Way Too Transparent: All the Money We've Made (2022 update)

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Another year in the books, another year of the pandemic to endure. 

Welcome to 2022, what promises to be the longest seventy three months in memory. Supply chains are stretched, we've collectively stopped trying to avoid giving each other COVID, inflation is rampant, and Tom Brady will win another Super Bowl in a few weeks.

Mediocre Advice for Dads Who Somehow Know Less Than Me

When I first left work, I imagined I'd be writing multiple posts a week again like I did in the early years of the blog. Without the forty hours and ongoing stress of corporate employment, I'd be able to write a post on Monday and another mid-week, for sure.

As usual, I was both too optimistic and missed some key details. Like how raising a newborn is time consuming, and how two children take more labor than one.

With Mrs. Done by Forty deciding to continue working instead of joining me in early retirement, there's a heavier lift than if we were both retired and tag teaming the kids during the day.

Government Makes the Market

Early retirement has been a blessing in these long days of the pandemic. Our days went from a non-stop juggling of work, parenting, cooking, and cleaning to, well, a leisurely juggling act of the same things. Mrs. Done by Forty decided she wanted to keep working and it's been a very good thing for both of us: she's happiest when she gets to put her PhD to use and getting to do so from home is kind of a dream scenario. 

My time is filled with puzzles, toys, crayons and walks with Toddler AF, along with diapers and eye gazing and coaxing Baby JC to sleep. In the breaks, there are a lot of online board games and yard work.

Wealth Quartiles, and Who Is Rich, Anyway?

The other day, a question came up on my Twitter feed. Do you consider yourself rich?

I like this sort of question. Ideally, it inspires a little introspection and gets me to step back and get some perspective. Do I understand where we stand financially? Do I appreciate how lucky we are?

To get that perspective, it helps to understand what kind of money the average family has. We've written a lot about average incomes and income quintiles with this in mind.

I Guess I Like Cars Now?

So there was a slight omission in our last annual "are we on track for FIRE" post. Okay, two small omissions, that totaled twenty thousand dollars. Unintentionally following a trend that swept America while we were cooped up in a pandemic, we bought not one, but two, used cars: a 2015 Lexus RX350, and a 2006 Saab 9-3 2.0T wagon (or "Sportcombi" for Saab nerds).

What would have possessed us to buy two additional cars, mere months after writing an ode to the Matrix and the happiness of making one car work?

Stuck in the Middle with You

Bill Simmons once mentioned that people have a weird quirk when it comes to talking about weddings. No matter how many people you had at your wedding, if someone had twenty more people at their wedding, then they had a huge wedding. If someone had 20 fewer people, they had a small, intimate ceremony. Your wedding, though, was pretty normal: just enough loved ones to celebrate your beautiful day.

It's stuck with me, and now I notice this sort of relative comparison everywhere. People with homes larger than yours, or with things like workout rooms or finished basements that you don't have, are too big. Who could even use all that space? Can you imagine what it's like to clean that place?

Zero Days Out...Were We On Track for Financial Independence?

I turned forty one a couple weeks ago, which was kind a bummer. I've never been a big fan of my birthday and this has only gotten worse with age. I'd like to stop commemorating it altogether, but I have these people who love me and reminding me is a way to show that love, which is great. It's also a bittersweet reminder that, yes, I have less time now than I did last year.

It doesn't feel like I have so little time, to be honest. I don't feel forty one. And I don't feel old. I feel like I did all through my twenties and thirties: I just feel good, and I feel like the same guy. Yes, I have kids now and, sure, my body isn't as taut. But I'm me.

For Me, it's the RE

The correct thing to do in FIRE is to focus on the financially independent part: the freedom you gain from having financial security. If you no longer needed to work for money, what would you do with your one and precious life? Would you travel the world full time? Write that book you've been thinking about for decades? Start a business or non profit?

I feel some shame for not having great answers to many of those questions. Or, maybe I should say that the things I'd choose to do are not all that different from what I'd already been doing while working: playing board games, writing and reading, hanging out with my friends, watching the kids, cooking, tending to the house and the cars, taking some tasty naps. But these are mundane and totally ordinary pleasures. None of them require retirement. The only somewhat impressive thing we'd like to do once financially independent is travel more abroad, and we were kind of doing that already. 

And Then We Were Four

We left for the hospital just before midnight. The on-call OB said that if Mrs. Done by Forty's contractions were five minutes apart and consistent, then it was time to go. We called our friend to come over since Toddler AF was asleep, grabbed the suitcase, and drove off. 

At the hospital though, the nurses weren't so sure Mrs. Done by Forty was in labor. Early labor, sure. Regular, intense contractions, yes. But not "labor labor". After being told "let's wait another hour and see where we're at" the entire night, they finally released Mrs. Done by Forty at 9 am, nine hours after we arrived, and told us to come back when we were really in labor.

"But I feel like I am in labor."