Disappointingly Successful...?

It being the end of another calendar quarter, I spent a good bit of yesterday and today doing accounting and bookkeeping for my home businesses.

I'm actually somewhat impressed with myself for "getting right to it," rather than the usual getting around to it "whenever" method that has typically been my norm.

Anyway, I'm feeling pretty good because it seems I'm on track for about a 10% increase in business for 2024. By most measures, that would be considered a success, right? But how much of a success is it, against a backdrop that suggests that our cost of living in increasing by 20% or more, for the same period.

A disappointing success?

Not sure how to characterize it, aside from perhaps it simply being yet another sign of the times in which we live.

Then I was talking to Mrs. Denmarkguy and we agreed that we really could use something in our lives going better than expected, rather than being a disappointment.

We're pretty much "fully cooked" as far as disappointing outcomes are concerned — there just seem to have been a few too many of those.

Afterwards, a couple of links popped up in my sidebar feeds — because we all know that the Internet is constantly "listening" to us — specifically on the concept of "why it's important to look poor."

There's a surprising number of YouTube videos with just this title. It may not be exactly why you think, but it is something I have long known: Most people with real money don't waste time (and money!) on trying to impress others with their assets.

I remember this older gentleman I knew somewhat, back when I lived in Austin, Texas.

Emmett drove around town in his banged up 1960-something pickup truck and was basically indistinguishable from many of the "old timers" in the area.

You'd never guess that he'd owned pretty much all the "hilly scrubland" that went on to become Austin's most high dollar zip code... the average home value there (today) is about $1.8 million.

Legend has it that the bank who held the note on the original land purchase literally begged him not to let it be repossessed — if he could just pay a few dollars a month on it, they'd let him keep it.

My former in-laws were pretty friendly with Emmett.

I've never had occasion to get caught up in the wasteful cycle of "showing off" wealth. I always figure it was kinda stupid... invest it, don't spend it.

Anyway, getting back to the quarterly bookkeeping, I'm trying to be happy about it.

Same for our modest crypto holdings... which seem to be following a predictable pattern: At the end of the quarter we have more tokens, but the overall value has declined a little, relative to USD fiat.

I try to find cheer in "only" being $600 worse off than on June 30th. It would be nice to have a non-disappointing quarter, for a change.

I don't like the idea of planning to lose money, though... even if it sometimes seems unavoidable.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great rest of your week!

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Created at 2024-10.03 00:05 PST
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