Money thoughts
I just read the last post and it makes me sounds so bad, worrying about money when other people have to little.
I think it is just a scale issue though, I am not poor, I like to think of my self as fairly well off, but because of that my bills and obligations are bigger and I worry more about money.
In terms of business money, it isn’t so much my welfare I am worried about, if the business doesn’t make money then I can’t afford to employee the people I employee. They all have families, school costs, medical bills, etc.. I take it as one of my responsibilities to ensure that they earn the money they need too.
At home, I carry a certain amount of debt to make my lifestyle affordable. I do not live off the debt and most of it is very short term. I have the mortgage and a car payment and few thousand dollars in credit card debt from the recent vacation, I just worry that with big bills, one missing pay check could cause me quite a lot of pain.
So I could live cheaper, but then why work as hard as I do to do that. I just worry to much.
My wife and I had considered selling the house, buying a fifth wheel and a truck and just cruising round the country. All I would need to do is earn enough to pay the day to day expenses as the house now would more than cover the cost of the camping set up, but I can’t figure out a way to do that while being on the road.
All I need to do is win the lottery.
Stress update
Can you cure stress by just pretending it isn’t there?
I had a productive weekend fixing things, a nice meal out Saturday and to much wine over the weekend and my stress has move to ambivalence.
By fixing the caravan I have alleviated some of my worries about personal finance, and I am doing some billing in the office to make me feel like the business has some money. I still don’t think it is right but by doing that and drinking the wine I am definitely sleeping better.
I have debated finding a shrink but as I said in the other post, I am to cheap, I don’t think I need to pay someone money to discuss my concerns about money and why I am not sleeping, and I certainly don’t want any prescription meds because I hate them.
What I need to do is find a good drinking buddy who will listen, make outrageous suggestions and forget they heard it next day
Give me a screwdriver and I can fix anything!
I used to think I wasn’t a very practical person. I could write computer software to track 2 dozen satellites and evaluate their performance, but give me a broken pipe and I would have to call a plumber.
Over the last couple of years though I have improved a huge amount. I think this is because I am cheap. Selling “services” I do understand the value of someones time, I charge customers by the hour, but I still find it hard to pay hourly for a simple job.
So I have fixed things and built things on my own. Even the caravan this weekend, Last week I was worried about the better part of a $1500 bill to repair it. I had to buy tires for it because I can’t make those, but I did manage to fix the water heater ($600 replacement) and the fridge ($250 repair), so I am very happy about that.
Here is a list of my accomplishments since my asshole builder decided to go out of business.
- General Contractor to finish house
- Ran cable in house
- Hung lots of ceiling fans
- Installed extractor fan
- Installed under cabinet lighting
- Made planters
- Installed multiple power receptacles
- Put down grass (ok so that is a work in progress)
- Fixed leaking pipe in bathroom floor
- Fixed A/C unit compressor
- Put door in to basement
- Built deck
- Fixed caravan water heater
- Fixed caravan fridge
To any practical person these may seem like simple things, but I see them as great achievements (and I can still write a mean piece of software too!).
Doctor Who!!!!!
Will he regenerate, is David Tennant out of a job? Got to give Russell T. Davis some credit for a good cliff hanger.
I watched a few interviews this week where Tennant wouldn’t commit to a new series but did commit to 4 specials next year, and the radio times still lists him in the credits for next weeks episode.
Tennant or not???? Post Your Vote!
Stress level is up, Finances are down
For the first time in a long time I actually got up in the middle of the night and went to sleep on the couch.
This used to be a common thing, especially when we were building the house. I was tossing and turning in bed for about 30 minutes and I didn’t think it was fair to keep disturbing my wife, so I went downstairs, put the TV on and curled up with a couple of cats.
I think/hope this sleepless is just money related. After the caravan fun with the blow out I’ve started fixing it up. It is a few hundred dollars for tires, a few hundred if I can’t fix the water heater, a few hundred if I can’t fix the fridge. Then there is all the normal bills, they arn’t any bigger than usual, I just wish sometimes I could get a month off from them.
The business seems to have finally noticed there is a recession here, we are down about 30% on revenue the last 2 months, not enough to panic, but it is making us dip into some of the cash reserve we like to keep. I should probably do a forecast as to how long that cash reserve can last.
I am also having chest pains again, my gut instinct tells me it is muscle pain, started yesterday working on the caravan and seems to have been aggrevated by sleeping on the couch.
I have/had a doctors appointment for tests on Thursday, but since I run out of meds and don’t want to get another 3 month supply before the doc decides to change them, I am trying to get the appointment moved and some temporary meds.
Kayaking the Delaware
Just had a great weekend kayaking and camping on the River Delaware.
I can highly recommend the Bulls Run state park campground near Stockton, NJ. Clean, level site right on the river with spotless bathrooms. No electric for the trailer, but who needs it camping. From here we trucked up to Frenchtown and paddled back down, about 8 miles but the river was running about 5mph, so very little paddling was needed. There were a few fun little rapids but nothing scary and a wier to play with near the campground.
I definately think we will be going back to do it again.
The only down side of the weekend is that the trailer seems to be falling apart
There is a small hole in the hot water tank, the fridge is stubborn and keeps turning itself off when on Gas, and on the way home we had a blow out on one of the tires. Looks like it is going to be an expensive repair bill for all that this week.