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The 5 am Club

Started by Sam, December 22, 2019, 08:01:30 AM

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JARoss01

Got up at 5 am 3 times this week...with my goals remaining trading, real estate and self development.  I am making progress in all three area.  I have also added job search to my morning activities.   I am still trying to find the right sleep rhythm to wake up 5 days a week at 5am.  I am still happy I've decided to go down this road with Sam.

Have A Great Weekend !!!

J.R.

Checking in 1/26/20:

Was travelling for work this past week.  Slept awful in hotels.  Still got up at 5:00 everyday.  But man I felt exhausted by end of the week.  Slept in until almost 7:00 Saturday & Sunday.  I usually sleep right around 7 hours naturally.  The past two nights I was well over 8 hours.  Feel better now. 

Finally seem to have the insurance stuff wrapped up.  Stayed with same agent but changed carriers for auto, homeowners and umbrella.  Changed carriers, policy types, limits, deductibles, added a vehicle, added a driver.  Hard to tell with so many changes, but overall I think we saved several hundred dollars from where we would have been.  This has been dragging out for some time so I'm happy it's complete.

Read another book.  Had some extra time while on the road this past week.  Crazy Busy by Kevin Deyoung.  I wasn't planning on reading this but a friend gave it to me and followed up to ask if I read it.  I actually liked it better than I expected.  It's written by a Christian pastor in case that's not your cup of tea.

Worked with my Property Manager to get a major plumbing problem fixed at the one rental.  This property is plagued by plumbing issues.  Haven't heard yet if the tenants are in good shape with the latest repair.  Fingers crossed for now.  There is still another lurking problem there.  But trying to let rental income build up to have funds to repair.

Last day of the workweek, I actually wasn't working but rather interviewing with a new company.  Pretty sure the job is mine if I want it.  Interesting work doing the parts of my job now that I actually enjoy.  Seems like a good group of people.  And also comes with a strong probability of a PE exit strategy that would solidify FIRE by age 50.  Potentially even fatFIRE by 50.  But the job is a 4hr drive from home.  And the family isn't much interested in relocating (kids in high school).  Would you take a job where you were on the road A LOT....or at least 4hrs from home during the week and only come home on the weekends?  Keeping in mind it's potentially temporary for maybe 5 years?  I'm leaning towards thinking the toll being just too great on the family.  But it's difficult as I think these types of opportunities don't come along that often.

That's all for this week.  Carry on 5am'ers.
-JR



Sam

#62
I currently have been up for 23 hours in a row working and taking care of my baby daughter. Tried to take a nap, but couldn't after hearing the Kobe news. Decided to just adopt the Mama mentality. So sad. I'm on night shift Sunday night and Monday night anyway and will try and catch up on sleep later.

If my daughter can't sleep, then neither should I. Feels good to let me wife sleep as well.

Cherish your family everyone!
Regards,

Sam

newalker0407

Checking in on 2/2/2020:

  • Worked on my machine learning for data science and analytics course.
  • Reviewed Financial Sam article on rankings of the best passive income investments: https://www.financialsamurai.com/ranking-the-best-passive-income-investments/
Reading about the progress everyone has made has been extremely gratifying. Thanks for the inspiration and let's all keep pushing forward!

J.R.

Checking in:  2/3/20

Spent last week getting tax stuff organized.  I work with a CPA to prepare the returns.  But I need to spend time getting things organized.  Especially with the real estate investing I started in 2019.  I don't think I've ever had all my stuff organized this early before.

Again, I have this feeling of being caught up.  Which I like.  But I have to say, organizing tax records doesn't do much to move my life forward.

Starting to read another book:  The One Thing by Gary Keller.  I read this a couple years ago but decided to read again.

Onward.
-JR

Sam

Checking in 2/5/2020

Been regularly waking up at 5 am or earlier for 5 out of the past 7 days. Fighting a cold still, bummer.

Wrote about:

* The Best States to Buy Real Estate (https://www.financialsamurai.com/for-the-best-mortgage-rate-refinance-before-these-three-life-events/) - This post took a lot out of me because I had to come up with the framework and create new charts. Makes me wonder whether it's worth coming up with things instead of just copying or commenting on things.

* What Investors Should Know About The Coronavirus (https://www.financialsamurai.com/important-details-investors-should-know-about-the-coronavirus/) - Another long and exhaustive post due to the research involved. But very topical, and very improtant!

It's hard for me to sleep in nowadays because Tesla stock is just going bonkers. We talk about Tesla and other ideas in another thread. So many money making opportunities out there! https://www.financialsamurai.com/forums/stocks-and-index-funds/my-friend-bought-a-new-tesla-model-3-i-bought-tesla-stock/

Sam
Regards,

Sam

JARoss01

Still on the 5 am plan...waking up sporadically at 5am...this week I woke up at 5am 3 times.  I stayed up 2 times...still working on getting to 5 days a week.  I am having a lot of success with my work toward my goal during this time. I feel way more productive when I get up and take care of business before starting my professional work day.  Still love the idea and hope to be more consistent.

J.R.

Checking in:  2/9/20

Doing well getting up at 5am during the week.  Tend to sleep in until 6am or 6:30 on the weekends.  Things seem to be ok.  Not a lot to report.  Feels like I need to identify the next items to work on to move forward.  Been working on taxes, insurance, rental house plumbing issue and (new) rental house dryer failing...I've been neglecting my investing.  Also, need to get back to helping with the oldest kids college planning.  Need to plan how to organize around scholarship strategy.

Onward.



Shannon

Good Morning:

    Dealing with some of life's curve balls in recent weeks, but still got in some early days and made progress on the financial front:

old biz:  cleaning up some accounts and updating everything in the fin mgmt software (a tedious but ultimately satisfying task), paid off a credit card, finally consolidated the kids' college investment accounts.

new biz: completed the FAFSA for my college-bound child, sent my biz tax file to the CPA, funded my new IRA a tiny bit, made a little progress on the new vacation rental property, though haven't been there as much as I wanted due to aforementioned curve balls. I'm focusing on building my team of helpers for the new property. Since it's away from home that means new people. I think I've identified a few this week. That's going to be the key to making this work.

something for others: wrapping up our little fundraiser next week. The kids group voted and chose "world peace" as the recipient of half the funds. These kids are not bogged down with manageable goals and objectives, they're just going straight for the ultimate prize! I'm not about to dissuade them :-)

J.R.

Checking in:  2/17/20

Plugging along here.  Getting up at 5am on the weekdays and sleeping a little longer on the weekends.  This seems to be a sustainable schedule for me.

Several items felt like they are more or less wrapped up.  Still evaluating a potential new job.  Leaning towards a negative response there as it would have me on the road and away from the family for most of the week, only coming home on weekends.  Don't think I want that at this time in my life.  Tough decision as it would come with "life changing" money that within 5 years would push us to FIRE and have all the kids college covered.  Sam had a recent article on sacrificing love for money.  This situation, to me, is a relevant tangent.

Hope you all are well.



jm4304

Hello everyone,

I hope you're all staying safe and healthy.  I know I'm a little late joining this club in 2020, but I love the idea of using 5 am - 7 am to be productive outside my normal work/daily life schedule. 

I've always more or less been an early riser although my wife is more of a night owl, so that will make things interesting.  Fortunately, in my corporate job, I have the flexibility to work from home a few days a week (before the COVID-19 indefinite work from home), however, when I do go to the office I have a long commute.  So I may need to flex my 5 am productivity schedule, but I'll still aim to be up at 5 am every day during the week.

I'd like to use this time to:
Work on developing a side business/income and general career planning/development
Journaling
Reading (educational)


In the past whenever I've gotten up early I've generally used that time to work out, which I like doing, but I want to experiment with using this time where I'm relatively free from distractions to prioritize activities that hopefully will lead to FIRE.  I'll need to make sure I stay disciplined to 1) prioritize exercise in the afternoon and 2) not just use this time at 5 am to do more work for my day job.

Thanks for setting up this group and I'm looking forward to getting started!


Sam

What's up everyone! Hope all is well.

It's week 7 of the quarantine here in SF and everyone is going a little stir crazy. Our mayor says badminton and ping pong are alloweed, by tennis is not! ha. I'm so impressed with the power grab and power trip this year by our politicians.

Anyhoo, I've been failing 40% of the time waking up by 5am as schedules have shifted. But, I have not quit on publishing 3X a week and recording a podcast every 3 weeks or so. Newsletter goes out once a week too. Just timing has shifted.

Just need to exercise more!

Cheers
Regards,

Sam

newalker0407

Good morning Sam!

It's been awhile but wanted to check in with the 5 am Club:


  • The last time I posted on this thread, I was in the process of completing my machine learning for data science and analytics course. I am now happy to report that I passed the course!
  • I also started a data science course offered by Cal Berkeley and completed that course as well. This has opened my eyes to the world of data analytics and my goal is to use this knowledge to start a data analytics company with a focus on small to medium sized businesses.
  • This time has also allowed my wife and I to reexamine our long and short terms financial goals, and as a result, we've become more focused in regards to our investments.

Thanks for the inspiration and let's all keep pushing forward!

-NW