site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   2555 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for December 7, 2022

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Two million might be fine, but assuming income increases throughout career, the third million just seems relatively easy to pick up.

This mindset is wild to me! I'm interested in FIRE because I hate having a career and want to do something more exploratory and self employed. Why FIRE at all if two million isn't very different from three million? Plans to support a family solo?

My number is around a million, probably revising upward to 1.2-1.3 with regards to inflation. I generally value my time far far more highly than disposable income, and yes I live in a medium to low cost of living area, happy to stay here.

I also grew up somewhat poor so I'm pretty frugal. For instance, I can't even imagine what I would spend $120k a year on. I live with a long term partner, and we spend about $2-3k per month on average, a little over $40k per year when you add in emergency expenses etc. And I feel like we're living large! We eat out, do activities, take usually a couple vacations a year, etc.

Sometimes I think our frugality is a bit pathological to be honest, but I am curious what types of things you buy with all that income?

Thanks for typing up your list! Pot and alcohol, a man after my own heart.

Also, seems like a significant amount (~90k) is debt, student loan, and mortgage. Wouldn't you be able to shave off a lot if those were cleared?

And wait you spend 168,000 on rent over the last four years? $3,500 rent? Man I really do have it easy.

I have to say, the analysis comes out less embarrassing than I thought. I feel more guilt about my Amazon than is perhaps reasonable. You'd think I could like, buy legos and stuffed animals (you know, like a grown up), and new pot holders, etc, without feeling bad about it. But no, growing up...not poor, but middle-middle class...is a hard mindset to shake.

I feel ya there! Idk, I think Amazon as a category is not super useful, I buy all sorts of things off amazon. But yeah your rent/mortgage etc is way higher than I would factor in. Assuming VHCOL area.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats