So short recap of my life so far: Started in the art world doing Flash games and movies on Newgrounds. That plus random little commissions is how I made my money in my 20s. It wasn’t a lot of money but it was enough to get by. In my late 20s I met a girl and I also released Soda Dungeon, a mobile game. Unlike Flash games, mobile games actually can make money. It wasn’t bank-busting but it was finally a respectable above-average income.

It’s around this point where I got more interested in finances. Obviously having actual money to invest prompts you to start learning about investing. I stumbled upon MisterMoneyMustache and EarlyRetirementExtreme, which meshed well with my already ( somewhat forced ) frugal lifestyle where my only luxury was essentially my road bike. My savings ramped up as I worked on a sequel to Soda Dungeon which got released in 2020, a few months after my girlfriend left me. Bittersweet year, but the game did very well at release.

After a few months of planning and data-crunching, it seemed fairly certain that I could safely retire, at 35, with my sole commitment being to release periodic updates for Soda Dungeon.

So being single in 2020 and no longer having any strong reason to stay in Montreal, where I had lived for 10 years, I decided to move across the country for better weather. The later part of 2020 was spent traveling and planning this move.

The start of 2021 marks a new chapter in my life, which I had started to document on this crappy blog.

I made myself a list of New Year’s Resolutions for 2021. So that’s where we’re at now! Here is the current status report:

1-Learn about corporate taxes and investing through multiple corporate accounts.: 5 / 20

So turned out there’s not much to know about this. Beyond filing paperwork and opening a few accounts on different trading platforms, it’s fairly straightforward, at least as long as I get an income from the game. Once I need to withdraw money from investments then I will revisit this, but it’s many years down the road.

2-Find a place to live: 3 / 20

Currently living at my sister’s. Still there. Works for me but I can move out any time I want and am aware of my options. There’s no way 20 hours are necessary for this. I did research to fill this calculator: https://www.calculator.net/rent-vs-buy-calculator.html
Just compare what rentals are available with what you can buy and then it becomes a pretty straightforward calculation. Unless you really know where you want to settle and you have a really good reason for it, buying a house is pointless in any short-term horizon. Since everything is still mostly shut down and annoying and since the housing market is insane, I thought I might just take more time to travel as I leave my stuff in storage or with family for safekeeping. Turns out renting AIRbnbs across the globe isn’t much more expensive than just living where I am.

3-Put on 10 pounds of muscle

I have been munching on creatine and eating protein powder since January, working out very consistently about 30-45 minutes each day. I have been taking progress pictures, but not weighing myself, which I realize defeats the purpose. BUT THE PROGRESS PICS IS WHAT MATTERS. Visually I think I look more muscular while being as lean as ever. I think after about 4.5 months of this regiment, I see a difference in the mirror.

4-Get a car: 8 / 20
I started researching cars but the lifestyle I have here doesn’t necessitate one, at all. It would be of zero use to me. I will revisit this idea if I change my mind about where to live but quite frankly I don’t want to be in some remote shithole that would necessitate driving anyway.

5-Discover 50 new songs: 9 / 50

This is turning out to be a huge pain. I can’t tell if I’ve heard all the good songs, if new music is just ass or if I’m bored of music. Not even 1/5th there with half the year gone.

6-Ride a Motorcycle: 4 / 10.

After more or less discovering that riding a motorcycle on a regular basis seems to be a good way to become an organ donor, I have rethought this plan. I should still attempt to at least ride one and take classes. But as with the car, I really have no use for this and it would mostly be an expensive hobby. I already have an expensive time consuming hobby called biking.

7-Sell one altered Magic: The Gathering card. — DONE —

What the hell is an altered magic card?

Then you can sell it to some people. Which I did! Sold several so far. So I set a new goal to have it be money-neutral. And I achieved that goal as well, now having made more from this than it cost me to get started with the supplies.
So now I’m setting up this new website partly as a way to keep monetizing this hobby until I possibly get bored of it.

8- Keep this blog updated and do a mid-year reassessment.

This new site is now the place where I will keep updates going. I took last week to figure out what service to use and how to keep my old domain name from the site I started years ago in 2008.

I have yet to figure out how to put a backup online of that site but I did save all the files. It made me sad to let it go after 13 years, even though no one but me gave a shit. It served as a fun diary of what I had done, which is now the main point of this new one!

In the years to come I will concentrate more on art and travel so I should have some stuff to put on here! I miss working on my old site but it was just not financially wise to sink time into it instead of working on Soda Dungeon. But now I will have more free time.

Thanks for reading!

Welcome to the New Site!

Colorado and Washington trip