Why We Will Never Be Rich - An Ongoing Series!

When I read the blogs of financially successful folks such as J. Money, ( http://www.budgetsaresexy.com ), Mr. Money Mustache, ( http://www.mrmoneymustache.com ), James Collins, ( http://jlcollinsnh.com  -  you GOTTA read this: http://jlcollinsnh.com/2011/06/06/why-you-need-f-you-money/ ), Jeremy and Winnie, ( http://www.gocurrycracker.com ), and lots and lots of other money savvy folks, I get a little jealous.  They have money, enough money for financial independence, and the FREEDOM that this money buys them.  I, on the other hand, have bills and debt.

Money, Money, Who's Got the Money??

It ain't fair!

Well, no ..... that is absolutely wrong.  It is TOTALLY fair, because we all have a CHOICE in how we can live, and what we will spend money on.*  My wife and I CHOOSE to spend our money, rather than save it.  Here are a few examples from just this weekend, (rounded off for ease of addition!).

1. Saturday

Admission to the Atlanta Zoo, and snacks while we were there:  $130.00

Goodie from the Buford Highway Farmers Market:  $80.00 (at least - my wife paid this)

Dinner at the fantastic Grits Cafe in Forsyth, GA:  $140.00

2. Sunday

Admission to a movie for me and my older son, popcorn, and a soda:  $30.00

A new MacBook Pro laptop for me to use while I am working out of town:  $1,200.00


That's a total of at least $1,580 USD for just this past weekend alone!!

Okay, now I admit that we won't be buying a new laptop every weekend, (we couldn't if we wanted to!), but it seems that every other week we have some new fantastic expense to attempt to pay off.  And except for our older son's unfortunate emergency medical expenses, these are all purchases we voluntarily make.

Saving money really is simple.  It's the discipline NOT to spend that is the sand in lotion!


* - Okay, this assumes you are of sound mind and body, which MOST of us are.  (No whining please!!)

Online Income Statement - March/2016

No income this month, just expenses!  $60.00 for internet access, and some miscellaneous stuff, which means I'll round our monthly expenses up to $70.00.  So for the year, we're about -$300.00 .

If you're trying to make some money online, I hope you're doing better than we are!

One final thing: I've learned the hard way not to count online income until it's actually in your bank account.  There are LOTS of rip-off "money-making" sites out there: be careful!!  And until you actually have the cash in hand, don't assume you'll ever get it!

Online Income Statement - February/2016

This was an interesting month for online "income", as we actually LOST money.  $230.00, to be exact.  Yuck!

As explained in http://buyingnirvana.com/words/novice-affiliate-part-07/, we had some one-time costs associated with getting our Amazon store, Tea-Universe, ( http://tea-universe.com ), up and running.  To date we haven't had a gushing stream of income to offset these expenses, so what we have at the moment is simply an expensive hobby.  (One that we apparently spend too much time and money on!)

We did get a little over $80.00 from Clickworker, but understand that this was the accumulation from several months worth of "clickworking".  I've been doing less on Clickworker recently as we only have Apple PCs at the moment, and UHRS, (the real money making part of Clickworker), seems to work best on Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser.

So there really isn't all that much to report for February, and what there is to report isn't all that great. Hopefully March will be a better month.  (I don't know ..... it's starting out VERY SLOW!)

May we all make LOTS and LOTS of money this month!

Online Income Statement - January 2016

The bottom line is that there was no online income last month.  I got tired of fussing with Clickworker, and as I don't have any other online income streams going at the moment, no gushing rivers of cash flowed into my bank account.

Now I do have to clarify this with two items:

1. I got a 1099 from Clickworker for my yearly earnings, which were about $1,030.00 .  That's not too bad, but I'd like to increase that by a factor of 50 this year.

.... which brings me to ....

2. I'm jumping back into affiliate marketing!  As explained in this article,  http://buyingnirvana.com/words/novice-affiliate-part-06/ , I think I finally found a method that will work for me.  I've already set up an online store called Tea Universe!  ( http://tea-universe.com )  Check it out and let me know what you think!


We finally got our ridiculous debt under control.  I had to sell some investments to do it, but it was worth it.  Debt sucks!  This also points out the value of having diversified investments.  As most of you know, stocks haven't been doing great lately, but municipal bonds, of which I own a few, are currently priced at inflated values.  I sold a few of these, and hammered our misbehaving Amex credit card back into submission.  (Which - alas! - will probably only be temporary.  Kids are expensive!)

Note that I own actual municipal bonds, NOT a municipal bond fund.  It's harder to catch peaks in price like this if you own a fund.  (Or so my Dad, who is "Mr. Municipal Bond Fund Investor" himself, tells me.)


May February 2016 be a prosperous month for you!

Stupendously Stupid Persistant Debt!!

Well, it finally happened.  We maxed out our Amex credit card.

Yep, we are now carrying $15,000.00 worth of unsecured, high interest debt.  STUPID, STUPID, STUPID!!

Here's how it all happened:

1. In October we had to replace all four tires on Grump's car.
2. In November Grump strolled into the hospital emergency room, and when he left the hospital two days later his appendix was gone.
3. As soon as Grump got out of the hospital, (as Sweetie was driving him home, in fact!), Sweetie's car broken down, and required ridiculously expensive repairs.
4. Early this month we finally had to replace the roof on our house.

Now bear in mind that all this spending is IN ADDITION TO the normal day-to-day living stuff that two kids and three adults do, and it's not quite as unbelievably stupid that we now have a maxed out a credit card.

Because we don't like to pay the obscene interest rates charged by credit card companies, Grump decided that now would be a great time to cash in some savings and pound down this stupid debt.  Of course, as seemingly happens every time we need some savings, the stock market has been tanking recently.  It looked like we were going to have to take a beating one way or another, either by paying ridiculously high interest rates, or selling stocks when they are losing value.

Fortunately Granddad was able to come to the rescue!  He had convinced us several years ago to diversify our savings into municipal bonds in addition to stocks, and with the current low interest rates the value of municipal bonds is actually UP.  He looked at our bond portfolio, chose one that was a good candidate for selling, (inflated value combined with a low rate of return to maturity), and sold it for us.  Ta da!  Now we have an extra $9,000.00 to use to fight our stupid debt.

The moral of this story, (besides the obvious fact that DEBT SUCKS AND SHOULD BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS!), is that it is wise to diversify your savings.  Note that we invest in the actual municipal bond itself, NOT MUNICIPAL  BOND FUNDS!  Also, investing in municipal bonds takes a bit more work than investing in a stock fund, (there are more ways that the corrupt financial industry can rip you off with bonds than stocks), so it helps if you have a knowledgeable Granddad to guide you.

We ain't out of this debt disaster by any means yet, and for all I know more debt may be coming our way, (God forbid!), but at least we have a viable plan to chip away at it without taking a loss on our stock funds, or paying ludicrously high interest rates.

IMHO everyone should look at diversifying their savings into some municipal bonds.  Besides their ability to sometimes gain value while stocks lose value, in most cases they are also tax free!  But remember to buy the bond itself, not the tax fund.  And PLEASE find someone who knows the bond market very well to guide you.

Online Income Statement - December 2015

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly from December 2015.

Good:

After that health scare back in November, (as you may remember, I wound up in the emergency room to have my appendix removed!), I seem to be getting my health back.  Hooray!  Without good health, nothing else matters.  Grump, Sweetie, Dodong, Kuya, and Lola are all healthy at the moment, and doing well.

We did have a child who died at a very young age in the womb, (Angel, to whom I shamefully haven't written a letter in a long time), for whom if there were a way to get her life back, I would trade a substantial portion of my savings.  Because she never had an independent existence my attachment to her isn't as strong as it is to our other two kids, but if push-came-to-shove I bet I would sacrifice a lot for her.  (We have two friends who lost their son to colon cancer just before he turned 30, and trust me, both of them would give up everything they have, even their lives, if it could bring him back to life.)

I can't overstate it: good health is priceless.

I'm still employed, at a job that pays fairly well, and has good benefits, (particularly the health insurance).

Kuya is at a good school he likes, and where he is doing well.

Dodging is growing and learning.

Lola is a godsend, helping us tremendously with the kids.

And Sweetie is her normal wonderful self.

Bad:

While I am still employed, my job kinda stinks.  (As does most everybody else's, as best I can gather.)   Part of this is just the conflict between my personality and large bureaucracies.  I've never really enjoyed being an employee of a large corporation, but it's the best way I have with my skill set to earn lots of money, so I try to bear with it as best I can.  While early retirement / financial independence isn't in the cards for me, (I'm in my late fifties with two young kids and a wife to support), we do save as best we can.  We read Mr. Money Mustache and other blogs, ( Rock Star Finance is a great one!), but at this point I think that having accumulated "fuck you" money is enough of an accomplishment for me.

Online income has shriveled to practically nothing.  I made less than $50.00 on Clickworker/UHRS for the month.  Blah!  As for Adsense, I notice that folks who "make a living online", (whatever that means), are even commenting on YouTube that Adsense sucks.  And that's not all ..... Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income has now advised AGAINST writing articles online for cash, (that's how I started out attempting to make money online, by the way), and even that crazy YouTuber King Human is starting to warn against using some shaky techniques he championed in the past, and advising folks not to quit their day jobs until they figure out how to "make bank online".

The point of this is that I don't think you'll make much, if any, money online unless you have a product or service to sell, in which case the internet is just another form of marketing.  Sure, maybe you'll make big bucks as an affiliate marketer, in which case I would bet that you have the personality that would also do well with Amway or any other multi-level marketing company.

Ugly:

We now have SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS of credit card debt!!   Yuck, yuck, yuck, and double-quadruple YUCK!  This is pathetic and embarrassing and needs to change!  Fortunately I finally believe that we are all onboard to drastically reducing our spending for the year.  We'll see.

Our roof is leaking.  Ouch!!  Just what we need, more debt!


There, in more detail than I'm sure anyone wants to know about, is the current state of our finances.  I just hope we don't have to dig into our saving to pay off this STUPID debt.

Online Income Statement - November 2015

Ya know, I'm starting to think that this, "earn extra money on the internet" is just a bunch of hooey.  Yeah, if you've got a product or service to market the internet can be a great marketing tool, but as far as a place to earn cash in its own right ..... ha!

Based on that introduction you would probably assume that November was another weak month for UHRS earnings, and you know what .... you're correct!  Payouts from UHRS are drying up faster than a free beer stand in the middle of the Arabian desert.

These are our pathetic Clickworker/UHRS earnings for November/2015:

11/04  -  $32.12  (Not bad, but just wait!)

11/12  -  $26.46  (Still okay)

11/18  -  $10.19  (UGH!!)

11/26  -  $17.60  (Blah)

That's not even $100.00 for the month, and I was TRYING to earn money on this craziness!  Back in June, when I was making $200/month, it looked like I had found a way to help pay off some (stupid consumer spending) bills, but now it looks like UHRS is, at best, a time consuming way to make some beer money.  Sure, if you're gonna waste the time playing Candy Crush Saga anyway maybe UHRS is a better use of your time, but life is short, and there are other things that just might be more worthy of your attention.

And yes, December will probably be a HORRID month for UHRS earnings because, (as you can tell), I've kinda lost interest in it.  (And to cheat a bit and give you a glimpse into the future, in December I did something even dumber, and signed up for some survey sites.)

Okay, so if extra earnings were off this month, how well did we control our spending?  Let me just come out and say it: it was a BAD month!

If $600 for tires and $50 for an after hours clinic visit was painful last month, then consider this: Grump wound up having an emergency appendectomy, and the day after he got out of the hospital Sweetie's car expensively broke down.  OUCH!

Grump has fairly good insurance where he works, (although Obama has been chipping away at it recently, increasing its cost to him, and reducing its benefits), so we are hoping our total costs for his operation will be less than $400.00 .  Sweetie's car was another issue entirely.  To get it back on the road cost us $2,300.00!

Every penny of these new-and-unexpected expenses went straight on our American Express credit card, the balance of which, even after we stretched to make some big payments, is climbing inexorably towards $5,000.00.  UGH!

Like I said last month, I'm not sure what to do about all this.  Sweetie thinks we should try to sell the condo we own in South Carolina, because every time it becomes vacant it kills our cash flow, but Grump thinks we should keep it, as rents will probably go up in the future, and someday we will have the mortgage paid off.  Who knows?

Maybe December will be a better month?

At the moment I can't recommend Clickworker/UHRS to any but the most bored of you with lots of idle time on your hands, so if you want to find a link to it, you'll have to page down to a prior month's entry.

Happy Holidays all, and I sincerely hope your finances fared better in November than ours did!