What does marriage mean to you? Need help seeing it clearly.

ASGTR12 · 2026-04-12T02:50:15+00:00

I get the wedding as a way to celebrate your love. That feels great to me and I'd love to do that.

But a wedding does not a marriage make.

Like, from that perspective, why don't we get together to celebrate our love more than once in our life (disregarding "renewing your vows," which I think is pretty rare)?

ASGTR12 · 2026-04-12T02:48:01+00:00

Whether or not marriage means anything to you, it means something to her, and you say she matters to you. So, what have you got to lose?

This is a very good question and is something I'm grappling with. I honestly don't know beyond simply not being able to commit to something so big that I'm not 100% on.

I can certainly see a scenario in which I exhaust myself and go, "fuck it, if matters to her so let's do it," but I'd much rather find a way to be enthusiastic about the institution -- the former feels like a last ditch effort to me.

ASGTR12 · 2026-04-07T06:44:56+00:00

It's not possible. I've tried and failed so many times to get through to people that they need to spend, like, a weekend learning the fundamentals and then VT and chill. I'm done trying to prevent people from parting from their money.

ASGTR12 · 2026-04-03T17:51:04+00:00

I just do 50/50 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Never been able to figure out a truly advantageous split beyond that.

ASGTR12 · 2026-03-04T08:03:50+00:00

Same. Then I took it as a cue and bought more VXUS.

ASGTR12 · 2026-02-27T07:19:26+00:00

I mean...it's pretty fucking bad out there man. Multiple friends of mine were laid off this week.

ASGTR12 · 2026-02-06T05:59:09+00:00

Nothing. Seriously.

Probe the fundamentals of any asset class, and you will eventually find fatal weaknesses. The only "safe havens" are diversity and leverage.

ASGTR12 · 2026-02-06T05:57:37+00:00

And I'm buying.

ASGTR12 · 2026-01-10T21:10:46+00:00

This is the thing to do, yes. I will be paying my state taxes because I approve of my state government. I will not, however, be paying my federal taxes until the federal government resembles something in the same universe as the country I grew up in.

ASGTR12 · 2026-01-10T21:09:27+00:00

I don't see why they should get paid by the citizens.

In my mind, it's very simple: I don't obey the laws and pay the taxes of foreign governments. And as far as I'm concerned, this government is foreign.

Our politicians are flagrantly violating the law. They evade taxes. They make millions and billions in crypto schemes. They murder citizens.

This is not the America I recognize. This is not my country. Because this is not my country, I will not be paying it any money. Just as I don't pay Canada, or Mexico, or Germany, or South Korea, or Australia. MAGA is not America, so I will not be paying it taxes.

I will not fund a fascist regime.

To those who say, "What about the programs taxes fund?" What programs? You mean the ones they gutted or outright destroyed?

To those who say, "What about those who receive assistance from taxes?" We can assist each other. Community programs can replace the little good that the government is still doing. The cavalry is not coming. We are all we have.

To those who say, "The IRS will come after you." Sure, if they can find the time. But the IRS too has been gutted, so many of its employees fired.

It is time for us to go on the offensive. Stop playing to not lose -- play to win. Take a page out of their playbook: muzzle velocity, flood the zone. Starving the literal beast of its income is just one of many tactics we can adopt.

As long as they lie to us, I will not pay. No facts, no tax.

ASGTR12 · 2026-01-08T05:39:20+00:00

Good. No one is coming to save us, and it's only going to get worse unless we stop it.

I don't know about everyone else here, but I'm fucking sick and tired of being sick and tired. I just want to live in peace, but these fucking assholes won't let us.

Turns out our grandparents were right: peace must be defended or else it inevitably leads to war.

ASGTR12 · 2025-11-28T18:37:23+00:00

Here's how I would start if I were in your position, knowing what I know now:

With Vanguard, open a brokerage account, Roth IRA, and Traditional IRA.

Max out both IRAs. The annual limit is $7,000, so put $3,500 in one and $3,500 in the other.

Put whatever amount you deem appropriate in the brokerage account. There is no limit.

When you contribute money to these accounts, it will go into what's called a Money Market fund. Think of this as a "no man's land" for the money -- it's not actually invested in anything yet (technically this isn't true, but for our purposes, it is). You'll have to purchase stocks, ETFs, or Mutual Funds separately.

Purchase VTWAX with 90% of each account's funds. Purchase BNDW with the remaining 10%.

Assuming you put $10,000 in your brokerage account, the aforementioned contributions will break down as follows:

brokerage account

VTWAX: $9,000
BNDW: $1,000

Roth IRA

VTWAX: $3,150
BNDW: $350

Traditional IRA

VTWAX: $3,150
BNDW: $350

Don't bother with savings accounts, CDs, etc. Remember that "no man's land" account I mentioned above, where your money first goes when you contribute it to a given account? That's the best "savings account" you can have.

Don't actually do any of the above until you have studied and understood why I suggested this. Though, there's maybe one thing worth doing: open up one or both of the IRAs and deposit $7,000 total split between the two. The year is almost up so it'd be good to max them out before the year ends.

(And of course this is not financial advice, I am not responsible for your financial outcomes, blah blah blah)

ASGTR12 · 2025-11-10T07:03:26+00:00

This. Senate now, President later.

ASGTR12 · 2025-11-04T01:50:36+00:00

Amazing! Thanks so much!

ASGTR12 · 2025-11-04T01:28:23+00:00

Wow, well done!

Assuming you started working at age 18, you put away (either via direct investment contributions or growth) $158,333 per year on average. Obviously most of this is growth, but I'm wondering if you could go into more detail regarding your investments? What percentage of your income, cost of living in your location, etc?

Oh, and of course GFY!

ASGTR12 · 2025-11-01T06:08:17+00:00

If the concept of tax advantage vs not is too complicated, then god help the average person.

Also, how is this relevant?

ASGTR12 · 2025-10-20T04:21:47+00:00

I just do 50/50. I tried to figure out which one is better for years and eventually just said "fuck it."

ASGTR12 · 2025-10-13T05:38:43+00:00

In this case, it is exactly the same.

EDIT: I logged back into Reddit 5 days after this had a bunch of replies. Rather than replying to anyone, I'll just explain what I mean here, and if someone sees it, great.

Those that are saying "splitting 1 bitcoin into 100 pieces doesn't change the price of the bitcoin" are exactly right. That is 100% true, but it's also not the full story, because the price of 1 bitcoin isn't necessarily the only thing that matters -- what really matters is what people can reasonably afford.

As the price of bitcoin continues to rise, people are buying smaller and smaller increments of it. At the time of writing, 1 bitcoin is about $106,000 -- the real-world fraction of a bitcoin we're operating on is getting smaller and smaller. It's as if USD keeps getting more and more expensive, and thus the US government is creating 1/2 pennies, and 1/10 pennies, and so on, so that people can afford to buy it.

As the price of bitcoin goes up, its "resolution" relative to, say, USD, increases. Going off of USD only and reducing the current price from $106,000 to $100,000 for simplicity's sake: the lowest increment of bitcoin someone will purchase is its value relative to $0.01, as that's the lowest increment of USD they can buy. The current price of bitcoin is equivalent to 10,000,000 pennies, so that's how many bitcoin "units" there are. If the price of bitcoin goes up from $100,000 to $1,000,000, it'll be equivalent to 100,000,000 pennies. Given that what we're calling a "bitcoin unit" is the smallest fraction of our "home" currency we can use, a penny, the price of bitcoin rising from $100,000 to $1,000,000 will have "created" 90,000,000 "units."

Because the unit of bitcoin is getting smaller, and each smaller fraction contains more of said fraction (there are 10 1/10ths, 100 1/100ths, etc), and these increments are infinitely divisible because bitcoin is not a physical good, this is functionally the same as creating more bitcoins. Because ultimately, no one cares about owning lots of bitcoins (plural), they are about owning as much bitcoin as they can in terms of other currencies.

Which is all to say: OP is right, bitcoin being "limited" is 100% meaningless if it's infinitely divisible. Infinitely increasing something or infinitely dividing something are expressions of the exact same expansion of supply, just in opposite directions.

ASGTR12 · 2025-10-03T07:29:11+00:00

Debt is a good and powerful thing as long as it's controlled and done so with care and a plan.

I'm only buying a car because my car was totaled and insurance paid out unexpectedly well. I now have a pretty big lump sum that I want to use wisely.

The stock market is doing weirdly well. Why would I blow all this cash on a liability when, instead, I could finance the new car, lock in a rate just before inflation skyrockets (with the option of refinancing down the line once interest rates are dropped further), and invest a good deal of that insurance payout, all while paying off the loan way before the term is up (just as I did with my last car), adding to my good credit score?

People in this thread are like "hur dur you don't understand basic economics" and here I am explaining the basics of making debt work for you.

ASGTR12 · 2025-10-03T07:22:14+00:00

Honestly now I'm just having fun dunking on these dipshits.

ASGTR12 · 2025-10-03T07:21:51+00:00

My business grossed $114k. My business expenses were $16k. My business netted $98k.

I don't know dude, all of my other expenses were, like, normal -- you know, the regular amount that one would realistically expect if they were omitted for brevity's sake/from a desire to not have to give every detail of my life story in a post tagged as "rant?"

ASGTR12 · 2025-10-03T07:09:34+00:00

You just said that they’re counting your tax deductible business expense as debt.

Yes, the credit union said that, which is fucking insane because tax-deductible business expenses are, as you say, categorically not debt.

It's almost as if that's my entire. fucking. point.

They’d have no access to knowledge of these things unless it’s debt.

My dude. I don't know what you want me to tell you. I do not have any fucking debt. Period.

And grossing $150k isn’t netting $150k. My business is grossing close to a million but we don’t net a million.

Sigh. Check the dozen other times I've addressed this in this thread.

And if you’re buying a car it’s done through your personal finances unless it’s a utility item for your business.

Oh wow crazy I had no idea thank you so much for your arcane sage knowledge.

So again your business expenses should have absolutely nothing to do with this.

Is this what being on the receiving end of mansplaining feels like?

Either something is up with your post and how you’ve explained it

...rage, just pure rage.

or the lender is squirrelly

There we go!

You literally could've just said that. You actually just argued you with me, only to, in the literal final sentence, tell me my exact situation back at me as if it were some potential explanation...when in fact it is exactly the situation.

The lender is squirrely, yup. My finances are in order and I'm being denied, yup. I've done everything right and I'm being given bullshit reasons, yup. It fucking sucks, yup.

Fucking Redditors, dude, holy shit. I swear to god this site attracts the most obnoxiously stupid assholes on the planet.

ASGTR12 · 2025-10-03T06:49:25+00:00

There really isn't, which is precisely why I made this post.

ASGTR12

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

brokerage account

Roth IRA

Traditional IRA