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for sale

Last night before I fell asleep I was seriously contemplating selling my bass guitar and my violin. I own a 1974 Fender MusicMaster bass that I used in several punk-rock bands in the 1990s. I also own a 1902 Stradivarius copy that I have never really played. A few years ago I took it in for repairs and was told that if I played for 20 minutes each day that the violin would repair itself. I never did it. I could probably get $600 for the bass and maybe $50 for the violin, so it might not be worth it. That amount would be spent pretty quickly with nothing to show for it. I still owe $2900 to my debt. $650 would barely make a dent. Yet I don't intend to play either instrument any time soon so I would do it for two other reasons: 1) to de-clutter a bit 2) to break from my past. I played the violin in public school from grades 6-9. I went to music camp for a couple of weeks for two summers. I was actually pretty good by the time I quit. I was supposed to audition for a sch

money mistakes part two

The other day I was standing in our "back backyard," a large lot behind our backyard that we share with several other houses in the area, watching my son kick his soccer ball again and again into the net that someone had set up there. Parked nearby was a red SUV, and the appearance of the driver reminded me of one of the "stupid money mistakes" that I referred to in my last post. I think I posted over and over about my problematic previous vehicle, the red Ford. I had just put out another large sum to keep it on the road in July 2011. About two weeks later, one of the graduate students was in my office, and she mentioned that she had to sell her Toyota in two days before she left the province for good. I asked her about it, and she mentioned it was a 2005 Echo with 72 000 kms on it. I asked her how much and she said $5000, to which I replied, "Sold!" Then she told me that it was a standard, and I decided then that it was time to learn how to drive manual

"stupid money mistakes"

I was so pleased with my " I AM CREDIT CARD DEBT FREE " blog post that I couldn't bring myself to follow up with the next post: "Stupid Money Mistakes." Back in 2011, just a couple of weeks prior to my "DEBT FREE" post, we moved out of our two-bedroom rental and into a friend's house for a couple of months. He wanted someone to be there while he was away, to watch for basement leaks and look after the lawns. He did not want any rent money, and would not take a cent towards utilities. He said it would give me an opportunity to save some money, and I corrected him and said it would help me pay off my credit card debt. And it did. Which was fantastic. But I made a couple of really stupid spending mistakes and I could not bear to come back on here to blog about them. The first one I made on the day we moved out (I just realized that was exactly two years ago today. Bean's birthday!) The property manager had given me a year's free cable, and

feeding time

I follow myself on Feedly (RIP Google Reader) but the post I put out the other day did not show up in my feed. I wonder if some sort of a link break occurred when I decided not to continue my account with GoDaddy.com. Since I wasn't posting anymore I decided not to pay my annual fee, and instead returned to a blogspot.com address. So there is a good chance that no one is reading my new posts. Is there anybody out there? I realize that if decide to continue blogging here that I am going to have to get out there and read/comment on other blogs to drive up readership. Or I can just continue to blog away quietly. I'm not offering anything for sale here so I don't need a huge audience. But I do like to be a part of a community. For a long time I could not figure out where I wanted to try to belong. I was focused on paying off my credit card, so that made me a financial blogger maybe? But I was on my own with my son and all the financial restraints that accompany that statu

Back again ... maybe

Today I am back. I just decided to pop on here and make a post. I thought about writing it yesterday but I did not know where to begin. I actually still do not know where to begin but here I am. The last time I posted was almost two years ago, when I paid off the last of my $20 000 credit card debt. Prior to that I updated irregularly. When I started the blog I had just had the cable cut off to save money, and did not have internet at home. I do have access at my office, but rarely felt inspired to post anything in that environment. I also struggled with what I wanted to write about here. I was afraid of saying too much because I wanted to keep the blog anonymous. I wanted to protect the anonymity of my son, Bean (not his real name). I eventually stopped reading other people's blogs because I felt a bit guilty about lurking on their personal photos and details, while not contributing similar information about myself. I wanted to educate people about wellness and a simplified