On The Horizon
Here we are at the end of another week, or the beginning of another weekend, depending on how you want to look at it. I've actually got a lot going on this weekend that I will get to in a little bit. We had a pretty amazing sunrise the other day on the East coast of my home state. I snapped this photo to share with you. I actually thought about using my master key to get access to the gymnasium roof to take some better shots from a higher vantage point, but I wussed out.
Maybe next time...
Meanwhile, the markets are looking just about as pretty as this sunrise. I kind of thought we would be to 100K again by now, but then again, I have given up trying to guess what the markets are going to do at any given time. It's best just to buckle up and enjoy the ride.
It is time again for another Finance Friday/Friday Finance. This is a series I started where I talk about random bits of financial stuff that I have seen, gathered, or experienced during the week. I hope as a reader you find it informational, entertaining, or both. I also hope it can generate some good discussion and edify the community.
—-----------------
Trust
@mrsbozz and I finally got our estate planning and trust squared away with the lawyer. I went to the office on Monday this week and picked up our copies of the paperwork. I also paid the $2500 bill, which honestly doesn't feel too bad considering our friends paid $6000 for their services.
Now I need to find a safe place to keep the original copies of our paperwork and get the secondary beneficiaries adjusted to the trust in our investments. This is something I have put off for much too long and I am glad we finally have it set up and taken care of.
Government Debt
As I mentioned in my post earlier this week, my wife and I had a friend stop by last Friday night to visit for a bit. She works in the real estate industry and she had just been to a conference where they were talking about all manner of things including the real estate landscape as well as other financial topics. She was telling us about an economist who was a guest speaker. He was hammering hard on the idea of investing in government debt.
From what she remembered he was saying that a lot of it is going to come due soon and when that happens people how have invested in it are going to make a lot of money. I did a quick Google search which brought up phrases like "Treasury Securities" and "Treasury Bonds". I honestly don't know too much about it, but you might want to dig in a little more if you are interested.
Then again, the guy might be full of crap. I'm sure folks on here like @edicted have some opinions on the matter.
Prices are still going up!
I've got a lot on my plate this weekend, but most of it should keep me around the house. One of those projects is a planter box that @mrsbozz has been asking for. I ran to Home Depot the other day to pick up the wood I think I need for the project and I was a bit shocked when the total came to just shy of $300. That 4x4x8 cedar post you see in the foreground was $50 alone.
Sure, I could have gotten pressure treated wood, but I didn't want something that was going to be so heavy to move it would take four bodybuilders to do it. It's just crazy how much the cost of lumber has gone up. I saw a post the other day estimating that new home construction costs anywhere between $300 and $500 per square foot.
That's just crazy! It makes you wonder how all of these new homes are being built everywhere.
Slate
If you are like me and you think the Tesla Cyber Truck is an abomination of the most heinous kind to your eyes (sorry @ericvancewalton), you should check out Slate. I stumbled upon this start up backed by Jeff Bezos (Amazon) the other day and believe it or not the truck actually looks like a truck.
In addition to that, the target price point for the Slate truck is right around $25,000. That's pretty impressive for an electric vehicle of this size. I haven't done a ton of digging into the details, but I think this is interesting enough that I am going to keep an eye on this company.
It will be interesting to see if they can compete with the battery life, distance, comfort, technology, and functionality at that price point. It might not be bulletproof, but how many of us need that anyway?
Travala
I picked up my rewards for doing the quarterly tasks in Travala the other day. It ended up being about 97 AVA tokens which at the current price is something like $50. It's a little depressing to see the increase be so low. Last cycle AVA was in a bit of a pump and the additional tokens made a bit more of an impact on my wallet.
I have little doubt the price will go up again, but until then I just need to keep stacking the token. I will definitely be participating again when the next cycle comes around.
Gold/Silver Auctions
I've been kicking around the idea of trying my hand at some gold and silver auctions. I know there is a lot of debate about how good of a deal they are. I've seen some folks in the silver gold stacking community say they never participate in auctions and I have seen other say that's how they get their best deals.
I like the idea of picking up something that might not carry a premium because it is new. I will likely wait until the next round of auctions takes place from my local bullion dealer KZoo Bullion. It looks like they haven't done one since the beginning of February, so I might have to wait a bit. Some of the pieces that sold in past auctions are pretty impressive though and it looks like folks got some good deals.
Holozing
Finally, I was able to justify that my @holozing rewards have increased due to the recent adjustment in the payout process. The team has started setting a higher reward on your collection, so if you haven't picked up any vials yet and you want to earn some more ZING, you should look into that. I've been kicking around the idea of picking up some more vials myself.
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
Yeah cedar isn't cheap. It's so nice though compared to pressure treated. I look forward to seeing the finished product!
Building material prices have risen significantly over the past few years, with little indication of any price retreat.
I've built some of my raised beds with recycled lumbers and even some tree limbs I cut down while cleaning up some areas of our property, where I have the beds functions is more important than "curb appeal".
I only have .25 acres with only one tree on it. Doing something like that isn't an option for me. It would be cool if it was...
Wow! The sunset is magnificent, and you have a packed week and weekend ahead! You know, sometimes the best shots require a little adventure. Make sure it's safe. And you know, talking about government debt is really intriguing. You have to consider many different perspectives, and it will never end. So, let us just enjoy the ride when it comes to crypto. Oh, the holozing rewards are a nice bonus.
Have a great day ahead and enjoy your busy but productive weekend.
Thanks, I hope you have an awesome weekend too!
No worries at all! Half of the population thinks the CT is hideous. Lol. The Slate looks promising. I think the market (especially in the US) has been telling automakers they want something exactly like this for years. We used to have simple/cheap small trucks by almost every automaker and, one by one, they were all phased out. Telo is another one to watch in this segment but it's more pricey.
I will definitely keep an eye on that. I think one day I could see myself driving electric if they get some of the stuff figured out.
Once they master a form of battery energy density that's on par with ICE vehicles it's game over for internal combustion.
View more
You received an upvote of 100% from Precious the Silver Mermaid!
Thank you for contributing more great content to the #SilverGoldStackers tag.
You have created a Precious Gem!
This post has been manually curated by @steemflow from Indiaunited community. Join us on our Discord Server.
Do you know that you can earn a passive income by delegating to @indiaunited. We share more than 100 % of the curation rewards with the delegators in the form of IUC tokens. HP delegators and IUC token holders also get upto 20% additional vote weight.
Here are some handy links for delegations: 100HP, 250HP, 500HP, 1000HP.
100% of the rewards from this comment goes to the curator for their manual curation efforts. Please encourage the curator @steemflow by upvoting this comment and support the community by voting the posts made by @indiaunited..
This post received an extra 1.29% vote for delegating HP / holding IUC tokens.
It's so beautiful Your photographys. Thanks for sharing. Bleesings for You.
Thank you!
Investing in T-bills is always a safe investment (well, provided you think the US will be around to continue backing them). The return is about the same as a high yield savings account, making them basically a savings account for the rich or for organizations that have more money than a simple savings account at a bank would support. I mean basically a large percentage of the money you put in the bank, the bank is turning around and buying T-bills with. I don't know if they are really worth investing in for normal poor guys like you and me, but then again, if you have a lot of cash, don't trust the banks, and want to park it somewhere stable but with a little gain, they are worth looking into.
I think the cyber truck looks so ridiculous....
Ah, okay, that makes a lot of sense. You were one of the other people I figured would be quite knowledgeable on these things as well.
Awesome picture and a very nice post!
Thank you!
Great picture.
Thank you!
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:u37t33dyaufvrqujwmvm54ln/post/3lo6pit546c2q
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:u37t33dyaufvrqujwmvm54ln/post/3lo6pit546c2q
The rewards earned on this comment will go to the author of the blog post.
I really appreciated this post, as it was an interesting update on a variety of topics. I am glad to see the bitcoin price is back up, hopefully the momentum upward can continue, not holding my breath though. I hope what you were told about the government bonds going up is true, as I have been holding a bunch for awhile now, and they have been doing very poorly for years.
I am surprised the lumber is so expensive. Is it imported from Canada? There should be plenty of lumber available domestically, it is strange it is so expensive now.
Thank you for sharing.
I'm not sure where the lumber came from. We still have quite a few forests here in Michigan. I honestly wouldn't mind one more price pull back before we head to New all time highs.
Oh yeah, Michigan should have plenty of locally sourced lumber available.. strange.
View more
Travala has been a huge disappointment for me as it didn't take off nearly as much as I would have liked it to. I have heard people make a myriad of complaints about it such as the prices being a lot higher on there for hotels and also something that I can relate to is not wanting my identity associated with a purchase using digital tokens. Travala says they won't reveal what you do on there but localbitcoins said the same thing.
I also can't access my staking page or the benefits associated with it. I put some thousands of dollars in there and just can't access them. I gave up on that a while ago though.
That sucks. I think they are still building, but so far it just hasn't turned into what I hoped it would be, but honestly, that's about 95% of crypto currency projects in general. I guess it's how things go when you try to be on the bleeding edge of things. I still have some faith that Travala can turn things around. I still don't see many other projects in that particular space and if/when mass adoption really hits, they could be positioned well.
well I certainly hope so. that pump earlier this year was exciting but short lived.
View more
Not sure how I missed this on Friday, I noticed I missed a lot of Friday. Must have been an off day for the brain. That $2500 isn't bad for legal prep fees, so you got off easy there! Government debt scares the hell out me personally, it keeps going up and at what point does inflation make what you get back much less than what you paid? I know some people are big into that, but I'll pass personally.
Lumber isn't cheap anymore, it costs a lot to do any project requiring quality lumber. Sounds like a fun project, can't wait to see how it comes out!
I never did get the cybertruck design either, it's ugly. When Tesla came out with nice sports cars that was pretty cool, but the truck? I haven't looked at the Amazon option, I'll have to take a look at it as well. Not sure if I'm in the market for all electric though, electricity here is expensive along with the gas.
Silver auctions can be scary unless the coin is graded, especially the older stuff. People are unscrupulous on eBay and other sites selling cleaned items which takes away much of the value. Grades is always the safest and most expensive way to go!
No worries, I was really busy this weekend too and I missed out on a lot of stuff I think. I need to try and get caught up now. I do like the design of the higher end Tesla cars. It's way out of my price range though!
That is indeed expensive wood. Is the quality at least worth it? Just today I bought 70$ worth of wood, 8 boards (2,40m x 0,2m) and 6 4cm x 4cm. For Ecuador, that's very expensive, but it's the best available quality (my friend is a carpenter, he makes sure of that). I could've gotten the same for around 30-40$, but they'd be twisted and cracked by tomorrow 😅
Going to build a new shelf to store all the products in the new office in. Reminds me, gotta make that post about the move...
Have a good weekend!
I hope it is decent quality i hand selected each of them.
Way to go bozz!💪🏼
Thanks!
Man that is a beautiful sunrise my friend 😃👍 good luck with your planter project.
Thank you!
You're welcome friend 😃👍
Friend can you please follow me 🙏
Crazy how expensive wood is now—$300 for a planter box is wild.
Yeah, it's been an expensive labor of love.
Congratulations @bozz! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain And have been rewarded with New badge(s)
Your next target is to reach 51000 replies.
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPCheck out our last posts:
Oh man that is a pretty sunrise.
Best of luck with your planter project!
It was pretty awesome. Thank you! We will see if the plan I have in my head works in practice. I'm worried it's going to be a dumpster fire!