Life On The Verge Update: Money, Car And Links

When I wrote my post about living a life on the verge last week, I didn’t necessarily have any specific life events in mind. I’m looking for some positive changes in my life, and I can feel them coming from every direction.

I still don’t have anything specific to mention, but I do want to take this opportunity to provide a few quick updates. I hope you’ll use the comments section to tell me about any updates in your life.

Could It Be Stabilizing?

One of aspects of my life that most urgently needs attention is my financial situation. With my online used bookselling business that supported me for half a decade no longer doing that, I returned to writing as a way to make ends meet.

The problem is that the ends aren’t meeting.

It’s easy for a bookseller to feel good about his finances in August, however, because August is the best month for bookselling. My business doesn’t have the level or quality of inventory anymore to have a great month, but it has been a good month.

In addition to writing for others, I’m also working on some writing projects of my own that will generate some modest long-term income. It’s a good feeling to know that today’s work will help tomorrow’s bottom line — although I could use more money today.

There’s no real reason to think my financial situation is stabilizing, but I’m nonetheless hopeful. I must be hopeful to use a word as large as nonetheless.

Not Again: We’ll Keep This Car, Thank You

We wasted a few hours of our Wednesday trying to trade for a different car, this time a 2010 Nissan Sentra. You may remember what a ridiculous experience we had a few months ago when we tried to deal with a dealer who lost sight of his goal.

This dealer was more reasonable, the car drove great and the deal was good too. There’s just one problem: I’m sensitive to smells, and this car smelled terrible. It was a stale smoke odor that we didn’t notice at first, but I could still smell it for hours after we got out of it.

Why didn’t we notice that on Tuesday when we took it for a short spin? Why did we even consider their offers to fumigate or “ionize” it — processes that never work? Why didn’t we go to another dealer for a similar car since they didn’t have any more of that model? Why did we stay around the dealership so long instead of fleeing immediately?

Who knows.

Our 2009 Toyota Camry is inferior to the 1999 one we had, but it’s still running well. It may have an air conditioner problem, but summer’s almost over. And I despise the car-buying process. It’s stupid, time-intensive and disrespectful to people like me who require high-quality experiences at every turn of life.

Still, after Wedneday’s uselessness, we’re happy with our inferior Camry, thank you very much. Well, not happy really. But content.

Seven Links

When Robert at Untitled Minimalism nominated me to participate in a recent seven links challenge, I quickly agreed, then didn’t actually write the links post. At this point, I’m probably not going to.

As a substitute, here’s a link to a “seven links” post I wrote over a year ago. The seven links are a bit different, but it’s a sensible substitute. Comments are still open there.

And comments are open on this post too. Do you have any updates? Do you have any comments on my updates?

I’d like to clear up a few things — like our car situation — that seem to be hanging over my head. I feel things like this hold me back. Nonetheless (love that word), my life is on the verge of something amazing.

If I keep saying that, it’s bound to come true.