With yesterday's gains, I just crossed over a value invested that is > what we paid for our house!
Is it a meaningless milestone? Absolutely.
Am I still excited about it? Also, yes.
A meaningless milestone I’m looking forward to next year: Hitting 7 figures in a single investment account. It’s been close for a while and I’ve been watching for it like a speedometer rolling over.
That's pretty sweet. Thanks to a certain semiconductor stock, I'm up 100% for the year, as of last weekend. Meaningless milestones rock.
My bonus just hit, and it was significantly less than it ought to be, all because we missed profit targets (despite getting almost record profits). Instead of getting the typical 10%-ish, it was more like 6-6.5%. What makes it even worse is that our company just sold a major asset (worth almost as much as our yearly revenue) and used more than half for dividends and stock buybacks, and that finalized pretty the same week as the disappointing bonus.
The good news is that my section of the company got a bigger part of the bonus than other parts, so I could've had a 4% bonus if I worked down the hallway instead.
Just another reason to be FI, I'd really rather not have the unpredictability. I don't budget around it, but I have factored it in to my FI calculations.
Oof. Yuck. Sorry. I took my talents to a different organization, for more base pay, when they did that to me. That's what made it feel better, for me.
Yeah, I'm not here for the pay. I know I could get 15-20% higher pay if I go elsewhere, but my company and position are both very stable, I like my team, and the work situation is flexible (2 days in office, can stay home if I can't make it in, rarely work more than 8 hours/day, etc).
I'll probably look around in another year or two though. But for now, it's a good situation.
Can't do anything at work because the company locked all the sites I use for my role to read only. Fun times.
On the plus side I'll be done for the year after this week. We're travelling to my spouse's hometown for the holidays. They just got a Buc-ees so we are looking forward to trying that. I'm sure it will be a disappointment given it's just gas station food, but we've never had a chance to go before.
What are you all looking forward to in the near term?
My daughter (last kid) is pretty much potty trained, so I'm looking forward to a year without diapers!
Also, since our kids are getting older, we're starting to plan bigger and bigger vacations. They love camping, so we'll probably try hitting a national park again this year. We want to go on a bigger international trip soon (next 2 years or so), we're just waiting on the youngest one to mature a bit.
I'm also working on an exciting personal project, and I should have some time for that this Christmas. It's barely functional, and I think I just need a couple weeks to make it really cool.
I’m taking some time off for the holidays, that’ll be nice. My wife wants to take a trip to Disney world next year… less excited for that, I assume my kids will love it though, or at least my daughter who’s old enough to appreciate it.
Can’t do anything at work because the company locked all the sites I use for my role to read only. Fun times.
You mean you actually need them for work-related stuff and they essentially locked you out? That sounds counterproductive...
Personally looking forward to next year, got a long overdue move to Malaysia finally coming through. After 6 years of China I'm tired AF of this place. Was supposed to be 3-4, then got extended twice due to covid travel restrictions, but now that we are back to normal I can finally GTFO. Will be able to pay out my vested company shares over there with zero capital gains tax (just doesn't exist), which is a nice bonus. My new role will come with fewer responsibilities at equal pay, so I'll be able to invest some time into education as well and get a part-time PhD. Ideally I'll be able to pull that off over the next 3 years, fully divest from my employer and then depending on the final turnout do either coast- or barista fire as a part-time lecturer for some local college.
Yep. They were "upgrading" from the on-prem version of the site to the cloud. Unfortunately, that meant the site and everything connected to it was locked until they completed the migration. Luckily they did complete it by the end of today, so tomorrow I might actually be able to get some stuff done.
Oh Malaysia sounds nice. My experience with their food, albeit quite limited, was that it's incredible. Working full-time while doing part time school is rough though. I hope you enjoy it more than I did.
