Where there is a will, there is a way.

So the other day my roommate, Cody, was complaining about the speaker in his iPhone no longer working. I had done repairs on my iPod Nano years ago and although it is a very very small device to work on, I was able to fix it. I told him I could order a few parts online and fix his phone for him instead of him having to shell out ~$150 for an insurance claim on it. I didn't have the screw drivers needed so I ordered the ones for the phone and a new loud speaker all for about $10! Sure beats $150.

I got his phone all pulled apart and the instructions I had found online actually had you take out the main board in the phone, the battery, etc... (I later found out this wasn't all necessary,) and all was going well till I had to take out the battery. The battery is glued into the case of the phone and while I was trying to be careful not to damage anything else while prying it out, I ended up snapping the plastic too I got to help take the phone apart. I had some other small tools used when repairing my Xbox 360 and building my desktop computer so I went upstairs to grab that tool kit so I could finish working on the phone. Not even 2 minutes later I come downstairs and hear my roommate say "we got fire!" WHAT??? I was thinking to myself "what in the hell could I have done to it to cause it to catch on fire?" It turns out Cody decided to try and pry the battery out himself with a knife he grabbed in the kitchen. He punctured the plastic around the battery and exposed some plates inside the battery. Whenever he would mess with it the battery would start to glow and smolder in the spot and smoke would start coming off of it. We were able to get the battery out finally and I got the speaker replaced, but with no battery his phone would be out of commission for until I could get a new one. I looked and found a new high capacity battery for $12 online so I went ahead and ordered that one for him. The new battery should be here later today or tomorrow so I will finish up his phone and get it all back together. Overall it was quite an interesting fix that went from a hopeful cheap and easy fix to Cody being without a phone for 4 or 5 days and an interesting story.

This also leads back to one of my goals for this year which is to find a way to start making money online, and maybe eventually get to the point where I can say goodbye to the regular 9-5 working world. If everything works out with this repair, then I have a broken iPad that I was given that I'm going to try and repair as well. I think I know what I need to do to fix it, but the front glass on it is shattered and something internal is wrong as well. I'm hoping to get both of these devices back in working order and maybe start finding broken iPhones and iPads that I can get for cheap and do an easy repair to it so I can just flip the device. While this isn't really making money online the way I had in mind this would be something that could really be done from just about anywhere.

I had some hibachi chicken, mushrooms, and rice today for lunch and in my fortune cookie it said "Where there is a will, there is a way." I found this to apply to what I had planned to blog about today. Even though my idea to make money online didn't relate to repairing electronics I can see that where there is a will to make extra money away from regular work, there is a way to do it with the skills that I have. I have always been able to figure out how to fix my electronics, but never really thought about it as a way to make money. This may change soon though! I'm sure I will keep this blog updated with my progress as I figure some of this out.

My New Chromebook and a few other things

It's been awhile since I have made a post on here, so I apologize to anybody who is following my blog for the lack of posts (pretty sure nobody is reading this yet.)
When I last left off I was talking about saving up for a trip with some family and friends at the beginning of the year next year. I have been looking at some of the different options available since I have kinda taken the reins to lead the trip planning. Right now Las Vegas still seems like one of the best options out there for the pricing, but cruises are definitely one of the other options out there. Seems like between those 2 options you really get the most out of your money so right now that's where the trip stands. I have saved $100 so far for the vacation and have the money set aside where I won't touch it till it's time to book the trip.
As for what else I have been up to recently; I recently converted from using a regular laptop to now using a Chromebook. The Chromebooks work all though cloud services and saving your files to your Google Drive which is something I have never really messed with before. It comes with 100 gigs of free Google Drive space for 2 years with the purchase of a Chromebook. I have been backing up pictures from my phone on there so I can free up space on my phone. I have also been in the process of converting most of my movies to digital as well using the VUDU service provided by Wal-Mart. This pretty much lets you have a digital copy of most all of your movies (not all work) through there service so I can watch them through my Chromebook, cellphone, or many other online devices. My next step is to upload a good portion of my MP3s to the Google Play service. I haven't messed with it yet, but it says it allows you to upload 20,000 MP3s to save online so you can listen to them at any time. I have to say that so far I love my Chromebook, but it really makes you think of doing things a little bit differently if you have never really used space on the cloud before.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I was going to start learning some coding stuff and figure out a way to start making money online, and so far I have failed completely at this. It's 20 days into the new year and I really haven't done anything yet. I need to change this ASAP if I'm going to reach my goals so starting today I am going to start doing online lessons on HTML coding. Learning this will help me be able to learn coding for online content and website design. Web design, I think, is a a good place to start off to for making money online. I have found a website that is supposed to teach you how to write HTML code and I am going to start off today with at least an hour/day and see where that takes me.
It would sure be nice be able to be rich and do whatever I wanted, but I will be able to have more freedom to do whatever I want if I'm able to make money online. I would be able to work from anywhere I would want as long as I was able to connect to the internet. In the end my goal is to be able to make a comfortable living by working when I want and from wherever I want. I am just working now on that first step to being able to do all that.

On a side note. If any of you have been out there reading my blog please leave a note or send me a message and let me know how you like this so far. I am still new to the blogosphere and I hope I'm making these posts at least somewhat interesting to read. My next couple of blogs will probably be more about myself, my background, and maybe a story or two from my past.

Additional New Year Goals

Since this is really the first blog I have ever done I decided to do some research on some of the top blogs to get an idea on the best way to write these and make it interesting. In doing that research I came across Tynan's Blog and read a few of the newest posts and I was hooked. I think the thing that got me hooked to his blog right off was the fact that he lives in an RV and home is wherever he goes. The last few months I have been very interested in micro homes that people have been building. This is one of my favorite micro homes I have seen, and I think there are a lot of things in common between living in a 200 sq ft home and living in an RV and it seems like a nice minimalistic lifestyle I think I would enjoy.

After discovering his blog and reading a couple of the newest posts I decided to go back to when he first started living in an RV about 7 years ago. I then got to the point where he had sold his RV and just about everything else he had and decided to travel with world with a friend. They picked 6 cities around the world and planned 2 months to live in each one. This blog has given me food for thought going forward and helped me decide on some new goals going forward. I know you are thinking that it is too late for New Years resolutions or goals, but it's still early January and I'm allowed to change what I want!

I haven't really been happy the past few years with my situation at all. I haven't really had a job I enjoyed and haven't really been making the money I feel like I should be making. It is time for a change but not a change just saying I'm going to go out there and find another job that I think I may enjoy more. Instead I'm going to try to improve myself instead and gain new skills that will help me change my situation. Going forward my main goal for this year is to figure out a way to start making money online and working from home. I know this won't come easy right away and I will still need to keep a regular job for now, but I want to have the seed planted before the end of the year to start making money online. Once I am able to do that I can expand on it and eventually get to the point where I won't have to go to an office job everywhere, but instead be able to work from anywhere with an internet connection.

In order to better improve myself and get to this point I am going to start taking lessons online and researching coding and web design for at least an hour per day. I went to college for a couple years for computer programming and couldn't really stand the professors and their lack of teaching so I left. So I do have some experience in coding, but not really anything with web design. I think learning these skills along with trying to figure out a way to make money online will help better myself as well as get me to the point where I will be able to work from home and not have to worry about a real job again. I don't want to be rich, I just want to be able to be happy and do more stuff that I enjoy.

I talked about sticking to this blog earlier and still plan to do that as well and post at least once a week for now. I need to figure out how to get this blog out as well so more people can see and read it. Hopefully for now people will stumble upon it and enjoy my ramblings and keep reading, but for now I will keep posting at least once a week and see what happens.

I mentioned the 52 week challenge in my last post which at the end of it I would have $1328 saved up after the year. I plan on saving a bit more then that when possible as well. My sister is also planning to save according to this plan as well, and we are planning to turn this savings into a trip together and with any of our friends that want to join us. We talked the other day about what to do; I think we may plan a trip to Las Vegas in early 2015, and also trying to save money each year going forward according to this plan and make it a yearly trip.

For now those goals are being added to the ones mentioned before. I have never made any New Years resolutions and don't really consider these to be resolutions, but instead goals that I am going to work on to better myself and get me to a point where I will be more happy. I know this sounds a lot like a resolution, but goal sounds better to me!

NFL Playoffs and Update on New Years Resolutions

Ahh! It's playoff football time. Unfortunately my team has the longest playoff drought of any team in the NFL, but that's what you get when you are a Bills fan. No matter what happens or where I live, I still stick by my team though. I just finished watching the 1st wild card game with the Chiefs and Colts and wow what a game. If the rest of the playoffs are that exciting, then this post season is going to be wild.

I also wanted to post a quick update to my last post about my new years resolutions. I have made a few strides towards the changes I'm looking to make in 2014 starting with being more frugal. I got a crock pot for Christmas and I have purchased some small rubbermaid containers today. I plan to make a big meal in it on Sundays as often as possible and then put the left overs in the rubbermaid containers for lunches for the next few days. I think this should help me save quite a bit of money if I stick with it though the year. I have also founds a gradual savings plan I am going to try to follow to save money. It is called the 52 Week Money Challenge and pretty much it works like this: week 1, add $1; week 2 add $2, etc... By the end of the year if you do this all 52 weeks of the year you will end up with $1378.00 saved up.

Well that's about all the rambling I have for now. Back to watching the playoffs!