I relate so strongly to this letter about chronic mystery illness taking away one’s identity touchstone. I felt such loss when I had to accept that my illness had irrevocably, irretrievably, altered the course of my life. It still echoes sometimes when I remember everything that I hoped to do, or the things I would still love to do but cannot. I lost a huge measure of who I was – strong, unbreakable, defiant against any and all odds, brave and undaunted by challenges (at least on the outside!).
Lisa of The Traumatized Budget is a writer in her mid-50s facing down some pretty serious financial circumstances. I’m not convinced that formal financial literacy is the answer though. Anecdotally I’ve seen many friends grow up with frugal and financially capable parents and they just ignored every lesson in front of them. I’m not sure how one gets past that.
Wild Nights With Emily spends significant time with the person Smith now knows is responsible for mutilating Emily’s letters: Mabel Loomis Todd, a woman who was having an affair with Susan’s husband (and Emily’s brother), Austin. Despite never having met Emily face-to-face, Todd acquired the letters after Emily’s death via Austin and Emily’s sister, Lavinia, and set about removing Susan from them before publishing them. “When I showed this movie to the Emily Dickinson International Society last summer,” Olnek recalls, “the president of the board said, ‘What people need to understand is that when Emily Dickinson scholarship started, people didn’t know that Mabel was Austin’s mistress. They just thought she was the nice, young wife of a faculty member at Amherst College. They didn’t understand her stakes in spinning a certain kind of story about Emily.’
Rich and Regular: Fathers on FI. I like what I see in the changing norms around fatherhood so far as the FI group is concerned, I hope that’s something that ripples out to non-FI and non-PF people.
We love pan roasted brussels sprouts already but I think we need to try this version of brussels sprouts with sausagebrussels sprouts with sausage.
Are recessions really necessary? (Nicole&Maggie, your thoughts?): “In November 1990, the Australian treasurer (and later prime minister) Paul Keating described a painful downturn then underway as “the recession we had to have.”
His point was that excesses in a lending and credit boom, combined with high inflation, meant that the Australian economy needed the wrenching experience of a downturn to rid itself of those excesses. It was also a horrible political gaffe, a comment that went over poorly in a country then burdened with an 11 percent unemployment rate.
But the question of whether he was right is profound — one that economists can still debate.”
An interview with Kassandra Dassant, talking finances after 40: Building her Business and Finding Her Purpose. This is a timely read / series for me as I examine how I want to end my 30s and how I want to enter into my 40s.
Done by Forty: “In poker terms, the meritocracy argument is an example of resulting: of judging the quality of our decisions based on the results of those decisions. If you get a good result, you made a good decision. If you get a bad result, you made a bad decision.
Except that life doesn’t work out that way.”
Just when I thought the credit reporting bureaus couldn’t be grosser, it turns out they’ve got this going on: “Equifax has marketing material pitching employment status to debt collectors who want an early nod that someone is no longer employed.”
Earthquake liquefaction zones are why I don’t put much faith in Bay Area property values. Won’t mean much if our home falls into an earthquake created abyss.
You Could Have Today. Instead You Choose Tomorrow: It’s a hugeprivilege to be able to choose this life this way. I worked my nalgas off to get to choose like this and even then a huge degree of luck came into play to make that happen.
I have been thanked for my work as a manager in the past but those were both quite unexpected and very unsolicited thanks. I have always said that it’s a totally thankless task, particularly if you’re doing it right (advocating for your people, supporting them without micromanaging, rewarding them as appropriate for their situations and needs). Frankly, I do it for the management money, not thanks. I can’t imagine going into it seeking that kind of validation from my employees. Generally it’s not going to happen.
I can’t stop thinking about how vulnerable this young lady and others in her situation are.
OFG fixed her dryer! I have a problem with our dryer I haven’t had the nerve to tackle but maybe I will after a lot of research.
Wise NFL player: “I need to be maximizing every single day I have in the NFL because I don’t know when this NFL platform will be swept right under my feet.”
Simplistic Steph nailed my current unease with our FIRE projections. To (maybe) hit our ideal early retirement number “on time” relies on a projected savings and investing plan that: “Our numbers are assuming we never have kids, a drop in salary, or any major life event. Basically, our numbers are best-case-scenario, dreamland numbers.”
I’ve never been comfortable with planning based on best-case scenarios because that is just not how grown up life has ever worked for me.
Thasunda Brown Duckett of Chase: “Last week I came to work mad because my son was called the N-word at school. I told my team, told my peers, told the other C.E.O.s. We killed a whole hourlong meeting and we just talked about race. I said, “I’m an angry black woman today. I am mad that I have to have conversations that you don’t have to have. I am tired.”
I bring that to work. It’s who I am. I just bring the best version of Thasunda, all of me, to the table, because I want everyone else to do the same. And when you lead with authenticity, when you can share your vulnerable moments, it opens up everyone else to share their real life, too.”
I’m starting to try to be more authentic me and less Professional Me with All Shields Up and I admire people who come to that naturally. I’ve edited myself for over a decade, hiding my chronic illness side because I don’t want to show weakness, hiding my love of personal finance so I come across as a normal superstar-level person wanting a legitimately earned raise without a side of “because I need/want to have the option to retire early”. I don’t want those aspects of me to dominate who I am at work and color the approvals of raises.
I really enjoyed this interview with Abigail Disney. Her views and understanding about money are interesting and I imagine not that common among the very rich. I often wonder what the most effective ways to responsibly deploy that kind of money and do the most good to people least likely to get the help they need.
Being consistently grateful instead of grumpy because work is so heavy I’m sinking miserably under the weight continues to be difficult. Since spreadsheets and mony goals make me happy, I thought it was time to focus on our FIRE goals as a distraction. Boy, was I wrong. This has only served to make me an even more ungrateful frog because we’re deep in our middle years without a true end in sight. I’ve had to reread and mentally review all the things I’m doing wrong that Tanja reminds us not to do: checking account balances frequently, focusing entirely on the end goal and ignoring the incremental wins because they seem insignificant, trying to optimize every penny (well, I’d do this anyway). So I remind myself via Tanja: “Or, in more concrete financial terms, celebrate when you hit round numbers, when you pay off even small amounts of debt and when you pass psychologically significant waypoints. Doing that keeps you focused on how much you’re accomplishing instead of how far you have to go, and that mindset difference is enormous.”
It’s true. I need to go back to being happy about my small and insignificant in comparison to the large goals wins because they are each meaningful and will add up, and most importantly, focusing on them will make me happier about the process than staring at account balances that just. aren’t. moving.
Do you share your thoughts on money? I do and I don’t. I share my philosophies and strategies on bargain hunting and negotiation but I don’t share my overall philosophy on early retirement with anyone. At most with three other people.
We aren’t profligate spenders but we do spend way more than the average. WAY more. I don’t think we CAN call ourselves frugal.
Which spouse makes more? I used to compete with PiC head to head but I’ve fallen way behind in these past couple of years and it bothers me a bit.
France was off my travel list when my dietary restrictions came into play because how could I go and not absorb all the carbs they had to offer?? But spotting Space Invaders is a really fun reason to go.
Kristine is going into farming. I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, I love when other people share how they come to their own realizations.
Mom/parent guilt is strong. PiC gets this and sometimes I have to put my foot down and insist HE IS going to go out on Sunday morning with his friends to do their thing, period, no questions asked. I don’t take those specific breaks myself because I don’t feel the need – I get my social time throughout the week, online, and that fills my bucket.
Golden Girls: I like the idea of choosing my own living companions later in life with an eye to aging in place and being prepared to have a live in caretaker and so on. It appeals to the planner in me.
Angela coming off a 2 year clothing ban. Living in the foggy Bay Area means I’m in a new sweatshirt that’s actually warm and loungepants that PiC bought for me three years ago 4 out of 5 days a week, and my latest clothing purchases revolve almost entirely around comfort (stretchy yoga pants). I’m still working through my old work layers that aren’t presentable anymore but still have plenty of wear in them. I picked up a couple fancy pieces last December and they both need hemming, I need to find my way to the tailor. What’s your clothing philosophy these days?
