Riparian's Journal

Where are you and where are you going?
riparian
Posts: 650
Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:00 am

Re: Riparian's Journal

Post by riparian »

February

I made:
$724 from books
$804 from releasing a video (first in a year?) and doing a little phone sex

I spent:
$204 on doing research for school
$400 paying my phone bill up for a few months
$200ish cause I discovered eBay again? Wtf, me? I did get stuff I "needed," but I was doing just fine without it.
$130 making it so a friend and her kids had a phone and food
and I dunno but I have like $900 left, which doesn't even make sense.


I had maybe a great idea and released a video for it. It could probably fix all my payment processor problems and actually maybe it's the sort of thing where I should make it a membership site and it would be sort of passive income. I'll totally have time to do that like next year... but right now I'm the only one on the Internet doing it.

I leveled up in politics, kicked ass in school, and didn't do much else.

Accountability: this is me saying I'll be accountable and only internet shop if I justify I there first.

Dautsen
Posts: 24
Joined: Thu Dec 12, 2013 4:58 pm

Re: Riparian's Journal

Post by Dautsen »

riparian wrote:Hey twin, I'm glad you like my journal. What kind of workshops do you think I could do that people would buy expensive plane tickets to come to? I do some little teaching, but I'm bad at talking in front of big groups. I had to talk at a press conference recently and afterwards a drunk told me I should get public speaking lessons! LOL. Strangely I would have been perfectly comfortable taking my clothes off instead of talking.
Your 2 main options are about sexwork/hypnosis stuff and the survival/living in the woods theme, both can be done in an intimate group which would be more comfortable. Seen you're building more huts around you, they can serve as lodging for your customers. Although as an introvert it might be annoying having strange people penetrate your private space for too long? :)

Nobody ever asked you on how to be a sexworker? How they can improve their skills, earn more money, protect themselves in a better way? Create more creative vids without looking fake? Although all this stuff can be done digitally like they suggested in your threat. You could do how-to-make-porn-vids-workshops. Invite everybody over and experiment together. Alaska makes for an original scene ^^ At the end of the ride they can take some videos home, which they can sell online. A nice return on investment ^^ Actually I have no idea what would work, as I'm not working in that world :D I do know that you would be able to teach many man & women to feel comfortable with their body and lose a ton of complexes (and might as well work on those prejudices too)

Any nutcase would pay for highly niche workshops that can only be found in the deep woods of Alaska. I went all the way to Las Vegas for a workshop, cause I really liked the dude, what he was doing and thought it would give me a good ROI. Is transport that exorbitantly high? Like ahm transport from New York to your place, how much would that cost? How about the locals, would they be interested in a sex or bushskill workshop? Probably not the latter, as they learn this from early age?

I would definitely go to Alaska to learn bush skills. It's a child dream of many. I mean like living in the woods bush skills. Probably some peeps would come all the way to learn about some hairy bush skills too ^^ If the workshops are long enough, costs of airplane tickets are leveled out or at least worth it.

riparian
Posts: 650
Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:00 am

Re: Riparian's Journal

Post by riparian »

Transport from New York to here would be $1-2k, probably closer to $2k. If the locals thought I was teaching sex workshops they would probably kill me. Literally. And other people are doing the bush skills thing way better than I could. Ironically, I'm travelling to the PNW next month to speak at a seminar and teach a workshop. LOL

So, I said if I bought anything online I would be accountable here, and here I am already. I spent $90 on four corsets and three necklaces cause they were having a huge sale on corsetstory.com. I will definitely use them to make more moneys. Then a domain was expiring and it's stuck on fucking godaddy cause it was pushed to me from there so I spent $30 renewing it for a couple years (normally I use namecheap and it's like, $7/year).

riparian
Posts: 650
Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:00 am

Re: Riparian's Journal

Post by riparian »

March:

$703 in book money
$191 from videos and $55 from one call
Random: $1440 refund from school, won't count that

+ $949 total

- 222 Car insurance for next six months
- 201 paying off credit card. what did I charge to the card? not sure.
- 225 according to mint on gas/groceries/trips to town (cause grad school)

- $649 total

I'm in California! I came here as a consultant to speak at a conference and it went much better than I'd anticipated. It seems like now I can register to be a regular consultant and maybe get sent to more things. Anyways, lots of networking and stuff here and an old benefactor who lives in the area is covering most of my expenses. Unfortunately I'm now SO behind on school and everything else I'm supposed to be doing in the internet.

riparian
Posts: 650
Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:00 am

Re: Riparian's Journal

Post by riparian »

I'm in a hostel! I have this little bed area with curtains around it and a light and y own electrical outlet! For under $30! AND there's a shower down the hall. I seriously spend sooo much of my life just on obtaining privacy, light, and a little electricity... when I could just be living in a nice place like this.

lilacorchid
Posts: 476
Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2011 3:20 pm
Location: Canada

Re: Riparian's Journal

Post by lilacorchid »

Sounds nice. :)

riparian
Posts: 650
Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:00 am

Re: Riparian's Journal

Post by riparian »

Income:
$641 from books (have another one almost ready to go, need to get on that)
$539 from that conference I spoke at ($350 for speaking, the rest reimbursement)
$135 from videos
Total: $1,315

Outgo:
$300 on gas and grocery pocket money
$271 on my boat motor ($88 repair, the rest in new water filter, fuel filter, spare prop, spark plugs, etc)
$16 on the arts
$35 - I invested in a phone for someone who I'd like to have a phone and be able to use it in case of emergency. In return I get really adorable picture texts, which makes me happy.
$16 clothes
$20 on Kindle books
Total: $658

But also like $2-300 on building the rentals.

In a few months I'll need to pay my cell phone/internet and car insurance up again. I finally got Affordable Health Care, effective 6 days ago, and I'll be paying I think $28/m.

I have a book almost ready to go, a cabin almost ready to rent, and a really good idea/foundation for a new website business that will do SO well but be so much work to get started. I think I'm going to try to find someone to pay to do some little internet things that would increase my video money, and also someone to pay to help get the new site up and running when I get there.

I have an article going up on a major website this week that should make me some book money. An article I wrote for another site got a mention on a newsweek blog a couple weeks ago. And a sort of big name writer dissed me for something I had in a literary journal a few months ago. I'm emailing with an editor for a huge publication, but I'm not sure if I can write what they want. So, maybe I have a writing career and maybe it's going well at the moment.

It seems like I could angle for a speaking/consulting career, but I'm not sure if the status and meaningfulness would outweigh the stress.

In the meantime I'm trying to rewrite my methodology section over the summer, turn one of my papers into a journal article that'll hopefully get published, get the garden in, cut wood, conduct research, I've fixed the boat motor a couple times and spent half a day paddling and lining the boat upriver, need to put some time into a non profit that some people and I started, just made a bunch of stuff for my summer fun crafty business, have a great idea for another fun crafty business but where's the time, and I should be fishing and fixing up the smoke house but I'm not. Oh, and those rentals I was building.

I was having super angst there for a couple months! What am I doing with my life?! In a year I'll be done with a masters degree and a huge exciting research project. It seems like from there I could get a doctorate. The thinking makes my brain happy, and being enrolled in a phd program is a way to get to do more exciting research. On the other hand, locally I don't get much feedback from my professors. They're like, "you're doing great! you're so smart!" but most of them don't answer most of my questions. I could just read the books. I think that I might be the sort of person who could go to a fancy school for free where presumably they would actually nurture my young mind, but it would also be exponentially harder, and expensive to be in a different place, and I like it here, and my research is meaningful here. Maybe I'd rather ride a bicycle around Europe or hitch hike around the lower 48 or go to the schools and communities my friends have started? Probably I just want to keep having my quiet life in the woods tho and work on writing something really good. Any guidance?

riparian
Posts: 650
Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:00 am

Re: Riparian's Journal

Post by riparian »

Why do the things that need done when I could just engage in future fantasy and analysis paralysis on the Internet?

Despite all the things I haven't done, in the last few days I have:
- Had an article published on a major website that got hundreds of social media shares.
- They bumped my pay by more than double.
- An editor emailed me soliciting an article and offering good pay. Woah.
- All of that resulted in maybe $60 of extra book sales.
- I paid someone to do the scary part and the (very steep) roof is done now.
- I just got the proof for an article that's going up on another site soon.

Also I've been thinking about money, which I don't have, but which I imagine I might have in a few months. I might just put it in an index fund? If I did that should I feed it in slowly for dollar cost averaging or just dump it in?

It seems sort of frustratingly boring and slow to just put money in the market when I could invest it in a business. Or self improvement. Or community. But I should prolly do that emergency fund thing for real.

IlliniDave
Posts: 3845
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:46 pm

Re: Riparian's Journal

Post by IlliniDave »

riparian wrote:Why do the things that need done when I could just engage in future fantasy and analysis paralysis on the Internet?
:D Story of my life sometimes.
riparian wrote:Also I've been thinking about money, which I don't have, but which I imagine I might have in a few months. I might just put it in an index fund? If I did that should I feed it in slowly for dollar cost averaging or just dump it in?

It seems sort of frustratingly boring and slow to just put money in the market when I could invest it in a business. Or self improvement. Or community. But I should prolly do that emergency fund thing for real.
I'm sort of stodgy on this topic, so I'd say yeah, you probably want to keep a little cash on hand, especially with your rentals and all it seems like it would be pretty convenient.

I'm also an indexer. One of the advantages is that you can get a good deal of diversification in your investments with very little money invested. Unless it's something your feeling stress over, I'd just dump it in whatever you decide to put it in. If it's going to make you lose sleep, divide it up and put it in quarterly or something.

It is slow and boring to start with, no question about that. But at least that way you can pay attention to life rather than herd investments all the time.

There's nothing wrong with starting a business or investing in self/community. But I'd probably try to do both if possible (both some traditional financial assets as well as the skin-in-the-game investments). The more spigots one has, the smaller the impact if one line dries up.

Regarding your other thread/question excluding investing in financial assets as an option for making use of the equivalent of a year's worth of expense money:

From a material perspective I would invest in land, real estate, or in improvements on land I had. Or possibly tools/equipment. Things that would make me more productive in the remaining ways I could increase wealth.

Hard to say from the self-improvement angle. If it were me I don't think I'd make that investment today with more than a small fraction of the money, but that's highly dependent on where I happen to be in life and where I plan to go and where I'm at in my financial trajectory. For another person it may be the best investment of all. You know you much better than I do, so all I would say is that it's a valid option, and I don't think there's a single optimal one-size-fits-all path for the scenario you described there.

riparian
Posts: 650
Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:00 am

Re: Riparian's Journal

Post by riparian »

Well, nothing much has changed.

I'm still making about $700/month from book sales. I've been making 0-$750/month from other writing.

I'm writing a thesis and thinking about being a grown up and, like, law school or something crazy.

I'm trying to rent that cabin out, but the renters aren't that plentiful. Showed it to a guy today who just got back from Afghanistan. He asked me how I'd feel about him shooting intruders or burglars. Think I'll pass on him out of consideration for the neighbors.

lilacorchid
Posts: 476
Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2011 3:20 pm
Location: Canada

Re: Riparian's Journal

Post by lilacorchid »

I have been thinking of you and wondering how you are making out. Thanks for the update. :)

riparian
Posts: 650
Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:00 am

Re: Riparian's Journal

Post by riparian »

Aw, thanks for thinking about me.

riparian
Posts: 650
Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:00 am

Re: Riparian's Journal

Post by riparian »

Just checking in to keep myself on track. Last month -

Income
819 from books
40 ish from video sales
290 from a little homecare
250 from other writing

1399 total (higher than normal)

Outgo:
120 ish on gas
82 at sams club (I got a ceramic dutch oven and some socks and xmas gifts)
140 in online shopping - wtf?
160 in university fees
91 in groceries and eating at coffee shops
40 donation to a friends kickstarter type thing
15 at the locksmith

648 total

- I think all my bills (car insurance, phone) are paid up for a year. Except health insurance. I tried to pay that ahead and they sent me back a check.
- Cabins still not finished or rented.
- Global warming is ruining my life, the river is so far from frozen and I'm stuck living in the back of my truck and on people's couches.
- I turned in the first 3 chapters of my thesis and my committee liked it, I passed my comps, I applied for a conference. Almost done with my masters degree. Want to do more research, don't want to do more school, what to do?
- I sold some more articles this month. A little confused about the long view of a writing career. What am I doing?
- I've had health insurance for a long time now and still haven't gotten around to figuring out how to use that. Should probably do that and take advantage of what I can before affordable health care goes poof.
- Haven't made any quarterly tax payments and have awful piles of papers and receipts and stuff.

Simple Del
Posts: 14
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2014 12:04 pm
Contact:

Re: Riparian's Journal

Post by Simple Del »

Glad to see an update. I've always enjoyed reading your journal. Hopefully the temperatures drop for you, it has been plenty cold here in the Midwest.

riparian
Posts: 650
Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:00 am

Re: Riparian's Journal

Post by riparian »

Quick update:

Somehow I made $2k last month from writing.

Travelling and pursuing my passions - living for free in my truck and splurging a little on eating out, but maintaining an okay savings rate.

Defended my thesis, passed.

Saw whales yesterday. Talked to politicians today. Trying to change the world and stuff.

J_
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2011 4:12 pm
Location: Netherlands/Austria

Re: Riparian's Journal

Post by J_ »

Well done Dr? Riparian. Must feel great to accomplish your study! Your cuddle thing has reached our country too. So you are really changing the world. Cheers!

riparian
Posts: 650
Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:00 am

Re: Riparian's Journal

Post by riparian »

Thanks! It's just an MA, but I'm maybe thinking about law school.

m741
Posts: 1187
Joined: Tue Jan 18, 2011 3:31 am
Location: Seattle, WA

Re: Riparian's Journal

Post by m741 »

Congratulations! I always enjoy hearing about what you're doing. It sounds so exciting compared to office life.

riparian
Posts: 650
Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:00 am

Re: Riparian's Journal

Post by riparian »

So my semi-ERE income has stabilized a little. Low estimates are:
$500+ from books
$300+ from other writing
$300+ from research

Hopefully very soon that cabin will be rented. Sinking money in it now to make it more attractive to renters, and gonna put it off and just pay someone to finish the other one for me. Totally shoulda listened to everyone who said this was a dumb idea.

My bills are:
$200ish every 6 months for insurance
$500/year for cell phone

And I'm travelling. :)

Gilberto de Piento
Posts: 1942
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2013 10:23 pm

Re: Riparian's Journal

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

How are things going?

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