Over the last year I've slimmed down. Both the amount of possessions I own and my weight. I've cut my clothing down to one pair of jeans and one pair of shorts. I've adopted a "life uniform" so I don't need a wide variety of clothing, and the minimalism aspect has convinced me I only really need one pair of jeans at a time. So I've had this one pair for about six months now, but recently my wife has commented about how they look all baggy on me, and she's not used to seeing me like that. Bills are kinda tight so I keep telling her I'm not worried about buying pants when the ones I have are fine. Well with my steemit proceeds I decided to finally go out and replace my ill-fitting pants with a good sturdy, new pair.
I've also been a techno-geek all my life. I started playing with computers when I was about three. I received hand-me-down systems until I was about twelve when I went to my first computer expo when I hand-picked my components and built my first machine. Since then I've been amazed by all the advances in computers, especially ARM machines. I've been eyeing the Raspberry Pi pretty much since they first came out, but I just never had enough spare change laying around to get one. With the steem payout, I decided to treat myself and picked up a kit from Allied Electronics. Now I can finally start getting my sons more involved with "building" computers and learning about flashing SD cards and configuring operating systems as well as give them their own little system they can play with so I don't have to worry about them accidentally wiping a partition on me or something.
As to my next purchase, I only buy used cars because I know better than to waste money on a new vehicle. I was fortunate to find a really great deal on a car about two years ago. The tires and brakes had all just been replaced and the only obvious issue was a coolant temperature sensor. I picked one of them up from the local parts store for about 12 bucks and got that taken care of. Not long afterwards a check engine light came on and it turned out the catalytic converter was bad. I was able to band-aid it through inspection last time by dumping some fuel treatment because I knew there was a small leak in the exhaust that was probably causing the bad reading and triggering the check engine light. "I'll just bring it to someone to throw a small weld on it for like $50!" Well, that would have been a fine plan except earlier this year I ran over a dead deer in the road. The deer caused the leak in the catalytic converter to basically split the the pipe all the way around as well as some other damage. -_- "Buying a pipe it is then, now just to save up for it." Again, now that I'm getting payments from Steemit, I can breather easier knowing there will be funds to take care of the car issues before it's due for inspection in a month and a half!
I know none of these things sound like much, but they're things small things Steemit has been able to help me with. However, the most important part is that Steem is going to help me finally get out of my financial debt and free me to live more like I want to. I've mentioned before that I have a twelve year old school loan and a car loan with a balance. I've started doing the math based on my current rate of Steem payouts and our regular payments on the school loan, we should be able to have it paid of within the next three months or so! The best part about coming to this realization wasn't the relief I felt, but the look on my wife's face when she realized we'll be able to get out of one hole a lot sooner than expected. Once the money normally used for the school loan is freed up, we plan to use those funds, plus my Steemit payouts to pay off the car loan. I haven't looked at the numbers yet, but it will certainly be getting done sooner than we anticipated.
So now that I've ranted, I just want to say think you to Ned, Dan and all the others that have built Steem and Steemit. We're still only just starting out and there are already many stories of how people's lives have been made better. May we continue to see more and more success stories!