August has been a busy month already for my wife and I. I can't think of a weekend that we were last home. We started the month down in Ohio at what I believe is the largest Irish Festival outside of Ireland. I'll write a post or two about that another time. Then last weekend we took another camping trip (you should also keep an eye out for that post), and then this weekend we are finally home before we spend the next two weekends camping again.
Then August will be over.
Crazy right?!
We went out with my wife's family last night to a new Mexican (American-Mexican) restaurant that recently opened. I went with the Enchiladas Carnitas that you see above and they were quite good. The pork was tender and well seasoned. While their chips and salsa weren't my favorite, I would definitely go back to Mangos.
Tuesday we got a new roof on our house. If you have been reading my posts, you have likely been following this saga. They showed up early Tuesday morning and had the entire thing finished by about 5 PM that night. The good news is, they said all the boards underneath looked great, so I didn't have the added cost of $75 per sheet of plywood to replace the decking. I did have to have them come back out after the dumpsters was picked up to do a quick sweep with their magnets for nails. There were quite a few under where the dumpster had been.
They were actually really great about it and had one of their crew members out there within twenty minutes of me texting our project manager. I'm really happy with how it turned out. I'm not happy with the loan I now have to pay off, but that's a sacrifice we make I guess.
Now we have to turn our attention to new windows for our house. I'm still waiting for a quote from my buddy, but the neighbors across the street are having some new siding put on their house. I got talking to the guy who was doing the work and he mentioned he also does windows. I plan on getting a quote from him at some point.
Amidst all this craziness, I haven't really had much time to pay attention to what the markets are doing. Sure, I have heard the news that HIVE is now down below $.04, but I honestly haven't had enough time to lament what that might mean. It's just another one of those things that you really can't control.
I know it seems funny, but for me, all this stuff still feels a bit separate from the real world. I joke sometimes about it being "fake Internet money", but I've learned over the years to kind of separate it from my actual expectations of what my fiscal life is going to look like.
One thing I have been dancing with regret about is how I played the last true cycle of the crypto markets. I really should have sold my NFTs and paid off my house when I had the chance. All of these big home improvements have along with the absolute crap show crypto has become has me realizing I should have been considering the real world back then more than this online world that was supposedly going to give me long term passive income.
Speaking of the real world, I haven't looked at my traditional investments in a while, but I expect they are chugging along in the background doing the sorts of things you would expect them to do. I really need to sit down and talk with a financial advisor at some point. That isn't to say I don't have a pretty good handle on my finances, but as I inch closer to retirement, I want to make sure we are set for whatever comes next. I don't want to be in a position where I pull the pin then realize too late that it's not going to work and I have to go back to work. Of course I may go back to work one day, but I'd rather go back because I want to not because I have to.
The problem is, the state education employees retirement system is pretty complex, so I need to talk to someone who is familiar with it enough that they can give me some adequate guidance. Obviously, the longer I work, the more I can build my savings, but with that mindset you could be working yourself to the point you can't even enjoy it anymore.
I apologize, this post is a bit all over the place, but honestly, things just seem kind of funky all over right now. There is no clear path forward for this crypto thing. The hype and excitement is mostly gone for all intents and purposes. It's all just kind of "meh". Even some of my bigger side investments have closed up shop for a bit. I don't know if they will ever recover. I kind of wish I would have just put all my money in BTC at this point.
The good thing is, with a new school year starting, I'm probably going to be too busy to care!
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14 comments
Kind of the same way...a bit too busy to care right now. Someone has to keep shoveling the coal in the train, so I guess that is us!
For sure! That is a great analogy!
My crypto presence dropped off for the most part ages ago, but recently with the lows I've started to pay more attention. It's interesting what's happening, though: the market (both institutions and retail) are effectively managing risk to the point of ignoring chains that don't really do or generate anything. Larger projects that support L2 have largely survived because they've proven themselves. The chains that have 'DeFi' volume flowing have taken a large amount from centralised exchanges which have only grown more limiting with regulations around the world.
Chains like ETH, SOL, and BNB, XMR and ZEC have managed to survive primarily from the fact that they've been doing what crypto originally set out to do (albeit with some decentralisation here and there depending on the chain). But that's where the value has remained. PancakeSwap has a current $578,218,032.41 in BTC perp volume in the last 24 hours!
Naturally, the market is pricing out the chains that don't really see their original foundations playing out effectively, either in seeing no fees generated through the flow of capital in L2 applications or general trade volume within them.
I still have some monthly buys that I do in crypto, but most of those are fixed on the bigger tokens like ETH and BTC. USDC in case I want to jump into something on the alt side, but I am much more skeptical of that stuff than I used to be.
I'm the same way. As the prices have came down i start looking at it a lot more. I just know the price DOGE is at is likely floor level and good levels to stack at.
I've been buying up some ETH and letting it stake on Kraken's auto earn, not bad so far. Got a little BTC staking on there too.
And with a small amount of ETH I've been hedging with options on Deribit. Mostly buying puts and capturing the IV changes during volatile hours (usually around US market open). Plenty of money to be made in crypto still, just have to measure risk accurately and accept the changing times. ;^)
I haven't utilized Kraken's Earn feature for several years but i remember getting solid returns on $DOT back in 2021 on there.
I agree. There are a lot of ways to profit in crypto still but it's tough to match how the money was flying in 2021. People had way more access to capital in general so it seemed so much easier to catch some big rides.
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Well, one thing I can say is that you got your roof done amazingly fast! The last two roofs I had redone have one taken a week and had to have a few of those plywood things replaced and the other took a couple weeks as they were just removing the old Presidential roof shingles for a week and then putting on the new ones for a week. And they had to have three of these containers brought in one after another...
Our roof is pretty easy, it's straight on both sides with no weird peaks or gables or anything like that. It was probably a joy for them to do one so relatively easy!
Nobody knows how much time they have, and when you are a couple, that's double the concern. If one of you becomes ill or dies, there goes your happy retirement.
My husband retired before he was 55. Sure we would have had more money if he had held on for another 5 or ten years, but those were good years, years we enjoyed together. I wouldn't give up one moment of that time. (I haven't worked since 1996). Plus, he really did not like his job.
It seems you like your job, so that's one thing he didn't have. And you get your summers off. That's another thing. The free time makes a difference. Maybe when you get the windows replaced and that upstairs flooring your wife wants...maybe when that is all done you'll feel comfortable retiring :))
I don't get the summers off. :) She does though. Mine are usually pretty easy though, not a lot of stress and just kind of laid back getting ready for the next year.
Hey, at least you have peace of mind the roof is good to go now. A good roof is so important for the future well being of a house. Completely understand about the debt though. Hate debt as well. Windows will be a good investment too. Energy efficiency and all that stuff.
As far as crypto. Done given up on it. Everything but Hive. Still here, but mainly for the peeps and not the crypto. Do have hopes though that with AI making it easier to develop, some folks may come up with some stuff that attracts more users and brings more back.
I hope that is the case for crypto and HIVE as well. I think more than AI, the current admin has really soured people on crypto in general.