Hey there! Been a bit. Guess it’s time for an update post before getting around to anything of substance.

Life is pretty good. If I could hit repeat on this phase of life, I would. All boxes are checked, and I’ve also stopped worrying about boxes. Which has seemed to make it easier to check them: Family, Social, Purpose, Fun, School, Work, Money. All that. 

This of course makes me think it’s all going to come crashing down, because surely this amazing life can’t last. Though worry is not absent, weirdly enough I now spend the least amount of time occupied with such emotion. If shit is going to go bad, I may as well enjoy the now. Perhaps someday we will look back fondly on these times when we had running water and air conditioning. Perhaps not. My hobbies and work provided training are designed to build resilience; we’ll deal with the shit if/when it comes, just like we did before. 

Money.

Enough is not some magical land you arrive at when a certain number appears on your spreadsheet. Enough is a line in the sand.  You carve it out consciously, and strap yourself to its mast. If you’re waiting for society to say you’ve got enough, you’ll be waiting a long fucking time. For years I thought I escaped the stupidity of consumerism, but eventually realized society had more of a hold on me than I wanted to admit. Accepting the never ending power of outside influence on my thoughts around money was key to coming to terms with it. 

Car.

We bought a used plug-in hybrid SUV. Our Prius V needed new brakes, tires, and plugs, and it started burning oil. Didn’t want to spend a couple grand on a car worth maybe $6k. Plus we’ve been stepping up the camping, and want to add a roof rack and cargo carrier. Buying all that to fit a car we’d be getting rid of sooner than later seemed stupid. 

Saw this coming, so have been researching replacement options for over a year. Would have liked to have gotten an EV (because a big part of my why for FIRE/frugality is the environment), but the only one within our price range that carried the camping stuff we use was a used Tesla X. Reliability on the 3 and the Y looked good enough, but not so on the X. Whenever it makes sense to get rid of our secondary car, we’ll probably get an EV. Anyway, the new (to us) car is pretty great. 

It has heated leather seats, and I enjoy the lessened guilt of using it for the around town shuttling of kids we do entirely in EV mode. The extra space it has versus our old Prius V has made our lives much easier, and the kid shuttling more sane. See, money can buy you happiness. Just ask every FI blogger who bought a tesla. 🙄

Work.

Man, I think I’ve worked too much this year. I’m on track to work nearly 600 hours! Coupled with about 15-20 hours of school work a week, I’m approaching near full-time lazy work levels of effort. I’m somewhat saying this sarcastically, but not completely. 

The EP job is mostly nights and weekends, which is less than optimal. But I’m still liking the professional satisfaction, and getting paid to maintain my skill set. The money is nice, and psychologically it feels good to have a source of income in case it’s needed. I did end up traveling a little too much this year though, including a two-week stretch of 12-18 hour days. The work was fun, but being gone from family that much was not. 

Look, I know I’m spoiled here. For many, this is their normal, and I know plenty who are gone longer and more frequently. But knowing I don’t actually need to work makes it feel more absurd.  This year I ended up doing more than I’d planned because. 1. A friend got promoted to lead us, and I wanted to help him be successful. 2. It was fun.

I have a self-imposed limit to how long I’m ok with being away from family. I’m still trying to actually define this, but this year felt like too much. This limit applies to all things which take me away from family; work and fun. In years past, I’ve gone on week long backpacking and mountain biking trips. This year I’ve done one overnight backpacking trip as work has taken up more of my finite familyless time. For some reason, I feel more justified in leaving my family for money instead of fun. Even though we don’t actually need the money. This is stupid, but in line with what society is probably telling me. Like I said above, I’m not immune. Next year I’ll try to work less, and have a little more fun. Another line in the sand, I suppose. 

School

It’s a blast. It’s become clear that I’m totally fucking institutionalized. I love the self-directed aspect of my online courses, and that I’m pretty much left to choose my own adventure. But I also love having clear goals with due dates. And the subject itself is continually engaging. There’s plenty of stupid stuff too, but having done this before I know which stuff I can gloss over and have AI summarize, and get back to what interests me. 

The more I learn, the more motivated I am to get into actually applying what I’ve learned. Next semester I’m experimenting with upping my course load to work towards this. I’ve already told the EP crew I’ll be less available as school will be taking up more time. Looking forward to seeing how this feels in a few months.

Purpose

I heard about how this corporate guy retired, fell into some part-time consulting work for a few years, but is now feeling restless. Standard existential shit. I’ve been there. Here’s what worked for me: look out at the world, and the never ending list of shit that is fueling the dumpster fire that is humanity. Find some small part you give a shit about, and have both the interest to work on and the capability to do something about. Then do that. 

You readers and this blog helped me figure this out. After writing thousands of words and giving several talks, it finally became clear I sorta care about mental health. Now I participate and occasionally lead a weekly support group, am on the board of a local non-profit that works in this space, and am wrapping up a needs assessment of another local mental health non-profit. All while working towards a clinical license so I can work in this space in a more impactful way until my mind finally fails me or something more important comes along. 

Family-Social-Fun

These are probably the most important, and where I spend most of my time. They’re interrelated, and have built upon each other in unpredictable ways. This could be another post, or at least a part 2. But we’ll sum it up for now with this: moving to a smallish town has improved all of this greatly. I now get coffee with friends a couple times a week, and every day run into people who I know. My wife and I are becoming more and more involved with our local community, and have taken roles that building upon this. 

Also, recently some of my friends reenacted the best part of junior high; rode my bike over to a friend’s house, and we all played Halo past midnight. His wife made us pizza rolls. Doesn’t get much better than that. 

That’s it.

There’s plenty of other stuff that’s going on, and most of it’s either happily mundane or generally good. When I envisioned life after FIRE, I didn’t predict whatever this is, but this life now was for sure the feeling I was going for. 

I feel like I should write this blog more, and I should write a book, and I should do 50 other things. But I’d rather go play minecraft with my son, and I’m done shoulding all over myself. 

Hope you’ve all been well, and if you’re not here yet, you get here soon!