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I’m feeling extremely lucky.
A few years ago, I finally for once managed to get beyond paycheck-to-paycheck living.
I started building a little savings. I began investing just a little at a time, and watched how it did. The IT/Tech fund was doing by far the best, so I started just putting more into it. I left the others (S&P 500, Healthcare, Emerging Markets, etc.) Didn’t have much, but it was something at least, and growing. Due to weighting toward tech, it was growing faster than the market.
Then about 2 years ago, I looked a little further and found the Ark funds, which are totally tech oriented - Robotics and automated driving, financial tech, new internet, innovation. They were doing really well, well above the stock market average. They were heavily invested in stuff like Tesla and crypto, which were skyrocketing at the time. So I started putting any money I could into them.
Then last year, when it was time to move, I had to sell all that stuff off in order to cover the down payment and closing costs and moving expenses, etc. On the one hand, I was happy to finally have enough to actually do that, but on the other felt bad about how I was losing my entire life savings and I was going to miss out on all that tech growth and compounding over time.
I now felt uneasy, not having any savings, not having any investments. Just like life had always been before, but getting past that had been such a relief, and now all that was gone. And unknown maintenance costs for the new place to worry about.
Then today I saw in the news about the layoffs at Coinbase, and how the company had lost 70% of its value. So out of curiosity, I did a lookup of the charts on those tech funds I used to have. They have all lost about 2/3rds or more since I sold, which was apparently right at the last peak.
If I hadn’t sold when I did, I couldn’t even afford the house now as it was priced back then. And since real-estate has gone up so much since then, even if they hadn’t lost any money and I still had the same amount, I couldn’t afford to buy now with the amount I had then. Meanwhile rent at the old place has gone up 25%, so I couldn’t afford to live there anymore either.
I feel really bad for the people that are stuck between a rock and hard place now.
But damn I feel so lucky that I happened by pure chance to do all that at just the right time.
Looking at those charts, and how prices have moved, seems like one month either way and we’d be screwed now. Sure, I put some effort into budgeting and researching the funds and investing, and my wife put effort into finding a house and managing the move. But the timing? That was sheer dumb luck.
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Sad, but glad…my Aunt Loretta died yesterday; she was the last of the Carpenter sisters to die, at age 94. She was two years and four days younger than my mom. I’m glad she’s no longer in pain and that she’s at rest now.
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May she rest in peace.
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Sleepy but happy. Pending issuance of a special license, I am now employed, in an unrelated field, at higher pay, having drawn just four wrrks of a maximum pool of 45 weeks of unemployment insurance. Feels good.
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Congratulations on your new job!!!
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Weird. I’m feeling weird.
My Aunt Loretta’s funeral service was today. I was surprised to see she was cremated. I saw a cousin & her husband that I’ve not seen since 2003 - at a funeral for an older Carpenter aunt.
It’s funny how I’ve lost track of family, what with all the aunts & my mom being dead. All the first cousins are so much older than I, except for two - and they were born & raised in Buffalo, NY.
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I had an initially quite crappy day today. Last night I fell asleep before I was expecting to, so I didn’t take my medication (take just before sleep) and also didn’t reset my alarms (to the usual weekday schedule). I wasn’t expecting to fall asleep and therefore didn’t do my bedtime routine. I just crashed.
So I woke up hella late for work (missed the morning meeting) and just couldn’t mentally focus. I thought ‘well now it’s lunchtime which is a good time for a nap’ and went back to bed. But I couldn’t get to sleep properly. Just tossing and turning, mostly.
Woke up again to find a notification that I was over an hour late to another meeting, an important one - but luckily the notification was wrong, the meeting was rescheduled to Thursday. But I didn’t know that at the time and was a little freaked out.
After all that, however, I did make some progress on my work. Not as much as I’d’ve liked, but good enough. I did the thing.
Then later had a really good, lengthy, in-depth talk with my family. We’re usually each absorbed in our own things or just watching TV together. So just actually sitting down and talking for a couple hours was really really nice.
Overall, the start to my day (both starts) was definitely unpleasant, but the way it turned out in the end was pretty good. I’d definitely choose that over a day where I just woke up to the alarm and went through all the standard boring daily stuff, watched TV, and went to sleep.
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I’ve had an awful migraine and nausea for about 29 hours. Also stress.
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Blech. Do yours go away when you puke, or do you get to that point? Most the times, mine do.
While I’m here…
I was able to go grocery-shopping earlier in the evening; my brother drove me, which was nice. Still not taking stairs, which means there’s a dirty laundry monster growing in my basement, joy.
Still having what I’m calling an existential crisis, since I feel that nothing I do has any meaning, it’s so ephemeral and why the fuck do I even bother. And not all the meditation (which I do, but it’s not like what everyone else does, so there, lol!) and flights of fancy and movies and painting only stave it off.
Oh, and I think I’m ace now. I look at folks who are deemed to be sexually attractive, and all I think now, is ho hum, they’re pretty/handsome, good for them. This isn’t something I just decided on, either; I’ve been mulling it over for a while. I’m okay with it, but it just confirms my outsider status - do they have badges for different things that make one an outsider? If they don’t they should, an’ I’d be proud to wear mine.
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Outsiders are totally welcome!
You mention an existential crisis, which brings me to a thing I was thinking of, considering my past, once homeless, now a homeowner.
If I did win the billion dollar lottery (I think it’s mega millions now instead of powerball, but that doesn’t matter) I have this very clear picture of how I might end up.
Sitting outside like any other homeless person, but with a sign that says “I don’t need food or money. Just talk to me about whatever you’re passionate about.” I want to see your drawings, hear your stories, how excited you get about whatever interests you. Because that is the most real thing in life.
If I had so much money that I never had to worry about anything, I think what I would choose to do with my time is just that - learn what makes other people super happy, and what I could learn from them. And I could totally do the homeless thing - been there, done that, though not yet as a billionaire.
I guess when you hit existential crisis, it’s worth considering. If you were guaranteed never to have to worry about anything, what would you then focus on?
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That is a seriously great question. Especially as I turned 50 two days ago, having achieved… nothing.
Let me have a think and I’ll get back to you.
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My family is friends with a family that basically owned most of one of the cities in Alabama. The mother owned a Frank Lloyd Wright house (one of the Usonian homes). The older son committed suicide, I believe in high school. The younger brother was our friend - he was one of my dad’s students. He had wealth but had no interest in it. He would dumpster dive for food. I believe now he lives in England in some kind of communal housing situation. It’s funny because I think my parents thought he was so odd for doing his best to renounce capitalism, but especially with how it plays out in Alabama, I think he was really on to something.
The house is now a museum. She held on to all the furniture designed for it. My dad had taken some photos of it and I asked the grandson (who is my age) if anyone had interest in them. He told me to contact the museum and that his grandmother’s relationship to the house was just too much growing up.
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You’re still alive, which in this day and age is an accomplishment. And don’t you have children; that’s one as well.
Sure, they may not seem like huge ones, but you have done them. Trust me, I know the feeling.
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Not exactly the same as yours, but in the same vein. I would want to be a do-gooder: Fulfilling basic needs of those who don’t have them in a sustainable way, finding out what makes them happy, and then helping them obtain said happiness. And if I could, I’d lobby the fucking government for UBI and UHI.
However, I don’t want to be homeless. I’d modify my existing home so that I’d be off the teats of the electric and gas companies as much as possible.
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You are enormously creative. That, I think, is one of the most important things a human can do.
And taking care of others (like your son).
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Hey, those are my lines for other people, lololol!
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Just came in from outside, it’s currently -37°F with the wind chill, about -17°F without counting the wind, but I do count the wind because it makes a huge difference.
Had a great day at work, although it was mostly meetings, which sounds dreadful. But at one of them I got to ask some questions and learn some new stuff. And at another, which I called myself, I got to present some ideas and the people that know this stuff better than me loved my ideas, so now I can go back to the people in charge with a solution to multiple problems.
Super happy at the moment! It’s a great way to end a week.
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I feel good!
A few days ago I had a five minute period of an odd partial blindness in my right eye. Scary! Could it be a stroke??? Called an ambulance, and got a series of scans, blood tests, etc., etc., etc. But all tests were normal. Came home yesterday, exhausted from lying down so much. I had an IV for hydration, which limited movement.
Let’s hear it for Medicare. Everyone should have it, not just us old geezers!
This is approximately what it looked like in my right eye for five minutes (we were watching an episode of “All Creatures Great and Small”).
From a review paper I read while I was in the hospital, the blindness may have been some sort of benign constriction of blood vessels in the eye. It’s called an “ocular migraine,” though there’s a lot that’s not known about it. There’s a lot of confusion in the literature, and from what I gather it’s not really related to a migraine although it’s been called that for over 100 years. Even migraines are a lot more complicated than what I have read in the past.
We have since learned that our next door neighbor has something like this! As well as another guy in the neighborhood!! I need to talk to them.
So everything seems to be OK, but I need to see my neurologist. All of her. 
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