Buying a house is a critical component in the American success narrative... which should automatically make you suspicious.

If homeownership is nothing else, it's popular. Through all of the economic gyrations of the past 50 years, ownership rates have consistently stayed within a few points of 65%:


Does the omnipresent "housing is a great investment" advice jive with reality?
Let's look at some numbers.

Self-storage facilities: they seem to be popping up in urban and suburban regions everywhere, appearing like weeds after the rain on low-value land on the outskirts of town.  They run specials like "first month's rent is only a dollar!", enticing new customers with the promise of a few extra square feet of off-site closet space.

If all has gone according to plan, the blog should have just surpassed 50,000 views.  We are ten months into the project, so it's about time!

I am done with affiliate linking and advertising.

I was reading another blog yesterday, specifically a review of a product I have been considering purchasing.  I had been to this site many times before.  The author's points struck me as fairly convincing, and I was leaning more and more into the 'make the purchase' column.

And then, there it was: the paid affiliate link.  No deal.

This site has seen a lot of action lately!  October encompassed 31 posts in all, one for every day of the month, bringing the total for the year to 80.  I'm not going to count the words for you, but it was quite a lot of them.

So, what was the point of this exercise?

This was Experiment 01: Write Every Day!

The result: overwhelming success.

my brainstorming-and-initial-drafting weapon of choice, believe it or not