Anyone thought of giving gold or silver for Christmas?

With the fiat currencies of this world going downwards and interest rates at near zero everywhere, it would be interesting to see who is giving precious metals for Christmas this year.

Anyone buying a few ounces of gold, silver, or platinum as Christmas gifts? The physical precious metals market should be much hotter next year when a few sovereign defaults and currency crises come down the pipelines.

Whirlwind past few months.

Wow, it's been a whirlwind past few months and it was either to live life or keep blogging. We chose the former, thankfully!

We just had a baby the other day - we are very thankful and are blessed to introduce another member into our family!

Anyhow, we hope to commence blogging again!

Gail V's case study: example of a fast treadmill

Today's case study at Gail V's website was interesting. It is what I call the 'treadmill' going a little too fast.

For those of you starting out a new stage in life (i.e. student to working class; trainee to practicing whatever) or have had a salary increase/promotion that yields more disposable income, it is very tempting to live it up.

You can justify it by using phrases like

"I deserve it"
"I worked hard, now it's party time"
"Just this one time..."
"I can afford a nicer...."

You have to remember that when you lock yourself into a higher lifestyle, it is very difficult to come down. Moreover, once you've locked yourself into new payments, it's hard to come back.

The case study that Gail has on her website is very interesting, and highlights a family that needs to trim back on things to regain financial control.

What we are highlighting is that their treadmill is going a bit too fast. We don't care how they got there, but it is definitely going too fast.

We're in a society where banks, furniture stores, and other companies have turned everything into a payment. While it looks like a small price to pay, it adds to the speed of your treadmill.

When a treadmill is going slowly, it is easy to keep it going, but once it speeds up, it's hard to stop.

That's why we advocate living based on your previous stage of life. If you get a job, budget as a student; if you progress from being a trainee to a full-fledged doctor or something, budget as a trainee; if you get a raise, budget as if you didn't.

That way, whatever is extra helps to slow the treadmill down and eventually allows you to get off the treadmill (i.e. when you are financially secure or retired!).

Long time no post! We've tilled under our garden!

It's been awhile since we last posted. Life has gotten quite hectic, especially in preparation for our third child in nearly as many years.

Anyhow, we harvested all of our tomatoes prior to the last frost warnings, so we're sitting on a pile of >100 tomatoes!

Over the last weekend, we took out the trellis and also cut the remaining plant stalks into little bits with garden shears (we found a pricing error one time at a store by accident, so they gave us one set of shears for free). We then took a small edger and tilled everything into the squarefoot garden, square by square.

From now until winter sets in, we'll fill our squarefoot garden box (every square) with organic plant waste from our household and we'll till it in so that the stuff composts by next spring.

Stay tuned for more garden details next year!