This isn’t the actual “sold” sign from my new townhouse, but you get the point

The common theme, though, was the unstable relationship between my finances and my housing situation. What I mean by this is that by not owning the different locations where I’ve lived over the years I was at the mercy of externalities that could (and did) have a direct impact on both my housing stability and my personal finances. For example, if one of my roommates decided to (or had to) leave in the middle of a lease, then their leaving would increase my monthly expenses by a factor based on how many other roommates I had at the time. In other words, an expense that should have been “fixed” in my personal budget was always at risk of increasing based on externalities that were outside of my control.

As a guy who works in finance and who is a maniacal manager of my personal finances, I don’t like it when I’m not in control of my long-term fixed costs and, by consequence, other financial stability-related issues.

At the end of February 2014, my now-former roommate told me that he was finally hired by a group that he had been hoping to get a job with for the past few years. This was a tremendous success for him and a really good, positive moment. This was also a good moment for me because I had been searching the “for sale” listings for a few months at the time that this news came around. In a different scenario, I would have been at my wits’ end trying to find a way to piece together a new living situation. However, after paying off my student loans and feeling financially free since August 2013, I was ready to purchase a home.

The stability that I received in my personal finances from paying off those student loans was great. Yet, it also made it abundantly apparent that I needed to stop renting and buy a home sooner rather than later. Given the high cost of owning a home in New Jersey (if you’re reading this from a state other than New Jersey, you don’t want me to start going into our property taxes), it was always a smarter move for me to live with at least one roommate instead of buying a home of my own. Over the years, though, certain things change. One example of the things that changed is that I’ve gotten older over the years and with that age has come a certain rigidness in what I want in my home. I like what I like and don’t want to be bothered with whatever annoys me! When you live with a roommate, you have to share space and sometimes you can get annoyed by what your roommate does without even thinking about it. Maybe you don’t want to watch the same show on the television or maybe you don’t want to wait for your roommate to finish making breakfast/lunch/dinner so you can get into the kitchen to fix yourself some food. Perhaps you’re not a fan of the state that your roommate leaves the kitchen in when they’re done making their food. The list can go on and on.

This isn’t to say that I haven’t had a wonderful group of roommates over the years. Rather, this is all to reiterate the point that as you get older you change. And as I got older I slowly segregated myself from the entire townhouse that I lived in to just living out of my bedroom. Imagine a very dorm-like situation – I would wake up, shower, and prepare for work all in the same room. When I got home from work, I grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator and then headed to my room to catch up on the day’s news, do some work for my small businesses, and then eventually go to bed… just to perform a very similar routine the next day.

I won’t get too deep into the process of buying a house here, but suffice to say that I found a place nearby where I live now that I felt was priced right. I struck a deal with the owner for a few thousand less than the townhouse was on the market for and we’ve were out of attorney review quickly. The home inspection was done and came back stellar, the appraisal was completed and the value is right where I thought it would be and my mortgage company was lined up and ready to fund me. In the space of about a month, I was able to go through the entire searching and closing process. Not too bad.

For the few weeks that I worked through this process, I had a chance to consider how I want to arrange the 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath townhouse that I bought. I had a chance to consider what I want to do with the garage that is attached to it, what I want to do with the living room, dining room, and eat-in kitchen. I also had a chance to think about which family events I want to host on an annual basis and which events I want to host for my friends in the area. Another aspect that I considered is how I wanted to furnish the place and that’s another aspect of the townhouse that I thought about during the closing process. Luckily, my sister-in-law’s twin sister is an interior designer and she came in to help me choose colors, textures, furniture, and more!

Buying a house was a fun time and not such a bad idea. Plus, I now get to write these blog entries from the comfort of my personal home office – which is fully separate and apart from my bedroom and living space!

When I write “lack of ownership” what I mean is that owners have a different approach to their living space than renters. Owners want to improve or stabilize their living space in an effort to increase the value of their homes. Renters, on the other hand, by and large don’t care about increasing the value of the property (in some respects, they are against the value of the property increasing because it forces a higher rent on them). What I’ve noticed, though, is that people living in rental situations actually accept a lower standard of living. Let me explain with a visual example.

The picture below is what my rug looks like in the living room of my apartment:

Some spots on the rug before OxiClean

No, that’s not some weird modern art pattern on the rug – that’s filthy dirt and stains. It’s disgusting. It looks like they purchased this rug from a battlefield hospital during the Civil War. It’s gross. Now most folks would look at this and think, “Just clean your rug, Joe. Stop being a pig.” And those people would be morons.

The rugs were like this when my roommates and I moved into this place a few years ago. After a few years of complaining, our landlord paid for the rugs to be professionally cleaned. Like most professional cleanings, the rugs looked amazing when the job was done… and then a few weeks later they attracted an incredible amount of dirt and filth like magnets.

But my roommates and I are trying to take the typical property owner mindset and fight back a little bit. Below is a picture of what the same spot on the rug looks like after we hit it with some OxiClean.

Rug after OxiClean

Not too bad, right? Sure, there are dozens of disgusting stains all over the rug, but hitting them with OxiClean and getting this result is a good use of our time because it improves the feel of the living room. Who knows? Maybe after two or three applications of this stuff the stains will actually be gone.

Note: The pictures above were taken over a month and a half ago and the stain is still gone. I’m beginning to think that OxiClean can actually clean the rug and keep it clean for good. That would be a nice change from the “professional cleaner” that the landlord spent several hundred bucks on last summer.

I’m sorry.

I’m apologizing because I was that guy at the gym tonight. Yes, I was the guy on the treadmill on his cell phone holding a conversation that had nothing to do with working out. As many of you know, I serve on the Board of Trustees for a national foundation. At some point around 7pm tonight, I got on a phone call with the Executive Director of our foundation. Since my back was hurting me this morning when I woke up, I had to go to the gym after work – and since I had that phone call scheduled, that meant that I couldn’t go to the gym until after the call.

But do you ever get on those calls where you just have to stay on the line because the discussion is so good that you need to explore it a little bit further? Well, our Executive Director and I had what I thought was an excellent conversation tonight about a variety of issues (some of which were eye-opening to me). But as the call went on I began to worry about getting my workout in. So I drove to the gym and sat in my car for another hour or so on the phone (one of my roommates actually arrived at the gym after me and left before me while I was taking the call).

Then when it got to be 9pm, I knew I had to get a workout in before I was too tired to do it. So I was that guy on the treadmill on his cell phone, but it was for a good reason. And now I will think twice about those other people who are on their cell phones. On the other hand, though, I was on an important phone call and I kept my voice down. Most of those other people get on their phones and start to talk way too loud and in an obnoxious tone!

By the way, tonight marks 18 days in a row that I’ve been to the gym. Pretty good for a guy who isn’t even on a diet and is just working out for the fun of it.

I made a few bucks buying Bank of America last week and Barnes and Noble in December and January, but the real winner for me has been Sirius XM satellite radio. I bought this stock (a LOT of this stock) when it was ranging between 11 cents and 16 cents. Less than 2,000 shares overall, but still a decent amount. Today the stock closed at 35.7 cents a share so I’m doubling some of my money and tripling some other money. My only regret with this stock is that I didn’t go “all in” when it hit 5 cents a few months ago. Just think, if you invested $1,000 in the stock when it was 5 cents, your share would be worth over $7,000 right now!

Anyway, no point in crying over spilled milk – especially when I’m still up 163% on my initial investment in the company! Ford has also been a winner for both me and one of my roommates who decided to invest in it. And Alcoa (an aluminum making company) has provided more than a 30% increase in the last week.

Now that I’ve dropped GM completely the only negative returns that I have in my portfolio are Martha Stewart Omnimedia and THQ, Inc. Omnimedia is the parent company for all of Martha Stewart’s various subsidiaries (and Emeril Lagasse, too). I think this stock is poised for major growth in the coming 12 – 18 months and buying it right now at $2.31 per share might pay big dividends in the future.

As for THQ, Inc., this is the video game company behind the wildly successful WCW/nWo and WWE video games. They also have the rights for Disney/Pixar video games, too. I think this is another company that has a good long-term earnings potential ahead of it and it’s one that I just bought heavily into (in my world, heavily is a hundred bucks or so!).

Just thought I’d share…and see if anyone has any decent stock tips out there!

Actually, given the smaller size of the location where I joined it would be surprising if they could fit a locker room or an office in the building! The gym has got to be less than 1,000 square feet in total space, but the truth is that it carries itself very well. There are separate male and female bathrooms and a desk that serves as the “office.” Behind the desk is a set of cubby holes that serve as your personal locker, too. It’s really a genius setup for a smaller scale gym.

The other thing that makes this gym unique is that, due to its small setup, it really is not made to handle a high number of members working out at the same time. In fact, since I joined last Saturday I’ve been at the gym three times. The first two times I attended were at night on Saturday and at night on Sunday and when my roommate and I showed up there was no one there. The lights were actually off when we arrived (they automatically turn on via motion sensors when you walk in the door).

The third night I attended the gym there was a classic clod hopper on the treadmill next to me. And with that, the next chapter of gym stories on this blog seems to have begun!

As you can see, as of about 10:30am this morning, the township hadn’t even begun plowing the streets. It’s pretty bad out there, but not so bad that I wasn’t able to dig my car out of the snow (you can see my car in the picture above on the right – it’s completely covered in snow).

So for those of you traveling around out there remember to be careful. It’s also probably worth thinking twice about whether or not you really need to be out on the road today, too.

On Monday of last week, my Sirius XM unit started showing a message saying, “Antenna Not Detected.” I hadn’t moved the unit or the antenna in many months so I wondered what the problem could possibly be. After some fiddling, the message went away and the unit worked fine. Then Tuesday came around and the message popped back up on the radio. I figured that some more fiddling would fix it – nope. I didn’t get mad, but I wondered what the issue was that was causing the problem.

I tried to self-diagnose the problem. On the one hand, I have a Sportster Replay, which is one the older, discontinued models and there was a chance that the unit was shot. On other other hand, though, I’ve only owned the radio for three years so for it to be busted after three years of use is unacceptable. I did some Googling and the information online wasn’t really clear about what the problem was (it could be the unit or it could be the satellite receiver or it could be something else – great). As it turns out, the satellite receiver was shot and I needed a new one, which was provided free of charge via a spare receiver that one of my roommates had (thank you!).

However, in the few days where I didn’t have Sirius XM I had to listen to terrestrial radio on my two-hour daily commutes plus my driving around town. It was mostly miserable. You really forget just how many commercials there are on terrestrial radio until you have prolonged exposure to the endless drones of car, lawyer, and doctor commercials. And they don’t stop. Two minutes goes by, three minutes, five minutes, seven minutes – sometimes even more! It was horrible.

To avoid the commercials on Howard Stern’s channels on Sirius XM, I flip to one of the music channels. Easy enough, right? Well, with terrestrial radio when the talk show hosts would hit their ten to fifteen minute non-live content breaks I was essentially screwed! First, I had to find a channel with music on it that I actually wanted to hear. Second, I had to hope that the channel came in clear (my commute takes me across state and I generally heard more static than anything else). What aggravation!

When one goes a few days without Sirius XM satellite radio, they begin to really appreciate how great of a service this really is for those who have long commutes. I’m so glad that Sirius XM exists because other than NJ 101.5 (when it’s not on another ridiculously long commercial break) there is absolutely nothing to listen to on terrestrial radio.

Which brings me to a website that I came across the other day called MoveMe.com. MoveMe.com helps people who are looking to rent or buy homes, move to a new home, or look for finance to take care of their homes. It is what you’d call a removal company – in other words, this is a company that will come to your place, prepare removal quotes to move you from one location to another, and then do the actual move for you. Talk about a service that I could have used over the summer! MoveMe.com provides a man and van power for your move – in other words, they’ll get you the manpower and the right vehicle to make your move a success!

Now, I should note that this service is for my readers based out of the United Kingdom so be aware of that as you consider whether or not you want to use this service. If you head over to the MoveMe.com site you’ll notice that there is a very intuitive interface. You enter your current postal code and which postal code that you’ll be moving to and then their internal engine does the rest for you. And bear in mind – this is a free removal quote for your consideration. I strongly suggest that, when you plan your move, if you’re over in the United Kingdom you consider using a service like MoveMe.com…and I say this as the voice of experience!

Now that I’ve found this site, I hope to find similar services in the United States. Lord knows that the next time I move, I’ll need a service like MoveMe.com to help me get the job done quickly, efficiently, and professionally!

I remember growing up in Morris County when we would get massive snow storms where you would be snowed in for a few days. Since I’ve been down in eastern Monmouth County (almost 10 years now) we’ve only been snowed in for a prolonged period of time once. Heck, they get more snow out in Las Vegas than we get in eastern Monmouth County! Okay, maybe that’s a stretch…

One of my roommates works for Wegmans grocery store and he was saying how people were stocking up on all different types of groceries yesterday in anticipation of the coming snow storm. What folly! Folks, we live in eastern Monmouth County – we’re too close to the shore to have any significant, long lasting snowfall. Plus, most of the population in this area drive gigantic sport utility vehicles so you shouldn’t have many problems getting stuck in the snow!

But anyway, everyone be prepared because here comes another “storm of the Century!” Or at least a dusting of snow that scares the locals once again…

I haven’t had Baja Fresh in a few weeks and I needed a quick fix for dinner on Thursday night before I had to jump on a conference call. Seemed like an easy decision – I’d get my standard: nachos and a nacho burrito (no jalapenos). Well, the joke was on me because as soon as I was done eating this stuff, I immediately felt sick. In fact, I had to watch the tail end of the Vice Presidential debate while laying in bed because I felt so nauseous. I wound up passing out around 10:30pm – as soon as the debate ended – and I jumped out of bed at 12:30am for the first of six, long trips to my bathroom to dispel the Baja Fresh from my body.

At about 4:30am, I wound up passing out until 7:30am, when I woke up to go to a conference for work. Talk about the walking dead – I was a mess! I was pale, dizzy, and completely disoriented for most of the morning. In fact, I left the conference early so I could go home and take a nap. I woke up around 8:30pm and one of my roommates offered me some Gatorade, which helped to replenish my fluids (and electrolytes!). I only ate three, small dinner rolls on Friday and some Excedrin, if you count that as sustenance.

I felt a little bit better yesterday as the fever subsided and the nauseous feeling went away. I also ate more solid foods including a bagel with egg, rice and bean soup, and chicken noodle soup (picked up by my other roommate). I also ate a cup of fruit, which was really good.

Today I feel much better, though my body is still sore from the vomiting. At least my head isn’t spinning any more and I’m not constantly running into the bathroom! I’ll probably pop in a few more Excedrin Back and Body aspirin so I can get over some of this body pain. Also, I finished a big bottle of Gatorade yesterday so I might have to go out and get another one.

The morals of the story are 1) I’m never going back to Baja Fresh again and 2) there’s something creepy about cheap, Americanized Mexican food. The last time I had Taco Bell was about four years ago and the reason I stopped eating it was because I had a bad reaction to it one night. Granted, I don’t eat fast food any more and I haven’t had stuff like McDonald’s or Burger King in seven or more years now so I don’t have a proper frame of reference. I do know, however, that when I eat food that I make in my kitchen or that I watch prepared for me in a deli – I’m fine. Yet another reason to leave the crap food behind and move on to whole foods.