Saturday, January 28, 2017

Comments on My Latest Project.

I'm hoping to get a trailer and buy some land to live on.
I'm making progress on my trailer.
I priced a trailer that would be ideal for me at Camp Site RV in Cresco. It would only cost $12,500 with the work done on my van to tow the trailer thrown in.
If I can get the financing for a 10 year period it would cost less than $150/month.
My credit union wouldn't finance me yet but they told me they might when I have the van paid off in 3 months. I might be able to get it financed through another bank; we'll see.
The next thing is to get some land to live on.
I've been trying to find an RV park where I could live year round. I'm having no luck with that. Around here the RV parks are only opened in the Summer. I haven't found any place to park it in the Winter or year-round.
If I had my own land I could just live in it there.
I was hoping to buy some land from Lynne. She made it clear that her land wasn't for sale.
That leaves Jim's place in Harper's Ferry. It's about an hour drive away from here but it looks good to me. I would just have to live there.
It has enough space to have a garden and to raise a little livestock. It's mostly trees on a steep slope.
It goes up a bluff that is near the Mississippi River.
At least I would have a lot of wood for a wood stove. I would also be within a mile and a half of the river so I could catch some fish.
People say that the river is too polluted to eat much fish from there but I don't think I'll be that fussy.
That's all I have for now.
Later

Saturday, January 21, 2017

Why I don't blame myself for my poverty.

Throughout my life I've been taken to the cleaners by experts.
For at least the last 40 years I've been reading books by people like Harry Brown and Doug Casey, et. el. who have told me that I have to do certain things (like buy gold) to prepare for the inevitable economic collapse.
I've bought into it to varying degrees all along.
My spending money on highly leveraged, negative bets have been one of the main reasons I'm poor today.
Another major reason is that I've worked in electronics which doesn't pay enough for a person to get ahead. Maybe I should have sold insurance, real estate, or cars for a living.
I do think that something involving commission sales would have been better than trying to make a living on working by the hour.

About the losses due to my investments. I have always been in love with leverage. Leverage includes putting a small down payment on real estate to control a large holding. I've done fairly well with real estate.
Where I lose is with options and stock on margin; I guess I can now include bitcoin on margin.
Fear and greed always enter into my decisions when trading. Margin just amplifies that fear and greed since if you can make 3 or more times what you normally make due to margin; when it goes against you, you lose 3 or more times going down.
Options are even worse; but I love them because I can get in with very small amounts of money.
I always seem to lose.
There are several reasons for this:

  1. My information sources are tainted. I'm trading on information that people feed me with the intention of cleaning me out. Even though I feel I'm using information that others ignore; I'm just being a sucker. 
  2. I never get a good fill. The mechanics of trading is set up against the small guy. I'm dealing with high frequency traders who know how to cheat me and all the other small guys on a regular basis. 
  3. I don't know how many times my money was being transferred for 3 days while the trade I wanted to make came and went. Having the use of your own money quickly is important to trade. 
  4. I just don't have enough money. Everyone tells me this but what I have to work with is all that I have. My rich friends and relatives have always told me not to trade but they never tell me how to make more money which is essential to live a decent life. So there, ( I was thinking about using an obscenity but I won't). 
That was something I've been wanting to get off my chest for a while; now I can go back to praying for snow and looking for a real job.
The music is about to start at Java Johns.
I think I'll go home and try some different ways to fix the computer.
Later

Friday, January 20, 2017

Sure Enough I Failed Again.

I tried to get my bitcoins last week; and I failed again. That probably surprised nobody but me. I really had my hopes built up.
My only hope now is that I put my bitcoins in Mt. Gox. That is an exchange that went bankrupt a few years ago. They are still in litigation. Maybe I'll hear something good from them. I made a claim a long time ago.
We had an ice storm a little while ago. I made some money chipping ice but it wasn't really enough to keep up with my bills. This year has been a bust for snow shoveling.
On a different topic, I've been struggling with fixing an old laptop.
It has an intermittent problem. A lot of the time it won't start. It turned out that the battery was the problem. At least I hope it is. I ordered a couple of new batteries from E-bay. I don't know how many hours I spent working on that. No wonder somebody sold it so cheap.
I've also have had troubles with my phone. It's a piece of crap. It seems that technology is causing more problems than it's curing.

Saturday, January 14, 2017

I'm going to try to get my Bitcoins.

After a hard day of scraping ice from this weeks storm, I'm going to try to get my Bitcoins from 2010 by using a number that I had in my notebook from that period. I think I know how to do it.
I couldn't find anyone who knows how to use the old Bitcoin wallets. I had to buy a book and do more research with Google.
Right now, I am synchronizing my computer with the Bitcoin Core. It takes a few days to download over  90 Gigabytes of blockchain. It should be over by tomorrow morning. Then I'll try something with that number. If I succeed I'll be relatively rich.
Here is a list of things I'm planning on doing with my (hopefully) new-found wealth:

  1. Buy Jim or Lynne's acreage to start a homestead. 
  2. Keep most of it in Bitcoin.
  3. Buy gold and silver.
  4. Start a prepper store so I can store supplies for the collapse. 
  5. Visit Costa Rica to see if it would make sense to retire there.
It's probably just my usual pipe-dreams. I always have these dreams which get dashed. I'll know how it works out by noon, tomorrow. It's probably, yet, another delusion.
Conner is playing the piano; so I think I'll sign off for now.
If I get rich I'll say something on my blog, tomorrow. If I don't post anything that means I failed.
Later

Friday, January 6, 2017

Bitcoin Busts and a New (Get rich Quick) Scheme

Well, I just lost a couple of hundred dollars on what I thought was a sure thing by investing in Bitcoin. In fact I may have lost close to $1000 by accidentally sending the remaining Bitcoin to myself. I sent an e-mail to recover it but I haven't heard from them yet.
On another topic, I was reading something on the internet about a different way to make a living.
It was an article about people traveling in motorhomes and trailers and finding cheap places to buy things; they would then sell them on Amazon.
They keep their expenses down by parking at places that have free parking, and otherwise keeping their expenses down.
They go to auctions and other places that they can find things at wholesale prices.
They use Amazon because Amazon provides free warehousing and marketing. This is especially important to people who are on the road all of the time.
It seems like a good job for me. It fits into a lot of things  I want to do.
First I would like to have a trailer or motorhome. That would open up a lot of options.
I could use it to live in if I get an acreage. I could use it as a living place while I develop a homestead.
I could use it to bug out if things go bad, locally.
I could also use a trailer or motorhome while I'm prospecting or metal detecting for coins. I would have a home while I'm traveling all over the country.
The reason I mentioned this is to keep the idea of traveling around and selling what I buy cheap on Amazon. It's one of the few ways to use the internet to make a living that might actually work for me.
Well, the music has started at Java John's. Tonight Helen is singing and playing the guitar.
Later.

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

I'm Fired up From Watching a Webinar.

I was just watching a webinar that was a pitch for a self-help program.
My father was big into listening to things by Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie, and others. He was the best salesman for the Oelwein Chemical Company. They made hog, and cattle feed.  I think it was due to his positive-thinking work.
Therefore I tend to seek out those things such as T. Harv Ekers books and articles.
I was listening to something tonight that got me thinking about my choice of friends. Since I'm labeled as being crazy, everyone labels everything I think, say, or do as a symptom of my illness. Therefore I don't get any positive reinforcement from anyone I know. I need to eliminate most of my friends because instead of helping me they just hinder my future plans and aspirations.
I don't know where I'll find more positive people to replace them. I have the feeling that being a hermit would be better than being dragged down by people who see me as being crazy.
On a different topic, the snow just isn't coming again this year. I need to find a job other than snow shoveling.
I like to shovel snow because I can, pretty much, do it at my own pace. I make about $20/hr. when I do have snow to shovel. A lot of that is because I get up early in the morning and I'm available whenever there is a lot of snow. Shoveling snow just isn't steady enough for me to be able to pay my bills with that income.
I'm looking for another job. Tomorrow, I'll run by Manpower and see what they have available. The last time I was there they said that they were waiting to hear about a job making pizzas in Waukon. That's a town about 20 miles from here. I would take it if it's available.
On yet a different topic, I received a computer from Ebay that was completely dead. I thought I could resurrect it by replacing the processor but it's still a "brick".
If I buy a computer that I spotted on Ebay that has a bad display, I could replace that and I have all the other parts I need to get it running.
I just don't have the money. I tried calling my potential customer and asked him if he could spot me for the money. I left a message on his answering machine. I hope to hear from him.
Bitcoin is going up.
On that good note I'll sign off. The music is about to start at Java John's anyway.
Later