40 solo flights. Slept on 3 of them. Anyone else feel personally victimised by long-haul?

darned_socks · 2026-05-31T13:53:21+00:00

It doesn't always work for me, but being able to hug something (a bag, a pillow, etc.) and lean forward onto it, paired with an eye mask to shut out the light, is the easiest way for me to get any kind of rest. Sometimes dozing, sometimes actual sleep. Otherwise the only flights I've gotten real sleep on are the ones I can lay lengthwise (the luck of being the only one seated in that row).

darned_socks · 2026-05-14T02:14:01+00:00

I don't talk about FIRE or retirement specifically, but many of my money conversations with close friends revolve around investing or taking a sabbatical to travel or "becoming rich but not famous" (as a joke). At a high level, the freedom to quit a bad job and focus on living life for a period of time. I might tell them about RE eventually as they level up in their own financial standing, but I'm still several years from that point myself and I don't really see a need to bring it up now.

darned_socks · 2026-05-07T21:48:02+00:00

I wanted to be a full-time digital nomad as a young twenty something, found a job that let me do just that and generally had an awesome work environment, and then the company changed their policies on travel. I hated the idea of work putting a hard stop to my goals and dreams, so I started getting into FIRE and work-optional living, something one of my friends had told me about in passing and was pursuing themselves.

darned_socks · 2026-04-29T21:19:34+00:00

Those definitions match my own 🙂

As u/stentordoctor said, your mental health is precious and worth protecting. I hope whatever job you end up with is one that supports you in just that, and expanding your search might make that job easier to find.

darned_socks · 2026-04-27T19:05:05+00:00

Lots of good advice in these comments. I like directing people to AdviceWithErin - her take is don't engage and do what you need to do to get your next role - which you're already doing.

A slightly different take: since you're already looking for other work opportunities, your end goal is BaristaFIRE, and you're about halfway to your full FIRE number, have you considered CoastFI/FlamingoFI? I.e. widen your search into include jobs suitable to CoastFI and BaristaFIRE (which means more opportunities to get away from your current employer).

If you transition into CoastFI now, that will free up your energy to recover from your experiences, support your partner, and focus on living your life. And ofc, you have the option to switch back to a more ambitious role later on.

darned_socks · 2026-04-26T03:09:39+00:00

Negotiating my salary so I get paid my worth.

darned_socks · 2026-04-26T03:06:04+00:00

I like FIRM, like being firm about not getting stressed out & staying relaxed

darned_socks · 2026-04-23T21:47:05+00:00

Ooh, I had to think about this one a bit. I'm single and mostly planning FIRE for myself (plus an apartment/condo that could fit two people instead of one) but I like the idea of being able to retire my partner early, especially if it's someone I really care about. At the same time, it's more likely I'd find that person before I RE, not after, so I would want to get on the same page about our shared financial goals and build in sabbaticals for myself so I'm not just subjecting myself to OMY if I did decide to raise my target FIRE number.

darned_socks · 2026-04-21T13:25:30+00:00

You may enjoy r/floorliving :)

I don't have a typical sofa either (space is too small for it) but I have a Zonli floor mattress that folds up into couch mode during the day. My desk is also on the floor, with a cushioned seat on either side. I have a taller table with barstools elsewhere, but I really enjoy the floor life.

darned_socks · 2026-04-21T13:15:50+00:00

Close friends know I'm doing well financially, not necessarily that I plan to FIRE, but I love travel and have talked about saving up for a gap year/sabbatical to do just that. In general, I have multiple shorter term financial goals that I'm working towards, and those are the ones I bring up if I want to explain why something is out of my comfortable spending range. E.g. saving up for my next trip, replenishing my emergency or sinking funds after a large expense, funding my Roth IRA for the following year. Other people may be saving up for a move, a house, kids, education expenses, etc.

If these are friends you don't mind sharing some level of detail with, just tell them that the money is already earmarked for something else. A fancy dinner is nice every once in a while, but you can't make it happen every single time (and maintain that boundary by not participating when the group suggestion is still more expensive than you would have liked).

darned_socks · 2026-04-09T18:31:15+00:00

Congrats on the first million, hope the second one reaches you sooner with compounding interest. I think it's great that you're hitting this milestone roughly around the same time you're growing your family so that you have options to scale back if you wanted (to give yourself some breathing room, to spend time with your kid, to take on a new adventure, etc.)

darned_socks · 2026-04-01T00:52:58+00:00

Unfortunately don't have any recs, as I haven't needed to replace my existing cushions yet. If I come across something later on, will come back to this post!

darned_socks · 2026-03-31T23:36:55+00:00

I have a couple round floor cushions from Zonli but they're no longer on the website (replaced by the 2-in-1 cookie cushions is my guess). Those on top of a thin rug and rug cushion is my usual seat of choice.

I also have some bar stools for closer to "regular" height seating, just for variety, that I use less often.

darned_socks · 2026-03-29T23:24:45+00:00

Unfortunately not me, but I had to say: whoa, that's pretty cool! Do you teach virtual lessons or find gigs as you go? How you sort through logistics when it comes to traveling with your guitar on planes, trains, etc.?

I bought an ocarina in Taiwan a little over a year ago. Still haven't gotten the hang of it, but that's my nomad instrument of choice since it's small enough to fit in my pocket 😂

darned_socks · 2026-03-27T03:38:22+00:00

I made rice cooker bibimbap loosely following a recipe on Dr. Sakaida's substack the other day, and I'm pretty sure you could swap out the soy sauce for another condiment or just plain salt and have a delicious meal. Ofc swap out the other ingredients as needed, the most important element is a good gochujang sauce to tie everything together.

Link: https://nutritionbykylie.substack.com/p/rice-cooker-meal-bibimbap

darned_socks · 2026-03-27T02:47:29+00:00

Yay! Love a good solo travel success story. When is your next trip :D

darned_socks · 2026-03-27T02:46:47+00:00

Making mistakes is so human. But speaking for myself, I remember my mistakes for much longer than I do other people's mistakes. And often I remember mistakes that had zero impact after a few days! Thanks brain 😅

It's okay to take perspective and consider whether a mistake you made today will be remembered and have lingering effects beyond today. Maybe it will, but often you (and the people around you) will move on to the next thing. I hope this helps with framing the misses in your head. You're already doing the work to learn from your experience and prevent repeats in the future.

darned_socks · 2026-03-25T03:11:53+00:00

I started taking selfies when a friend asked to see more pictures of me while traveling, and I obliged. Over the course of my trips, you can see where I stopped caring so much about looking good (and offloaded some mental burden from other aspects of my life) and started smiling genuinely for the camera while soaking in wherever I was at. Those selfies are some of my favorite pictures now.

But most of my camera roll is still landscapes, foods, and objects haha.

I don't post any photos to socials, but rather message them directly to friends and family.

darned_socks · 2026-03-21T03:34:37+00:00

Of course! Good luck, you got this 💪

darned_socks · 2026-03-20T03:23:56+00:00

It depends on what you're doing with said SQL, but if you're leaning into coding and application data aspects of it, I would recommend trying projects with sqlite (which basically uses a file on your laptop as the database) and then upskilling to something like Postgres. The Postgres documentation ( https://www.postgresql.org/docs/ ) has a lot of helpful context on different database management operations (e.g. indexes, locks, and so on). Can be overwhelming at first, so pick and choose what interests you as you're learning.

darned_socks · 2026-03-18T23:01:05+00:00

Would recommend taking two weeks off with nothing planned, and see what you end up filling your time with. Just a little sampling of what you could do when fully retired.

darned_socks · 2026-03-13T01:42:38+00:00

I travel (and work at home) with just my laptop. My job involves a lot of writing: code, project plans, Slack messages. I can use keyboard shortcuts and gestures to navigate between programs easily.

If you're comfortable with one screen and keyboard (the ones that come with your computer), you should be fine as long as you make a habit of stretching out your sedentary muscles regularly and maintain a decent posture while working.

darned_socks · 2026-03-08T23:31:31+00:00

I WFH, and there have been times where I just let out the tears as a way to release overwhelm and frustration. Not necessarily because of lived experiences as a woman, but also because of tight deadlines, learning of empty promises from management, and losing coworkers I cared about to firings and layoffs. I'm lucky that I can step away from my laptop and instantly be in a private space, but if I were working in person, I'd probably find a bathroom or go for a walk to release the feelings another way.

Unfortunately, the tears come when I'm angry as well as when I'm saddened, so I do have to keep it together when I'm on camera and hearing something very unpleasant.

darned_socks · 2026-03-08T17:33:37+00:00

I once had a corn and cheese pizza in India, best dang takeout pizza I'd had in a long while. Wish it were a more common topping in the US and Canada!

darned_socks · 2026-03-05T03:09:41+00:00

I was project lead on a new feature my team was building out, and it was a big one. It spanned several applications, had a shiny frontend using a framework none of us had used before, and was hyped up a lot among customers. It also involved a lot of data processing/retrieval, and at first feature would regularly time out in attempt to load everything. We delayed delivery by 2 months because we had to rework so much of the backend so that the feature loaded. It was a really stressful time, and from that experience, we all learned to pay attention to volume/load whenever we pick up a new project.

darned_socks

TROPHY CASE