Insufficient nostalgia and sufficient incentive

I joined Open Diary in the summer of 2003, and I’m not feeling this revival.

My friends aren’t here anymore; the latency in loading parts of the site is the slowest of any site I’ve ever paid for and usually slower than any of the free sites I use; the layout is slick and modern but distinctly not OD; and I can’t give my money away without it being meaningful to me.

Here are examples where I staunchly put my money with little to nothing in return: Plan Canada, and Floatplane.

With Plan Canada I make monthly contributions ($42 CDN or ~$32 USD) and there is a girl in South America who receives education and food. As this is a Canadian organization I don’t get to claim it as a charitable donation while I work in the US, so this money that I send every month is not coming back to me in any meaningful way. Other than I know I’m helping one person in the world. I refuses to cancel my donations even while I spent a grand total of 7 months unemployed between May 2016 and July 2017. Instead I attempted to eat for $100 CDN a month. It was canned tomatoes, pan-fried potatoes, and pasta much of the time.

Floatplane is a spin-off company of Linus Media Group (LMG), founded by a Canadian Youtuber, and the $3 a month gets me HD streaming of metric tonnes of their videos at high speed.

I was writing on Prose Box for while but wanted to give OD a try. Only I don’t feel OD has lived up to the $40 USD / $53 CDN a year and this month alone I had unexpected expenses and loss of income to no small amount, affecting financial plans for my entire 2019 projections.

1. $1150 USD / $1500 CDN in unexpected car repairs that I have zero regrets in paying for.
2. $800 USD / $1050 CDN in a splurge of Hamilton tickets I’m now having to SERIOUSLY consider scalping to turn a profit on.
3. $420 USD / $550 CDN on an unexpected vet visit for my cat, who is doing well.
4. $625 USD / $825 CDN as a secured-credit card to start building up credit in the US – note, it’s a $500 USD card, lol right.
5. $465 USD / $610 CDN in lost income last week because I was sick for 4 days.
6. $174 USD / $230 CDN annual Project Management Institute membership fee.

That totals $3634 USD / $4797 CDN impact to my financial goals and plans. That is NOT fucking easy to come back from. It will take A LOT of  scrounging and micro-managing. It certainly impacts the daylights out of planning for vacation, a replacement used-car, not impact engagement ring saving because that’s the priority, and moving to a new place to rent that may cost more plus the likelihood we’ll have to pay double rent for a while. All that expecting to happen by early June so in another what, 4 months? In short, I’m projecting to go FURTHER into the hole, and that’s boggling my mind.

Last year I beat my debt down by a WHOPPING $10500 USD / $14000 CDN which does not include $2,300 USD / $3000 CDN in interest payments. So I was GOOD at murdering overall debt. There is still lots to go…

So when I get to look at what I cut, clearly the additional $20 I pay to go from 15 Mb internet to go to 50 Mb internet is NOT where I’m going to make the cut. Eating out, buying treats, purchasing anything in a game store, etc. All that must be stomped out. Definitely not buying alcohol when I go out because usually for two or three drinks you could have bought a bottle of alcohol that would have had 23-26 shots in it. You just got 3. It’s absurd, no thanks.

Within the short month of January and current projections I will make little debt progress this year. That’s brutally disheartening BUT I’m trading that for these:

For a new used car (oxymoron but still an upgrade), a new place to live, relationship progress, pet safety, and I’m building credit in a new country. I’m GAINING huge this year.

I gain nothing with OD. There are free sites. This doesn’t look or feel like OD. None of my friends write here any more. I’m done. The revival was a massive let down.