The Urge to Hibernate

So, here I am facing the first bite of real cold (for the current few days) and I am falling back on old habits.

I go to work, work, go home, heat up dinner, and then crawl into my sleeping bag that stays on the couch and eat my dinner as I listen to the radio.

I was going to use the laptop a bit last night and perhaps this morning, but I decided against it, as it was too cold.

My laptop might have shut down and the thought of using my laptop with increasingly frozen fingers didn’t sound appealing.

Neither did running the furnace as it would be a steady and losing proposition just to heat the place up for a couple of hours.

So, I just snuggled in and relaxed as I stayed warm on my couch before going to bed early. I got out of bed when I needed to get moving to get ready for work.

It is the way that I handle the really cold weather . . . I hibernate. 

I know that January and February will be really cold, after that it will start to warm up. I will adjust, I always do. 

The trick is to be able to do what I want/need to do, yet do so without costing me too much in resources or cash. 

As the whole focus of my life at this point is to save as much cash as I can, so I can move on to the next phase of my life (The Homesteading Phase) as soon as possible.

So, I will hibernate the really cold nights away, as it is just what I do.

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

Blast O Cold

So, it is a bit cold today and for the next few days, nothing too drastic and nothing I haven’t seen before. 

In truth it is a taste of things to come, because the one thing I know is that around where I live, January and February are always bitterly cold.

I just bundle up, adjust what I am doing in order to deal with the cold weather and keep trudging forward. 

The ladder issue was handled by bringing the ladder to work and letting it defrost in our office then warehouse. 

I let it sit in its partially open state for half the morning and then took it to the warehouse where I opened it up all the way and left it there for the remainder of the day.

That did the trick. How I handle this bitter cold is to essentially hibernate. I go home, heat up dinner, and snuggle into my sleeping bag on the couch as I listen to the radio whilst eating dinner. 

I stay there until bed where I sleep in until I have to get up. I don’t do a whole heck of a lot and not use the laptop, at least during the week, when it is this cold.

It is just what I do. I get through it, I handle winter, I endure winter, I do not frolic in it.

Again, but I am building up my savings for my future. Cold or no cold.

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

The Lamentable Ladder

So, I have had a telescoping ladder for a few years now and for the most part have liked it, it is supposed to look like this . . . 

  

That is when it is all well and good, but here it is today . . . 

   

I am having troubles getting it to fully extend or fully collapse. The rungs are sticking together or not wanting to collapse in again.

This is due to the frost inside the ladder, in between the metal sleeves that slide in and out of each other. 

This is why I have brought it to work so that it can warm up all day hopefully be all find and good when it is time to go home.

I like the ladder for its easy storage yet still can be long, yet this little frost issue is a pain. The trick is to figure out how to deal with problems as they arise. 

For me and my Lamentable Ladder, it is just borrowing a bit of heat now and then.

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

The Computer Saga . . . Continues

So, I had just spent a great deal of time setting up and moving into my All-In-One computer.

I was starting to notice that at various intervals it would freeze and then restart. I’m not talking about: freeze, give the blue screen of death and restart windows.

I’m talking about freeze and restart as if someone hit the reset button or turned the computer off and then on again.

Now, with Windows 10, I haven’t noticed it shaking its finger at me telling me “Windows was not shut down properly last time.” 

So, I don’t know if it doesn’t do that anymore or what, I just noticed that at various times, even if it was just sitting there, the system would reset.

My best guess (other than a hardware issue) is that this computer does not like the 

AC power coming from my cheap inverter.

It may be the fact that I would have to buy a better, more expensive “True Sine Wave Inverter.” 

In essence a power inverter (a thing that changes battery power to AC power) but does it in a way that is closer to what actual “natural” AC power looks like.

My All-In-One may be fine when I get to the property and can have it hooked up to better AC power. 

For now, my All-In-One is just not suited for my lifestyle for a few reasons. For one, it is a pain in the ass to setup and put away. 

For another it has no internal battery, so I have to run it on an inverter, and the power issue seems to be an issue (I will confirm this theory over my Christmas Break, as I will have real AC power at the campground).

I was going to push off buying anything new, but with all of the “Black Friday Sales, that seemed to be silly . . . that and I was going to miss my target anyways.

I looked at a few laptops and found one I liked that was expensive and way too much computer for what I need . . . but it was sweet.

I settled on one that was on sale, a good computer but not too crazy in power or settings. I insisted on getting at least a 500 gig SSD drive.

This is what I got . . . 

  

For you nosy nosersons, here is the sticker (so you can look up the model yourself]

  

Anyways, I will pay it off next payday (on the 7th) and continue moving forward with my savings plan regardless.

I use my computer a great deal and a laptop is better suited to my lifestyle. 

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

The Homestead Fund Update

Okay, so it is that time again, when I update how my progress is going on my “Grand Savings Plan!” (to build my "Homestead Fund") 

Okay, so let’s see how I did . . . 

   

For review, here is how things looked from last payday . . .

   

That is 13.3% (of my Savings Target).

And this is how things look like, after the dust settled on this payday’s budget . . . 

   

That’s right things jumped up to 14.4% of my savings target. 

That means I put away 1.1% of my total Savings Target this payday.

Now, that was a great accomplishment but it is also one that will not likely prevail into the new year, as this is a large chunk of cash to put into savings. 

I am still trying to put in as much as I can into savings as before the end of the year. 

It is now out of a desire to build up my savings to a minimum level that I feel comfortable with, rather than reaching a predetermined arbitrary number (that I won’t reach).

I am still pondering what to do with regards to my savings. 

As in, in what ways and in what savings and/or investment vehicles should I put my cash into in order to build my savings?

I will keep thinking on this and not make any decisions until the new year.

I am still focused on putting cash into the bank for now . . . as well as my Christmas Break.

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

The Anniversary of Credit Card Debt Freedom Day

It was on this day in 2015 that my first major milestone on the journey that I am still on was achieved. I don’t have to tell you that it was . . . paying off my credit cards . . . all of them.

This is the day four years ago that I eliminated all of my credit card debt, and that was a great day and a wonderful feeling. 

I remember thinking and feeling that I would never pay the credit cards off so don’t bother to dream about such nonsense. Well, I did more than dream I took action and paid them off.

It took just about two years on the journey to pay off the credit cards and I remember paying off the credit cards felt like it took the longest and was the hardest. 

This is in part because they were the first debt that I eliminated and my budget was still stuffed full of paying all of the other bills and debts that I was carrying. 

It was also the fact that the way that credit cards are structured they are the debt that keeps on taking. 

I paid back much more than I borrowed from them and it is maddening to think that the currency I borrowed was created out of thin air by the banks.

Anyways this is a happy day and another anniversary that I will take note of each year to pause and reflect on the small victories that I have achieved.

Not to gloat or brag, as that is not my style, but to remind myself that I have achieved things. 

I tell others so that they too may understand and accept that it is possible to become Totally Debt Free, and you don’t need to wait until you win the lottery.

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

Shortfall Getting Smaller

So, with tomorrow being payday, as it happens sometimes, I have received my paycheque a bit early. 

It is nice but it doesn’t mean that I have been paid as I can’t deposit my paycheque until tomorrow (Friday).

What it does do is let me know what my paycheque actually is as well as let me set my payperiod budget. 

Since my budgets are cascading, as in the output of one budget flows into the input of another, anything I do in one budget affects the ones to come. 

It is with this that I can plan ahead, and see if I will or will not make my targets. Well, my push to get back to my high water mark in savings is closer, now only $300.00 short. 

I was able to squeak in an extra hundred dollars due to how my paycheques ended up. I still have $300.00 more dollars to make up over two paycheques, but I have faith.

That faith is not arrogance but built up over time as a result of my previous successes. Those smaller successes have taught me that I can do what I set my mind to.

Such is the power of smaller successes. 

So, I will make the day, I will make my end of year savings target (and not give myself a massive bill to pay in January  . . . that would be cheating.

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