Days Go By

Yesterday and today were what I would describe as a ”close call.”

Business has been very slow, and the bills keep rolling in… and yesterday, I found myself doing something I haven’t done in many years: Let the ”auto pay” for a bill go through, on the expectation that payment from PayPal would beat it to the bank.

It was an equation that added up to $11.00 on my bank account if everything went as I hoped… or a $107.00 overdraft if it didn’t.

As things turned out, the order of operations did work out in my favor.

I have been pondering that most of today, and how that is so far removed from how I thought my life would turn out, if I look back 30-40 years.

When I was much younger, I remember reading quite a few articles concluding that — on the balance — ”Gen X” would become the first generation to NOT be as well off as their parents. That has sadly turned out to be true… and in spades.

Of course, it was just a momentary reprieve… I still have to spend the next three days doing my best to somehow grind out another $300 or so that will become needed by Monday.

Seems like half the mail I get these days is some service provider declaring that ”we regret to inform you that we have decided to raise our fees.”

Most recently, it was our homeowner’s insurance which jumped by almost 60%. It was in part because the house reached a critical ”slightly older” point, and in part because of the rise in property values.

Just got a postcard (a couple of days ago) from the county tax assessor’s office letting us know that the assessed value of our home jumped by another 17% since the previous year. I guess they need money to repair the ridiculously huge number of potholes in our streets.

Meanwhile, all my businesses are more or less stagnant. And if you own crypto — besides Bitcoin — it’s also not helping much. I guess people are not buying my goodies on eBay because they also got notices that their Internet, electricity and whatever has gone up.

When I looked at Steem this morning, the price was $0.1792. When I looked at it just now, it is $0.1789. Feels a lot like my life, in a away… things are going ”about the same,” but there’s a tiny bleed, every day.

I was messaging with a friend earlier, and we were talking about retirement. Neither of us are likely to actually retire because we can’t afford to… and we have no corporate pension schemes to magically bail us out of our old age.

Maybe that’s simply the price you pay for choosing to be independent and chart your own course. At moments like this, I am grateful that none of the work I do requires me to be physically strong to continue!

And so, I use my last few braincells of the day to write about life, and how days go by in this year of 2024. And I take a very small amount of comfort in the hope that maybe this post will allow me to add a few more cents to my savings… aka my SteemPower.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great Friday!

How about you? Have you ever lived with financial "close shaves?" How did you make out? Or is it still going on? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 2024.10.18 01:45 PDT
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