Keeping Busy, Yet On Track

Staying busy is important, and sometimes vital. For me keeping my mind busy is important to keeping me from doing something stupid. 

My goals are not ones which can be achieved in one weekend. I can’t just keep buying lotto tickets in hopes that I will win the jackpot. 

I have to keep chipping away at my goals over a long period of time, years even. To do that, I need to keep doing what I am doing, and not get distracted.

The secret to that is to in fact distract myself . . . Let me explain.

In order to funnel most of my cash into moving my goals forward, I need to live a very dull life. This is because, pretty much everything costs money. 

Even driving anywhere costs money. So, I need to keep my mind busy with what is pretty much busy work, just to keep me from costing me any more money that I have to spend.

This is not forever, just for now, just until I get over this hump, until Total Debt Freedom.

So, I either play a video game that I have played many times or I write one of a few books that I have on the go, just to keep my mind occupied and my cash flow safe.

I will get to where I want to go and I will deal with what I need to deal with along the way, but I will keep myself entertained in the cheapest possible way . . . for now.

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive, and keep moving forward.

Bored For The Future

I find that my life these days is pretty much work and waiting. I do what I need to do, but otherwise I stick around the house and stay focussed on spending as little as possible. 

This is my life and the truth be told I could certainly have a nicer life if I were to loosen the purse strings, so to speak, and just spend more. 

That would lead to me being in the same position I was a few years ago, blowing through cash, living comfy, yet with a bleak future ahead of me.

I am in the midst of this savings crunch to get over this last hurdle and finally be on the right track to financial independence and yes freedom altogether. 

I am doing what I am doing in order to correct my lifetime of fiscal mismanagement and fix a problem that has dogged me all of my working life: the living with debt problem.

I am happy that the warmer weather is here to stay and that I have fresh water in my tanks. I count my blessings that I can BBQ on a regular basis and enjoy the sun shine.

I am thankful that I am, all things considered, doing rather well. I have food, shelter, savings building up, and I am on track to be debt free this fall.

There are many things that I want to do, yet I have to restrain myself . . . for now. As I have set ambitious goals for myself and laid out a very stringent budget in order to achieve them. 

Achieve them I will, and in the mean time I will continue to live a dull life, because that is the cheapest way to live. 

I can’t even read a book or otherwise plan for what I will do once I get my land. That is far too far into the future and it hurts to think of it too long. 

I need to become debt free first, for me it is the final obstacle that I must overcome, my final debt to the banks to end my eternal indentured servitude. 

Call it a bit melodramatic, but that is the way it feels, for with debt, one is never free, one is always tied to your job. I want more than that, I want my freeeeeeddoooooooom!

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive, and keep moving forward!

Summer Mode

With the May Long Weekend behind me, and my de-winterization completed, I am officially in Summer Mode.

This means that I have fresh water in my fresh water tanks, and fresh water running through my pipes. 

What’s more I can wash my hands using the taps and yes have a shower. Apart from being at a campsite, this is as close to “normalcy” as I get.

Even still I don’t use the water in my fresh water tanks for cooking or drinking. It’s not because it is unsafe, but simply because I reserve it for: showers, washing hands and flushing the toilet. 

For cooking, drinking and washing of dishes I still use my five gallon jugs. This way I can stretch things out and get five showers out of my fresh water tank. 

I still haven’t figured out where I will get fresh water, other than the dump station in the north. 

That one won’t open up for another week, so I will likely be back to jug showers for next week. I’ll be okay; I’ll live and make it through, as I have seen this all before.

I stay motivated by knowing and reminding myself about the future that I am building for myself by living this way . . . for now.

The happy thing is that I am in summer mode and I can actually have a shower in my own shower and not have to bundle up with seven layers. 

Don’t forget to pause and take in the happy moments and small pleasures that come your way each day. 

Take the time to give yourself a reason to smile, even on the dreariest of days, by noticing even something small that has gone your way.

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive, and keep moving forward!

Massive Bill Moved Up

Okay, so as you may know my goal is to not only be totally debt free by October 22 of this year, but also to reduce my obligated monthly bills to one (mobile phone bill).

This means that my monthly insurance payment has to go . . . fine. To do this I must change the way I pay for my truck insurance at the time of renewal.

My insurance cycle starts on August 1, so I figured that all I had to do was go in on my July 22 payday and change things around. 

Since I was in the area on Tuesday (for my delayed payday) I decided to ask my insurance company. 

This was a good idea as it turns out that in order to do this I need to change things around on the July 7 payday, one full payday earlier!

This will make things tight, but I will be able to do this, and as the added bonus I won’t have any more monthly insurance payments, starting in July. 

My June Monthly insurance payment will be my last, so that is a positive. I will also review my insurance at that time to see if I can save a bit.

Now that the truck is totally paid off and there is no lean against it, I may be able to conserve a bit on insurance yet not put myself at a greater risk.

This will be one more step forward to my total mastery of my own cash flow and yes moving me towards getting a place to put down roots, my goal beyond total debt freedom.

As always: keep your head up, your attitude positive, and keep moving forward!

Close Call

So, as I said yesterday, I de-winterized Wanda over the weekend. What that means is that I got her fresh water circulation system up and running.

This means taking a few steps to get the hot and cold water system working so I can you know, turn the taps and water comes out. 

Over the weekend, everything was fine, as I was connected up to city water by way of the tap at the campsite. 

The one thing that didn’t seem to be working right was the water pump. 

This is a big deal as this is the device that will give me running water when I am not connected up to city water.

Yesterday was also payday . . . or rather the day that I could do my payday banking, due to the long weekend. 

I was going to wait until after work to do all of my running around but I was out of bread, so a run to the grocery store in the early morning was needed.

I figured that since the grocery store I go to was in my Western Home, near the place that I buy my gas from, that I might as well buy my payday gasoline as well.

So, after all this and finally getting to work, I was running a bit behind but I had enough time to take a shower, barely.

I turned the tap and nothing came out . . . I was sure that it was something to do with the water pump, but I didn’t have the time to deal with it then, I had to go (sans-shower).

At work I was wondering what to do with regards to the pump, but knew that there was only so much that I could do and that most likely the pump didn’t survive winter.

So, in the early afternoon I called the RV dealership and made an appointment for service. 

After all, they were the ones who winterized Wanda, and I had paid for the extended warranty, so I wasn’t expecting to pay for the repair.

This still leaves the problem of where I was going stay for the few days that Wanda was going to be in the shop (a month from now).

I had decided that I was just going to sleep in the truck, as I really didn’t want, nor could absorb, yet another unexpected expense, not and still make my goals on track.

My boss mentioned in passing that the type of pump that I have in Wanda can sometimes get a bit sticky due to the special antifreeze that they put in the water lines for the winterization process.

He suggested that I smack the pump with something hard and hope that will loosen up. I filed that away as something I may try, yet my evening was also going to be busy.

I still had to run to the bank and then buy propane, as I had run out that afternoon.  

So it wasn’t until later that evening that I was able to try to work on the water pump issue. I flipped the switch and lo and behold the pump started working.

I tried a few tests to check that it was indeed working properly and indeed it was!

Then I thought how this could be, as I hadn’t done anything different than I had done in the morning. 

Then I remembered. When parking and manoeuvring in a parking lot, I inadvertently hopped a curb with Wanda and that gave the whole trailer a jolt, nothing serious mind you.

That must have been enough to jostle whatever it was that was stuck in the water pump loose. Thankfully that was all that was needed, and indeed it works! 

I had a hot shower in my trailer this morning and am looking forward to many more over the next four months. 

The next challenge will be finding a regular source of water nearby.

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive and keep moving forward!

Marvellous Mountains Meeting

I am running a tad behind this morning, so this blog entry will be brief. I did have a relaxing Victoria Day Long Weekend, but this morning I have run some errands.

The drive and expense was worth it, if only for this shot.

  

I also had a neighbour who came around a few times to see me. 

  

I did de-winterize and enjoyed having running water in my pipes and yes, having a shower in my own shower. 

A friend of mine paid me a surprise visit with a friend of theirs in tow. It was nice to see someone I haven’t seen in quite a while. 

All in all it was a good visit, but the weekend is over, and the workweek starts anew, so I had to hit the ground running this morning. 

Today is payday (shifted one day due to yesterday being a bank holiday), so I have already started my running around. 

My groceries were running a little low, so I bought a few groceries, filled up my gas tank and yes had a fast food breakfast . . . All before getting to work.

Well, I have to run, so I hope you all had a good and relaxing long weekend. 

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive, and keep moving forward!

Warranty Woes

Okay, so as I mentioned a few weeks ago, I had a problem with Wanda’s radio. In so far as the left channel of the whole stereo was not working at all.

I contacted the people who sold me this radio (which was a replacement for the original radio that was in Wanda). 

I had to replace the original radio and pay for it myself due to the fact that the power button was damaged and I didn’t think they would accept a physically broken power button as a warranty claim. 

The people who sold the replacement radio to me, referred me to the manufacturer of the radio and wished me luck; washing their hands of it.

The manufacturer of the radio was decent to deal with, in so far as all they required was for me talk to their tech support to ensure that the radio was actually broken.

After that I was to ship the radio to them, my cost. Fine, (grumble, grumble) I know the drill. 

I was about to call them up and ask the status of my warranty claim, when I got a call from my mailbox store.

The people at the mailbox store said that I had a package and that there was a COD charge. I had to pay right then or “refuse” the package. 

Grumbling again, and not sure what I was paying for, I paid for it over the phone. 

Since I am heading out today after work for my trip in Banff, I went by the mailbox store yesterday after work, as planned.

That was when I saw that it was my warranty replacement radio, so that was a happy sight.

   

The way the manufacturer had filled out the paperwork, however, resulted in the COD charge from UPS.

How? Well, the manufacturer stated that the value of the item was $93.56. At the border the Canadian Federal Government insists on their GST to be collected (of course).

The GST on the radio was $4.68. 

UPS can and will handle the customs paperwork for you, but will charge you for that service. They will charge you a customs fee for any packages with a declared value over $19.00 (remember that kiddos). 

So, I was slapped with a $30.20 “Customs/Brokerage” fee. 

Since this fee was for a service performed in Canada, naturally there was a GST charge on that. So, I was charged $1.51 GST on the Brokerage Fee.

This brings our sum total up to $36.39! For a radio replaced for free under the manufacturer’s warranty!

I choose to look at the positive and take note that I did get a brand new radio and not my old one fixed up. That is a positive, and that they did honour their warranty, so, that makes two positives.

It is just frustrating that I literally had to pay for this coming and going . . . ah well, I am off to Banff this weekend, and that is yet another positive. 

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive, and keep moving forward!