We've gotten into our new groove.
Well... Kinda...
You see... what has changed the past few months is...
I started freegan activities 1 Dec 2017.
Also, my nephew went into Pri 1 in 2018, so our weekend parent visits switched from Sunday to Saturday.
Now... these 2 activities have allowed us to save quite a lot during these past 4 months and I'm very happy with that.
Another thing that has picked up or will likely pick up is my wife's business trips. Which is expected to be once a month. Hopefully not twice a month.
With all these changes, I/we were trying to find a good balance/routine for the past few months.
For instance, I now have a lot of food available in the fridge, so I need to manage the inventory and make sure that it gets used up quickly every week before I get more, furthermore, sometimes, people pass me extra food at random times so that shakes the inventory management a bit.
And I need to also make sure that the food stocks are brought down before our next trip, but also have enough frozen stores to be ready to cook again when we get back.
Not to mention, I now cook 6 days a week...
You may think... "Oh what's the big deal, these are small issues."
Yes they aren't big issues... pretty much, they aren't really issues, generally, they are just changes in routine, and changes in routine are troublesome.
Cos I like my routines to be nice and simple. And during the past few months, there has been some change cos I was trying to operationalize my freegan activities. Meaning, find out what freegan activities I can integrate into my life and how to use it in my daily life without taking too much effort.
And finally I have. I even have a regular way to pass on my excess stock to someone else ready to accept it... don't think it's so easy to give free food to people. It's not as easy as you think, especially if there's quite a large quantity and random products.
I've also managed to bring my discretionary spending down under $500 per month.
Although it's likely that I'll exceed it in some months due to special expenditure or holiday travels, I'm expecting my basic necessities to stay under $500 per month. Which I think is pretty cool.
So what do I mean when I say things have pretty much settled down...
Simply put, I'm bored again.
The fun part is always the start when I learn new things. Then it gets a bit annoying cos new operations need to be set up. But once that is set up. Then things settle down again and life goes into a routine again. It's ironic... Cos I'm annoyed by the changes so I try to operationalize things to settle things down, but after that I get bored cos things have settled down...
So... what's next?
Truthfully, I have no idea.
Some people may think I need to have a plan... I need to do something with my life...
But I think.... Nahhhh...
I prefer to let things move along naturally, and if something interesting comes along, I can try it out like what happened with freeganism.
More often than not, what drives me is ease of doing something and what benefits me.
Else I have little interest.
So like freeganism interests me cos it helps me save money. Along the way I get to help people and the environment, but truthfully, if it doesn't benefit me, I'd probably not be doing it.
How does this all fit in in the whole plan for financial independence?
Well...
It's always been earnings, expense, savings, investments.
These things are the things that would benefit me so it would make sense that I would be interested in them.
Most people are only interested in earnings, some people are interested in investments, not many like to reduce expenses cos they believe it affects their lifestyle.
Savings is a result of earnings minus expense... unless we talk about bank interest?
Earnings is usually simple. Work or work related activities.
What could interest me next?
That's going to be tough. Cos I don't know of any job that's going to pay me to work ad-hoc whenever I feel like it. Cos I may follow my wife around any time she wants me to.
This "job" will need to have working hours around 8am to 1pm, Monday to Fridays and take random days off when my wife calls me to go along on her biz trips.
Currently the easiest job that fits this criteria is Grab... (No more Uber lol)
Expense... ah, how to stir my interest again?
When the prospect of zero expense exists. Freeganism has warped my mentality with regards to this.
How to lower expense?
First, don't consume. A lot of people don't realize or don't think about this.
You can actually NOT have a handphone, you can DON'T have a mobile plan.
You can DON'T have a TV at home.
But obviously we don't need to suffer so terribly. But NOT consume IS an option for quite a lot of things.
Let's make it perfectly clear that most consumption is a choice.
So what do we do if we NEED to consume... well... get it free... duhz, once again ZERO expense.
You can don't consume or consume it for free. Both of these still result in zero expense.
Next best thing is to borrow it. Not many people talk about this. Sharing and borrowing is actually quite a good option. Problem is that more often than not, when people borrow, it's hard to get it back, or you have to remind them to return the item. Happened to me a few times, I've learnt not to lend things to people.
Usually we just go for cheaper deals when we need to consume.
Can't really get a free steak at a swanky restaurant so the only thing left to do is to wait for a promo.
Maybe there are other free ways to get free stuff that I haven't learnt of? Or other promo methods that I haven't heard about? That would really spur my interest. It's a long shot, but, hey, I don't know what I don't know right, I never knew about freegans and living off the excess of others. So maybe there are other ways to live for free. It needs to be worth the effort though.
Then we come to investing, which is usually stocks, property, or a business, and all the other usual stuff like bonds, REITs, etc...
Most of them are risk adjusted so you pretty much get what you pay for...
What would interest me would be... are there any low risk high return investments?
It's ok to lock up liquidity for a long period, for example if there's an investment that somehow reliably guarantees 10% compounded returns annually, but I have to lock it up for 15 years straight.
I'd be interested in such an investment. But as I said, reliably... how many companies would I trust for 15 years?
The thing about "what's next" is... I don't know. Cos we don't know what we don't know.
So I won't know what would spur my interest til it happens. Cos I can't search for something if I don't even know about it. So it really does have to just pop up, or be suggested by someone then I can go and look into it.
And such topic would need to be really efficient, meaning it needs to be really worth the effort.
But that's subjective, cos some people would think freeganism isn't worth the effort, but I think it's worth the effort cos the principle behind it is important, that most things can be found free and by knowing this, you know that you will never starve. I do not need to be reliant on someone to give me a job so that I need to survive.
So that's it for today's post... really... nothing's going on. Things have settled down. Hopefully someone can suggest something new to explore. Something really interesting and life changing would be nice, or maybe someone can point me to an article which could lead me to other places or other ideas. That would be interesting.
Interesting meaning, different from normal, different perspective in life, different mental structure as per normal.
Like if you tell me you know someone who stays in Pulau Ubin living off the land and generally freegan with little electricity, I may be interested to meet him to see what his life is about.
Need some suggestions, would be great if readers can suggest quirky stuff.
Thanks.
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