You know more about Japan than I do.

When I said, earlier in the year, "I'd like to go to Japan", I never once followed that up with "...to see some crazy toilets".

thank christ

Does anyone know if they still have those weird motorway toilets in France?

weird motorway toilets?
you're going to have to elaborate, the only ones I've seen in there are normal ones.

Ohhh right.
Yeah, they still have those kinda things.

And they're all over the place in India too.

I have no desire to play musical toilet in Japan.  I think it would catch me completely off guard.

I forgot to mention this...

Haha. I hate those.

its week two, you still cooking, champ?

Yeah today it's been exactly one week. I've done well, except for two times. I took my woman out on Saturday evening to an Italian restaurant and I was craving a burger so badly yesterday at lunch I gave in. I think I'll have to have a burger or something at least once a week for a while to wean myself off. Sandwiches get very boring for lunch, very quickly.

Leftovers are a good lunch. I used to make 3 meals at one time. One for dinner, one for the next lunch and one to freeze.

I think my wife and I will move out of the city soon. The extra $1,000 per month we're paying for the convenience could be paying off my loans instead.

Back to Shinkoiwa?

Nah - other direction I think. Place called Mitaka. Her Mother lives out there and a lot of her recording equipment is there too, that's more of a reason to move than the cost. I LOVE where I live now though... big, convenient and a great neighborhood. Argh

Is that where they make the powertools ?

Haha, maybe

Instead of moving just get a better paying job and a new wife who could bring a dowry to the table.

Goal met 03/15/2010: 100k in net worth! Didn't quite make 12/31/2009, but not bad anyway.

Apple is helping. In at $92/share. Currently ~$240/share.

Oddly enough, I should have listened to you back then ...

Nice work Kyle.

Can I offer some advice? Ok I will anyway... Get your condo loan down to 60-70% of the purchase price as soon as you can mate. Even if you have to sell some of your shares to get to that point it's worth it. If you then want to get a loan for anything, be it emergency, investment or something else you can clear most hurdles. Whatever you invest in next you'll want to do it in a down market, and your assets will also be down, might as well position yourself when times are good.

Personally I'm stuck trying to get a house converted to a yen loan, if I can swing it the interest savings will pay the place off in 10 years. We'll see, the bank wants some rediculous guarantees. It looks like I'll need to build up liquid assets like shares too, better get that thinkorswim account rolling. I haven't looked at shares in months and have no idea what's cheap now. Also want to do a renovation project for a change. All this is taking too long, it's hard to leverage when the rest of the world is trying to do the opposite.

I hate to say this, but I think Kyle is doing better than all of us financially.

Look how long he held onto his virginity. It's no wonder he can hold onto a buck.

Nick, I haven't paid down my condo yet. There's a new community of apartments-converted-to-condos right next door to my condo community, and I've been mulling over purchasing one, paying it down some, and then renting it out. The only way I'd do it is if I can get positive cash flow right off the bat though. The area I live in is pretty high-occupancy due to students. (Universty of Texas, St. Edwards Unversity, Austin Community College) We'll see. The units are still under construction.  (http://theriversidegrove.com/)

I was just re-reading my original CNN entry, and incredibly I have doubled my 401k, doubled my stocks, and doubled my savings in less than 2 years. (I submitted the entry in July 2008).

This rate probably won't continue, because most of it is due to the "recovery" we've been having. But I would love to be able to continue to double each of those 3 accounts every 2 years.

For the past couple of months I have been grocery shopping and eating at home exclusively for lunches and dinners during the week. On weekends we'll eat out, but I try to use coupons when I can. In fact I had some good Steak and Shake coupons I used today. Also http://www.restaurant.com/index.asp? is pretty awesome. My buddy told me about it a couple of weeks ago. He got a $25 gift certificate to this place called the Highball, for $4.

Damn, we need to take advice from you ...
... it's getting weirder and weirder to live in this world

I hate to say this, but I think Kyle is doing better than all of us financially.

not all of us

Lets hope Bag's double up was not in US $.

Fucking sweet Kyle, regardless of how your short term moves pan out you'll make more over time because you have some decent spending habits now.

Real-estate is all good, especially if you can get it CF positive in a dowmarket. I don't like 100% loans unless the CF differential is paying it off for you, but if you're comfortable at that debt range then more power to you.

I gotta get onto my bank about this yen loan, no news is bad news I guess...

Yeah, I myself prefer the straight-up "FUCK OFF!" ...

true, but I'll make $15K per year for every property I can get on a yen loan. 2-3 of those and goodbye jobski