Friday, March 9, 2018

Still Cheap in March

K-Mart Jimmy Smits reacting to Loudmouth 45
(mercurynews.com)
For those of you in warmer climates, Seattle is still scooching along with 40F/4C degree days that are deceptively sunny. For those of you who recently invested, you might have gotten a recent shock when our illustrious president flapped his mouth about the economy and trade deals, and confused his Koreas. The news, as usual, blew the falling stock market out of proportion, and, while the cowards panicked and withdrew, the steadfast survived the...week that it took to recover. The more opportune took that window of vulnerability to buy some stock at a discount! Then everyone woke up and realized that when it comes to Wall Street quakes, people like us who don't need their investments until decades later should completely ignore the newsfolk who speculate on a hiccup in the market. I'm not calling it fake news, mind you. All of that shit is irrelevant until you need to draw on your investments.

Weakness!

My man here has the right idea
(ngopulse.org)
How have I stayed frugal lately? Same old story: keeping on top of subscriptions, knowing good alternative brands, cooking for myself, making my own coffee, and inviting friends over instead of going out. Same old story, right? Well, I've been putting in more time with friends and driving more as well as changing snacking habits to nuts, which are much more expensive than sugary stuff from the overstock grocery store. I also went hog-wild with the latest PSN sale, spending a whopping $60 on games to stock my Women's Games Months (Jan and March). All of this is overshadowed by $100 heating bills for the last 5 months, and that can shake the faith in frugality a bit.

The point? Just like cheat days on diets being necessary to go longer, you're going to have periods where you feel like you're hemorrhaging money. If you're already pretty good at saving, don't feel too bad; just try and limit it. I was raving all about triple-paycheck months, and these are definitely the best times to have a little fun. This might run a bit contradictory to a previous post, but the point here is that you should also have fun adding some of that "extra" cash to your investments, too. Just don't blow the whole check on silly shit.

Fill your belly in the house and heat that home!

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I am one of those people that uses the word  perfect subjectively. I think something is perfect if it does what it's intended to do ...