Giskard's Journal - slingin code to reach FI

Where are you and where are you going?
prognastat
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Re: Giskard's Journal - slingin code to reach FI

Post by prognastat »

Good to hear. I'm surprised it negatively affected your climbing ability, I guess after a certain point there are diminishing returns for having more muscle when you have to drag that weight up too.

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giskard
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Re: Giskard's Journal - slingin code to reach FI

Post by giskard »

prognastat wrote:
Wed Jan 30, 2019 6:15 pm
Good to hear. I'm surprised it negatively affected your climbing ability, I guess after a certain point there are diminishing returns for having more muscle when you have to drag that weight up too.
Yeah I started to notice it a lot! Some things got easier, but mostly it got harder! But some of that is also a side effect of lifting weights a lot: if you are always recovering from lifting weights, you are never at 100% for climbing.

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giskard
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Re: Giskard's Journal - slingin code to reach FI

Post by giskard »

Finally hit 500k

So today after getting a paycheck and some stock market gains my net worth closed out the day at 502k. It is super crazy to think that I started with a negative net worth out of college 7 years ago in 2012 and got to 1/2 a million in that time. I am 29 now, so I spent most of 20s grinding away at work and school, but now it gives me a lot of flexibility for my 30s.

I remember when I originally calculated this I was shooting for 450k and I had expenses of about 1500 a month. Well, my base expenses now (with health insurance) are about 2000 to 2500 a month, which with the 4% rule requires capital of 750k. So that kinda, sucks, but if I work another year or two I can probably get there if I save 100k a year. I do have a mortgage now, I am doing some renovations on that property so that changes the calculus a bit.

Either way, I am in a good spot and I can cut back working as much as I want. As it turns out though, right now I have a great contract I am working on and I want to keep at it. My savings rate is basically somewhere between 60% and 75% now so that means even if I cut back working to just cover my monthly expenses (which would be super cool as a contractor), that would mean I end up working very little, meanwhile my investments would continue to grow.

With only modest gains (6% a year) and modest contributions to savings (25k), it would be possible to make it to 750k in about 4 years. So that is also a cool thing to realize. After this current contract I hope to do something like just work winters, or some arrangement. But time will tell I suppose I have been saying that since 250k, but I just kept making more money at work every year so It seemed stupid to slow down.

Taxes

I filed taxes recently and it turns out I had gross income of 160k last year. Well do you know that you only need to pay Social Security tax on the first $128,400? So I overpaid on my taxes a lot apparently. I was also doing research and found that the first 39k of qualified dividends or long term capital gains are not taxed at the federal level, which is very interesting. So, basically it seems that things could be pretty easy once I start to rely more on just investment income.

Personal Life

Personally, I have a hard time in the winter, but this year I threw myself into work a lot. I try to read a lot of books and cook a lot. Working from home has been nice with all the snow but also a bit isolating. I'm planning to move in with the gf soon (she is moving in here) which I am both excited for a scared about. I also have been thinking of buying a DSLR (again) to have more creative outlets.

I am basically a stock picker, but I invest about 50% in ETFs as well. I don't believe efficient market theory is true in the strong form, but I hedge my bets with index fund allocation. These last two years have been incredibly volatile for me in the market, but I have seen some incredible gains and incredible losses.

I am up 200% on some bets I have made on various technology and financial companies. But I am also down 30% or 40% on many risky small cap investments and Chinese ADRs. The emotional rollercoaster of being down 40k one month up 40k the next has been hard at times and it will keep getting harder. But I am getting better at it.

I read a lot about investing and I really do try to follow the rule of "let the winners run and cut the losers short", and it is emotionally difficult to follow both parts of that rule. It is hard to see a 200% gain and just let it ride. It is hard to re-evaluate and take a big loss and sell when you know the story has fundamentally changed the right call is to sell and move on.

prognastat
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Re: Giskard's Journal - slingin code to reach FI

Post by prognastat »

Congrats on hitting 500k. How does it feel being in the home stretch?

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giskard
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Re: Giskard's Journal - slingin code to reach FI

Post by giskard »

prognastat wrote:
Fri Mar 01, 2019 6:59 pm
Congrats on hitting 500k. How does it feel being in the home stretch?
Feels super good! Every day I work feels more optional and less of a requirement.

TopHatFox
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Re: Giskard's Journal - slingin code to reach FI

Post by TopHatFox »

No wonders FIRE is full of coders...160K income at 29, goddamn, that’s a looooot. your annual expenses are almost my salary O.O

———

curious, now that you have the half a mil, is your life (finally) better? In other words, is dating easier, can you travel when you want, can you focus on whatever you want at the time? Is it easier to live in different places? Is life better at 30 than 22?

Stahlmann
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Re: Giskard's Journal - slingin code to reach FI

Post by Stahlmann »

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ItsALongStory
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Re: Giskard's Journal - slingin code to reach FI

Post by ItsALongStory »

i recall reading that after $70k gross the marginal happiness gains are generally offset by the added stress typically found with higher paying jobs.

Being in the 6figure club myself, I can attest to the fact that it doesn't necessarily make me any happier. Could be because I am not seeing a material impact on my day to day since all of my incremental gains are just going straight to investments/retirement stash anyway.

2Birds1Stone
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Re: Giskard's Journal - slingin code to reach FI

Post by 2Birds1Stone »

Congrats on the $500k mark. While it's an arbitrary round number for most of us, it's so cool to hit that milestone. *knock on wood* I should join you by December.

I noticed no impact to happiness or ability to "live life to the fullest" earning $100k vs. $50k, the investments just grew more rapidly at the former.

THF, any decent B2B sales job will have you earning $100k+ in 12-18 months of "ramp up" time. So you don't need to become a software engineer or go through tremendous amounts of schooling for this sort of income.

Jason

Re: Giskard's Journal - slingin code to reach FI

Post by Jason »

TopHatFox wrote:
Sat Mar 02, 2019 9:07 pm
No wonders FIRE is full of coders...160K income at 29, goddamn, that’s a looooot. your annual expenses are almost my salary O.O

———

Finally, someone who understands this whole ERE thing less me.

Dark
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Re: Giskard's Journal - slingin code to reach FI

Post by Dark »

ItsALongStory wrote:
Sun Mar 03, 2019 10:36 am
i recall reading that after $70k gross the marginal happiness gains are generally offset by the added stress typically found with higher paying jobs.
Bingo.

I don't know what source you're using, but that's been my experience. There are obviously some high paying jobs (coding is probably one of them) where the skill is still relatively rare and people who learn it tend to like it. It seems almost like writing novels or poetry in that regard; the people might be doing it for free in their spare time, but it just so happens that, at this point in history, there's a demand for it in the paying market. I'd predict that as coding becomes a more prevalent skill, it will both decrease in compensation (oversupply) and job satisfaction (people who don't intrinsically like or have an aptitude for it begin doing it for the money).

Admittedly, this is all conjecture as I don't have any experience in the tech industry.

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giskard
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Re: Giskard's Journal - slingin code to reach FI

Post by giskard »

TopHatFox wrote:
Sat Mar 02, 2019 9:07 pm
curious, now that you have the half a mil, is your life (finally) better? In other words, is dating easier, can you travel when you want, can you focus on whatever you want at the time? Is it easier to live in different places? Is life better at 30 than 22?
What has happened is it keeps getting incrementally easier. When I look at my life 2 years ago, yeah right now it is 200% better. The more money stashed away the less I stress about work. Owning a place reduces stress in some ways and increases it others, but making improvements to it gives some contentment. I'm in a long term relationship now and I have lots of arguments about money with her, but slowly I am teaching her different ways to think about money management, and she is teaching me a lot just by us working through issues.

I do have the freedom to travel more but I don't because I have home improvement projects I am working on, but it feels great to have the money to buy tools and materials and learn so many new things. The biggest change that massively positively impacted my life recently is working remotely and not having to commute anymore.

I would like to travel more and spend more time on creative efforts, but I won't be able to do that until I cut down working less. So when I do that, yeah I imagine I will start to feel more fulfillment. But it's not like some switch was thrown. The money does not make a lot of day to day difference, when I finally decide to change how much I work, that is what will really do it and then the money matters. Slowly I am starting to really focus on what I truly care about spending my time on, and I think it just takes time, which I have not really given myself permission to spend yet.
Last edited by giskard on Sun Mar 03, 2019 1:20 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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giskard
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Re: Giskard's Journal - slingin code to reach FI

Post by giskard »

2Birds1Stone wrote:
Sun Mar 03, 2019 10:52 am
I noticed no impact to happiness or ability to "live life to the fullest" earning $100k vs. $50k, the investments just grew more rapidly at the former.
This is what I have noticed. When I focus on being happier, I get happier. When I focus on improving my life, I improve my life. After I pay my bills for the month, the extra money does not really impact that other than the satisfaction I get from knowing that one day soon I can quit working.

ItsALongStory
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Re: Giskard's Journal - slingin code to reach FI

Post by ItsALongStory »

2Birds1Stone wrote:
Sun Mar 03, 2019 10:52 am
THF, any decent B2B sales job will have you earning $100k+ in 12-18 months of "ramp up" time. So you don't need to become a software engineer or go through tremendous amounts of schooling for this sort of income.
I recently had to backfill someone and went with a candidate that had much more eagerness and desire for the opportunity to expand their skills vs someone who on paper was a better candidate. The willingness to put in the hours is such a differentiator to me since it will allow the employee to overcome many more hurdles than someone who comes in with a great resume but doesn't have the desire.

As such, going into a new field with a humble attitude and willingness to put in the effort is not nearly as risky as one would think.

ItsALongStory
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Re: Giskard's Journal - slingin code to reach FI

Post by ItsALongStory »

Dark wrote:
Sun Mar 03, 2019 11:49 am
I don't know what source you're using, but that's been my experience.
I was watching a training today and they referenced a similar statistic so I looked it up and found this link: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/ ... 92194.html

Stahlmann
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Re: Giskard's Journal - slingin code to reach FI

Post by Stahlmann »

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prognastat
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Re: Giskard's Journal - slingin code to reach FI

Post by prognastat »

Going from 40k to 65k was tangibly better. Didn't need to stress about money anymore, beyond of course still needing to have a job until FI.

Going from 65k to 90k was better, but only in the sense that it speeds up my progress to FI. It didn't really change anything in my day to day life.

Of course this all depends on lifestyle inflation, if you continue to let it inflate at the same rate your income grows nothing will ever change as far as worries/concerns regarding money go.

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giskard
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Re: Giskard's Journal - slingin code to reach FI

Post by giskard »

Update 4/27/2019 - 550k

With the combo of decent income lately and good stock market returns (S&P500 returned 15% YTD, which is wild) my paper NW hit 550k. This is a pretty rough estimate considering some of this is realestate, some is crypto, ect.

I had 434k in December 2018 and I think it is pretty interesting to see how even saving 10k a month it is not having nearly as much as an effect as stock market gains. Well... they will cut the other way too as I found out in fall of 2018.

I was about to post a nice chart with detailed numbers but this forum only allows 800px wide images so I am not going to bother with trying to shrink it so small. Maybe next time.

The next year or two

I feel like I am in a good spot to take a break and start a business. I have a few ideas I have been kicking around and the urge has gotten much stronger lately. When the current contract I am on is up, I will probably do that. Ideally I would like to do some contracting part time, so we'll see what happens. Basically in a holding pattern right now with this current gig, but it is getting pretty interesting so that is cool.

The_Bowme
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Re: Giskard's Journal - slingin code to reach FI

Post by The_Bowme »

Hey, I'm 31 and just switched into coding after 6 years as a loan officer. Got my first gig and moving to Chicago for it. Cool to see that the field has been lucrative for you even if it's not always the most exciting!

I owned a condo before and found that the condo association was running its finances very badly. Sold at a profit and went back to renting, and have liked the easiness of that lifestyle. But maybe I'll reconsider at some point, I do like the idea of house hacking and having some diversification from real estate. Glad you're finding the condo ownership rewarding!

classical_Liberal
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Re: Giskard's Journal - slingin code to reach FI

Post by classical_Liberal »

Hi!

I can't believe I've never read your journal before. I grew up in Minneapolis and am still reasonably close in the Midwest. Winters can be BRU-TAL, it's not surprising it's taking you awhile to adapt. Everything is OK through about Christmas, fun to have some cold and snow, but after that it's hell.
Sounds like the hobby/housework helped out last year. Personally, I make it a point to get out of the Midwest winters for at least one month each year. It makes a huge difference breaking it up. This is probably something you can do if you're cutting back with work, it may change your perspective going forward. Also agree with you about Twin Cities area (exception of some suburbs) being incredibly liberal. I don't think many outsiders realize that it could give any East or West coast university campus a run for their money in a deep blue competition.

Interesting to read about your relationship as well. I'm older than you, but am in a similar spot with my GF. We just moved in together last year. Through my tutelage she's seeing the light of financial freedom and making some changes. While at the same time I'm learning a shit-ton about living a better life and compromise from her. Both have caused plenty of disagreements, yet we are muddling through and both happier for it.

You get a gold star for one of the most plain spoken, yet wise comments wrt to life and FI.
giskard wrote:
Sun Mar 03, 2019 1:14 pm
This is what I have noticed. When I focus on being happier, I get happier. When I focus on improving my life, I improve my life. After I pay my bills for the month, the extra money does not really impact that other than the satisfaction I get from knowing that one day soon I can quit working.
Looking forward to reading more!

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