And we call them crazy

I live in the south side of the city. Across the street there's a institution where mildly "mentally ill" kids reside. Today, they are playing outside in the little playground. Looking up from over my laptop I noticed them walking around, riding a trike bicycle,  sitting on a skippy ball, but what mostly hit me was that the seem to just "be". One of them just walks around, wiggles from one foot on the other, walks back to the nurse, wiggles around, and repeats. Another rides the trike while his friend simply follows him, untill he sees something else that interests him and he walks in that direction. Another one just sits on a skippy ball and looks up to the sky.

This is in no way a judgement of those kids! The whole display really, really touched me. And it felt as if I saw my own brain in those kids. My mind wonders around following whatever comes up. My mind wiggles around, to return and wiggle around some more. My mind feels like rolling around on the floor or hobbling a skippy ball too. All together, at once.

The Big Car Hussle

It's going to happen. A 1m89cm guy is going to be driving around in a Dihatsu Cuore soon.
I might have to cut a hole in the roof but hey, it's summer anyway.

Little more cash, little less spending

I am lucky for being employed at a stable employer. Of course, no more need for employment is one of my long term goals (starting with no longer being financial dependent on work but being able to pick the jobs I like for how long I like them), but untill that day comes I can't really complain. If I do my job I'm supposed to do I get a small raise every year, and with our company having a new collective work agreement everyone will get 3,2% more from this day on and another 1% next year february.

This leaves me with the possibility to pay off more of my debt. I am thinking about raising the step up to 600 a month, where this was 500 a month. I think this will hardly be a difference in my current budget / spending, but over the next 18 months I still have to go that will mean I'm done about 3 months earlier.

Be careful what you wish for

Remember my last post, stating "this car will never ever fail on me"? Well. It did.
Not some major issue that got fixed for around 500 euro's. Still hurts, but my emergency fund had no problem fixing that.

Yet ever since I calculated my possible savings by changing cars of quit driving a car completely this has been on my mind. Not like a light breeze but like one hell of a big hammer hitting me in the head every time I blinked my eyes.

By simply switching cars I can save >1K yearly. That means 50K over the next 50 years. That seriously adds up. Even if this new vehicle gives up on me every 5 years that would still be profitable. And as I stated above... even a Volvo can break down.

Kill 'em!

I am on the move. As you can see in the debt-O-meter and the graph at the right I nailed my 2K down payment a month ahead. Saves me 10 bucks in the end lowering interest payments. I must admit, being down for a couple of weeks because of the confronting financial review and the clouds above my head until the end of next year seems to have moved on into seeing the beauty of recognition of my situation in the current world. Where they dark clouds, I can now see how they will slowly (truth, very slowly) begin to dissolve into a beautiful debt free blue sky.