untilgradschool

Due to a change in terms from the lovely Today.com admins, I no longer have a financial interest in writing for today.com. I am glad for all of the comments and following readers that I have had. I hope that those of you who are successful with Today.com continue to be so, but for me, time is money and the money isn’t there anymore, so UntilGradSchool is done.

Feel free to follow me on my other blog http://notsoliteral.blogspot.com and I will continue to follow you blogs no matter what! Thanks.

Tonight is the first of a two night workshop I’ll be going to that will enable me to qualify for a low interest mortgage and other first-time home buyer benefits through the Federal Government. I am rather excited because I have friends and family who have done this and said it was one of the most enjoyable and informative classes that they’ve ever taken on the subject of buying a home. Once I get through this, I expect to know a lot more about where I stand in my quest to buy a home and I will then set a goal on when I ‘d like to finally be in my own home.

Right now Worcester’s market is a little weird. Not too many listings are coming on sale and the ones that are staying on the market are looking pretty crappy. I guess I’ll just need to wait it out. All I need is a solid starter home!

The ebb and flow of life is fascinating. While some parts of our lives fade or get dull, other parts take over and this is always happening. Making tough choices and living with the result is a positive thing as long as you are able to learn from all of the experiences you’ve lived through and continually better yourself and those around you.

I’m not a genius and I’m not a fortune teller, but I do believe that the good stuff that we put out into the world every day does come back to us. Living virtuously and purposefully will lead to a better day.

Here’s a off-topic for my blog: cars. I bought my Toyota Yaris brand new last February and I’m going on owning it for year next month! I’ve already put 15,000 miles on it and it still runs just like a charm. I suppose it should seeing as it’s a Japanese brand and it’s mostly highway miles.

After doing my budget last week I realized how much money I’m spending on my current commute. At least 75 miles a day in total and about 20 dollars a week in gas and $25 a week in tolls. It sucks. More incentive to do what’s necessary. Plus, I don’t want to kill my car! I think I can make this thing last for a long time.

Some things if life are gradual. Other things are a complete slap in the face. My life is full of both those scenarios.

I have serious business ideas brewing with genuine outside interest and I am considering making serious moves towards a full fledged push towards those ventures. It’s scary as hell, but respected and influential people in my life have told me that if I am to take a risk in my life, it might as well be now. I’ve got room to bounce back.

What to do with this room? Things are to be set into place so that I can succeed at whatever I try to do. I’m working on that right now. This is the hard part; the beginning.

I want to buy a home this year. This is one of the many goals I have for myself that will cause me to stretch my means to the extreme. I have looked at condominiums, single families, duplexes and even some three deckers. I’m not really sure yet what sort of situation I want to force myself into for the next 5 years. When I start thinking about 5 full years (at least) of being in one place, the doubts and questions start flowing of “do I even want to do this?”

The short answer is this; I want to maximize my finances as much as possible now so that I can have a little breathing room in my 30’s, which are the years in which I intend on finally settling down with family and kids (hopefully). The condo situation may not be totally right for me. I may just want to try and find a small, fixer-uper single family that I can afford so I don’t have to deal with condo fees and associations. That makes sense, right? But, there is the allure of having little to worry about in ways of building maintenance because like with an apartment, condos have repairs built into the condo fee.

A decision I have yet to make…

Last time I did a yearly budget was 2006. It was effective and helped me get by on a piss-poor salary which equaled out to about $10 an hour. Things were always tight, but I learned how to live and operate on what little I made.

When I finally got a job that afforded me a healthier, regular paycheck, I got lazy and sloppy and for the past two years lived without budgeting myself. Fast forward to today and I’ve got less money saved than I’d like and I’ve got bigger plans than ever.

Last night I sat down and did out a spreadsheet and took a long hard look at what I’m making, spending and saving. I’ve got a lot of work to do, but I’m positioned to do well if I stay focused, which makes me happy.

I was born in a city with 11 colleges. I moved to towns and cities with colleges. I’ve always been around them. I wonder, what is it like to not be around colleges? What is the major difference in culture? Would I notice a drastic change in my standard of living? What about the types of people I was around. Is it better or worse? I’ve noticed whenever I looked for places to relocate to, I always had an affinity for college towns.

What is it about college towns? What do you like or dislike about college towns? Have you lived in areas without colleges? I am really interested on the social commentary associated with this subject.

My grandfather says that the Northeast, specifically Massachusetts is a great place to live. His logic is the easy access to health care, higher education and four distinct seasons. I agree with the first two ideas, but the last one has always grinded me throughout my life. I was never able to do snow sports when I was young because they were too expensive. Plain and simple. So I don’t associate winter with time on the slopes and vacations. I associate it with high heating bills, falling on ice and walking through extreme cold to the bus stop and being miserable.

I think I might move to Atlanta, Georgia for a little while. They have a strong job market, good colleges and warm weather. As for what it’s like socially, we’ll see, but it’s worth a shot.

“Do not react” is what I always hear. Do not act impulsively due to crazy, weird or bad situations. Calculate, then execute. That being said, I feel closer than ever to the point of no return in making a very drastic life choice.

In life, you assume that you’ll spend a certain amount of time each day doing the necessary to generate an income and supply your needs. How this assumption affects your perception of what life is supposed to be like can sometimes be a problem. When do you put the stops to something that literally demands all of your time, especially when you’re trying to focus and diversify on other aspects of your life?

I don’t want to suck this stuff up anymore. I’m back at square-1. Decisions will be coming very soon.