Millionaire Librarian

We were ready for major upheaval of our life. We were welcoming of it. However, my hiring agency has dragged their feet in providing me a firm offer. This could lead to losing our contract on our house and if this happens then we are back to the beginning. We do have an offer from the Army. There is a high probability we will be moving somewhere in the next few months.

However, the waiting game feels excruciating at times. Their lack of expendientcy makes you question your importance to their organization. WIll they treat me well when they refuse to onboard me well?

There is little sugguestion in this post but only the belief that little is guaranteed.

A few weeks ago I received a tentative offer for a VA position as a librarian. I accepted. The position is a promotion, in the heart of Appalachia, and non-supervisory. Each of those things are important but interpersonnel relations in my current organization have reached a boil and its time for me to go elsewhere. I told my Flight Chief that despite the issues I am proud I was able to keep everyone working together as long as I did. Hopefully new blood in my position will be what the organization needs.

Focusing on the future. We will be closer to home in GA. The area in WV looks gorgeous. The capital of Morgantown will be about an hour away. As Lauren mentioned we are currently not just rural but isolated and remote. The first weekend we are there we just bought tickets to a local festival and will be seeing, appropriately, Tyler Childers. I feel like I am reconnecting with the strongest modern voice representing my Appalachian ancestors.

A couple of weeks ago after viewing several poor quality houses we are under contract for a new house. As I have mentioned a few times already; we are fortunate to not have to have our purchase contingent on the current sale of our Oklahoma home.

A small town to the north, Fayette, looks like a great area to get some good food and talk to interesting people. Lewiston or something similar looks like a great resort town to the east. Our little neighborhood looks like a safe neighborhood and is conveniantly located near the VA hospital. I purchased a commuting bicycle with goals of commuting normally to work.

One area deserving attention is that Lauren does not currently have a job there. However, she has put in a dozen plus applications and has an interview with Kanawha Public Library which looks about 50 minutes away. They are flying her out which is a good sign she is near the top of their list.

Overall, we had 4 great opportunities for positions in the last few months. Aviano, Mildenhall, Fort Leonard Wood, and Beckley VA. We created a numerical assessment of each opportunity and Beckley came in first. Though exciting, the overseas positions would have been beyond stressful with the three dogs for both us and them.

Career wise since I have really increased my applications for quarterly awards almost a year ago I have won two Airmen of the Quarter Award and an Airman of the Year Award. Maj Lockett has been a huge supporter of me and I appreciate her.

However this is primarily a finance related blog but it may be more leaning towards a journal due to Tal’s recommendation. Our future finances will be tighter and the current projection is to pay off the mortgage faster due to an above 6% interest rate. 6% has historically been a high guaranteed rate of return and since debts work similar to investments then it makes sense to focus on a guaranteed high return. However houses are a leveraged asset and when paying them off you are deleveraging risk and adding principle. We could also refinance in the future. Investing in the higher paying stock market would probably have us ending in a higher net worth. Do we want to deleverage and remove risk from the equation or invest in stocks for the probably higher return? Fortunately we have a large snowball of assets rolling in the background to keep us on track for retirement and I believe in this new area we can expand out some lifestyle in more life enhancing ways.

Altus has been great for building assets for our family. The market has taken a couple of notable tumbles since 2020. Due to federal employment, I was consistently able to throw money into the market without fear of losing my position and we bought a share of these companies at discount prices . This is a true strength of federal employment. A previous coworker, Hwal Yi, was a great example of how low paying stable employment can be more important than high paying but unstable employment.

At the time of writing this I have an interview scheduled for a federal position in a culture rich and historical location in Europe. One of the primary reasons I decided to pursue federal employment was for the opportunity to live in Europe and have that experience. That was over 10 years ago.

The position I am being considered for is at a lower grade. I should be able to retain my current pay for a couple of years through a progam colloquially called save pay and then possibly apply for the director position when that is vacated. However all of this isn’t guaranteed, but I think it is likely.

I’ve been told that spouse positions at the location are somewhat rare. My wife is leaning towards not seeking employment and watching our daughter while we are there. All of these complexities mean that our income might dip temporarily or stay depressed for years. I am not worried.

I think if I am offered the position then this is too big of an oppurtunity to miss despite it not being financially optimal. We are coast fire. If we never add another dime to our retirement accounts and work until full retirement age then we will have more than enough. If we draw down on our non-retirement accounts to travel more then we will still be fine.

By pursuing financial independence I gave myself more options. By prioritizing finances early I can pay less attention to them now.

Update: I had my interview today. I think it went well and for better or worse I provided insight to my own stream of thought. I expounded on my professional military librarian philosophy, and gratefulness for the security that the military provides us. I have pride that we are at a point where I am able to choose lifestyle optimization over financial optimization regarding our family. I think we will find ourselves in Europe within the year.

Spend less than you make and invest the remainder. Simple but hard. It sounds easy but its not. It takes getting a lot of things right to get this one thing right.

You need to understand the power of investing. Without a good reason to artificially limit your lifestyle then you won’t. Without study and a lot of reflection on money and investing you will not see the need. Without tinkering with an investment calculator and seeing the power of investing then lifestyle inflation will eat any remainder until you get used to that.

You will need a philosophy of frugality, You need some philosophy and a mindset to not get wrapped up in consumerism. You need the knowledge that your freedom and financial independence is what you are purchasing by not purchasing other stuff. You need to be able to see others who make less than you living seemingly better than you. You will need to derive happiness from non-material things. This all takes philosophy.

It helps to have a strong locus of control and flexibiity. You have to be able to steer your life. If something is terrible then you have to make changes to change it. Move if you need to move. Change employers if you need to change employers. Get more education if you need it. Embrace change. If you act like a victim then the world will take advantage of your refusal to change.

You need to figure out these things early. If you wait too long, then you will miss the oppurtunity. Investing doubles money. Saving a little early beats saving a lot more later. Every 7.2 years your money will double if making the market return of 10%. This means you would have to invest twice as much 7 years later to get as far today.

A less important concept to understand than the above is understanding how to optimize your tax efficiency. The simplest way to optimize is to use retirement vehicles. One of the simplest and best is the Roth IRA. Exercise the muscle of investing. You don’t need to know everything about investing or a Roth IRA to do it. Make sure you are below the income requirements and you contribute less than the max. Once the money is in the Roth IRA then invest it in something simple like the S&P 500 or a total market fund. At the beginning always take advantage of tax benefited retirement accounts like your 401k or Roth IRA. Work the muscle until it strengthens and you begin enjoying making money with your money.

I like to brief young military on finances and the part I try to overstate is how important it is getting started. Young people are abundant in time and less abundant in income and financial knowledge. I try to help in increasing their financial knowledge and though they have little income it may be a time when they have the highest disposable income due to no children, a small rent, and a small car payment.

Over and over when playin with financial calculators you realize how important starting earlier and more definitively how those early dollars are extremely important. They are so important that after 10-15 years you can take your foot off the gas and coast the rest of the way in.

The dollars matter but the early dollars and the time invested REALLY matter.

Often when budgets and finances are talked about then the room becomes quiet and eyes divert from the source. Budgeting can be restraining, but the truth of is that it is liberating in the end.

A famous personality who I often disagree with promotes the idea of intentionality. This is the idea of telling your finances and resources what you want to do with them. I deliberately use the word resources because many of us spend 40 of our waking hours trying to accumalate them. The “I’m not a finance person” is absolutely effected by their finances. However, they probably do not know how to personalize them.

Make a concious effort to make sure that your finances are personalized for what you want in your future.

The military is very hierarchical, but until we are in positions of power then we don’t know how we will handle them. Often the people who struggle internally the most and are unsure of themselves make the best leaders. Situations are pondered by second guessing when a stronger personality may force through their instinct or first impression .

I read a book titled A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness around a decade ago and I remember one section discussing the Civil War. Lincoln suffered greatly from depression, but on many presidential ranking he comes at or near the top. The book argues that his madness was an asset rather than a liability. I think he could sympathize with far more people, even slaves, because of his mental frailty rather than be irrevocably hindered by it.

A similar occurrence happened with his Generals. George McClellan went to West Point, served with distinction in the Mexican-American War, and served as the Commanding General of the United States Army. This is the resume of a perfect Soldier and General. The right academy and experience rolled into one person. He was also ineffectual and removed from his position once they were on the battlefields. Lincoln said he was too timid and wouldn’t engage with the enemy. I think he is a good example of where he was a great General for training during peacetime when things required order, but was too sane and predictable during war time when managing chaos was required. A touch of madness makes you unpredictable and we have all read some of the “The Art of War” regarding the importance of being unpredictable.

William T. Sherman was well known to have mental illness. He broke the Confederate’s economic back and burned Atlanta. He accomplished these feats by going entirely against conventional wisdom and leaving his supply lines and having his troops live off the southern land and confederate populations. This was a radical strategy at a time when war had more rules. Armies stood at distance apart from each other in lines and fired in an orderly fashion. Naive citizens would pack picnics and watch battles from nearby hills without knowing the potential danger they were in.  Of course, there were ambushes and flanking attacks, but burning a major city to the ground was an extreme measure.  Even today, Sherman is vilified for his actions in Georgia by much of its population.

Would the orderly, perfectly sane, conventionally trained, timid, and professional McClellan have done the same? Would he have drawn the Civil War out for many more years due to his conservatism?

If the war was won or shortened by Sherman’s unconventional, ungentlemanly war against the South’s economy, then is that an acceptable tactic?

Do you know of anyone who is an excellent leader during safe, orderly situations but struggles during uncertain or chaotic ones, or vice versa?

North Carolina adopted Esse Quam Videri as their state motto in 1871. It is a Latin phrase translated as ‘to be, rather than to seem.’ The earliest iteration of a similar phrase was from the playwright Aeschylus making the idea almost as old as western society. Unfortunately, it is a very foreign idea in American culture where status is for sell for the top dollar. However, in a Morgan Housel article ‘Respect and Admiration,’ he argues that “there are cases when people’s desire to show off fancy stuff is because it’s their only, desperate, way to gain some sense of respect and admiration.’ Later he says, “Shouldn’t gaining respect and admiration through what you do instead of what you own be the goal?”

Almost on queue, Ryan Holiday inadvertently, I think, wrote an excellent few paragraphs about General Grant and the topic at hand:

If we shape ourselves into doers by studying the great leaders of history, then we can gain the skill-sets and ethics required to be a great leader. What would be worse than rising to a level beyond your competence and failing?

I would rather fail in the lower and middle ranks and learn the proper way to handle a problem than when the circumstances are more dire in the upper ranks.

Esse Quam Videri.

To be a great leader, then you must be patient with yourself and work towards greatness everyday.

To be great with money you need to have the knowledge, but more importantly the right behaviors.

To be great with money, then you need to be getting several things right; frugality is the most important, but hard work, intelligence, and some stoicism to contain your ego and expectations.

To seem; this can be bought with debt and impatience, and is paper thin.

Seneca was the richest person in the Roman Empire when he wrote this quote. Salaries fit into a bell curve with tails extending into the stratosphere on the positive side. The majority of americans can expect to fit firmly in the middle. You may receive promotions but you can be waiting decades in some sectors if you are unwilling to uproot and move which may mean less expendable income in higher cost of living areas.

I think for most people there is a limit for how much income they can expect. There are also much more important parts of your life than income like spending time with your family. We tend to try to trick ourselves that the 60 hour sacrificial work weeks are for our family, when they would much prefer you spend more time with them and live more simply.

This brings me to my next point. It is much easier to live simpler than to depend on the next pay increase. In my experience there is 1 or 2 potential positions you could fit into locally with your experience and noone really knows when those positions will be open. At some point, if I wanted more later then I had to live simpler now. I also had to invest the difference. The majority of americans are borrowing heavily from their future to live larger now by going into debt.

A historical perspective help us appreciate our modern day conveniences and luxuries. Kings and queens a century ago couldn’t imagine the technology and health care available to almost everyone today. Stoic Ryan Holiday says, the difference between what we earn and save is often due to ego. If we cared little about what others think then we would get what we really need which is financial stability and independence.