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I find your comment I choose to do these things a bit amusing, while ultimately it’s true I have choices in life, day to day I can’t control everything. I get appointments like this:
Boss: LalsConstant, you have an appointment at 9 next Tuesday.
Me: Thanks Boss! I’ll be there at nine!
The very idea I have control over this is slightly amusing. Now I think what you mean is in the big picture I do because I can quit or whatever which is a fair point but kind of not helpful, I'm doing what I know to be the best I can do at this point already and it comes with bad I can't extricate from the good like anything else in life.
Now for what it’s worth I am at this job because it’s the best thing for me right now and for at least another couple years in all likelihood. I do want to move to a different place that would negate a lot of my problems and I keep my eye open but for now I bide my time. So perhaps one day this will not be an issue.
As for more fuel efficiency, I’ve considered and rejected the following:
Bicycle – You remember the MMM post where he talks about being a clown living in the middle of a NASCAR track? I have a situation about like that, I am the clown. I have to cross a body of water to get to most sites including the main office, and the bridges don’t facilitate pedestrians or cyclists. To be fair the city is building a bridge for this purpose and I will re evaluate my options at such time this is complete.
Off topic: Someone broke stole my bike recently, totally unrelated but I’m still so sore about it. The theft of electronics is one thing but taking a man’s bike is so personal.
Motorcycle/Moped/Scooter etc. Problem is I often have to transport equipment, records, and other people. Using a car alternative is challenging, if it’s just my laptop that’s just fine but if I need to bring any devices like a scanner or a bunch of manuals etc, it’s a problem.
Some of these things actually have pretty good cargo capacity however, it’s not off the table but it would be extremely socially stupid to ask my managers to ride bitch in their suit if we have to go somewhere.
Bus – I could feasibly get to and come back from the main office using the bus. It’s actually a rather nice situation there as the bus stops .5 miles from the office and I can get on the bus 1.9 miles from where I live, and according to the diagrams I could find the round route it takes would get me to work in about 25-30 minutes. That is posh.
The problem is all the stuff in the middle of the day; it’s quite common for plans to change and I suddenly have to be somewhere else that day but this does vary quite a bit depending on current assignment.
The other problem is we are supposed to drive every day (it’s a condition of employment), however complaints were filed about this. Management changed its position to say you drive every day unless you get written permission not to and it’s project dependent whether you can even ask or not. I currently mostly do projects where you can’t, and the one I had where you could was for a short time but it involved going somewhere the bus doesn’t constantly.
I have found the loophole in the system however is carpooling, I exploit the hell out of that, but due to our constantly rotating assignments it’s not as good as it could be. It's better than nothing though.
As for what you meant about cutting expenses in one category vs. another, I understand that X is not Y, but that’s not my problem. My problem is that first you can cut all the stupid stuff you don’t even need, that’s easy. But what’s left is harder and slower to reduce. I even agree it’s a mental thing but that doesn’t mean it’s trivial.
Food is a great example since you mentioned it. I don’t pretend I’m 100% there on food yet by any means, but even once I get to my goal it will only be a 1.5% improvement in my savings rate, which is AWESOME! but far less than what I could save if I cut that $250 of transportation expense out of my budget!
Earning that 1.5% will be tough and not fast. I am STILL learning new things about food to spend less on it, STILL learning new foods and how to prepare them (lentils being the latest thing I’m trying). I know for a fact I can do better and I will do better but I’m just not there yet because it just takes time and effort.
This is all in my head, absolutely. But I don't have a wand to wave to make it any different or better, just consistent drive over time and a want to change.
If I think about it in a linear manner, perhaps in 2-3 years I’ll get that where I want it. So let’s call that a 0.5% improvement per year. The problem I am experiencing is that to get to this point, I cut things down at a rate that improved things by 2.5 percent per year!
Going from broke to 5 percent savings was tremendously hard. I had to really change things. Most people don’t understand what that’s like. Going from 5 percent to 20 percent was a joy, in fact it was easy. But pushing further has just gotten really hard, like I still have my momentum but I’ve lost my velocity.
I just notice people with higher incomes cross that threshold much more easily and their cases of how they did it are better documented. I just feel like a lot of the things they talk about like buying rental property or paying off a house during the accumulation phase that got them to FI just won’t help me very much.
At a certain point I don’t know how much more someone who comes from higher earnings can keep helping me improve because they overcame their problems and not mine; surely at a certain I can’t generalize their situation to mine to significant effect any more. I feel I’m not at that point yet but that in perhaps 5 years I would be.
I’m not done, I’m still cutting expenses. But the rate at which I cut them has slowed down so much, I fear it’s converging on a point far shy of a 50% savings rate by the time I reach that point (for what it’s worth quick math tells me I could do as well as 39%, which doesn’t suck by any means but it’s not what feasible FI requires.
For reference, here are ERE Jacob's salaries (from a comment in this post):
Age 24-28, $20K (this one is net; I don't know whether the others are net or gross; equivalent to ~$28K today)
Age 29-31, $41K
Age 32-33, $69K
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Really? I seem to recall years ago reding it was much higher than that, thanks for the facts! He still made a six figure number more than I did during this years but it's not the order of magnitude I thought it was. He earned more than I did at all points there both absolutely and inflation adjusted but it's not a factor of 10 or even 2 in some years (except later!).
Maybe Jacob is the example I am looking for and I need to go read the old posts in order, you've done me a great service.
Just to clarify I've reached a point where I know better than to say I can't. I've proved to myself that's stinking thinking.
I have however reached a point where I feel like I'm up against some kind of wall and need some new paradigm, another big shift, to move on to whatever it is. Right now I think I'm probably going to tend toward more thrifty but I'm not trending that way as strongly as I want for lack of knowledge of what to do at this point, I just feel stuck.
Part of it is, I don't really belong on a site like this because I'm the example of what NOT to do. It wasn't that long ago I was 40k in the hole with debt and saving nothing (that was about 2007). I'm not really very accomplished, I save about 25% now with no debt but I have no real assets to speak of either.
It's a terrible place to be from the perspective I can't enjoy the carefree wastefulness I used to, nor can I realistically have a better life without juicing my savings rate a lot more. It just plain stinks to be caught in this situation where you are basically no longer a part of the cult of consumerism (and are slowly backing away from it as you go) but you aren't really someone who's going to be financially healthy either.
I wish there was a middle ground forward, save enough to mitigate the most likely problems you could encounter while indulging in the best of those things velocistar237 references.