April 4, 2007 Archives

We bought our house in the early 90s. It had been sitting, unsold, for well over a year. The housing bubble had burst and the developer was holding on, hoping to get his price. He did not.

That's not to say we bought at a dip. The housing market continued to fall and it was years before our house was worth what we paid for it.

Even now, the best part of our housing investment has been our (and when I say our, I mean Helaine) attention to paying down the balance. Sometime over the next few years, the house will be ours, free and clear

The simplistic thought is, real estate always pays off. It does not. There are short term bumps and starts. We are probably in the early stages of a major nationwide housing bust right now. Buy or sell at the wrong time and you can get hurt.

This is all leading to the video I've attached just below. Someone took the average home cost, adjusted for inflation from 1890 to today, and plotted using "Roller Coaster Tycoon," a computer game.

If you're more 'old school' here's that same data plotted as a standard graph.

This shows the real volatility of real estate better than anything I've ever seen before. It's fun too.

I know I've been attaching a lot of 'outside' videos recently. I'm going to try and not let it become a crutch, but some of this stuff really deserves to be seen.

Steffie is in Florida, visiting my folks. She has a good time with them. When asked, Steffie will offer up how they don't act their age.

Here's the interesting part to me. In their retirement condo environment, Steffie is 'arm candy' to my parents. She is an object of envy to their friends. How many of them get a 20 year granddaughter to spend a week with them?

Still, this isn't all about my folks. Steffie's IM away currently message reads: "conquering florida one store at a time¹."

Believe me - truer words were never spoken.

¹ - Capital letters seem to be optional for anyone under 30.

Over the years I have had reasonably decent results while on the Atkins Diet. When I'm off the diet, I balloon up like the pig I am! What happened to those good old days when all I had in my 'fridge was a bottle of Coke and Hydrox Cookies?

Diets are not immunization against your own foolish acts.

I'm back on the diet.

It had to happen. My clothes aren't fitting well... or in some cases, they don't fit at all. I haven't had the guts to weigh myself, but I've got to be close to my all-time high weight.

Some people at work have questioned why I'm dieting. I can't believe they don't see it.

Atkins is a very strange diet as far as what you can eat. Lots of protein. Very few carbs. Heavy cream is good. Corn is bad.

Tonight I had a spinach salad with broiled Cajun chicken. I was very proud of myself. Then Helaine asked if I knew how much sugar was in the Cajun coating?

The nice thing about Atkins is you lose fat (therefore inches) right away. I expect a noticeable difference in my clothes within a few weeks. Unfortunately, it's a marathon, not a sprint. It is going to take months and months before I'm where I want to be.

I don't really think I have a choice.