Monday, July 28, 2008

The Blade Liger

One of my most valuable lessons about money so far was actually taught to me by a toy. It was a blade liger that I bought on clearance at a Giant Tiger. It was only a few dollars, five, I think. I thought that having a few toys would help me regain some of my lost childhood. Though as I finished assembling the kit, I quickly realized that it was going to be little more than an ornament on my desk. A lot of stuff is simply junk and I see that a lot of the stuff I had as a child was simply junk.
On the other hand, some things are timeless. I still appreciate stuffed animals. They're soft and fuzzy and well, soft things are very nice for relaxing. They're also there when you need a hug, granted it takes larger ones now that I'm bigger. If it were all up to me, I'd probably bring my whole collection down from the closet and have everything in bed. People bug me about that though. When I'm around more understanding people, that's something I'll be doing.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

I'm 25 now

I really don't know what to say. I feel older now having been through so much lately. The loss of my father. Trying to drive again. My brother's efforts to pull the family back together. People like to tell me that I've matured a lot or seem more grown up, but I just simply feel older. I've just been doing the same things I always do to deal with things, only now I'm much worse at coping with stress than before. Nothing has really changed since I moved out, I'm just older. I wager I'll probably approach things the same way I did earlier when I'm on my own again. Maybe it's just that methodology works.
Anyway, I think I've gotten a half way decent start toward my goal of indefinite financial sustainability. That's something that I feel is getting somewhere, though I feel like I'm behind and trying to play catch up. According to one of the books my mom took out of the library, 40 years after the start of their working lives, 1% of people will become wealthy, 8% of people will gain financial independence. Of the ones that don't succeed, 14% will continue working because they need to, 24% did not survive 40 years of work and the remaining 53% will be broke. I'm not sure how accurate those figures are, but they certainly are sad. If we take out the 24% that don't make it, we're still left with about 12% succeeding, which is still saddening. Life just isn't fair.
I'm trying not to let the odds discourage me. There's no end to the number of stories I've heard about people getting burned by debt, or simply reckless spending. I'm sure that has something to do with it. Though it doesn't feel like it could possibly be the bulk of it. Oh well, I guess there isn't much to do but keep moving forward.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Well, it happens to everyone

I guess I was really expecting him to hang on a bit longer than that, but my dad passed away. One of my co-workers told me that it took him 25 years to get over the loss of his dad, though those were exceptional circumstances. I'm determined not to let this ruin my life now that I've started laying the foundation, or more correctly digging the big hole to lay the foundation in.
Bought some more as the markets dipped before he died, so kind of a light test of my emergency fund plan. I had a full pay cheque's worth of cash in my chequing account, immediately moved what I won't be needing into my savings account and I should still have a week's pay coming to me. Heh, things going down before I buy them was a new feeling for me. Things continuing downwards was nothing new, though the immediate feedback of loosing $100 of market value while adjusting my chair was new. Then I gained 60, so was down 40 while I was getting over the awe of something new. Never tried a direct access broker before and watching things day by day doesn't give a good feel for how much these things bounce minute by minute.
Anyway, fun time is over, and acquisition plans are on hold again. Time to sort out a lot of things. My dad's time in the hospital probably helped speed up the grieving process a bit. Most of my wild mood swings occurred while he was still alive. I haven't been too overwhelmed about it. The time also gave him the opportunity to see all his friends from far and wide one more time. All things considered, I think spending a month struggling for life probably isn't the way most people would rather go. My dad was always kind of stubborn though. He went out the same way he lived his life, refusing to compromise on what he wanted.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Rich Days

I hung out with people from work pretty much all day on friday. So much money going all over the place. By my counts, I spent about $10, and the other two spent $70 combined. Over all, I suppose that's not too bad. Though it does kind of pain me to see people complaining about there not being enough money when between the three of us, the tabacco and alcohol portion of cpi looks a little small. Though I suppose I know how hard it is to quit smoking. Seeing my dad trying to find cigarettes in the hospital was really something. The alcohol part I don't know about.
Anyway, if I had to move, I'm not sure if my lifestyle will be that compatible with theirs, though I suppose it would be near the top of my list of places.

Counting Down the Days

I'm told that it's only a matter of time before my dad goes. Went through his mail today. I hope if I'm in the hospital, people won't need to wonder if bills are paid. There are also so many investment accounts everywhere. I'm hoping to be able to sort out what's been dealt with and what needs to be dealt with. Jumping the gun feels strange, though there'll be even more of a mess if things aren't dealt with now.
Not sure where things go from here.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Time to face the music

Yesterday I was told that my parents had one of those end of life discussions with the doctor. This is the situation now, his kidneys aren't improving and there's a lot of dead and damaged heart tissue. Pulling out all the stops to keep him alive might not be the best idea anymore. He's going to be very frail and it's just time to make one of those quality of life decisions. I'm told that the next time something happens, they'll probably be able to save him, but the chance that his life will be nothing more than being hooked up to life support. Ultimately, it's his decision ot make and I suppose our role right now is to just let him know that we're ok with his decision, whatever that may be.
From what I figure, in all likelihood he'll be able to breath on his own in a week or so, hopefully. There's a question of what to do if he can't. I'm hoping that we won't need to address that.
The jist of it is this. It isn't about getting better anymore, it's about getting enough time to make peace with the world. I hope that includes passing down a few kind words.
From what my brother tells me, his girlfriend's grandmother was in a pretty bad spot too and the prevailing estimate was a few months, but she hung in there for a good 25+ years. So maybe.
One of his co-workers talked to us about how this wasn't fair. He worked so hard all his life and never got to enjoy retirement. He kept talking about going on a cruise around europe one day and never got around to it. When I've got my balance sheet squared off, I think I'll try to get a few things off my wish list before trying to be a contributing member of society again. For a while now, I've been thinking of going on a sailing trip to clear my mind and just give me the time I need to hopefully fix a few mental wounds. His thing was europe, as for me, I want to see both polar ice caps. I don't know why. People were bold enough to brave the poles with wooden ships and iron men, I hope I can do the same. I guess I need some adventure and a real sense of accomplishment. Then when I'm done, maybe I'll drop by Poland and tell everyone that I saw a lot of poles. Not sure how many side stops I want to make.
Oh and today is day four, tomorrow is day five.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Still Upset

This happened back on July 1st, my brother called and asked me about my plans. It basically killed one and a half days right away. Then I stayed kind of obsessing over it. I know it's irrational, but being able to stop isn't easy. Changing thinking patterns is probably harder than quitting smoking.
He says that we need to reduce the amount of secrecy in our family. I don't know how to say that we simply don't trust each other. Working hard ten to twelve hours a day and being scolded for doing nothing is incredibly stressful and annoying. I can't see how they couldn't understand that.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Finally Spent Something

Five days into the month and I finally buy something. Well, I bought two things, a slice of pizza and a cup. All together, $3.02. Tomorrow, I have to get groceries so that'll be more spending. I still wonder how often people buy things. Well, I've gone shopping once this month, and I guess I'll just keep counting. It's logged in my pda, but it's not in my computer yet. Oh and to continue with things, today's random number is 1326. I think I've biased the experiment already since I'm directly involved and I've largely bounded my responses already. I could be off completely and not know it.

Impending Disaster?

I saw an article in the paper today that jogged my memory about several other articles I read. There's a significant shift from defined benefit pension plans towards defined contribution plans. However as a population, the majority of us are rather ignorant about financial planning, investments, and retirement needs. There was a series of articles earlier about people's retirement expectations and much of it is a blur right now, but I recall one of them being about how many people felt that $10,000 was enough to retire on. I wonder how many of them were asked to take another guess. Anyway, as the current generation retires, which as I understand it is the last generation for most people to have a defined benefit pension, I can't help but feel some kind of impending doom as the first generation of mostly defined contribution pension plan retirees try to figure things out. This is still a good number of years away, but I wonder if there'll be any wide spread distress over this in the coming years.

Friday, July 4, 2008

General randomness

Today's random number is 1446. I have no idea how I got to that number, but hopefully it'll help me home in on my future financial freedom day. Ok, I'm actually estimating it based off my wage, market yields and estimated living expenses, but I have no methodology, I just pulled a number out of my head.
Anyway, I was having a little trouble with the market today. I found myself with only some of the data I usually get. Yes, it's the 4th of July and the US markets are closed, but I can't think of a decent reason why I don't see all the information I usually do on the Canadian markets. Yeah, that's my trouble with the markets today. I had trouble with access, no major losses or what not.
I also have a few predictions to make about the future. There are concerns about inflation and it seems to be getting a bit more news every time there's an interest rate announcement scheduled. I don't see interest rates going up nearly as quickly as they went down. That's going to be pinned down by fear of collapsing the economy. I hesitate to make a quantitative guess as to where interest rates will be a year from now. Maybe if I make a new guess each day for a week and take an average. That study really amuses me.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Starting Two Things This Month

I started two things at the start of this month. One is counting work days. I have now completed two. Also, I just heard a strange study done that suggests taking an average of several guesses done over time is for some reason more accurate than the first guess. So, umm, today I happen to like 995 days till freedom, previous guesses were 1000, and 1500.
The other thing is recording all my transactions. While I haven't done anything yet, I can claim to have met my previous goal of starting at the beginning of this month since I haven't spent any money yet. Might go out and spend some money this weekend. Eyeing a deal on an mp3 player. Mine is from when DRM was marketed as a feature so it has annoying delays while converting whatever proprietary non-sense goes on in there to prevent copying stuff off. I also listen to a lot of audio books and being able to swap out my book so that I can listen to music is a plus and the one that I'm looking at supports external media. Granted, I could just simply carry both players and put music on one and books on the other.
Also, having trouble deciding what to put in my investment portfolio next. There are so many things I want to add, but it has to be spread out till I have enough to justify selling things during rebalancing rather than simply buying other things. Going to start a few scenarios of play money just to help me figure out what I want to get next.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Spoiled Day Off

I had a day off and all I wanted was to rest and reflect upon the question of who I wanted to impress and what sort of people I wanted to surround myself with. Though my brother called and asked me about my plans. It ruined my day.
He keeps giving me suggestions for "temporary" things I could do while I look for something better, however the things he suggests take several years of training. Last time I told him about something I was contemplating, optometry, he told me that I was wrong about the entry requirements and that I need to actually research things. So we repeated my search while I was there and found the information that I had presented him. There was also a time when a staffing firm called bowen came to town. He told me that Boeing was starting something here and that I should apply. His advice has been a lot of miss information and diverting my efforts into repeating things and attempting to convince everyone else that the information I had found was correct. It really pisses me off when my family tries to bring that up. If they didn't waste my time and drive me nuts, I very well might be engineering right now but since I was essentially dysfunctional for several months we'll never know.
I'm probably coming off as being a bit extreme in blaming them, but for several months I wasn't able to sleep, was feeling dizzy all the time, couldn't think straight. Then after people started leaving me alone, I slowly started getting better almost as mysteriously as it began. I'm convinced its stress related. Specially since they still cause an extraordinary level of stress in me.