Freedomizing

Buying in bulk is generally a good idea; that is if you are going to end up consuming in bulk and you have the room and patience to store the bulk. It's a tough line to walk, my wife was not pleased with the amount of cereal that I was coming home with from CostCo, of course, the definition of bulk buying! However, when a product goes on sale that is non-perishable prior to when you would use it, and you have a place to store it, buy it dammit! It makes economic sense! Alas, I went overboard, I bought 800 sq ft of Slate Tile in 2006 because I got one "hell of a deal" $0.75 per sq ft for the slate that retailed at $4.50 per sq ft! I was planning on tiling about 2-300 sq ft at the time. I moved the excess about 500 sq ft of tile THREE times! And if you have ever moved slate, it isn't an easy job. Let alone the fact that I subjected my 91 Ford to 800sq ft of slate, in one trip! WOA ... Bullshit ... 800 sq ft is about 6400 lbs! A 91 F150 has a payload of 1900lbs mea...

Athlete vs. Mental Toughness Working out during a spinning class yesterday I came to a realization, I am no athlete! As a matter of fact, I am borderline clumsy! Ok, let me back up, I play as much basketball as humanly possible, I love it, and I'm not the worst person in the gym, but I'm close. I made state for swimming, placed 18th as I recall, maybe a relay put me on the pedestal, played water polo through college. I have ridden bikes my entire life tackled the double tipple bypass the MS150 a few times. I snowboard, I wakeboard, skateboard dabbled in roller blading. I jumped on the trampoline all of my high-school years, and still try when I take the kids to "Jump Street" get my kicks in!. I did it all and I did it all ok, I was never really great at anything. I think I always had my mother's voice in the back of my mind as I was doing all of these activities "if you put your mind to it you can accomplish anything." The realization I came to was...

Ok, back to it ... and from the looks of it it's been four years! Time flies, things change and also things stay very stable. I'm back here again, and the funny part is not really on purpose, a friend of mine introduced me to a new "Blog" I hadn't been following up on any blogs news or any literature unless it involved "Mitch Rapp" or "Jack Reacher" or daily financial news. However my friend came to me with coffee and said, "you have to check out this blog it's a brother from another mother!" Later in the conversation, he follows up with "I know you have been telling me the same things he writes about in his blog, but I never listened to you, but his blog is changing my life!" Hmmm, shot below the belt! Thanks, dude, I thought, and so with a grain of salt, I checked up on this new blog and low and behold, brother from another mother only he's slightly cooler than I am and slightly more successful. OK, he's wa...

Do it yourself, this will not only stroke the ego, but it will keep your life in balance. Oh and, by the way, it'll save you a bunch of scratch! While this will be a quick tangent, it is the purpose of this particular post so I'll get right to it. Hire or DIY? Example: (real life) Tile the bathroom floor, my particular project was very small, only about 25 sq ft. Which if you simply look at materials you are looking for about 50 cents sq ft for the backer board, add 50 cents for the thin set and 50 cents for screws gives you about $1.5 for the sub floor. Add tile (which you can find on Craigslist and other places) I got mine for 75 cents a tile 12x12. 25 cents for grout lets call it $2.50 sq ft all in materials. Therefore, call the whole job $62.50. A quote for the same job was about $400.00. You have to weight your options here, but a tile saw rental is around $50, or in my case I knew I was going to be doing a few jobs so my ego forced me to buy the biggest baddest tile...