Financial Discouragement

I've mentioned to several people how I feel that our current financial difficulties are probably a blessing, forcing us to re-evaluate our budget and trim down to what feels like survival levels.  This has motivated me to go through and check all of our monthly services to see if they merit their respective costs.  It's also given me motivation to begin selling off items we don't have much use for any more, which is great for simplifying, as well as some additional cash.

This morning was a difficult part of the journey.  We've already come to grips with our garage door opener being broken, and since the cost was several hundred dollars to fix, and we're not in a place where that makes sense, I purchased a manual garage door lock, to install myself:



This has worked, though it's been a frustrating change, from easy push button access from the car to getting out and struggling with a challenging to open door.  Well this morning Brooke was getting ready to go work out and asked me to open the garage door for her.  It wouldn't budge.  I finally figured out that the garage door spring had snapped, snapping the attached cables as well, and damaging the door.  We're now back to the place where it's several hundred dollars to fix, except now that price is just to get back to opening by hand.

The past 18 months has been an extremely frustrating time, which is the only way I know how to describe it.  It feels bad, but honestly, I still have an excellent, high pay job that I enjoy, so I'm still extremely blessed.  Yet I'm in a financial hole that seems at times to be impossible to get out of.  It feels unfair that as we are trying very hard to work our way out of this hole, more poop seems to be flung in on top of us, in what feels like rapid succession.

So if the take-away from large debt is downsizing, perhaps the steady trickle of medium to large scale financial setbacks is going to bring about a better perspective, increased patience, or maybe reliance on God for our financial well being.  I don't know yet.  For now, I'm going to get more serious about pursuing additional work, as well as seeking to reduce our auto insurance, encourage Brooke to use our HSA for all medical expenses, and come up with a food plan that may save us some money.  I'll detail the food plan next, as I feel this is particularly difficult, and lacking good online examples.

Fun, inexpensive way to show your wife you love her

Luckily, my wife doesn't read this blog yet (I think), and even if she did, I doubt she'd read it before tomorrow when she'll find the card I just made her.

Card: "Since I'm usually with you in my free time,
I guess one of my hobbys(sp) is hanging out with hot people

Typing the text out is the first time I noticed the mis-spelling, but the picture is cute, and the sentiment is what I was looking for.  All in all, I think it's perfect for where we're at right now, where I really can't afford to get her gifts as often as I'd like, but I want to remind her that she's important to me, and that I'm always thinking of her.

The card was just printed on card stock, the envelop is a lame, taped together and cut to size piece of printer paper.  This kind of thing costs nothing but time, and I hope to do this more often, as I know it means something to her.  The inside is filled with a mini-letter that I won't be reproducing here.  Suffice it to say I have many things to be thankful for, all relating to her.  And I think she's hot.

Bicycle commute upgrades

Today I got to use a couple recent acquisitions for making my morning commute better, and I'm really pleased.



The armband is probably the least useful of the three.  I carry everything with me in my backpack, which I then secure to the bike rack using bungee cords.  This works great for the clothes, food, and other items I need at work.  I have the Topeak MTX bike rack, and had always intended to get one of the bags designed to easily snap into place, but they're a little expensive, especially for the deluxe versions with built in panniers, which I feel I'd probably need to accommodate all the stuff that currently fits in my backpack.

The one problem I have been dealing for two months with, is what to do on the train ride.  Keeping my backpack strapped to the bike is the most convenient by far.  I usually only have about 10 seconds to get my bike into position, either on one of the hooks designed for bikes, which are almost always blocked, or somewhere else that has the space, before the train takes off.  Because of the way I secure the bungee cords, and the location of the pockets, there's almost nowhere I can put my phone and have access to it on the train.  I've also recently replaced my broken Kindle, which is even harder to access as it is slightly larger.

The arm band leaves my phone easily accessible and allows me to hear or feel it if I get a call or text message, when I used to have to wait until I got to work to discover.  The case is really cheap, and well made for what I want.  I'm barely able to use the phone through the plastic, which is good enough to check a quick message, and does what I need it to.  I wish it was easier to remove the phone for those times when I need to take a picture of a thief or vandal (stories I'll tell later).  I may have to modify it slightly, sacrificing the secure, snug fit for a slightly less secure, but easier removal.

The triangle bag is fantastic.  It is not much thicker than my bike, and doesn't get in the way of anything.

The primary reason I got it was to hold my kindle so I can access it easily when on the train.  It worked perfectly.  This makes using my kindle incredibly easy, as well as keeping it protected during the ride.  Side note, for one year I pretty much didn't think the kindle needed protecting, then one day managed to put enough stress on the display by keeping it in my pocket that it broke without my noticing.  It had survived amazing abuse up until that point, but from now on, I'm going to be far more careful.

The third purchase was a replacement, as I lost my rear view mirror last week.  After using a rear view mirror for nearly a year now, I'm fully convinced it's one of the most important pieces of safety equipment I own, behind only my helmet and tail light.  I'm going to try to find a second on ebay to keep as a backup, for if I lose it again.  It snaps off easily, which is a good design to protect your eyes in a wreck, and since it's inexpensive, is only annoying to replace, not truly frustrating.

I wholeheartedly endorse all three of these purchases, as they've made my morning commute immensely better, and at a very reasonable cost.

Journey through tough financial times

My current focus is a huge credit card debt.  This had an element of spending too much over time catching up to you, but mostly it was our roof, hot water heater/supporting plumbing, entire air conditioning system, and grandmother's 90th birthday out of state trip for the family all coming in the same year.  So now we have debt I would have done just about anything to avoid.  Anything besides put my wife through a Dallas summer with no AC, skip my grandmother's 90th birthday, etc.

To be honest, there's a part of me that is glad to be forced to confront our finances with a "can we survive" mentality, vs. just getting comfortable looking at a budget that says we spent a tiny bit more than we made this month (It was unavoidable, it was a one time thing this month!).  It's never a one time thing, there's one time expenses every month.

So now I'm looking through the house with the lens of "What would that yield on eBay?"  We don't keep an enormous amount of stuff in our small house, but I'm finding some forgotten "treasures".  I don't need two flashes for the camera we only use on occasion.  I don't need the xbox, now that I spend every free moment of gaming (few that exist) on PC, playing through a backlog of Steam sales finds that will last me for the next 5 years.  So on and so forth.

I've realized I'm an optimizer.  I want to extract the maximum possible value from the things I have, and spend money on.  I get incredible value from my $7.99 Netflix subscription, my $30.00 or less cell phone subscription, and my $2.99 skype subscription.  But what about my car insurance?  What about my alcohol monthly budget?  Groceries?

Now that my focus is drawn with forceful necessity to eliminating all unnecessary expenses, while seeking any possible source of additional income, I'm able to see more clearly what I'm getting out of what I spend.  For what it's worth, I also want to share what I have found, and continue to find, as viable options for optimizing a relatively conservative income, in Dallas, TX, admittedly one of the more affluent cities in America.  Join me in my journey of discovery, and feel free to offer advice or criticism.

Further Bicycle Commuting Thoughts

So, on Thursday of this week I got to have my first, "Thank God I'm on a bike" moment.  I don't expect them to be frequent.

I was on Alpha Road approaching Preston and traffic got ridiculous.  I had not spent enough time noting the location of sidewalks, and as of right now, I'm not going to be the guy riding in between lanes begging for someone to open their door to make my day suck.  If I had, I might have just taken the sidewalk, and spent even less time in traffic.  As it was, there must have been some accident south of Alpha Road on Preston, because traffic was backed up, moving even slower than what I was in.  Each light cycle, a few cars would pile into the intersection, and get stuck there, which would end up preventing any cars from being able to proceed along Alpha Road.  With perverse pleasure, and a brief flashback to some scene in Premium Rush, I weaved through stationary cars, emerging on the other side feeling pretty awesome.  The people behind me had caught up to me by the next light or so, but the moment was fun.

Prescott Brewing's Ponderosa IPA

Prescott Brewing has apparently been at this for over 20 years, and from this one I can see why they've stayed in business. This beer is fantastic, and certainly plays to all of my favorites. This beer has great balance between malt and hop, and has grapefruit flavor, piney notes, and finshes clean, mostly without aftertaste, except for something refreshing that reminds me of spring water.

I drank this one while watching Tattoo Nightmares, hearing my son in the next room taking a "nap" singing at the top of his lungs because he's totally not tired. I'm certainly in a good place to enjoy this beer, the tattoo cover-ups are awesome, my boy is cute, even in his refusal to sleep, and it's overcast and cool in the mountains of Arizona. I loved this beer, and I'll admit, I'm too positive about IPA's, but I really think this is a fantastic example. If I could get this back home, I'd certainly get it again, and I'd put it on par with Dogfish head, though very different.

SanTan Brewing Epicenter Amber

I'm back in Arizona, after being gone many years, and I'm not particularly familiar with the local brews, so I picked up a mixed six pack including 4 local beers I'd never heard of before.

SanTan Brewing, based out of Chandler, AZ, looks like it's been in business about 6 years now.  They've got a pretty decent selection of regular brews, and they have a really awesome sounding motivation for their existence here: http://www.santanbrewing.com/about-santan/

This particular beer is pretty decent, which might sounds negative, but I'm not usually a big fan of amber ales unless they're also hoppy, or have more going on with their yeast.  This one has great caramel and toasty notes, finishes dry, and has nothing negative to detract, so it's very solid and respectable, and would make a great introduction to craft beer to someone used to light beers.  I usually perceive the dry finish to be watery, so my first sip wasn't impressive, but I've come to enjoy it about 1/3 through.

There's nothing otherwise distinctive about this, I'd accept more if drinking by the pool, but wouldn't seek it out.