April 2017 – Marilynn Dawson's Musings

April 26, 2017 Marilynn Dawson Saving Money - Groceries

Wild Adventures Part 8: A new foraging season has begun!

Spring has finally sprung in the Okanagan after a long cold winter that lasted through to the end of March. It took awhile for the plants to get going as a result, but once they did, this household made a major surprise discovery!

Last November, we had to move yet again, for the second time in two years. When we were house-hunting, we reached a stage where it became humanly impossible to find a place to live. We made up an impossible list of needs and preferences, then laid that before God. Included in that prayer was the request to be near foraging grounds so we could continue our wild adventures. FrontcounterBC had shown us that our new location was near crown land and when the snows began to recede, we began exploring. That crown land is going to be a treasure trove of berries by the time June rolls around! Its crawling with Oregon Grape, Kinnickinnick and Chokecherry! We took a couple treks out to our old stomping grounds near the regional park and came home with one evening’s salad roughly. But those weren’t the biggest surprise.

The grasses and hillside around our rental property began to grow and lo and behold. . . we are LIVING in the middle of a foraging ground! Yarrow is growing in droves up on the hillside above us, along with barley (read quack) grasses and Arrowleaf Balsam Root. However, down around our portion of the yard we didn’t give the horses, we have dandelion, chicory, alfalfa, and another salad leaf I am still trying to identify, growing in such abundance that we can have several days’ worth of mixed green salads in maybe 10 minutes of picking! The alfalfa is blow-overs from the hay field below us. As we are up on a hillside now, the dandelions are slower in getting their flowering heads up, but I saw one today.

If we want plantain, purslane, Solomon’s Seal and chickweed in our salads, we’ll still have to go elsewhere, but it was such a surprise to find so many salad greens growing right where we live! We’ve already discovered that Yarrow leaves add to the flavour of salsa, prompting my daughter to think about making our own salsa in the future with Yarrow leaves added to it. When you look up DIY and natural personal hygiene products, Yarrow comes up as often as chamomile, so I look forward to seeing what I can do with all those plants above our property!

It’s nice to have the salads again as we discovered that winter salad teas, while they may have a similar nutrition count, are not as filling and were missing the phytochemicals that we need.

We estimate now, that between what I’ve spent preparing to make this lifestyle change, and what my daughter has spent preparing her horse for foraging, we have still saved ourselves over $300 since last August! Thanks to the Okanagan being commercial orchard country, shopping in the woods may get us away from many of the chemicals found on foods in the grocery store, but not 100%. It feels good to have better health without having to buy pills to get it, however.

Our wild adventures have resumed!

April 26, 2017October 18, 2019 Marilynn Dawson Budgeting tips, money-saving tips, Products

6 Habits of the Wealthy – a Low Income Perspective

I read an interesting article on CTV News last night! The lady was talking about the attitudes of the wealthy and was impressed that most wealthy people she interviewed, discussed wealth outside the terms of money. Whenever money did come up, a list of generally accepted mindsets or attitudes began to develop and she shared them in her article here:

http://www.ctvnews.ca/5things/pattie-lovett-reid-engage-in-these-6-habits-of-the-wealthy-1.3374225

<br /> When I read this list, I was suddenly amazed at how my own family often accuses me of having a poverty mindset! I had to add my own thoughts to the author’s 6 main points in the article above. Before writing these out however, I showed my daughter this list and asked her how many of them are present in our home. She responded with “most if not all of them”, although current finances prevent us from enacting one of the sub-points in this list. It hasn’t however, stopped us from trying in the past, nor will it stop us from trying in the future. Here are my own thoughts. Anyone who has purchased my course “The Poor Man’s Budget: a Five Week Course – Learning to live within your means” (paid link) will recognize some of these points.

Change your money mindset: Have a positive attitude, increase your knowledge base, have goals and get disciplined ~ This begins by being thankful for what you have and following that Biblical concept that if you have two of something, give to him who has none. It can be tempting to hoard when you are financially struggling, living below the poverty line, or desperately battling debt. But if you honestly end up with more of something than you realistically know you need (not want), giving it away to someone else in need also contributes to a more positive attitude.

Sweep away your financial dustballs or myths:
a) Self worth equals net worth (Clearly it doesn’t but some might think it does) ~ I run into many people who believe this lie. Your self-worth is not found in things, nor in others around you. Your self-worth is found in the One Who made you! Your self-worth is found in Jesus Christ. Believe what He says about you in His Word and lack or plenty won’t affect your view of yourself. Secondarily, look after yourself no matter how much or little you have. You can always use water from a public fountain to wash up in the morning if you live on the streets. You can brush your hair and straighten your clothes. Walk with purpose rather than ambling aimlessly. Shake hands firmly and meet people eye to eye when greeting them. Don’t let life’s problems define who you are. Everyone, rich and poor have issues they battle with. Hold your head up and don’t let your particular issues drag you into the dirt.

b) A little debt never hurt anyone (Yes it will) ~ Financial advisors will tell you on one hand that it isn’t wise to get into debt. They will turn right around in the very next sentence and tell you to get a credit card so you can build up a positive credit rating. They will then go into detail about how to manage that credit card so that you ideally never slip into debt. Human nature, being what it is, will invariable see the credit limit, see an emergency, what Christmas approach, and decide to spend just a little bit more than they can pay off at the end of the month. They will justify it by saying now they have a debt load against which to build that credit rating, because creditors will see the monthly efforts. Now this is true to a point, but it will come back to bite you eventually. Yes, unfortunately the modern financial world won’t sell you a car or house if you don’t have positive credit ratings, but a little debt has and will continue to hurt people.

c) I need at least $1 million to retire (No, you don’t) ~ What you need is to assess the lifestyle you want when you retire, what would it cost now and what is the current inflation rate? Based on that inflation rate, how much will you need to have in savings when you retire to lead that kind of lifestyle month by month?

d) I need to be a math major (Also, not true) ~ No, the above calculations are basic math. Addition and multiplication and maybe some division. If you graduated grade 6, you have what it takes to figure out the previous answer.

e) I don’t have enough money to start investing (How about $25 a month?) ~ Most people can afford at least $25/mo. Those living on fixed incomes may not be able to however, nor those living below the poverty line, but whenever possible, it is advisable to set aside even $5 a month if you can manage it. What I find in our household is that I can get up to $3 or $400 saved up, then an emergency comes along or income takes a dive and I need the funds to buy gas and groceries. I am looking forward to the day when income is steady and I can get that savings account above that particular threshold.

f) It’s too late for me to start building a nest egg (No it isn’t, and retirement could last a third of your life) ~ It’s true, you can start saving at any age, the earlier the better, but any time is a good time as long as it is sooner to your present than later.

g) Personal finance is all about investing (It is so much more encompassing: debt management, insurance, retirement planning and more) ~ The biggest point in personal finance, is budgeting based on what you are regularly earning at the time. Then learning to stick to that budget. Failure to get this step down will make any other financial management task more difficult.

h) I can do it alone (Maybe, but start by asking for help) ~ If you understand how to set money aside and not touch it, if you know about TFSA’s or RRSP’s already, sure, go it alone, but be almost religious about the plan you put into action. Asking for help often involves paying an advisor for their time or using their ongoing services from which they get paid a commission. If you can’t afford to pay someone for help, start small and work from there.

Eliminate the spending habit: Live below your means and ditch your bad debts ~ Hear, hear!!! This is the second worst problem I am seeing among those who claim to be struggling in their finances. They still visit the corner store regularly. They still buy cookies and candy bars regularly and sugary or other unhealthy food choices when grocery shopping. They still think they can engage in bad habits that cost them anywhere from $200/mo to $500 or more and they wonder where their money is going! Newsflash! You don’t need that jacket on sale when you have two others at home already. You don’t need sugary drinks or foods when because you are struggling, you need healthier food options instead. You don’t need to waste gas with extra-curricular activities when you can’t afford the gas to begin with. Start walking more. Cancel the Cable TV subscription and watch all your shows online. If this step isn’t mastered, the previous ones will all be derailed by some justification to spend!

Create a savings habit: Pay yourself first ~ See the previous comments about saving and spending.

Embrace the investing and compound habit: Learn more to earn more and compound your earnings ~ This may be where you want to ask for help, but in a standard savings account, if you leave your money there, the interest accrued will compound based on what stays in the account, previous interest and all. This can work in your favour.

Choose a destination: Get real and set goals ~ Revisit this entire list, master the other points and when you get to this one, write down those goals. In a quick-fix, instant-access society, long-term gratification seems like punishment. But if you can get over the need to spend and start actively saving toward your goals, you will discover the pride and personal joy in having achieved those goals on your own! Start with small goals that you can reach if you are disciplined in a month. Say perhaps you can get $25 put aside into savings. Reward yourself with a hot bath that night. Say perhaps you went for three months putting that money aside? Take $5 and go buy a booster juice smoothie (remember the poor spending point above). Say perhaps you managed to maintain your new saving regimen for an entire year, take $20 and go have pizza! These examples are merely for savings goals, but you might have other goals, like paying for a college course, replacing a dieing vehicle, maybe even owning your own home and saving up for a down-payment. Once you realize you can meet your smaller goals, these larger ones will become easier to achieve and you’ll have the necessary patience to see them through.

April 21, 2017April 23, 2017 Marilynn Dawson Reviews

Introduction to Faucet Alley – One Way to Enter the World of Bitcoin!

As discussed in my first blog article on bitcoin, using faucets to earn your way into the world of bitcoin is not for the faint of heart and requires both a technician’s mindset and a worker’s mindset if you are to do what I did, which was earn $3 USD or 0.003+ BTC in the space of two months WITHOUT REFERRALS! Because of the large number of digits following the decimal, earning 0.003 is no small feat when we’re talking faucet earnings. Most people in the bitcoin world don’t think this is a wise way to spend your time. However, I proved to myself that for the person short of cash, it is a viable way to earn bitcoin in your spare time.

Before you consider entering the Faucet Alleyway, stop and take stock!

You MUST NOT:

be easily swayed by advertising!
be easily confused by lots going on!
insist on waiting for every page to load before deciding if it’s good or bad
be computer-illiterate!
have tunnel-vision!
be slow-moving!

If you are going to venture into the faucet alley-way, you absolutely MUST:

be laser-focused!
be aware of what’s going on with every tab you have open!
Understand the basic parts of a browser and make heavy use of them!
Ignore advertising!
Learn quickly!
Understand typical malware behaviour and spot it fast!
Be able to clean your own machine of malware or have plenty of cash to pay someone else to clean it for you on occasion.
have quick reflexes with mouse and keyboard!

Your toolkit MUST include:

browser other than MS Explorer
plugin/add-on to block unwanted content not allowed in your home
up-to-date antivirus program
Ccleaner set to delete history and cookies as well as clear the DNS cache and old prefetch data.

How’d you do with your self-assessment and computer readiness? If you ARE any of the “MUST NOT” items, this pursuit may not be for you. Moving forward will put both you and your computer at a level of risk you may not be able to recover from.

However, if you are confident you are not affected by the “MUST NOT” list and confident you can handle the “MUST HAVE” list, and your computer is set up to handle the required toolkit, then let’s move forward.

The important thing to understand is that this is WORK! Don’t sit down to my list of faucets thinking you are engaging in a leisurely activity. This is anything but leisurely! Boring perhaps at times, tedious at other times, but leisurely it is NOT! You have to be on your toes constantly! Your computer’s security can’t be allowed to lapse either. This is because a jaunt down Faucet Alley is akin to swimming with sharks. Some are friendly, some ignore you, and some come at you with teeth bared and eyes blazing! One of the faucets in my list is a bit of a nasty shark and I honestly wonder at the way the owner has chosen to make money off his site. I have learned to handle the onslot this faucet delivers at times, but I don’t recommend visiting if you are lax or negligent in ANY of the MUST HAVE/INCLUDE lists above! If you are not necessarily wary of what might jump out at you AND prepared to handle it the moment it happens, DON’T GO THERE!

Secondly, you need to understand this takes TIME! Want to make money doing faucets??? You need to be religious about claiming as often as each site will let you! Of course you have a life to live away from your computer and perhaps you have other tasks you need your computer for as well, so don’t visit Faucet Alley all day long! But when you do sit down to work the faucets, try to have several hours available at a shot.

Thirdly, all those ads you are seeing are paying the site owner so they in turn can pay you! Don’t use an ad blocker! Having said that, it is wise to have a plugin that blocks unacceptable content that goes against your family values, but don’t block ALL ads as a general rule. Most faucets have a check built into them whereby if they notice a trend of ads being blocked, they will eventually “stop working” until you enable ads again. Now if a site’s ad networks insist on showing you offensive ads regardless of your filter’s settings, put the site into quarantine for a few hours using the Brave browser. If the site “stops working” open it back up in your favourite browser and see if the offending ads are gone. If they are, continue on as normal. It is precisely because of these ad networks being less than family-friendly at times, that life for the faucet earner can get so dangerous. In fact, I recommend doing it in a location or at a time when impressionable eyes and ears are not present, to protect them from the visual or audible dangers that lurk around some corners in this alley way.

One of the rules of thumb I learned very early on my career as a computer repair technician, is that about:blank in a browser’s address bar can spell trouble, particularly for Internet Explorer. About:blank has been taken advantage of by numerous drive-by installation threats dropping backdoor trojans, worms, rootkits and other nasties onto people’s computers. This is one reason for the sharp eye paying attention to everything going on with laser focus ignoring the ads! In my experience, allowing your antivirus scanner to scan links wreaks havoc with the various captcha codes you need to solve, particularly those that tell you to click images until there are no more. Each image sent to you in that grid is a link that has to be scanned by your AV link scanner. It’s better to develop a sharp eye for trouble than to bog down your computer with so many link scans, especially if you use my method for earning satoshi via faucets.

If you see about:blank show up, it will be there for one of three reasons: 1) Slow connection to the next page being loaded. Many faucets use pop-overs and pop-unders. These are full pages not merely pop-ups in small windows. If a server is slow in delivering the site destination, a threat could be on it’s way. 2) The site being loaded is the one you were just at because now the page you were on has become a pop-under and your original site needs to reload. Watching your address bar change from about:blank to another site address and having your mouse over the tab’s x button will help you discern if you are reloading the page you want, or having to close a tab you don’t want. Eventually you will learn when a pop-under has just taken place, or a pop-over, and in the case of several of the faucets in my list, you can get both happening at the same time, meaning you close the left-most, right-most and leave the center tab loading in the little threesome that suddenly developed.

Be sure as well to go through your favourite browser’s security settings. Set all plugins or addon’s to “ask me” so that you get a heads up if anything strange wants to take place. I have Firefox set to prevent requests to install programs, and one of the faucets in my list regularly tries to ask permission to install something! Not good! This same faucet will at times try to force its way onto my system with spawning pop-unders. Due to this behaviour, I’ve had two threats successfully get onto my system and I had to shut down my computer the hard way before beginning clean up in safemode. Again, if any of this sounds way over your head, you might not want to be earning satoshi via Fauce Alley! The number of faucets that use such tactics is fairly large it seems. Knowing how this one faucet behaves periodically, I can spot other problem faucets very quickly and will not frequent low-paying faucets who behave in this manner. The only reason I tolerate this particular faucet is because of how well it pays on an ongoing basis. I rarely have to quarantine the site, and my filter catches most offensive material it’s ad networks might try to show.

Because browser-based threat delivery often ends up in temporary file locations such as browser caches, having a tool such as Ccleaner on hand can help with the clean-up. Run this tool fairly frequently when you follow my faucet claiming method, but also use it in safemode whenever you have to clean-up after a threat that landed on your system. Follow up that cleaner with a scan by Malwarebytes free or pro, then boot back into normal mode and carry on. Mac and Linux users, I’m not sure how you’d do this on your OS’s, but I’m sure some well-deserved research could do you some good in this regard.

If I haven’t scared you off good and proper from this form of earning satoshi, then let me share what I’ve enjoyed about this form of obtaining bitcoin:

Travelling around the world from the comfort of your computer chair! That’s right. The reCaptcha codes that many faucets ask you to complete are pictorial in nature, and come from literally all over the world. You’ll see street signs in various languages, storefronts from towns and villages in locations you’ve never been to or perhaps heard of, mountain sides, rivers, quaint little residential streets or bustling downtown scenes. Even food dishes make it into the mix. This takes the monotony out of the mix while also testing your ability follow instructions and further develop that keen eye for detail. The goal of these reCaptcha’s and SolveMedia puzzles is to prevent bots from stealing satoshi from these site owners. You WILL see ads offering to collect from faucets for you, but those are bots and bots are strongly discouraged as a form of cheating the system. So hone your keen eye for detail and be an honourable satoshi hunter! Perhaps share in the comments what languages you’ve seen on street signs, what countries you’ve vicariously visited and where you enjoyed going the most in the last round of faucet claims.

My method for using these sites to earn satoshi, is as follows:

1) Have all faucets open in tabs in your browser of choice. Don’t use a rotator because you won’t be able to engage in my method very well with one of those.

2) Begin with the one-hour claim sites and note the time you began. You’ll want to return to those in one hour. Next, move to the half-hour claim sites, you know you can claim again here when your one hour sites reach their half-way countdown. Then move to the 15 minute claim sites and get those going. If you have any 5 minute sites in your tabs, visit those last. Thus begins your earnings session!

3) Now begin going around and around and around. Generally-speaking, in the time it takes to do three 15 minute claims in a row because their timers all coincided, you’ll be able to visit your 5 min before and after all three. When that string of claims is done, you’ll be close to claiming again in your half hour sites. Repeat, then include your one hour sites and go around again.

4) Keep an eye out for the pop-overs and pop-unders and close them as fast as you can. Some sites will do both, placing the reloading faucet in the middle of a sudden group of three tabs. As you get used to the routine, you’ll learn to recognize this grouping and have the under and over closed by the time the faucet has reloaded.

5) It is best to use the XAPO wallet and XAPO faucets if you want to have your claims accumulate at a decent rate in one pool. I haven’t done much with it yet, but another satoshi collector is called faucet hub. I have to see what those faucets are like before I can write about them, but cashing out of a collector still means having enough in there to cover network fees. This is the only reason I haven’t gone with faucethub or epay.

One thing to be aware of when looking at your wallet balance as it grows: XAPO gives you the US equivalent, fully expecting that you will use your bitcoin to benefit life in the real world. The potential problem can be watching the US amount instead of the BTC you are growing. The US amount goes up and down based on factors affecting volatility in trading BTC. If you have a goal of so much BTC, only watch that amount. Remember, you’re investing TIME into this project, not cash out of your own bank account.

6) As already stated a couple times now, this is WORK! You can get mentally tired out if you are having to clean up your cache and temp files several times in one sitting because of some rogue ad in an ad network’s line-up on one or more of the faucets you happen to have open. Pay attention, ignore advertising, watch the clock, follow instructions, and have several hours at a time to get the ball rolling well and watch the satoshi accumulate.

How fast can YOU accumulate satoshi without referrals??!! Can you rise to the challenge??? Do YOU have what it takes to walk down Faucet Alley???

April 21, 2017April 23, 2017 Marilynn Dawson Reviews

A Blockchain Experiment

Since roughly around mid-February, I stepped away from Facebook to focus on an experiment. I didn’t know where this was going to take me, but with work being as difficult has it’s been for a couple years now, it didn’t hurt to try to put some hours into something that may or may not pay off in the future. My books sell in a trickle, no mugs or t-shirts have sold yet although I have a large list to create still, causing my tech support services to still carry the day even though it too tends to be sporadic.

My bookkeeping mentor and I got talking about a relatively new technology that came on the scene back in 2009. As a certified accountant, she finds the discussion around this technology to be fascinating, and people are writing articles about it in the financial magazines that she reads.

The technology in question, is known as block-chain. Using this technology, it is possible to have linear blocks of information that are both public yet almost unhackable. The technician in me uses the word “almost” while most other pundits claim the blockchain as we understand it currently, is unhackable by virtue of how it is formed via hashes and puzzles that need to be solved.

Special computers and software solve these puzzles and create the hashes, known as blocks, in a fairly visible blockchain known as Bitcoin. I haven’t heard much talk about this in my own circles of influence, but there is a sizeable and growing online community based around this virtual currency. This currency even has an exchange rate to bring it into real-world terms and usage. That exchange rate goes up and down based on the value of a single bitcoin as it is traded throughout the day. During these past two months, the bitcoin value went from over $1200 USD to $934 USD to back up around $1184 USD earlier this month. How do I know this? My experiment!

Now there are various ways a person can go about obtaining and using Bitcoin.

1. The easiest and most expensive way is to buy your way in. Simply go to Coinbase or Localbitcoin, create an account which comes with an associated bitcoin wallet, then head over to the trading area and buy yourself some bitcoin.

2. Another way to get into the world of bitcoin is to earn it from what they call “faucets”. I have written an extensive blog article about THAT which I will post shortly. This method is not for the faint of heart and requires both a technician’s mindset and a work mindset if you are to do what I did, which was earn $3 USD or 0.003+ BTC in the space of two months. Because of the number of digits following the decimal, earning 0.003 is no small feat in the world of faucet earnings. Most people in the bitcoin world don’t think this is a wise way to spend your time. However, I proved to myself that for the poor person, it is a viable way to earn bitcoin in your spare time.

3. The last way and probably what promises to the most long-lasting method to get into the world of bitcoin, is to earn it the same way you earn a living in your own national currency. I joined a bitcoin forum that has a reputation for being cut-throat, and requiring a thick skin. While scammers apparently exist on this forum, they are not tolerated for the most part. With this reputation being well-known, I went there asking about a three-part plan that I began my experiment with in mid-February. Part 1 as to prove to myself you can earn your way into bitcoin using faucets. Check that off the list. Part 2 was to grow your bitcoin until there is enough to reach step 3 which is to test out the debit card offered by Xapo.com. With so many sites offering investment opportunities, I thought for sure step two was possible. I tried one investment of 0.001 and lost it a week later when the site folded. This forum pretty much agreed that BTC investing is not yet a viable way to go and to focus on earning BTC via services I offer.

Therefore, I have revamped how I do business for FACT Computer Services. I was thinking about doing this anyway because of the changes Freshbooks went through this spring, but wanting to carry on with my experiment sped up the process. My website has now been configured so that buying time, asking for help and booking an appointment can all be done right there. On top of that, people are able to pay using cheque, paypal, e-transfer still, and if they choose, they can now pay with bitcoin as well.

I will be revamping my author site soon too, so that people can buy my books and courses with either cheque, e-transfer, paypal or bitcoin as well.

I am looking forward to hoping to have enough BTC in my xapo account to one day walk into Superstore with their debit card, and walk out with groceries!

I’ll keep you posted!