December 1, 2021
Net-worth:
$540k (Down $16k)
Spending was not tracked this month after my car parts and the Spouse Christmas shopping. Just threw my hands in the air and said okay lets just track next month. Holidays are always a killer. It was definitely one of the higher spending months in a long time.
I'm mostly concerned with getting these foods costs down. I made some headway. For one, fast food for me has been completely eradicated. If I want a junk food like fries, I make it myself. I've also come to really enjoy wheat pasta, finding ways to acquire free food or very cheap food (my grocery store has a closeout section that I was able to load up on Red Kidney Beans
) , oats, and also mix and matching staples. For instance, red kidney beans I typically eat with rice but they've also gone with spaghetti as a meat replacement. Leftovers can also be stir fried and mixed with veggies at any point.
Market is down due to COVID-19 Omicron variant. I keep catching a falling knife with Visa.
but I'm positive support will eventually build and it'll go back up but I've a lot of naked puts on these that I keep rolling. I am also sill tracking Nokia on an app, but sold in the interim to flow into Micron Technology - I have gotten impatient with the former and for the latter I feel the bullish sentiment here around growth rates for memory storage for cloud computing, artificial intelligence, etc. The risk here is DRAM prices taking a hit from competition with China & Samsung - that could hurt. So it is a leap of faith I'm taking that MU growth will outpace the bear case. We shall see. Surely I'll kick myself if Nokia finally starts waking up.
I really ought to reduce trading activity and keep my holds longer. For instance, I own Microsoft and Apple and I don't trade in and out of those or try covered calls or anything like that. Those have been very reliable.
Still it is good that I am 50% index funds. It allows me a comparison. I beat the market last year but I've lagged pretty bad this year. Overall a wash after taxes. My goal has never been to beat the market every year - more so to develop the skill necessary to learn what I need to do to keep returns >4% plus inflation - the required skill for financial independence in perpetuity. At one point I tried to develop an options trading system which actually worked out pretty well until I was bitten very hard in the tail.
But that old adage was true...no such thing as a free lunch and for the first time in a while I am once again questioning my methodologies.
Physical Health / Diet: Great. 2x a week of 100 pushups, 50 pull-ups, some planks, and lunges. Simple bodyweight work and I jog 1 hour every Sunday. It is getting cold though. No lower back pain for the first time in a long time....I've a chronic decade long injury here and for the past few weeks, I've felt no pain.
Mental Health: Great lately. I had a week off of work in November which was badly needed. I also only have to work about half of December before more PTO & Holidays
I've been exercising, losing weight, meditating, etc. I'm a happy hermit...I am in a philosophy rabbit hole at the moment as well. Specifically Friedrich Nietzsche, Epicurus, and now venturing into some of the transcendentalism beliefs such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Emerson.
One exercise I performed was actually journaling my beliefs and values and why I have those. I really wanted to dig into my own thinking. Like why do I value what I value? So I've this word document that is a solid 1400 words that outlines these values & beliefs. Sort of a personal code of values. I find when I'm troubled I can refer to this document or re-read it occasionally and make updates as I learn new things from the world.
Job: Okay as it is ever going to be
. There is a chance my replacement has been hired. It would take a novel for me to write out why I think that is and the political landscape of my project but there is a chance I could be off this project soon. The one that has given me existential crises since the start of this year. Looking forward to it but I'm still going to try my best to succeed - the grass is not always greener.
Gardening: None. Just keeping it up with the compost bin.
Reading / Other: Mentioned previously but I'm reading Beyond Good and Evil and Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Fredrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche is a bit of a tough read sometimes. I often times have to take his aphorisms and search philosophical commentary. I remember reading about Carl Jung's individuation process a few years ago - I may deep dive back into that one as well.
I'm also curious where the 21st century philosophy centers on? If the 1800s and early to mid 1900s have been defined by existentialism, what has post Freud produced since then?
Goals: None that I can think of. I'm just focused on living.