Lemur Journal!

Where are you and where are you going?
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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

Thanks everyone. Just gotta hang in there for a few more weeks/months until I get the FO and start date. I think I'll even try to negotiate a date where I can just take a month off and live on cash savings for that month. The break from income would literally be a drop in a bucket compared to my net-worth even with the market falling.

Western Cedar - Very true. My thoughts have always been that my current role has been so challenging/stress inducing that my new role and future roles should feel easier. Part of the reason I stuck it out so long was for the challenge/experience of dealing with that. I have to wonder if this was worth it to hit ones breaking point but future me will probably thank me.

2Birds1Stone
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by 2Birds1Stone »

Lemur wrote:
Mon Jan 24, 2022 10:53 am
I have to wonder if this was worth it to hit ones breaking point but future me will probably thank me.
It probably was. My current job feels like a vacation most days/weeks and income is at all time highs.......

Super pumped to see where this takes you.

shaz
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by shaz »

Haha yes, there's nothing like a super stressful job to make all subsequent ones seem easy.
Last edited by shaz on Mon Jan 24, 2022 11:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

MBBboy
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by MBBboy »

Nicely done, congrats!

andy
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by andy »

Wow Lemur, your increase in net worth over the past two years is nothing short of amazing. Is that mostly investment returns?

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

@Andy

Yeah it has been incredible looking back. Solidly half-millionaires even with the recent market dip. I remember we were at our lowest of $123k invested when the COVID crash happened? My Spouse did not invest at this time but mostly held cash.

Biggest contribution has been savings rate. I make 6 figures and Spouse makes money in the $50-80k range depending on business. Meanwhile we've consistently been in the 60-75% Savings Rate. Secondary to that was some unintended lucky market timing. When the COVID crash happened, I had convinced my Spouse to invest her large cash savings in the market. She was holding on to mostly cash from her business profits. $50k at first but up to $100k over 2020. I had invested mostly in big tech figuring everything was going to be WFH and there would be huge demand in this space. AMD was almost a 3x bagger for us. Nearly 2x on Square as well but would've been more if I did not sell early. I also made money on Bank of America Call Options figuring the PPP loans would drive up bank profits. I think I just got lucky on this one. We crushed the market return in 2020.

andy
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by andy »

That is awesome!

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

February 3, 2022

Net-worth:
$541k (Down $30k)

Wild month in the market. I'm down 30%+ on some individual stock positions. Covered call writing has cushioned some of the blow as I took a $3,947.43 loss on Walmart (I took a loss so I could cash cover my short options positions to reduce leverage) but I also realized $1,153 in gains.

Physical Health / Diet: I feel good and I am in incredible shape at the moment. I have put on some muscle in the past 2 months and I'm just now cleaning up my diet and going to start a slow decent downward to decrease the added bodyfat while focusing on increased strength gains. I can do Planche pushups with my hands positioned 25" from the wall and I can do a ridiculous amount of pull-ups/chin-ups. For the pull-ups/chin-ups, I've added a 15lb backpack on my 3x weekly workouts. Core strength is strong with ab tucks. Legs have been more difficult to target but I started using a 35lb kettlebell and doing Bulgarian split squats, walking lunges till exhaustion, and just whatever else I can think of. Not the greatest plan in the world but my legs have grown some. I'm starting my preparations now for the beach 8-).

Mental Health: A bit overworked but pretty good so far.

Job: Still checking my email everyday almost compulsively for word from my new job. It could be a few more weeks or months - government HR is notoriously slow. I'm dying to put in my two weeks and transition my role to whomever is the poor soul that becomes the new product lead. With that being said, in my good conscious I've actually picked up the pace lately at work to get things done and get organized so I don't handover a complete dumpster fire. It is a small world here in my niche anyway. The meetings lately have been particularly brutal but in the back of my mind knowing that this too shall pass is keeping me going.

Gardening: None

Reading / Other: Picked up Atomic Habits by James Clear. Finishing up reading Scott Adam's book and I'm about 1/3rd of the way through. I am continuing my trend of having multiple books that I get halfway through and never finish. Oh I taught my son to play checkers (he gets it) and chess (not yet old enough) and backgammon (not yet patient enough).

Goals: Keep spending time with my Grandmother and helping my Grandfather who is clinically depressed at this point. She doesn't recognize anyone anymore but maybe for split seconds at a time. Barely eating. Calling out names of people that have long been dead. It is crazy how quick this transition was from okay I'm an old person and I forget things sometimes to questionable consciousness and awareness of the self. Maybe over a period of 5-6 months? Being in the nursing home a few times a week has been its own existential experience.

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

Well we got COVID. Great :/ Just some fatigue. Maybe a little brain fog too. This means we can't visit the nursing home until we test negative. My son will not be going to school either until a negative test.

But anyhow...lately I'm addicted to YouTube videos of Italian Cooking. Italian cooking is pretty cool - there is an emphasis on quality ingredients and most recipes don't call for too much; there is a knack for simplicity. Learned how to make Bolognese sauce. Used it for our wheat spaghetti which is becoming something of a common staple here. $0.89 cents per pack. Store brand can not be beat.

Mainly because with wheat noodles. They're a bit more nutritious then the enriched stuff (more fiber, minerals, etc.). And also packs 9 grams of protein per 56 grams. It tastes more hearty and I even prefer it over the normal noodles. So roughly 3 cups of that with a cup of the meat sauce is about 50 grams of protein and quite filling. Use that meal for lunch and dinner and add either a whey protein shake or 200 grams of chicken breast or so and I easily hit my daily calorie and protein targets for fairly cheap while also creating a pot that can last 2-3 days. Oh and one more mention is that the meat can be any sort of beef or pork as long as it is grounded up - this flexibility is nice to know because we can just get whatever meat is the "Manager's special" for that day (on sale).

Italian Spaghetti Carbonara - This guys passion makes me smile watching it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsg5H2TEQXs

Pizza Margherita
https://youtu.be/xKDnD8sJsuY

I've never attempted to make noodles from scratch (looks laborious but something I want to add to my cooking skillset). I've made pizza before....not as good as the chefs but passable.

white belt
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by white belt »

Lemur wrote:
Sun Feb 06, 2022 7:15 pm
I've made pizza before....not as good as the chefs but passable.
If you don't have a pizza oven, I highly recommend the stovetop trick to brown the bottom of the dough first then finish it in the broiler to melt the toppings together. I used this recipe: https://youtu.be/9TjUWnAK0cg

chenda
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by chenda »

Lemur wrote:
Sun Feb 06, 2022 7:15 pm
Well we got COVID. Great :/ Just some fatigue. Maybe a little brain fog too.
How are you all feeling now Lemur?

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

@Chenda - Pretty much normal. The only symptoms we really had were fatigue and this general feeling where your head is in the clouds. But we spent Monday mostly sleeping in and out. I'm glad I took yesterday off to just sleep.

In hindsight, we must have started having symptoms last weekend because I remember feeling very fatigued for some reason - I thought it was just because I was overtraining or something :lol: . I remember drinking coffee at 8pm Saturday night only because I was determined to do some reading that night but it didn't matter I still fell asleep. That never happens because usually caffeine at that time will keep me up till about 1-2am.

theanimal
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by theanimal »

I'm glad you guys are doing better. The array of experiences depending on the person is somewhat crazy and fascinating to me. DF and I are covid positive as well. We ended up somewhere along the lines of 93 of the past 96 hrs on the couch with all kinds of fun (fever, headache, ear ache, congestion, coughing, sore throat) :shock: . DF escaped most of those symptoms and has been improving faster than I and thankfully we are both on the mend as of yesterday. Hardly any symptoms remain today, just light cough, sore throat and some fatigue. Our block had a severe case of food poisoning last year after dinner at a neighbors and we compare all illnesses to that in terms of severity. We'd both pick Covid over that so not too bad in the grand scheme of things :P .

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fiby41
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by fiby41 »

Get well soon!

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

@White Belt - Tried this last weekend. Got a better result. Cooking is a fun hobby.

I also learned to make tomato sauce from raw ingredients: Saute an onion until brown (7-8 minutes), add garlic (2 minutes), add 6-8 diced tomatoes after removing skin (I used a mix of common vine red tomatoes and roma), add salt, add oregano, add 7-8 chopped basil leaves, bring to boil and let simmer for 60-90 minutes (water will escape and you'll be left with a jam like consistency. Can adjust to preference). Add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice or vinegar. Blend if preferred. This tasted better then any store bought pasta sauce I've had before. Economically might be wash though...(pasta sauce is really cheap) but it sure does taste good.

In other Lemur related news...

- Still waiting to hear back from my new job. This could take a while so my expectation is met.
- Current job still sucks. I decided to burn through my PTO of 15 days. That should be fun. Most of March I will be at home doing a lot of reading, prepping the garden, and helping my Grandfather, keeping my son entertained while Mom is out.
- Spouse is leaving to visit her home country for a month (trying again as last takeoff failed).
- I am reverting to my Bogleheads ways before I had gotten involved in active investing and individual stocks. This was a long time coming and something I started the transition too in late 2021. I am aggressively selling covered calls at cost basis on all my individual stock positions that are down (for ego reasons I want to breakeven at least) and reallocating towards 60% VTI, 30% VXUS, 5% BND, and 5% BNDX across all portfolios.
- I may occasionally look to selling puts on index funds when volatility is up significantly. It is often that perceived volatility never matches actual volatility but I may even not bother with this either. Part of the reason I'm going back to a index investor only is so that I can focus mental energies elsewhere. There are other skills and values to develop that are more important in the long-run...I also don't believe I'm generating any real alpha. More and more I am starting to believe my 2020 extravaganza was dumb luck and convenient timing. With nearly $600k invested...even a 10% increased across my funds results in $60k gains and I don't have to sell for taxes. I am 100% certain I will perform better going back to this strategy.
- Hoping to visit my Grandmother a few more times before she passes away. She is in end of life care. I haven't been able to visit lately because we keep testing positive for COVID but hopefully soon this will pass through our bodies.

Western Red Cedar
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Western Red Cedar »

Lemur wrote:
Wed Feb 16, 2022 1:31 pm
I also learned to make tomato sauce from raw ingredients: Saute an onion until brown (7-8 minutes), add garlic (2 minutes), add 6-8 diced tomatoes after removing skin (I used a mix of common vine red tomatoes and roma), add salt, add oregano, add 7-8 chopped basil leaves, bring to boil and let simmer for 60-90 minutes (water will escape and you'll be left with a jam like consistency. Can adjust to preference). Add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice or vinegar. Blend if preferred. This tasted better then any store bought pasta sauce I've had before. Economically might be wash though...(pasta sauce is really cheap) but it sure does taste good.
Canned tomatoes are one of the few processed foods that I don't feel guilty about eating (assuming the sodium levels and ingredients are minimal). They are usually canned at their peak flavor and work great for pasta sauces and soups. Occasionally I find restaurant-sized cans of organic tomatoes for $4-5 which makes a lot of sauce. It freezes really well and cuts down on the costs compared to store-bought such.

It's just a drop in the bucket in terms of savings, but the improved taste and lower sodium levels are definitely worth the time to make sauce from scratch.

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Slevin
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Slevin »

@Lemur I’ve never found the math to work out in my favor when comparing making my own pasta sauce to buying it from the store. That said, we still do make it ourselves because it is more tasty and I can avoid all the plastic / glass / whatever the packaging is by making it myself and reusing my huge ball jar collection.

My recipe is basically like yours, though we don’t add vinegar in as an addition. The tomatoes should provide a large acidic flavor in by themselves; are you doing it purely for a slight “tang” coming from the vinegar / lemon juice (My partner says her mom and grandma will pour some red wine in to deepen the flavor so that could be along the same line maybe)?

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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

@Slevin - Yes. I like the orange look and I feel this taste complements well with the more hearty wheat noodles.

Side note - Atomic Habits by James Clear so far is an excellent book. It reminds me of something in the ERE book where how systems are built to produce positive outcomes. I've had mixed success over the years with changing my behaviors but I think James has so far offered a nice solution. Since beginning to read this book, I've had success with changing a few habits (cold showers daily, sticking to my workout plan 3x a week, hitting 10k steps a day on the pedometer, etc.). I'll keep studying; I'm looking to drop the bad habits around caffeine and some food indulgences. I'm almost due for a reread of the ERE book. Speaking of habits...I don't think I've ever consistently read every single day until recently. I am starting to develop a craving for reading my books before bedtime. Its becoming a new habit.

runnergirl
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by runnergirl »

@Lemur, thank you for sharing the tomato sauce recipe. I'm fairly new to the world of cooking and gardening but this sounds like a recipe I want to try during the tomato season this year. Do you know how long you can keep the sauce (unopened)? How about once opened? Google tells me that once a can is opened you can keep it to 5-10 days. That sounds really short time to me! I usually open a store bought can and put it in the fridge until I use it again. That time period can be few month or longer. Now I'm wondering I've been eating invisible mold :lol:

shaz
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by shaz »

@runnergirl you could try freezing single portions of tomato sauce if you can't finish it off in a few days. It generally holds up well to freezing and thawing.

@Lemur I plan to give your recipe a try. Thanks for sharing. I hope you get to see your grandmother.

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