The Work
That is the Engineering Problem.
This is where I work on the questions underneath it—using real data, systems, comparisons, tests, and decisions, then preserving what I learn.
Completed Work
See the finished analyses, decisions, and results.
One Problem. Three Parts of The Work.
Fund the life. Improve what is worth improving. Make sure I live it.
Build the financial resources and sustainable earned income to support a life I love.
Career · Income · Investments · Banking · Credit Cards · Points
This is the work of figuring out how that life gets funded—and how I can take greater financial ownership of it.
Make the systems around my life work better when improving them is worth it.
Expenses · Apps · Tools · Comparisons · Automation · Systems
The goal is not to optimize everything. It is to improve what genuinely saves money, time, effort, complexity, or mental load.
Use the money, time, and capacity I create to live the life I’m building.
Travel · Health · Relationships · Experiences · Joy · Home · Family
Funding and optimizing the life are not the finish line. Living is the point.
Some of The Work fits naturally in one part. Some belongs in more than one.
FUND IT · IN PROGRESS
I already have a rough annual estimate. Now I’m building an ownership-corrected baseline to see whether that estimate is right and what is actually driving the total.
What I know now: Raw account totals are not the same thing as my personal spending. Shared purchases, reimbursements, transfers, and irregular expenses have to be handled consistently before the baseline is trustworthy.
Next: Finish the baseline, compare it with my current estimate, then analyze how much spending supports core needs versus discretionary choices before calculating the forward-looking Financial Requirement—the annual amount I need to fund the life I want sustainably.
Updated: 2026-09-06
How I’m approaching it: I’m using Monarch to clean and organize the transaction data, assign ownership, track reimbursements, separate spending from transfers and other non-spending activity, and capture costs that do not show up every month.
Tools I’m using: Monarch — for transaction context, ownership, reimbursements, categories, and tags.
What Success Looks Like:
Working Expectation: I expect my rough annual estimate to be directionally useful, but I want the full-year, ownership-corrected data to show whether I’m close or meaningfully off—and which costs are driving the difference. I also want to see how much of the total supports core needs versus discretionary choices.
Started: 2026-07-01
Time horizon: Started July 2026. A reliable full-year view will take at least one year to determine fully.
FUND IT · IN PROGRESS
I built a governed research and decision system to evaluate what I own, where I’m concentrated, and where future investment dollars have the strongest case.
What I know now: I expected fund fees to be the problem. The first audit found no fee-only trade worth making — concentration and next-dollar decisions matter more.
Next: Deepen research on major holdings, starting with Amazon, and use the same process to decide where future investment dollars should go.
Scope: This documents my own portfolio decisions and the system I built to make them. It is not investment advice and is not built for anyone else’s situation, taxes, or risk tolerance. See Editorial Standards.
Updated: 2026-09-06
How I’m approaching it: I evaluate holdings in the context of the whole portfolio, verify important evidence and calculations, challenge assumptions, compare credible alternatives, and account for taxes, liquidity, concentration, and risk before acting.
What I built: A governing financial master, reusable AI workflow, and Excel workbook separate durable decision rules from changing portfolio facts. The method can improve across AI tools without moving private portfolio data into the reusable process.
What Success Looks Like:
Working Expectation: I expect the biggest opportunities to come from better portfolio structure, concentration management, and next-dollar decisions—not from trading more often. The system should make those decisions more consistent and defensible over time.
FUND IT · IN PROGRESS
I’m looking for work that uses my engineering training and strengths in analysis, systems, research, spreadsheets, and process improvement—without recreating a work structure that does not fit my life.
What I know now: The strongest fits appear to be roles with deep-focus analysis, clear ownership, predictable boundaries, and room to grow—not constant responsiveness or client-service pressure.
Next: Narrow the roles I’m targeting, strengthen the proof behind my skills, and test fit through applications, skill-building, and current Engineering My Best Life work.
Updated: 2026-09-06
How I’m approaching it: I’m translating my experience into the language of the roles I want, strengthening the skills those roles require, and using current Engineering My Best Life systems and analysis as proof of what I can do.
What I’m building: An updated résumé and LinkedIn, stronger Excel and Power Query skills, Power BI capability, and a portfolio of current systems and analytical work.
What Success Looks Like:
Working Expectation: I expect the strongest fits to be roles where analysis, systems thinking, research, and process improvement matter more than constant responsiveness—likely in analytics, operations, finance-adjacent, engineering-adjacent, or systems/process work. The exact role is still open.
FUND IT · OPTIMIZE IT · IN PROGRESS
I paid $49.99 for my first year of Monarch Core on July 1, 2026. I’m using it heavily while I build the spending baseline; the test is whether it remains useful enough to justify the ongoing price afterward.
OPTIMIZE IT · IN PROGRESS
I’m using ChatGPT and Claude side by side on Engineering My Best Life work to see whether one is stronger overall or whether each earns a different role.
OPTIMIZE IT · LIVE IT · IN PROGRESS
I bought Lifetime Flighty Pro on January 28, 2026 for $316.94 total. I love the travel data and have found the alerts and organization more useful than I expected, but I’m still evaluating whether the lifetime value justifies what I paid.
OPTIMIZE IT · FUND IT · COMPLETED
Result: Keep. At $1,609.53 recovered, JetBack’s $99.99 flat annual fee beat every commission model I tested — even a 10% commission would have cost $160.95.
See the full analysisOPTIMIZE IT · FUND IT · COMPLETED
Result: Yes. $1,609.53 recovered as of August 20, 2026, versus a $99.99 annual fee.
See the full analysisOPTIMIZE IT · COMPLETED
Result: Yes — but barely. Through August 6, 2026, my 9.89¢/kWh fixed rate cost $28.55 less in generation charges than the same usage would have cost at AEP Ohio's published rate.
See the full analysisOPTIMIZE IT · FUND IT · COMPLETED
Result: Yes. $195.45 saved on my cards alone across 8 cards, plus about 2 hours/week of manual tracking largely avoided.
See the full analysisFUND IT · COMING UP
I’m strengthening Excel and learning Power BI, then applying both to Engineering My Best Life data so employers can see current proof of my analytical skills—not just a course completion.
OPTIMIZE IT · LIVE IT · COMING UP
Once the spending baseline is reliable, I can compare what each expense adds to my life with what it costs in money, time, effort, and complexity.
FUND IT · OPTIMIZE IT · COMING UP
I’m building a Points Tracker and documenting real redemptions so I can compare the value that looks good on paper with the value I get in real life.
LIVE IT · COMING UP
Peru is one of the clearest examples. Hiking to Machu Picchu is something I want to do while I have the physical capacity for it.
How Do I Decide What Works?
I use five Design Criteria to keep the larger life in view.
I use only the criteria that matter to each problem. There is no universal score.
Health is a governing constraint. Joy remains central because living is the point.
Explore the Design CriteriaResults, Not Just Projects
What was I trying to solve? What evidence mattered? What happened? What did I decide? What happens next?
The point is not to make The Work look complicated. It is to make better decisions and preserve what I learn.
Follow The Work
The Engineering Report is where I’ll connect the most useful results, decisions, wins, mistakes, changes of mind, tools I’m testing, experiences I’m planning and living, and the questions I’m tackling next.