A Momentary Monetary Update

It's nearing 1 a.m. and I cannot sleep.  My sleep patterns are pretty messed up at this point but there is no real reason why.  Maybe I had too much caffeine and my system is reacting to it or maybe I just don't know how to sleep lately.  Whatever it is, I don't exactly like it and I'm not taking advantage of the situation by playing video games and knocking my backlog around like a step-child with red hair.  No, instead I sit here and type to you, dear readers.

At the beginning of the year I released my New Years Revolutions to the world and as time has gone on I am slowly modifying them to help everything fit into my lifestyle for this year.  I'm not trying to make things easier or make it look like I'm holding up my end of the bargain when I'm secretly not but I am doing my best to actually attempt to hold true to as much as possible, even if that means realizing that I was being unrealistic and modifying things so that I can still hit goals.

So, with that in mind, one of the big things I was trying to do was giving myself a monetary reason to hit goals and help motivate me to stay on path.  Money for beating video games and money for finishing books.  One of my old tactics was to use a $20 bill as a book mark so that I had that constant reminder, motivator, looking at me in the face every time I picked the book up.  After having a conversation and then reading this blog post right HERE I have slowly changed my view on the bookmark.

Now, the main reason I have changed my view on using a real twenty dollar bill is because I wanted to laminate it but was told that it wasn't a good idea because I'd never be able to actually spend that $20.  Spending that exact $20 was not really the point, however I have come to accept that losing that particular $20 would not have a happy outcome.  Maybe it would fall out while traveling.  Maybe someone would decide that they need it more than I do and free the money from the grrouchie shackles that binds it to my book.  There are a number of reasons to not use real money as a bookmark and even though I really don't want to listen I have decided to.

That led me to looking for alternatives and I found them on the Wish App.

I don't remember exactly what it was that lead me to this exact set of funny money but once they arrived in the mail I became happy that I have them.  The inclusion of a $2 bill makes me really happy since I tend to collect all of them that I run into in the wild.  (Note: I do not have a ton of them but I have a few just sitting around collecting dust)  These have a nice gold color to them and just generally look nice. 

Also, while this year I have decided to give myself $25 per book that I read (I have finished 2 and owe myself $50) I think this is something that I'm going to change up next year that will encourage me to read more even though i feel in the long run I'll end up in a pretty similar monetary situation.

The way I'm currently thinking about it, and do note that I tend to over analyze everything and make tons of changes up until my thoughts actually go live and implementation actually starts. 
So, 2020 is $25 per book finished.  I plan on reading 10 books with my eyes which will give me $250 for the year.  I also plan on listening to 4 audio book which will put me at $350 earned for the year (provided that I meant my goals).

Now, in 2021 I'm thinking of going with a system that rewards me for reading more books where the money becomes more heavily weighted as the number of books increase.  This way I'm not looking at the end of the year and realizing how hard I failed but needing fifty bucks so I just power through two books and pay the man, myself.

Instead this method will reward me for starting early and sticking with it throughout the year.  I have not put enough time into it to have any real conclusion but my thought process is along the following lines.

1st book = $1  ($1)
2nd Book = $2 ($3)
3rd Book = $5 ($8)
4th Book = $10 ($18)
5th Book = $15 ($23)
6th Book = $20 ($43)
7th Book = $25 ($68)
8th Book = $32 ($100)
9th Book = $40 ($140)
10th Book = $45 ($185)
11th Book = $50 ($235)
12th Book = $55 ($290)
13th Book = $60 ($350)
14th Book = $65 ($415)
15th Book = $75 ($490)

This is rough and it is now after 1 am and my desire for sleep has kicked in with a focus on droopy eyelids.  It took me a lot longer than I'll ever admit to do the math above and I revised it a couple of time to lower the amounts.  I can't decide if I should top out at $500 for finishing 15 books or if I should lower that amount so it is more in line with the 2020 numbers.

Either way I need sleep and have to go.

Thank you for reading.