In a minor burst of doing something I should have done a year ago, I placed two items on Craigslist this past week. Nothing major (a Tonka toy and a grinding machine). The toy took up space, and really wasn't that great, and the grinder was now a duplicate, as I inherited a bigger one. The nice part is while I got a total of $11 for the pair, I paid $8 for them at yard sales 2-3 years ago. I really love getting money to temporarily own items. I really need to list more items for sale (hint to myself).

=== Other thoughts in my life ===

Yard sales were abysmal today - only bought two sweaters for my grandmother. Thankfully my pickups the past two weeks were above average.

Shoulder therapy is coming along. While not perfect, I barely ever think about babying the shoulder any more, it feels so good. Of course right after therapy it feels awful, but that goes away in a few hours.

Oh, lets not get into the stock market. I suppose it will be good in the long run that prices dropped so much now, but it doesn't make me feel better in the short term. This is why day trading wouldn't appeal to me.

Oh, and finally, I'm one month closer to my true independence day - the day I don't have a mortgage and even the oh-so-minor concern that "a job loss could cause me problems" will be gone. (BTW, its currently scheduled for July 2012) While barely having enough in CDs and savings to match what I owe on the mortgage, I really don't have the "just what mortgage worry are you talking about?" feeling yet. By the end of this year I think it will start to kick in though.

It was a year (or maybe two) ago I wrote how going to yard sales can give a very interesting view on how some people fritted away money left and right on erm... c!&p, and now don't have money for basic needs like utilities, or even housing. Of course this was while I was visiting with relatives living "in the countryside" as I like to call it.

Quite possibly (make that probably) in the past year I have come across people moving out of the area I live in due to financial issues as well. But yesterday I came across one, that while they didn't say it directly, must have blown some serious wads of cash, and now had nothing but bills to show for it. It was late in the morning, so I probably missed some interesting items, but lets see - what did they have?
* Padded chair with speakers built in
* Some really expensive looking furniture
* Brand new wrought iron curtain rods and unopned very nice curtains (these are what I bought and installed in my kitchen)
* Some type of mini electric arcade (like you would find at Brookstone - are they still in business?)
* Fancy glassware
* Nice dresses
* Lots more high end bric-a-brac.
* Nice jukebox
* And last but not least - *TWO* cars sitting on the front lawn for sale. Both very high end cars, one some type of sports car, the other I think was a new BMW of some type. New fancy rims, new tires, nice and shiny. They wanted $35,000 for each one. Whew!

And the house, for this area anyway, would probably sell for $750,000 now (make that well over a million a year or two ago).

While I was looking someone that was helping this woman sell things commented "Well its not like you're going to have room for these things when you move into your condo." Yikes. While condos can be extra nice around here, most of them are just glorified apartments. Just keep the money spent on the junk I saw (and buy one reasonable used car instead of the two there) and I swear you would have enough money to pay a couple *YEARS* of mortgage payments, even on a house that size. I guess they thought the good times would never end. She even talked like she was well educated, but obviously some common sense was seriously lacking.

Quite often when I try to enourage myself to do the "right" thing (financially anyway) I try to look at the finances from a different point of view. Which is sorta what I am doing when I answer the question in this post's title.

As I have paid my mortgage down, I have looked at how much of each month's payment goes toward interest, as the remaining amount goes back to me as it ups my "equity" ownership of the house. I am now at the point where the monthly interest is only $180, or just $6 per day. Of course there are other bills on the house (utilities, insurance, taxes). Those I estimate are monthly $75, $50, and $250. That totals $375, then add in the $180 and I get about $550, or about $18 / day. That's certainly better than renting a small apartment where I would pay at least $1,000 a month (around here anyway). Its just a different way of looking at how the extra payments on my mortgage help accelerate my payoff, and it makes the extra payments feel more worthwhile.

Now for extra items (if you're up for a long read)...

Physical therapy is going fine. Extra painful during the sessions, as my yelling out in pain at times can attest. Only two weeks in, and my range of motion is almost back to where it should be (ok, in some directions that's true, others I still have a ways to go).

Oooh, I just put in the last $2,000 for my 2010 Roth IRA. Its now maxed for this year (before May no less!). Not sure what I will put that money into, but I have an idea. Now I need to roll over an old 401k into a Roth, and I will be cooking.

In my efforts to eat better, and still eat cheap, I have started to use almond and soy milk in place of the skim milk I have used for years. Regular milk seems to go bad fast, too fast for me as I live alone and don't use it much. The other types of milk last much much longer. But these milks seem thicker to me, so I have been diluting them with water, maybe 25-33%, which tastes better, and brings the price down close to real milk. And with it not spoiling so fast, it may be just as cheap now. Something to consider.