Outcast

I'm feeling like an outcast. Defying the norm does kind of distance you from people. Reading some other blogs right now talking about emergency funds and trying to control spending. I don't have an emergency fund and can justify my not having one. I have enough in investments to cover a good portion of my expenses and usually have enough cash on hand to not have to worry about jobloss. Also there's a stunning lack of high end stuff in my life. Most of what I have is fairly basic, granted I have a lot of things that other people don't. A blog for one, a computer, a camera, granted not high-end ones. I'm contemplating a digital SLR though. For now my high end luxury item is my fork. There is just about enough metal in that fork to make a regular quality knife-fork-spoon place setting. The things that actually affect my livelihood though are few.
Also, trying to control spending... I don't have trouble with that. Stuff was just simply hard to replace and I've had to learn that I don't need to stress over little things, I can simply replace them.
So, do I comment on those blog posts, or do I come across as bragging?

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.

About the Gravitation Sling Shot

The gravitational sling shot can very simplistically be described as the art of plummeting towards something that'll kindly step out of the way for you. Since the point you're falling towards is shifting, you effortlessly change speed and direction.
It seems to be a better analogy for what I want to do than hitting rock bottom and bouncing back. Things might be falling apart right now, but I'm going to try to keep things controlled and avoid a total shattering.
A variation on this is the Oberth effect, where you want to hit the engines where you've got your highest speed. You get the same amount of speed increase for the amount of fuel you burn, but you get more energy out of it and hence go further.
With my sister getting ready to go off to school, I can't stay here for too long. My parents want to sell the house soon. I'm not sure if they're going towards selling when she starts or waiting till its over.
That's going to be another thing just waiting to crumble. I haven't heard anything about any plans to pay for her schooling. They've been telling me that I should go back to school too while they have money saved up. There's about $20K saved up. I wonder if they know that if they had actually met their expectations instead of having me lie to get loans and grants, all that would have been gone half way through third year. I sure hope that some of the money from downsizing housing goes towards covering her schooling.
Well, getting back to me, my expenses are going up when she leaves, so I'm hunting down investments to augment my income. I'm going to need a lot of extra income to start my life over again.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog. I started this blog to record my efforts to try to restart my life. A while ago, I graduated with a B.Eng in aerospace engineering. I heard things were booming in Calgary, and my parents live here, so I went back to Calgary to look for work. Things were supposed to be good.
Instead, things just went down from there. Instead of being helpful, my parents simply drove my stress level up. Every time I applied somewhere, my parents would ask why I didn't apply sooner. I'd get told to do things that I had already done, like get my resume reviewed, which was happening on the regular basis. They'd make the same suggestions over and over again as if that was all I needed to do despite the fact that I was already doing better than that. Pretty soon, their interrogations were the focus of my life, instead of my job search. It got to a point where I wasn't able to sleep. I blame them for ruining my life.
There's actually a long history of serious tension between me and the rest of my family. There's a bunch of stories that I usually tell. Right now, there's one that's been weighing heavily on my mind that doesn't get told too often. My parents felt that I had an over active imagination as a kid. One of the things they did to try to suppress it was that one day, I was denied food. My mom just said, "See if your imagination can fool you."
I hate them for a lot of things, though for now, I have to use every resource I can, including them. When I finally have the resources to stand on my own, it's going to be for good. My goal is to be gone without a trace. When I leave, I'm sure I'll use that quote.