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Category: Financial Independence

A Lottery of Sorts

A Lottery of Sorts

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The two minute walk from my job site office to my construction site is along a leafy well known downtown street in the East Bay. Restaurants and bookstores line the road on each side. A popular university is nearby. My walk is like crossing through another dimension where in the span of moments I encounter the entire social economic spectrum of our country. Street people. Drug addicts. High school students. Graduate students. Immigrants. Blue collar workers. Foreign students. Millionaires. Babies….

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Learning To Let The Lawn Grow

Learning To Let The Lawn Grow

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While the 2022 bear market viciously mauls my portfolio, I’ve made a pretty conscious effort not to look at my net worth during the last few weeks. I handled the 2020 bear market pretty well, though back then FIRE seemed so far away and the Bear attack so fast—over before I knew it. And the other bear market, 2008, was brutal, but my net worth was the last thing on my 25 year old mind back then. Now that I’m…

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The Power of Self Discipline: A Journey to Financial Independence, Sobriety, and Health

The Power of Self Discipline: A Journey to Financial Independence, Sobriety, and Health

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From the time I get up each and every morning, I’m inundated with choices. The most important choice happens to be my very first choice: Do I get up thirty minutes early to make lunch and coffee at home? Or sleep for a few more wonderful minutes and eat out for lunch? What’s the difficult decision here? Forcing myself out of bed at 4:30 AM to make lunch is the harder choice for me. Will $15 bucks for lunch and…

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A Summer of Saving

A Summer of Saving

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It’s summer and my favorite time of year in the Happily Disengaged household. Summer is an easier time to do things outdoors while spending less money, and in general, is the most frugal time of year for us. Backyard grilling is cheap. Biking and hiking don’t cost much (except for the gasoline consumption). Next weekend we’re going camping. Yesterday I went rafting down the American River. I’m intermittently fixing things around my house, last week for example a toilet began…

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The Investing Commute

The Investing Commute

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Wow. Been a while. To give a brief update on my life in the last few months since my last post: Biggest change is I switched companies at work. My new company gave me an offer I couldn’t refuse, and well, in the name of FI, I had to take the money. I’m much busier now that I’m back to building things, on a job site around people again, and to be honest, I welcome the change. The job is…

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Job. Career. Calling. Which Do You Choose?

Job. Career. Calling. Which Do You Choose?

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After nearly twenty-one years of being an official adult, I’ve lost sight and forgotten many times the feeling one has when finally deciding upon (or settling on) a profession, be it a job, career, or calling. I didn’t go to college, so I never had the sort of free-range buffer of growing into adulthood that many who attend four-year universities experience, but I did join the Navy, which parallels the teen to adult buffer college affords. Joining the military bought…

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Happily Disengaged’s 2021 Expenses

Happily Disengaged’s 2021 Expenses

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It’s January, so now’s a good time to look back over the year 2021 and post about our total expenditures. There was a time when I did monthly expense blogs, but alas I’ve fallen off these types of posts as my blog bandwidth has narrowed and my blog posts have slowed down. Pursuing FIRE isn’t the easiest in an ultra high cost of living area like San Francisco, but it’s not impossible. This is the land of the $8 dollar…

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Dream Rebalancing

Dream Rebalancing

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Something unexpected happened a few weeks ago: I killed one of my longest standing dreams. The murder of this dream turned goal wasn’t made in haste or with a burning emotion in my chest. I spent nearly a week mulling it over. Contemplating its repercussions. Sleeping on it. Waking up at night thinking of how my life would be without this thing that I’d been living with for nearly two decades. I’m still in mourning of sorts. It’s something that…

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My Silent Battle With Inflation

My Silent Battle With Inflation

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My mother had a saying when I was growing up and now it’s stuck with me like any good saying does when repeated over and over during one’s formative years. The saying is this: “Lazy people work twice.” It doesn’t take much imaginative work to guess that I probably wasn’t working as hard as I should have been as a youth to have been told this over and over again. Usually, household chores were the culprit. A half-ass job sweeping…

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We Took A Trip To Portugal: Here’s How Much It Cost

We Took A Trip To Portugal: Here’s How Much It Cost

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Finally. Touching down in what would turn out to be one of my new favorite places didn’t feel like I’d been delayed 19 long pandemic-infused months for this vacation to Europe. The abrupt jolt of the airplane’s wheels making contact with runway asphalt was like hitting the reboot button for my soul. Rat race competition, schedules, commuter traffic, all evaporated away in the puff of burnt rubber emitted from the plane’s wheels upon touchdown and I was born anew. The…

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