Sci

I wonder, does the site yet have the functions for combining entities?

There's all manner of missions, ideas and beliefs building up, but I can't help but think some are very similar. When it comes to subscribing to one of them, there's quite a jumble to pick through. The site will surely at some point require moderation of these, combining ones with minor differences (spelling, same meaning, different word, etc).

 

A weel ago last friday I got reminded by my brother it's been a year since my grandfather died. I spent more time with him than I did my father. Since then life's been busy. His funeral, the protracted splitting up of his possesions, getting on the self-employment scheme, and beginning trading.

It doesn't feel like a year at all.

 

My motivation is wearing thinner than I'd like. I'm pushing forward, but I think I could do with having a big project out of the way and some time to savor it as an accomplishment. Got a good length list of jobs lined up, but I've gone quite heavily into debt with the credit card to buy needed equipment. Fortunatly my Tax Credits shoud come through soon. I should worry less and work more. Afterall, I'm not in a position where I'll starve exactly yet. Not quite.

Mostly I suppose this post is say I'm still here to some degree. I suppose coming back here at spotty intervals makes it easier to apreciate the changes the site goes through.

Had my mad-spend money for the month. Spotted an unused bicycle frame on ebay, and had to get it. £38 including postage. Tange double-butted steel frame with Richly dropouts. 2.1Kg.

Technicly it's a racing frame, but I intend to make a very solid and light roadbike out of it.

My current bike weighs in at 16.5Kg. Aparently your average modern off-the-shelf one is about 14Kg. 10Kg for a light one. Maybe 7Kg or under for a super-light racer.

I hope to get mine in under 10Kg.

Did you know you can now get bike hub-gear units with up to 14 gears? Means building or having your own wheels built around them, but it means an undished rear wheel and perfect chainline. About 1.5Kg for the hub, and 6% lower efficiency that derailuer gears (92% rather than 98%, which is the sort of difference you can also find between riding upright and leant forward).

Did you know bikes traditionly have 36 spokes on the rear and only 32 on the front? The trend for 36 on each is due to ease of manufacturing just one type. Same rims for each, maybe same machines for lacing the wheels.

Should have an interesting time making a pannier rack for the bike. There's very few brazeons to use. It'll be an experiment in custom frame clamps, steel rod and fibreglass.

Forgive me Server, for I have sinned. It has been three months since my last blog entry.

 

So, I've not had a chance to log in recently. I've been pushing ahead on two personal fronts. One being my self employment, and the other being my personal finances.

I have some good news though. While the business isn't going as smoothly as I could have hoped, it is in the black. I've raised a small amount of money that will shortly be going toward more equipment (a vertical slide for the lathe, alowing small milling operations) and more product development.

I've been struggling on the product front, so income's mainly been from handyman type things and ebay sales. Hoping to turn that around as developement cash increases some more.

On the personal front I've also been selling off useless personal belongings. Because of this, at the end of next week I should no longer have any outstanding debts. And because of my grandfathers will, I have some money in savings that'll finally have me taking driving lessons.

Concidering the global financial downturn, I know that while this is far from a secure position, it puts me well ahead of the majority of people.

I would have been out of debt sooner, but I've also used the remaining time I have on state benefits to get nessesary medical items sorted. That being new glasses as a large discount, and the minor dental work I'm getting for free in under an hours time.

I'm still far from stable, but the path to that point is much stronger than it was. I'm on the cusp of my peak, where from I'll be able to actually save as aposed to fill in debts.

There's a lot still to do, but I'm getting there.

Now if I could just sort out my food budget too. 

Some of you may already know that I'm trying self-employment for the first time.

I'm lucky that I've stumbled my way into something called the New Deal scheme here in the UK, which basicly means I keep getting my state unemployment benefit for a period of up to 6 months while carrying out "test trading" to see if the business idea is valid. A small downside is that I'm not allowed to use any business funds for personal uses in that period, but it hardly matters just yet.

An upshot of this is that I've had to start taking aspects of life they don't teach you in school, very seriously. Like finances and tax.

In the past month I've found that I had 5 different bank accounts, owed a couple of hundred pounds to the Inland Revenue, and various other bits.

Since I'm thinking of the future, I know that one day (maybe even soon) I will need to borrow a big chunk of money. This might be a loan to expand my business, or a mortgage on a home of my own. Either way, I need a good credit rating.
Fortunatly, I have no loans and a relatively small overdraft in use. But I had a minimal income, and many bank accounts that are disused.
As I understand it, one of the ways your credit rating is determined is basicly your input-output ratio. Amount of money X goes into 1 bank account. Earn a cookie. Same amount of money X goes in, but you have several accounts, the gain is far less. Even worse if the other accounts sit idle.

So, as two of the accounts were my ancient Post Office starter "standard account" and my since-birth savings account gifted on me by my parents (both long gutted by bad finances, living away from home the first time), I closed them up and withdrew the small amount of cash remaining.
Another was a second current account I created to manage my free cash from in my first job. The idea was to have bills coming from one, and transfer the rest to a second safe account. That didn't work so well, because the moment I used the first account for anything other than bills, the whole lot span out of control. So goodbye second bank account.
That leaves me with my current account and business account.

But no savings. Sure, I had a few Premium Bonds (essentially a perpetual lottery ticket saving scheme. Rather than get interest on the money, your bonds are continually entered in monthly prize-draws. Prizes range from £50 up to £1million), but not enough to warrant using them up except in an emergency.
Premium Bonds are part of National Savings & Investments though, and therefor backed directly by the Bank of England. So while interest rates are not the best, the savings are rock-solid (unless the Bank of England folds, but in that case I'd have bigger things to worry about.).
NS&I currently have a mini-ISA scheme, which sounded nice. Better interest than my ancient savings account, and tax-free on money made off up to £3600 per year. And being a mini-ISA I can top it up with deposits of as little as £10.

So, I have savings kicked off. Stewed for a few years, it should add up to a few thousand. More if I get in a position where I can deposit more.

These changes should positively effect my credit rating. I've signed up for the Experion free-trial to see what it currently stands at. Though another definite improvement would be to get rid of my overdraft.

Now, part of my business plan is required to contain a Personal Survival Budget. This has come in very useful, and I've been expanding on it. But the gist is this.
Work out the bare minimum you need to get by. Simple as that. It's so you know how much profit you have to make each week to survive.
It was uncomfortable to do though, because by finally putting it on paper you risk seeing you're in a sinking ship. But it has to be done.
Here's mine. I'm lucky enough to live at home again right now, so a token rent is all I pay. Travel and Entertainment are approximate and will be refined.

Broken down into weekly costs (monthlies devided by 4, yearlies by 51), it comes out as:
Rent and Rates: £5
Food, housekeeping: £20
Phone credit: £5
Internet: £1.25
Hosting: 72p
Travel: £10
Entertainment: £10
Subscriptions: £1.21
NI: £2.20
Savings: £5

Total: £60.38

My current benefits are about £75 a week, so I'm all good. In theory anyway. Outgoings should be less than income. Money should be going up. But it isn't. I've been dipping into my personal funds to help the business start up.
So, I'm countering that by selling useless possessions. I'm also going to be taking out some money at the beginning of the week and physicly setting it aside. Hopefully this will ensure I keep well within my limits.

Once I'm out of my overdraft, I still need a little more. According to the Inland Revenue, there's three partial payment years I currently have outstanding. Each full year you have, is an extra year towards your basic state pension. Currently if I worked solidly for the next 22 years, I could technically retire. (though, IIRC, current weekly pension amounts are less than my current Survival Budget! Hence the need for savings, and possible private pension scheme)
Overall, another couple of hundred would give me enough to buy back an additional 3 years on my state pension. If it all goes to shit, it's a few years you want to have under your belt.

Beyond that? Well, gonna need money for new glasses soon, but as my dad and grandad both said, you want to be in a position where you've got enough money to live for a couple of months in the bank at all times.
In the UK? That's looking at at least £1000 if I lost my current rent-free situation. Probably closer to £2000 if I stayed near London.

So, I've worked out all my liabilities. I know that to get from my current state to an ideal one, I only need about two thousand quid. In the grand scheme of things, that's not a lot. And hell, most of it's technically optional. And I can probably slim it down further by being more selective where I go shopping, or where I go.

I know a lot of folk here hate the banks, and yeah they're ballbags. But money's just specific resources put in a more flexible format. It pays to try and get it sorted out. In day-to-day life having fixed finances puts you in a stronger position to do more. And having them broken is an actual burden.
Dept-free is where you (and I) want to be.

I would have thought just about everyone here would have it in their interests to be in the best position they can possibly be.

So now that I've dumped what I've done, what are you doing? How are you fixing up your finances, your position? What general advice might you give? Or specific advice for situations or locations?

Just a quick entry to let folk know what's going on, and why I've dropped off messengers and forums a lot.

 

About a month and a half ago I agreed to strip off some wallpaper for my mum. That turned into a major tear-down and rebuild of the rear of the house as one thing revealed the next. It's covered every construction base now; brickwork, woodwork, plumbing, wiring, insulation..

The walls are finally going back up. This makes me happy as it coincides nicely with the other thing I've been working towards.

As of tommorow, I will be legally registered as self-employed.

I'm going to be somewhere between artist, engineer and scrap dealer. My insurance only covers trading in the UK at the momment, but I'm aiming primarily to build custom creations to order. That's animatronics, reproduction props, small electromechanical devices, or bits other folk just plain can't be bothered to make. They'll be art/sculpture items along the way too, as well as salvage resale. And of course runs of standard items, starting with some simple novelty headbands and hopefully progressing to getting my Ultimate Lighter design into manufacture. Possibly even some boots. (this edges close to the wild fantasy of Wog/Ranger designed equipment)

Website should be up soon, but for full impact I need to get on with the photoshoots to show what I can do. I can't see any lead-time for conventions covering February so that'll be a salvage and standard stock month. It'll give me time to knock out more demo items. I think a replica of the Portal gun would be a nice one to try.

 

Whatever may come, I think everyone has to try this once. 

My first blog entry here. And I've had another idea.

See, I scavenge. I find usefull items a lot. Afterall, when was the last time you saw someone throw something away because it was actually broken?

I'm in a perpetual state of "let me know if you need anything" and I'll keep my eye out for it. It may take a little while, but I can usually find something to help a situation. I'm a bit like a one-man Freecycle.

The last thing I was providing a friend of mine with a folding bicycle. It's an old one, but it gives her transport and it'll fit in the lifts at her apartment block. So it won't get stolen, and she now has transport that'll help her find work.

I put some of my own money and time into it, in buying new parts, but the major componant was salvaged.

Now while not everyone may go about it in the same way (IE: through reclaimation), a lot of folk here are here for the idea of creating community and making the world a better place. And this is through self empowerment. Learning skills, techniques and information to make sure you have the edge to persue these agendas.

While it's probably too early in the project to impliment, I propose something for further down the line. Once there's a core of self-empowered and self-supporting members with a surplus of time and resources.

"Life Support"

Simply put, almost a mentoring system. You find someone who wants to improve their lives. You vet them to be sure your efforts won't be wasted, then start working with them to pull their life together. Wether through materials you've gained access to, your own knowledge, fundraising or the like, you take on the role of supporting someone elses growth until they can stand on their own again.

This could be done to individuals (either one-on-one, or multiple persons helping someone) or organisations.

 

The more I type this, the more I feel Alex has talked about ideas like this for the future, but I don't think it had a name. Please correct me if I'm wrong. It's been hella busy over here recently. And if anyone wants a first-hand opinion of removing asbestos yourself: It's a right pain in the arse.