The holiday season sets a terrible precedent with personal spending habits, and my January investment in a new computer further extended that habit another month. Add in the new mouse, and Apple care and I added an additional $4K to an already higher than usual bill. Yikes. Now I actively have to stay my hand when it comes to just picking up bits, and Bob’s that I previously wouldn’t even think about. Twenty bucks for a book here, forty for a dog grooming tool there, gas, groceries, and some other fanciful gear for the shop there, and what do you know the Bill’s have ballooned up once again. So, now I have to reset my brain, batten down the hatches, and rein it in because with these new tariffs coming, and the corporate world leaning into AI so heavily I can’t be assured of work coming. I’m fortunate right now that I have concrete dollars locked in for ongoing work this winter & spring. That I am thankful for, very much so. But I’m not Daddy Warbucks, I can’t be spending thousands each month just because I “feel” like it. Prep for the worst, while hoping for the best. I’m fortunate that I’ve done two big reports all ready this January, and I know of at least one, possibly two more to come, so my first and second quarters this year (2025) should pan out to be fairly even with the previous two years. I’m not taking in millions here by any means, but I’m not totally broke yet either.
I hot ten years out of my last computer before it became obsolete on the software upgrade side. It doesn’t support all the new additions to just about anything. So I had thought ahead to set aside funds each year for the replacement. Not much, but some. And luckily I bought the same spec’s on my new machine that I had on the old, but more streamlined, and $2K cheaper if you can believe that. Meant a drop from a 27 inch monitor to 14, but eh, what can I do about that. I had thought (hoped?) To turn my older computer into a monitor for the new labtop, but it turns out the late 2014 model iMacs don’t support such a feature. Oh joy! So I might need to go get a cheaper monitor so that I can keep working in the fashion to which I have grown accustomed. Or not. Again reining in the spending!
I have a library of books I haven’t read yet that I can go tap into. Stop being lured in by the bright, shiny & new novels I hear about, and go read those which I have already bought, and paid for. It’s a real mindset shift. Maybe I should disable Amazon from my phone? Probably be a hood idea. If I have to drive out to book stores, and malls for things that might curtail all the last second spontaneous spending. The problem isn’t the one off, it’s the cascade a one off starts. It’s the snowballing, runaway compounding effect of it all.
I’ve been poor. I’ve been dead broke. I don’t want to go back to debt, and heavy struggling, and flipping payments between cards, and pushing funds around to look like I’ve made payments, and then draw that over to elsewhere. It sucks. I could never work enough, or save enough, or not spend enough to sort it out, until I got a far better job, and my wife’s help. Drowning sucks. So we tighten the belt, and rein it in. Christmas will be back before you know it!
Greatwall Studios Graphic Design 