We are still working on house projects this week, and making good progress. There aren’t any more emergencies to deal with, so it’s all forward progress now. I had a bit of a mental meltdown, a FIRE existential crisis (see day 9).

FIRE: Day 8 (7/6)

We rented a 9′ UHaul van today and started moving loads of stuff from the storage unit to our garage. Our main goal was to get far enough back to reach some important items. Those included my bike charger, kitchen stuff, and my guns that I’d rather not have movers move. It was a productive day and the van made it so easy. We took three full loads and cleared out about half of the storage unit all the way to the back wall.

In the evening we went to JC’s mom’s for dinner. JC’s brother’s family also arrived later that night so we spent the night catching up with them.

FIRE: Day 9 (7/7)

I slept like shit last night, mainly due to my mind racing about various things. Some of these are relevant to FIRE, and pretty silly when I stop to think about things logically. More on that below.

Despite being tired we got quite a bit done today. I tested the sump pump and it’s still working fine. The grass was ready to mow so I did that. Also I talked to the building department about what inspection type I need, and got that scheduled for tomorrow. And I followed up with our insurance guy to get the alarm monitoring discount, and to adjust our coverages on our auto insurance to align with our umbrella policy.

Existential Crisis

These racing thoughts all started because JC’s brother, we’ll call him Colt, was in town last night so we caught up with his family. It was nice to see them and they had the best questions for us about our year, despite us anticipating them being the worst to talk to about it. Colt can take some odd firm positions on things he either disagrees with or wouldn’t do himself. Sometimes he can be contrarian for seemingly no reason. In any case, that didn’t happen this time, and talking to them was actually great.

Lifestyle

Their family is the exact opposite of ours in many ways. If I had to sum it up, they live life in an unrestrained way. It’s a complete contrast to our calculated measured way of living. The difference shows up on the financial front but also in lifestyle. Every time they are in town they spend hundreds between eating out, buying random shit at Walmart, activities, etc. While I think that’s bad for their finances, I actually don’t judge this negatively. It’s just how they choose to live, and hopefully that lifestyle suits them and brings them happiness.

On this trip however, the unrestrained lifestyle had zeros behind it. Before leaving on our gap year, Colt already had a really nice new truck that he bought just a couple years back. A Silverado Trail Boss, probably a 2023. JC and I were both looking at his truck last night, saying to ourselves “wasn’t it a white truck?”. Turns out he had traded that in for a Silverado ZR2, which when new, even with no additional options starts at $71K. I’m not sure if this was brand new, but it was at least quite new.

On top of that, after seeing our Crosstrek they said “we’re thinking of buying one of those for our daughter”, who is about to get her permit. The Crosstrek is the nicest car I’ve ever owned and will be our family car for at least the next decade. I found it a little degrading that to them it’s just something to pick up casually for a teen driver.

It’s reminiscent of my sister-in-law, after we bought our house in 2010, saying “it’s a great starter house”. We bought it intending to live in it forever, and that still holds true 16 years later. If anything we might downsize as the 2,050 square feet will seem cavernous when the kids are gone.

Thought Spirals

Tying this all back to my FIRE existential thought spirals, their choice to spend without restraint made me examine my own opposite mindset. Colt’s household income is at best equal to what I made before leaving my tech job. That’s with two incomes, and assumes he’s at the very top of the scale for his position, combined with his wife’s teacher salary.

This similarity in pay range makes it easy to contrast our lifestyles and behaviors. With that same money, I would never make careless purchases like they do, because I know what I had to go through to get that money. My job as a software engineer and architect was hard for me. It was at the upper limit of my cognitive abilities, and it was stressful.

It raises the question though, why do they seemingly not mind binding themselves to their jobs? What is wrong with me that I disliked my career enough to find the fastest path away from needing that career? While I’m proud of the accomplishment that is FIRE, does it say something about my mental toughness that I don’t want to be an employee in my chosen profession day after day?

I know other FIRE achievers have some of these same thoughts. I always thought people going through this were crazy because how bad could it really be? You won the game of finances.

FIRE: Day 10 (7/8)

I had my electrical inspection today and I sort of failed. The inspector was a nice guy and offered to pass me, but I said I didn’t mind a second inspection. He wanted me to cut the disconnected wires in the source box as close to where they enter as possible instead of capping and labeling the lines. That gives no chance for them to ever be reconnected. This is what my electrician brother-in-law also suggested, but I didn’t want to go into the inspection having already done that, because there’s no reversing it. I have a follow-up inspection tomorrow.

Throughout the day I accomplished a handful of other things as well. I got SimpliSafe fully functional, and sifted through our very full electronic tote to reorganize it. After that I worked on changing addresses on a list of things back to our house. I didn’t make it all the way through that list because I kept getting side-tracked as I would touch each thing. I would go to change our insurance mailing address and start checking on whether our agent actually applied the coverage changes I asked for. Changing the address for our savings accounts lead me to a budget rabbit hole.

JC and I went for a walk after dinner and I gave myself a haircut.

FIRE: Day 11 (7/9)

My followup electrical inspection was today, and I passed. The inspector is a stern but fair older guy. After the electrical checked out he wanted to go out to the box to check on legible labeling. He wanted me to update the labeling of these circuits as they are old and faded and not super clear. Told him I would do that, and I did do that.

I went to the gym for the first time since being back. To avoid any intense soreness from my almost two weeks off from lifting, I did one set of every lift. The mid-afternoon crowd was pleasantly light, just a handful of old people. In all the gyms I went to internationally, I never found a good time to go to any of them.

FIRE: Day 12 (7/10)

JC and I made a run to the storage unit to get some folding chairs to go along with a camping table we had already grabbed. We are going to use this for a kitchen table.

I worked on patching the drywall today. The main piece of drywall fit like a glove, and the corner bead matched nicely to the existing. I got it taped with two coats of mud on so far.

FIRE: Day 13 (7/11)

I went to the gym to run, and noticed that the demographics in our town are shifting older. Back when I used to go to the same gym in 2010-2020, I felt like there were plenty of middle age or younger people including me. I was pretty much the youngest person at the gym today, at 47 years old.

After returning home, we hustled out the door at 9am to go see my mom. Her town is about a two hour car ride away. We ate lunch with her and spent the day catching up. My uncle came over for dinner so we got to catch up with him as well.

FIRE: Day 14 (7/12)

This morning at my mom’s house we mostly lounged around. JC went to see her aunt who lives about 16 miles away. BC and I played some basketball.

We packed up some beef that my mom gave us and hit the road after lunch. Upon arriving home I was kind of bummed out. I’m still having a hard time adjusting to being back here. The only way I can describe how it feels is if you imagine a place you voluntarily left, and then a year later you move back into that place. It just creates a bizarre feeling of “no, I already did this”. It doesn’t even have to be a place you hate. I like our house and our town, but my brain wants it to be a memory of the past, not the present and the future.

I put two more coats of mud on the wall patch. It’s starting to look good and I should have it ready for texture tomorrow.