i want a sabbatical yeari want a sabbatical yearWant an unpaid sabbatical year? Let's finance it! Drop by and see how I deal with budgets, compound interest, money leaks and demotivation.
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coffee break
2007-05-26 13:24:00 Meet the civet. Civets eat coffee cherries, which in due course come out glued together into a poo. Apparently, civets are careful to digest only the soft part of the cherries so that the hard grains inside come out fairly intact. That's very thoughtful of them, because that way people can have fun retrieving the coffee grains out of the poo, roasting them and selling civet coffee at exorbitant More About: Coffee , Break , Coffee Break , Brea
how to screw up your blog template in 10 super easy steps
2007-05-25 22:16:00 You are fed up with your generic blog layout. It makes you feel ashamed and embarrased. You feel you want a blog that compliments the uniqueness and awesomeness of your content. You hear the call of the HTML and CSS codes. It's a force beyond your control. There are tons of blogs out there explaining the top most awesome hacks to pimp up your blog and give it the fabulous uniqueness it deserves. More About: Blog , Super , Template , Screw , Easy
Life is a carnival... or is it a list?
2007-05-23 19:04:00 Celia Cruz sang "la vida es un carnaval y las penas se van cantando", or something like that. Of couse, we know she was wrong, that life is not a carnival. Maybe her life was one, though. Sorrow goes away when you sing, that part may be true, at least a popular proverb that has been aroun for centuries says so: "I have heard say," said Don Quixote, "that he who sings scares away his woes." So, More About: Life , Carnival , List , A list
you had me at high yield
2007-05-21 17:08:00 A couple of weeks ago, I was blind to blogs and sites about personal finance. But since my own blog has veered towards financial matters, it seems like everyone and his brother is blissfully churning out posts about budgets, compound interest, investing and the latest way of saving money: what about a delightful meal of potato peels and chicken skins? Note to self: I must register to the Amazon More About: High
my very expensive car
2007-05-17 18:17:00 This is going to be a very boring post. I'll be walking you through some sums and products and boring stuff, like compound interest. Since I don't want my readers - the plural here is mere wishful thinking - I recommend you to stop reading this at once. Visit other blogs or better yet, go out for a walk. You'll thank me that you did. I had a car. I have owned it for seven years. You would not
shame on me!
2007-05-15 12:54:00 Not enough self-discipline, that's the problem. The first of May I envisaged myself faithfully keeping track of my daily expenses by way of iBank. I managed to do so for the first week, but then I stopped using iBank altogether. So, this morning I've had a hard time figuring out what has happened to my totals. Thanks to the bank reports, some receipts I have luckily kept and my memory, I have More About: Sham , Shame
enjoy now and enjoy afterwards
2007-05-14 19:00:00 Do you know those advertisements where elderly couples with dentures are enjoying themselves? They are silhouetted against a rosy sunset on a paradisial beach - you don't see the denture then - and in the next shot they are enjoying a relaxing spa experience and next they are doing parachute jumps blissfully. Do those advertisements piss you off? Don't be afraid, tell me the truth. I know they More About: Enjoy , After , Ward
on personal finance blogs
2007-05-12 11:15:00 This blog is steering towards the personal finance realm, what a bore - or is it? I have run a couple of Google searchs on personal finance blogs and not surprisingly, there are loads or people chronicling their daily struggles with their credit cards and discount coupons and sharing smart ways to reduce their laundry budget and so forth. Quite boring stuff. Is the world of personal finance More About: Personal , Personal Finance , Finance , Blogs , Person
savings plan
2007-05-11 16:06:00 On the whole, saving money is a pretty boring activity. Due to my lack of imagination and my lack of practical knowledge on personal finances, I can't see that saving money is an activity at all. As far as I can see, you don't actually do active things in order to save money. You just don't do the things that would make you spend a certain amount of money and they you put the saved money into a More About: Plan , Saving , Savings , Ving
iSpend
2007-05-06 22:52:00 Cable & phone bill: 63.91 €, condominium fee: 38 €, credit card fee: 2.75 €, groceries: 11.39 €, toiletries: 11.34 €, coffees at work: I'm not sure, 5 € more or less. And a bottle of detergent with aloe vera. That belongs to the household category: 3.75 €. A take-away meal: 4.90 €. More groceries. A packet of chewing-gum...
Van scan on del. vehicle
2007-05-04 20:32:00 If you have arrived to this post from a Google Search, then it is likely you launched a search on "Van scan on del. vehicle". Yes, yes, you did. My statistics service reported several visits coming from a Google Search on those words, so don't try to deny that is what you were looking for. I can understand why you were looking for "Van scan on del. vehicle". I performed the same search once. It More About: Vehicle , Scan
financial software for Mac and for the rest of us
2007-04-30 22:58:00 Today was payday, phew. I have never been good at home finances and saving money, but I had better learn some domestic money management soon. I have planned to save 500 euros monthly to finance my sabbatical year but can I save that much? What I need is a system to track and monitor my expenses so that I can figure out a realistic savings plan. Therefore, I have visited the Apple Business & More About: Software , Financial , Rest , Finan , Fina
three steps, more traffic?
2007-04-29 10:38:00 Over the last few days I have undertaken some actions which should bring more visitors to my blog. Unfortunately, I can't cite my sources here, since it appears that there are a wild amount of websites and blogs dealing on tips to build up traffic. If you perform your own research, you will find that most of those sites and blogs agree on certain general strategies. They will tell you that none More About: Traffic , More , Step , Three , Steps
blog traffic and motivation
2007-04-28 10:28:00 The main problem about my ambitioning a sabbatical year and my taking steps to buy myself one is how to keep motivated. I expect most of my colleagues and friends will try their best to dissuade me from quitting my job. Or worst, they might support me, which will scare me and make me see my ideas are not as good even faster. I also expect I'm bound to get bored or demotivated just by myself; I More About: Blog Traffic , Traffic , Blog , Motivation , Motiva
saving goal
2007-04-23 12:27:00 Really, I should not have splurged so much money on my apartment earlier this year. In my defense, furnishing my apartment was a priority. I had come into 9000 euros from the sale of a rural property and perhaps I should have saved the money for my sabbatical year. On the other hand, it would have probably been difficult to really enjoy a sabbatical if you haven't got any furniture, any heating More About: Goal , Saving , Ving
I want a sabbatical year
2007-04-22 13:16:00 I should not have been so worked up about the party. Although I did not know almost anyone and I was the only male guest not wearing a suit and a tie and my French was rustier than I expected I did not feel unbearably silly or embarrased or out of place and I enjoyed myself. Joaquín and Hans formalized their partnership privately last year and now they wanted to share a commitement dinner-party More About: Abba , Year
nervous
2007-04-21 18:29:00 OK, I have ironed a pair of trousers and a new sweater. I have got an hour and a half to kill before I take a shower and dress myself for the party. "You must wear something formal; no black-tie if you don't want to, but something smart and elegant will do". Naturally, my clothes are not particularly smart and elegant and I don't own a suit. "Then you can wear grunge clothes". I don't know if
moving forward
2007-02-02 14:21:00 I'm feeling slightly depressed. The toilet incident has nothing to do with it, because I was feeling out of spirits already. There have been some positive events this week, but I feel too tired to actually enjoy them. I wanted an IKEA Lunna chair since I tried it a month ago. As usual, since I desperately wanted one, it was out of stock. I telephoned the IKEA store on Monday and they checked More About: Moving , Ward , Ving , Forward
annoyed
2007-02-01 19:22:00 So disgusting. I could say my toilet is jinxed, but no supernatural powers here. Just plain, earthly incompetence. Sooner or later, it was bound to happen: the clog, the leak. Some days ago, I noticed there was something wrong with my toilet. It did not flush properly. "Nice, it's clogged", I thought. So I bought a drain declogger. I poured it into the bowl. I waited for some minutes and I More About: Anno
dangling wires
2007-01-28 20:48:00 Dangling wires, a metallic beam and a crack. The crack is courtesy of the contractor who remodelled my living room. What was I thinking of? If the wiring had been installed according to my plans, I would not have had a crack in the ceiling matching the cracks in the walls. Luckily, the contractor was independent-minded and knew better and did things his way, ignoring the detailed plans I drew so More About: Wire
before and after
2007-01-25 20:37:00 Believe it or not, the photographs above are real before & after photographs of a corner of my bedroom. Before, when I bought the apartment, this was not a bedroom. It was a narrow kitchen and next to the kitchen there was a small windowless room. Some hammer blows and I got a single big room. The "before" picture was taken on September 2005, and it shows the demolished kitchen. Now I can More About: After , Fore , Before and After
taking up room
2007-01-22 15:46:00 Yesterday, I was pleased that I could walk freely across my living room. It is nice to be able to go from point A to point B without squezzing myself sideways between chair C and wall W, and then hitting my shin against table T - and cursing because it hurts so much -, and pushing floor lamp L aside and knocking over side table ST. A broad circulation space around the objects in a room is useful More About: King , Room , Taking
making room
2007-01-20 20:52:00 I have weeded out the loose papers and empty boxes and sundry junk that littered my bookcase. I must still go through the paper holders that live in the bottom shelves. I'm sure I can make more room. When I bought the apartment, that wall was entirely taken by some ugly and inefficient built-in plasterboard shelves. One day, I bought a big hammer and demolished them. Encouraged by my success, I More About: King , Room , Maki , Makin
irish proverb
2007-01-17 17:13:00 Keep a thing for seven years and you'll find a use for it. Five years ago, I found a metallic grid. I thought I'd use it as a wall rack to hang kitchenware, but I never installed it. Later, I found a medical privacy screen. It looked like this, except that the canvas was missing. I thought I could clean and restore it and use it to screen off a work space in a corner somewhere. Instead, I this More About: Irish , Over , Rove , Rover , Prove
wish list
2007-01-15 17:21:00 I have been looking around for tasteful and useful furniture - browsing the web as well as some brick-and-mortar stores and showrooms. If I could have every single item I have drooled over, I'd need a house with 9999 rooms. Like the Forbidden City. Well, maybe 99 rooms will do. So I have cut down the list to five pieces I can eventually afford - not all of them at once, though - and that can fit More About: List , Wish
my dining area
2007-01-12 21:10:00 My dining area shines under a big yellow pendant lamp. This was a rather dreary room, but now it is much more inviting. The black IKEA shelf is like the one I fixed over the piano, but here it does not display music books, but assorted tableware. The yellow lamp was in my bedroom, but now it has switched places with the Teti lamp. A friend gave me his old IKEA dining table when he could afford a More About: Dining , Area , Dini
plugs and screws
2007-01-03 19:24:00 I have had a fun time drilling holes in the living room walls and hanging stuff. A tap of the hammer to drive the plug into the hole, so exciting, so fulfilling. And the screws, what's to tell? I have fixed successfully an IKEA kitchen shelf over the piano. Great to keep my music books organized and handy. The floor lamp is also from IKEA. I use it to see the scores better, while I find the More About: Screw , Plug , Crew
not yet for sale
2006-11-30 20:39:00 I own a small storage compartment under the roof. My neighbors upstairs own the contiguous compartment. My neighbor downstairs owns the next small compartment. Next, there is a fourth compartment belonging to the owners of the first floor. That is the best one. The guy who lives on the top floor - that is where the storage compartments are - owns none. My neighbors upstairs want to get the More About: For Sale , Sale
status text: delivered!!
2006-11-21 21:19:00 Last Wednesday I received an email. This is the gist of the message: "Your merchandise was shipped on 15.11.2006". I have been tracking & tracing my parcel since then. At first I got this: "Stat us Text : Parcel Data Entry I-Point". I hoped that visiting the tracking & tracing often I would eventually unlock the cryptic meaning of the status text. Instead, two days later, I got this: "Status Text: More About: Elive , Liver
laundry art
More articles from this author:2006-11-17 08:48:00 To make a fine red take cinnabar or red chalk or burnt ochre for the dark shadows and for the lighter ones red chalk and vermilion and for the lights pure vermilion and then glaze with fine lake. To make good oil for painting. One part of oil, one of the first refining and one of the second. Leonardo da Vinci More About: Laundry 1, 2 |
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