This past Friday I got my first check from the freelance work I am doing for my father-in-law. It was roughly $450, of which I have only $100 left to put on a credit card. First, my brother needed cash so I sent him $100. Then I decided to invest in my computer so I can work on this freelance work at home.
I wasn’t working from my home computer because, even though I’m my employer’s Web master, I still had dialup. Slow as Christmas too. So, tired of the slowness and tired of waiting for my wife to get off the phone so I could go online, I decided to get DSL. I ended up with BellSouth’s DSL Xtreme 6.0.
The problem then was that browsing the Internet was faster, but our computer still pokes along. I have a Dell Dimension 2350 that is about 4 years old and has a 60GB hard drive and only 256MB of RAM. This is where I decided to invest some of my first freelance check. I purchased a 250GB external hard drive to move my music files to and to use as a backup, and I purchased two 512MB sticks of RAM to max out my computer’s RAM.
I hooked up the hard drive last night and will put in the new RAM today.
I know what some of you are saying out there. “That’s not an investment, that’s a purchase!” I beg to differ! 
See, to do the freelance work, I needed to go to my father-in-law’s business, 45 minutes from my home. So for each 6-8 hours of work there, I spent an hour and a half on the road. I don’t know exactly how much that cost me in terms of gas, but I can save some of that money now. Now I can work some hours in the evenings from home and get more hours in each week.
So, I invested not only in any future freelance work I may be able to do, but the new Web site will get up and running faster, which means more money made by the company sooner, which very well could result in a bonus for me.
If you look at it this way, and knowing my father-in-law, the $225 I spent on the RAM and external hard drive could result in a $500 bonus. (More or less, but this would be a reasonable figure from him). I could more than double my initial investment.
5 responses so far ↓
Joe // August 28, 2007 at 7:48 am
Interesting stuff on here. I hope to write a book some day. It will be called “How to Fail Successfully”. I have been through it all. I have owned and operated several now defunct business’s. Jobs that have come and gone and just recently lost my home of 20yrs to foreclosure. I started in Real Estate 3 yrs ago- need I saw how bad that tiiming was, and I also do mortgage loans…..yeah I know. I have worked and searched all my life for a break, to get ahead. Well I ask….now what?
The Div Guy // October 24, 2007 at 12:50 pm
DI,
Where have you gone???
deprivedinvestor // October 25, 2007 at 7:51 am
Been too busy to post, what with school and work and part time work. Haven’t done well on the credit card front either, so…..
this will probably fall by the wayside. I’m still maintaining my beer blog, thebeersnob.wordpress.com
The Div Guy // October 25, 2007 at 10:31 am
I have been reading that, great deal when you get people to send you beers to sample.
deprivedinvestor // October 26, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Yeah, Flying Dog has been good about that…the last one they sent though I didn’t review, because it seemed it could have been skunked from sitting at my door while I was at work….I wanted to buy a bottle locally and see if it was any better but haven’t yet. Hope they don’t get upset about that