Drip, Drop

I don’t like my day job. I used to like it, but that was long ago. The job and I have changed. For the last three years I’ve taught at the local college and I love that. Someday I might do that full-time, but for now I’m stuck in a job that pays the bills and provides health insurance. It’s no tragedy. I have insurance and a good income, something too many people lack. And I do my job well without it taking time from the I would rather do. I will quit in a heartbeat when the conditions were right.

Making conditions right is a challenge. I apply for jobs, work my way in at the college, and look for anything else to move me forward. Part of that is investing in the stock market. I bought my first share of stock 2½ years ago, something I had wanted to do for years. I have added money a little at a time and watched the investments develop. I’m not ready to quit my day job, but it’s heartening.

After that first share, I downloaded an app that rounds up electronic and credit transactions, setting aside the pennies. Each year that nets $800 I use to buy stock.

I invest a dollar for every mile I run. Running is good for me and this got me running more. After 5.67 miles run, I invest $5.67. I run about 700 miles a year and invest that many dollars.

Wanting to lose some weight and stop drinking so much, I pay myself a dollar every day without alcohol and another each night I stop eating by 7:30. I’ve lost ten pounds and save about $500 per year.

This yields $2,000 per year. Not too shabby.

This doesn’t happen suddenly but it happens. I want immediate results, lightning out of the blue sky. I can’t make lightning but I can save and invest a dollar or two a day. Adding it up here, I see it’s a little bit like lightning or at least a good hard rain.

I won’t get out of my job today. The sky shows no sign of lightning and even if it did, who knows where and when it might strike. But yesterday I bought another share of stock. I didn’t drink alcohol or eat after 7:30. Today I’ll run a few miles and won’t drink or eat after 7:30. By tomorrow, I’ll have invested almost ten dollars more. It won’t change my life much, but one drip at a time, I’m filling the bucket. The drips come one after the other, almost in a trickle, and I can already imagine that trickle becoming a stream if not a torrent and me riding away on it to another life.