Buying Useless S#$%

In our lives, we can find ourselves buying a lot of stuff. We buy groceries, gas for our cars, electricity for our homes, and yet a lot of us still find a lot of spare cash to buy things that are for all intents and purposes very expensive paper weights. In this case, I'm talking about big ticket items, small ticket items, and generally anything that we spend money on and only use a few times.  In my own case I'm talking specifically about things such as my Xbox One.

Where the purchase was initially made because I thought that it would provide a good hours of entertainment, it instead has become a $450 paper weight that is effectively used for the same purpose as a $100 Apple TV display unit. Granted, I thought initially that I would be using the Xbox One for a more gaming oriented goal but that has seldom been the case. 99% of the time that I have spent on that thing since I have purchased it has been streaming video or watching DVDs one it. It's hardly what I paid the difference in price for.

Life: Container Garden Update

It's time for the second update to the container garden. I'll admit, after a few weeks of absolutely nothing coming from the seeds I put down, I was beginning to worry. My worries were however unjustified as the saplings suddenly sprung from the seed starter only two weeks ago.

I'm now happy to announce that I've obtained almost 100% germination in the seed starter this year. The only one that has yet to come up of my original set is the basil that I put down. For whatever reason, it's being stubborn and not wanting to break the top soil. I don't know if it's a case of putting too much soil on top of it or just maybe not providing enough moisture or what but it's just not giving in to the growing season!

With what I have already sprouting however, the harvest this year should easily dwarf what I put down last year. Even though this year I've only been aiming at a few species of plant, I think this year I have properly put down what will actually be used in abundance rather than only really eating the jalapenos that I put down last year. There were far too many unused plants last year.

Positive Net Worth

The road to positive net worth can be quite the trying one for most people. Most of us in this day and age bring on debt into the adulting world. Whether it be from student loans, a bad car choice, or even a bad run in with a roommate that never paid their share, you find yourself deep in a hole that you never thought you would find yourself in. Thankfully, that hole doesn't have to last forever.

You see, I had dug myself into that hole too. I went to college the smart way. First stop was to community college where I paid each semester in full by working as a bartender, model, and bus boy. I was lucky, tuition at the time was a mere $15/credit hour since the schools in my area were restructuring. This saved me a ton of money because it allowed me to focus on passing and not having to worry about any loans as I adjusted to the differences between college and high school. Once I obtained my associates degree however, I had to move to the much more expensive choice that could no longer be avoided. I had to go to a typical four year, rack up the debt, and get out as fast as possible. Even though I did just that, I still eneded up with a sizable debt. Or... I would have if my parents didn't end up paying for it.

Life: Gardening

I've spoken before about the unintended knowledge that we all gain by investing. It's important to expand your knowledge to all things around us to better understand the world as a whole. One of those important pieces of knowledge that I've obtained is knowing how to garden.

Prior to last year, I had no idea how to garden. My mother, my grandmother, and even her mother were fantastic at it. The green thumb was definitely there but I had not been taught by any one of them. I had moved away to a different state before any of the knowledge could be passed down to me.

This left me to dig for the knowledge myself. Sure, I could have called any one of them and tried to obtain the knowledge from square one with any one of them but that was just too easy. Sometimes you have to learn on your own and then reach out to your contacts afterwards to hone your skills.

After a quick trip to Walmart, I had everything I needed to start. I wanted to start from square one. Since square one was obviously seeds, that meant grabbing a seed starting kit rather than just buying the partially grown plants and transplanting them. I put the seed starter soil in the pods, dropped the seeds in, watered them a little, and waited. Within a few short weeks, they sprouted from each cell and became little starter plants. Everything looked like it was going according to plan.

Life: Candle Making

Every now and then, the wife and I come up with ideas that we both feel are brilliant. Being plagued with endless allergy attacks in the spring months in Nebraska, we always reach towards endless the search engines to provide us with new and innovative ideas to conquer the season. This year, an idea popped up that recommended the creation of a beeswax candle and it provided a few ideas of what to mix into it to provide an even sweeter aroma.

The recipe called for a bag of beeswax, a pot of boiling water, an empty can of fruit, and a bag of coffee beans/grounds. We poured over the recipe and grabbed all of the ingredients over the weekend. Once in hand, we boiled a pot of water, cleaned out the can of pears that we bought, and loaded the pellets of beeswax into the can (double broil basically). In no time at all, the wax melted down and become a liquid. I grabbed the can out of the pot and poured the newly formed liquid beeswax into the candle holder. The wife then grabbed the bag of the coffee grounds and poured it into it. We then realized that we only filled a quarter of the candle and it looked more awkward than we could have ever imagined.

Life: Wine Bar

Last night, my wife and I made our way out for date night. We decided that we would try a place that we had been meaning to try for quite some time but just hadn't gotten the chance to make our way to yet. The sad part is that this place was literally one block away from the last apartment we used to live at but we just continued to make excuses over the years to not go (I'll take the blame for that one...). The good part however is that we finally stopped procrastinating and made our way over.

The place is a small little wine and bistro. It's exactly what you picture when you think of a small, family run, wine getaway. The place is covered from head to toe in brick and wood structures and mountains of wine. When you first walk in, the hostess greets you and then leads you to a small wooden table in front of the wall of wine bottles. In minutes you're settled into your place with a nice full glass of wine. There were no cheap pours at this place! I ordered the red Pino and the wife ordered her favorite Moscato. When I say the pours weren't cheap, I meant it. My glass was poured all the way to the top of where it should be to be able to still gain the perfect aeration of the wine.

Life: Date Your Wife

Readers,

I know that most of what I post here is related to my portfolio, the watch list, money making ideas, and other stock related items but I want to make sure that you all know that this blog is intended to serve a much bigger purpose. I hope for it to also log certain parts of my life so that I can remain mindful and hopefully it will serve the same for some of you. With that being said, I want to log a little bit about my life in the recent month and why I want to remind myself that it's important to continue to date your wife long after you're married.