"What's the worst that could happen?"

I started reading The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss today. I was kind of afraid it would be stupid and I would hate it because after I had ordered it I checked out some reviews and a lot of people were saying bad things about it. I actually really like it so far though! I don't think it's going to be life changing (mostly since I have already decided to change my life, haha) but it is making me more excited to get away from how my life used to be and get into how my life is going to be. Maybe once I get further along in the book it will give me the perfect idea and I will make lots of money by barely working at all, but for now I am just enjoying the way it makes you think a bit differently. 

So far my favorite part is when he makes you think about what it is you want to do that you have been putting off, or that you don't think you can do, and basically ask yourself what the absolute worst case scenario would be if you just went for it. For me, I was thinking about just taking off for Australia right now, not paying off our debt first, not saving up money, just going. My worst case scenario looked a little like this:

 My already bad credit score would get a lot worse, and my husband's decent credit score would become terrible instead, because we couldn't afford to make payments on any of our debt. We would never be able to get a mortgage and probably not even be able to rent an apartment due to our terrible credit. Our car would sit around not driving while we tried to pay hundreds of dollars a month on the loan we used to buy the car. We wouldn't be able to get working holiday visas because you have to have 5000$ in your bank account (each) before they will grant you one...but I guess if we tried really hard we could find work under the table...and maybe we could work for accommodation too or at least stay somewhere really cheap, like a terrible hostel. Then maybe we could still afford the minimum payments on our credit cards and loans. But what about all of our stuff? I guess we could just throw it all away, or donate it, or put up signs in our apartment building for a moving sale...If we really couldn't make ends meet in Australia we could go somewhere cheaper to live, with more laid back laws about working holidays or working abroad. If we failed that too we could come back to Toronto and get jobs in our industry and make the money back pretty fast. If not, we could get jobs at Tim Hortons or McDonalds and live with the in-laws. Credit scores can get back to normal eventually.... 


It's just funny how you can give reasons that sound legitimate but all they really are is excuses. If we really wanted, we could leave now. I would feel a lot better if we paid our debt off first though, hahaha. If we leave all full of debt with no savings, we wouldn't be able to stay as long or feel as free I think. There I go making excuses again ;) but seriously, it's funny how you start to realize that everything is fixable and nothing that is going to happen is going to be the end of the world. Kind of fun to think about.

List for Exploring My City

I have come up with (the beginnings of) a list for what I plan to do in order to cross "Explore my city" off of my 30 Before 30 list. My research (aka googling) didn't go exactly as planned. I was hoping it would be easier to find the best/coolest restaurants, bars, and cafes in Toronto, but it was surprisingly difficult. I actually didn't even try to look up the best bars or cafes because I got too annoyed just trying to find the best restaurants...There are just so many options. It is too hard to find a list of, let's say, 10 that I should go to. Especially because I don't want to go to the best of last year, or the most expensive ones, or the ones with the fanciest (or weirdest) food. I am super picky about food. I have this thing with textures and if it sounds icky I don't want to try it, haha. I think instead of finding the top restaurants, I will just go to 10 restaurants that I have never been to before. If I end up hearing about a great restaurant that I just have to try I will definitely try to go there, but for now it will just stay as 10 that I have never been to. I feel like that's a really small number (especially because my 30th birthday isn't for almost 4 years hahaha) but as I said in an earlier post, I am trying to save and stop spending money as much as possible this year so I can afford to go away. (And then after this year I might not even be in Toronto again before I turn 30).

My list looks like this so far:

1) Skate at Nathan Phillips Square
2) Explore the Royal Ontario Museum
3) Take a ferry to Toronto Island (and take a picture of the TO city skyline)
4) Visit Casa Loma
5) Attend a Second City show
6) See the BATA Show Museum
7) Tour the Steam Whistle Brewery
8) Rock out to an indie concert
9) Watch a TIFF movie
10) Wander around the distillery district
11) Shop at St. Lawrence Market
12) Eat/Drink at 10 restaurants/bars I've never been to

I have already done a lot of the must-do things in Toronto. I've gone to the CN Tower (during the day and at night), went to Niagara Falls, seen a Leafs game, a Raptors game, a Blue Jays game, I've walked (and gone for a run) on the boardwalk at the beach, been to the Art Gallery of Ontario, shopped at Kensington Market, etc. I actually have already seen a very small indie kind of concert at a bar but the band just played covers so I am not going to count it....Plus it's a cool thing to do a few times, haha. 

I'm going to post this list on the side of my blog underneath my 30 Before 30 List and cross things off as I go through them! 

In other news, I have not been playing guitar very much. I am getting really bored of playing the same two chords over and over but I really want to follow the lessons I am doing. I think it will be better for my playing in the long run if I stick with these online lessons. As bored as I am of the two chords, I am still not even good at playing them, so I should shut up and keep it up. I need a capo for the next song I'm supposed to learn as well so I have to go out and get one of those tomorrow. It will get better once I get past this boring song I'm supposed to be learning. 

I started reading my first non-fiction book of the year! It is called "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. I started reading it a few years ago and then just stopped for some reason and never finished it. I started it all over again, it's really cool! I also went to the bookstore and bought a couple other non-fiction books. I'm really excited to read them! As soon as I finish the first one I am going to make a list on the side of the blog to keep track of how many I have read. 

Today I found out when I will be starting my next job, which means I can start making a budget for paying off debt and saving! I won't be making as much money with this one as I was hoping. It's difficult to find work over the winter though so I am grateful for anything at this point. I don't start till closer to the end of February so I get a few weeks off! Hopefully I use that time wisely! 

List Update

I updated my list and posted it on the side of the blog so it's easier to find. I changed the "read a book every week" one. I just put it up at first because I saw it on lots of people's lists and I love reading so I thought it would be cool. Then I started realizing something like this should be on someone's list who doesn't spend a lot of time reading and wants incentive to read more. That is not me. BUT, all I read are fiction/fantasy books (plus they're generally between 700 and 1000 pages long, so reading one a week is a bit difficult when I need to spend time working on the other items on my list). I decided it might be good for me to start reading some non-fiction books. That way I could actually learn a few things when I read instead of just pretending I live in a magical world where I have powers and fight dragons or something. I guess I'm pretty behind in that one now. At least I had one fiction book under my belt this year haha. I ordered a few travel books from Amazon so I will start reading those as soon as I get them! Oooh and this gives me an excuse to go to the bookstore! I will do that this weekend! 

I've been practicing guitar everyday but still can't practice for very long before my fingers start hurting too much. Luckily, I will be unemployed for a few weeks after today so I will have LOTS of time to practice and build up my callouses, haha. I've moved on from the Buffalo Springfield song to a new song that only uses the exact same two chords, except it has more strumming and you play the chords for two beats each instead of one. It is Silence is Easy by Starsailor, I actually like it!

Hopefully I can move beyond the E and A chords soon...that will be my goal for after this weekend I guess. 

I was looking into last minute cruise deals yesterday just to see what kind of deals there were. The World cruises are still way out of my price range, and the ones that are a bit cheaper just don't seem worth it because they don't go to enough places that I actually want to go to. The travel books I bought are about traveling all around the world so I might have a better plan once I read through those. I did notice that you can sometimes find decently priced cruises from North America to Australia. Since flights there are expensive and SO LONG I thought this would be so much nicer. I think mostly it's a repositioning cruise so you don't stop at a lot of places on the way, but I would take a 20 day cruise over a 22 hour flight any day! It's not like we have a deadline to leave home or get to Australia. I'll definitely be looking into this more. 

I might be finding out about a new job over the next couple of days so then I will be able to make up a budget for paying off debt and saving up some money! As much as I hate my job and don't want to work, I am excited to start a new job just so I can start saving up for Australia! It'll be much more bearable knowing I am working towards something like that. 

My 365 Project is not going as great as I would like it to. I keep almost forgetting about it and then end up taking a last minute picture for my gratitude instagram. Most of my pictures are actually screenshots...which shouldn't count. They are things that I was grateful for though, like I was grateful I could do my wedding thank you cards online because it's so much easier and I could get it done so much faster, so I took a picture of the design online on my phone. It's a lot of stuff like that. From now on I am not going to allow screenshots or pictures of my computer. I think it will be a lot better in the end if I stop doing those kinds of pictures. 

I think that's about everything I have updates for. My guitar playing is going to get way better over the next week or so, maybe I will even post a video ;)