1500 Days to Freedom

Ask the Readers: Garage Sale or Thrift Store?

Posted on June 17, 2013 by 1500

Hi there, Mrs. 1500 again.

The 1500s are big garage sale fans, even buying this fine MR2** at one.

Last week, I asked about moving. Do you do it yourselves, pay someone else to do it, or use a hybrid approach? Not surprisingly, most readers are DIYers. Pack it themselves, load up the truck, and drive to their new destination. People after my own heart… But I would have been surprised if you all had hired movers.

Savvy Financial Latina had a really good point, “The important thing is to try to be a minimalist, so you have less stuff to move.” Oh, how I wish I had taken this advice about 3 months ago. We have too much stuff*. Or rather, I have too much stuff. I am a pre-hoarder, finding interesting things that I just know “I can do something with.” Of course, that is the official “hoarders motto.”

We are moving into a home roughly 1/3 the size of our last house, and I have to purge. In the past, I have made about $7 hosting garage sales. Maybe I price my stuff too high? I think I just get rid of stuff that no one else wants, too. Continue reading →

Posted in Ask the readers | Tagged garage sale, MR2, thrift store | 13 Comments

Hiking!

Posted on June 15, 2013 by 1500

I haven’t become dinner yet, woo!

Please excuse my little diversion from personal finance stuff. Recently, Anna from Are Ya Gonna Eat That? wrote a nice post ~~about running~~ finding peace. We started chatting about hiking and I promised to post some photos of my adventures. I always try to have a camera with me and love taking pictures. Before we get to that, I wanted to mention how much I enjoy little walks in the woods.

This past week, we’ve been living in a cabin in the mountains while we wait to close on our next home. We’re in the shadow of Long’s Peak in the middle of nowhere and it’s fantastic! Every day after work, I go walking for a couple hours. I never have a destination in mind. I just start walking and see where it takes me. I get to think about stuff and clear my head. It’s like hitting the reset button on the brain.

Yosemite

Yosemite National Park is my favorite place on earth. Go there in the spring and you’ll see water tumbling down massive walls of granite. It is spectacular!

My favorite hike ~~at Yosemite~~ of all time is the Mist Trail that leads up to Half Dome. It’s a strenuous one that clocks in at 16 miles round trip with 4800′ of elevation gain. The first part of the trail follows a river where you’ll walk next to several spectacular waterfalls fed from the snowmelt. Prepare to get soaked from the mist. You then go around the back of Half Dome. Finally, you climb Half Dome itself, using a set of cables fastened to the granite for the final ascent. The climb is as steep as 45 degrees, so hold on tight. I don’t like heights and this last part is terrifying, but that hasn’t stopped me from doing it twice. If you’re a hiker, I highly suggest you put this one on your bucket list. Just don’t let go of those cables!

The goal is to get to the top of Half Dome!

Rainbows! Everywhere!! Rainbows!!!

Don’t. Let. Go.

Summit!

Mt. Whitney

Mt. Whitney, at 14,496′, is the tallest peak in the continental US. Coming in at 22 miles round trip with 6100′ of elevation gain, this hike is a real leg burner. It took two attempts to make it. The first time, we started at 8am (much too late), so had to turn back before the summit. The second time, we started off at 4am, summited at noon and were back at the bottom at 6pm. My knees yelled at me for a solid week.

Watching the sun come up over the desert is spectacular

Sunrise over the desert

Woo!

Quandary Peak

This is one in my backyard. It’s not nearly as brutal as Half Dome or Whitney, but makes for a nice little hike when you make it out to Colorado.

The last time I did this one, I really pushed myself and made it up pretty quickly. I wasn’t running, but walked pretty fast and didn’t take any breaks longer than a couple minutes. On the way down, I spot a guy who looked like he was about 70 RUNNING up the trail. I am nothing.

There she is

Summit

What are your favorite adventures? What places inspire you? Please fill me in and maybe we’ll hike together some day.

Posted in Something Completely Different | Tagged Half dome, hiking, mt quandary, Mt. Whitney, Quandary Peak, yosemite | 26 Comments

Thursday Rant: An Update on my Wasteful Neighbors

Posted on June 13, 2013 by 1500

You’re such an inspiration for the ways that I’ll never ever choose to be. -random song lyric

Hi there, Mrs. 1500 here.

Regular readers know that we used to live in a neighborhood that was rife with wastefulness. Perhaps because I grew up without a ton of money, perhaps because my parents were both children of the Great Depression and acted like something had to be worn out or grown out before we could get rid of it, perhaps because I spent several years in Madison, WI which is the hippie capital of the world. Whatever the reason, I cannot stand to see something that still has life in it, being tossed out rather than donated to the thrift store.

I understand not wanting or needing something any longer, even if it still has use. I recently donated a bunch of clothes that I no longer fit into (thanks Nutrisystem!) to the thrift store along with various other things I just didn’t want anymore. But just because YOU don’t want it any longer, doesn’t mean someone else can’t use it and it should be added to our growing landfills.

A few weeks ago, I looked out the window and saw a chair sitting at the curb. I know these people, and know that it was a nice chair. Just sitting there, waiting to be smushed in the compactor at the back of the garbage truck. So I walked over and took it. I used to be shy about taking things from the trash, not for me but because I don’t want our judgmental neighbors to think less of my girls. But since we had sold the house and were just waiting to close, I didn’t care anymore. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 25 Comments

Happily losing $13,000

Posted on June 11, 2013 by 1500

Hi there, Mrs. 1500 again.

Well, happily may be too strong a word, but I lost $13,000 on Friday, June 7 and I don’t care one bit. OK, again probably lying just a touch. It hurts to have lost that much money. But I did it without a second thought, because I wanted out.

Our old house.
Everything we thought we wanted in a home…

WE FINALLY SOLD OUR HOUSE!!!!!!!!!

Longtime readers of this blog will remember we moved to Colorado in April, 2012. We thought we were buying into a nice community, but it turns out community is the farthest thing from our neighbor’s minds. This bunch of self-centered, self-absorbed consumeristic morons only get together to drink copious amounts of alcohol (often riding their tricked out Harley’s to the bar to do so). I am pretty sure they also get together to compare their latest purchases, and plan on how to catch up to or surpass the Joneses. Continue reading →

Posted in Something Completely Different | Tagged consumerism, losing 13000, wisconsin | 36 Comments

Ask the Readers: What Moves You?

Posted on June 10, 2013 by 1500

Hi there, Mrs. 1500.

First, I have to apologize for the HUGE brain fart last Monday. We sold our house (more on that happy event tomorrow) and last Monday I kicked into super-high packing mode. Mr. 1500 even asked me if I had anything for the blog on Sunday, and I assumed he was talking about our Tuesday post, which he was supposed to write, so I said no. Lack of communication, remembering, etc.

So TWO weeks ago, I asked when you brought up money in a relationship. Did you talk about it sooner or later, or at all? The majority of responders concluded that they didn’t talk about it formally, but did observe their significant others’ actions toward money and based their decision on their observations. This is pretty much what I did with Mr. 1500, when we were dating.

Back to our regularly scheduled post… Continue reading →

Posted in Ask the readers | Tagged Ask the readers, moving | 31 Comments

10 Questions and a Pizza Place with CashRebel

Posted on June 8, 2013 by 1500

Today is the 7th edition of our periodic guest post series called 10 Questions and a Pizza Place. (The 1500′s are pizza fanatics.) We have a list of 17 questions we pose to fellow financial bloggers, and they are free to pick and choose 10 or answer all 17. Let us know if you would like to be featured in a future edition of 10 Questions.

Today’s edition features CashRebel. I can relate to this guy since he lives in Chicago (my old stomping grounds) and we share a passion for energy efficiency. Make sure you check out his site and give him a follow on Twitter. Continue reading →

Posted in 10 Questions | Tagged 10 Questions, cashrebel, pizza | 8 Comments

Thursday Rant: Crapdance!

Posted on June 6, 2013 by 1500

Should I poop or dance or both?

Sometimes, I devote my Thursday ranting to ridiculous examples of consumerism. I previously brought you the $260 lunch bag purs e and the $450 ugly-ass mens’ swimsuit. These type of products drive me nuts because they epitomize insane and unnecessary spending.

Today, I bring you a another crazy-ass product, but first gentle readers, I pose some questions to you:

Have you ever wished that your toilet had Bluetooth connectivity?
Have you ever wished that your toilet had built in speakers so you could listen to your favorite music while doing your business?
Have you ever wished that your toilet had built in lighting and a remote control?
Have you ever wished that your toilet had a heated seat/foot warmer for those cold mornings? Continue reading →

Posted in Rants | Tagged crapdance, numi, thursdayrant, toilet | 40 Comments

The Titanic and Your Retirement

Posted on June 4, 2013 by 1500

You never know what lies ahead…

I have a really hard time turning my brain off. Often, it will take me a couple hours to fall asleep because I have too many thoughts flying through my neurons. (SHUT DOWN BRAIN!) All kinds of things fill my head, but the other night, it was the Titanic that was keeping me awake.

I had read an article about the infamous voyage and couldn’t stop thinking about it. Just like the movie, Captain Smith did have a little warning and took evasive measures. He steered the boat hard left and shut off the engines in an attempt to avoid the iceberg. Unfortunately, he was just a little too late and the right side of the boat broadsided the chunk in just the ~~right~~ wrong way. Amazingly, the Titanic came pretty close to missing the iceberg entirely. The damage to the ship was really minimal:

When Captain Smith surveyed the resulting flood damage, they surmised that the hole must be nearly 300 feet (91.4 meters) wide. In reality, the tear was quite modest — six slim lacerations measuring about 3.2 square feet (around 0.3 square meters).

Did you see that? 3.2 SQUARE FEET of tears sunk the Titanic. Wow. Continue reading →

Posted in Bad Role Models | Tagged Corvette, retirement, titanic | 29 Comments

Performance Update 5 of 50: May!

Posted on June 1, 2013 by 1500

My main goal is to build a portfolio of $1,000,000 in 1500 days, starting from 1/1/2013. Every month, I provide an update on my status. My goal for 2013 is to get my portfolio up to $672,750, from a starting point of $586,043. Time to look back on the month of May.

Stay away in May? No way! The markets had a great month with the S&P 500 gaining about 48 points to close at a lofty 1630. Scary!

My portfolio did really well too. I started the month at $617,495 and ended at $636,661 for a gain of $19,166. Some of this came from Google*, which became my first 10 bagger. I purchased the stock at IPO for $85 way back in 2004. It now sits at $871. Wooo!

Here are the juicy stats:

Days elapsed: 152
Days remaining: 1348
2013 gains: $50,618
Left to go (2013): $36,089

I should design roller coasters

What will the rest of the year bring us? The markets have set a torrid pace so far. The S&P 500 is up a blistering 15% in 5 months (Danger, Will Robinson!). Everybody is talking about a correction, but it has yet to materialize. Will June finally be the month that the markets come back down to earth? I have no idea, but it sure is fun to watch!

On an unrelated note, life is extremely busy at the moment. I don’t want to jinx myself, so I’ll wait to spill the beans until I’m sure that sure I have the beans in the first place. Stay tuned. Lots of changes happening in June.

*Thinking back, Google was a silly purchase. I bought the stock because I thought they were a cool company. Put another way, this was mostly luck.

These days, my investments are pretty tame. I buy mutual funds through my company’s 401(k). After tax money goes mostly into real estate or index funds. The exceptions that I make are for Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway) and anything Elon Musk does.

I realize that the Musk investments (Tesla and SolarCity) are also highly speculative, so these purchases make up a very small portion of my portfolio.

My buddy Johnny Moneyseed has a very timely article on investing. I wish I would have been as smart at his age. CMGI anyone?

Posted in Performance | Tagged May, portfolio | 17 Comments

Thursday Rant: Mrs. 1500′s Quick Hits

Posted on May 30, 2013 by 1500

OK, you’ve got me this week. Mr. 1500 is catching up on work issues that apparently he is the only person who can fix. A nice problem to have when you are a contractor…

Here is my list of things that make me go hmmmm. (Is that song in your head now? You’re welcome!)

__________

The Butt Rock

I have two daughters, ages 6 and 3. The little one, for whatever reason, has decided that the phrase she should speak most often is “butt cheeks.” I am supremely annoyed every time she sings her butt cheeks song:

My butt cheeks.
My butt cheeks.
My four, groovy butt cheeks!

I have repeatedly requested that she stop. Mr. 1500 thinks this song is hilarious (which it would be coming out of anyone else’s 3-year-old’s mouth.) It is tough to not smile at first, because she has this tiny little voice.

I was not amused when Mr. 1500 found a rock while mowing the lawn and brought it inside to show the girls. What does it look like? A butt, of course. Continue reading →

Posted in Rants | Tagged butt cheeks, thursday rant | 41 Comments