Lemur Journal!

Where are you and where are you going?
mooretrees
Posts: 762
Joined: Sun Jan 27, 2019 1:21 pm

Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by mooretrees »

What about the cost of the deductible? That's the point of this type of insurance, they don't start paying until $xxxxx.xx has already been paid out of pocket. So, with a healthy family, it usually is a better deal, but there is the risk of some kind of care that you'll pay out of pocket for. I usually opt for this plan too, but sometimes I grumble about paying bills because the deductible hasn't been met.

User avatar
Lemur
Posts: 1612
Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2016 1:40 am
Location: USA

Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

@mooretrees

Preventative care is free and is about all we use the doctor's for. Even after dividing the family deductible of $3000 across 26 bi-weekly payments, I would likely still come out ahead compared to the premiums of a standard PPO plan. I just figure if our health status changes, then we may "lose" out financially for that year but then I can always switch to BCBS basic in the future if we end up with recurring health needs. The HSA will still exist and grow.

User avatar
Lemur
Posts: 1612
Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2016 1:40 am
Location: USA

Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

Random Tidbit
Values. The word "ecology" was not coined until 1866. The word "metacognition" was not coined until 1976. The word "deconsumption" is still not on Wikipedia. The values and habits represented by these words are just getting started, and there are some important words that don't exist yet.

- Ran Prieur

Scott 2
Posts: 2824
Joined: Sun Feb 12, 2012 10:34 pm

Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Scott 2 »

The HDHP usually makes the most sense mathematically. A couple reasons I might consider a more premium plan:

1. If you are leaving the employer at the beginning of the year, and they offer an FSA. You can opt for the FSA with max contribution, spend it all, and only pay for the time you are working. So $2500 of FSA dollars for 208 * months worked in the year. Even better if you can shotgun a bunch of medical care in that month or two, as well.

2. If you or family will hesitate to seek medical care, due to incremental cost. Paying ahead of time works better for some people mentally.

3. If the max out of pocket is substantially different in the HDHP, and it poses an unmanageable financial risk.


In your case, looking at the plans, the HDHP looks like an obvious win.

User avatar
Lemur
Posts: 1612
Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2016 1:40 am
Location: USA

Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

@Scott 2

I didn't even notice when I picked this plan a week or so ago that GEHA even contributes $1800 to the HSA account upon set-up; so the $3k deductible actually becomes a $1200 net-deductible so the plan is even financially better than I thought. The key really is to stay in-network; luckily just about everyone and their mom covers government employers health insurance.

I've been reading through "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren (1930)" by Keynes and this tidbit stood out to me:
For many ages to come the old Adam will be so strong in us that everybody will need to do some work if he is to be contented. We shall do more things for ourselves than is usual with the rich today, only too glad to have small duties and tasks and routines. But beyond this, we shall endeavor to spread the bread thin on the butter-to make what work there is still to be done to be as widely shared as possible. Three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may put off the problem for a great while. For three hours a day is quite enough to satisfy the old Adam in most of us!
Sounds like Keynes would've liked the Semi-ERE concept very much if he existed in the 21st century.

Some context here was that before this passage, Keynes was basically speaking to how generations of people have been institutionalized into just wage slavery / labor (I'm paraphrasing heavily here... wage slavery has negative connotations and I don't think Keynes had those thoughts exactly) and not really time for self-actualizing.

But the economic problem of humans could only really be solved if we satisfied some conditions such as controlling population, no unnecessary wars, and coming to terms with technological unemployment.
There are changes in other spheres too which we must expect to come. When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possession -as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life -will be recognized for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease. All kinds of social customs and economic practices, affecting the distribution of wealth and of economic rewards and penalties, which we now maintain at all costs, however distasteful and unjust they may be in themselves, because they are tremendously useful in promoting the accumulation of capital, we shall then be free, at last, to discard.
IOW, money should just be a tool.

But anyway my thought was trending that I don't think we can solve the economic problem for everyone. Like the possibility certainly exits; but we suffer as a collective species too much moral problems this century. The information age hasn't started off very kind. At least not this century. In the aggregate, too many problems (i.e climate change, housing costs, healthcare costs) but we can certainly solve the "economic problem" for ourselves by adjusting our own values.

This forum is proof enough of that already.

User avatar
Slevin
Posts: 626
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2015 7:44 pm
Location: Sonoma County

Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Slevin »

Lemur wrote:
Sun Apr 10, 2022 1:25 pm

But anyway my thought was trending that I don't think we can solve the economic problem for everyone. Like the possibility certainly exits; but we suffer as a collective species too much moral problems this century. The information age hasn't started off very kind. At least not this century. In the aggregate, too many problems (i.e climate change, housing costs, healthcare costs) but we can certainly solve the "economic problem" for ourselves by adjusting our own values.

This forum is proof enough of that already.
Long rambling opinion incoming.

I think there is a tinge of game acceptance (accepting the world as it is and saying it is unable to change so we should exploit this system only) here: the problem is massive, and a solution is definitely not reachable quickly, but I think we all still need to strive for it.

So IMO we push for the nonconsumerist / post consumer approach. Solve it at the local level, I.e. put on your own oxygen mask, then try and improve the baseline for everybody else. You need to be “well enough off” in the first place to even start trying to reach a place of non consumerism.

Jacob argues the bar is really low if you want to move and have a flexible approach to the big costs of life. Agreed. But that doesn’t help the wage worker who can barely make ends meet and doesn’t have the capability to sit down and find efficient solutions, or others who are already only barely scraping by in an already efficient manner. I.e. we have all been biased in a way that makes adaptability to ERE feasible.

So I think we need to try to shift the world to a place where everybody is a little more well off, while still acting in our current nonconsumer framework. We won’t solve all issues, especially in our lifetime, but we can definitely reduce the multifaceted faces of suffering, and maybe put things into a correctly scaling track where they can find acceptance and meaning and happiness in a nonconsumer lifestyle too.

Meta note: rest of this is just ideas we have implemented,
Unimportant to argument above.
Obviously I don’t own a country, so I have to find ways to try and personally effect that change with me own actions. For me, some of that will be pulling people towards the nonconsumer framework that has benefitted us so greatly. Then as a secondary step, when I do need to purchase goods (foods, veggies, random nonconsumables) I want to try and do it in a way that supports someone directly. Our household buys a lot of stuff from the farmers market (where I can meet the people growing the food and directly support them), Etsy/ Craigslist / fb marketplace for weird stuff (often supports a person directly, and often someone reselling used / vintage goods). Thirdly, since we can already live off a small fractional amount of one income, my partner devotes her time to working with nonprofits trying to improve food access + quality. It’s not enough, but we are trying to iteratively improve.

Our changes aren’t for everyone, they are just random examples that fit us. Overall we are looking for metasystem congruencies in ways that We can keep the ERE nonconsumer framework ideal in place, while working towards / on some of the meta issues of the time.

jacob
Site Admin
Posts: 15907
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
Contact:

Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by jacob »

These debates are always muddled by not making it explicit whether something is possible in theory or in practice.

Individuals ("I") can solve the economic problem in practice IFF (if and only if) they understand how the economic system works in theory while also understanding how it can be modified. That's a lot to ask from people who have been educated to regurgitate canned answers on a multiple choice test.

The economic bar is indeed low and therefore it is that understanding or lack thereof that is the limiting variable to behavioral change. When first world people "struggle financially" it is almost always due to an inability to understand how concepts like long division and negative numbers work as applied in practice to their own budget---that is, outside the box they've been trained to operate within. For example, a financial analyst may understand all the lingo for crafting complicated corporate balance sheets, yet remain completely oblivious in terms of applying the same "business ideas" to their own home budget because that is a different box. The analyst does not see the similarity in the principles between the two boxes and thus fail to transfer their understanding.

This lack of mental development (to put it bluntly) means that collectively ("we") can only solve the economic problem if there are enough people who have solved it individually for the more "simple-minded" to copy. Most people do not independently arrive at this level of behavior by understanding the economic system. They implicitly follow along and copy what others are doing(*) as part of the socialization process that teach us how to fit in. Other methods to change mass behavior would be advertising/psy-ops or regulation.

Advertising in particular was what sent humanity along its current path of maximizing lifetime consumption instead of lifetime leisure. See e.g. Borsodi's Age of Distribution which was written around the same time as Keynes's Letter.

(*) Even explaining the system is not enough. People have to spontaneously grasp the principles behind it and that is a huge ask. Most people are trained to do a job. Very few will spontaneously do a job based on being educated. As such the best "the we" can do is to give people oversimplified advice to at least get them in the right direction. Otherwise, "the we" will simply have to wait for more FI/ERE people to lead the way by example. We're currently at the point where ~0.5% of the population is pursuing some kind of FIRE. It takes about 8-10x as many before "we" all know someone.

User avatar
Lemur
Posts: 1612
Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2016 1:40 am
Location: USA

Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

@Slevin

Biased - maybe. I had a passing thought today that I’ve accumulated a lot of capital, and I haven’t had normal real world problems in such a long time that I have almost forgotten to see things from a “coming from nothing” perspective. As an example, I read some crazy stat somewhere that 40% of Americans or so don’t even have $1,000 in their savings account. It is difficult to conceive how one can even put themselves in that situation….And is ERE more difficult in a non-Western country? Maybe / Maybe not.

To play devils advocate, starting from nothing is not a bad place to learn non-consumerism from. It wasn’t that long ago I was a young enlisted military person who arrived at his 2nd duty station at $2k in the hole. I was just uneducated in both finance and life in general. Barely read a book in those days.

There is that whole saying though that we can lead people to water but can’t make them drink it. The solutions need to involve them making them believe that they chose to drink the water.

User avatar
Lemur
Posts: 1612
Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2016 1:40 am
Location: USA

Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

Just now seeing Jacob’s post - But agree with this. I did not believe early retirement was possible until I bumped into MMMs website in 2012. I also did not understand cash flow concepts until I read Rich Dad / Poor Dad. That was the first time I recall equating my take home pay to revenue, my bills as cost of living expenses, and the leftover cash as “net profits” to which I “reinvested into the business of Lemur.”

The ERE stuff came later but the point was yes - we need examples to follow! Movements need trailblazers…that takes some courage - being different is never easy. We’re programmed to not find ourselves in out groups.

Hence…be the change you want to see.

7Wannabe5
Posts: 9372
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@jacob: I don't think the inability to model your own lifestyle as a business is the limiting factor. After all, more businesses go bankrupt than individuals. I think what you meant to convey was the inability to model your lifestyle as the sort of business a value-oriented investor would likely pick to invest in. And that brings us round to the general concept of values, and the more critical problem being that most people don't necessarily want to predominantly inhabit the values most associated with a sound business within their own lifestyle. Simplest example possible being that most humans value "Love" and most businesses, no matter how sound, don't. IOW, if you ask the majority of humans to do a simple Values Clarification exercise in which they pick their top 5 current values from a list of 50 possible values, the overlap with the values associated with value-oriented investing or sound business model would be modest to minimal. The way to move most humans towards theses values is to empathize with whatever they currently value and convince them that "sound business values" will serve to support their more heartfelt values. Obviously, FIRE path empathizes with and supports humans highly motivated by Freedom, but what path would support somebody primarily motivated by Beauty, Family, Patriotism, Sex, or Curiosity?

jacob
Site Admin
Posts: 15907
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
Contact:

Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by jacob »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Mon Apr 11, 2022 8:50 am
@jacob: I don't think the inability to model your own lifestyle as a business is the limiting factor.
It was just an example. What I meant was that there is a general inability to translate lessons learned from one compartment (mental box, such as having an MBA) to another compartment. This is because for very many people the lessons are only learned (understood) at the mechanical level. As such someone with a business degree will often fail to apply what they've learned to problems outside their job just like a doctor may fail to apply what they know about health to their own behavior.

In ERE book terms, the majority only learn how to Compute or Calculate in 1 single field---other parts of life is still Copy and Compare. It's possible to walk someone through the thinking process outside of their box: "Here are the numbers you're looking for. This is where you add them. This is what you multiply with. Here's your answer." People understand what they're doing and how they're supposed to do it. Yet the "why" is lacking and as such it will never happen spontaneously (the last 2 ****CC in ERE book terms).

For example, consider paying taxes in the US.

Very many taxpayers understand their taxes entirely in terms of whether they owe or get a refund on April 15th. Refund good/owing bad is the depth of their understanding. They get upset if their refund has decreased compared to last year and even more upset if they owe. If one naively tries to explain that the tax bill is based on what has been withheld during the year, people will claim they understand... but still get upset if they don't get a refund. Then as a "fail-mode" (see Stoa2) you can simply ask them whether they prefer a bigger monthly "paycheck" or a bigger refund next year? Then adjust the withholding accordingly. You see what I mean? The principle that refund = taxes paid - taxes owed is completely lost on them despite this being a matter of subtraction. They would understand this in a school setting using a carefully boxed word-problem ... but the ability to hit the minus button on a calculator doesn't mean that they understand what minus means.

(It may be hard to accept that it's possible for adults to function at this level but it's true. The only reason many are capable of putting on pants is because they're familiar with pants. They'd be lost putting on different but previously unseen kinds of leg coverings, like e.g. a hakama.)

Those who do understand this will often say things like "withholding is a free loan to the government". They will be able to do the calculation. If they're meticulous, they'll be able to do their own taxes correctly. However, they'll still not understand more abstract concepts like marginal tax rates and complain how it's unfair they're now paying "28% in federal tax" because they're earning $2000 more this year. IOW, they understand each calculation, but they don't understand how the calculations go together (e.g. how brackets combine to an effective tax rate). This group comprises the majority of humanity. Upon having this explained they might realize that the 28% is only paid on the last bracket and that the amount of tax paid in this bracket is subject to ONE variable namely the amount of voluntary overtime they do. As such they may choose not to do the overtime since the hourly pay for overtime is less than they thought it was compared to the normal hours they work.

Insofar they also understand this [spontaneously] they may notice that tax rates on different kinds of income (e.g. earned, capital, business, or self-employed) are different. Again there may be complaints that this is "unfair". Insofar---big step---one can convince such people that they have some choice in how they make their money, ideas like FIRE become possible. This however requires integrating their increasing understanding of the tax system with other systems in their life such as how much they're spending and developing other sources of income. The higher their present mono-salary is, the less life-systems they have to change and integrate. This is why FIRE is easy-mode on high-salaries+average-lifestyle. The high salary essentially opens the possibility with "less thinking required".

The thing is someone could be an EA, CPA, or a CFP and understand all the intricacies of the tax code without ever putting the proverbial "two and two" together. IOW, it's possible to be a CPA and understand complicated corporate tax spreadsheets, and yet still not do any personal tax planning. I think most of the schooling system makes people particularly prone to this. Schooling creates finely honed cogs but almost deliberately never inform people about the machine itself. After the first 4 CCCC, there's a hard drop-off in terms of human understanding. The world is only capable of functioning at the complicated level that it does because a tiny minority has been capable of setting up the systems (the machine) that the cogs can operate in. The US tax code is the same way. It's both beautiful and terrible at the same time. It basically says that if you're smart enough to take advantage of it, you're smart enough to keep a lot more of your money... the presumption being that maybe you'll spend it better than the government. Unfortunately, this does not prevent phenomena like corruption and people with more money than sense hiring people to do the planning for them.

Anyway... this was just an example.

7Wannabe5
Posts: 9372
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

“jacob” wrote: This is because for very many people the lessons are only learned (understood) at the mechanical level. As such someone with a business degree will often fail to apply what they've learned to problems outside their job just like a doctor may fail to apply what they know about health to their own behavior.
This may be true, but I think it is more often the case that these sort of failures are due to the relative ease of entering into emotionally objective perspective in relationship to problems that are not our own. If you can’t imagine being in the position of having less than $1000 in savings account, then you can’t inhabit any of the very many emotional landscapes that may include wide variety of carrots and sticks that are more strongly felt than lack of adequate emergency fund. It’s like when I am attempting to teach math to adolescents, but their social needs conflict strongly with their desire for success with their schoolwork. The doctor is smoking a cigarette on the sidewalk in front of the hospital, even though she knows damn well the objective downside, because she just watched 3 year old patient die, her new lover hasn’t responded to her texts, she slept like crap last night, the gray sleet is falling and the planet is burning up, and...aaargh, aaaah...the craving.

User avatar
Lemur
Posts: 1612
Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2016 1:40 am
Location: USA

Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

Mid month updates and thoughts

1.) Negative $50k in Unrealized Losses. Half of which is just my stake in SOFI. Guess I'll be bag holding this for quite a while - I do expect this to go back up eventually or maybe I'll luck out and SOFI will become a buyout target and I can breakeven if the purchase premium is good enough. I've slowly been using some after-tax dollars to average down.

2.) My new position in the government is excellent. I'm back to being basically just a worker bee - expectations are training and what/not and becoming a SME over some software scripting over the next 1-2 years. Responsibilities will increase one day I'm sure but it feels great to just have work be work and not having ruminating thoughts of my occupation past 5pm or at night when I'm trying to sleep. This is so far turning out to be an excellent decision. I feel as if I can truly coast out the rest of the so called "accumulation phase."

3.) Finished this fiction book I was reading and now reading "Philosophers: Their Lives and Works." https://www.amazon.com/Philosophers-The ... 1465482032 I wanted to find a book that just did a brief overview of all the big names throughout history from ancient times such as Socrates, Epicurus, Aristotle, etc. to modern times such as Noam Chomsky, Jean Baudrillard, and Slavoj Zizek. I also have "The Importance of Living" by Li Yutang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lin_Yutang and "The Worm at the Core" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory by Sheldon Solomon and others coming in as well. All library books with the latter two I had to request from the State Library as my local library doesn't have much of a selection.

4.) I weighed 175lbs last Saturday so I'm down 22 pounds or so since the start of the year. 10 more lbs to go. Starting to see my top abdominal muscles. "Dad Bod" is just an excuse 8-) . My method described in one sentence is really simple: track (free Lose It app) and eat calories at basal metabolic weight (bodyweight x 11 for male or x 10 for female) multiplied by 1.1 to account for the thermic effect of food + increase activity with 10k steps a day (free steps app with iPhone) + workout 3x a week. Real simple. These targets need to be hit everyday. More information: https://bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/ ... e-calories

5.) Can't help but continuing to read about the casualties of war in the Russia-Ukraine War and the side effects of that is some gut-wrenching stuff. I could've been born anywhere (North Korea, Myanmar, Syria, Israel/Palestine border, bad parts of Manila, etc.) but I'm damn lucky to be born on United States soil...political turmoil here is increasing yes but nothing compared to what other citizens of the world have been going through. No this does not minimize one own personal problems but I do find that these thoughts can help put our own problems into perspective.

6.) I asked myself recently what am I trying to achieve with the philosophy rabbit-hole as of late. I don't have a single answer. I've built reading into my system of life as a free hobby. To gain better perspectives. To question the ways in which our world operates. To question why I think what I think. I'm also big on established routines - especially ones that can establish habits and move towards long-term goals. I find a lot of freedom in that actually via the elimination of choices. Even scheduling what I call an open-world time, seemingly ironic, is a good idea. Time where nothing is planned at all.

7.) My eating routine has slowly been getting standardized because I track every calorie and by standardizing the routine, it takes me even less time to do the log. Breakfast has always been 2 cups of whole wheat cereal + 2 cups of skim milk + greek yogurt. Lunch has been a cup or 2 of lentils/beans with a cup of rice. Dinner is usually whatever my Spouse cooks but usually some type of meat with vegetables. Snacks are fruit or the occasional junk food at a small quantity - because life is too short to not have some goodies :D . Though I will admit to having done OCD like walking to make up for the occasional over-eating. I like to call my mental method of eating to be "rigidly-flexible." Adhering to the law of thermodynamics but not aiming for perfection.

8.) Speaking of which - walking is something else I've come to enjoy. Especially early in the morning when all you hear is birds, no cars on the road, and it is just yourself with your thoughts or maybe a podcast.

9.) Once my paychecks start being standardized and I know exactly how much I'm paying in taxes and the like, would be interesting to see exactly where the dollars are falling.

User avatar
Lemur
Posts: 1612
Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2016 1:40 am
Location: USA

Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

1.) What the kids call "vibes" https://youtu.be/RBtlPT23PTM

2.) So much fear so much fear. I'm just gonna keep buying equities. I love sales. Still accumulating anyway. I fully expect net-worth to just bounce around in the $500k-$600k range in the foreseeable future. Is what it is.

3.) Debating whether to use HSA for healthcare costs now (got some check-ups and dental appointments coming up) or save receipts and reimburse in the future. The latter makes more financial sense technically (letting tax free dollars grow and withdraw in the future) but part of me just wants to use the HSA as it was "intended." Not sure yet.

4.) Brother and his Spouse & 2 kids are likely going to end up living with us again due to ongoing family dramas that will never be solved. For those who've not kept up with my journal - My spouse and I live with my Sister (who owns the 4 bedroom / 2 bathroom home) and we split bills in half while I additionally keep up lawn care + occasional repairs. We rent the basement. My brother and his spouse + kids lived with us last year for a few months after they had to leave Colorado and it was overall not a great experience...

The short story is my brother was kicked out of the house of his Spouse's stepfather where they've currently been living almost a year now since they last left our place. I'm sure something was boiling here for a long-time anyway - my Brother + Spouse are very stressful to live with! They're not bad people per say but just very dysfunctional together and lack boundaries and obvious social skills....

If it were me, I wouldn't have even let them move in. They never would've thought of this as an option. May sound cold but is what it is - I generally don't believe in setting myself on fire to keep others warm. I would rather teach one how to light their own fires if they're willing to listen. My Sister on the other hand is a bleeding heart so that is how this sort of thing keeps happening.

Anyhow, he ends up here at night with his 2 kids and clothes as his Spouse works at night. They're also getting divorced (supposedly for like the 7th time anyway) but my Brother has actually made plans this time around to move out of state for graduate school this fall, got his own car...he is pretty serious. Just scared to push the divorce papers because the Spouse is Bipolar / confirmed Borderline Personality Disorder and is an emotional ticking time bomb. Neither have a dollar to their names. Whole thing is a mess. And geez...not looking forward to this experience again.... It turns out 2 INTJs (Brother and I) can get along quite well but can also clash just as hard too. You ever want to see what happens when a rational discussion turns into a condescending battle? It is not fun for either party lol. See my brother tends to be a bit higher in neuroticism (due to many underlying causes such as above) so I've learned when it is time to just walk away and "continue this discussion when your more rational side is leading from the front." It gets ironic sometimes because my brother is a studying neuroscience researcher, he is very book smart, high IQ, great working memory - but socially his life is an absolute mess and he makes terrible life decisions routinely ... Like my sister says "our little brother is the smartest dumb person ever...." Anyhow, I try to think positive the best I can despite the more stressful living situation. I acknowledge the fact that me giving unsolicited advice is not welcome (won't be followed through anyway) and really the most I can do is just listen :idea: and preserve my own sanity.

There is some talk of my Brother heading off to graduate school while his Spouse / Kids move back to Colorado where her family resides...Crossing my fingers on that one to be honest.

5.) Its nice to be indifferent about work as opposed to being in a constant state of stress and having existential crises. I am officially at a place in my life now where I do not chase promotions, responsibilities, salaries, etc. Clock in, do my time and good work, and clock out. Return to life. For the rest of my accumulation phase, I expect to be mentally coasting. Happiness and contentment is chosen now. I need to figure out in these next 3 years what I want to retire to as I am no longer trying to retire just to "escape" per say.

6.) The living situation will once again have an effect on my Spouse and "US" as a whole so gonna have to navigate this one again. Previously I swore if we ended up in this situation again we would look to moving... :? But real estate prices are just insanity right now, my Spouse also does not want to rent, and my job is talking about some sort of return to office deal next fall (one day a week) so a lot of variables to juggle and think through. Options feel limited at the moment. Need to see how point 4 plays out over the coming weeks.

Sometimes I wonder why I post about this stuff despite it feeling a bit personal (even though I am anonymous lol) but I feel it is important to highlight for the FIRE/ERE journey for the readers...because it is a house hacking with a family member situation - its part of the building of social capital I take it. The savings rate is impacted. And I'm always interested in how other ERE's handle their particular situations (family members, elderly care, parents, divorces, relationships, etc.) so I have to return to the community.

Dave
Posts: 545
Joined: Fri Dec 19, 2014 1:42 pm

Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Dave »

I appreciate hearing about the family dynamics and how you handle them.

My wife and I are living with our parents (alternating every ~4-6 weeks) and it's definitely an adjustment from the standard nuclear family / couple living alone situation. For those of us who didn't grew up in such environments, it can be a real challenge to adjust to multigenerational/sibling living. I'm not yet sure if our situation will last long-term, but there are a lot of benefits across several dimensions (financial, environmental, social, etc.) that make it an option worth considering for folks interested in the sorts of lifestyles we see here. Hopefully some of our sharing can help highlight key areas to work on/thing about to make it work.

Hope the situation with your brother ends up going well!

User avatar
Lemur
Posts: 1612
Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2016 1:40 am
Location: USA

Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

Thanks Dave - I hope it works out too. For both their sakes.

I've this idealized vision that multigenerational living can actually work out really well. It has for for my Sister and I. We've split rent/bills since mid-2016 and it is a big part of why I've had a high savings rate. And we got to where we're today net-worth wise. I wouldn't trade that away one bit. It would work even better if you could split 3 ways and everyone has mutual understandings and agreements. It is even fun sometimes.

My Spouse is from the Philippines and comes from that culture where grandparents, aunts/uncles, siblings and their husbands/wives will share a house and people will come and go to different houses even. I asked my Spouse once who actually owns this house (like on the deed) and she literally could not answer the question. She said "I don't know, it is just the family house."

The more you split though the more complex things get. The practical problem is we humans are not rational actors....too much personality clashes even amongst family members. I saw on a documentary once a while ago somewhere in Africa that when someone makes it financially - almost always the first thing they do is purchase their own lot + dwelling for privacy. :lol:

This also reminds me of this whole "reversion to the mean" thing where America came out of WWII with heavy advantages over the economic world order. Why everyone else was rebuilding, we had the lucky instance of just growing and manufacturing everything. Like are we really meant for each and every person to have their own dwelling in a suburb?

Sister and I even discussed working out a long-term plan with my Brother + Spouse about doing a 3 way split (this was last year) ... unfortunately concluded that their personalities were just too toxic to deal with long-term. Last time they lived here they paid no rent because we were trying to encourage them to save money so they could get a deposit and small emergency fund to get their lives together elsewhere. It did not happen because they felt drugs and various oddities and random junk were more important. So that is what led to them having to be let go last time (to my brother's spouses' stepfather)...lines got drawn fast and things blew up.

What I learned from that experience - communication is an absolute must. We held our tongues too much last time in an effort to remain civil and avoid conflict. So it was basically like a kettle and things finally boiled over. It looks like my brother's spouse's step-father made the same mistake. My brother describe his outburst as "all of a sudden" and a total surprise. I responded "oh that wasn't sudden my dude, he has been boiling for a while. Want me to explain?" lol... This time around....already we've been much more upfront. Well I've been more upfront lol. My Sister can't handle conflict well so I've become that guy - but that drains my own energy but I've learned if I bring things up right away, I can nip things in the bud quickly.

One more point because I think Dave was on to something here...because if you grow up in a multigenerational family culture and everyone else around you shares that same situation - then not only do they have the skill to handle that but they also have the expectations that come with it. I.E. a toxic one in the bunch is just what everyone has to deal with and its more readily accepted. Every apple tree just has that bad apple. But also these cultures grow to have a natural check and balance system - called shaming or disowning for those members to keep them in line.... Vice versa if you grow up in a nuclear family / individualist culture. When someone moves in - you almost want them out and to figure it out. When I turned 18, my Mom said "you got 3 months" :o. Hence why I joined the military. In real life - whenever I was in the Philippines with my Spouse living with 10 people for weeks at a time - I often felt overwhelmed and claustrophobic even - like I felt trapped in a jungle constantly on alert. On the other hand, when my Spouse first moved to America with me - she felt that the average American lacks relationships, is bored and lonely, and even "cruel" towards family members.

Our expectation is that everyone, individuals, makes a living for themselves. In my Spouse's country, the expectation is that everyone makes a living for the sake of each other. I asked my Spouse once how all the people in one roof split the bills. Like does everyone contribute a certain specified amount each month? Again no straight answer - the answer was "whoever happens to have money in their pockets gets the food for the day." Sometimes the electricity bill will get passed around informally. I couldn't imagine living in that type of situation! Would go crazy :lol: . My Spouse will acknowledge a certain downside to this called "crabs in a bucket" if one family member starts doing really well - at least we individualists don't have to deal with that. We reap what we sow more often.

MBBboy
Posts: 212
Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2022 12:11 pm

Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by MBBboy »

Thanks for sharing Lemur, and good luck with round 2 of the "invasion". Is there any sort of expiration date / term that's been communicated? Understand that with your sister, even if there WAS one it may not be enforced, but could still be useful.

This is the kind of situation I wouldn't be able to abide, and have spent years planting seeds and defensive statements in advance to make sure that my wife's family understands there is no safe haven here. Long term psyops lol.

User avatar
Lemur
Posts: 1612
Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2016 1:40 am
Location: USA

Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

Monthly Update

April 29, 2022

Net-worth:
$513k (Down $47k) :o Think that is a 1 month record.

Continuing my push to sell all individual stock positions and return to index funds. This is a process that might take months to years depending on market recovery but I'm confident all of them will return to cost basis in the long-run. I've 5 stocks left with target price I'm trying to sell at: AMD $130.00, JPM $165.00, MU $95.00, SOFI $15.50, and V $230.00. Was able to get rid of PLUG this month and break-even and push the money towards my allocation: 60% VTI, 30% VXUS, 5% BND, and 5% BNDX.

I'm still adding to my SOFI position however...I might hold on to this one for a little while longer. 8-) Their earnings report is coming up May 10 and I'll be reading the 10-Q in full again. They've done a lot since last quarter - bought out Technisys, Galileo, and even acquired a bank charter. Website traffic is up and they're offering competitive APY rates for checking/savings accounts. Membership continues to grow. It is possible I am holding on to a multi-bagger fintech.

It is also possible I am holding on to an overvalued SPAC dud that will never recover from its share dilution and negative free cash flows and end up in a takeover that does not go in my direction (sold for pennies on the dollar) while management carves out whatever wealth it can before they leave.

Remains to be seen but one of the appeals for holding and not selling is that if I'm right: I am pushed up into 3-4% SWR milestone. If I'm wrong ....well I'm already wrong and down nearly 70% on cost-basis :lol: so might as well hold and reduce cost basis. Every paycheck I am adding 100-200 shares or so after maxing out everything else and I am reducing cost basis per share by $0.15-$0.30 each time ...

Physical Health / Diet: Continuing with the health habits. I am down from 177lbs to 175.2lbs. End goal is 165 pounds. I hit my 10k step walking goal each day this month:

Image

Calorie goal was hit or miss...on the days I missed I increased walking. Now I'm getting fairly lean and can see my abdominal muscles (4 of them at least) in the morning already so ... hunger is definitely up.

Mental Health: Good as it is ever been. My Spouse is not doing well on the other hand. She is depressed ever since she returned home (misses family) and to add on to that she has one friend that lost her pregnancy and another friend (29 years old) that found out she had cancer and is undergoing chemo. I haven't been able to give much useful advice. I've suggested that these things in her life are out of her control...like tried to advocate some form of stoicism but that didn't work. Then I figured my role here is to not do the guy thing and try to fix the problem but my job is to just listen and be there. That is really all I can do?

Though I've coerced her a bit to get out of bed and go walk with me at lunch and after work which has helped (exercise + vitamin D). But my Spouse is literally in bed 12-16 hours a day...Only gets up to cook/eat and ship a package for her work. I've always said in my journal that my Spouse is very resilient and mentally tough. She has been quite the rock over the years so I've not seen her in this state in quite a while and we've been married going on 8 years. So this is a reminder to always still intimate with your partners. Some people just hold things in for a while before they become too much. Upon further conversations - all the deaths lately and health diagnosis amongst close friends are kind of giving her a lot of anxieties.

Job: Best it has ever been...What a great decision so far. I haven't stressed about anything yet. All's well that ends well.

Gardening: Greens are coming up. I've to take a look at the gardening schedule for my zone and see what we can start planting in May.

Reading / Other: Picked up "The Importance of Living" by Lin Yutang at the library this month.

Goals: Nothing really. Keep up the good work myself. :D We will get in the 3-4% range soon enough. Maybe end of this year maybe next. idk. I'm in no rush as the milestone has not been crossing my mind. Be there for my Spouse.

2Birds1Stone
Posts: 1596
Joined: Thu Nov 19, 2015 11:20 am
Location: Earth

Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by 2Birds1Stone »

Trading halted on SOFI...."SoFi Stock Tumbles After Earnings Published Ahead of Schedule"

Doesn't look too good based on the numbers Barron's posted. I've been nibbling on this one too. So far it seems like a lost cause lol.

User avatar
Lemur
Posts: 1612
Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2016 1:40 am
Location: USA

Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

2Birds1Stone

I’ve never experienced anything like this. I am curious to dig through the 10-Q this weekend and listen in to the earnings call today.

I will keep buying at small amounts bi-weekly to bring my average down. I am hoping for either a mass reversal or a takeover that results in the acquiring company paying above asking. If not, long term holding it is anyway.

SOFI is still growing … but they really need to start profiting. The bank charter should help especially if we end up in a recession so SOFI can use deposits to buffer itself. I’ve a bad feeling about this leak though.

Bad news is this is definitely sunk cost fallacy. But with SOFI being now only 3.2% of our portfolio, I’ll just hold out and see if this thing is a loaded spring.

Post Reply