Morning: Up around 6:30, check email, and see that my 8 am webcast has been moved to a different day. Get up, brush my teeth, and drink a cup of tea. Have a hardboiled egg, buttered toast, and another cup of tea for breakfast. Walk around a bit, confirm receipts from the work trip, and then prep for my 11 am meeting. Parents head out to Albertsons to get mangos and another grocery store to grab ground turkey. Once they get back, I go shower and jump on my call. One of the stakeholders thanks me for teeing up the question and setting the background. It's nice to hear that, and the meeting ends in 10 minutes. I try some of the ground turkey stir fry.
Afternoon: Jump on my noon call and request to get involved in one of the international projects that's going on. Eat a late lunch at 1 of rice and ground turkey. Do a coconut oil pull. Head to my 2 pm call with my manager where I go over a few things and I get a follow-up action item. I finish that item and send it off to her. She introduces me to a colleague who works in an area I'm interested in, and I set up some time with her next week. Log off and head out to run errands with Dad. Get gas in my car and then go to a nearby grocery store for floss, travel-sized toothpaste, hairbands, bacon (50 cents off!), coconut cream, chia seeds, and chicken nuggets. Then head to Chick-Fil-A for a sandwich for me, two large waffle fries for everyone, and nuggets for Dad. Also get a coupon for a free sandwich for next time. Once we're back home, we have Chick-Fil-A. They have tea, and I wash it down with a glass of Coke. Also make a coconut cream parfait with chia seeds and put it in the fridge for tomorrow.
Evening: Read for a while, and here is what I learn:
- On a rich life: "We go to college football games and have season tickets to the Lions. Yes, they stink but it's indoors and they sell cold beer. I guess we are simple people, and that's okay. I just like knowing that we have enough, enough to never worry about money, peace of mind with a simple portfolio. Enough is what I spent my money on."
- Truths: "You only need one word to be happy: enough. You only need one word to be unhappy: more."
- Find work that is not stressful: He earns $4.5 million/year, but the biggest factor is that he says the work is not that stressful. That leads to career longevity and creates generational wealth.
- Lucky people: "The luckiest people find a way to know what they want and then they do it."
- Charity starts at home: "5 years to spend with your family is more precious than money. Causes for a stranger should not be a higher priority."
- On beating the market: "I don't know of any asset that beats the market over 2 or 3 decades. Not housing, not commodities, not precious metals, and not bonds."
- On the hedonistic treadmill: "In my first job out of college, I made $42k a year. I make over $300k now and wouldn't even consider a role for less than $200k. Yes, my situation has changed as I'm no longer a single, 22-year-old kid. But still, the idea of living on $50k per year seems impossible. The idea of living on $150k seems doable, but it'll hurt. It'll hurt me more than continuing to do the stressful job."
- When guaranteed money changes things: "Recognize that when 215 out of 230 is guaranteed, it doesn't incentivize much more. Same goes for when it's 225 out of 250 and 250 out of 300.
- When guaranteed money doesn't change things: "The above logic only applies if you want the 215, 225, and 250. You reach a point where it turns on you and you lose out on the 295, 345, and so on."
- How things can change: "I couldn't imagine not loving my job in 2015. After all, I get paid to think and apply. I would often leave work thinking, 'they're paying me for this?!' What could be better than that, right? Well, fast forward to 2022 and things aren't so rosy. It would have been impossible to imagine then that company politics would change to the point that I'm now very glad that I began pursuing FI in 2015. I still like my work for the most part, but I don't love it the way I used to, and the daily stress is beginning to outweigh the daily delight. That ratio of stress to delight has a way of changing over time. I count myself lucky that I loved my job as long as I did, and I count myself lucky that I still like it now. But I'm grateful to my younger self for getting on the FI bandwagon when I did."
- How management thinks:
- "You're never really 'off' and you have to not just be okay with that but have the drive to seek that out."
- "I make enough to know that there is no such thing as 'enough.'"
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