I mostly use Exsila to trade my old books and CDs to the ones in which I am currently interested (at the moment mostly children books for my daughter).
It’s nice to not throw away my old stuff. At the same time I get the old stuff from others that I would need to buy.
Unfortunately, there are not too many English books on it but I hope that might change with some time.
If you are interested, you can use my referral link to get some starting balance:
MMM got divorced and wrote an excellent post about it:
I got a PM question about ETFs allocation and here’s my answer:
I decided to go with VT with $10/month at IB because I already had some savings and I was committed to get to 100k within a year. If I started from zero and didn’t have other, more important obligations (family, work), I’d go with the combination of funds recommended by @glina, China funds that he recommends, and perhaps @Julianek’s value investing strategies in some part of my portfolio. If I had even more time, I’d get interested in algo trading on options. It all depends on your priorities, free time and motivation. I decided to go the simple way to have more time and attention for other things.
Sophis! Do you code in C++?
Exact. Well, this is such a niche market that the fact that you know Sophis tells almost more about you than about me 
And although I did a lot of C++ in the past, nowadays most of my work is in .NET
I haven’t been on this forum for a while. I decided to make a small update in my journal.
Good news:
I broke 100k threshold at IB - no more $10 fee!
I’ve got a new job that I enjoy. I started working in March at yet another fintech that is doing some fancy app for one of the big banks. In any matter, I work with super nice, similarly minded and supportive DevOps team and I introduced a couple of new technologies that I planned to learn for a long time (e.g. using Python scripts to test infrastructure state). I started learning more Python and I’m happy with it.
I’ve limited screen consumption and social media addiction by deleting Facebook account and limiting every distracting website using app called Freedom (I’ve started with Cold Turkey but it didn’t have good phone app).
I’ve discovered Cal Newport books (“Deep work” and “Digital Minimalism”) thanks to a Mad Fientist interview.
Bad news:
I’m still at around +165k net worth. Much lower than I expected.
I totally f*cked everything else up. I destroyed every habit that I was working on - from saving 50% of my income, regularly investing (I’ve missed December-January correction), not eating sugar and processed foods, not eating outside, writing down expenses, reading books and learning finance to reading this forum. Not everything is gone, but everything is much worse than last summer.
I don’t know exactly why and how this happened - I had couple of exhausting and costly experiences (move to a new apartment, my son started attending kindergarten, I started commuting to work more often rather than doing home office) and couple of crises (personally I felt crappy autumn-winter months, my marriage is not in the best shape, and my son was sick 10000 times since he went to the kindergarten in November). So, the situation is complex and hard to explain, but I need to start from scratch rebuilding my attitude and habits. Maybe reading the forum more frequently will motivate me again.
Don’t be too hard with yourself, job change is a big change!
In the next months you’ll have time to fix the other issues.
I’ve just (at the beginning of this month) moved 4 hours away from home. Will take sone time for the family to get used to the new regime…
“Don’t be too hard on yourself” - that’s what I wanted to say.
I’m not sure if reading books and writing down expenses and keeping discipline is the way to go. It costs time and willpower. In the end you should try to enjoy your life and focus on the most important things.
By the way, I wonder how a guy like Elon Musk manages to run Tesla & SpaceX, give interviews about AI and be hyperactive on Twitter, showing that he also knows all the memes, so he finds time for entertainment.
Thanks! Yeah, I’m trying to focus on important things again and build discipline and habits around those things. I think one source of my failure was that I was trying to chew too big chunk. I was working on too many things and spread my attention to thin. So, when shit hit the fan and the inevitable troubles of life came, I’ve given up everything I was working on. I think I should focus on max 2-3 important things to be able to sail the storms with them. More is unsustainable.
You’re working 4 hours away? That’s a lot. Is it from Ticino to Zurich?
Thanks man. Actually reading books is a habit that persisted. Budgeting is a powerful motivator, but I decided to let it go - it was too much time and effort.
Easy - he has clearly some Asperger’s spectrum.
Just wanted to say that life happens and that goals are good motivators but if they are the source of frustrations then you need to adjust your goals to something sustainable and work up from there.
You have a new job, a kid and many other nice things in life I’m sure. Try to get back on track, whatever “back on track” could reasonably mean for you. Health (mental and physical) first.
2+2 or 4 hour each ? Are you working in St.Gallen and living in Lausanne?
I think both self-improvement and lack of thereof can be source of frustrations. I need to find a reasonable balance between the two and not stretch myself too hard. On the other hand, I don’t want to find myself with stagnation and poor progress of my goals.
That’s very good point. Health and relationship are most important. FIRE without these two things is pointless. That’s why I decided to invest more into my marriage and family activities and not save on gym membership. It’s not worth to save on these things.
Ticino to Geneva ! 
From the tone of your message, it looks like you are exhausted, both mentally and emotionally.
Try to have lots of rest, this is really important.
The game changer for me was Why we sleep, by Matthew Walker, which made me realize to what extent sleep is crucial to our good function.
It sounds obvious, but it really had a big impact on me.
Try to get your 8 hours of sleep every day, no alarm clock, and this will help you tremendously to tackle your other hardships. (Being a new parent as well, I know how young children can make us sleep deprived, which really makes everything more difficult).
Wow, you gotta really cross the entire Valais.
That is true indeed. I haven’t been sleeping full night for about 2 years. Initially, for first year, it was insanely difficult as my son woke us up from 5 to 10 times a night. Second year was easier, but he still wakes us up 1-3 times a night. I need to prioritize sleep, but it’s really hard to squeeze 8 hours - especially with all my ambitious goals that I mostly work on after 9 pm or 10 pm, when my son sleeps and I finish the house chores. Then we wake up at 7 am, I have an hour to prepare myself (or take my son to kindergarten twice a week) and an hour to commute to work (when I normally read books or this forum). To sum up - it’s hard to find time for everything, including sleep and rest.
Hey there, I see where you are. Ive been there. Sometimes its frustrating when you are not sticking to habits. Also reaching my 2M net worth goal seems like a forever task at the moment. However its important to remember you are not always perfect and relax about it.
I was eating sugar free last summer for 2 months, then I stopped (due to vacation) … last month I picked it up again. I am quite happy about it. Also I dont judge myself that I could not sustain it, since 99% of people can’t. And now that I’m doing it again, every day feels like a win. Imagine all those calories and the effect on your teeth etc.
My frustration comes from the downslide. I made huge progress last summer, then in autumn it went a little bit worse, and in winter I got back to starting point. Now I’m starting again but I need to focus on less things and smaller things to sustain it over next autumn-winter or another life crisis. I’ll start from working on my sleep and rest to recover and strengthen before I’ll attack other things (exercise and diet are next on my list).
Yeah, I read couple of books about sugar. It’s a f*cking drug. It shouldn’t be sold to kids.
its important that you relax from over-optimizing your life. because we IT people tend to do that unfortunately. speaking from expirience 
Cheers to that. I’ve suffered from anxiety exactly for this reason. Hang in there