Yesterday was such a good day. I got to use the wheelbarrow that my in-laws got me for Christmas! I've got my flower beds all cleaned up. Now, I just need to fill them back up again with various pretty things. Like flowers and maybe a little low birdbath or something like that for the toads that live in the flower bed. Is there such a thing as a toad bath? Maybe toads don't like baths?? They should, since they live in holes in the ground and all, right? I guess some research is in order today on the water habits of toads. All the good things are slightly tainted by the nausea, pain, fever, and other issues associated with a kidney infection (self diagnosis). I need to get to the doctor today. This can't go on anymore.
This morning I got up at 5:00 to run and thought for sure I was going to die! My back hurt so bad and I thought for sure I was going to throw up. I was dripping in sweat before I even left the house. Freaking fever. I just don't have time to go to the doctor. Anyway, Tammy and I did really good today. We are up to running 4 blocks then walking 2!! We're making real progress!! woot! Here we come, Strawberry Strut!!
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
Work, Shmirk!
This whole working mom thing is for the birds. I HATE working full time and trying to have a family. I feel like a horrible mother. And who wants to work on someone else's schedule? It's bad enough that Jeremy works full time. Although, I am grateful that he can be here when I or the kids need him. Thank goodness we are self-employed! I wouldn't trade our time together for anything. When I die, I'm not gonna be like, "oh, I'm so glad we both worked so much." Nope. I'm gonna be like "I'm so glad we got to spend so much time together!" Jeremy is my best friend in the whole world. I'm glad I'm getting a taste of what both of us working full time would be like though because now I know that it sucks big time and is definitely
NOT WORTH IT!
Now if we can just get my mother's leg all healed so that I don't have to work for her anymore! lol! It's only been two weeks and I already feel like I'm missing my family.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Why Entrepreneurs Should NOT Buy A House
Here is another person that thinks as Jeremy and I do....that the whole "American Dream" of "owning a home"is the biggest line of BS shoved down our throats.
Editor’s note: James Altucher is an investor, programmer, author, and entrepreneur. He is Managing Director of Formula Capital and has written 6 books on investing. His latest books are I Was Blind But Now I See and FAQ ME. You can follow him @jaltucher.
Many people have said to me in the past few months, “I’m going to buy a home.” Or, “What do you think of the idea of me buying a home?” Everyone thinks: Well the housing crisis is now over so I should buy a home. They think: It’s probably a good investment. They think: Time to put down “roots”.
I’ve owned a home. A couple of times. I bought a home once after I sold a business. I then lost that home. I then went almost completely insane trying to sell it. Two things: If you are about to do a startup or if you are in the middle of startup-phase then you definitely can’t afford to waste the time or money to buy a house for reasons I explain below. Second, when you sell your startup — everyone wants to buy a house with the proceeds. Don’t. It’s just part of the American mythology. You know the myth: the white picket fence, the yard, the pool, the walls that you can paint, the keeping up with the Jones family. Just don’t. You’ll go broke. At least, if you are as stupid as me. I might be dumber than most though.
The other story I have of owning a home is still too personal. It’s filled with about as much pain as I can fit onto a page. Oh, I have a third one also from when I was growing up. But I don’t want to upset anyone in my family so I’ll leave it out. Oh, I have a fourth story that I just forgot about until this very second. But enough about me. Let’s get right to it.
There are many reasons to not buy a home: [By the way, I also put this in the category of Advice I want to tell my daughters, including my other article: 10 reasons not to send your kids to college.]
Financial:
A) Cash Gone. You have to write a big fat check for a down payment. “But its an investment,” you might say to me. Historically this isn’t true. According to Robert Shiller from Yale, in Irrational Exuberance, 2nd edition, inflation-adjusted housing returned 0.4% from 1890 – 2004. And that’s just housing prices. It forgets all the other stuff I’m going to mention below. Suffice to say, when you write that check, you’re never going to see that money again. Because even when you sell the house later you’re just going to take that money and put it into another down payment. So if you buy a $400,000 home, just say goodbye to $100,000 that you worked hard for. You can put a little sign on the front lawn: “$100,000 R.I.P.”
Much better for an entrepreneur is to invest in yourself. Take 1/20th
of the down payment amount. Start a business. Your investment might go
to zero (which it might also do with a house) but it might also go up
10,000%. Eventually, as an entrepreneur, if you are persistent enough,
you will get one of those 10,000% returns. And you will be able to be
persistent because you didn’t waste all the money and time that a house
would’ve cost you.
B) Closing costs. I forget what they were the last two times I bought a house. But it was about another 2-3% out the window. Lawyers, title insurance, moving costs, antidepressant medicine, therapy. It adds up. Two- to three-percent. Do you like flushing your money down the toilet? But, people say: isn’t that what you are doing with rent money? Absolutely not. See below.
C) Maintenance. No matter what, you’re going to fix things. Lots of things. In the lifespan of your house, everything is going to break. Thrice. Get down on your hands and knees and fix it! And then open up your checkbook again. Spend some more money. I rent. My dishwasher doesn’t work. I call the landlord and he fixes it. Or I buy a new one and deduct it from my rent. And some guy from Sears comes and installs it. I do nothing. The Sears repairman and my landlord work for me.
When you are an entrepreneur, two things: A) you need every last dime for your business. Not for your dishwasher. And B) you need every last second for your business. Not for your dishwasher.
D) Taxes. There’s this myth that you can deduct mortgage payment interest from your taxes. Whatever. That’s a microscopic dot on your tax returns. And guess what, that whole thing about how rent will go up with inflation? Well your property taxes will go up even faster than inflation. So you lose.
E) You’re trapped. Let’s spell out very clearly why the myth of home ownership became religion in the United States. It’s because corporations didn’t want their employees to have many job choices. So they encouraged them to own homes. So they can’t move away and get new jobs. Job salaries is a function of supply and demand. If you can’t move, then your supply of jobs is low. You can’t argue the reverse, since new adults are always competing with you.
That’s one reason for the myth. The other reason is that we have a 15
trillion dollar mortgage industry. That’s a lot of money vested on you
believing that owning a home is “the right thing to do”.
And, the benefits of being an entrepreneur is that all choices are open to you. Mobility is not just an option, it’s often a necessity. You aren’t tied down to one factory. The world is your opportunity.
F) Ugly. Saying “my house is an investment” forgets the fact that a house has all the qualities of the ugliest type of investment:
Personal reasons to not own a house.
A) Trapped, part 2. Some people like to have roots. But I like things to change every once in a while. Starting March, 2009 I was renting an apartment directly across the street from the New York Stock Exchange. It was fun. I’d look out the window and see Wall Street. How exciting! Before that I lived in The Chelsea Hotel with Chubb Rock. Last year we decided to relax and move a little north. Now I look out the window and see the Hudson River. And it’s quiet and I can walk along the river in the morning with no noise. It took us two weeks to pick a place and move. No hassles. I like to live a hassle-free life.
I’m constantly involved in other activities that I care about and love. What do I want the hassle of owning a home for? What if, god forbid, I want to focus on my next start-up?
B) Walls. You can’t change the walls when you
rent. A lot of people seem to want to tear down walls. Or paint them.
Sometimes when you rent you can’t do these things. Well, make sure you
have a landlord that lets you tear down walls. There must be some
ancient evolutionary tic that makes us want to tear down walls or put
nails in them or paint them. I don’t get it. I like the walls to stay
right where they are.
C) Rent. People will argue that the price of the mortgage, maintenance taxes, etc is all baked into the price of rent. Sometimes this is true. But usually not. And often maintenance and taxes will go up faster than your rent.
D) Psychology. Look at your personal reasons for wanting to own. Do you feel like you can’t accomplish something in life until you own a house? Do you feel like its part of getting married and “Settling down”, i.e. creating a nest for your future children? For you, is it a part of becoming an adult. Is this what your parents taught you? Examine the real reasons you want to own and make sure they are coming from a good spot in your heart.
E) Your time. Do you really want to spend all that time working on your house? Is this where your time is best spent towards creating a happy and fulfilled life for yourself?
F) Choices. I feel when I rent I always have the choice to leave. To live wherever in the world I want whenever I want. Adventure becomes a possibility even if I never take advantage of it.
G) Stress. For me (not for everyone) owning a home equals stress. I saw what my parents went through at their worst moments owning a home. I saw what I and others went through in the Internet bust when I first owned a home. I saw what people went through in 2008. People were killing themselves. I don’t like that sort of stress. This is how I deal with stress.
H) Cash is king. I like cash in the bank. I like having access to it. I don’t like it all tied up in one illiquid investment. I want to fill a bathtub with all the dollar bills I would’ve used as a down payment on a house. I want to bathe in that bathtub. I’m going to do that later today in fact.
By the way, this is going to sound like a contradiction: but I think housing is a great investment right now. I think housing prices have gone down far enough and I can list the reasons why housing as an abstract investment concept is going to go higher from here. Suffice to say there are many stocks/REITs you can buy, with leverage if you want to take advantage of the rise in housing. But those are liquid investments. You can get your money back.
There’s also probably many companies you can build where you will get 10,000% returns where you can take advantage of the rise in housing that is about to occur.
But I’m never going to buy a home again. And sit there in the middle of the night thinking, “Why the hell did I do this to myself again?”
Editor’s note: James Altucher is an investor, programmer, author, and entrepreneur. He is Managing Director of Formula Capital and has written 6 books on investing. His latest books are I Was Blind But Now I See and FAQ ME. You can follow him @jaltucher.
Many people have said to me in the past few months, “I’m going to buy a home.” Or, “What do you think of the idea of me buying a home?” Everyone thinks: Well the housing crisis is now over so I should buy a home. They think: It’s probably a good investment. They think: Time to put down “roots”.
I’ve owned a home. A couple of times. I bought a home once after I sold a business. I then lost that home. I then went almost completely insane trying to sell it. Two things: If you are about to do a startup or if you are in the middle of startup-phase then you definitely can’t afford to waste the time or money to buy a house for reasons I explain below. Second, when you sell your startup — everyone wants to buy a house with the proceeds. Don’t. It’s just part of the American mythology. You know the myth: the white picket fence, the yard, the pool, the walls that you can paint, the keeping up with the Jones family. Just don’t. You’ll go broke. At least, if you are as stupid as me. I might be dumber than most though.
The other story I have of owning a home is still too personal. It’s filled with about as much pain as I can fit onto a page. Oh, I have a third one also from when I was growing up. But I don’t want to upset anyone in my family so I’ll leave it out. Oh, I have a fourth story that I just forgot about until this very second. But enough about me. Let’s get right to it.
There are many reasons to not buy a home: [By the way, I also put this in the category of Advice I want to tell my daughters, including my other article: 10 reasons not to send your kids to college.]
Financial:
A) Cash Gone. You have to write a big fat check for a down payment. “But its an investment,” you might say to me. Historically this isn’t true. According to Robert Shiller from Yale, in Irrational Exuberance, 2nd edition, inflation-adjusted housing returned 0.4% from 1890 – 2004. And that’s just housing prices. It forgets all the other stuff I’m going to mention below. Suffice to say, when you write that check, you’re never going to see that money again. Because even when you sell the house later you’re just going to take that money and put it into another down payment. So if you buy a $400,000 home, just say goodbye to $100,000 that you worked hard for. You can put a little sign on the front lawn: “$100,000 R.I.P.”
(you might as well set this cash on fire)
B) Closing costs. I forget what they were the last two times I bought a house. But it was about another 2-3% out the window. Lawyers, title insurance, moving costs, antidepressant medicine, therapy. It adds up. Two- to three-percent. Do you like flushing your money down the toilet? But, people say: isn’t that what you are doing with rent money? Absolutely not. See below.
C) Maintenance. No matter what, you’re going to fix things. Lots of things. In the lifespan of your house, everything is going to break. Thrice. Get down on your hands and knees and fix it! And then open up your checkbook again. Spend some more money. I rent. My dishwasher doesn’t work. I call the landlord and he fixes it. Or I buy a new one and deduct it from my rent. And some guy from Sears comes and installs it. I do nothing. The Sears repairman and my landlord work for me.
When you are an entrepreneur, two things: A) you need every last dime for your business. Not for your dishwasher. And B) you need every last second for your business. Not for your dishwasher.
D) Taxes. There’s this myth that you can deduct mortgage payment interest from your taxes. Whatever. That’s a microscopic dot on your tax returns. And guess what, that whole thing about how rent will go up with inflation? Well your property taxes will go up even faster than inflation. So you lose.
E) You’re trapped. Let’s spell out very clearly why the myth of home ownership became religion in the United States. It’s because corporations didn’t want their employees to have many job choices. So they encouraged them to own homes. So they can’t move away and get new jobs. Job salaries is a function of supply and demand. If you can’t move, then your supply of jobs is low. You can’t argue the reverse, since new adults are always competing with you.
That’s one reason for the myth. The other reason is that we have a 15
trillion dollar mortgage industry. That’s a lot of money vested on you
believing that owning a home is “the right thing to do”.And, the benefits of being an entrepreneur is that all choices are open to you. Mobility is not just an option, it’s often a necessity. You aren’t tied down to one factory. The world is your opportunity.
F) Ugly. Saying “my house is an investment” forgets the fact that a house has all the qualities of the ugliest type of investment:
- Illiquidity. You can’t cash out whenever you want.
- High leverage. You have to borrow a lot of money in most cases.
- No diversification. For most people, a house is by far the largest part of their portfolio and greatly exceeds the 10% of net worth that any other investment should be.
Personal reasons to not own a house.
A) Trapped, part 2. Some people like to have roots. But I like things to change every once in a while. Starting March, 2009 I was renting an apartment directly across the street from the New York Stock Exchange. It was fun. I’d look out the window and see Wall Street. How exciting! Before that I lived in The Chelsea Hotel with Chubb Rock. Last year we decided to relax and move a little north. Now I look out the window and see the Hudson River. And it’s quiet and I can walk along the river in the morning with no noise. It took us two weeks to pick a place and move. No hassles. I like to live a hassle-free life.
I’m constantly involved in other activities that I care about and love. What do I want the hassle of owning a home for? What if, god forbid, I want to focus on my next start-up?
-
(click image for my favorite Chubb Rock video)
C) Rent. People will argue that the price of the mortgage, maintenance taxes, etc is all baked into the price of rent. Sometimes this is true. But usually not. And often maintenance and taxes will go up faster than your rent.
D) Psychology. Look at your personal reasons for wanting to own. Do you feel like you can’t accomplish something in life until you own a house? Do you feel like its part of getting married and “Settling down”, i.e. creating a nest for your future children? For you, is it a part of becoming an adult. Is this what your parents taught you? Examine the real reasons you want to own and make sure they are coming from a good spot in your heart.
E) Your time. Do you really want to spend all that time working on your house? Is this where your time is best spent towards creating a happy and fulfilled life for yourself?
F) Choices. I feel when I rent I always have the choice to leave. To live wherever in the world I want whenever I want. Adventure becomes a possibility even if I never take advantage of it.
G) Stress. For me (not for everyone) owning a home equals stress. I saw what my parents went through at their worst moments owning a home. I saw what I and others went through in the Internet bust when I first owned a home. I saw what people went through in 2008. People were killing themselves. I don’t like that sort of stress. This is how I deal with stress.
H) Cash is king. I like cash in the bank. I like having access to it. I don’t like it all tied up in one illiquid investment. I want to fill a bathtub with all the dollar bills I would’ve used as a down payment on a house. I want to bathe in that bathtub. I’m going to do that later today in fact.
By the way, this is going to sound like a contradiction: but I think housing is a great investment right now. I think housing prices have gone down far enough and I can list the reasons why housing as an abstract investment concept is going to go higher from here. Suffice to say there are many stocks/REITs you can buy, with leverage if you want to take advantage of the rise in housing. But those are liquid investments. You can get your money back.
There’s also probably many companies you can build where you will get 10,000% returns where you can take advantage of the rise in housing that is about to occur.
But I’m never going to buy a home again. And sit there in the middle of the night thinking, “Why the hell did I do this to myself again?”
Friday, March 23, 2012
Uh-Oh
My girl can unlock the sliding door to the deck! She can then open it and open the screen door too and sneak her little behind right out of the house!!! That girl is too smart for her own good....just like her mama! lol!
Monday, March 19, 2012
Just Some Things
It's been crazy around here! My mom had to have surgery on her leg again. Which means she can't work right now. Four to Six weeks of not working. She had the surgery on the 14th. She has to use a walker again but, hopefully all will heal well and quickly. In the mean time, I have been filling in for her at her job at the condos. It has been so busy there too! I guess people are out and about early for the tourist season with the weather being so dang dreamy. Makes it sucky to work though.
For the past two weeks I have been running 3 times a week with my friend, Tammy. I get up between 4:30 and 5:00am on those days and meet at her house at 5:30. We run/walk for an hour. We are both fairly new to this running thing so we're both pretty comical at this point. Today we ran for 1 hour, 5 miles, burned 500 calories, and our average mile was 15 minutes. We ran 2 blocks then walked 2 blocks for the whole 5 miles! Which means that we ran half of the way! woot! woot! Don't laugh! I'm proud of that time, lol! It's only gonna keep getting better! Our short term goal is to run the Strawberry Strut. It's a 5K here in Carthage in June, I think.
And I have discovered that when I get up at the butt crack of dawn, I get a crapload of stuff done! And I have all those good endorphins after running, I'm pretty sure I could conquer the world by 8am. The problem then is, my afternoon slump hits about 11 or noon. So, I have to bump up my fizz tab intake on those days. That's what I'm going to do anyway.
For the past two weeks I have been running 3 times a week with my friend, Tammy. I get up between 4:30 and 5:00am on those days and meet at her house at 5:30. We run/walk for an hour. We are both fairly new to this running thing so we're both pretty comical at this point. Today we ran for 1 hour, 5 miles, burned 500 calories, and our average mile was 15 minutes. We ran 2 blocks then walked 2 blocks for the whole 5 miles! Which means that we ran half of the way! woot! woot! Don't laugh! I'm proud of that time, lol! It's only gonna keep getting better! Our short term goal is to run the Strawberry Strut. It's a 5K here in Carthage in June, I think.
And I have discovered that when I get up at the butt crack of dawn, I get a crapload of stuff done! And I have all those good endorphins after running, I'm pretty sure I could conquer the world by 8am. The problem then is, my afternoon slump hits about 11 or noon. So, I have to bump up my fizz tab intake on those days. That's what I'm going to do anyway.
My Arteeest
Playing Outside
My Birthday
Tristan did the owl with only one eye. William did the other one.
They used both regular and fondant icing.
Dimples
Thursday, March 8, 2012
What Do You Want To Call It?
Today was awful! I puked like 10 times to the point of dry heaves! I hate dry heaves. My stomach felt like I had a huge barge rope tied around it. I couldn't keep anything down. Not water. Not crackers. Nothing. Jeremy is so awesome and took excellent care of me. I think I am on the mend now. Now that is is nearly nine oclock. The really annoying thing is that I had been waiting the entire week for Thursday to come because I got squeezed into the dentist because I have (another) killer toothache. Jeremy had to call and reschedule for Wednesday of next week and I just don't know if I can wait that long. Poop.
Eden is doing much better, thank goodness. I just have to really pay attention to how much of everything she has to keep her "balanced". She is really getting a handle on words right now too. Some of them she says often are: Mom, Dad, Mama, cup, cheese, shoes, bye, hi, hello, Chase, baby, bottle. There are more I think but I can't sit here and think about it all night long. I looked at her baby book yesterday and realized I haven't updated anything since before she was 6 months. Mom fail. I think hers might be the shortest. I will try to go back and fill in as much as I can but I lost my favorite pen and need to find it first.
Tomorrow morning at 5:30am I am meeting my new running buddy (Tammy) to run, obviously. Hopefully, I can finally keep some food down and get some rest so I can actually get my butt over there in the morning! lol!
Eden is doing much better, thank goodness. I just have to really pay attention to how much of everything she has to keep her "balanced". She is really getting a handle on words right now too. Some of them she says often are: Mom, Dad, Mama, cup, cheese, shoes, bye, hi, hello, Chase, baby, bottle. There are more I think but I can't sit here and think about it all night long. I looked at her baby book yesterday and realized I haven't updated anything since before she was 6 months. Mom fail. I think hers might be the shortest. I will try to go back and fill in as much as I can but I lost my favorite pen and need to find it first.
Tomorrow morning at 5:30am I am meeting my new running buddy (Tammy) to run, obviously. Hopefully, I can finally keep some food down and get some rest so I can actually get my butt over there in the morning! lol!
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
YAY!
Last night I had a GREAT Arbonne monthly meeting! I will be going to the Arbonne Global Training conference (GTC) in Las Vegas in April! This is a big step in my life and business!! woot! woot! for me! It really takes a lot of guts to do what I do. It's a simple formula but youactually have to work it for it to work! So excited at the direction I am going with Arbonne!!!!
Monday, March 5, 2012
Liam's Winter Concert 2012
Eden all banged up after her faceplant on the sidewalk in Ft. Madison.
Eden and Cullen watching cartoons together.
At least once a day Eden has to find time in her busy schedule to drag all of Asher's clean underware out of his bin and onto her head. It is one of her favorite things to do!
And boots! We cannot forget the boots! All day, every day, Eden drags boots and shoes in and out of the closet. Some she wears better than others. Some get lost along the way. LOL! I guess the new shoe organizer I bought isn't quite her speed!
Silly Girl!!
Arbonne Foot Spas
Amanda, Gracie, and Trisha preparing for the foot spas!
Debbie soaking her feet and browsing Arbonne!
This past month I went second step district manager which means by the end of this month I should finally be a district manager! woot!
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