Off To My Mountain Home!

At least I will be after I get this pesky thing called work out of the way today. 

Regardless, this is the day that I head to Banff (My Mountain Home) for my Christmas Break, one that I am greatly looking forward to.

I am already going over what I have to do after work, what to pick up, what errands to do and in what order. 

While I tried to push it off because of cash considerations, having this one week of a break is important to me. 

It gives me this one week to plop down and relax, and do so in comfort and surrounded by lovely scenery.

I don’t know what the future holds, what kind of year that 2023 will bring, but I do know that I will face it and make it the best year that I can make it regardless of what comes my way. 

Sleeping at work has been an odd experience and while sleeping on concrete is not fun, it is not as bad as it seems.

I have been spoiled by the heat . . . heat that I have not paid for. Though I would like to consider my “voluntary night-watchman” services as a fair trade for staying indoors.

I still plan to be in something, hopefully own, but at least renting an apartment somewhere by December 1, 2023. 

I have run the numbers and it is looking good that that will happen (major calamities economic, social or otherwise notwithstanding). 

All while keeping my investments and savings untouched. So ends theory.

Ding Dong One Card Is Dead (Paid Off)

Or, it will be . . . when I get paid today. Anyways, the first of the two cards that I have will be paid off today, as soon as I get paid. 

This is an oddity in me not having my paycheque before payday. Usually I get my cheque a day or two early and so early in the morning of payday I do my banking online.

So, ordinarily I would have already deposited and spent my paycheque by now. The money is allocated in the budget and I have it all worked out what goes where.

My best guess is the fact that it is the last payday of the year that Boss wants to make a bit of a presentation. 

Regardless, he has until close of business today to give me my paycheque. The one thing Boss has not been is one to play games with my paycheque, so I am not worried.

So, technically I haven’t paid anything off as I haven’t been paid yet . . . but I will.

With regards to credit and debt, the one point that I wanted to make was that one way to look at it is bringing future money into the present to spend now.

What that means is that when you spend on credit you are bringing money that you will make in the future into the present to spend on something right now.

At some point in you will have to send that money back to the past, in order to pay for that spend that you made back then. You do this by paying that debt off. 

That is why it is so much fun to buy on credit, as you get to spend now with money that you did not have. You get to have the spend and have it not impact your cash on hand.

Which is why it is so hard and so boring to pay off debt, you get the pain of the spend but you don’t get the fun of getting the item that you bought.

I use credit cards for two things, the first is for the ease of spending on my day to day things. 

I make sure to allocate the money to pay off each and every spend in the next payday’s budget right away, so I can:

• See the pain of that spend

• See how that spend impacts my next payday’s budget

• Set my mindset that that spend will be paid off right away

The other thing I use credit for (these days) is to stock up my homestead supplies with what I deem essential, stuff that I must have. 

The prudent part of me wants to wait and buy this stuff over time, but there are things that I just don’t want to wait and risk it either not being available or going up in price.

I am trying to do this dance of being debt free (or as close to it as possible) and having the essential supplies I would need if I was somehow forced to start that homestead right away.

I have my savings, and investments, so technically I could pay both cards off right now. 

The thing with investments and savings is that you don’t dip into them unless you absolutely have to (or to enact that big spend you planned) . .  . such as buying that land/cabin/house/something  that I want to buy. 

None of the things that I am buying are what I call wasteful purchases, but it still aggravates me every time I spend on one of these items.

It is a dance between having what I need and paying off what I have already bought. 

I am doing okay, not great, but okay. I endure what I have to endure today so I can have a better future (so ends theory).

At least I know that one of my credit cards is paid off, and I only have the other “low interest” credit card remaining.

I Cheated Last Night

Okay, so I did not sleep in Wanda last night . . . so . . . I guess my tough guy image is gone. I slept here . . . 

I slept at work, that is a nice little place between the shelves where I was able to lay my sleeping bag down and sleep. (On the carpet-covered concrete, but whatever.)

Here is why . . .

For added incentive, as I went back to Wanda to check on her as well as to pack my lunch and get fresh clothes, here is the temp inside Wanda . . .

Yep, that’s -25C in my house (I have to hang an "outside" thermometer in my house as "inside" thermometers don't go down cold enough) .

So, I slept at work on concrete in 18.33C (65F) at work rather than tough it out in Wanda.

Running the furnace just is not an option, at that temp, as the furnace will run constantly (draining the propane take more than likely)  and my batteries would be flatlined before morning . . . and it would still be cold in Wanda. 

Not only that but it would take days (it is Winter Solstice) to recharge Wanda’s batteries.

Today is Winter Solstice, which means that it is the shortest day of the year. For someone who gets all of my electricity from solar, this is a big deal.

This means that after today, every day is getting longer and longer. I (we) will get more sunlight each day (clouds notwithstanding) from now until Summer Solstice (June 21) . . . the longest day of the year.

The point that I want to make is that it is important to be adaptable, swallow your pride and just do what you have to do, what is necessary to get the job done. In this case, it is to get through the cold snap. 

Come Friday night I will (hopefully) be in Banff, plugged in and enjoying the view.

When I come back it (hopefully) won’t be this cold and I can continue sleeping in Wanda and get through this winter and into spring. I will be okay, though, one way or another.

2nd Night of The Bitter Cold

So, it was below -30C last night and about -23C in my trailer last night . . . and I made it to morning. 

(Figuratively speaking that is, as it is still night when I am writing this, but tomorrow is the winter solstice so give me a break.)

Regardless, I am okay and while I did get a bit of sleep, I didn’t get as much as I would have liked, once again my feet kept me up.

If you are not comfortable, you will not relax enough for sleep. I have learned this much. I will take a look for my hot water bottle (which is somewhere in Wanda) after work tonight.

I am spending a lot of time at work both before work and after work. Again, work is heating the building up anyways (even though the heat is turned down for nighttime).

What is keeping me going is the knowledge that this cold snap won’t last forever, only till Friday morning and then it gets not sooo cold.

Heating the trailer is not an option at this time of night, and parking the trailer somewhere near a forlorn outside electrical outlet is not an option either., 

Both because stealing power is not within me and I am bared from parking actually on work’s parking lot. 

(The business condo association made that decree a number of years ago and I have respected it.) 

I have not yet brought a sleeping bag into work and slept at work, but I did think about it.

Just renting a place is not really an option as I would have to pause my debt paying plan in order to do that and this payday (the day after tomorrow) I will pay off my first credit card, and I won’t pause that.

I just have to tough it out and make it work and just move on. Again, I need to be debt free so I have the freedom to do what I want and choose.

Debt freedom gives you more options, and that is essential for what is coming (you will wish it was just a recession).

So, I will bundle up, find my hot water bottle and just make it work during these really cold bits, and grumble and bear it through the not so cold but still cold bits.

Another Cold Snap Has Arrived

So, for the next few days, it will be south of -20C during the day and south of -30C overnight. Last night was “definitely a warm socks and sleeping toque” kinda night.

I did get some sleep but mostly my cold feet kept me up . . . not my reluctance or anything, my feet were actually cold. 

It was almost -20C in my house last night, so it was also a “turn the fridge off and prop open the doors to get the cold INTO the freezer” . . . kinda night.

I can do this lifestyle, I can make it work, but my desire to do so is quickly leaving me.

I still have the determination to push through and the willingness to do what I need to do to get through this winter, it is just that my want to do this has left me. 

Any sort of fun-factor or just take it in stride as left me. I hate the cold, I mean I really hate the f*cking cold. I can handle it, I know what to do, but I hate it.

Any thoughts of modifying Wanda so as to be more comfortable just seems like me making a long-term home out of Wanda, and that is not what I want.

I have depleted my cash reserves to pay my credit cards off, so “just getting a place” would require me to save up . . . which would take a month at least. 

That would put me getting a place for February 1 and . . . well . . . by that point, why bother screwing up my plans for that.

As with other cold-snaps this one will not last all that long, a few days. By Friday it should warm up to -18C. 

So I should be able to get the truck started so as to be able to drive to Banff for my Christmas Break. 

If I have to I can jump-start the truck with Wanda’s batteries . . . I’ve done that before.

Again, I know what to do, I can get through it, I just don’t want to. Having said that, it is only two months and then it starts to get better. 

January and February are cold, but things will start to warm up in March; by April we are back to Fall/Spring mode.

Again, I can do this, I will do this, I will get through another winter in Wanda, I will just grumble more.

Somehow, someway I really don’t want to do another winter in Wanda. Only time will tell and necessity will dictate if I will or will not do another winter in Wanda.

Just get through this next bit and deal with the future when it comes. Dream for the Future, Plan for the Mid-Term, but Work on the Now. (Just bundle up).

Who Do I Choose To Be?

So, while my plan to pay off the last of my credit cards is well in hand (if I can resist the spending or “stockpiling” urge) my thoughts turn to what to do next.

Part of me want to just get a little place in the city that I currently live, continue working and just have a regular “normal” life (without crushing debt). 

Sure, I would have a mortgage, but I would also have my savings (that I still have) and so it would be balanced out, and never become a huge part of my monthly budget (I would make sure of it).

Then there is the concept of buying a nice Class A Motorhome, and live in that for the rest of my life. All in all stay mobile but do so in style and comfort.

The cabin in the woods also sounds like a nice little existence to me as well.

Yet, with what is coming, what I know is coming, what all of us feel is coming, economically and geopolitically, that does not seem like what I want . . . who I want to be.

I am not a selfish person, yet at this phase of my life I have had to be ultra-frugal and so ultra-selfish in a way. I have not donated to charity, nor I have not done things for others. 

I go to work and go home. I move my trailer once a week five minutes down the road to check my mail and buy my weekly groceries and supplies. 

I do this because that is the cheapest way for me to live and in so doing I can get through this phase of my life of paying down debt and building up savings.

Yet when all this chaos of what I fear is coming, actually comes, I don’t want to: hide in my cabin in the woods, barricade myself in my home/Dreaded Condo in the city, or stay on the run in my nice Class A Motorhome.

I would much rather be the refuge that others seek, be the place that people can gather around and get the help they need.

I don’t mean in a refugee camp kinda way, or even a hippie commune, no, not at all, more like in a “Gene Roddenberry future” kinda way, if you get my meaning. 

I certainly don’t want it to be a place where someone shows up, sticks their hand out and says, “Where’s my free stuff? I want my free stuff? You promised to fix all of my problems, a**hole, so just do it already!”

I mean that I want wherever I end up to be a bastion of civilization where each of person there has what they need to live, yet you are still encouraged (prodded) to contribute to that community with your skills and yea better your own lot in life. 

I see it being a place that is a mixture of capitalism with a safety net, with an overall focus on the pursuit of science and knowledge. 

To do that I would need a crapload of help and a tone of money and resources.

I’m not holding my breath for the crowdfunding campaign as that is not how help works . . . I am expected to help others, others don’t help me.

I’m on my own to start this, I know that.

So . . . unless I win the lotto, the start of it will not be much than a patch of ground that I can somehow scrape together enough cash to buy, but it would be a start.

I also see this going horribly wrong and descending into madness and anarchy in a Mad-Max sense as everyone tells me that this was I deserve for trying to help people. 

All while I stumble away from the burning inferno that was my home and all of my possessions in the bloodied rags that would be all that I have left in the world . . . so yeah, I have no fears at all in starting this at all .

Yet, with real fears set aside, that is the type of person that I want to be. I want to be someone who is the last bastion of civilization in a world gone mad, that beacon of light in the descending darkness. 

So, wherever I end up, I will fly a flag as high as I can fly it which will read, “Find Refuge Here, All are welcome.” (And hope for the best).

PS: Designs are now being accepted for just what that flag will look like.

Debt Freedom Setback

My Goal of being Total Debt Free again was pushed back yesterday, and it was as a result of my own actions.

My push to being Total Debt Free again has been a fixation of mine because I like the freeing feeling of being Totally Debt Free. 

Also with what is coming, in the economy and geopolitics, it is best to be debt free. 

This fear of what is to come muddies the waters with my desire to have a place of my own, but one thing at a time. Pay off the last of my credit cards (again).

So, I was on track to pay off one credit card (the card with a higher interest rate and has the smaller outstanding balance) by this payday (Dec 22) . . . that is still on track.

I was on track to pay off the other credit card by the Feb 7 payday, this one has been pushed back.

You see, coming up (the week after next) is the week that my office shuts down. Since the office is shut, I can take a vacation . . . during this one and only time of year.

Now, I can legally take a vacation elsewhere during the year because the law says that I can. 

I can also technically take a vacation because Boss says that I can (and encourages me to do so).

Yet, operationally I cannot take a vacation because nobody wants to do what I do and there is a palpable sense of dread and fear of me not being there (to make things just “happen”).

Also, when I go on vacation I take at least a 10% pay cut because if I am not there, I don’t get commission on the online sales that I process.

So, I don’t go on vacation but I use my vacation pay to pad my paycheque throughout the year (when my paycheque would otherwise be smaller than what I term “Budgetary Minimum”).

But I digress, so, me taking any time off is a big deal and not something I do on a regular basis . . . for a few reasons.

So, this year I had pushed off and delayed booking my spot in Banff because it is costly for me: paying for the site, the extra gas, buying the Parks Canada Pass, and the extra propane, to name a few.

Yet, I just got to a point yesterday where I realized that this is my one and only vacation each year (such as it is) and just plain old, I deserve a break.

So, as a result, me being Totally Debt Free, has been pushed back by one payday to Feb 22 . . . but I still get my Christmas Break.

Deciding what to do about what kind of permanent home I will have will be decided after that date. (I am still undecided about that.)