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Why do you need a trailer?
As I mentioned before, we recently bought a Chevy Tahoe. When we bought it, we had a Ford F150 and a Dodge Caliber that we could have traded in, but decided to sell on our own, instead.
About a month ago, we sold the truck. If you’ve never owned a truck, you probably don’t realize how handy they are to have. From hauling brush to moving furniture to donating large amount of crap to Goodwill, we used our truck.
We’ve also been on a mission to replace all of our old crappy stuff with nicer things, without spending a ton to make that happen. We’ve been selling stuff on Craigslist, then taking that money to buy other stuff we’re finding good deals on.
We found a 4×8 utility trailer for $300. It came home with us. The first thing I heard was “Why do you need a trailer?”
Now, we could have made do with delivery fees or rental trucks, but that seemed silly to me.
- We recently replaced our living room couches. One of our cats had mistaken one of them for a litter box. No amount of enzyme cleaner gets that smell out of a couch cushion. Shortly after that, my fat a** popped two of the springs out of the bottom. Bad couch. We found a good deal on brand new replacements, but the delivery fee would have been $80.
- My wife found a beautiful entertainment center last week that matched the corner entertainment center we already have. We don’t need another entertainment center, but after convincing the seller to sell us the side units without the center unit, we have glass-doored bookshelves that exactly match the largest piece of furniture we own. Without the trailer, we would have had to rent a truck to get them home.
- Tomorrow, we’ll be taking the last load of stuff out of my mother-in-law’s house. Without the trailer, that would be several trips in the car.
We’ve had the thing for 3 weeks and it has almost paid for itself in time and money. I think that makes for a good investment. I don’t expect to buy a new living room set every month, but it’s nice to be able to deal with large things when the need arises.
IRA or Powerball?
“When I win the Powerball, I’m going to buy that house and kick him out. I play diligently, so you know it’s going to happen.”
I had a friend say this to me this week. He’s poor–living on about $500 per month–and he was recently evicted from his apartment.
His plans for the future involve taking nearly 20% of his income and burning it playing the lottery. When he found out that I don’t play, he looked at me like I was stupid.
The odds of winning a life-changing amount of money are 1 in 5,153,632.65. That’s for a $1,000,000 prize. The next step down is $10,000, which, while helpful, won’t change many people’s situation for long. One in 5 million. That’s 5 times worse than your odds of being hit by lightning this year. It is, however, 4 times better than your odds of being sainted and 12 times worse than your odds of dating a supermodel.
It’s not going to happen.
Sure, play for fun–because turning cash into valueless slips of paper is a blast–but don’t play the lottery instead of working to improve your future. The lottery is NOT a retirement plan.
Instead, a much more reasonable plan is to date a millionaire. The odds of making that happen are just 215 to 1, and you can do things to improve your chances.
Improving the odds of dating a millionaire:
- Hang out where millionaires go. Yacht clubs, nice restaurants, rehab, that dark corner of their bedroom where the lamp never quite reaches that just looks perfect for a stalker-cam.
- Do what millionaires do. Golf, high-stakes poker, oppress third-world countries, Centrifugal Bumblepuppy.
- Look like millionaire-bait. For my friend, the 50-year-old black man, it might be hard to look like a 23-year-old blonde hardbody, but it’s worth the effort.
- Be nice, be polite, give good h…nevermind.
Seriously, getting a regular job and socking money away every month will give you a far better return on your investment than playing the lottery. Even if you’re saving it in a mayonnaise jar buried in the backyard next to that obnoxious guy who used to live next door, you will be building security and peace of mind. Every month, you will be better prepared for the storm of crap life tends to throw around.
Do you play the lottery? Why or why not?
Born to Launch
I’ve recently discovered something about myself: I like doing new things.
More to the point of this post: I like making new things.
I also like learning new things.
Unfortunately, once the newness wears off, I start to lose interest.
I’m a software engineer, so I regularly build new things and solve new puzzles. When a project gets into maintenance mode and the new stuff ends, I want to chuck the whole thing in the river and move on.
That carries over into other things, too. Start a business, lock down some skills, get some customers, then enter maintenance mode. Boring.
Pick up a new hobby, achieve a basic level of mastery, watch it stop being fun.
Play a new video game, get good at it, get bored.
It’s a flaw in my character and it’s a pretty serious flaw. Soon after I reach the point where I can fly with a new skill or project, I quit wanting to do it.
When it quits being new, it quits being fun.
When I pick up a new hobby, I get good at it, I get bored with it, so the setup equipment tends to collect dust.
Some of this is work stuff, which isn’t supposed to be fun. If it were, they wouldn’t call it “work”, they’d call it “happy fun time”.
Some of this could replace work stuff, but I’m not sure how to power through when I hit this particular wall. Just making money doesn’t keep something exciting. If I’m not excited, it’s hard to stay motivated, which is probably why I let the dishes pile up. (Sorry, honey!)
There is a good side to this flaw: I’m never bored. I fill notebooks with the things I want to do next, from blacksmithing lessons to building a foreign language learning site. I have absolute confidence that I’ll never be bored for long, and I’ll never be short of new ways to make money, but that doesn’t make me feel stable.
I have a need for stability, and I have a need for new. Finding that balance is a challenge.
Maybe I just need to launch things faster to build a bigger safety net. That would let me revel in the new without putting my lifestyle at risk.
Tootsie – Does Beauty Have to be Expensive?
Many remember Dustin Hoffman dressed in drag in the classic film Tootsie, a movie that he now says made him realize how many women he’s missed out on meeting in life simply because he judged them by their looks. Every year women spend thousands of dollars on beauty products and cosmetics, hoping to increase their appearance and become attractive enough to the outside world. Although there are various degrees of beauty, it undoubtedly is usually determined by the amount of money spent to enhance features and upkeep the overall look.
Although natural beauty does exist in our society, it is few and far between to find a woman who needs a minimal amount of makeup and hair product to appear beautiful enough to meet society’s standards. Styled, highlighted hair is crucial for an attractive look, requiring professional services to be done on the hair by a salon. Although it may be cheaper to spend $5 on a box of hair dye at the supermarket, the hair won’t look as full or healthy without a professional technique applied. A woman’s hair is bound to look more attractive by spending the extra $100 by visiting a stylist who knows their craft.
The length of a woman’s hair often creates a more attractive look in the U.S., which is difficult to achieve with flat irons and curlers that create breakage and brittle hair from the heat. Women are now resorting to having hair extensions installed every three to five months to achieve beautiful hair that has a fuller texture and longer length, costing an average of $700. They can resort to shorter hair that saves a large amount of money, but they’re ultimately compromising a large part of their looks.
There’s a reason that celebrities appear more beautiful than the rest of the population, as their high school photos often show them to look like typical people. By spending thousands of dollars on personal trainers, stylists, and makeup artists, their appearance is immediately enhanced with the finest tools and products on the market. They are also able to have help with experts who have more knowledge on what creates the best look for their features.
Although beauty does not have to be expensive (just look at exotic women in Columbia and Brazil who are anything but high maintenance), it unfortunately is a requirement in the U.S. where rich housewives rule the reality shows and runways. True beauty is often defined by breast and waist sized, which few women can live up to, resulting in thousands of dollars spent on breast implants and liposuction, often impossible to attain otherwise.
Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but few men will argue that Angelina Jolie is unattractive or that Heidi Klum looks homely. The majority of men can agree when a woman is beautiful, and few women catch attention with a homemade manicure and dyed hair that came from a box. Perhaps going au natural will become a new trend in the coming years, but for now it’s expensive to be a woman, and even more costly to be a beautiful one.
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The Secret to Fearless Change
Put one foot in front of the other
And soon you’ll be walking cross the floor
Put one foot in front of the other
And soon you’ll be walking out the door
You never will get where you’re going
If you never get up on your feet
Come on, there’s a good tail wind blowing
A fast walking man is hard to beat
Put one foot in front of the other
And soon you’ll be walking cross the floor
Put one foot in front of the other
And soon you’ll be walking out the door
If you want to change your direction
If your time of life is at hand
Well don’t be the rule be the exception
A good way to start is to stand
Put one foot in front of the other
And soon you’ll be walking cross the floor
Put one foot in front of the other
And soon you’ll be walking out the door
If I want to change the reflection
I see in the mirror each morn
You mean that it’s just my election
To vote for a chance to be reborn
