Hello, my lovelies! 🙂
Things have gone mostly well today, so that helps in fighting the heavy, hard stuff I’ve been drowning in. Started off with a good morning trading stocks–made $819. I’m about $640 away from being back to break even on this grand stock market experiment. I was actually up more than $819 at one point, but I gave a little back on a trade. Had I held longer, I would have actually made even more, but it dipped so fast so quickly and wasn’t climbing higher after evening out that I decided to cut my losses on that last trade.
Part of me wanted to keep on trading in order to get the money back that I’d just lost, but… you can’t do that. They call it FOMO (fear of missing out), or revenge trading.
Can’t do that. Every trade was a winner but the last one, and every single trade was all on the same stock, too. It’s funny because I did really well, and that’s even missing some of the best gaining opportunities because I was like a penny off on my bid for where I wanted to see it get down to before I’d pony up to buy more shares.
Was really good though. $800 ain’t nothin’ to sneeze at. The other great thing about it was that I did that in a brief trading session this morning, so that’s super cool. Obviously most days are not likely to be as good as today was, but today was a perfect example of what I’m looking for–short, productive morning trade session, then spend the rest of the day on the rest of my life.
Today that rest of my life involved paying the federal government and the state of Arkansas what I owe them for my 2019 and 2020 tax years. I was grateful that there were options that would allow me to pay with a credit card, as I didn’t have the funds in my personal account to pay for what I owed, having transferred nearly everything over to my trading account.
What that means is that I need to make a boatload of money really quickly and via customers paying with credit cards instead of cash, as my bank is a long ways away, and the credit payments deposit directly to my account.
With that in mind (needing a boatload of money to fill the account up in order to get the funds in my account to pay for everything on my credit cards [I haven’t carried a balance on a credit card in… many many years, and I don’t plan on doing that this month, but i need to get the account filled up enough to cover the bills]). Anyway, so I went out to work on cars today, four cars, one of them a really big job. The first one was a 2009 Nissan Altima that needed a radiator and CV axle. Everything was going rather well with the radiator portion of the job until I started up the engine in order to bleed the cooling system, and I heard weird sounds and realized that I’d left one of the tranny cooling line hoses disconnected.
😬😶😬
That meant that in the brief period I had the car running before I realized I’d screwed that up, it dumped a gallon and a quarter of transmission fluid into my coolant drain bin (which was full of coolant still).
Ugh. Double ugh.
So I reconnected the hose, and then I went about the business of correcting my mistake. I separated the coolant from the transmission fluid, so that I could see how much tranny fluid I’d lost (slightly under 5 quarts). That took a little while because I was siphoning out the coolant from the bottom (boy I’m grateful oil and water don’t mix).
After figuring out how much I’d drained out, I went to the Nissan dealer to get more fluid, as it’s a specialty transmission fluid that’s like $22/quart. 😶 So that was an expensive mistake. Cost me over $100 in fluid, not to mention probably 2 hours of my time. 😬 Still, I’m grateful I was able to separate the fluid and measure it rather effectively. That was good. Gratefully, I was still able to make a good profit on that job anyway, as there was a lot to do. The CV axle replacement went smoothly, and I’m grateful that with the experience I have now that I worry so much less about things I used to stress a lot about because I just didn’t have the experience to know (such as bleeding cooling systems). I remember years ago when first starting, I was so nervous about bleeding cooling systems. Now, it’s just… normal. I’ve learned a lot over the last 5+ years of doing this.
So, I got that job done–radiator and CV axle. Next up was a 2005 Toyota Camry that was a no start (had been sitting for like 6-8 months, and the battery was drained down. I put in a new battery, and that one was done, quick and easy. 🥳 Third car was one with some weird electrical issues. The brake sensor wouldn’t work, so it would start but not go into gear unless you pressed the shift lock bypass button. Outside that, the headlights would work, but pretty much nothing else. No blinkers, no interior lights, no dash lights, no power windows, etc.
I figured it had to do with a fuse or relay or something–thinking that maybe it was a blown main fuse, so I checked the battery, and sure enough, one of the main battery fuses, the big 120 amp one, was blown. That’s something that needs to be bought at a dealer, so I gave her the part number she needed, taught her how to replace that particular fuse (not as easy as the little guys, but nothing to be worried about either–simple enough).
So that was two in a row that were quick after a long 5.75 billable hour job.
The last job was a 2015 Chrysler 200 that was running rough. It had a ton of codes, but the main one of note was a misfire on cylinder 4. As you’re probably aware, misfires are most frequently caused by bad coils (for cars that have a coil-on-plug design, which is most nowadays). So I went to pull the coil out of cylinder 4 to swap to a different cylinder, but it was basically glued in place. I was able to get it to come out eventually, and in pieces, but I got it out. I cleaned it, put it back together, and put it in the slot for cylinder 1. Then I cleared the codes, fired it up and waited for the code to come back. It did, and this time the misfire was in cylinder 1, so that coil was the issue. Being late as it was, I walked her through how to change it herself, as it’s extremely simple to do–uber uber simple.
And that was that! The last three cars were a breeze, and I reached the money goal that I’d set out for myself this morning with respect to car work today, so that was another bonus.
Trying to remember to be more grateful, so, and I guess I’ll be repeating myself a bit, but gratitude is good repeated. I’m grateful that my drain pan caught the vast majority of the tranny fluid that came shooting out, that the five quarts didn’t end up all over the driveway, just one little spot. I’m grateful that the owner was really understanding (I mean, he basically got a $300 service for free, since I did almost the equivalent of a pan change. But I didn’t charge because he didn’t ask for it, and it was my goof up that caused it). I’m grateful that I was able to separate the fluids successfully and reasonably. I’m grateful the dealer had the fluid I needed in stock. I’m grateful the CV axle part of the job went super smoothly. I’m grateful that I was able to walk away from trading this morning after a solid morning of trading, that I was able to avoid trying to “make up” for the loss on that last trade.
I’m grateful that all my customers paid with a card today, which will help to fill my bank account quicker, so I can pay my bills quicker! I’m grateful that I’m about to go to bed, and it’s 10:17. Which means I’ll get almost a full night’s sleep before I get up to check the flow of the morning stocks. I’m grateful I got my 2019 and 2020 income tax payments paid today!
I’m grateful for my mom who makes good food to eat. It’s a successful arrangement, I buy, she cooks. It’s nice–very nice! And she buy stuff here and there as well, too.
Time for bed. Loves to all y’all.
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 