Not De-Wintering Wanda This Year

So, I have been looking around and it seems that campgrounds are still closed in my neck of the woods and will be for a bit longer yet.

While it is true that it seems that the provincial campgrounds will be opening up June 1st, that is Monday, as in after this weekend.

So, I could book a site and go camping at a provincial campground next weekend, it is not happening this weekend.

Yet the provincial campgrounds have water at a few taps here and there but only have electricity at the campsites themselves.

So, flushing the system out is not possible at a provincial campground, despite how nice they are.

So, here I am at June and staring down the first weekend in October when I winterize Wanda, and saying to myself . . . it’s just not worth de-winterizing this year.

This whole Covid-19 thing just threw everything off kilter, including my de-winterizing. 

Add to that the block of ice in my Black-Water Tank, and you see why things took longer than usual for me to be ready to de-winterize.

I will be okay, as running water in Wanda is a luxury and one that I can take or leave as it has been so long since I have had steady 24/7/365 running water in my home.

I’m used to packing water in off my back and just being thankful for being able to use my toilet, sinks and shower drain.

Oh look I just saved the cost of de-winterizing and the cost of winterizing in October.

This is just one of those little speed-bumps that happens in life and something that you just have to get used to taking in stride.

Such is life.

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

Just Puttering Along

I am doing okay, could be better, could be worse, but all in all, I’m doing fine.

I am working on just being happy with who I am and my current situation, yet never lose that drive to better myself and my situation.

I am on track to having my home, a home that I plan to be a large home full of people and life.

I’m not there yet, not close, but I am just puttering along, towards that goal.

As I keep saying: I’ve got a plan, I’m working that plan, and the plan is working!

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

Funding Two Funds

So, a couple of months back I dipped into my Mid-Term Savings (Considerably) in order to do some investments. 

Once was back in February to top up my TFSA to a target level (seriously, I don’t know why I did this as it was just an arbitrary number in a savings account).

The other time was when the market crashed and I decided that then was the best time to get into the stock market. 

(As in the day that the market wiped out all of the gains that it had made since 2016).

Since then I have been trying to put some cash into my Mid-Term Account as well as the markets (my TFSA).

I want to do both, and do them aggressively but I can’t, so I can either do one aggressively and ignore the other or do them both cautiously.

I do want to have my Mid-Term Account fully-funded, but I also know that the stocks that I like are now in a “Buy” position, so they are relatively cheap right now.

So, I will continue to do both, as my plan is a medium-term plan that will take 5 years to run, so I can take the next three months to fund my Mid-Term Account.

Things may happen that will cause me to change my plan, as I always have to be adaptable.

I may not know exactly what my future holds, but I do know that it will require, or be enhanced, by having some sort of savings.

Both the kind that I can access right away (Mid-Term Account) and the kind that I will build up and access for larger life goals (Long-Term Account/TFSA).

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

The Second Coming of Covid-19

So, here we are standing at the cusp of the “reopening strategy” for at least the corner of the world where I live, and already people are talking about the second coming of this virus.

We are just in the midst of trying to open things again and do so in a manner that doesn’t make people sick or kill them, and others are talking about the next bout of this virus.

We haven’t even finished dealing with this bout yet, and people are fretting about the next go round.

Almost all businesses have been affected. Scores of workers and average folks have taken a financial hit due to this current bout of this virus.

I understand that part of this is to remind people to keep doing all of the things, social distancing and the like, that we have been told to do.

It serves as a warning that if we don’t keep doing these things we will see this virus come back.

There are some people who are ready to run to the hills over this thing. I will admit that I have perused a few “survival items” online recently “just in case.” 

It is quite scary and the outlook both, health-wise and fiscally, looks bleak and uncertain at best.

I have to hold onto the basic belief and understanding that this too shall pass. One way or another this virus will come and go.

Whatever damage both in the numbers of sick and dead and the economic fallout as a result of this thing will come.

Yet we as a people and yes society will remain here, simply because we will it to be. I for one refuse to accept the inevitability of our own destruction.

I despise the “road warrior” future and shall fight it with everything that I have. For we as a people and a species have not come as far as we have to be done in by a virus.

We will get through this and we will see daylight and happy days on the other side of this pandemic.

This too shall pass.

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

I Am Happy, But Not Content

I know that I have said this before and being happy is a struggle, at least for me, as I do have my ups and downs, but for the most part, I am happy.

This is in part due to a process that I went through recently, a process which allowed me to let go of some guilt that I had been carrying around within me since childhood.

I won’t go into it as it is personal, too personal for this blog, but rest assured that it was guilt that I wasn’t really aware that I was carrying. 

Worse yet was that it was not my guilt to carry, such is the case with a lot of childhood guilt, I would wager.

The point is that as a result of unburdening myself I find myself much happier with just being. 

Not happy because of making a large deposit into my savings, or happy because of it being a warm and sunny day, just happy with being.

Yet I do not love my life, I like it but I do not love it. I do not want to live in an RV for the rest of my life.

If that were the case I would buy a larger and fancier one, perhaps one the size of a bus, or some such thing.

I want land, and a house. As I have said before, I have a plan, I’m working that plan, and the plan is working.

So while I am happy with myself I am not content with the state of my life. It is a work in progress and my current situation is but a temporary and transient phase of my life.

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 36.3% (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 37.2% of my savings target. 

That means I put away 0.9% of my total Savings Target this payday.

It has been a bit of a bumpy ride with regards to my investments, as they have dropped then come up. 

Since there are two different types of investments, they tend to go in different directions. Such is the case with what happened this previous payperiod.

One of my investments dropped so much that it wiped out the value of what I usually put into my Long-Term Savings Account.

It has crawled back up to losing only a modest portion of what I usually put into my Long-Term Savings Account.

The other type of investment went up a bit, and was able to compensate for the unrealized loss of the previously mentioned investment and then some.

Not much but enough to make me look good this payperiod (as in putting in close to a whole percentage point of my target.

The whole nature of investing is risky and is a bit of a gamble but in the long run it tends to pay off, but there is no guarantee.

My investments are still in an area where they are good to buy, so I will happily put more money into them on the belief that they will rise in the future.

So ends theory, I will let you know how it works out in practice.

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

Who I Choose To Be

We are all people of our own choosing, we may let ourselves get upset with this that or the other or we may choose to rise above it.

Feeling mad, or just about any other feeling is okay, it is dwelling on it, wallowing in it or letting it take over you that is the problem.

All in all I am doing okay. There are things in my life that could be better, but there are always things in my life that could be worse.

I decide to see the positive and the progress in my constant movement forward. 

I do get angry with things, I express that anger but there are two things I don’t let happen . . . not anymore that is.

The first is that I don’t let myself get overwhelmed with that anger or dwell in it or on it too long.

The second is that I don’t let that anger turn on me, and become the: self-doubt, self-blame, and self-hate that anger can do if you let it hang around long enough.

I make sure to make a conscious choice as I get up each day, who I will be and how I see myself. 

I refuse to let in the negative emotions, at least anymore, as they have clearly overstayed their welcome.

So ends theory, I’ll let you know how it goes in practice. 

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