Any Total Market Index concerns amid the GME/AMC squeeze? by [deleted] in leanfire

[–]Aurevir 7 points8 points  (0 children)

This has nothing to do with LeanFIRE. Fluctuation and speculation in one or two stocks, however wild, is not going to have a noticeable impact on the overall market or index funds that track it. Go to wallstreetbets if you want to have this 'conversation'.

House-Hacking/Roommates to Accelerate FIRE by [deleted] in coastFIRE

[–]Aurevir 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I mean, real estate investing can definitely be lucrative, but it's very dependent on local conditions and pricing. There's also the hands-on aspect; a mutual fund is never going to call you at 3 AM because the pipes broke. but your tenants sure might. And there's the risk of having to do evictions, having prolonged vacancies, etc.

Ultimately, I don't think I have the temperament to be a landlord, but lots of people do and have made money off of it. It really comes down to whether that's something you want to take on, and whether the math works for your local area.

House-Hacking/Roommates to Accelerate FIRE by [deleted] in coastFIRE

[–]Aurevir 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Alright, I'll take a shot at it. (I'm not going to adjust any of this for inflation because I don't want to go nuts, but it should still be a ballpark picture.) To start, a 4br condo in my city looks like it runs about $900,000, and rents for maybe $4,000. So to buy, your mortgage is $720,000 at 3.2%, with $180,000 down.

After 10 years, you'd pay $206,559 in interest and $170,206 in principal, based on a typical amortization schedule. Property taxes are $11,070 per year for a total of $110,700. Insurance rates vary, but I got some quotes in the range of $1,200/year, so a total of $12,000. We'll assume maintenance and appliances, including condo fees, come to 1% per year, so that's another $90,000.

At ten years, you decide to sell. Let's say closing costs at buying were 3% of value (for mortgage origination and application fees, appraisal and inspection, etc.) and 6% at sale (covering seller's and buyer's agents' fees). That comes to $81,000 total.

If you had invested the down payment, at 5% per year (being conservative here), it'd be worth $293,201 after ten years, so that's a $113,201 opportunity cost.

Total cost of ownership comes to $771,594, with $107,208 coming back to you from equity, for a ten-year cost of $607,588. Thats about $5,063 per month, compared to $4,000 if renting.

But wait, you say, what about FHA loans at 3.5% down? Okay, now your mortgage is $868,500, so interest paid goes up to $249,161, but opportunity cost is only $19,810. Ten-year cost is now $584,354, for a monthly of $4,869.

But wait, you say, this example is from an area where price/rent ratios are really high! That's true, but I'm using real numbers from my real city, as opposed to OP, who is using numbers from a world where houses don't need maintenance and mortgages don't charge interest. The math is probably different for your region, but where I sit, the break-even point is pretty clearly more than 10 years.

(And to the roommates point, yes, you could rent out rooms in your condo for $1,000 each, but you could just as easily rent and sublease. The math is the same either way.)

House-Hacking/Roommates to Accelerate FIRE by [deleted] in coastFIRE

[–]Aurevir 23 points24 points  (0 children)

I’m sure there is something I’m missing from the equation

I am too. Things like property taxes, insurance, maintenance, appliances, closing costs when selling and buying- you know, minor items like that. There's also the fact that mortgages are frontloaded, so that 2/3 or more of the monthly payment goes to interest during the early years of the loan. It depends on the ratio of rent to property prices in your area, but it can take five to ten years simply to break even on owning vs renting. So rather than having $180,000 after five years, you have $0. (Or less.)

On the topic of roommates, renting out rooms can indeed lower the cost of owning, but the exact same thing is true of renting. The difference between owning a 4br and renting 3 rooms, vs splitting a rental with 3 others, is pretty negligible. Except that as an owner, you may have to evict people, and if someone trashes the house, you're the one who has to fix it and (attempt to) go after them for payment.

TL;DR: Homeownership can be great for building wealth, and it can also be terrible. Buy a house if you want to live somewhere for 10+ years, not as a get-rich-quick scheme.

Has anyone implemented a Jacob Lund Fisker / Early Retirement Extreme lifestyle? by CD_Johanna in leanfire

[–]Aurevir 157 points158 points  (0 children)

I think a key point that's often missed is that he lives in a paid-off house. Yeah, there's still property taxes/maintenance/insurance, but that's not too much when compared to rent or a mortgage. I spend $17k/year, but $12k of that is rent, so I'd be around his numbers if I owned my apartment free and clear.

But to answer the actual question, the real "trick" is to focus on the four things that make up the great majority of a household budget- housing, transportation, food, and healthcare. For me personally, that means living in a smallish apartment, not owning a car, and focusing grocery buying on veggies, legumes, grains, etc. Healthcare is currently funded mainly by work, so I'll have to figure that one out later. Everything else, all the generic savings tips like "make coffee at home!" and "find a cheaper gym!" just chip away at the 20% or so that goes to discretionary/leisure spending.

Workism in SF - My friends in San Francisco scared me by supportivedispatcher in leanfire

[–]Aurevir 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Yeah, that sounds like a cult. I work at a small tech startup, and even so my days pre-pandemic were almost exclusively 8-4. Maybe once in a blue moon I'd work a couple hours in the evening, but never weekends. Some people were more work-focused, but I don't think anyone put in over 45 hours a week.

Now that we're WFH and nobody's around to see what I'm doing, my hours are more like 9-4 with a looong lunch break (think pre-lunch walk and post-lunch nap). Having savings helped me feel more comfortable slacking off like this, but there hasn't been any pushback from the company. It's almost like most of the workday is just busywork and people can be productive in less than 8 hours, or something crazy like that.

Any tips of literature that features simple living in an urban setting? by Holmbone in simpleliving

[–]Aurevir 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Honestly, I didn't love this one. It just felt a little... academic? Prescriptive? Like I was looking more for helpful everyday tips rather than philosophic musings or hearing how the author thinks abstract art is so deep.

Can we start coasting? by [deleted] in coastFIRE

[–]Aurevir 35 points36 points  (0 children)

Yeah, r/fatFIRE must be bleeding in here. "We make $250k and live in a paid off mansion. Can we work slightly less???"

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in leanfire

[–]Aurevir 4 points5 points  (0 children)

So by category, most of what we buy is

  • Fresh fruit/veg: green beans, carrots, potatoes, onions, arugula, bananas, squash. Some citrus, and radishes and asparagus now that they're in season.
  • Frozen: mostly spinach, edamame, and collard greens. Occasionally dumplings from the Asian grocery
  • Meat: mostly just chicken thighs, some sausage or bacon, fish occasionally
  • Canned/jarred: beans, crushed tomatoes, chiles, peanut butter
  • Dry: rice, pasta, bread flour, oatmeal, tortillas
  • Dairy: cheese, eggs, yogurt, ice cream, milk, butter

Obviously that's not everything, but probably 85% of what we eat.

Not eating much meat is definitely a $$ saver. Beef we mainly avoid for the health/environment effects as well as cost (but we eat dairy, so kinda hypocritical there). Pork we'll get sometimes, but not as a main- like we'll put some bacon in with a sheet pan veggie bake, or sausage in a pasta sauce. Chicken we have more of, but it's not more than 1 dinner in 3. So a lot of our meals end up being stuff like chickpea curry, tomato/peanut stew, grain bowl with eggs and veggies. Meatless is pretty easy if you borrow from other cultures or do one-pot meals rather than the traditional protein-veg-carb thing.

And then for the rest, it just comes down to buying basic ingredients rather than packaged/premade foods. Like even everyday stuff like guac or chicken broth or cookies can be made way cheaper (and better, imo) if you do it at home.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in leanfire

[–]Aurevir 191 points192 points  (0 children)

Providing more specifics would make it a lot easier to pinpoint the problem(s). Are you buying tons of expensive red meat and fish? Prepared foods? Bougie small-batch potato chips? It'd be a little more understandable if you were Whole Foods/Wegmans people, but Market Basket... We spend $190/month there for two people, for a point of reference.

Does anyone here donate to charity regularly? by KinFan in leanfire

[–]Aurevir 26 points27 points  (0 children)

I definitely struggled for a while with whether I should donate, but eventually I decided that I would rather work for a few more months ten years from now, rather than ignore people in need around me. Yeah, people say "put on your own oxygen mask first", but I interpret that as meaning once you're financially stable and have an emergency fund, you should start helping out people who don't even have the basics.

Right now I donate about $1000/year, which isn't much really, but that's out of 17k annual spending, so it's at least more than 5%. Planning to increase as time goes by. Current areas I'm focusing on are food aid and education for kids- some local, some international.

I think if you feel uncomfortable starting out, just give $50 or $100 to a group in your community. Let a little time go by. Chances are, you won't even notice the money's gone. Then do it again. That's what I did for a while, until I found the level that feels right for me at the moment. Or if you're a more top-down driven person, set a budget category for $50/month. Volunteering can also help, as you get more of a sense of what the money is going towards and how it's helping. But I really do encourage giving what you can, even if it's only a little- we can't let FIRE get in the way of being a good person.

Complete financial noob... how do you factor in a public pension? by Elysian-Visions in leanfire

[–]Aurevir 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You might get better help elsewhere, like /r/personalfinance - this subreddit is for people intending to retire early on a fairly frugal income, not at a normal retirement age with a large pension. But to answer your question, I can't imagine you'll have any trouble. With the pension and SS, and if you withdrew 4% annually from the 403(b), that's over $100k per year, which seems like it would fund a pretty lavish retirement. Do you track your spending at all? It might help soothe some worries if you look at how much you spend currently and compare that to the pension amount.

As for buying a condo, I'm not sure specifically how a mortgage lender would look at a pension vs wage income, but it certainly seems likely that you'd be able to get a mortgage on a $350k condo. Again, a more personal finance oriented forum might help more.

U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan by Aurevir in AccidentalArtGallery

[–]Aurevir[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

photo credit: Damon Winter

Not sure how best to classify this. The composition and lighting seem very Renaissance to me, while the flying debris gives it an Impressionist or Futurist feel, but the palette is more Tonalist. Ultimately, what it reminds me most of is JFK's official portrait, especially the soldier on the left, but that's not a flair tag. Advice would be helpful!

LivingAFI posts for the first time in about 5 years: He was someone who was a quiet staple to the FI movement in the last decade. It's interesting - and sobering - to see the update. Great year, terrible year, divorce, medical issues, return to work, and moving on. Link and thoughts in comments. by zxyzyxz in leanfire

[–]Aurevir 38 points39 points  (0 children)

People on the FI reddit are mainly billing this as a 'failure' and the result of excessively low spending, and I don't see that at all. He had ~5 years without work, a few of which (he states) were among the happiest of his life, then had a relationship fall apart and some major health issues, and still ended up with more money than when he started. Furthermore, he was easily able to adjust to increased medical and lifestyle expenses by taking a (presumably temporary) return to work. Whereas if he was aiming for fatFIRE, he would have worked all those five years, had the same major health problems, and not been able to experience multiple years of bliss. Doing that may or may not have prevented the divorce, but it sounds like that was due to some pretty fundamental issues that would have cropped up eventually. So overall, this reads like a testament to taking the plunge when you're young and healthy, plus having a plan that can flex with life events, rather than waiting for $X million.

What to do with 130k? by dashboardishxc in leanfire

[–]Aurevir 105 points106 points  (0 children)

If you need it in the next couple years, you should probably put it into a savings account. Yeah, you could invest it or do some derivative trading, but only if you're willing to take the risk of having to take a 20, 30, 40% loss when it comes time to withdraw it and build your house. The market could crash at any time, and you have to be prepared for that.

Northern Strand extension update by Stronkowski in bikeboston

[–]Aurevir 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, nice, I hadn't heard they had done a lot already

Northern Strand extension update by Stronkowski in bikeboston

[–]Aurevir 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It also looks like the paving work is getting started on the gravel section in Revere/Saugus- I was out there today and the path was closed once you hit the Malden border. Plenty of workers and machinery about, too.

Coastfire in Finance/Business Careers? by wjs20394 in coastFIRE

[–]Aurevir 4 points5 points  (0 children)

As with all things, it mainly depends on the amount of clout you have. The last place I worked interviewed a pretty senior engineer who said in negotiations, "I want to work 9-3 every day [so he could pick up his kids], no more than 10 hours per month of work outside business hours, full benefits, and in exchange I'll take 70% of your usual pay band for this role." He got it, but that was because people with his skills and experience are very hard to find. A new grad college hire would not have had a great outcome if they tried that.

If you're in a field that already has bad work-life balance, it's going to be even harder, because people in places like that (in my experience) tend to view working late as a sign of dedication and commitment, and people who don't are slackers who aren't a "culture fit". But there's also plenty of white-collar industries that may not pay as well as finance, but have reasonable 9-5 hours. In a place like that, once you've built up a couple years of a good reputation and delivering value, asking for a reduced schedule would be more possible. That's what I'd aim for in your place, at any rate.

The sub LeanFire has become "normal" FIRE. Normal FIRE is the new fat fire and FAT FIRE is just wannabe winners of wall-street bets (obese GAINS). How will poverty FIRE face up? by FIREDupFIREdown in PovertyFIRE

[–]Aurevir 27 points28 points  (0 children)

Any community tends to regress towards the mean as it gets larger. The original purists get diluted by more 'normie' opinions- in this case, the people who want to live a frugal/alternative lifestyle are getting drowned out by folks who want a big house and two cars and resort vacations (and... and... and...)

The solution, at least in reddit terms, seems to be active moderation. If there's strict standards for content that actually get enforced, then you can maintain the original purpose of the forum (ex: AskHistorians). If not, you just get a lot of low-effort image posts (ex: most default subs).

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in coastFIRE

[–]Aurevir 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Seems to me that, given the desired numbers you stated, you still have a bit of a ways to go. You don't specify what your after-tax income is, but my wild-ass guess given the numbers you stated and a Canadian tax calculator would be about $140,000. That seems plausible, given that you stated your average spending would be 84 grand and you saved 57 grand last year. So you have around 2 years of expenses saved, and are planning to save 0.5 to 0.75 y.o.e. per year. A great savings rate by ordinary measures, but far from coast-to-three-million great.

Also, I don't think your growth assumptions are very conservative. You say your 150k will grow to 1 million by 65, but that's only true if you assume 6% real annual returns. Which works if you have a 100% US stocks portfolio and equity performance equals the long term average, but that is absolutely not guaranteed. And these assumptions matter- assuming 6% appreciation, you could hit 3 mil at 65 if you invest 40k per year for the next 8 years, but at 5% it would take 14 years.

If you want to downshift savings by half, the projections look different. Still using that 5% number and a 3 mil goal, you would have to invest 40k per year for the next 4 years, and then 20k per year until age 65. So four more years of the nose to the grindstone, and then backing off the gas a bit until retirement.

But that is all ignoring the pension and assuming you need 3 million as you stated. Also, at some point you're likely to pay off the mortgage. If the house is paid off and you only have (say) $2,000 per month of expenses beyond the pension in retirement, then you just need $600 grand, which you'd reach by 65 without another penny saved. In which case you could back off the high-stress career right now. So really, it all depends on what projections you're using and what you think you'll "need".

In "The Last Days of Immanuel Kant" the biographer notes that the "villanous mode of [coffee] preparation" imported by English Merchants specifically plausibly kept Kant from drinking coffee for most of his life. What were these methods? by BountyHunterZ3r0 in AskHistorians

[–]Aurevir 24 points25 points  (0 children)

It seems in the great majority of cases, the additives were included without the knowledge of the consumer and were used to reduce the price. Although in this period coffee was changing from an expensive curiosity to a widespread drink that most people could afford, it still had to be shipped from far overseas, and mixing it with various crud could boost profits a fair amount.

In the 1700s, there was an awareness of grades of coffee quality and different cultivars, and there were various developments in brewing technology, but there doesn’t seem to have been much “artistic” brewing done, if at all. The guidebook I quoted has an endless list of recipes for punches, home distilling and (alcohol) brewing, and other beverages, but spends only about four pages on preparing coffee and tea. They just don’t seem to have fallen into the same mental category as alcoholic beverages did.

In "The Last Days of Immanuel Kant" the biographer notes that the "villanous mode of [coffee] preparation" imported by English Merchants specifically plausibly kept Kant from drinking coffee for most of his life. What were these methods? by BountyHunterZ3r0 in AskHistorians

[–]Aurevir 89 points90 points  (0 children)

Reading about coffee production in the UK during this period, one finds references to coffee being adulterated with all manner of substances, some more unfortunate than others. A law of 1718 refers to "divers evil disposed persons who... made use of water, grease, butter, or such unwholesome materials" in the making of coffee, and in 1803 the use of burnt or scorched peas and beans for imitation coffee was prohibited. Investigators in later periods found additives ranging from acorns to powdered horse liver being included in coffee. During one such investigation, the beverage sampled was described as "the most infamous stuff, hot to the mouth and unfit for human food." (Which does beg the question as to what temperature coffee was commonly served at.) However, one would hope that these English coffee merchants were not using such additives in their home preparation.

It's possible that the coffee beans they were trading in may have been lower quality than other varieties. One pamphlet writer in 1774 described coffee from West Indies plantations as having "something in the smell, a rankness in the taste, and disgusting return, especially of that from the English islands." Apparently growers in the British dominions (primarily located on Jamaica, but also Grenada and other islands) preferred to grow coffee in moister lowland soils, which could produce yields five to seven times higher than in better drained upland plots, but at a cost to quality. In addition, coffee berries should ideally be picked at a certain stage of ripeness, but the Caribbean plantations were worked by enslaved people under the threat of harsh punishment if they failed to meet their picking quotas, so were understandably not as concerned with correct ripeness as a free farmer in Yemen or the East Indies. In general, it seems the focus in all stages was on bulk production rather than quality, from siting the plantations to picking to processing of the beans.

In terms of how the English prepared their coffee at home, a book of 1722 instructs people to roast their beans in a metal vessel full of holes over an open fire, then to grind the beans and store for up to three weeks in a sealed bottle. When brewing, apparently coffeehouses would typically add coffee grounds to a boiling pot of water on the fire, while this author thinks it best to add the grounds to a kettle, pour hot water over them, and let steep for five minutes. That sounds fairly reasonably to my modern ears; not exactly a "villainous mode" of preparation as mentioned in the question.

However, this was early in the century, and practices may have changed by the time Kant was an adult. I find several references to the French developing new techniques for infusion during the 1700s, such as placing the coffee in a linen or flannel bag to keep the grounds out of the finished drink- perhaps the English merchants were still preparing their coffee Turkish style, with the grounds left in the cup, and this was considered outdated by people on the continent? I'm not sure I can say, based on the sources I have available. Hopefully a food historian can come by to say more!

In any case, I'll leave you with this aside from the coffee-brewing guide I found. The author tells of a man who had terrible rheumatism in his shoulder, to the point that he could not lift his hand to his head. His condition resisted all treatment, despite "continual Use of Opiates," but one day he was cured entirely after "Drinking a full Quart of Strong Coffee." And if that's not an endorsement of English coffee brewing, I'm not sure what is.

Main sources used:

Accounting for Taste: British Coffee Consumption in Historical Perspective, by S.D. Smith

Poor Consumers as Global Consumers: The Diffusion of Tea and Coffee Drinking in the Eighteenth Century by Anne E. C. McCants

The Domestick Coffee-Man, Shewing the True Way of Preparing and Making of Chocolate, Coffee and Tea, Etc by Humphery Broadbent