It’s Silly, But it Works

So there I was going through the motions of getting ready for the day and paused to realize how silly I must look most times.

After all, there are some silly things I do, silly things that work. I have long since abandoned the idea of “looking cool” or otherwise “normal.”

I do what works, not what is stylish. 

For example, I: 

• Putter around in the dark with only a flashlight strapped to my head for light.

• Work on my laptop by candlelight.

• Listen to a portable radio when the radio in my trailer works fine.

• Dress in the same multiple layers of clothes every day when around my trailer

• Sit in a sleeping bag on the couch to stay warm without turning the furnace on.

• Pack my water in on my back daily.

• Live in an RV Trailer on a street in an industrial park.

• Weekend (and look forward to) in the parking lot of a Big Box Retailer.

• Pee outside in the dead of winter.

Those are a few of the odd things that I do, just because they work. It is in doing these little odd things that helps enable me to get ahead. 

Conformity to what society expects is what really holds people back from doing what they need to do to get ahead. Think about that. 

What “odd things” are you willing to do in order to get yourself ahead?

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

The Eve of a Pivotal ‘Timesheet Day’

So, today is the end of the month, the end of October. Yeah, yeah, Halloween and all that. 

For me, in my world this is the last day of this payperiod, the one that will produce the November 7, paycheque. 

Why is this so special a paycheque? This should be (emphasis on ‘should’) a larger than average paycheque and the first of four such in a row. 

This is because, at this end of the year, the payroll taxes drop off, and so, I get to keep (for now) much more of my paycheque than before.

This will impact the next 4 budgets and so when I finally get my paycheque (you know, a week from today) I will see where exactly that number lands.

As in exactly what percentage of my paycheque do they keep? 

Why is this so big a deal? Well, that number slides from 27.5% of my paycheque in January, to around 18% of my paycheque in December.

So, for budgeting purposes, it is nice to know what to expect.

I just want to know if I will make my savings targets or not.

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

Cold Weather This Way Cometh

Okay, so while it is not exactly -40C, it is going to get decidedly colder. 

Once again, I have seen this before and it is nothing that I can’t handle, but it is what it is. 

I may end up in full-blown-winter mode before too long, perhaps in two weeks, then again it could take longer, nobody really knows. 

All I know is that my shorts may be packed away before long and those long johns may be coming out of storage soon. 

I just sigh and go oh well, it is what it is and it will be what it will be. I have been here before so I know what to do. 

I am nothing if not determined and I will get through yet another fall (real fall) and yes, another winter.

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

Relaxing and Unproductive Weekend

So, the weekend was nice and I enjoyed it, but I didn’t accomplish much. 

I had wanted to cook up another batch of my Mealstarter. I even bought the ingredients, but never got around to it.

I did some writing, even watched a bit of TV, went for walks, you know relaxing stuff.

All in all it was a good weekend, if a bit slow and boring. 

Yet, it was just what I needed.

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

A Modicum of Encouragement

So, Boss, like a lot of business people leases a vehicle through their business for both business and personal use. 

What Boss does is when the lease is up, will typically pay the lease out, then turn around and sell the vehicle, typically making a bit of money along the way. 

Okay, why not. This way Boss always has a new (or a year or two old) vehicle to drive. Again, why not. 

It has come to that time that the lease is up, and so this cycle will continue again . . . or will it? 

With the challenges facing the business, will Boss continue with the expense of leasing a vehicle or go with another more fiscally prudent option?

You see, as I see it there are a few options Boss could take:

• Return/buy out and sell the vehicle & lease a new one. 

• Buy out the vehicle and keep it.

• Buy a used vehicle.

• Carpool/share an existing family vehicle (technically could happen).

It goes without saying that we, around the office were interested to see which way Boss would go? 

If a fiscally prudent option was employed then we would see this as a sign that Boss’s confidence was waning in the mid to long term future of the business, as it stood now.

If a new vehicle showed up, then that would signal that Boss had every confidence that things would continue as normal.

So, what did Boss do? Boss leased a new, yet not quite as fancy as the last one, vehicle. 

So, all in all, this signals that Boss is pretty confident that the company will keep operating and that at least Boss, will remain employed.

After all, Boss has laid off the entire staff at least once, possibly twice before as Boss retools the company in a new direction . . . as a “one man operation.”

So, with a new truck, there is hope around the office . . . sorta.

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

Keep Calm and Build Savings

So, there has been much more talk around the office yesterday about what may or may not happen, all in response to the effects of those US Tariffs.

Our business model is to design products, have them built in China, and then sell them throughout Canada and the US. 

According to the current US Administration, that is a no-no, and so anything we bring in from China is slapped with not only a duty (as it always had been) but punitive tariffs.

On the outset, this wouldn’t be so bad, but while we, a Canadian company are hit with tariffs based on the retail price (what we charge our customer). 

Our US competitors are only hit with the punitive tariffs on the cost of the goods they bring in to the US . . . as in what they buy it for. 

This further skews an already uneven playing field further away from us. Then again, this current US Administration is all about helping the US and only the US.

All of that aside (regardless of how you feel about what the current US Administration is doing) what this means to us and our company is that it looks like we will pull out of the US Market as it is becoming too expensive for us to compete in. 

This means that what was once 80% of our business, yet now shrunk to 60%, is going to go bye-bye, through no fault of our own.

So, there are some jittered nerves around work these days as we all wonder what is going to happen. 

Most likely is that the company will retool and move in another direction. Yet I don’t see pay raises coming, only pay cuts with an absence of direct website sales.

As for me, I will keep doing what I always do: keep clomping on forward. 

I will keep building up my savings for as long as I can. I will focus on savings as much as possible and eliminate all unnecessary spending, as anything could happen.

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

Fear is in The Air

How lovely, the bills have started to come in, and the effects of the tariffs from the US have started to be felt. 

This has started to make everyone in the office a little edgy, starting with and emanating from, Boss.

As we all know, Sh*t rolls downhill, so too does Fear. Yet with Fear, as it rolls downhill it picks up Intimidation along the way.

While it is in early stages of Boss feeling the pinch of these Tariffs, I am anticipating more grouchiness with a few ‘dead weight’ insinuations along the way. 

I do my job and I know how to do it well (I should after all these years). 

I am always looking for an order to process and get out the door. I make it a policy that if I can process and order today, I will do so and get it out the door today.

Can I really be blamed of the orders have dropped off? I am: where I am supposed to be, when I am supposed to be, and ready willing and able to do what I am supposed to do. 

I don’t create orders, I process them . . . so give me an order to process and we’ll both be happy.

I know Boss is stressed and rightfully so, I would also be stressed if I were in Boss’s shoes. 

I know that taking it out on your subordinates, helps nothing. We’re not the problem.

As I said, it is early days yet, and I only saw the first indications of fear on Boss yesterday. So there has been no intimidation or insults (yet).

I simply take comfort that I have paid my debts off and I am a few paycheques away from having that two year’s worth of living expenses cushion in tucked away in my savings.

Yet, I like my job and I like the company I work for and yeah I like Boss. I just don’t need to hear the tales of “Saint Entrepreneur” as I am told that I “have no problems as an employee.”

I at least know that life is complicated and that nobody has it perfect, and yeah, everybody’s got a story that can break your heart. 

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