‘Stache’s Out For Summer…

mike crosby June 17, 2012, 10:52 pm

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  DP June 18, 2012, 7:29 am

  Great idea – maybe there could be a subcategory of the Mustachian Marketplace on the forum for “Home Exchange.”

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  Gerard June 18, 2012, 8:21 am

  I like this. I have a condo in Toronto that’s empty more than half the time (well, not t2012-13, when I spend my sabbatical in it, but…)

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  mary w June 18, 2012, 2:37 pm

  Great idea! I live in San Diego and have a condo in Palm Springs. At any given time at least one of them is vacant.

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    Mr. Money Mustache June 18, 2012, 2:50 pm

    Hey! I would definitely be interested in renting one of those from you someday, Mary! The MMM family loves San Diego and Palm Springs could be nice too in the cooler seasons.

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    win June 19, 2012, 12:29 pm

    List it on airbnb.com

    That’s where I rented a house in LA. You can rent a room for $50/night or a house for $10,000/week and everything in between.

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lecodecivil June 18, 2012, 5:18 am

aspiringyogini June 18, 2012, 8:02 am

TrekMan June 18, 2012, 8:40 am

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  DaftShadow June 18, 2012, 11:15 am

  Hey Trekman,

  Check out “The Power Of Habit” by Charles Duhigg. Seriously recommend this book. I’d give you MMM’s affiliate link, but I can’t find it, so you’ll just have to search amazon yourself, or whatever ebook provider you enjoy. :)

  It’s a collection of the latest in habit research and discusses everything major that is known about how habits work, how they inerface in the brain, stay/change, get recalled, and also how the brain itself reacts when the habits are being executed.

  Because here’s some honesty for you: While you’re on the right path with giving away the video game systems (or cancelling your cable, not buying cigarettes / ice cream, etc.), I can see that you’re also discovering that it’s a somewhat illusory control! Changing your environment works great… until something else shows up, like a traumatic life event, a good advertising campaign, a well-meaning friend, new girlfriend – and changes it back! Suddenly you’re executing old behaviors you thought you were past, and you don’t even realize it because it’s almost on autopilot! Then all the shame shows up, the frustration, and you start banging your head against the wall fighting both yourself and the habits. A whole collection of things that can spiral together and screw with your head.

  There is a path thru this, but it will require a a deep craving to build yourself anew in many ways, and lot of effort creating new mental pathways so you can automate and solidify the behaviors you want.

  There’s so much more in this book – I could probably write a guest-post/book-report. Check it out. Any questions, let me know man.

  ~ DaftShadow
  * So you know, the first half is all about individual and corporate habits (which also apply very strongly on the individual level), and the second half is about societal habits and how they interact. A lot of people – myself included – found the second half to be quite unpolished. That being said, the first half was rock solid and absolutely worth the read! Promise me you won’t short-change the book because the second half sucks! :)

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    TrekMan June 18, 2012, 2:11 pm

    Thanks for the response. This has actually been on my read list for a while. I’m currently 109 on a waiting list at the local library.

    I would like to play video games for an hour or two on the weekend and be done with it for a while. So far its something that I’m not good at balancing. When I was in college I would give my roommate’s girlfriend my games during finals week so I could study.

    I work full time, I’m taking an intro college course on accounting and I’m just starting on building a tumbleweed small house. I’m busy enough that I don’t have a lot of time to chill out. While I was playing the game yesterday, it was awesome, but toward hour 4 I started to feel guilty about slacking off.

    Do you have any suggestions for a way to modulate a habit? I’d like to play games from time to time casually, without going overboard.

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      George June 18, 2012, 8:02 pm

      The bad thing about video games is that they involve a constantly changing skill set so you end up having to spend massive amounts of time learning new maps, levels, weapon combos, character builds, glitches, etc. Funny enough Halo 3 is what finally caused me to stop playing video games. I didn’t get it when it was brand new and when I finally switched over from Halo 2 I was so far behind in multi-player that I just died the whole time… so I quit.

      If I were to recommend an alternative to traditional video gaming it would be to play retro and modded games. This way you just play an old favorite for an hour or two for nostalgia and then move on. This way you don’t have to spend hours updating your skill set to beat a level. One video game that is really good for this is Super Mario World. The original is pretty easy and you can rock through it in a couple of hours, then maybe spend a couple more hours the next day beating every stage. Maybe do a speed run or two a different day. After that you can go to http://www.smwcentral.net/ and download mods (some are entire new worlds) that people have made for Super Mario World. A lot of mods are extremely professional and artistic, just start with the ones that are rated the highest and work your way down.

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        TrekMan June 19, 2012, 7:44 am

        Thanks for the tip, I will have to check that out when I get home. You’re right that Mario games tend not to be quite as time consuming as some of the other games.

        I have a Mac, will I be able to run the system / mods on my computer. Those actually sound really cool.

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      Tim June 18, 2012, 10:04 pm

      Have you tried board games or cards with some friends? It’s a low tech way to have fun and do something challenging. The thing about video games, and excessive Internet use (I am guilty of this), is the brain releases dopamine and when it hits the receptors, it causes those good feelings. When you play excessively, you become like that rat with an electrode implanted into its brain. In case you don’t know about that experiment, the rat self-stimulates to the exclusion of all other activities, including eating.

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        TrekMan June 19, 2012, 7:39 am

        It’s funny that you mention not eating. There have been times when I was really hungry but I didn’t feel like stopping to eat.

        I read a book called flow a while back. Flow experiences revolve around having clear goals, prompt feedback to determine success or failure and the task should be difficult enough to use your skills to their maximum. The difficulty shouldn’t be so high that you routinely fail.

        Video games tap into all of those mechanisms. The goal is clear, kill all of the things, get to the end etc. The feedback is prompt and clear, you either die or the monsters die. The difficulty is adjustable, so it can be tweaked to hit the sweet spot.

        The problem is that very few things in my life feel so instantly rewarding in the moment as video games. Granted that the sense of accomplishment is completely superficial.

        The thing that stops me from playing video games is I look at my friends who play a lot of video games and ask myself, are these the people you want to be like. After that I usually have to go home, get on my bike, eat a salad and kiss my wonderful wife.

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          Arbor33 June 20, 2012, 5:03 am

          Maybe it’d help to think about them like I do. When you play video games, all you’re doing is satisfying conditions in the code. If player kills “X”, player gets “Y” points. It’s so boring when you see it like that. You’re not winning a war, or saving a town, or doing anything spectacular like it leads you to believe. You’re siting in front of a television and you’re not learning or doing anything that can be applied elsewhere in life. I’ve never really had an interest in video games though so it’s easy for me to talk like this. I’ve also seen multiple friends become some of the most boring people I know because of their “addiction”. Find a more productive hobby and replace gaming with something that’s better for you. Good luck!

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      DaftShadow June 20, 2012, 5:43 pm

      Thanks for the tough question! I won’t claim to be an expert on habits, but I am happy to pass along what I know (or think I know). :)

      To start off with, you need some background so you can think about this in the right frame of reference. In the brain, memory and thought occur in many places, but for our generic purposes, there are two places of importance: the neocortex, and the basal ganglia.

      The neocortex is where conscious thought occurs, thinking with proactivity, imagination, making connections. The basal ganglia is the “habit center” of the brain, thinking in emotions, instincts, fear-responses; and is entirely reactive. Habit memory is only accessible by the basal ganglia, and conscious memory only by the neocortex. (IMPORTANT!) Just like with all memories, they are both created and stored using the same biomechanical process of linked neurons. And The more often you access the memory, the stronger its links become (repetition).

      A good way to think of them is that the Basal Ganglia is a Horse, and the Neocortex is its Jockey.

      How they interact is also interesting. Every time you do ANYTHING (typing, speaking, running, mathematics…), your body is sending signals thru the whole brain. Both the Basal Ganglia AND the Neocortex see these signals (although the BG sees them first…). The Basal Ganglia then records certain things, like emotions/movements, visual queues, physical steps taken, etc. And the more you repeat something, the deeper/more connected the memory that is recorded. This is important because the more connected things get, the faster you can execute them, which is the whole point of this evolutionary advantage! You know how when you first start learning something (e.g. typing), you have to carefully and consciously find every letter, but the more you practice you finally reach a point where you don’t need to think about the letters anymore? That’s the basal ganglia taking over. The BG knows where the letters should be and how to move your fingers automatically, so when the neocortex says “type this text”, the basal ganglia executes the instructions without issue.

      In each habit there’s a cue/routine/reward. Some thing, the CUE, makes you want to do the ROUTINE, and there’s some good REWARD during or after the process that you like. Once your body starts to CRAVE the good thing at the end, then it becomes an ingrained habit.

      Why this matters… Specific to your situation, you have been deeply recording a series of behaviors for many many years. Your Basal Ganglia has become an expert at executing these behaviors, because in the past it always received good feedback, and so it got faster and stronger. All behaviors are like this.

      Fast forward to today. Your neocortex has realized that behavior X is no longer as useful as it once was. It doesn’t fit your long term goals. So every time an opportunity comes up to do behavior X, your mind says “no no no!” and your basal ganglia says “fuck off! I *love* doing this!”

      The basal ganglia has absolutely no connection to the neocortex, nor any ability to reason. It’s just the horse. It executes what it’s been trained to do. And you’ve trained it to play video games for hours on end.

      Which now gets us to your actual question…

      You want to play video games without going overboard. In order to figure out a way to do this, you must think about what your Basal Ganglia wants to do… In the eyes of your BG, playing games is FANTASTIC. It’s a strongly preferred option, with strong connections to powerful emotions. So when you start doing it, the other parts of your brain actually shut down slightly because your BG gets dominant and takes over. It doesn’t matter anymore that your momentary pleasure has decreased; the momentum of your past pleasure is carrying the BG to continue executing, continue looking for the level of emotional high it got before.

      So, if you feel that it’s worthwhile to keep playing the games*, then you need to attack the habits themselves directly. The best way to do this is by changing your routine. Don’t just make the routine impossible (selling the playstation), but actively change the routine to something you want, such as turning on a 20 minute timer when you start the game, and quitting the INSTANT the timer goes off. Something repeatable, almost pavlovian. The idea is to have the same cue (whatever makes you want to play games), and the same reward (the playing of games), but with a new routine. As you continue repeating this new habit, the basal ganglia will create a new habit more in line with what you want. The old one won’t go away, but the new one may become the preferred option if you can cultivate a deep enough craving to succeed at it.

      Remember: The old habit will never go away! Your basal ganglia will ALWAYS want to play the games for hours and hours. BUT, if you keep focusing on different habits as more important, you will eventually overpower the old ones and cause your basal ganglia to choose new ones instead. This is far more powerful than “staying away from games” because it gives you a way to control them when they show up instead. Well, except when you don’t have a timer handy… :)

      Read the book, it says things so much better than I have. Seriously. PM me your email using the MMM forums, and we’ll see if I can help get you ahead of the line on that waiting list.

      ~ DaftShadow
      p.p.s. I have completely ignored willpower, for a reason. YES, you can will youself to stop taking any action, including deeply ingrained overpowering habits. However, willpower can only overpower things when you have willpower to spare… So if you choose to play games when you want to unwind, this also means you are probably exhausted. Since executing willpower draws from the same pool of sugar reserves as your body does to expend energy, It doesn’t really matter how strong you feel you should be here, if you feel the need to relax and do some gaming, you probably also don’t have enough left to persuade yourself to stop. “Willpower”, by Roy Baumeister, is a fantastic read on this topic.
      * based on everything you’ve heard, I urge you to carefully consider if you actually want to focus energy here, or if it is merely an old craving popping up that’s never gone away. Does the gaming give you something you actively want for yourself?

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DaftShadow June 18, 2012, 9:34 am

GWalk June 18, 2012, 11:27 am

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  Heath June 18, 2012, 1:39 pm

  +1 on the “Getting Rich vs. Raising your Children” post. My wife and I have been considering having children at some point in the future, but I really want to know what that would mean in terms of our financial future. I couldn’t see myself working full-time for the first 5 or 6 years of my children’s lives. It would be part-time, or no kids. It might mean the difference between early retirement and normal (i.e. 55+) retirement. That is incredibly wince-worthy…

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    GWalk June 21, 2012, 9:49 am

    Heath, you are in such a great position. Just that you are looking at it this way bodes well for any of your outcomes! When we decided to start, it was solely based on our ages, not income/savings/nada! And take heart, raising kids is not as crazy expensive as it seems. If you are smart, shop craigslist, JBF consignment sales, garage sales for clothes, breastfeed, cloth diaper… you can get it done for about $750 the first and second year…. and only gets cheaper from there. I’ve got a large network of Moms and have bought clothes from them super (garage sale) cheap among other things. If you don’t have childcare costs, the parenting world is your oyster!

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  Dave June 18, 2012, 2:05 pm

  Putting this here in case you folks haven’t seen it. It might answer some of your questions.

  http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/05/26/what-is-the-real-cost-of-raising-children/

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  GregK June 19, 2012, 7:41 am

  Hm… sounds like an odd dynamic. If you’re married, how can you have “individual FI”? Also, why isn’t the husband the one considering staying home with the kids if he makes less? You might also want to run the numbers on one or both of you stopping work now until your youngest is in school, and then going back to part/full-time employment for a while until you hit your threshold for being “totally FI”. Could be the best option for you and for your kids.

  A few other MMM articles you should check out if you haven’t read them yet:

  http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/04/04/reader-case-study-working-a-crappy-job-for-nothing/

  http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/06/15/equally-shared-parenting/

  http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/05/14/first-retire-then-get-rich/

  http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/08/18/the-next-stage-of-retirement-begins-kindergarten/

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    Bella June 19, 2012, 10:57 am

    I don’t get that either – it sounds like you’re making the unilateral (if he’s that resentful he doesn’t agree with it) decision to stop working and ‘forcing’ him to continue. I don’t see how this could end well for your family. Perhaps investigation into part time work scenarios for both of you could get you to a compromise, or maybe you could help him see that when you’re home – you would pick up some of the household chores that are ‘his’ right now? Not some vague promise of ‘maybe I’ll get some part time work’ – but real concrete examples of ‘this is what I’m doing for the family’ – so he isn’t left feeling like the odd man out whose stuck going to work while you sit at home and eat bon bons (not sayign that’s what you’re doing but you need to make sure he doesn’t feel that way)

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      GWalker June 21, 2012, 9:41 am

      Oh, Bella! You must not have children! Not a bad thing… just saying that only someone without them would even dream of using the bon-bons statement! ;-)
      I do agree about making him see what it means to the family and I’ve been trying for sure! He’ll see the light! haha!

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      GWalk June 21, 2012, 9:55 am

      GregK, thanks for sharing some of those links – hadn’t read the equally shared parenting one! And also for your ideas/insights! “Individual FI” was not a great way to phrase it… more like doing away with the need for my income. It will happen soon I pray! He would totally stay home with the kiddos and we definitely consider it… it’s time to stop considering and move to some sort of action!

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Sergey June 18, 2012, 1:51 pm

Linden June 18, 2012, 2:17 pm

Mike June 18, 2012, 4:40 pm

Jamesqf June 18, 2012, 11:01 pm

GregK June 19, 2012, 11:54 am

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  Mrs. Money Mustache June 19, 2012, 1:25 pm

  Ben oui, je parle francais! C’etait ma langue maternelle. Ma mere est Quebequoise.

  Okay, back to English. My french is very rusty, particularly in written form! My mom is French Canadian and French was my first spoken language. Later I also learned Punjabi (my dad’s native language) and English, but now mostly the English remains. After we moved to Ottawa (from Montreal) I slowly but surely lost quite a bit of my French. I also lost pretty much all of my Punjabi at a young age. I can understand most things in French, but have trouble finding the right words when speaking.

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    GregK June 19, 2012, 3:09 pm

    Sounds like our French skills are pretty similar. I grew up speaking English and a good deal of French (my father’s native language). My spoken French is quite good, though I too find myself at a loss for the right word pretty frequently, and my written French needs some serious work!

    That’s great that you have Punjabi as well. I’m trying (halfheartedly) to learn Spanish and (quarter-heartedly) Mandarin. Haha we’ll see how that goes!

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      Jimbo June 19, 2012, 6:50 pm

      Excellent, vive le francais sur le blogue de Monsieur Argent Moustache!

      Et si vous passez par Montréal, j’offre la bière!

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    Mireille May 2, 2016, 8:38 pm

    Whaaat, I had no idea the lady of the blog was half-Québécoise! This makes this Québécoise very happy. :) (So much so that I had to comment on this 4 year old post, hah!)

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      Sylvie from Montreal March 6, 2017, 1:49 pm

      +1 in 2017!

      Reply

Redeyedtreefr0g June 24, 2012, 11:28 am

Shane July 6, 2012, 2:56 am

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  Mr. Money Mustache July 6, 2012, 3:28 pm

  What a great offer! Visiting Serbia and looking out over the Danube river is the most exotic accommodation offer I have received to date :-)

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