Sunday, April 16, 2017

One-and-a-half Joe Average

I’m one-and-a-half Joe Average.
Lately, I’m checking all kind of job averages and other statistical data projecting the relationbetween happiness and money. 

Research showed that for anyone making more than $ 75.000 a year (around € 70.500) doesn’t acquire much more happiness in life by aquiring more money. This is your overall, day-to-day, happiness. Of course, your overall evaluation of your quality of life could rise with seriously higher annual income, but your average day-to-day happiness might not even be better with more money.
 
So what is this kind of money relative to societies averages? Here in the Nederlands, Joe Average anually makes € 36.000 gross. That’s 51% of the Happiness Peak relative to money. Does this mean Joe Average is 51% happy? I don’t know. I guess both my brothers are more or less Joe Average and mostly when I see them, they seem much more happy and relaxed than I feel (but then again, that might be a show). Let’s say it’s true. Then, I would say, they are 75% happy :-)
 
I myself am one-and-a-half Joe Average. Whoop whoop, go college education. For reasons you know, I’m left with close to no savings (yet changing this to the brighter side of life step by step every month). Doesn’t matter anyway, one brother managed to save, the other managed to spend so there are all kind of ways to go here. 


With my 152% Joe Average I’m still just around 77% on the scale of zero-to-happiness when it comes to influence on happiness. I do feel I have a pretty steady and relaxed life at the moment, yet it is my future which bothers me. (By the way, from the non-duality perspective, this is meaningless, which tends to be more and more influencing my day-to-day happiness). At my current speed, I’m saving around 30% of my net income. This will slowly rise and with some adjustments (no more holidays and eating out) this could be 40%. Saving 40% would mean I could quit working in 22 years.

But that would mean I would have to keep on going the way I’m currently going and that’s something I somehow doubt. Because, honestly, I’m getting bored at my current job. 

There are two a lot of options here. One is, I ramp up my speed of saving. This means I would have to put myself on a barebones lifestyle meaning no more eating out and no more vacations (and possibly no more relationship, too since she’d be terribly bored by my lifestyle and grumpyness as a result of living that way, or we both should see the challenging fun side in all of this which at this point we don’t). This would ramp up my savings rate to around 50%. Yet, that means I still would have to maintain that lifestyle for at least 18 years. Doens’t sound probable to me at all since in the end, I’d still be mainly relying on the bogus job I currently have. Admittedly, I am checking out other positions and possibilities of inner-company switching to another position and am even trying to convince my manager my current salary doesn’t quite fit my profile anymore, but for now, let’s asume current salary and position stay more or less the same. 

Another option could be buying a flat somewhere in the city. Me and my significant other have spoken a bit about buying a place and living together, but let’s asume our situation also stays more or less the same. So I could buy a place. Let’s say the Rotterdam real estate market isn’t as crazy as it is now at a certain point and I’d invest 150K in a decent appartment. As we all (should) know, a home is a terrible investment yet with current mortgage rates and possibilities of Air B&B-ing the place I might see a pretty good outcoming there. Let’s say I manage to fund the mortgage part with renting the place out for 10 years, that would mean I’d more or less create some form of passive income. On the other hand, my savings rate might go down a lot when I don’t manage to succesfully rent the place out. I need to put the numbers in a spreadsheet before I can say anything about it, and giving the current real estate market here I’ve got plenty of time to do so. Crazy here with outbidding with over 20% of asking prices... 

Another option could be daytrading options. But for now, since I’ve got so little cash, the risks are by far outwaying any possible returns.

Another option could be playing poker profesionally. But for now, I’m a bit stuck in boredom and low stakes so there also, the risks are by far outwaying any possible returns.

Another option could be part time employment and trying to free lance a bit. Somehow my lack of experience and my more or less introvert personality are in my way here and the fact that I’m convinced I can’t do that just one or two days a week and I don’t want to quit my daytime job just yet. I know, there’s a lot of thinking-yet-no-doing here, but hey, I just want to spit it out and get my system to digest all of this. 

The thing is, ever since I managed to tackle my debt I’m a bit stuck here. Life goes on by and it’ll either be a long sit-by or I should get serious about making a change. Yet with my current net worth I’m by far comfortable with making major changes here. 

Which means that for now, I’ll just have to be one-and-a-half Joe Average being more or less relaxed and looking ahead for ways of life.

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