Random Ramblings

I was watching some videos on YouTube today, and one of them was from a man who has decided to devote himself to lifelong learning. This is an admirable goal, and I commend him, especially since he has never been driven to learn (or even read) before.

One part of his talk, however, stood out:
"I know some people can read up to 30 books in a year. I'm going to try to read at least 10."

Don't get me wrong: If you're not reading at all, 10 books is a great target. But I just had to laugh here. "Up to" 30 books? I consider it a poor year if I haven't read at least 50! And that's in addition to podcasts, blogs, and magazines!

It just goes to show the power of perspective. If you're not reading any books a year, 10 may seem challenging, and 30 may be the most you can conceive of. If you're already reading 50, it might not seem to farfetched to read 75!

This type of limited thinking applies to other areas of life. I know that my money sense is quite limited. As you know, I only started working at my first "real" job about 5 months ago, and only got hired full-time in September. Until now, the maximum I've made in any given year has been about $10,000. Once I'm out of probation, I'll be making about $35,000. Huge! Crazy money! Wow!

... Okay, how many of you are laughing that I can consider $35,000 to be "big money"?

More importantly, in what areas of *your* life are you limiting your thinking?

After a month or two of procrastination, I finally sat down today and sent off my donations to charity. I set aside one tenth (10%) of my paycheck to donate, split roughly equally between organizations.

This month, the recipients were: The Canadian Red Cross, The Grameen Foundation (which funds microcredit institutions), Santropol Roulant (a local meals-on-wheels service, among other things), and Dans La Rue (a local charity that serves street kids).

It feels really, really good to be able to do this.

... about $4.

On my last paycheck, the company accidentally paid me for one of the weeks I was on vacation.

Next week's paycheck will be a combination of the second week of vacation (unpaid) and this week's pay, but subtracting the hours they accidentally paid me on the last paycheck. I think once I fill out my timesheet in a few minutes, I'll have worked an extra 15 minutes more this week than the hours they overpaid me... so I'll be getting a paycheck for 15 minutes of work.

*shrugs* At least I have the extra money from the last paycheck. It'll all work out, just in a slightly different order from what I was expecting.

Because I had too many to include in a single post yesterday.

1. Gifts that don't matter come from Walmart -- a few ideas for thoughtful gifts that don't cost any money.

2. The essential bookshelf: The only eight books I've kept (after hundreds of reviews) -- Trent at The Simple Dollar has reviewed hundreds of books on his blog. Here are the eight he thinks are the keepers. (I've only read one, but I agree with his analysis of it).

3. The law of the garbage truck -- a small, encouraging anecdote when people are getting on your nerves.

4. Famous failures (video) -- a short (1:16-minute) video describing some of the greatest failures of some of the world's most successful people.

5. The five stages of a product's life: saving you money on replacing expensive household items -- an interesting take on the products in your house and when they *really* should be replaced.

6. Quality of life -- a description of "Joe" (his anglicized name) from Thailand, about the two types of life he has led, and about which has a better quality of life.

Is it only Wednesday? It feels like so much later in the week!

On the other hand, I'll have a nice, long weekend in a few days: I finally got my semi-permanent schedule, which will be Wednesdays to Friday. Four day weekends! Yay!

Actually, I'll probably figure something out to do with those two extra days, whether personal projects or volunteering. But it certainly won't be for the full 8 hours I'd be spending at work (well, 8.5 hours) if I were full-time. (Did I mention that it took me over 20 minutes tonight just to go through my snail-mail and email? Just stuff that had piled up in 12 hours! Crazy!)

Speaking of work, tomorrow's my first payday! Yay! My bank balance will finally go from the precarious double-digits to something more respectable. On the agenda for this weekend, therefore, is getting some backlogged spending done: renew my SCA membership, pre-reg for Pennsic, put gas in my car, get my picture taken and submit my passport application, and buy a few necessities. There's quite a bit of spending I intend to do over the next little while, but it doesn't all have to be done this weekend.

I went to karate twice this week. Among other things, I started to learn a new kata (bassai). I like katas that let me make lots of noise, and this one does: lots of stomping and slapping and other stuff that makes me sound a lot bigger than I am.

Marc should be calling me tonight, and this thought makes me very happy. Now to finish reading my blogs.

Got two pieces of mail today:

1. GST quarterly return! Yay! Value: $59.25
2. Notice to renew my driver's license. Boo! Payment due: $58.00

Oh well. There goes that money.

This is for some of my SCAdian friends who have asked me how much I spend at Pennsic, and what I consider the cheapest "bare bones" Pennsic budget to be. (Tarius, I'm looking at you.)

Since I keep an itemized list of my spending at Pennsic, I've been able to break this down into categories, and I'm actually pretty consistent year-to-year. Please note that these costs are only on-site costs and don't count pre-reg or equipment bought before the event.

Also note: I generally camp with large-ish, established groups with meal plans and camp fees. Your mileage setting up a new, smaller encampment may vary.

Total costs: $450-525 + shopping money

- Hotels ($50-117): I stay in a hotel on the way down and the way back from Pennsic, splitting the drive over two days. This is half the hotel costs, assuming I'm splitting with my passenger / driver.
- Gas, tolls, etc. ($57-138): $138 was the price last year, when I wasn't splitting costs with a passenger. Figure $70-80 is about average if you're two to a car and splitting costs.
- Camp fees, troll-in, gear bought on-site ($68-112)
- Meals ($122-253): The low number was this past year, where I was on a very good meal plan and didn't eat "out" too much. The high number was the one year I *wasn't* on a meal plan, and wound up eating almost every meal in the food court.
- Snacks ($23-81): It's easy to go overboard on snacks, but it's possible to keep this number pretty small if you try.
- Shopping and classes: This number can pretty much be whatever you want. My first year, I'd saved up a lot and spent about $900 on shopping. Last year I only spent $300, mostly on CDs and a few other trinkets. I recommend bringing at least $50 of spending money, so you don't feel deprived. Anything more than that is up to you.

So there you go. The full two weeks of Pennsic can be comfortably done on $500 if you're not planning on shopping too much, and if you've got access to a good meal plan. In recent years, I've been bringing about $700 and that's been working out just fine for me. Consider yourselves informed.

So... three weeks later, I'm wrapping up my foray into The Prosperity Game. For those who missed the first post, the basic premise behind this game is that every day you're given an increasingly large virtual check (with absolutely no real-world monetary value whatsoever) to spend however you like. For the benefit of my readers who haven't been following along, I'm providing a brief summary of what I "bought" in the 18 game-days of play.

( Summary behind here )

That out of the way, a few thoughts on my experiences:

( 1. Can you believe two opposite things at the same time without exploding? )
( 2. Frugality on $10,000 a day )
( 3. Change your spending attitudes in 3 easy steps )
( 4. 2 + 2 = 5 for very large values of 2 )
( 5. How to spend $100,000 without trying )

Final verdict: it was a fun creative exercise, and I'm happy for the chance to do it, but I wouldn't play again. It eats up too much of my time, and after a few weeks, I was just hunting for ways to be a consumer, like the protagonist in "The Midas Plague" by Frederik Pohl. (Hat-tip to absurd for finding the title and author of that short story for me.)

Thanks to a conversation with loupdebois last night, wherein he was kind enough to let me ramble and think out loud, I had a small epiphany.

What I want from a job is enough money to build up a decent nest egg, and enough experience to have something viable to fall back on and possibly do freelance from home a few hours a week.

Because what I really want, old-fashioned as it sounds, is to be a stay-at-home-mom. I want kids, and I want to stay home with them until they're old enough to go to school.

(This is assuming, of course, that my S.O. / husband at the time makes enough money that a one-income household is possible.)

The flip-side is that I'm not going to have kids until I feel I've established myself. I don't want kids when I'm in school and not making much income; and I don't want kids if I'm on a probation or training period at work (eg: the first two years of work before getting a C.A. certification).

Thinking about things in this way have put some of my options into focus:

( How this revelation affects my thoughts on job options )

... That said, now I must go work on my teaching presentation for Tuesday.

Today, I started a new thing called "The Prosperity Game." Ignoring the new-age mumbo-jumbo on the website, the principle is simple: every day, you're given an increasingly large virtual check, that you must spend all in that day, preferably on yourself. (Or, at the very least, on things that make you happy, as opposed to things you think you should do with a windfall.)

What the heck, it sounded like fun.

Today's virtual check was $100.

I bought:
- $80 -- Babylon 5 Season 1 and Season 2 from Amazon.com.
- $20 -- Took Marc out for hot chocolate at Juliette & Chocolat. He's been treating me to meals out a lot lately, and I want to do the same for him.

Important note: This will be my last public Prosperity Game post. After this, it's going behind a filter. If you want to be included in the filter, please comment to this entry.