Well, I really fucked up the Constraints I laid out for March. My good friend Sasha knows me well enough to profit from these bouts of optimism, so he bet me a reasonable sum that I wouldn’t make four out of the six Constraints. Even if you accept a couple of my excuses (and you know you shouldn’t), I made two. If you follow the letter and not the spirit of the law, I succeeded at zero of these tasks.
Let’s go through them:
I will eat out only three times this month, and not spend over $100 total on this. When at home, I will eat inexpensively and I will try to consume all my leftovers.
NOPE.
I will drink one beer per day, perhaps two on the weekend. This does not count a beer that someone might purchase for me.
SORT OF.
I will visit the gym every other day, with the option to skip a weekend visit if I exercise at home. (This will ensure I get value from my gym membership).
NOPE.
I will sell my two ham radios at a reasonable price.
NOPE.
I will make and sell at least two t-shirts…getting them in a store on consignment is okay for this.
NOPE.
I will find freelance work and execute it at a rate more than $20/hr.
SORT OF.
I have eaten out at least six times in the last 31 days, but the food purchased probably did not exceed $150 in value. I would be able to track this better if I went to any establishments that weren’t cash-only.
I am pretty sure that on average, I paid for one or less than one beer per day. This was a combination of my drinking less and my getting in to grad school, since all my friends very nicely bought me some celebratory drinks for the better half of the month. (New York, you’re all next!)
I simply did not go to the gym the required number of times. I lost momentum when I was bedridden for six days with the worst flu I’d had in years. My recovery was slow and full of self-pity, so I probably made it to the gym about every third or fourth day if you average out the whole month. On the plus side, now I run three miles every other day without much physical strain, and I’m listening to a lot more music because gym time is essentially dedicated iPod time.
I made a little progress selling the ham radios (I found a guy who runs a local hamfest and electronics swap at MIT), but I am still far from getting the money in my hand.
I did not make or think about making T-shirts. Sorry about that. I will do better.
Regarding freelancing, I want to count this as a “sort of” accomplishment because on the last day of the month I got a gig doing sound in the middle April. I was also hoping I’d get paid for a little work I did on the South African project (which, technically, ended before March began), but I think that’s not yet a sure thing.
Sasha, thank you for your support—let me know where to send my finest Liar’s Poker bills.
Tags: AKA, failure, finance, lifehack, updates
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 at 1:01 pm and is filed under personal, updates.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.