Tag: economics

Year In Review – The Highs and Lows of Financial Catastrophe

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I promise you’ll hear more from me in some form in 2020. I plan on doing even more blog updates, and I’m 3-4 chapters into writing a book that I’m starting to feel really good about. I don’t know jack sh*t about getting a book published, but I knew even less about responsibly managing my finances and I figured that out, so what do I have to lose?

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If you had talked to me in early 2019, I would have told you that we were losing our house. I would have also told you that we were struggling to figure out how to pay our bills, or even keep food on the table. As fully-grown adults in our 40s, my wife and I had manage to make almost every poor financial decision possible, and were now faced with crippling debt.

We formed a plan over January and the first part of February, and all of the math showed that we would nothing short of a small miracle to escape our predicament. We knew which things to pay and in which order, but if even the smallest thing went wrong, we were in some serious trouble.

We focused every single resource we had at the problem, and we sacrificed as much as possible, sometimes resorting to eating just Four Eggs a night. All the while we hid the family from everyone but our closest friends and family (and the readers of this blog), and we wallowed heavily in guilt and remorse.

I try not to exaggerate for the sake of exaggeration, so trust me when I say that it was the worst time of my life. As always, perspective is key, so I’m sure there are some of you that have gone through far worse, but for me this was the low point.

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FUN FACT: The previous low point was explaining to my Mom that in order to pull square with the Columbia House cassette tape club, she was going to need to help me purchase 300 cassettes in the next 11 days.

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I really couldn’t see any kind of light at the end of the tunnel, and it sucked big ginormous bags of ding dongs.

What a difference a year can make…Read More »

The Idea of an Economic Recession Makes Me Gassy

Dave Johnson4 Comments

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The Thursday Think Tanks are semi-random thoughts that may not necessarily fall directly into the category of finances, but I still feel are worth sharing. Read at your own risk!

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I’m a nervous person by nature. I don’t think most people who meet me get that impression, as outwardly I think I come off as pretty self-assured and confident. Yet when it comes to things like playing my guitar in front of people, giving presentations at work, or speaking at conferences, I am a MESS on the inside. I’ve had a fair amount of experience in all of those situations, and yet every time I get insanely nervous!

When I get nervous, my stomach has a tendency to gurgle and bubble. Part of it stems from an old surgery I had on my small intestines many years ago, but the way it manifests is by bubbling and fizzing so loudly that it’s easy for people in the same room I’m in to hear it.

I’ve been in particularly stressful work meetings before where the presenter has had to stop and ask, “Dave, do you need us to take a break so that you can grab a snack or something?” thinking it was stomach loudly growling out in hunger. I usually don’t have the heart to tell them it’s not hunger, but the impending sense of doom I’m currently feeling. No sense in two gurgling stomachs in the room.

Another key area that affects this condition is stress over finances. In the time since we came to terms with our financial shortcomings, I have had many nights where my stomach sounds like a stinky bog “glorping” and “blooping” outside of a witch’s window as she dines away on small children. It usually really kicks in as I am laying next to my wife in bed, trying to shut my super-chatty brain off, as she is also attempting to fall asleep. This elicits one of the following responses:

“You’re thinking about finances again, aren’t you?”

“What has you stressed out now?”

“Things are going to be fine.”

“That thing won’t quit. Can you please go sleep in the guest bedroom?”

Over the last month or two, things have gone smoother as we’ve got our finances back on the right track, and as a result I’ve spent less nights in the guest bedroom. This is great, because the guest bedroom tends to be where our largest house spiders seem to congregate at some kind of giant-hairy-house-spider-key-party, which makes my stress levels rise, which makes my stomach gurgle so much that it prevents me sleeping due to the sound of the walls rattling. I hate spiders.

Seriously. I f*cking hate them.Read More »