Setting a few goals

As much as the traditional time for setting goals is still yet to come, there isn't really a bad time to think about goals, evaluate old ones or set new ones. My big goal is still to getting back into school and getting my life moving again. I still feel like very little in my life is permanent. It's hard to feel rooted when your big goal is to get away.
With living expenses falling due to new room mates, and having built up investment income to what I have, I'm going to make a goal of spending less than my investment income. I'll exclude my student loan payments for now. I'll see if I can add those in later on we'll see when. On a side note, I still view the alternative uses of money as the most important criteria for consideration when making purchasing decisions.
Another goal that I'm thinking of is either starting a website up. It would be about photography. I'm certainly not great at it, but maybe my closer to a beginner perspective will help. Right now, I'm seeing it as partially about getting out and exploring the community through the lens and technique. I know a lot about using a point and shoot camera to get very nice results and I'm hoping to get a DSLR soon. Eyeing the Pentax K-X right now.
If I don't do that, I'd like to enter a contest of some sort. Something involved, that'll take some work to enter.

Setting Big Goals

I'm at a point in my life where I'm looking for something to strive toward. Been going through several personal finance blogs lately now that I'm getting back in the swing of things. I've seen the goal of becoming a millionaire pop up more than a few times. To me though, those are numbers on a page. I have a small list of things that I value that I wrote in a note book a few years ago.
-Protecting friends
-Spreading positive influence
-Honesty
-Knowledge
-Defending beliefs
-Environment
-Rights
-Fairness
-Adventure
I'm surprised justice didn't make the list. I've always been the one to document and report crimes that I see and return lost property. Maybe it's time to revise my list a bit.
That aside, I'd like to go on a big adventure every now and then. Addressing the other things on my list, I'm tempted to set another big goal. The one that's been floating my mind is to give a dollar to charity for every dollar I have to work for. It's a rather lofty goal considering that I also have to live and pay taxes. Realistically though saving up over 30 years might generate enough investment income to pull this off. This really is one of those lunatic chases and I'm not sure I want to commit to this, but why strive for the things you know you can do when you can explore new possibilities of potential? I suppose I'll start keeping a tally and revisit this idea every now and then.

Forgotten items

Seems that I have forgotten something in my estimate of how much money I could make by the end of the year. I forgot to take into account that I'm going to be attending a wedding in November. Thus, I suppose that makes the target roughly $9,000. Still a sizable amount, and still short of what I'd like to be capable of.

New Goals

After looking over the numbers, I’ve decided to set two small goals for the rest of the year. The first is to cap my recurring spending to $20 a week excluding my bus pass. That should probably curtail spending by quite a bit. Though I suppose I’ll leave family related spending in the open.
The other goal that I’ve set is to buy $10,000 in new investments. Based on my best estimates, that seems to be a maximum, which is depressing in a way. Not that I’m not grateful for the progress I’ve made so far, I would greatly appreciate faster.
Finally, on the verge of starting another work week. 141 days down, going on 144.

Whoo long weekend

Well, after the chaos and having worked a total of 77 days since the start of this year, I have four days off. Put today to somewhat decent use. I rested up, which is always important. It's more a reminder of how much work takes out of me than anything else. Also did something nice and cleaned the floors. Hmm, what else to report? The market retreated a bit but it's still higher than what I was thinking that things would be at. Notably though Artis did not crash back down as I worried that it might, instead it sits even higher at $8.10. Everything else I have though moved with the markets. I'm not sure if this is where I should consider selling. Personally I'm reluctant to.
Also tried to take up some music. The recorder doesn't feel as natural as I remember it being. If only I could find some sheet music for songs that I'm interested in learning how to play. I want to learn Bert the Turtle made famous by the Duck and Cover film. If I had the sheet music for it, I would make a goal out of being able to play it.

Month End

Hmm, I almost don't remember what I usually calculate at the end of the month. Anyway, here goes:
gross pay: 2629.75
net pay: 2106.80
spending: 220.17
student loan repayments: 225.91
savings: 2106.80 - 220.17 - 225.91 = 1660.72, wish it was higher
Not sure what sort of commentary to make at the moment. I picked up a bunch of blank dvds, want to back up some things. My photo collection is four dvds already and I have a few rather photo intensive events coming up. It's also nice to back up my laptop's entire hard drive, though it's a bit of a mess right now, so a bit of clean up and well, two copies will easily fit on one dvd. Also, I got reusable bag credits 9 times this month. That's pretty good. It was 5 in January and 4 in February.
I've got the radio on right now and Dr. Laura just said something that really hit me. Playing worker ant isn't living. I couldn't agree more with that sentiment. Can't wait to be done with that. I should get my final tax receipts next week and be able to file my return. This year I'll be getting money back, next year I'm thinking that I'll have enough investment income that I probably won't be getting money back. Either that or be pretty close. Refund probably shouldn't come till end of may, start of June. Should have vacation pay coming around June, also have profit share coming up in July. Also have money coming from managing the family firm in the next quarter, both the stuff I loaned it and something for my troubles. I'm hoping to make some significant progress towards not being a worker ant in the next couple months.

Minimum wage update

Minimum wage has changed from $8.40hr, to $8.80/hr, or at least it's due to this year. I guess that means I'm now looking at $352/week or $18304/year as a target. When I have a better grasp of living expenses, I'd like to switch to a living expenses as a percentage of net worth target. It seems more meaningful when yield spreads are wild for different assets.

TV rots the brain?

I was looking back at a few old blog posts and came to two realizations, 1) TV shows have gotten me thinking about a couple of very interesting things, and 2) I don't post as much as I used to. So, a brief list of tv shows that have gotten me thinking:
1) Intervention - The name pretty much describes it. The show is a reality tv series on interventions. I think it appeals to me because I worry about appearing detached from reality.
2) Wife Swap - It's hard to get a feel for what a good family setting is in my absence of one. This almost doesn't help with that, but at least it gives me a feel for how bad things can get. I guess I'm not alone in a lot of ways. Also gives me some basis for comparison when trying to figure out how bad things are for me.
3) House - He's insightful and often way out there with his thinking. It's also nice to see someone who doesn't pretend to be nice when being a jerk for a change. There's so many interesting observations about people and society in there.

So, yeah, small goal for the moment, post more frequently.

New in 2009

There maybe times when it's premature to plan for the future, like I wouldn't start planning for 2050 now, but it's never too early to dream. There's still a lot of unknowns though I'd like to conjure up some vision of what I feel 2009 might be like.
I'm going to make it a goal to record and categorize my spending. Hopefully put together a summary on the last weekend of every month. I don't spend on days that I work, so that should do for the month. Recording and categorizing for my income too.
I'd like to get my brother off my back about going back to school when he things I should and focus on when preparations are going to be ready. There's no real plan for doing this.
Some decision needs to be made about how much contact I want to maintain. Right now, I think what we had earlier with him calling and me deciding not to answer might be the best solution for the time being. I don't really expect to need these decisions finalized till I move away.
I think I'd like to end the year with a net worth of 50K or more. I suppose this means that my goals are rather distant at this point.
Do I see myself getting a new computer? I'm not sure. I've put it off this long already. I think the thing that'll push it for me is when my monitor finally dies. I'm certainly getting my money's worth out of that used laptop I bought so many years ago.
I see myself going to a wedding in the USA around November. That's going to be my big budget thing this year. I'm kind of already preparing for that, I started the first steps in opening a new bank account at citizens bank. They have no fee US debit. Also starting a savings account there. As of the last adjustment that Canadian tire made to their interest rates, they have a better rate. Granted, that might only last a week or so. Part of me is tempted create an array of savings accounts at several different places, but I think I have enough as it is. I wonder if it'll be necessary to link that to everything else and make it a hub as well or if I can keep it as a branch. Now I'm tempted to create a web diagram showing how all my accounts are linked. It'll probably look more complicated than it actually is. When everything is linked to everything else, money can simply move directly instead of hopping through an intermediary.
Not sure what else to say about next year yet. It's simply going to be more of the same for about half a year or so.

Feeling more depressed

It's not the holidays that's depressing me, it's the milestones. Two and a half years into what I've started calling the lost decade. My brother is insisting that I go back to school and telling me that nothing will change if I save up money instead of needing to ask for it every year. He also doesn't remember all the times everyone freaked out about stuff going wrong and kept me from taking care of it. Then there's the invasive probing and circular arguements that we had about money the first time I was going to school. Personally, I think the best thing to do is to avoid those probelms, which he can't seem to recall.
There's no good reason for him to really remember anyway, those were events in my life, not his. I don't know who he was playing in those big out of town hockey tournements he played in or how his team placed, but I wager that he does. His life, not mine.
Right now, waiting two years feels like a great idea. I can be away, I can avoid needing to ask for money, I can sustain myself for a while afterwards if I don't get a job right away. Also, on the external side, investments are cheap right now and the supply of students is high.

Alternative visualizations

Goals are only good if they’re well defined. They key to doing any big task is to break it down into small manageable parts. Old clichés but well, I felt the need to do something innovative. My goal right now is essentially to get up to the point where I don’t need to work to make ends meet, which I’ve roughly defined as being half of minimum wage. Though I really would feel a lot better with full minimum wage. Anyway, 52 weeks in a year, 26 letters in the alphabet. I think I’ll visualize my goal as being the letters of the alphabet. Each one being worth one week of minimum wage earnings per year, or about $8.40/hr x 40hr/week = $336. The important part is the beginning, so I’ll put the capital letters there.
I’m nowhere near as far along as I would like to be in my goal. For now I’ll use the excuse of most of my resources are tied up in a bridge loan to bail out the family holding firm. For now, I express my progress as being 2 weeks or visually as
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

To Do List

Well, I could talk about the election or I can talk about the bank bail outs. I think I've already beaten the market rebound to death. Though right now, I'm feeling tired, so I'll talk about that. I'm setting a new goal, and that is to try to reduce the anxiety that I feel when I'm about to go to sleep. It always feels like I didn't get enough done or I have something looming on my mind. I'm told writing it down helps, so here goes.
Tomorrow, I need to make a phone call regarding the accounts of the family holding firm, get some money transferred so that the bills can be paid and because GST need to be paid at the end of the month. I've already phoned once this month, I hope things are underway already but this is already late enough to make me uncomfortable.
The day after, I need to buy a phone card.
That pretty much sums it up. I hope this helps clear my mind.

Do I need to be a millionaire?

I keep wondering just how much money I need. Do I really need to be a millionaire soon? I think inflation will make it inevitable that I'll want to be a millionaire. Right now, it would be nice, but I think I'd be satisfied wit half that, or less. It's a bit of a milestone. I don't know how long I'm going to be staying at my current job. I kind of have goals for where I want to be when I leave, which reminds me, I have to bump things for inflation. It's still uncertain how my inheritance will change the picture. I've been trying to compute some estimates, but it's hard given that I do not expect the current market conditions to persist. The investments are also postured primarily in small resource exploration firms, which scare me. Most of the accounts also have substantial losses. I'm unsure of how to allocate blocks of money that large right now. There's still months of probate to go through though, so where the jumble lands is still up in the air. I just hope that there's still a good amount left when the dust settles since I get the feeling that many of those investments can fall by quite a bit.

Getting away from everything

Well, what to say, this week. Been yearning to get away and just break free from the normal routine of work and sleep with food sprinkled in between. I find myself asking several questions, about how much money is enough, and if I'll ever get to make my dreams come true. I don't think my odds are too bad. Somehow I've managed to boil down my desires to the essentials. When you ask little of the world, you'll find that you don't really need as much to have a good time, or so I hope. My efforts are also focused. This helps a lot. Many people can see the gourmet coffee, and focus on that with other things being but a dream.
Though still, I have my doubts, specially since things are really just beginning. While my rough calculations look good on paper, I can't overlook that each line on that page represents close to two years of my life. That's just the beginning.

Poverty line

I now have a bit more information on where my bare minimum goal should be. I’m not sure why I didn’t look this up earlier, but I now know where the poverty line, more formally known as the low-income cut-offs, was two years ago.
It’s nice how it’s broken down by how big the family is and how big the population center is. There is a big leap for living in a place with more than a half million people. Bellow that, the differences aren’t that large. Personally, I kind of want to go for a smaller population and in the 100K-500K range, it says that I want $14,895 of after tax income in 2006. That’s still a long ways away, but 15K is quite a bit closer than 18K. Right now, I’m sitting at about 0.8K of investment income. While it’s a good start, it’s still just a start. Being about 1/20th of the way there really isn’t something to celebrate. I don’t want to spend 20 years of my life doing this. It should accelerate as my income increases through investing, though 3% increases really take time to make significant changes.
http://www.ccsd.ca/factsheets/economic_security/poverty/lico_06.htm
It’s interesting to note that if we assume that the after tax figures correspond exactly to the before tax figures, we can compute the tax rate. That brings me to the rather confused situation where the lower income figures seem to have a higher tax rate than the higher figures. Not entirely sure if that makes sense.

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.

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.

I keep hearing...

I keep hearing about how expensive restaurants are but the way I see things, they seem rather cheap. It's an age where it's hard to find a home for less than a quarter million dollars, and at first glance it seems like there's a somewhat decent selection of restaurants available for less than that...
Yeah, I know that when people talk about restaurants being expensive, they mean that eating out there is expensive. I'm not all that interested in restaurants, well maybe a fast food franchise. Anyway, one of the things I'm considering doing in the future is buying a small company. Likely a fast food franchise with a big thick instruction book that will ensure smooth, simple operation. I think it's something that I'd like to pursue. For a while anyway...
In general, I don't think I'd want to sell my investment portfolio to buy a company. Though at this point, I think I'd be hard pressed not to keep a substantial investment portfolio once it's established. If I were to go down this route, I think I'd work a bit longer and make some decisions on what I'd like to sell.

Trying to figure out what I want to do

I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking of what I want y days to be like once I don't have to work for money anymore. Thus far, the best I can say is that I have a lot of time to think about it.
I really don't know. This is part of the reason why I want to take a break from life. Though taking a break only really works if you have something to do afterwards. I can only really assure myself that I'll be ok if I know what I'll be doing afterwards. Thus the circular nature of my problem.
Though with respect to the money, I can kind of make a table and do some reasonable estimates of what costs will be like and factor that into deciding when I can take a break. Other than that, at least I have time to think about it.

week in review

This week went ok for me. I still feel pretty good about things. I also came to a rather necessary realization, so many of my weekly goals seem to fall through, I may as well stop setting weekly goals and push for a longer time scale. So, by the end of next month, I hope read through all the material I picked up on my vacation, start recording all my transactions again, and try to make my Thursdays more enjoyable. I feel an incredible disconnect when I can't find people and exchange a few words before disappearing for work. That sounds like a pretty reasonable step.
On a side note, I think I've been getting better sleep lately. Though keyword there being think.