January 2018 Action Items

As a goal driven person, lists are my safe space. I have special notebooks just for lists. They are organized by year, and looking back through them you can get an idea of how Lichen from the past evolved into the Lichen of today.

This is not a list. This is a Smoky.

Several years ago I figured out that my success rate on my goals went up 90% if my lists had lists*. So now, for major undertakings, I have smaller notebooks that break down the major into bite size steps. I think this works for me because my brain is already attuned to completing anything on my list, so smaller pieces give me that reward of an endorphin rush more often. This, in turn, makes me addicted to winning at life achieving the goal.

Operation: Live my best life (Yes, the name is a nod to another fave blogger, ThriftyGal!) is the hugest undertaking of all. Thus, my method for this is to break the big goals into monthly goals, which I can then gleefully achieve. So, without further adieu, here are the action items for January!

January Goals

•  Implement a 3x week daily yoga practice.
• Walk 3+ miles per day.
• Implement 2x week strength training.
• Track food and maintain calorie deficit
• Save $830 or 20% of income (whichever is greater)
• Hike once per week.
• Take the bus to school.
• Apply to 3 scholarships/grants.
• Complete the FW uber frugal month challenge
• Research Bellingham for eventual move.
• Create optimum study schedule for winter quarter.

Notes: 
The fitness goals are relatively easy, as I already do yoga/strength at this level 95% of the time. I tend to miss one to two days a month. I plan to ramp up next month, so I'm focusing on a 100% success rate in preparation. It's winter and cold, which I hate, though. So walking and hiking enough will be a bit more of a challenge. Taking the bus to school will help with that challenge. Plus, it saves the cash spend on a parking pass, gas, and wear and tear on car.

The savings goal was hard. We have a variable income and we can't predict it. So what I did was take out lowest earning month from the last two years. Making at least that much and not cutting back in budgeted categories we can save $830 without breaking a sweat. So that's the minimum but it falls below 20%. We make more, then we start working towards that 20% (or greater) number. The FW challenge should also help here.

I have a list of scholarships my honor society sent to me, so I'll begin with those. As for study schedule, I would do this anyway but not until a week or two into the quarter. This time, I'm doing it as soon as I get my class syllabuses (syllabi? syllapods?)

Research Bellingham is my easy task ;) we'll be there mid-month, so I'm making a list of things to check out now that will make an eventual move easier to plan.

So that's it, January's action items! I'll check in at the end of the month to show how I have done.

* There's more to it than this, though. Sometimes I have to be able to walk away from a list item. It took a long time to not view that as failure. Things change and sometimes an item is no longer required. Or, the time isn't right so the item can't or shouldn't be done in the window I allotted for it. Discovering that I could move an item or remove it entirely was likely the single most important thing I did that increased my goal success rate. It also worked wonders on my anxiety and cut down (but didn't eliminate) my reliance on my meds.

I'm looking forward to January 1st. Not only is that one year closer to 2020 without the world blowing up, it is also the start of the Uber Frugal Month. This is a challenge hosted by one of my most favorite early ER/PF blogs, the Frugalwoods. The following is my take on the preparation exercises that Mrs. FW provided for those embarking on the challenge!

Step 1: Establish your goals

I spent a lot of time on this step in preparation for Uber Frugal Month (and the rest of my life)! In fact, I dedicated an entire notebook to the pursuit.

Mrs. FW provides the following goal-setting questions:

Why are you participating in this Challenge?

What do you hope to achieve?

The overarching achievement driving this challenge is to attain financial freedom within 15 years, thus allowing my partner and I to focus purely on our life goals.

What are your longterm life goals?

This is where I spent the most time. I have three goals. Two are shared with my partner. They are

1. Live where we love. We yearn to be on the sound or the peninsula where we have accessible ocean and mountains. We want land or access to public land (and trails!) right outside our back door. We also don't want to be too far from a small urban area to meet our more civilized needs.
2. Spend our life in nature. Hiking, kayaking, beach combing – this ties in to our first goal but has some special considerations of its own.
3. Be a scientist/botanist. This is my driving goal. I've been working toward it already, but it's not yet achieved.

Where do you want to be in 10 years?

Our goals pretty much sum up where we want to be. I should be done with school and hopefully working in the field of botany, hopefully in the region where we want to live (my major is somewhat dependent on PNW plant life, so shouldn't have to relocate). We should be nearly FI, if not already FI, and shopping for our dream land/home if not already in it. One kid should be a college graduate, while the other should be finishing college or entering grad school.

What about your current lifestyle might prevent those goals from coming to fruition and what can you do about it?

Ug, this is a hard one but necessary. Lets revert to the tried and true bullet point list:

• Entertainment costs. Freaking entertainment costs. Hundreds of dollars slip through our fingers monthly and into the tills of restaurants, movie theaters, bars, coffee shops and other sundry enterprises.
• Groceries. Same deal, even though I cook 90% of our meals at home, our grocery bills have creeped up over the years because of lazy shopping.
• Our savings rate is currently zero with nothing saved anywhere beyond a few hundred in the bank.
• We are self employed and not super high earners (around $55k annually). When mortgage is figured in, our savings rate isn't high enough for our FI target. Must increase income AND decrease expenses.
• Health may be a limiting factor. I have weight to lose to get back to the fitness level necessary to achieve some of my life goals.
• College funding. Although my undergrad is paid for via grants due to our income, I need to start looking for funding options for post grad.

Step 2: Review last month’s spending.

The second task set forth by Mrs. Frugalwoods is much easier for me, at least. This is because I have kept a detailed ledger for several years, so have every expense recorded and categorized. I even do a “year in review” and close out the books annually. Without further adieu, here are our November 2017 numbers:

group 1

Phones: $270

Internet: $80

Electric: $138

Water/trash: $95

Insurance: $76

Car: $500

Mortgage: $1050

group 2

Groceries: $633

Household: $98

Gas: $21

Entertainment: $398

Clothing: $31

Gifts: $300

School: $37

I broke these into two groups for now, just to look them over. We'll call the first group “bills.” Of the bills, the car category and mortgage payments are non-negotiable at this point in time. We could possibly bring down our water and electric costs, but we are already lower tier for a house and family of our size, so I am not going to look too closely at these numbers right now. We are stuck with one internet company, but it may be time to call and try to negotiate a better deal. Insurance and phones do need to be reviewed for better cost options, though.

Looking at group 2, we see where things get ridiculous. Fortunately, this is likely low hanging fruit. Almost $650 on groceries? Who do we think we are, Rockefellers? $400 on entertainment, holy fucking shit, man! Do you know what that entertainment mainly entailed? Dinners out, too much beer at bars, and other stupid crap I don't even remember less than a month later. Clothing isn't bad for a family of four – we mainly thrift these items. Gifts seem ridiculous, but that was the entirety of our holiday gift buying for the kids and a few selected others. This number is usually much lower. Household is our catch-all category: pet food, toilet paper, doctor copays, aspirin – anything that doesn't slide cleanly into another category. So $98 isn't too bad but there was some frivolous spending wrapped up in there.

Okay, I wasn't supposed to judge us on spending, just record the facts. I failed at that, but holy hell, that entertainment waste!

Step 3: Categorize your expenses

Here is where we divide things into “Fixed Mandatory” and “Discretionary.”

Fixed Mandatory

Mortgage

Car (sure, I could sell the car. But I won't.)

Electric (on a billing plan, it resets and we could lower it, but that won't take effect until the next annual review in a year.

Internet (necessary for school/work, not just fun!)

Discretionary

Groceries

Household

Entertainment

Gifts

Clothing

Gas

School (most is discretionary, not all)

Insurance (we have per mile insurance so we can save by not driving.)

Water

Phones

Step 4: What can I eliminate entirely?

Haha hahahahahahaha....uh yeah. I knew this was coming. Looking at the discretionary category, I think we can eliminate the following entirely or at least drastically:

Entertainment

Clothing (except for new shoes for one kid)

At least 50% of household spending

About 35% of grocery spending

Most gifts and school expenses

We can likely lower the following with some research:

Phones

Insurance

Step 5: Embrace the art of substitution.

This will be key to our success in January (and beyond). I'll be honest, that entertainment category likely won't be at zero on January 31^st, namely because we have a mini-vacation/life goal researching trip planned and already paid for. There will be some meals and drinks out. BUT, we can substitute for pricey entertainment the rest of the month.

Here's a few plans in a couple of categories:

1. Entertainment: Once school starts up there are three nights only when temptation calls. Night #1 is a Thursday. This will be a game night. We're going to bust out the Overpower cards and begin dueling. Friday night will be movie night. Frozen pizza and a library movie for the whole family. Saturday will remain date night, but we'll combine the “date” with our weekly grocery shop. We'll stop by the fancy deli at a local organic grocery and enjoy a dinner of $3 wraps (these things are amazing), then come home for homemade cocktails and darts. We've been cleaning up our basement wet bar to turn it into a romantic hang out spot away from the kids.
2. Groceries: I've already worked out a detailed grocery plan with the help of spreadsheets. (ah spreadsheets, you make everything better!) Plenty of budget friendly substitutions available for some of the pricey stuff that had been sneaking into our cart.
3. Household spending: Taking this on as a personal challenge – going to try to find free substitutes for any non-necessary items that we find ourselves shopping for. In other words, I'm still going to buy toilet paper, but I'll skip the new bath linens.
4. Transportation: I get a free bus pass through my college. Instead of paying for a parking pass and gas, I'm going to take the bus to school. It almost literally takes no extra time or effort – the bus stop is at the end of my block and there is only one or two stops between me and campus. As an added bonus, my campus is right off an awesome hiking trail that follows the river. I mapped out a short 3 mile segment that leads to another trailhead near a bus stop, so I can combine some of my fitness goals with my financial goals :) Plus, this is another form of free entertainment!

That's all I've come up with for now, but I expect the month will uncover more little substitutions.

Step 6: Reduce spending on discretionary expenses.

I guess I got a little ahead of myself, since I already began to address this above. Namely – groceries. A big part of this is moving our grocery shop to Saturday nights as part of our date night activity. No one around here shops Saturday night, the grocery stores are empty and easy to peruse. The weekend sales are going strong. With careful planning, we can have a nice evening out and about.

We will shop at normal and discount grocers, too. We had slipped into buying most of our groceries at the local organic hipster store, mainly because it's clean and has an awesome vibe. No more! Instead, we will still soak up the vibe by having a cheap date dinner in their deli on Saturdays. Added bonus? The deli part features free live music on Saturday nights, so it will feel a bit special.

Other places to save are things like phone, car insurance, and internet. I'm going to be making some calls and trying to find lower rates on all of these things.

Step 7: Empower yourself to insource!

We don't really hire anything out, except for our oil changes and car repairs. In other words, we pretty much insource everything already. I'm not sure if we will be tackling oil changes/car repairs ourselves. I will research what the oil change entails on our model before I rule it out though. Same with brakes. (Interesting aside: I once replaced the brakes on a car when I was 8 months pregnant and before YouTube, using nothing but a photocopied page from a library Chilton's manual.)

Our home also needs some repairs before it is ready to sell or rent out in a year. I'll go through and make a list of these repairs so we can begin researching how to go about them. Hopefully we'll find that we can insource most of them!

Step 8: Examine your habits

Good news is that it appears I've already begun to do this! Cases in point:

1. Changing up our grocery routine and combining it with our previously spendy date nights to create savings in both categories.
2. Switching to public transportation for school, which should completely eradicate the habit of “running errands” on the way home from class. (Which usually entailed purchasing things we didn't really need. Harder to do if I don't have the car!)
3. Developing a routine and traditions that are free to replace boredom/temptation to go out and spend.
4. Friday night prepared junk food. Fridays are the day when I am likely to stop and pick up something pricey from the grocery store or some takeout because I don't want to cook. Well, I'm giving myself permission, but I'm planning in advance for it. I can get a month's supply of frozen pizzas for less than $15 at a local discount grocery chain. Friday is now officially frozen pizza (a kid favorite) and library movie night.

Step 9: Plan ahead.

This is what I've been doing above, right? I'll lay out a basic week plan. Simply a guide, not written in stone!

Monday: School, work, homework.

Tuesday: Repeat

Wednesday: Repeat

Thursday: Repeat but add in a game night so not tempted to go out and “relax.”

Friday: Work, go on a hike (yay fitness goals!), and have a pizza/movie night.

Saturday: Weekly catch up day – house chores, any work/homework, meal prep. Also – groceries and date night!

Sunday: Visit mom, homework, laundry, relax before school week starts over.

Things to prep:

• Meal plan weekly so dinner is simple when it needs to be.
• Use my grocery spreadsheet combined with a major shop at the cheapest but furthest away bulk store. This way we only need to get perishables on a weekly basis.
• Queue up a free yoga video before I go to bed. This way it will be buffered and ready to play first thing in the AM.
• Keep a running list of wants/needs on my phone or in a spreadsheet (phone accessible) so we can put off buying and instead look for free/cheap deals.

Step 10: If you do buy stuff, get it used.

Another thing we do right! At least 90% of our stuff is used. In truth, thrifting is sometimes a real problem and a place where we overspend.

So, going forward, I'm enacting the 30 day rule. We'll keep an ongoing list of wants/needs. If they haven't been found for free within 30 days and they are still on the list, then we will begin sourcing them used. 90 days before we even consider buying new (depending on the severity of the need and the specific item, of course).

For January, I'm staying out of thrift stores (except on our trip – but I'm setting a budgetary limit. There are a few items I've been specifically putting off looking for simply because the area is more likely to yield amazing thrifted deals on these items compared to our local area. Most of the items are camping/outdoor gear).

Step 11: Banish excuses.

Yeah, I have a few excuses. Not in the low hanging fruit categories like entertainment and groceries. Yeah, those are going to be freaking hard, but not impossible! No, my excuses are in the categories that really don't require much more than a phone call or a visit to a website. Why? Because I hate dealing with people trying to sell me policies, phones, whatever. I hate the hassle of switching companies. Pain in the ass!

So yeah, I'm making excuses about the phones. The insurance. Even the car expenses, which I could likely get lower.

No more! They are all on my list to tackle in January!

We have a pretty hard core financial goal. At this point, our income isn't really enough to achieve it. But, no excuses. First we cut back and optimize our savings rate. Then we look at how much we are still falling short so we can create a game plan to optimize our earnings and close the gap. This might mean renting instead of selling our house. Or, it may mean taking on one or more side hustles in addition to school. But for January, our main focus is going to be on making the most of our current income and getting these goals off the ground!

Life Goals

I've recently laid out my life goals and a road map on how I plan to get there. In the interest of keeping my journey all in one place, I present to you:

The Life Road Map of Lichen
I started my roadmap by doing two exercises I read about over at Frugalwoods: Write your current bio and your dream bio. The idea is that you contrast the two and see how far you are from your dream bio. I was actually a bit relieved -- I'm pretty far away from the dream, but my current bio showed me I have been taking some steps and building the framework necessary to get to the dream. In other words -- not at my destination but definitely on the path. 

In determining this the next choice was obvious: Use the knowledge gained from the Frugalwoods exercise to craft three overriding life goals. What are the three things most important to achieve in order to get to that dream bio? The results follow.

Life Goal #1: Live where I love
This goal includes the following "parts"-

• Ocean AND woods
• Small urban area accessible
• PNW
• Small, low maintenance home on land or near a major public trail system.

Life Goal #2: Become a scientist
The parts of this goal include-

• Get my master's degree
• Find work that combines field and lab time
• Make a contribution to science

Life goal #3: Spend a life in nature
And the parts of this one-

• Improve my health/fitness level 
• Know a patch of terrain intimately
• Spend 70% of my life immersed in the outdoors

Bonus points: The first and third goal align with my wife's life goals, and the second one is not at odds with any of her goals. As a couple, this is a wonderful place to be, since it allows us both to develop to our desired potential.

Short term plans:

My goal mapping actually goes a step further, with short, medium, and long term action items. Naturally, these items are subject to change because life happens. But currently, here are my short term action items that help me work toward the above goals:

•   Achieve a 20% savings rate and fully fund investments. All goals are easier to achieve once the pursuit of money is removed from the equation. 
• Maintain GPA and become transfer eligible to my desired university in my target area.
• Lose the excess 40 lbs I am carrying around for no good reason except a love of cheese.
• Increase fitness level with a daily yoga/strength routine and weekly hiking outing.
• Secure an additional $10k in scholarship and grant funding. 
•  Prepare the house to sell/rent and research the pros/cons of each option. 

I have determined that the above goals will take between 12 and 24 months to achieve, as long as I stay focused and work on them regularly. Once they are achieved, some of the midterm goals will take their place.
I'll be honest, to finally have a plan and to be embarking on this journey is very exciting for me! 

To thine own self be true

2018, and every year thereafter until I die, is going to be my year. I pissed away many years trying to follow my own path to a destination that wasn't of my choosing. Why? Because I knew I was meant to rebel, but I didn't realize that my goals weren't of the standard "American Dream" bullshit.

Case in point:

A woman from a solidly middle class background goes to college, gets a pointless liberal arts degree, gets married, buys house, works/becomes superwoman, retires, goes on a cruise, dies.

Okay, I figured I could do that but rock star that I was, my 20 year old self tried to screw with the recipe. So, it actually went like this:

Move to a cool city and get a crappy restaurant job. Wait a year, then start classes. Focus on an "easy" major I didn't care about because I was good at it. Drop out. Drop back in. Drop out. Rinse. Repeat. Give up on school. Get married. Have kids. Break into the career I tried to go to college for. Yep, I'm good at it, still don't like it. It lets me work from home, though. Buy house. Husband comes out as transgender. Hmm, always suspected something was up. Work through that hot mess of shit and come out on the other side a strong couple and happy family.

Now here is where it gets interesting:

Dad dies and mom goes batshit crazy. Oh wait, she was always crazy, just no more dad to reign her crazy in. She latches onto me in her codependent craze and lots of bad shit from my childhood resurfaces. Not abuse of the physical sort, just the memories of growing up with a mentally unstable mother.

Shit got bad. I developed anxiety. I dreaded waking up each day, never sure what kind of crazy would greet me. I ballooned up to 225 lbs and was just plodding slowly toward death.

And then I said enough. For shits and giggles I took this home naturalist course to encourage myself to get off my ass and go outside again. The observation lead to further study, then to a few free Coursera classes in the sciences.

I remembered who I was until I was 13... I had wanted to be a scientist. I collected everything. For a few years it was rocks. I can still identify a ton of different rocks. Then it was shells. Leaf rubbings were the thing for awhile. Why did I stop?

Oh yeah. 7th grade algebra and Mrs. MsDermott. (Yeah, Terry McDermott, I calling out your shiz.) Like millions before me and millions after me, linear equations were the most confusing thing my 12 year old brain had ever encountered. Mrs. M's solution? Force me out of algebra and into remedial instead of doing her job AND TEACHING. Actually told me that few girls are good at math and since I was already in honors English this was probably for the best. By the time I hit college, I had 100% internalized that message and took the degree option that required only a cursory math credit.

Older and wiser now, I fought back. I enrolled in the local college as a biology major. I took my math placement and totally bombed. I regrouped and began the college remedial math program. Know what happened? I totally rocked linear equations! In fact, I totally rocked the class. I had a full load of only that class and science classes, and I finished the quarter with a 3.8 GPA! (4.0 in just the science classes.)

Don't tell me what I can't do.

So, this made me realize a few other things...

I hate writing for money. My career was killing me.
I hate home ownership, at least the American Dream interpretation.
I hate trying to conform to the norms placed upon women of my age and demographic.
I hate living a fully urban life.
I hate being a slave to money.
I love my kids and wife. Best thing to come out of my life thus far.
I love alternative living options -- minimalism, yurts, vanlife, tiny homes.
I love science, particularly botany and biology.
I love the academic world, but I love field study more.
I love the cold PNW coast, the forests, the mountains.

So I'm pursuing freedom. My wife and I have made a pledge to live our best lives. Our visions of what this means don't align perfectly, but they align on the things that really matter. The rest can progress in parallel just fine.

About me

What I am:

• I'm an introvert
• I'm awkward
• I laugh easily
• I'm an optimistic realist
• I get frustrated
• I can get bogged down in facts
• I'm ruled by logic almost to a fault
• I sometimes miss a joke
• I more often make a (bad) joke
• I can be intense
• But I don't take things seriously enough
• I'm a scientist (in training)
• I was a writer
• I'm a mother
• I'm a wife
• Those two things above don't solely define me
• I live for the outdoors
• But I sometimes need motivated
• I'm a dreamer
• And a planner
• And also a doer
• I'm organized
• I'm blunt
• I'm a progressive socialist, or maybe a liberal. 
• I'm usually right
•  

What I am not:

• I'm not a pleaser
• I'm not easily frightened
• I'm not a quitter (except cigarettes!)
• I'm not a crier
• I'm not a whiner
• I am not a baby talker (not even to babies)
• I'm not an asshole (except when I need to be)

What are you?