Declutter continues......

Typically my declutter sessions go in spurts. This month spring cleaning is in the air. I've slacked off on my 1000 things project. But my goal for the rest of May is to hit 200 items and be at 20% complete. An easy target if I put in a small amount of time.

The focus of my declutter will be two areas:

• garage
• books

These two areas provide no small abundance of items I never use. So, with little effort, I should be able to find 150 odd items and shove them off without regard. I'll be updating my 1000 Page list accordingly....

Financial To Do before end of year...

As the weeks left in 2016 wind down there are a few things I'd like to do.

• Consolidate an old Scottrade account into main Schwab account. I already did this with old E-trade and Fidelity accounts and I appreciate having less account logins and tax statements to deal with. Makes the most sense to do this during 2016 tax year. And easy to do by faxing a few forms in to get the process rollings.
• Look into opening SEP IRA. I make a little bit of money from online stuff. Generally I put all the proceeds from this into taxable account in Schwab Total Stock Market Index Fund (SWTSX). A SEP IRA would allow contributing around 20-25% of profit into the account. Not a huge amount of savings but may still be worth it.
• Calculate cost saving of recent mortgage refi and planning to pay, if any, extra principle payments.

Moving away from Lending Club

Just made the first withdrawal ($49.78) from our Lending Club account. Going forward we will be making monthly withdrawals instead of reinvesting our available funds.

The past two cycles with >$25 available to reinvest, I noticed there weren't any A notes to choose from. Not one. Overall I've seen a decline in available notes and seemingly less activity with other borrowers.  Of course Lending Club has been in the news recently with some controversy so this clearly has driven away both borrowers and lenders. Add us to this list.

So it makes more sense to move this money away from P-P lending and into our Schwab Total Stock Market SWTSX fund.

Notes on our experience with LC:

Started account at $500. High water mark $757.98 with a net annualized return of 5.07%.

Churning Gas Gift Cards

I like snagging discount gift card promos on eBay. A great way to earn some eBay bucks and CC points or miles.

Today the perfect one showed up: Chevron/Texaco gift cards. We have summer road trips planned so I jumped at the chance to grab some discounted gas cards.

Paid $184 for two $100 gas cards for Texaco/Chevron
eBay Bucks = $3.68 refund
Citi Double Cash = $3.68 refund

Total rewards refunded  = $7.36
Total cost equals $176.64 for $200 worth of summer gas.

The aim for churning: free travel for 2016

At the end of 2015 we spent a few days in NYC for the holiday. We scored a great hotel in midtown Manhattan that would have cost $900 for 3 nights. (Remember the fantastic 100k bonus Brit Air Visa card deals from years ago.) Luckily we had enough British Air Avios to get the room. What a deal!

With that stay we've essentially depleted the remaining Brit Ait Avios we had. And haven't had a travel rewards for awhile. Been happy with Fidelity Rewards Visa and now the Double Cash Mastercard. This year however, I want to churn some travel rewards up. So step one is to rack up some air miles.

We both just signed up for the Citi Platinum AA 50k promo with $3k spend in first 3 months. That is 100k for the two us. But... I've also read if you call up Citi they can increase it to 60k each - 120k total. So I gotta call and ask. As they say, if you don't ask....

• Step 1 - Air Miles - AA 50k promo (maybe 60k)  - working on the 3k spend

• Step 2 - select a hotel rewards card to open .... researching options....

• Step 3 - pick a trip

a few 2016 goals

Hello 2016.

New year, new list of goals. Keeping it simple, here are a few I'm aiming at this year.

Money goals:

• consolidate investment accounts
• grow side-hustle money
• tweak monthly retirement savings
• some home improvements
• CC churning for free travel

Personal goals:

• declutter possessions
• learn some spanish
• expand home veggie garden
• better weekly planning with Five to None
• blog more!

Resurrecting a zombie PF blog….

You ever create a blog? Watch it not grow? Watch it stagnate?

Well, I have. And it's time to kick that corpse and raise the dead blog! Sure, zombies are a major interest in pop culture today. So how many zombie blogs are littered around the internet? You can either kill them …. or raise them up with a pulse. They can't do that shit on the Walking Dead.

So stand back and watch this shit happen, right here on WFM! The puny PF blog with grit.

PF Blog posts are coming.

.... soon.

Getting rid of excess clutter. Really going to do it this time.

Like most Americans I'm awash in stuff. Lots and tons of stuff. It creeps into every corner of my life, my house. And it is no uncommon thing to do a stuff-cleanse. Sure, I've done a few of those. It doesn't work well, usually. Or at all.

But here we go again. This time it will work. Just this past week I found 4 flashlights around the house that haven't ever been used. Or maybe used once. Crazy thing is, there are a few more flashlights around that aren't used.

I have something like 5 headlamps. 5 headlamps! I still only have one head. Crazy!

So this time I really want to rid myself of all this excess. Expunge all this crap. Simply my stuff.

There is no plan. No gimmick. No expert. Nothing more than simply getting rid of stuff at a slow and steady clip. No 2-day donation blowout. No one weekend attempt. Just a slow and steady attempt to "always keep purging." I will keep a page on this blog to keep track of the stats for my own notes.

It begins:
Donation to thrift shop: 4 flashlights. Almost new.
Selling on eBay: one headlamp, works perfect.
Total less stuff: 5

Gingria - Cheap Cocktails to make with cheap port and gin

One lazy summer evening years ago, I discovered cheap port over ice makes a fine sangria taste-alike. I like to believe my palette has moved beyond such simple pleasures and figured to resurrect this lazy summer evening cocktail with a little gin added to the mix. Aside from fancy pre-mix cocktails found in your grocer aisle, you won't find a simpler way to make a sangria-style drink.

It won't win any awards, but that's not what summer evenings are for...

Simple Gingria Recipe:

1 part gin

1 part soda water or still water

2 parts port - (cheaper the better?)
Lime quarter squeezed and floated
Couple of ice cubes

Tip? Bitcoin me: 16sVrM2s2zHqtGDQhFs4FjbdSxYs1EKZ7P

The missing Windows Start Button returns (sort of) in Windows 8.1

I've been using Win 8 for a few months now. It's been mostly fine. Frustrated at times, yes. Missing things, yes! Craving the start button, Yes!!

Well no more craving. I've loaded up the new Windows 8.1 Preview and like that the Start Button is now present.

But I didn't like that it just goes to the Start Tile Screen instead of the traditional Windows 7 window. I suppose Microsoft will hear complaints about how the new button behaves. I'll be waiting to see what people end up thinking about it. Does is really fix the outcry or just amateurishly appease the complainers that wanted it back?

Fixing missing Dell D620 wireless wifi drivers with Ubuntu

I have an old Dell D620 that I use as a sofa surfing laptop. I've found Ubuntu works great for this purpose. I've freshly installed Ubuntu on it a few times and always have a problem with the wireless drivers not installing correctly. To fix this run these two commands from terminal:

sudo apt-get purge bcmwl-kernel-source broadcom-sta-common broadcom-sta-source (it may not see all of these)

sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter firmware-b43-installer

Restart and wifi will be good.

Made in America Mac Pro by Apple

I love that Apple is continuing to support US manufacturing, albeit very minimally but hey gotta start somewhere. Their new Mac Pro is quite a different take on a server. It is adding excitement by bucking two trends: manufactured offshore and tradition enclosure. Yes, in a very Apple-like way the new Mac Pro is moving rapidly away from the square corner box design. I love the look. I like the idea on cooling, can't wait to see more on the fan. Sure I've already seen comments about having to fit these into the workplace, rackplace. But the footprint is tiny, and I'm sure simple solutions will be created.

Can't wait to see more highlights on the product. And so great that it is Made in USA. Fantastic that the entire line of Mac Pros will be US Made. So design firms overseas will have to import these US Made computers. iAwesome.

A zin with punch - Sledgehammer Zinfandel 2009

Lately I've had a few bottles of zin that seemed watery and underwhelming. Deserving better I grabbed a bottle of Sledgehammer in the wine aisle hoping to break the trend.

Heavy fruit. Pepper. Deep color. Bold and lasting. Slight leather that can be easily forgotten in a zin, which I prefer. But I didn't mind it so much here -- the fruits overwhelm it. Overall this is a great glass of zin. Something I can recommend if you like a bolder wine.

The bottle was on sale for about $9 from a MSRP of $13 or so. For a sub $15 zin this hammer is hitting all the places I need.

Defeating clutter through simple actions

I started reducing kitchen clutter with one simple, effective step: jettisoning martini glasses. We had 3 sets ot 2 martini glasses. After a few years in our house we never had used them. Not even once. I thought about getting rid of one set. Then we would have reduced them by 30 percent but still be able to serve 4 martinis if occasion called. What? Who was I kidding. We never would be serving martinis. We don't even have the proper ingredients! So I reluctantly added all 6 glasses to the donation box and didn't look back. 

They have never been missed. And now the kitchen has less stuff. So what's your kitchen's martini glass? Find it and get it gone.