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!).