, relative to how society values them.

If your goal is to influence societal change in any direction, interdependence through specialization will have much more impact. You can already see that in the degree to which your work is compensated. The ability to make exceptional contribution gives you far greater leverage.
7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sun Sep 19, 2021 1:48 pm
Well, even if you engage in barter with another human being and no money exchanges hands, you are de facto leaving them with more cash in their pocket which they could spend on gas, twinkies, or bowling lessons. So, secondary effects pretty much rule out all human trade, with possible exception of trade with other humans who currently spend less than 1 jacob/year themselves. OTOH, the fact that this sort of accounting tends to fall apart the closer you actually get to 1 jacob does not recommend return to rule of "efficiency is all."
I guess it depends on what your end goal is and whether or not you care about scalability of your solution. Jacob's ERE as lifestyle design solution is eminently scalable, in that if everyone did it the world would actually benefit, as @7W5 points out. @Scott 2's advice is more aligned with the traditional FIRE/high income earner perspective so not as scalable. If we operate under the assumption that my end goal/path to self-actualization is to work towards a solution for The Situation (or at least not make The Situation worse), which solution makes more sense? Since my time and energy are finite, let's assume they occupy two ends of a dial.*

Let's say I dial things to the 1 JAFI expenses end. I lower my spending which reveals new insights into how the world functions, increase resiliency, increase skill etc etc. All of this takes a lot of time and energy, which in some cases will be much less well-compensated than working in my technical field on the free market or starting a business (just as an example). Spending much less than average also might limit my sphere of influence since I have a harder time relating to the dominant culture e.g. Wheaton Levels and MMM has had more influence in terms of reduced consumption by $$$ than Jacob (debatable since Jacob was a huge influence for MMM, but you get my point). In 2.5 years I leave full time work with a host of skills and a comfortable <3% SWR as long as I maintain 1x JAFI expenses. I can then use my time how I please working towards solutions to The Situation and enjoying my life. My portfolio allows me to generate income and live comfortably, but is limited in it's ability to provide control, access, and optionality in the way a larger portfolio would.

Then there is the other end of the dial. I recently read through the Wall St Playboy thread again just because I like getting some counter perspectives. Although I haven't read their book, my impression is that after discovering I am locked into ~$100k a year career field with clear salary ceiling, WSP would tell me to put in minimum effort at my job and instead focus all my energy on creating a lucrative business (actually quite feasible for me since I usually have 4-6 hours a day at my job that I'm not doing anything). Eventually the income from this business will push me past the ~$200k income mark, hopefully in time for me to quit my job in 2.5 years. WSP would recommend paying to outsource things in order to have more time to focus on business, but that only makes sense to the extent that my time and not something else are the limiting factor. In 2.5 years I leave full time work with some business skills and ability to support a more expensive lifestyle due to the cashflow machine of my business. My portfolio and ongoing income is much larger in absolute terms, which means that money can go a lot further in providing control, access, and optionality (which in turn widens the circle of possible implementable solutions to The Situation**). The downside is I have to have much greater influence on others than with the 1x JAFI lifestyle in order to justify the excess burn from my higher spending lifestyle.

I know there are some out there who are probably reading this and thinking "Just do both!" But again if we assume that things are a dial, at one point is the appropriate level to stop in one direction? Is it 2x JAFI spending and $10k a year in business income? Or 4x JAFI and $50k business income a year? I don't know and those numbers are arbitrary anyway. It depends where on the S curve you think specific spending and income fall.


* = Maybe not an entirely true assumption, but given that we see almost no one with 1x JAFI expenses making >$100k a year, there is something to it.

** = This operates under the assumption that one can throw money at The Situation to help solve it. This is essentially what Bill Gates and some other billionaires are attempting to do with limited success.

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

Jin+Guice wrote:
Sun Sep 19, 2021 2:54 pm
IME, living with an SO is not significantly cheaper or more expensive than not living with an SO, the expenses just shift a bit.

It's hard to get below 1 JAFI if you've got a car, don't cook all your meals and aren't living in the cheapest possible/ most creative housing you can find.
I was just going off my experience with my previous gf, who I believe was frugal by nature and also because she was a medical student so peer pressure to spend was not strong. If I had cohabited with her I could easily have had my housing expenses down to the ~$300 a month range (my studio in LCOL area was $500 a month). Even if I assume my incidental other expenses increase by $100 a month then that's still a net gain. I believe if I had combined that with current practice of cooking all meals then getting into 1x JAFI range would have been doable. Other gains would be made with economies of scale.

I believe my ongoing car costs are actually quite low due to the fact that I've cut back on driving, the car is 16 years old, and I already do nearly all of my own repairs. I am keeping it around mostly for job purposes, but at this point even cutting it out might only save ~$200 a month in ongoing expenses (for example it would increase my travel expenses since I'd have to pay for train tickets to travel back home, but I should re-run the numbers on gas/tolls/insurance for that). That wouldn't be enough to get me to 1x JAFI, even in combination with eliminating eating out. The housing in this HCOL is what kills me. I am definitely exploring more creative solutions, but again I come back to the opinion that it is unpossible to get to 1x JAFI ($770 a month) when housing+utilities expenses are >$400 a month.

Qazwer
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by Qazwer »

The other way to think about it is to flip the problem.
You have x free hours a day. Your goals are y. How do you use those x free hours to get to y? You state your goals are not spending 1 JAFI rather it is the environmental impact so related. So what could you do in those x free hours to either improve the world or invest in yourself so that you could better improve the world in the future?

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

Qazwer wrote:
Sun Sep 19, 2021 5:37 pm
You have x free hours a day. Your goals are y. How do you use those x free hours to get to y? You state your goals are not spending 1 JAFI rather it is the environmental impact so related. So what could you do in those x free hours to either improve the world or invest in yourself so that you could better improve the world in the future?
I don't like this approach because it doesn't factor in that certain activities have much more impact than others. Systems thinking is still important to understand how to prioritize activities. Also see here:
jacob wrote:
Fri Nov 27, 2020 9:50 am
Carbon mitigation (if you're a first-worlder reading this) is more effectively done with a Pareto strategy which should prioritize a reduction in direct and indirect power production (electricity and stuff) and transportation (how much you and your stuff is moved around). The other strategy is like trying to save $30 on your food budget while you're spending $200 on your car payment, $300 on your part of the rent, and another $300 on "fun". Focus on those instead, literally.

This doesn't mean that food should be ignored or that focusing on the others is an excuse to pigging out or thinking you've done your part. The carbon budget is just like any other budget. Prioritize and optimize. Ultimately find a better way to use the resources.

The rise of greenwashing shows that there are plenty of people who are patting themselves on the back for buying "green" products that are the opposite of sustainable. Another example is all of the environmental activists who dedicated their lives to railing against nuclear power over the past 50 years which ultimately resulted in more fossil fuel consumption. Doing the right thing is much more important than just doing something.

I will note that an implicit nested goal within my overarching goal is structuring my own lifestyle to thrive in future collapse/adaption (ERE provides a pretty good framework for this). Another important thing is that I am not an activist. In fact, I am so far from an activist that I recognize an important partner in my future urban homestead project will be a community organizer type who likes advocacy and (insert woke buzz words). I'm more of a strategist/chess master/man behind the curtain type than someone that's going to sit around a fire and sing koombayah.

7Wannabe5
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Project Drawdown is one site/source that lists things that can be done in order of impact. For instance, proper disposal and conversion of refrigerants is surprisingly high on the list. I think the number 1influencer thing that can be done with extra money without having to come up with your own new idea would be donating to charity engaged in educating and empowering poor women in order to forward the demographic shift.

Scott 2
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by Scott 2 »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Sun Sep 19, 2021 12:57 pm
the counterargument is ... the person you pay that money to might go spend $100 on...
I see money as a claim to power, so I firmly believe spending can influence change. I agree the "how" is a hard a problem. It seems clear holding one's net worth in a market index fund (guilty!) strongly votes for the status quo.

I am really asking - can White Belt find greater alignment in his web, by flowing with his contracted lifestyle? Due to that commitment, spending at 1 Jacob carries a ton of friction. Maybe there are other ways to honor his values.
AxelHeyst wrote:
Sun Sep 19, 2021 12:57 pm
you want to influence society in a positive direction, in the 21st century, your best bet is gap-filling via transdisciplinarity (and that specialization is in fact a causal factor in the wicked problems we find ourselves).
I think there is an "over time" aspect in the pursuit of multiple disciplines. IMO, people grow most effectively when they pick a direction and focus on it for awhile. Each concurrent pursuit adds constraints to the system.

When we see a generalist change the world, they tend to introduce a new specialization. Behavioral economics is the recently popular example that comes to mind. IMO the impactful generalist is much more tightly scoped than what I understand as the renaissance man ideal.

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Mon Sep 20, 2021 5:18 am
Project Drawdown is one site/source that lists things that can be done in order of impact. For instance, proper disposal and conversion of refrigerants is surprisingly high on the list. I think the number 1influencer thing that can be done with extra money without having to come up with your own new idea would be donating to charity engaged in educating and empowering poor women in order to forward the demographic shift.
Thanks for the link! I'll have to dig more into the research behind some of their conclusions but that does appear to be some of the analysis I'm looking for. I do wonder about whether it's actually education of women that reduces the birth rate or it's prosperity/economic opportunities for women that reduces it (perhaps a chicken/egg situation). I've also mentioned before how I worry about how permanent gains in female education are, especially as we move into a world of lower energy intensity. For example, Western governments and NGOs have probably spent billions educating Afghan women over the past 20 years, but I'd say prospects don't look very good for low birth rates over the next 20 years given that the Taliban have pretty much banned women from working any jobs or going to school again. This gets into my even bigger concern, especially after reading Overshoot, that ideas like freedom, women's rights, and pluralism only emerged from prosperity brought about by the surplus of natural resources on the American continent. Can they still persevere in a low energy intensity future?

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

Scott 2 wrote:
Mon Sep 20, 2021 12:52 pm
I see money as a claim to power, so I firmly believe spending can influence change. I agree the "how" is a hard a problem. It seems clear holding one's net worth in a market index fund (guilty!) strongly votes for the status quo.

I am really asking - can White Belt find greater alignment in his web, by flowing with his contracted lifestyle? Due to that commitment, spending at 1 Jacob carries a ton of friction. Maybe there are other ways to honor his values.
The thing I like about ERE compared to the views of some thinkers in the permaculture space is that ERE does not shy away from financial capital. In fact, it incorporates financial capital into the system just like other forms of capital. I get the vibe that many in the environmental space view capitalism as some dark art, so that if one accumulates financial capital it means they are corrupted.

I was mostly just thinking out loud with regard to some sort of overarching life goal. I've written before about how life purpose isn't so easy to figure out when I've spent years being programmed by our consumerist society to think XYZ leads to happiness. As far as I can tell, most people my age find life purpose from their jobs and buying stuff/experiences. I imagine in a few years my peers will start having kids and then they don't need to think about life purpose again until their kids are out of the house 20 years later.

The truth is, I still don't really know what I want to do with my life since I've been on essentially a guided path from my 1st year of college until now. First, I was locked into my initial service commitment to the Army (my focus was entirely on my profession). Then I transitioned to a more technical specialty which I thought would be more rewarding but ultimately doesn't provide the same satisfaction as my first years in the Army did. I'm sure that the time leading up to leaving active duty will cause lots of existential dread since I believe I am the type of person that gets very stressed by the unknown. I still have ~2 years until then which is why I'm trying to think through some of these things now instead of having the typical head-down accumulation phase followed by boredom/depression in retirement that is so common in the FIRE sphere.

I think a lot of the current tension stems from the fact I feel various aspects of my previous consumer lifestyle/identity falling away. It's like I'm losing a part of who I am, but I don't yet have a strong sense of who/what I will be like on the other side. For someone that has had a lot of certainty/structure in my life up to this point, this is a bit unnerving. I don't really have any models in my day to day life for what the other side looks like so I'm just following along with others on the forums who have gone through similar transformations.

sky
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by sky »

The transition is somewhat scary, but it is pretty easy to adjust to doing what you want to do each day. There is the ever present human need for a project and purpose which will drive you on. I personally did not experience boredom/depression, but I continue to deal with normal day to day challenges such as illness, annoying neighbors, loneliness, etc. Most of my life is good but I still deal with petty things at times. I live at about a 3J expense rate in a low cost of living area and it is more than enough, I live well.

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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by jacob »

white belt wrote:
Mon Sep 20, 2021 10:03 pm
I think a lot of the current tension stems from the fact I feel various aspects of my previous consumer lifestyle/identity falling away. It's like I'm losing a part of who I am, but I don't yet have a strong sense of who/what I will be like on the other side. For someone that has had a lot of certainty/structure in my life up to this point, this is a bit unnerving. I don't really have any models in my day to day life for what the other side looks like so I'm just following along with others on the forums who have gone through similar transformations.
http://www.cook-greuter.com/Cook-Greute ... 5B1%5D.pdf

Read this. Especially the transition to the 4/5 stage. It think this transition is necessary since there's no conventionally accepted structure for 3, 3/4, or 4 for the "other side" outside of conventional success. Navigating this process and finding a personal vision (freedom-to) determines the outcome. W/o this "inner work" there's a tendency to fall back on well-known solutions like permatravel, homesteading, or watching the entire netflix catalogue. In many cases these do not appear to live up to their instagram images in daily life and so people eventually return to careerism. (Freedom-from just carries one's problems along to FIRE.)

white belt
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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

@Jacob

Thanks for the recommendation. I read through it and I think this excerpt describes some of my current situation:
Cook-Greuter 58 wrote:Instead of the imagined greater integration and harmony, the 4th person perspective and experience may feel like a cacophony rather than a symphony. Depression at this level has several facets: a) The realistic fear of being reabsorbed, that is sucked back into the “rat race” of the Achiever mindset by the demands of society; b) The dread of a routine work life that does rarely allows for individual self-expression and creativity; c) The concern that one will never find a clear self-definition from which to consistently operate and generate a coherent self sense; d) The deep experience of worry and tensions that come from growing beyond the conventional mindset especially when it comes to intimate relationships.

The experience of looking at the world with different eyes than those that used to be one’s closest allies, such as a spouse or a long-term friend, can create great distress for both parties. While the conventional partner is confused about the new way of behaving of the person with the 4th person perspective, those who are postconventional feel misunderstood and un-appreciated for what they now feel they have to offer. The latter also often wish for the significant other to become more like themselves. This, in turn, can make the person “left behind” feel disrespected and misunderstood. In this sense, the move of one partner from conventional to postconventional meaning making poses a particular challenge to couples and long-term relationships. Unlike later stages, early postconventional individuals cannot yet fully appreciate the gifts of the earlier levels. They genuinely feel that if only others -- including their loved ones -- would become more like themselves, then everybody would be happier and the whole world would be better place.
At first glance, there definitely seem to be many parallels between the EDT transition from 4 to 5 and ERE WL transition from 5 to 6.

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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by jacob »

white belt wrote:
Tue Sep 21, 2021 4:16 pm
At first glance, there definitely seem to be many parallels between the EDT transition from 4 to 5 and ERE WL transition from 5 to 6.
Indeed, yes. Conventional -> Post-conventional. Consumer->Post-consumer.
There's a distinct break going on at this point no matter which lens one uses and what it's called.

We've also seen how the conflict between the consumer spouse and tentative post-consumer is sometimes resolved either by divorce or by the post-consumer regressing back to conventional lifestyle values arguing that "my job ain't so bad if it keeps my spouse/children happy".

Most of the ERE vs FIRE debates also seem to happen across this chasm.

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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by white belt »

Taking a break from the navel-gazing, I've got some more practical stuff to highlight.

I think I've pretty much cracked the nut on food spending. Even with stocking up on some bulk items that will last into next month, it looks like my monthly food spending will be ~$300. The tempeh as meat replacement has really helped to reduce spending while still allowing me to get high quality protein*. Recently I started incorporating more canned fish along with the usual frozen bulk fish from Aldi. Protein powder, eggs, occasional cheese, and yogurt provide the remaining protein. I may shift to making my own greek yogurt from gallons of milk, but we are getting into the realm of diminishing returns since that would only net me $20 in savings a month for probably ~2-3 hours of labor (the math changes if Aldi yogurt were to get much more expensive). Getting to ~$200 a month might be possible if I can incorporate foraged fish and some home produce production. The other unexplored avenue is bartering for food or incorporating other forms of capital.

I should note that my goal isn't just to reduce spending on food, but also make my food process less time-intensive (except cooking the occasional elaborate meal on days off). I like cooking enough to not think of it as a huge chore, but man do I hate grocery shopping. I hate having to go to the store every week from both a convenience and resilience perspective. I'd like to push the time between my grocery trips out to 2 weeks, then out to once a month or less. I've transitioned to more staples, canned vegetables, fruits, and fish because it allows me to stock up without worrying about spoilage and needing electricity for storage. The idea is to re-incorporate home grown vegetables (microgreens) and fruits at some point so I can still get the nutritional benefits of fresh produce. I bought bulk soybeans at the hippie grocery store for $2 a lb**, so there hasn't been price inflation on that over the past few months. I will report back on further developments on this front. This might lay the foundation for my transition to using an ice box instead of refrigerator.


* = I highly recommend anyone that primarily consumes meat for the highly available protein look into DIY tempeh. The financials don't make sense for store bought tempeh since it is comparable in price to beef, but you can use store bought tempeh at first to experiment with taste and recipes. I have had no GI issues with eating tempeh, whereas typical beans/legumes/pulses give me issues (I attempted lentils but gave up after 2 meals for this reason).

** = Maybe there would be cheaper soybeans at international grocery stores, but all of the Asian grocers I've checked don't seem to sell raw soybeans.

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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by Lemur »

I used to have this gut problem with increased bean/lentil intake but it went away and I think I found out why.

Regarding the giving up on lentils after 2 meals....I found that it takes a while (2 weeks or so for me) for your gut microbiome to adjust its bacteria population to handle the increased fiber intake. These pulses are broken down and requires a lot of energy and different bacteria strains. If your gut microbiome is not set up for this, it can cause these GI issues.

I'd consider giving beans/lentils another go and giving your body time to adjust. Smaller meals of lentils/beans and work up. You may find you don't in fact have these issues at all.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articl ... microbiome

Tempeh to me was always too labor intensive and I could never get into the taste...beans/lentils are so versatile, healthy, cheap, can always be found, and work in many different recipes.

Edit: Oh homemade Yogurt is awesome...need to get back into that. Pretty easy too. It can be as easy as dumping a galloon of whole milk into the instant pot, clicking the 'yogurt' button, and letting sit overnight. Let cool down and store. I think that is the gist of it but haven't made any in a while. There is a good thread by Alphaville somewhere on this. Instant Pot has been one of my few no regret purchases...recommend.

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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by Scott 2 »

Have you tried soaking beans overnight, discarding the water, and then cooking them in a slow cooker? How much did you eat in one sitting?

For your resilience purposes - the fiber offered by dry beans is a major plus. I do think it makes them an impractical protein source. If I cook 1.5 cups dry, I'll eat it over 4-6 sittings. Typically, I use black beans as the base of a vegetarian chili. Lentils, IMO, suck. They are far easier to screw up, especially if you end up with an older bag.

Have you considered TVP, since you are playing in the soy realm? It is a dirt cheap, shelf stable protein option. Hyper processed, but that tends to go with the territory.

If you decide some investment in electricity dependent foods is ok, I've been very into frozen fruit lately. Blended into a protein shake - huge prep time savings. Daily fruit, no matter how long I stay out of the grocery store. I'll also let it thaw, then mix it into my plain greek yogurt. The texture reminds of a fruit on the bottom yogurt, but without all the sugar.

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Re: White Belt's Military Journey to FI

Post by Asush »

hi White Belt, I've enjoyed reading you journal - thank you for sharing. I especially enjoyed the parts about motivation and direction.

I'm also trying to reduce the frequency of my grocery store trips - also mostly because I don't like going and a bit for resiliency. I've thought about making tempeh before - I love it but hardly eat it because of the cost. Interesting to hear you've had success and found it straightforward, I will look into it again. Do you reuse the spores/ culture? And if so can you do that for a while/ indefinitely?

Have you tried making seitan? I find it straightforward and convenient since the ingredients are dry, and it is a good source of protein.

You've also reminded me to look into microgreens again. I tried growing small lettuce/ spinach plants on my window ledge but that did not go well! One thing that has worked for me with produce is to make a few jars of sauerkraut ~once per month - it's not fresh but has other benefits and allows me to stretch time between grocery trips a bit longer. I keep the jars in the fridge which might not work for you (although they wouldn't spoil in the case of power outages - they'd just continue fermenting faster)

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