100%. My wife thinks she wants to not work after early 40’s (I think she’ll change her mind from boredom), but for me it’s more about not having to worry about depending on someone else for money, though I’ll probably keep working beyond when I don’t have to. It’d be pretty awesome to be able to do whatever job I want, part time, full time, consulting, whatever, and it’s more to give me something to do and less because I need a pay check. Wife can do property management or sell real estate or whatever she wants to do at her own pace and it’s not just about putting in 40 hours to get your pay check. I think things work out better long term with that mindset anyways.
Also very good point. It can be tough at times though knowing I’m staying about even month to month checking account wise, but that’s kind of the point. When you look at how much is going into savings/retirement/etc it makes a little more sense. If I didn’t have it setup to automatically do it I’d never have saved as much… it’s a totally different mindset when it’s like “this is all you have left for the next 2 weeks, make it work” vs. “here’s all the money, I’ll try to manage to save some of this”
Totally agree on all points. Automatic investments have at least doubled my investment accounts if I am being conservative.
I get anxiety, and the idea of losing work is probably the biggest driver of that anxiety. Having a good chunk of money saved up helps, but it isn’t enough to last forever at this point, so I still get some anxiety.
I watched some YouTube videos about FIRE, and the guy who did them laid out several stages of independence. I would say right now I am what he defined as able to coast. This is the stage where I can’t retire, but if I invest 0 more dollars the rest of my working career, I’ll still be far above average at retirement age. I can work any job that covers my basic expenses and provides heath insurance. I don’t have debt other than 25K on my wife’s student loan, and 98K on my mortgage (house is worth a just bit under 200K). No car payments, no credit card debt. Pretty good spot for my age (32).
The next stage is poverty FIRE. Meaning I could retire, but I would be living off of under 30K a year (this is possible with no car payments, credit card payments, mortgage). I’ll still work at this point, but that would buy a lot of peace of mind. I am hoping to be here in 5ish years, but will probably be closer to 7-8 years.
Here is the video I mentioned. Just watching it reduces my anxiety about money some.
Edit: I would not normally use IE or bing, but T-nation seems to only work well for me on IE, so I used bing as it was the default. I don’t want others thinking lower of me. Maybe I’ll see if T-nation is working on firefox again.
The fact that you thought about that enough to throw in that edit is hysterical. Here, let me take some heat off of you for your subpar SE usage: how to become wealthy, www.ask.com
I’ve been building out my own 5-day full-body split, based on the RP template. I wanted to disburse the leg volume because, given the cardio I do (currently running 3 miles each morning), my legs are chronically sore. I don’t think having a dedicated ‘leg day’ makes sense for me.
What do you think of the volume distribution here? Any areas being particularly neglected?
Just wanted to jump here and comment on the MMM blog recommendation. Away on holiday with the family, gave me a bit more time to read found myself on that blog linked from here. I’ve devoured a tonne of the posts on there, changed my thinking entirely, almost enough to say it was an epiphany!
I’ve never been great with money but I’m fairly blessed in terms of employment and life circumstances (work two jobs which both pay above the local average and bought a repo house that was undervalued at a slump in the market, worked on it and refinanced to also get a rental), so I’ve always been able to “afford” to be cavalier with money, I don’t do savings and have a substantial amount of debt (it’s fine I can service it… Idiot! - only saving grace is a lot of it is 0% finance). Anyways long story short that blog has shown me that I’ve bought into the stupid social construct of working till old age to basically fiance a pointlessly excessive lifestyle - so a massive thanks for the blog recommendation, on a mission now - debt emergency reduction, cut the pointless fat from my lifestyle, start saving!
I’ve always been pretty conservative with money. Buying used cars, a house that cost about half what I qualified for, etc. My weakness is eating at restaurants though. I would have invested a good chunk of my money without MMM, but after reading his posts I am maxing my 401K and doing additional investments on top of it (and that has been for several years now).
Glad you found his posts useful. Personally they have been life changing for me.
Just one. Made his money, retired early, then had a child. He is divorced now, but both have remained retired.
The guy is incredibly good with money. His advice isn’t going to be as effective for most people as it was for him. He had a fairly high income with his wife and they operated like Vulcans (they were both engineers).
[quote=“mnben87, post:3231, topic:253389, full:true”]He is divorced now, but both have remained retired.
[/quote]
Sad to hear that (and surprising divorces cost money!).
Yes definitely life changing here, looking back I have increased my earnings over the past 5 years by £52k ($67k by current rate) (total over base salary not PA) and yet I’ve got more debt, without having moved house (done a lot with that to add value to my current property, but still shocking to look back at that!).
If I had saved that and put it in a index tracker I’d be in a substantially different place right now - live and learn, onwards to Zero debt!
Wayyy too many people think they’re in a good place because they have a chunk of money in the bank and enough income to pay their debt every month but you’ll never get anywhere living like that long term. Just ignore how most Americans handle their finances. People buy stuff based on whether they can pay the monthly payment or not… not good. To me the point is to accumulate as much as I can as early as I can so it can stop me from having to depend on anyone else for money one day.
Hindsight does suck. I’ve probably burned $30-40K on nice cars and parts over the years. Take that and stick it in an index fund and by now it’d probably be closer to an extra $100K I could have had. Oh well, can’t change it now.
Most people live pay check to pay check. Many of them have well over $100K incomes. Lifestyle inflation is a real thing.
Chris Hogan (gives financial advice with Dave Ramsey) does seminars in which he tells the audience that when he graduated college, that he wanted the status, so he bought a $500K SUV. Then he tells the crowd to guess what he bought. No one has any idea. Then he tells them it was a new financed ford explorer. He goes into how he should have invested the money, not paid interest, and at his age (upper 50s) that the money would have been worth 500K if it was in the S&P500.
Both of those things describe my current situation, having a mindset of bring able to service debt therefore I’m fine and lifestyle inflation (probably overinflation!).
I’m definitely a pay check to pay check person at present, that is going to change!
Fellas, it’s been a minute! Took time to focus on career, given the crazy effects of the pandemic on higher ed, and clear my mind.
Recap of fall: switched back to cream in early August and was doing 3 clicks to scrotum AM & 3 PM. Libido didn’t change considerably (might’ve gone up marginally). Then I found out my supplies were gonna run out, so I cut it back to 2/2 two weeks ago. Haven’t felt much different, though I did have sleep issues when I cut back the dose.
I just had bloods and was shocked by the results:
Total T: 693 (Ref 264-916)
Free T: 11.1 (9.3-26.5)
E: 22.8 (8.0-35.0)
SHBG: 79.7 (16.5-55.9)
RT3: 12.9 (8-25)
T3 Free: 2.4 (2.3-4.2)
T4 Free: 0.92 (0.8-1.8)
WTF? That’s the lowest Total/Free I’ve ever had, even dating back to pre-TRT.
Here’s where I was last time (May, when I was injecting 200 mg per week):
Total T: 2732 (Ref 250-1100)
Free T: 401.6 (35-155)
E: 54 (<29)
SHBG: 79 (16.5-55.9)
RT3: 12 (8-25)
T3 Free: 4.5 (2.3-4.2)
T4 Free: 0.8 (0.8-1.8)
Current protocol:
200 mg/ml Test cream at 2/2 ED
25 mg/day T3 (Liothyronine)
25 mg EOD Ibutamoren (IGF peptide)
250 mg every other week hCG (for long-term fertility maintenance)
Couple notes:
I went to LabCorp this time; was always at Quest before.
This was taken first thing in the morning, before I applied my morning cream.
What do you think? Pretty baffling, right? Could this just be chalked up to having not applied my morning cream yet? So confused, boys!
I had the bloods at 7:30 AM and usually apply around 8-9, so it was pretty close. I figured applying immediately before would lead to deceptively high numbers.
I was told to test after application for cream but I never tried it the other way. I do know it’s out of you fast but I had no idea it would be that fast. 2 clicks AM and testing later that morning had me at 1500+ TT and 40 free T
