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I am cutting down on blog reading & some links

I am cutting down on blog reading & some links


What I am currently reading

I have so many links in a variety of formats that I have enjoyed and have saved to make a post about. But by the time I get around to it, the links are generally older and posted elsewhere. Here is a few from this week:

“Dishabituation can be achieved in two ways. The first is to take a break—remove yourself from your environment for a period of time, however short, and then return to it without making any permanent changes…The second way to dishabituate…is to insert variety into your routines.” How to fight habituation

The U curve of happiness, is now a hump.Youth mental health declines in 82 countries

When life hands you unaffordable housing, build your own with friends.

“More chaos is coming, I fear. AI tools are making it easier and easier to manipulate images and videos. Every day, it gets easier to generate content that plays into people’s perceptual biases and confirms their prior beliefs — and easier to warp perceptions of the present and possibly even change memories of the past.” The internet peaked in 2015

Speaking of which, How to object to Meta’s AI data usage. Is it convoluted AF? Yes.

Speaking of F’s: one of the best things I have read this year is this essay: A unified theory of fucks.

I have drastically cut down on my social media usage – including the amount of blogs I am reading & youtube videos I watch. While I love to read a variety of personal finance blogs, the ratio of relevant information to ads/sponsored products has tipped over into the “not worth the hassle” category. I realized this weekend that one Canadian blogger I read has a 50/50 ratio of content to referral links. UGH. Don’t get me wrong: I am glad people are out there making their bag producing informative content for people. It just really isn’t worth my time anymore to read it because there really isn’t much new out there. On top of that, Instagram is now testing unstoppable ads. I haven’t come across them yet but it just may be the nail in the coffin there as well. I am only really posting pics to the account related to this blog because my personal account is overrun with things I can’t do much about, as I have written before.

I remember Amy Dacyczyn (of The Tightwad Gazette fame) used to compare her newsletters to Weight Watchers. Her argument was that people generally knew how to lose weight like they knew how to be frugal but the value was in the community and seeing other people do it, too. I think for a long time I consumed a lot of content based on that premise: it confirmed what I already knew and I got to read about similar people on a similar path. But now we have solidified our investment strategy, saved enough for Mr. Tucker to retire, paid off our house, saved enough for the kid’s post-secondary etc. with no plans to really change things up. Most debates that occur in the Finfluencer community are faits accomplis for me, so they aren’t really decisions that I am wringing my hands over anymore.

For example, I always joke to Mr. Tucker that when Ramit Sethi runs out of ideas, he runs a new video about owning vs. renting. Don’t get me wrong – his content is amazing – but CHRIST ON A CRACKER please save me from ever consuming any content on owning vs. renting ever again. It’s a personal finance dead horse as far as I am concerned. Do definitely read his book and watch his podcasts on Tuesdays with couples. Those things are great, especially if you are just starting out or need to change course. But I own a house, the house is paid off, and while I will happily sell it and become a renter if I need to someday, for right now that isn’t changing. (also, if you want to hear a pro-ownership argument Karsten at ERN does a really detailed one with a lot of numbers. In fact, his content is also fantastic if you like getting into the weeds)

Also, it helps that June has been a super busy month for us so far. For some reason we decided last minute to sort out our storage room that hasn’t been touched since we moved in and join the community garage sale. So we spent a week of evenings cleaning and sorting stuff. We told the kids that they could split whatever we made & they each made around $55. Not bad. The rest got sent to friends, the thrift store, or organized in bins to sell when the weather turns (it’s hard to sell snowsuits when its 30C out). We also happened to discover that our toilet was leaking so we had that fixed before it became a HUGE problem. So a small victory there as well. On top of that, dragon boat practice is twice a week, and The Eldest has a series of band events and job training to do. The Youngest is graduating from middle school and they also have many end of year field trips and events. So it’s a busy time for everyone – especially Mr. Tucker who is the maestro of everything. So I haven’t even really had a ton of time to read online content.

But we have been adding more fun stuff into our budget & reducing friction in our lives. More on that another day.

A great life is a series of small moments

A great life is a series of small moments


What I’m reading
• Why faux self-care won’t solve our problems. Honestly, I have come to believe that the self-care we truly need is more help from others, a deeper sense of community and time to be able to breathe & do the things that bring us joy.

• People who socialize with others outside of their homes live longer than those who don’t.

• I’ve sung Katherine May’s praises many times here but today’s piece the art of hibernation. Is lovely. I also have recently purchased her book Wintering after taking it out so many times from the library. I highly recommend you read it, especially if you live in the cold north, are feeling troubled or get a bit down by winter.

If you like that, she has a post of her Christmas reads. I read the Christmas Chronicles last year based on her recommendation and I am going to sift through the comments to find more. I’ve been sorely lacking the spirit this year* with all that has been going on & despite being done my gift shopping, I need a little cheer that money can’t buy.

Serendipity

Sometimes a perfect storm of factors come together and create the most beautiful, serendipitous moments.

The Eldest brought her oboe home from school with the intent to practice this weekend. It’s a momentous occasion because she NEVER brings it home. She is one of those people with a natural knack for music and since she has already played harp for almost 10 years, she gets by on very little work.

Hilariously, this is one of our biggest weekends in awhile. Mr. Tucker spent yesterday painting the office downstairs & The Eldest spent last night pack up all of her stuff for the move. This morning Mr. Tucker moved all the large furniture and The Eldest is currently hauling all of her books and knickknacks down while he rebuilds it. Then this afternoon while she sets up her new room in the basement, he will be painting her old room to make it into a shared office for both of us. Then tomorrow he will haul all of his office stuff into the new space and move my desk in from the living room. We still need to figure out a shared desk situation. I also have dinner out tonight, we have a games night tomorrow with some friends, The Youngest has a birthday party, my dad is visiting, The Eldest zips off to a ski hill for some job training all day…It’s a LOT.

…but I get away from the point, which is: we have zero time for much else – and she brought the oboe home fully intending to practice. 🤦‍♀️

I ribbed her about it but as it turns out, she did indeed get to practice. After dinner last night Mr. Tucker and I put on a fire and were chatting in the living room. The Eldest came in and announced that she was tired of packing and so decided to play for us. Just then, The Youngest came in with their blanket and decided to lay down on the couch.

The Eldest played some school songs for a bit and then went about trying to find some sheet music for My Chemical Romance songs. Since there is no sheet music for MCR for the oboe (we were all quite shocked.lol) she used flute music. The Youngest started to sing along. Mr. Tucker grabbed his guitar and then they started to try and figure out various songs together. Eventually, it became clear that the oboe was not a great instrument for MCR songs, so the kids & Mr. Tucker just started a fireside sing-a-long of a bunch of songs they all know the lyrics to.

I experienced genuine happiness in that moment. You couldn’t plan it, you couldn’t force it. It was one of those evenings that just organically came together. Everyone was laughing at trying to remember the lyrics and to figure out the tablature. It was just perfect. It reminded me of driving in Puerto Rico and having them all shout out the songs at the top of their lungs as we drove back from Ponce. These are the little moments that give us a good life.

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend.

*Thanksgiving in Canada is the second weekend in October, which leads nicely into Halloween. Then until November 11th is Remembrance Day season for me. Typically on the 12th however I launch fully into Yule mode.

Frugal: the new F word

Frugal: the new F word

What I’m reading
Some stores are scrapping self-checkouts.

Only 10% of US workers have the “optimal” characteristics to to save well for retirement.

“We frequently overestimate just how much happiness money can buy.” The pay raise people say they need to be happy.

Ranking streaming services by cost increase.

What I am thinking
I find many things come down to the fact that words can have different definitions. For example, I have discussed how people who dislike the term FIRE often choose to focus on the early retirement piece and not the financial independence piece. Same goes with people who say there is no such thing as “dividend investing.” Well, the term has been defined by the people who use it, so of course there is.

From what I can see, no word has been more maligned in the personal finance community than the word frugal. Let’s check out some history:

frugal (adj.)
“economical in use,” 1590s, from French frugal, from Latin frugalis, from undeclined adjective frugi “useful, proper, worthy, honest; temperate, economical,” originally dative of frux (plural fruges) “fruit, produce,” figuratively “value, result, success,” from PIE root *bhrug- “to enjoy,” with derivatives referring to agricultural products. Sense evolved in Latin from “useful” to “profitable” to “economical.” Related: Frugally.

PHEW. There is a LOT going on in there! What’s interesting is that on that page there is no mention of the word frugal being aligned with the word cheap but yet, it’s what frugality has come to mean to a lot of people. I think we’ve done the word frugal dirty and I am done with it!

Clearly, I consider myself a frugal person but I don’t consider myself cheap. To me, spending judiciously is what I think of when I think of the word frugal. I also think the word applies to more than just money: I want to get the maximum enjoyment out of things I spend time and energy on as well. I don’t watch a lot of movies or tv shows because I get very little value out of them. It isn’t a judgment on whether or not movies/tv are a good use of time, it’s about how I want to spend my time. I have a friend who loves movies and gets a ton of value from hitting up a theatre a few times a month. She loves it. She also loathes cooking, so she spends as few hours as possible in the kitchen. I love to cook, so I spend a lot more time cooking from scratch. We are both using our time on the things we love. That’s being frugal with our time and energy.

The same goes for your financial picture: spend money consciously on the things you love and you will get great value out of spending that money. Conversely, reaching for that credit card mindlessly every time your brain decides to have a dopamine hit for funsies and you end up broke with no money to spend on things that truly bring you joy.

Of course, people will say that frugal people focus too much on small things and ignore the larger things eating into their budgets. In some cases, that is for sure a fair assessment. For example, the easiest way for me to set up a Registered Disability Savings Plan (RDSP) was to set it up via a brick and mortar bank that had limited investment options (mostly high-fee mutual funds). It fills me with dread to know that I am paying management fees out the wazoo because of this limitation. But, the Canadian government matches my contribution 100% and those amounts grow tax free. So even with the high MER, I am still ahead. Unfortunately, many online banks don’t even offer the RDSP because there aren’t enough clients for them to deal with the hassle. Next year will be the last year that I will be eligible for the matching grant and while I hope online banks (*cough* I am talking to you Wealthsimple!) get into the game, if that doesn’t happen I will intensely research options to switch banks so I can whittle away at those crazy fees. The big things DO matter a lot – especially compounded. Large purchases such as cars, using a financial planner who takes a % of your investment, buying a home, the career you choose etc. can mean big gains and losses over a lifetime. It makes complete sense to focus on these things first.

I would argue though that making frugal choices in your everyday life also builds up your frugal muscle. Frugality becomes a habit and it contributes to your overall financial health. I am not saying that you should drive 20km to save .20cents on OJ – by definition that isn’t frugal at all! But if you shop at the grocery store near your house it takes a few short minutes to take a look at the sale items and think about buying those things and incorporating them into meals this week. It’s way better to plan ahead than end up buying a bunch of food you bought when you went to the grocery store with good intentions (or worse! Hungry!) and it ends up rotting in your fridge.

Also, most of us start our lives not making a whole lot of money. What we do have we have to use wisely if we want to balance getting our bills paid with being able to, say, have a social life. When you have less, you need to plan your money as carefully as possible. Because all the big things in your life are probably already as low as they can go you need to start cutting ruthlessly in other areas. The same goes for people who have lower incomes: telling them to not sweat about the small stuff is terrible advice when the small stuff is contributing to their inability to manage their finances and is increasing their debt. These people need to learn the skills of blackbelt scrimping until they can breathe again.

I spent years being ultra-frugal and making cutthroat decisions in how to spend. Those years allowed me to start a small business – and then to subsequently give up that business to stay at home with my kids. We rarely ate out, we mostly did the free activities available around the city and we had a YMCA membership that gave us access to fun sports classes for the kids. Most of those things were also walking or biking distance from our house. We had a really good life because we were able to access a lot of low-cost, fun stuff.

That frugality also came in handy when I decided to go back to work. Being able to live off one salary allowed me to wait and take contracts for work that I enjoyed and that were at a higher salary. I didn’t have to take the first job that came along because I knew that while the money was nice we didn’t need it to survive. I doubled my salary and went from a low-level admin position to heading up a team in a high-level position in under 5 years. I was free from the constraints of having to scramble for work to keep our family afloat. That kind of freedom to pursue the type of work you want to do is worth a lot more than eating out and shopping a lot.

Our house is paid off and our incomes is more than enough to spend well beyond what we need. But with my diagnosis it has been abundantly clear how precious time is. So while we could be buying up everything our little heart’s desire, we are choosing instead to invest Mr. Tucker’s salary to buy him an early retirement. Thankfully, my disability income is more than enough to support our family – if we spend judiciously. Buying his time back is the most frugal thing we can do right now.

In the end, frugality is a skill that never leaves you. You can also administer it as much or as less as you want to depending on your circumstances. If you have little money, you will have to tighten your belt. If you have a lot of money, you can loosen the belt if you’d like. But it’s exactly like riding a bike: you never forget how to use it.

The different stages of a good life

The different stages of a good life

When I was in my teens and 20s my idea of travel were of traipsing around Europe staying in hostels and meeting new people. I was raised by someone who loved travel to exotic locales and who had traveled extensively so it was a natural fit. I did do some of that when I was younger and it was lovely.

Conversely, my paternal grandparents owned a condo in Florida and drove down in the winters where they stayed for 4-6 months a year. When I was younger the idea absolutely repulsed me: why bother going anywhere that you wouldn’t experience history, culture and art? I wanted new landscapes and new food and to meet new people! It confounded me that they had never left the continent and I couldn’t see the value in going to the same place year-after-year. I also never understood the concept of sitting on a beach all day. ZZZZZ…boring! Cruising? Well that was for the newly wed and the nearly dead!

Mr. Tucker and I ended up getting married in the Caribbean because my parents paid for it and one of them was very keen to plan it in a certain place on a certain beach. I was neutral on the place but we did end up having an amazing week. When we arrived Mr. Tucker and I sat on a beach for the first time with a drink and he turned to me and said, “NOW I get why people enjoy this so much!”

When I was in my 20s I also had dreamed of owning a country house with acreage where we would be self-sufficient so that we wouldn’t need to have as much of an income. I had been inspired by The Tightwad Gazette and books that Helen and Scott Nearing wrote. While Mr. Tucker and I sat in our 530sq ft condo downtown, we often would look at farms for sale. At one point we were even starting to look at properties that would fit the bill.

In the end, when I got pregnant with the eldest we ended up in a mid-century suburb having traded homes with a relative who also owned half of the condo. Mr. Tucker was not happy but this relative always wanted to retire in the condo so we sucked it up and moved into the house. It remains to this day the biggest fight we have ever had. Not all was lost though: we met some really great friends in that neighbourhood, people who we continue to be close with to this day. Unfortunately, the relative had told us that they would sell us the house at one price and then reneged on the deal because condo life hadn’t turned out the way they wanted it & they wanted their house back. They signed the condo over to me (we had invested a lot in the house) and we all know how that is going.

We ended up buying a new house also in a mid-century suburb because by the time we were forced to move, the shine on the country life had worn off. Our kids were 7 and 9 at the time and were used to the amenities of the city, I had a career, was investigating ongoing medical issues at the time, and we wanted the kids to stay in the same school system. Oh, and I did want a puddle.

We don’t regret the decision now that we are middle-aged and in retrospect a farm would have taken our lives in a completely different direction. We probably would have ended up back in the city anyway with my medical needs.

So what gives?

Age gives.
Mobility gives.
Finances give.
…and life changes.

You change.

It happens slowly over time but your ideas about the future change when it actually becomes the future. If we had pursued our dream of owning a farm and being self-sufficient it would have been disastrous when I became disabled. I probably wouldn’t had my career and with it the disability benefits that pay 70% of my pre-disability salary (indexed to inflation). It would have left us scrambling for money and resources. I am grateful that the dreams I had in my 20s didn’t come to fruition, it would have ruined my middle age.

We have also had multiple cruise vacations (you can’t hostel through the Panama Canal) and have a beach resort vacation planned for this winter. We have changed so substantially in the 21 years that we have been together.

Now, at 47, I even see why my grandparents bought a place in Florida: as you get older, the winters feel harsher, walking in the ice and snow becomes more dangerous and the lack of sun really affects you. Last year I read an article about Margaritaville in the New Yorker and I didn’t feel revulsion, it made complete sense! This isn’t to say that I am rushing out to buy a house there but it occurred to me that for a certain group of people living there is an absolute dream.

Mr. Tucker and I have been discussing our ideas of what a good life really is. We used to dream of him retiring early and us being able to take off and travel the world. But going to Puerto Rico in 2022 for two weeks was an absolute nightmare. Travel post-pandemic was a nightmare (4 hours to get through security in Toronto), when we got there it was a comedy of errors (bald tires on the rental, getting lost in the mountains, roaches in the hotel room, no restaurants open in the town we stayed in etc.) and it has since really turned Mr. Tucker off of travel. While we still laugh at the stories we have from that trip the sour taste still hasn’t been completely eliminated from his mouth.

The only reason I got Mr. Tucker to agree to a trip this winter is that it is a> a direct flight; b> an all-inclusive resort; c> he will theoretically be retired so he won’t have to leap back into work if it is a horrible experience. Our trip in 2022 felt to him like work and then he had to jump right back into work when he got back.

Life is a series of experiences and those experiences lead to change about what you consider a good life. 14-year-old me loved go to the mall and shop for name brand clothes I could show off to my friends. I couldn’t have imagined ever NOT wanting to go shopping when I was that age. 47-year-old me avoids the mall like the plague. I also hate the idea of more stuff to clean, maintain and store. Impressing other people also holds no interest for me. Age is also why driving down to Florida for a month in the winter becomes more appealing over time as flying has become more hostile, post-pandemic. Getting to the airport early and dealing with delayed or canceled flights seems like more of a nightmare than just driving and taking our time. 24-year-old adventurous travel me is not 47-year-old mobility-impaired me. We are completely different people with different needs, goals and desires.

This isn’t to say that we wont fly places and travel more when good deals come up, I am just saying that I finally understand why people enjoy different types of travel. For our future travel, it may just look more tempered and less adventurous. When Mr. Tucker retires we will still have 5 years until the last kid turns 18 so a lot of that time will be spent staying home. Next year the eldest will be in grade 11 (here the biggest years to get into university rely on your grades for 11&12) so we won’t be able to pull her out of school to take advantage of a good travel deal. Also, the kids will be working in the summer so travel will be out during summer holidays as well.

Recently, Mr. Tucker and I were discussing how excited we both were to build new gaming computers this November. He got pensive for a minute and then said, “you know what? Even if we never traveled again, I would be ok with that. I like that we have our little house that has everything we need and we have a really good life right here.” To be honest, I have to agree. We have SEEN a lot and DONE a lot and if we never get to travel again we will have still done more travel than most people. Having a cozy little life with a roof over our heads and food in our bellies, time to work on our hobbies and see our friends IS a good life. A very good life, indeed. And that is enough.

Underground home and orchard in Fresno

Underground home and orchard in Fresno

I have always been fascinated with alternative living, especially alternative housing. I’ve spent many years and many hours watching Kirsten Dirksen’s videos from around the world but this one struck me as prescient given how climate change is currently burning up many forests in Canada. Maybe looking at how people have lived in harsh climates is something we should start to consider. From the video:

“During the California heat wave of 1906, Baldasare Forestiere dug a home underground with just a pickax and shovel. He spent 40 years excavating 10 acres of rooms, tunnels, a chapel, an underground aquarium, and courtyards to experiment with underground farming.

With no budget, he mixed mortar from the dirt he dug out, creating his own concrete and bricks. Despite continuing to work as a day laborer during the day (mostly digging irrigation ditches), by the 1920s, he had completed about 50 subterranean rooms.

A Sicilian immigrant to Fresno, California, Forestiere had planned to farm citrus until discovering that his 80 acres of “hardpan” soil were unusable for planting. Digging as far as 20 feet below the surface, Forestiere reached depths where the soil was good, and his trees were protected from Fresno’s extreme summer heat and winter frosts. After about 20 years of digging and underground farming, he could quit his day job and live off the fruits of his subterranean orchards.

Despite having just a fourth-grade education and no architectural training, Forestiere – inspired by the catacombs of Rome – built arches for support, and to this day, none of his underground construction has collapsed. In areas where he wanted more natural cooling (like near stoves), he created cone-shaped openings to encourage the venturi effect, pushing the hot air out and sucking the cooler air down.

His underground home had a kitchen with a wood-burning stove, an ice box and a dining room, winter and summer bedrooms, many skylights, a subterranean fish pond, a car garage for guests, and a three-floor aquarium with an underground glass viewing area. He had plans to open an underground resort to the public as a place to cool off in the summer, but he died before it was completed. His brother and family took over the site, and today it’s open to the public.

Forestiere Underground Gardens: https://undergroundgardens.com/”