One of the biggest reasons people hold on to old junk is that “it could be worth something someday!” On very rare occasions, this can be true. One of my friends has mentioned that certain classic or otherwise limited-production cars go up in value, ditto for rare guns, and I don’t want to ignore this […]
Author: risky
Walking Distance
I’ve spent portions of the past two days changing the rear struts on my car. Yesterday, the passenger side changed without a problem, which was awesome, but I hit a snag on the driver’s side when one of the lug bolts wouldn’t come off. I knew it was going to sheer off, and it did, […]
Case Studies in Throwing Crap Out: Part 1
I’ve been on a cleaning spree lately. These always make me happy. Things I’ve gotten rid of: Mismatched snowshoesThe Story: I bought these about 3 years ago at an estate sale for $10. They were both the right side of two different pairs, but the bindings were symmetrical, so it really didn’t matter. One side […]
The Tyranny of Video Games
When I was a kid, I first discovered video games in the basement of some friends’ house down the street, where they had a Sega Genesis. I would later receive one for Christmas because I wanted one so badly, and it wasn’t long before the first Playstation came out and I had one of those, […]
Morning
For the past few days, I’ve been taking walks around the neighborhood during what would have been my morning commute before my company switched to working from home. This has been very relaxing, and has also given me food for thought. These walks are one of the big reasons I hope to retire very early. […]
Poor-enomics
The basement of this house has a little bit of a spider problem right now. It’s strange, because most of the pipe spaces going outside appear to have been sealed, but this house was built in the 70s, so it’s tough to know how those seals are holding up. There really isn’t very much stuff […]
Risk Surface
Risk Surface is a way of thinking about all the things that could go wrong. It’s a strategy for reducing present and future expenses, both perceived and theoretical. You can kind of put a dollar amount on it, but it’s also more involved than that. Risk Surface, in so far as it can be calculated, […]
Brief Thoughts on Escape Velocity
For most of the working years of my life, I believe I have made reasonably good decisions with money. But this was all put to the test four years ago when I found myself out of a job for 3 months. I thought my emergency fund was fairly large, but it was scary just how […]
Strategic Underachievement
I have to admit, this title is sort of click-bait because it’s unexpected and is likely to trigger my achiever friends. But there is some merit to it in this short post. These thoughts came to me as I was thinking this morning about career selection and the economics of career growth. Standard weekend morning […]
The Tyranny of Outdoor Gear: Part 2
Gear hell is real. I really enjoyed my first backpacking trip several weeks ago, but my setup was all wrong. I was using a 36L backpack because that’s the largest I owned and I had heard it was just large enough that some people use it for backpacking. In retrospect, I’m convinced that only serious […]