It’s been an interesting summer, to say the least. I’ve left my nine to five job, slowly cobbled together a list of writing projects, and continued to develop my niche portfolio of sites. It hasn’t been easy. I’m not where I want to be income-level wise, but I’m quickly picking up new gigs and examining new sources of income. It’s funny, but many of my days seem like a bit of a roller coaster, emotionally speaking, I hit high points and low points as I go through the week. Some days I’ll speed through my work and hit halfway through my day with nothing to do, and I can’t help but smile. Sometimes having nothing in your itinerary after a productive day feels good.
Still others I wonder if I’ll be able to make it on my own. My descent into self employment feels a bit haphazard, and some days I almost long for the comfort of my little desk, plugging away at the nine to five grind. Almost.
The social repercussions of striking out on my own have also been interesting and varied. Some are envious of my position to work where I want when I want, and I often meet my brother for lunch in the middle of the week to discuss things and to get my human interaction for the day. On the other defining what I’m doing when people ask what I do for a living these days has been difficult. Some people just don’t get it, and others assume I’m just keeping my head above water while I look for a “normal” job. I’m not sure they’ll ever really get it, but I resign myself to acknowledging that they don’t need to.
I came across a great clip today that ties into how I’ve been feeling lately. I haven’t been a big proponent of the bailout, and in fact I’ve been giving my representatives a call to let them know I’d prefer they not pass the estimated $700 billion dollar package to bailout financial institutions, and I understand that could mean some serious pain in the short term as well. Regardless enjoy the clip (though I could do without the cut sequences in between the cartoon, I thought it spoke well on it’s own).
I don’t pay much attention to such things, but apparently the last update knocked down my Google Pagerank a peg or two. What could this mean? Well, since I’ve allowed some contextual advertising on the site, that’s a possibility. On the other hand it could have been nothing at all, as Google tends to work in mysterious ways (my niche site portfolio can vouch for that fact.
So what will I do? Probably not much, though I’ll cut down on sponsored content in the weeks to come. You guys would like a little more quality to the posts anyway, right? As always feel free to leave me some feedback on what you’d like to see. There are thousands of finance blogs, and I know I’m a bit more unorthodox than most. I don’t spend a whole lot of time talking about how to spend less on lattes or traditional personal finance. Instead I move more toward financial self-sufficiency. Being able to do what you want, when you want it, without going bankrupt too.
Perhaps this just means I need to tailor my message a bit better, so expect to see some more in-depth and focused content in the days to come.
With the stock market taking it’s largest 1 day hit ever, many in Washington are fearing an all out economic collapse. Personally I feel the drop is somewhat deserved. After all, weren’t most consumers involved in the housing bubble or credit crisis somehow? Aren’t most of us charging increasing amounts of money we don’t have to credit cards? Aren’t more people buying more mortgages they can’t afford? The answer to all of these is yes. Both consumers and wall street are to blame for this economic scenario.
Ultimately though there will be some type of government involvement, though how much it will cost taxpayers and how deep nationalization of the financial sector will go still remains to be seen. Lawmakers and Congressmen are all scrambling to find a solution after the first proposed bailout failed to pass by a narrow margin. I’d imagine we’ll see a modified version of the original bill or a new initiative within a week, especially given the increasing amount of pain being felt in the markets. Consumers, for their part, are desperately scrambling for their own reasons, like credit repair and saving to keep up with tightening lending standards by banks and other financial institutions.
The proposed $700 billion dollar bailout failed to pass in congress today, and the markets did not take well to it. As I write this, we’re looking at a about a 500 point drop. Things may get dicey from here, I’d wager.
