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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   909 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for February 4, 2026

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).

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New year's resolutions check-in (nice that I can actually start crossing off resolutions I've completed):

  • Went to the gym three times last week, again yesterday evening, planning to go at lunchtime today. Can deadlift 1.78x my bodyweight for 4 reps, squat .93x for 10 reps and bench press .75x for 9 reps.
  • Managed to go the entirety of January without consuming any alcohol, fast food or fizzy drinks, though I was back at it like a demon from midnight on February 1st.
  • Have not consumed any pornography since waking up on January 1st.
  • Have completed 7/11 modules in the SQL course.
  • Practised guitar for roughly an hour every day in January.

How goes it, @thejdizzler and @oats_son?

  1. Work: Had a good week at work this week. Doing more by doing less: getting more done by putting less stuff on my calendar.
  2. Fitness: Got sick again (ugh), which has reduced both my desire to exercise and the positive feelings it gives. Still will hit 10 hours this week, but need to prioritize sleep and rest.
  3. Intellectual stuff: feeling very overwhelmed on this angle: I've committed to too many things. Marx book club will end this month, and extra time from reduced screen time has also been nice. Thinking of limiting blog posts and YouTube to one a day each to make more space for books!
  4. Finances: Made 3.8 (post tax) last month. Only spent 3.2k, which is about a 16% savings rate. Would like to get this closer to 20%.
  5. Dating: Only masturbated one time (which took 5 minutes, excellent time reduction) and not to porn. Went on a date with a medical student: there won't be a second date, partially from my end (her hobbies include "watching short form content") but mainly from her's (ghosted). I wasn't particularly interested but it still #feelsbadman. Unsurprisingly, ghosted by Argentinian chick. I continue to talk with a girl I met in Spain and a girl from swim club but I feel like those are more of friendships. I plan to not give out any likes on dating apps for the next month, and then pause my accounts.
  6. Didn't do any tarot this week.
  7. Screen time on my phone is at 45 (!!) minutes and dropping. There just isn't that much to do on there once I took away all the fun sites.
  8. Socializing: I'm overbooked on this front and need to leave 2-3 nights a week for personal projects or just catching up on self-care. I have a social activity every night this week except Monday, which is too much.

Finances: Made 3.8 (post tax) last month. Only spent 3.2k, which is about a 16% savings rate. Would like to get this closer to 20%.

For several years I've been trying to follow the savings advice laid out in The Barefoot Investor:

  1. In addition to your current account, create three savings accounts respectively called fire extinguisher, smile and splurge.
    • Fire extinguisher is your long-term savings (e.g. if you're saving up for a car, a deposit on a mortgage etc., it'll be coming out of here).
    • Smile is your short-term savings, a special treat you're saving up for that makes you smile when you think of it (e.g. a holiday, a new guitar).
    • Splurge is for when you want to treat yourself that month, before your next pay day (e.g. dates, going to the pub with your friends, fast food etc.).
    • All other expenses (groceries, utilities, rent/mortgage payments etc.) are paid out of your current account.
  2. The day you get paid, deposit 10% of your pay into smile, 10% into splurge and 20% into fire extinguisher.
  3. Do not dip into smile or fire extinguisher until using them for their intended purpose.
  4. If you're eating out, going out for drinks etc., you should only use splurge. If splurge is empty, you should not do any of these activities until you have replenished it. So if you splashed out the weekend after payday and now splurge is empty, it's quiet nights in and home cooking until your next payday.

Obviously it's a big ask to jump directly from saving 16% of your income to 30%. As an experiment on your next pay day, you might try putting 10% in splurge, 5% in smile and 5% in fire extinguisher. Then each month, increment smile and fire extinguisher by 1% apiece to steadily acclimatise yourself to this way of doing things, until you've met the target for the relevant account. (I always put 10% into smile, but have yet to manage putting more than 16% into fire extinguisher.)

The book also recommends putting two grand into an account in a completely different financial institution from your current and savings account. This is your rainy-day fund, for genuine life-or-death emergencies. The purpose of putting it into a different financial institution is to introduce friction so that you won't be tempted to dip into it to pay for your holidays. To this end, I put €2,000 in a government bond which pays out 10% interest if left to appreciate for ten years.

I find this kind of financial advice frustrating/annoying, but then I have to remember it's probably not meant to be combined with other financial advice. Otherwise, it turns into this bizarre combo of "max out your traditional 401k, max out your Roth, max out your HSA, and then save another 30% of your (pretax?) income on top of that!"

On certain months, rather than putting money into my fire extinguisher account, I'll invest it (or I'll do half-and-half).

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