Smashter's Great Adventure

[Dave]

It's the variety of spices that lead me to a boxed spice mix. I think that's my missing factor, but I'm not committed enough to mess with all the traditional Indian spices.

Yeah, new cuisines can seem like a lot to dive into when you pull up a recipe and see a laundry list of strange-sounding ingredients. But in many cases, a trip to the relevant ethnic grocer can get you everything you need. And then using the ingredients isn't any different than using any other more familiar ingredients...cut stuff up, heat stuff, toss things in, do things in the right sequence. Etc.

If I had to guess, the missing ingredient is asafoetida/hing. Smells terrible raw (I always kept my container in an additional bag and in the back corner of a cabinet I rarely used), but really transforms the flavor when tossed in oil. Umami/richness added. Really elevates a plant-based dish.

[Smashter]

The Indian Dish was a success! I made this moong dal recipe using my Instant Pot. I also made rice as a side dish and DW made some cauliflower and peas as a side dish.

The moong dal was great. DW enjoyed it as well. And it wasn’t difficult to make.

The hing powder was not as noticeable in terms of giving an umami flavor as I was hoping it would be. Maybe I’ll try adding extra next time. 



As part of the process, I got to discover a great little Indian grocer that’s close to my house. On a whim I bought a homemade piece of pan (Indian dessert) they were selling, and I thought it was awesome. DW hated it but hey, can’t win em all. 



Thank you all for the encouragement and ideas.

[Smashter]

Finances

$444k in investments
$270k in house equity

I had a very productive finances chat with DW a couple weeks ago. We agreed to tighten up our spending in 2024, especially around eating out and clothing. We are going to try budgeting again for the first time in a long time. The budget will be high and I’ll probably be too embarrassed to post it here. We should still have a greater than 50% savings rate, though, assuming we hold on to our jobs.

Job

The last few months have been a rollercoaster, even by early stage startup standards. We had a round of layoffs at the end of December, which I survived. It’s hard to say how much life the company has left, but hopefully a big new product idea the CEO has will resonate with the market.

While getting a severance and a fresh start wouldn’t have been the worst thing, I was happy to not be laid off. I want to keep the job at least until we get through some fertility treatments happening in the first half of the year. I make almost $150k without having to put in many hours, so it’s a pretty sweet gig all things considered.

The problem is it generates all the ennui you’d expect from a mostly meaningless tech job, and the soul yearns for more. One way I’ve found to enjoy my work time more has been to jot down funny or absurd things that happen, for potential use in future writing projects.

I also had an old friend I used to work with reach out to see if I could help with his business on the side. Details are scant right now, but I’m curious to see how that develops.

Personal website migration headaches

I have had a blog on Wordpress.com for almost 15 years. I recently decided I wanted to switch to Wordpress.org, so that I could get more customization options. That led me down a path of figuring out how to set up a new hosting provider. I went with Bluehost, and then started the process of figuring out stuff like updating DNS records and A records. I do not recommend this unless you have a lot of DevOps knowhow and infinite patience.

I was using free LLMs (Claude and ChatGPT) to help me through the process. They were great for comparing and contrasting different hosting providers, but pretty bad when it came to the nuts and bolts of switching domains. It kept saying confusing things, and when I’d be like, “Wait, are you sure?” it would say, “Sorry, that was a mistake. Actually try this.” I eventually just started chatting with a real human via Bluehost’s customer support and that was much better. Humans, even those who clearly don’t speak english as a first language, provide better tech support than LLMs, at least with my skill level at prompting.

But even with that improved support, my content transfer was stuck in the mud. People would claim to be doing things behind the scenes that were sure to work, but nothing did. I got fed up after my site had been down for over a week and I was told to use a confusing looking Wordpress plugin to complete the transfer. At that point I asked for their help with getting everything back exactly as it was before, and I got a refund on my Bluehost purchase. Finally, I had my site back.

This experience has given me a greater appreciation for what the DevOps people do at my company.

Fitness and fancy new gym membership

We just joined a fancy, expensive gym. It’s also a social club. The total cost for the year will be ~2/3 of a JAFI . Appalling, I know. Now I will spend some time justifying this decision, in the grand spirit of MMM buying a Tesla and then writing 1500 words on why that doesn’t go against his underlying frugal ethos.

Since moving to a new city, I have had a hard time finding a consistent basketball game to play in. I also haven’t made any new friends. My whole life, I’ve been able to find friends and jobs and fun things to do through my basketball games and leagues. I spent the last few months saying to myself that I was going to find a basketball game or find a different way of socializing but I just…didn’t. I am now accepting that it’s a blessing that I have a proven way of meeting people that I find fun and enjoyable and that I should just do that even if it costs me some money. The simplest way to go about that was to join this gym.

The monthly fee covers both DW and myself, which is nice. She cancelled her expensive subscription to a local yoga studio because she can take classes at the new gym.

I know from experience how expensive moving is. If this experience means we enjoy our time here more and deepen our ties to the community and make a friend or two, we are much more likely to stick around.

DW and are both full time work from home. This facility has very nice co-working spaces. It’ll be good for us to get out of the house more, even if we’re just working down the street.

The real kicker is the giant initiation fee you pay to join. If we stay for more than a year the cost is much more reasonable, as that fee is one time only.

So, this year my half of the cost is ~$3000, and it drops to $2000 next year if we stick around. That gets me all the basketball I could ever want plus a fantastic weight room, steam room, cutting edge recovery tools (I particularly love these things), sauna, co-working space/lounge with coffee and tea, salt water pool, rooftop lounge, and many planned social events. It’s also a great place to take any friends or visitors.

Have I been able to stay in great shape in the past just doing pushups and pull-ups and running and using very cheap gyms if I want to lift heavy weights? I have, my whole post-college life. And I’ll happily go back to doing that if I don’t make any friends or connections and it feels overall not worth it. But for now I’m excited to give this a try, and so is DW.

I can also see a future where I get some sort of discount or free membership by offering to give basketball lessons to members or their kids. The club has golf pros, personal trainers, masseuses, spin instructors, etc. But nothing in the way of a basketball related offering to accompany their very nice basketball court. Could be an opportunity there. Ditto with DW using her yoga instructor certificate to teach a few classes in exchange for membership benefits. We’ll see!

Reading

I just finished The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles. I absolutely loved his book A Gentleman in Moscow, so I sought out his other two books. If anyone else finds themselves in this position, well, you can probably just stop with A Gentleman in Moscow. I think it stands head and shoulders above his other two novels. And The Lincoln Highway is loooooong. It’s not bad, just not great. Same goes for his book Rules of Civility.

I started two books gifted by family over the holidays. One is “Agents of Chaos,” about the underground press and counterculture movement in the US in the 60’s and 70’s. The other is “The Creative Act” by Rick Rubin.

I also need to pick The Odyssey back up. And I want to check out Deep River by Karl Marlantes, per gravy’s suggestion. Marlantes’s book Matterhorn is one of my favorite ever.

Lighting up my basement office

I have long been interested in using artificial light to boost energy and stave off SAD during dark midwest winter days. I recently upped my game, inspired by this recent article by an author I like titled YOU NEED MORE LUX. I used about 40 standard LED bulbs from my previous home office plus several mega bright LED lights to get the lux (lumens per square foot) at my desk to over 10,000. (Measured with a $30 light meter I got off Amazon). I love using the super extra bright space for an hour or two on grey winter days. The project cost a couple hundred bucks but provides a serious energy boost, especially during those post lunch doldrums. Not sure if it’s placebo or not, but I am enjoying the new setup.

Getting sick too much

I will end on a grumpy note -- I am currently sick with a cold. Sneezing, snotty, sore throat, etc. Nothing serious, but enough to annoy me and to disrupt my sleep for a few days. I think this is the 3rd or 4th time this has happened in the last 6 months. It's driving me nuts! I used to pride myself on basically never getting sick. I am in good shape and get plenty of sleep and take walks in the fresh air every day eat a well rounded diet. Theories:
- I am hanging out with my friends and families tiny, sniffling kids a lot
- I have been going to indoor gyms frequented by many strangers
- I am missing something in my diet or supplement regimen
- I am just getting older and this is part of life (late 30s)
- I catch it from DW, who has been sick a lot too, and she gets it from god knows where
- I am exercising too intensely, too frequently? This latest bout happened right after almost making myself throw up from doing incline sprints on a treadmill

I want to start monitoring how often this is happening, and what precipitates the illness, a little more closely.

Hope all y'all are staying safe and healthy out there.

[mooretrees]

Good update. I’m really curious about the gym that sounds like a posh community center! I certainly have similar purchases that I have written (in my head) to ‘explain’ them. It happens. It takes a long time to make friends in a new area, patience and getting into novel situations seems to be key.

The constant colds sounds like hanging with day care/school age kids. Maybe up your hand and face washing game to an aggressive level? When DS went to kindergarten we all were constantly sick. It’s something that kids go through (and the people around them!) at some point and since he didn’t go to daycare, it happened at school.

The notes from your work could be really fun, sad and ridiculous probably, but fun. Hope you’re able to keep the job in easy mode as long as you want.

[Scott 2]

I like that you're having the budget conversations now. That's something I wish we'd gotten used to, before I retired. Once money was already constrained, it was a much more stressful skill to develop.


If you use the co-working space,in addition to the gym, pricing sounds very reasonable. Co-working space is not cheap. And of course, that membership fee applies a strong filter for potential networking. IMO it's a sound investment.


For what it's worth - your site transfer problems are not what I consider to be DevOps. Irritating for sure, but standard administration headache. An experienced technical person will also beat their heads against the desk. They might be a little better at searching for the answers, but unless you migrate word press all the time, it's going to suck. 15 years without change is where the technical debt grew.


I was playing in the DevOps space when I stopped working.

DevOps is a cultural shift in how an organization approaches IT - thinking in terms of flow, feedback loops and continuous improvement. Systems thinking applied to how one builds and operates their software. Imagine automated upgrade of your site to each new Wordpress version, along with automated validation, the ability to instantly rollback on failure and effectively zero down time risk.

Doing this well is what gets a DevOps engineer paid. And even then, if it's not part of the organizational culture, starting at senior management, it won't work all that well. You need the ability to deliver in smaller increments, for instance.

These guys have a couple novels that explain the gist fairly well:

https://itrevolution.com/product/the-phoenix-project/
https://itrevolution.com/product/the-unicorn-project/

This book gives a research backed explanation of the concepts:

https://itrevolution.com/product/accelerate/

And this gives a starting point into the technical strategies, maybe less accessible:

https://itrevolution.com/product/the-de ... d-edition/


Probably more detail than you need But hey, maybe you can be the business guy who knows what is going on with IT.

[suomalainen]

You can only get sick from viruses (and the odd bacteria). The only item in your list that contains that is the little kids. If you're around them "a lot", and your wife gets sick "a lot" then I can only imagine that your wife is sticking her face very close to the snotty faces of these kids. Women!

[Smashter]

@Moretrees, thanks for the thoughts. I'll be there to cheer you on should you ever take your purchase justifications out of your head and spend way too long writing them out in your journal

Also, DW was just commenting on the fact that apparently I wash my hands very quickly. I laughed it off, but maybe I need to step it up!

@scott2 I've always appreciated your writing around how networking can be a serious force multiplier for career or personal goals, and it doesn't have to have icky connotations. (my interpretation, I hope that's fair) Casually chatting with people after basketball or in the gym comes naturally to me and has opened a lot of doors for me in the past. That's my kind of networking.

Also, thanks for the schooling on what DevOps actually is. During my peak migration desperation I considered reaching out to a DevOps pal at my company for help. Now I'm even more glad I didn't. He might have been insulted, ha. I can't say I'm eager to read those books and links, but I'm glad they are now here for me to reference if I want to check them out later.

@Suo, lol, she does indeed. Though I am the one more likely to eat a piece of pasta directly out of the grubby hand of an adorable two year old who wants to share, so I really have no one to blame but myself.

[Chris]

Also, DW was just commenting on the fact that apparently I wash my hands very quickly. I laughed it off, but maybe I need to step it up!

If there's one thing I changed during COVID, it was improving my handwashing. Rubbing two soapy flat hands together under running water isn't great technique. Soap up first then rinse. Get between the fingers, scrub the nails in the palm of the opposite hand, wash the entire thumb. If you do all the steps, you don't need to count the seconds or sing a little song or any of the other handwashing tips.

[mooretrees]

@Suo, lol, she does indeed. Though I am the one more likely to eat a piece of pasta directly out of the grubby hand of an adorable two year old who wants to share, so I really have no one to blame but myself.

NOOOOOOOOO! Here’s a little secret about two year olds, you can fake them out pretty easily. So, in the future, please take the sweetly offered food, FAKE putting it into your mouth and bam, you’re good. Also, wash your hands longer

[Smashter]

Financials  
Combined assets up to $481k.

We had a 60% savings rate the last two months, which is higher than I thought it would be. It’s been fun to track spending and have budgeting goals with DW again.

Our current problem area is groceries. We spent $1,764 last month. This is what happens when you do most of your shopping at the fancy co-op place in town. A place so fancy DW frequently comes back from Whole Foods remarking on how cheap it is compared to fancy store. A place so fancy you can somehow spend that much without buying any animal products or alcohol.

This is a battle I am not willing to fight right now. For one, we are only averaging $94/month at restaurants this year, which is way down for us. For another, DW cooks unbelievably delicious meals like 4-5 nights a week and she definitely would not be as keen to do that if I was being annoying about her grocery spending.

We are exceeding our savings rate goals and we’re far ahead on our goal to have $100,000 cash in a high interest savings account by the end of the year. As much as it hurts some part of my soul to spend more on groceries than most people do on rent, if we’re meeting our goals, can I really complain?

Work

My company did another surprise round of layoffs. We’re half the size we were a year ago, down to just 14 folks. I once again made the cut. I should be able to hang onto this for as long as I want, as we recently closed a massive sale that should significantly extend our runway.

The Fuzzy Outlines of My Post Tech Job Future

DW and I have tentatively decided to leave our full-time tech jobs at the end of the year. Neither of us knows what we’ll do yet, but we talked about it a couple weeks ago and both got excited by the prospect. We should have ~$100k cash saved up by then to support us as we decompress, explore our interests, and think about what’s next. We’d essentially be pursuing a semi-ERE lifestyle.

Funnily enough, given I have always been the driver of all things ERE, FIRE, or alternative lifestyle related, DW has been talking much more confidently about stepping away than I have. She brings it up often, as if it’s definitely going to happen. It still somehow feels like fairy tale talk to me.

For all my big talk about not wanting to waste my life away working a job I don’t care about, I’m all of a sudden a master of one more year excuses:
- I don’t know if I could ever get a job this easy and well paying again, shouldn’t I ride it out a little longer? There’s weeks where I don’t even work 15 hours!
- What if IVF works and we have a kid on the way soon, shouldn’t I sock away more money for that?
- What if IVF doesn’t work and we want to adopt, would anyone let us adopt a kid without jobs?
- What if I feel regret later in life because I could have just put in a couple more years and fully FIRE’d?
- What if I I just put more effort toward pursuing my interests on the side before jumping ship, because the job allows me the flexibility to do that?
- What if, what if, what if…

I need to put in more deliberate effort here to figure out how I want all this to play out.

Sister Saga & Family Drama Update

The consulting work that fell into my lap had a component that is a perfect fit for my sister’s professional skill set. So I decided to do a test run where I outsourced a couple assignments to her. If all went well maybe I could kick more work to her, or maybe even push to get her a job via my connections, since I know this company wants someone full time.

She was super excited about it at first, as were many other family members who have been dying to see her earn more money and show some initiative to get out of my Aunt’s guest house. $200 an assignment for super easy work. There is no universe in which I would pay that much to anyone else, but I really wanted to give her a boost.

All seemed to be going well. She turned in the first assignment on time Then I gave her another one and asked her to do it “in a week or so”. After a week she texted to say she had been very busy but would do it ASAP. She works one day a week as an office receptionist office, so this excuse rang hollow.

Then I didn’t hear from her for another week. I vented about the situation to my older brother. The gist was “I’m trying to give her hundreds of dollars to do something I could have chatGPT do for free and she still won’t do it!” 

He turned around and told my sister everything I thought I was telling him in confidence. I got an angry text from her saying if I was so mad at her I should just fire her. So that almost derailed the whole thing.

Gosh, writing this all out makes us sound like a bunch of middle-schoolers, haha. I do sometimes wonder if other families are this full of drama.

In the end she did a few more assignments, and if she finishes the last one next week she’ll have made $800 in total. For someone with no money who probably won’t have spent more than 20 hours across all the work, that’s not bad. I told her this week that I didn’t have anything more for her, but that I hoped I would in the future. I felt guilty, since I initially said I thought she could make $2000. But I overestimated how much there was to do, and, honestly, I am tired of dealing with her in this capacity.

Working with family members, especially addict family members, is so tricky. I felt uncomfortable telling her stuff I wanted changed and ended up reworking the majority of what she did. I will admit that’s also partly because I would have felt bad turning in work that didn’t feel “like me” to someone who didn’t know my sister was involved. My contact not knowing the arrangement was a whole ‘nother ethical can of worms. It made me uneasy and was maybe just a really not cool thing to do on my part? I made the decision that helping my sister in this way was fine as no one was getting hurt and the end product would be as good as if I was doing it myself. But it never did sit right with me. I’m happy to be done with it and I learned a lesson.

If I do something like this again I cannot be the middleman. I would need to convince someone to hire her and see how that goes. Which I’m sure she’d prefer as well.

The IVF Train Keeps Moving Down the Tracks 

We found out DW needs to have yet another surgery (possibly two) to remove scar tissue in her uterus. The first one is scheduled for May. She can’t catch a break. But she’s been an absolute warrior with this stuff, which has been inspiring to watch.

DW talked to all the various financial people at the hospital and insurance companies and the whole thing might not be quite as pricy as we expected. But I’ll believe it when I see it

Reading

Read a biography of Nikola Tesla. Thoroughly enjoyed it. As a youth he would wander the forests of his Serbian village working on his powers of concentration and visualization. He’d try to travel to places in his mind and see things as clearly as he could, and he’d hold full on conversations with people in his head. The other townsfolk thought he was nuts. He credits this practice for giving him the ability to do much of his scientific work in his head for the rest of his life. He is famous for being able to perfectly visualize highly complex machines. I couldn’t help but wonder if he would have had the desire or ability to spend hours a day purposefully improving his visualization skills if he had a smartphone.

He spent the last years of his life obsessed with pigeons, feeding them constantly and tending to the ill. One time he spent the equivalent of $35,000 in 2024 dollars to design and build a little leg brace for one of them, which I found quite touching. Another time he was struck by a car while crossing the street in what was apparently a pretty violent accident. Bystanders were amazed to see him refuse medical care, will himself up despite his broken ribs, and stagger back to his apartment. Records show he placed an order for sacks of bird feed that same night.

I’m now 3/4 through Deep River, thanks for the rec @gravy! I like it a lot. 



Fancy Gym Membership

It's been going well. We both take advantage of the coworking space quite a bit, which makes the cost much more tolerable. No friends have been made yet, but I see a group of really nice guys at basketball all the time. And it's become a meetup spot for us and another couple who we knew from outside the gym but who also happen to be members. So, the groundwork is getting laid. Much like what people are talking about in the ERE City thread right going on right now, building bonds is all about having those consistent interactions.

I am not sure if the type of person who frequents a gym like this will ever be an instant bff, but that's also asking a bit much. The biggest club events they pitch are the monthly "business roundtables" and the rooftop cigar club, neither of which appeals to me. But hey, I will continue to keep an open mind and hope for the best. Maybe I should join the book club.

Health
I have not been sick since my last update. Huzzah! I have been trying to be a better hand washer, maybe that was the trick. Also, no baby appendages got near my mouth.

[Chris]

Our current problem area is groceries. We spent $1,764 last month [...]
This is a battle I am not willing to fight right now. For one, we are only averaging $94/month at restaurants this year, which is way down for us. For another, DW cooks unbelievably delicious meals like 4-5 nights a week and she definitely would not be as keen to do that if I was being annoying about her grocery spending.

For $30 per day per person? Yes, I think those meals should be unbelievably delicious

But I understand, you need to pick your battles. Less than $100/mo on restaurants for your situation is an achievement.

One way to save a little on the grocery budget (without starting a fight) is to use the appropriate rewards credit card. Are you getting at least 5% back on grocery purchases?

Read a biography of Nikola Tesla. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Tesla is a very interesting figure. It's amazing such a delicate person was able to accomplish all that he did. And quite sad how his life turned out in his later years.

I recently read a historical (half) fiction book about Westinghouse's attorney (better than it sounds!), Last Days of Night. The author takes a few liberties, but it's a good read if you like the characters of the Tesla biography.

[Slevin]

Financials  
Combined assets up to $481k.

Our current problem area is groceries. We spent $1,764 last month.

Hey in just another 6 months or so you will be at 4% SWR on your yearly grocery bill!

[delay]

Thanks for your journal update!

Financials  
Our current problem area is groceries. We spent $1,764 last month. This is what happens when you do most of your shopping at the fancy co-op place in town. A place so fancy DW frequently comes back from Whole Foods remarking on how cheap it is compared to fancy store. A place so fancy you can somehow spend that much without buying any animal products or alcohol.

My groceries are also way up due to the co-op place (although nowhere near your amount.) The co-op food is delicious compared to supermarket food. The bread is much better. But then bread from the windmill is even better. And I hear self-baked bread tops that. I guess it's balance of convenience, money, and how much you appreciate food. So far I feel the co-op is worth the extra money.

All seemed to be going well. She turned in the first assignment on time Then I gave her another one and asked her to do it “in a week or so”. After a week she texted to say she had been very busy but would do it ASAP. She works one day a week as an office receptionist office, so this excuse rang hollow.

Then I didn’t hear from her for another week. I vented about the situation to my older brother. The gist was “I’m trying to give her hundreds of dollars to do something I could have chatGPT do for free and she still won’t do it!” 

He turned around and told my sister everything I thought I was telling him in confidence. I got an angry text from her saying if I was so mad at her I should just fire her. So that almost derailed the whole thing.

Gosh, writing this all out makes us sound like a bunch of middle-schoolers, haha. I do sometimes wonder if other families are this full of drama.

Highschool never ends.

If your sister rejects good money for little effort, why not take that as a good sign? She may have better options for her time, she may not need money as much as her family expects, or she may have a strong dislike for feeling indebted to her brother. From what I've seen, a good approach is to listen more (that's hard!) Support family in chasing their own happiness and especially after making their own mistakes.

Bystanders were amazed to see him refuse medical care, will himself up despite his broken ribs, and stagger back to his apartment. Records show he placed an order for sacks of bird feed that same night.

A wise man!

[Smashter]

One way to save a little on the grocery budget (without starting a fight) is to use the appropriate rewards credit card. Are you getting at least 5% back on grocery purchases?

Yes, thank goodness. We've always been good about getting CC rewards.

I know I said I wasn't going to fight this battle right now, but I couldn't help myself. We had a few slightly contentious conversations until I finally came to my senses and proposed a compromise — we could brainstorm ideas about how to reduce grocery spending after this next round of IVF was done. For now, we agreed to not stress it. Giving this concession, essentially saying "you win, I was being annoying" totally softened up DW. She now has proposed on her own multiple changes she can make right away, is clearly making an effort to be more cost conscious, and seems excited to be rowing in the same direction with me. There's a lesson here I need to internalize! Curious to see if it manifests in a materially lower spend this month.

@Slevin lol, real EREers need to avert their eyes

@delay thanks for the thoughts! I unfortunately know for a fact that she has nothing better to do with her time. I cannot see good signs even if I squint. She called me the other day to vent about some family stuff, and while it's always great to talk to her, she was clearly wasted, and that made me sad. But you make a great point about how I can try to listen better and aim to support her without projecting my plans on to her

[Smashter]

@chris thanks for the Tesla-adjacent book rec, too! Added it to my list.

That is such a fascinating time in history. I loved this Edison biography . It was the first biography I'd read that starts when the protagonist is old and then goes in reverse chronological order, which I thought was neat. It'll make you want to chainsmoke 10 cent cigars and grind for 21 hours a day for decades on end until you accomplish great things.

[ertyu]

If you keep giving your sister easy opportunities to make money, what will ever motivate her to change?

[NewBlood]

Read a biography of Nikola Tesla. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Which one was that?

Good luck with your sister, that sounds really hard to deal with.

[Smashter]

@ertyu that's a fair question. I thought the work might give her self confidence and kick her into a new gear where she had the motivation to do a full time job again. I am glad I took the shot, even if it had a low chance of succeeding.

@NewBlood this was the Tesla bio they had at my local library.

And thanks for the support! My sister once again got drunk and lost her purse on Friday. She was a total wreck when her boyfriend picked her up, and for the first time she said she's open to going to rehab. I won't get my hopes up. The only good thing out of all that is that her car keys were in her purse so she couldn't attempt to drive, because she was getting behind that wheel if she had them.

[Scott 2]

I wonder if Instacart delivery from Aldi could help with food costs. When I was high earning, that was our grocery hack. Even after the delivery premium, it was cheaper than whole foods. And we could skip going to the store.

No perspective on the sister problem, other than it must be incredibly frustrating. From the outside, it's clear you deeply care for her.

I can understand the temptation to ride your tech job to its natural conclusion. The market is rough right now. I can say - the first 6-12 months of FIRE were monumental in changing my perspective - both on the world and myself. I'm not sure it would be possible to over value that experience. Longer term - I'm kinda "meh" on the whole thing. Work, don't work. It's all good.

[NewBlood]

@NewBlood this was the Tesla bio they had at my local library.

Thanks! bummer, I can't find it on Libby...

And thanks for the support! My sister once again got drunk and lost her purse on Friday. She was a total wreck when her boyfriend picked her up, and for the first time she said she's open to going to rehab. I won't get my hopes up. The only good thing out of all that is that her car keys were in her purse so she couldn't attempt to drive, because she was getting behind that wheel if she had them.

Man, that's really stressful. I hope she does eventually find her way to rehab.