Last Paycheck
Feb. 14th, 2025 10:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zesty_pintoAnd with that, I paid off my camera loan. Back to zero!
From this point forward, I no longer have the support of double paychecks, which is... well it's like starting fresh-ish. I'm not going to deny that unlike every other time I had a contract complete, I actually have backup assets. I can push some more money aside for the next deposit payment. The Trump years have also guaranteed that we cannot see buying a house in our sights at this rate so I'm looking at the house deposit as a safety net. Judging the current trends, I think we only have enough money to safely cover a 300k loan anyway which amounts to dick around here.
I considered trying to figure out what to do with my 401k accruals and these sound messy as hell. I'm half tempted to just make an early withdrawal but even that feels like I'm pulling money that shouldn't be pulled.
Every so often I sneak into the email inbox to see how things are doing and I am not surprised to see that the numbers are no longer improving. This is my taste of schadenfreude, my tiny treat.
I'm looking at what lenses to get next and I found out about some other new third party lenses that are pretty competent, even comparable to OEM brands and I'm leaning towards that direction though I probably will also avoid long shipments from China along the way for obvious reasons--already read a few horror stories from people that paid almost twice as much covering the tariff import price.
I'm going back into uploading stock photography in perhaps the worst time to do this as most people are probably going to pursue AI instead. It'll give me some use for my photos beyond the clout farming I guess. It's giving me another angle of criticism to ID what I need to correct in my photography.
This aside, it's a three day weekend and the weather looks awful, so I guess we'll be doing mostly indoor things. How nice it'll be? I dunno.
Work's caught up nicely and sadly not much beyond that.
From this point forward, I no longer have the support of double paychecks, which is... well it's like starting fresh-ish. I'm not going to deny that unlike every other time I had a contract complete, I actually have backup assets. I can push some more money aside for the next deposit payment. The Trump years have also guaranteed that we cannot see buying a house in our sights at this rate so I'm looking at the house deposit as a safety net. Judging the current trends, I think we only have enough money to safely cover a 300k loan anyway which amounts to dick around here.
I considered trying to figure out what to do with my 401k accruals and these sound messy as hell. I'm half tempted to just make an early withdrawal but even that feels like I'm pulling money that shouldn't be pulled.
Every so often I sneak into the email inbox to see how things are doing and I am not surprised to see that the numbers are no longer improving. This is my taste of schadenfreude, my tiny treat.
I'm looking at what lenses to get next and I found out about some other new third party lenses that are pretty competent, even comparable to OEM brands and I'm leaning towards that direction though I probably will also avoid long shipments from China along the way for obvious reasons--already read a few horror stories from people that paid almost twice as much covering the tariff import price.
I'm going back into uploading stock photography in perhaps the worst time to do this as most people are probably going to pursue AI instead. It'll give me some use for my photos beyond the clout farming I guess. It's giving me another angle of criticism to ID what I need to correct in my photography.
This aside, it's a three day weekend and the weather looks awful, so I guess we'll be doing mostly indoor things. How nice it'll be? I dunno.
Work's caught up nicely and sadly not much beyond that.
no subject
Date: 2025-02-15 04:26 pm (UTC)Do you have a particular type of lens you're most curious to try out?
Good luck and have fun with the photos! (I'm sorry I still haven't commented on all your recent photo posts in a while, I'm not ignoring them).
no subject
Date: 2025-02-15 04:50 pm (UTC)I have a list of some gear that I think needs to be upgraded since they're so old: an ultra wide, and maybe a macro. I found one for the former that's pretty cheap but also remarkably well made and I think I'm going to go with that maybe in a few months once I'm sure I'm managing my finances correctly. The ultra wide is one I know I should prioritize for the eclipse trip, while the macro is just me acknowledging I can do more.
No worries, the photos are more for amusement than anything. It beats hours gaming where I feel like I'll just sit around and get unhealthy with nothing else to show for it.