I haven’t been in the mood to write anything lately so I decided to force myself. It’s a lousy rainy day outside and I can’t do any spring time activities outside. For some reason this year I am chomping at the bit to get going on things. It’s probably because there are obstacles in my way that I can’t do anything about. The biggest pain in my ass right now is that I’ve sold the mobile home on our land and the new owners haven’t moved it yet. It boggles my mind that someone would make monthly payments on a place to live and not actually live in it. The fact that the person is constantly paying me late doesn’t make it any easier. Take it from me; it is always a bad idea to do business like that with anyone you work with, especially if you are that person’s supervisor. I knew that going in but my need for money and to get that monstrosity hauled away overrode my sense of judgment. It’s just annoying because I can’t start getting wood delivered till that thing is pulled out of there. Our road was posted so it will have to wait till May before it can be moved anyway.

I did manage to count the change in the vacation jar today. A year of accumulation yielded $73. Not bad considering I hardly use cash, preferring to use my debit card. That is one thing I will be changing. More on that later. Have a great Saturday everyone. At least it aint snowing.

Since starting this whole journey into financial betterment I have been reading that in order to really make any real money and be financially secure you have to accumulate assets and begin investing. Sounds great! My only stumbling block seems to be that I know absolutely nothing about stocks, mutual funds, etc. I watched “Trading Places” again to bone up on my Wall Street strategies, but I don’t think dressing as a fat Jamaican on a train and duping two old guys into buying concentrated OJ is really the way to go. (Was that too obscure a reference for ya? Netflix it. It really holds up(wink, wink)).
So I know that the stock market exists and apparently one could use it to make money, but you know, it just aint my thing.
So then, what to do?
I came up with the idea of starting a boot-strap business. Wait for it…
Fire wood. Yeah fire wood. Here in rural Maine lots of people burn wood for heat, and subsequently need to purchase wood. Every investment has risk associated with it and I believe firewood is a pretty low risk endeavor. Here’s why:
1. I don’t need a lot of money to get started.
2. I already own a top of the line chainsaw
3. I enjoy working in the woods and with wood
4. Eventually someone will buy the wood
5. I can do it in my spare time
There are other good reasons but I think I’m getting my point across. So, the financial breakdown goes like this. I can buy log-length hardwood from a local guy for $100 a cord, delivered to my land. Cut and split wood here is going for $225 a cord. That’s a profit of $1250 (55% profit in one year for those of you keeping track at home). The wood is dumped in a pile. I buck it into stove length pieces and split it. Now I have some options here, I can split it by hand or buy a wood splitter. I know splitting by hand would take me about 10 hours per cord of wood. I want to begin with 10 cords so while splitting by hand is free (I already have a maul) it will cost me 100 hours of work time. Time is money so lets look at a splitter. A good quality splitter will run me around $1600. Not bad but since the object is to make money the first year I need to do some tweaking. I could get 20 cords of wood. That would yield a profit higher that the 10 cords and get me the splitter I need. Alas, I can’t afford 20 cords (hell, I still don’t know how I’ll swing the 10). Then came the ah, ha moment. Rentals baby! I can rent a commercial size splitter for a weekend for $95 bucks. SWEET! I can split all 10 cords in one weekend no problem.
So that’s the plan for the first investment/business/asset accumulation. Like I said there is risk involved, but damn the torpedoes and full split ahead!

I've been reading all sorts of books lately on how to get rich,why Donald Trump wants me to be rich, it's my fault that I'm broke and apparently I want to be broke. Who knew? Basically I already know whats in those books, I just haven't wanted to admit it to myself, yet. So now that I'm serious about starting to get ahead rather than live paycheck to paycheck I find myself having to change the way I look at things.
Here's the biggest one for me.
Old me: I want to be home with my family not out working. We have enough now and i want to be part of my kid's lives, not some guy that pops in and out between jobs.
New me (relax everyone, It's still me. I'm just thinking differently now and use the term metaphorically): If I really care about my family I will work a little harder to earn enough money so they can go to college etc. etc.
This sucks because the old me reasoning was a really good excuse to continue to be lazy and procrastinate, but I think the change is worth it. So now Wifey-poo and I are starting to get a plan of attack in place and start knocking the debt down.
It's difficult to change so drastically and begin new endeavors, but time is fleeting so its time to get off my fat ass and get my hands dirty.

Damn it! I just broke a nail. It's all harder that I thought. Forget it Scrubs in on anyway and that show ain't gonna watch itself.

So lately I have been wanting to run a couple of blogs. Maybe monitonize one of them or something. Then I remembered I had one here. I did absolutely nothing with it for over a year. A slow nagging feeling started creeping up on me. I couldn't pinpoint it at first; then it hit me. I'm a lazy idiot. So I figure I'll actually start posting here and see what happens. I will also be starting something off site that I'll update you guys on later. My wife has been blogging here for quite some time. She runs McKenzie's Inner Fire. She has made some good friends on Blogstream and I like the way she talks about the community here. So I feel that I would like to base things here and link back between the two blogs. I'll have to check into it to be sure I don't violate any terms etc., etc.
So any Hows, I kind of though I would attempt to document my struggle to get out of debt, get a house, make some money and become a better father and husband in the process. Sounds lofty but really, it's not.
Hopefully I can make some new friends and inspire others along the way. Talk to ya all again soon.
Drillbit.

Well, here we go. My wife has been bloging here for a while. Actually, I'm the one who suggested she start a blog. Three years later and here I am. Whatever.

I hope you find someting worth reading from time to time here. I'll try to keep things fun and informative.

{{EDIT 04-10-08}}
I was going to delete this post but decided to keep it as an embarrassing reminder that it is very easy for me to get lazy.