Post Your Wins

[james.hendrickson]

Picked some more small business bonds today.

I love getting my payment notifications. They happen overnight and when I wake up in the morning, I get a notification that I've gotten paid. Its a nice psychological boost in the morning.

[disneysteve]

Picked some more small business bonds today.

You've mentioned this before. I just took a quick look at SMBX. It's basically a peer-to-peer lending service. Obviously, the extremely high returns are based on their inability to get traditional funding at market rates. So you're taking big risks but getting big rewards if it works out well.

I see nothing wrong with doing some speculating like this with a small portion of your portfolio as long as you understand what you're getting into and that you could lose it all. I hope it all pays out well for you.

[james.hendrickson]

Disneysteve, I talked with the guys who run it. Their lending standards are basically the same as those implemented by major banks.

And the rate of 10%, is also about what a lot of the major banks are charging small businesses on lines of credit.

So, yeah there is more risk than in say, treasury products, but thats cool, I've only got like $620 in the platform and I've also got some treasury products. So...no lost sleep here. : )

[disneysteve]

Disneysteve, I talked with the guys who run it. Their lending standards are basically the same as those implemented by major banks.

And the rate of 10%, is also about what a lot of the major banks are charging small businesses on lines of credit.

So, yeah there is more risk than in say, treasury products, but thats cool, I've only got like $620 in the platform and I've also got some treasury products. So...no lost sleep here. : )

Sounds good. I tried to get into peer to peer lending a number of years ago but it wasn’t legal in my state.

[bjl584]

Sounds good. I tried to get into peer to peer lending a number of years ago but it wasn’t legal in my state.

the last I tried it was illegal here too. I live in Pennsylvania

[ua_guy]

A small win: The house we bought a few years ago came with a hot tub. We didn't want it, but letting them leave it was part of a deal for something else. I've kept it running and in decently good shape seeing how it's 16!! years old, it's kind of nice to have sometimes, not gonna lie. It's also a pain in the butt to maintain and parts for it are getting hard to find.

Welp, after changing the water 2 days ago, it wouldn't run. No pumps, no heat, nothing. Some google-fu led me to the flow sensor. A multimeter confirmed it was closed (shorted) when it should be open. I ordered a new one ($50 shipped). The new one came, wrong thread size --wouldn't fit--, but I pulled the old one anyway. I saved the 570 gallons of water I had just put in it, did it without draining the tub - which you should do - but I'm a pro! With a little bending of the tang on the on the old sensor and some cleaning, I reinstalled it, and fired it up. Error messages were gone, and it's doing its thing, heating and circulating. The crappy old hot tub lives to see another day!

[james.hendrickson]

All - picked up a few more grams of silver today. It wasn't much, but I bought it with Amazon credit that I got from scanning my receipts. So its a nice "no cash out of pocket" win.

There is kind of a lot of packaging for only 5 grams of silver, but I guess thats that it takes to keep from getting lost.

[disneysteve]

My wife learned that our library offers free passes to a number of local museums and attractions. She went online today and ordered us passes to The Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia for 6/13. We thought it might just be a single pass but it's a family pass good for 2 adults and 2 kids so we are going completely free. Advance tickets are normally $21/person so it's saving us $42 and giving us something interesting to do one day. We'll also save 10% in their cafe and gift shop if we buy anything. Now that I'm barely working, I think we'll take advantage of this more. Maybe once a month or so we can hit a different museum for free.

[james.hendrickson]

My wife learned that our library offers free passes to a number of local museums and attractions. She went online today and ordered us passes to The Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia for 6/13. We thought it might just be a single pass but it's a family pass good for 2 adults and 2 kids so we are going completely free. Advance tickets are normally $21/person so it's saving us $42 and giving us something interesting to do one day. We'll also save 10% in their cafe and gift shop if we buy anything. Now that I'm barely working, I think we'll take advantage of this more. Maybe once a month or so we can hit a different museum for free.

Thats a win for sure.

[disneysteve]

I got a notice a day or two ago that I would be receiving a settlement from the class action suit against Zoom. I don't even remember the details or what the case was about but I'll be getting $32.32. Fine with me.

[scfr]

My wife learned that our library offers free passes to a number of local museums and attractions. She went online today and ordered us passes to The Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia for 6/13. We thought it might just be a single pass but it's a family pass good for 2 adults and 2 kids so we are going completely free. Advance tickets are normally $21/person so it's saving us $42 and giving us something interesting to do one day. We'll also save 10% in their cafe and gift shop if we buy anything. Now that I'm barely working, I think we'll take advantage of this more. Maybe once a month or so we can hit a different museum for free.

We've also enjoyed free museum passes from our library (not quite as valuable as the one you got but still very nice). Our library also has a couple State Park passes that I'm going to get on hold for; they are popular so the wait is kind of long, so we'll need to be flexible about when we use it. The nice thing about those is that they are for the car. The list of things we use our library for is long!

[QuarterMillionMan]

All - picked up a few more grams of silver today. It wasn't much, but I bought it with Amazon credit that I got from scanning my receipts. So its a nice "no cash out of pocket" win.

There is kind of a lot of packaging for only 5 grams of silver, but I guess thats that it takes to keep from getting lost.

James keep in mind that the smaller the pieces, the higher the premiums, but it was basically free for scanning receipts so this may be a moot point. This is the premium the US Mint charges Authorized Purchasers. The premiums though that we pay are almost 100% to the dealers for 1 oz SAE (silver American eagles). Smaller pieces such as your 5 grams may be closer to 200% or more.

[QuarterMillionMan]

An example of almost 100% premium.

[srblanco7]

Played in a golf tourney last weekend, spent $10 to enter a raffle and won a Scotty Cameron putter (retail value $449).

I'd love to tell you it improved my scoring - but it seems to have more to do with the player and less with the club...

[ua_guy]

I recently consolidated two vehicles down to one. Got $543 back from the insurance company yesterday.

Cellular home internet became available in our area finally, and we signed up. $30/month. It's been flawless. We're saying goodbye to our $96/month DSL bill that supplied 1/10th the speed of the cellular connection.