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surc posted:You are totally right. I was using Yosemite in an attempt to over-estimate, but I was basing this off park entrance fees, not the actual cost of booking camping. I was surprised it was that low, but who am I to argue with math? You should probably make a thread because this is a bit more in depth than a general discussion of RV/van living as an FI option.
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Jun 27, 2015 15:24
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tuyop posted:You should probably make a thread because this is a bit more in depth than a general discussion of RV/van living as an FI option. Do it.
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Jun 27, 2015 17:52
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My main question - how are you going to meet people/who are you going to be spending time with?
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Jun 27, 2015 22:13
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It's a pretty good idea and I think you actually have things pretty well thought out except for your choice of vehicle. From a maintenance perspective if you're familiar with old vws and have a cheap parts source thats great. The issues vw's have beyond maintenance and parts is that they just aren't great for serious living. All the windows ruin privacy, insulation, and interior customization options and the actual interior itself is tiny. I wouldn't even consider moving into a van short of something like a ford e series which are also far more reliable and cheaper than vw buses.
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Jun 27, 2015 22:36
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OldHansMoleman posted:It's a pretty good idea and I think you actually have things pretty well thought out except for your choice of vehicle. From a maintenance perspective if you're familiar with old vws and have a cheap parts source thats great. The issues vw's have beyond maintenance and parts is that they just aren't great for serious living. All the windows ruin privacy, insulation, and interior customization options and the actual interior itself is tiny. I wouldn't even consider moving into a van short of something like a ford e series which are also far more reliable and cheaper than vw buses. Personally I'd live in one of those propane powered short buses and go hog wild tearing out the inside and chucking a loft and office in there or something. It's still an excellent challenge to live in ~80 sq feet. But it makes some sense over the VW van to me, since I don't know how to fix or own either.
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Jun 28, 2015 03:50
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You have the equivalent of half of a tune up, one oil change, and a clutch cable problem paid for. Just because your car won't have problems every month doesn't mean that it might not have big expenses from time to time. Do you have the $150 AAA plan in case you need to have your car towed a long distance? For a modern, far more reliable car, I figure $1000/year in repairs/tires/etc. You've got a totally unrealistic budget for gas - far too much - and a totally unrealistic budget for repairs.
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Jun 30, 2015 06:25
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MMM's recent article has an actual, acknowledged sockpuppet in it.quote:First of all, let me admit that the above person is somewhat fabricated. I find letters like this waiting for me every morning when I wake up, and so many of them follow the same general pattern that I figured we could create a great lesson by combining some of the best details into one composite letter. And that lesson is the one right there in the title:
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Jul 2, 2015 19:19
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Inverse Icarus posted:MMM's recent article has an actual, acknowledged sockpuppet in it. What a weird life he has. Strangers email him with their secret finances, and he's trusted and expected to give them advice. I bet he feels like a specialized Dear Abby, instead of the happiness philosopher he'd like to be. Kind of a step down. I don't blame him for his last line - I'd resent an obligation to answer the same question every day, too. I bet we're less than a year away from him ending the blog, if his major interaction with it is a feeling of obligation to repeat himself to strangers. Yuck.
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Jul 3, 2015 00:56
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Mofabio posted:I bet he feels like a specialized Dear Abby, instead of the happiness philosopher he'd like to be. Wait.
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Jul 3, 2015 03:12
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SpelledBackwards posted:But if he could learn to live on beans and rice, then he wouldn't have to cater to the king. I've found his article on Stoicism. I couldn't be bothered reading it. His articles are like beans and rice now. I do wonder how many of his followers are like religious zealots that don't even follow his financial advice at all?
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Jul 3, 2015 03:27
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Devian666 posted:I do wonder how many of his followers are like religious zealots that don't even follow his financial advice at all? I'm having trouble finding it, but there's a British documentary online somewhere about people who shell out hundreds or even thousands of pounds every year attending various financial seminars about saving, early retirement, etc. It's very  Found it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPARaL3F498 pig slut lisa fucked around with this message at 08:44 on Jul 3, 2015 |
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Jul 3, 2015 08:38
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pig slut lisa posted:I'm having trouble finding it, but there's a British documentary online somewhere about people who shell out hundreds or even thousands of pounds every year attending various financial seminars about saving, early retirement, etc. It's very I linked that one when I was going through a lot of financial documentaries on youtube. Robert Kiyosaki was one of the guys ripping them off. Some of them were paying for the seminars with credit cards and they were carrying a balance. The MMM link http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/02/what-is-stoicism-and-how-can-it-turn-your-life-to-solid-gold/ It's on the featured article rotation and it's really old October 2011. I only noted it because I'd never read it before. Devian666 fucked around with this message at 08:49 on Jul 3, 2015 |
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Jul 3, 2015 08:45
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It's the younger ones like those teenagers that surprise me. Haven't they heard of the internet? I find it really unexpected that their first resort is going to a seminar in persona and spending thousands to get mentors. I recognize a bit of the same bug in myself; I keep reading financial blogs when, at this point, none of them are going to change my plans or budget. At best I might rejigger my investments for tax-efficiency at some point, and I do want to keep up on any changes in the law, but past that I'm just wasting my time. At least I'm not spending hundreds on books or thousands on seminars, only time better spent playing the video games I keep hoarding. Desuwa fucked around with this message at 09:27 on Jul 3, 2015 |
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Jul 3, 2015 09:19
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The teenagers were fools, but that's not unusual. It only took a few questions for their teenage plans to fall apart. It's pretty easy to get in a habit of analysing everything. I've done that a lot since I started making a lot of financial changes. At this point I've squeezed every last dollar out. This week I did a calculation to figure out what I should be investing and how much to hit 15%. I found out that it doesn't take much to meet that minimum target and I'll likely blow right past that (excluding the massive mortgage repayments I've been making). So I've starting focusing on the stuff I want to do with the money I'm underspending. There was a bit of VJ software I backed on kickstarter. They're holding their release party in Paris so I've decided I'm going to that in December. In the past I've missed out on cool stuff like that due to lack of time or unwillingness to spend money. It's still within budget while saving 40-50% of net income.
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Jul 3, 2015 09:53
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pig slut lisa posted:I'm having trouble finding it, but there's a British documentary online somewhere about people who shell out hundreds or even thousands of pounds every year attending various financial seminars about saving, early retirement, etc. It's very I was constantly cringing throughout this one. I'm going to start my own seminar where I do all the motivational speaking and then give them the super secret formula of spending less than you earn and investing the rest, but wrapping it up in mystical thought processes. Basically, delude people into believing the right thing for the wrong reason because they're too hosed up to recognize simple truths.
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Jul 3, 2015 22:19
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In the end all societies have their own brainwashing. If you brainwashing people to do the right things to look after themselves financially, that's a lot better than a lot of these motivational speakers farming poor people for money with no benefit. Unfortunately most of societies brain washing comes in the form of family, friends, tv shows and bank advertisements.
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Jul 4, 2015 00:07
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Should start an expensive seminar around the one weird trick of not spending thousands on expensive seminars.
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Jul 4, 2015 00:39
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Desuwa posted:Should start an expensive seminar around the one weird trick of not spending thousands on expensive seminars. Esteemed gentleman, I am a deposed crown prince of Nigeria, and I heard about your seminar which sounds essential to preserving my family's wealth until we can transfer it out of the country in secrecy. Please advice to sign up and prepay for you services.
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Jul 4, 2015 03:26
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I don't ride my by anywhere, really, but I've always been a light driver. It's probably the best benefit of being able to work from home so much. Last week I finally hit 100,000 miles on my 1999 Honda Accord. I shared a picture on Facebook, because that's a thing kids do these days. I was bombarded with people asking how that was remotely possible, with people saying they have that much on their car in half the time, and one guy who said he believes I somehow rolled it over and actually drove 1,100,000 miles.
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Jul 15, 2015 18:16
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Inverse Icarus posted:I don't ride my by anywhere, really, but I've always been a light driver. It's probably the best benefit of being able to work from home so much. I recently missed the opportunity to take a picture of my odometer at 69,420 miles. With how little I drive, I don't think I'm going to hit 80,085 til like October 2016. If I churned through cars like some people I know, I'd see the funny numbers a lot more frequently 
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Jul 15, 2015 18:27
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I mean, to be fair, my 1999 Honda Civic had 230,000 miles on it when I donated it two months ago. Only 100,000 is impressively low miles!
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Jul 15, 2015 18:54
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My old '99 accord (now my brother's) was at about 190,000 and going strong two weeks ago when it got totaled by a flood. 
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Jul 15, 2015 20:24
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Inverse Icarus posted:one guy who said he believes I somehow rolled it over and actually drove 1,100,000 miles. I am laughing way to hard at this.
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Jul 15, 2015 20:53
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My 2008 civic has maybe 55k miles. I essentially bought it to move 6 hours away to my first job after college, so in retrospect I didn't really need a car but it seemed the grown up thing to do. I lived like half a mile from work at the time too. Forgive me BFC for I have sinned.
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Jul 16, 2015 04:02
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I drive my car lots. I love long road trips and I think it's a cool way to experience the world. We've slowed down as our careers pick up though, and our 2010 Mazda 3 has 180 000km on it now.  I mean, that's trips like from Halifax to Acapulco, Halifax to the Grand Canyon, and Halifax to Edmonton and some smaller trips like Edmonton to Vancouver Island and lots of other stuff. And like Fredericton to Halifax every weekend for a year or two.
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Jul 16, 2015 04:11
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I have a '97 Civic with 285,000 miles on it. Last big road trip was driving from SE Alaska to New York via SLC, 4600 miles solo in 11 days including my rest days. We own that vehicle outright and we love its guts, my wife and I have 0 plans to retire or replace it. Just replaced the clutch it came with, 600 bucks and good as new. We got 100k miles out of the old one, so this new one should hopefully last a comparable amount of miles. We are driving less in our current living situation, since we now live and work in a small town as opposed to putting 50 miles on the car every day. On the Maddening Frugality front, I'm considering brewing my own beer for the purpose of saving money. I understand it can be pretty cheap and I don't have fancy tastes, plus I'm handy and have low expectations. There's several people at my work that homebrew, I think I'll ask them how to get started.
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Jul 16, 2015 16:13
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Uncle Enzo posted:On the Maddening Frugality front, I'm considering brewing my own beer for the purpose of saving money. I understand it can be pretty cheap and I don't have fancy tastes, plus I'm handy and have low expectations. There's several people at my work that homebrew, I think I'll ask them how to get started. I started brewing my own beer last summer, and I like it. I use Brewhouse Beer Kits, and it's not that hard. Takes about three total hours of work spanning three different sessions (fermenting #1, fermenting #2, and bottling). My beer costs me less than half of what it would cost me at the liquor store. But I'm in Canada, so I think maybe my savings is higher due to the alcohol tax being so high here. I like it because the more you drink, the more you save! 
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Jul 16, 2015 17:02
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If you have access to homebrewers already, just do swapsies with something you make/have. I've found that as a bunch brewers are always eager to give out the goods - even sometimes just for the feedback.
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Jul 17, 2015 00:12
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When calculating how much I need in an emergency fund, should I include projected unemployment benefits? For example, my cost of living is ~$2500/mo and unemployment benefits in my state would pay ~$1500/mo for six months if I were ever laid off. So, its the difference between needing to save $6,000 or $15,000 to cover six months of living expenses. Since I rent my apartment, don't own a car and have health insurance with a low out of pocket maximum, my emergency fund is pretty much just for if I ever lose my job, in which case unemployment benefits kick in.
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Jul 18, 2015 16:10
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The emergency could be literally anything, or a combination of things, and unemployment doesn't pay out if they fire you for cause. It doesn't have to involve loss of job either. Imagine your apartment burns down and you break your wrist jumping out the window. Insurance might pay out at some point but $15,000 would be really nice to have in the bank right then. In the end it's up to your tolerance for risk. $6000 is pretty low though.
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Jul 18, 2015 18:22
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Sooo we had a discussion ITT a couple months back about how MMM could/should/shouldn't be more/less political. I was on the side of "should be more", and somebody - too lazy to check who - suggested I email him about it. Well, I finally did. I always thought it was amazing how popular he is, AND how deeply anarchist he is. And, because anarchism's so unpopular/"unserious"/un-talked-about, that he probably didn't even know it. What do you guys think (about the email, or the anarchist critique of work in general)? quote:Subject: You might be an anarchist, and that's okay
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Aug 1, 2015 00:49
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What definition of anarchism are you using here? 'Anarchism' seems to mean a dozen different things across the internet.
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Aug 2, 2015 05:52
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The pamphlet reads like anarcho-communism.
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Aug 2, 2015 10:04
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Xoidanor posted:The pamphlet reads like anarcho-communism. That's kind of what the archaic meansing on anarchy is. People living without a government because it just isn't needed.
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Aug 2, 2015 10:27
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Devian666 posted:That's kind of what the archaic meansing on anarchy is. People living without a government because it just isn't needed. I don't know whether to chide you for being wrong or for trying to start a philosophical argument in this thread.
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Aug 2, 2015 10:32
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Cicero posted:What definition of anarchism are you using here? 'Anarchism' seems to mean a dozen different things across the internet. I confess I don't know the many factions of anarchism or the left in general, but it seems like there are a lot of people calling themselves anarchists who are making the same connections that MMM does (work boring/painful, work causes environmental destruction). I'm actually pretty fresh down this rabbit hole, do you happen to know of any writers (anarchist or otherwise) who are anti-work? I bought crimethinc's "Work", which that pamphlet was advertising- but I kind of feel like crimethinc's aimed at a more, uh, youthful audience (not that there's anything wrong with that). edit: and I've read some David Graeber stuff. Utopia of Rules is a fantastic examination of bureaucracies, and why they suck, and why we form them anyway. Mofabio fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Aug 2, 2015 |
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Aug 2, 2015 19:10
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Xoidanor posted:I don't know whether to chide you for being wrong or for trying to start a philosophical argument in this thread. It's etymology not a philosophical argument. There's no point arguing about a definition that fell out of use 250-300 years ago. Mofabio posted:I confess I don't know the many factions of anarchism or the left in general, but it seems like there are a lot of people calling themselves anarchists who are making the same connections that MMM does (work boring/painful, work causes environmental destruction). This is what interests me is what work is to most people versus economic definitions. Most of my work is dealing with bureaucracy rather than getting any design work done. I've found my work a lot less interesting because of this. So I'll have to have a look at the Utopia of Rules. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the potential changes to work in the future and what the impact will be. I don't think MMM can see beyond his own "retirement" and it shows in his articles. Devian666 fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Aug 2, 2015 |
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Aug 2, 2015 21:08
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Devian666 posted:This is what interests me is what work is to most people versus economic definitions. Most of my work is dealing with bureaucracy rather than getting any design work done. I've found my work a lot less interesting because of this. So I'll have to have a look at the Utopia of Rules. It's funny, I've twice automated my job with excel spreadsheets, including my current one. Each time, my boss gets wind, and I get more paperwork to do. Bureaucracy fills the gaps that automation creates.
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Aug 2, 2015 22:44
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Mofabio posted:It's funny, I've twice automated my job with excel spreadsheets, including my current one. Each time, my boss gets wind, and I get more paperwork to do. Bureaucracy fills the gaps that automation creates. The benefits of efficiency and increased productivity. Whether the paperwork has a use or not there's latent work waiting to happen. I think about the work I do and the simulations we used to run were very simple and the computers were really slow. The same computer models I used to run over 4 hours now take 30 seconds to run with the computers we have. Now we're expected to run more realistic fluid dynamics models which can take days or weeks. Sometimes we're better off with the data other times not so much. I'm sure the electricity used is saving large amounts of materials, labour and energy in construction. Not sure if we're any better off in terms of safety but the cost of construction is down. Unfortunately the government made a large regulatory mistake increasing compliance costs for no benefits. That's led to the conflict which ended up getting quite a number of people fired. It's a constant ebb and flow of stupidity and inefficiency. The thing is every move the local government makes has they spiraling towards being closed down and their functions privatised. It's interesting to see people working so hard towards making their own jobs disappear.
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Aug 2, 2015 23:30
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Devian666 posted:The benefits of efficiency and increased productivity. Whether the paperwork has a use or not there's latent work waiting to happen. Totally off-topic, but for a CFD novice, how much trouble can I get into running fine fine mesh DNS on OpenFOAM? Laminar flows of basically Newtonian fluids in small-scale mixers (interFoam)? Not a programmer, not a meshing expert, I basically wanna know if I'm wasting my time or not. I'm trying to determine delta-P and mixing efficiency (worst case, because no diffusion). edit: assuming you do CFD, but I realize it might be piping networks. edit also: I know what you mean about certain regs. Not a republican, but I work in a GMP pharma plant, and the regulations are ridiculous: it takes 2 months of paperwork and 15 signatures to add printer paper to certain validated printers. Not even kidding. There's so drat much bureaucratic fat to trim if we went to a less-than-40-hour workweek, and that's not even getting into the corporate bureaucracy of performance evaluations, HR, et al. Mofabio fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Aug 3, 2015 |
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Aug 3, 2015 03:21
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