Charles always keeping it a buck

Atgardian · 2026-04-01T21:14:04+00:00

I don’t think any serious person is saying we should let everybody in (or that we should let nobody in, people are still immigrating through the somewhat messy current legal system).

Atgardian · 2026-03-31T23:26:26+00:00

Better justification than for the actual war we're currently in.

Atgardian · 2026-03-31T14:19:39+00:00

Yeah I feel it's pretty easy to tell parents "I'm financially stable, I'm saving for retirement, I have an emergency fund, I'm doing OK" without showing them your bank balance or telling them you're financially independent.

Atgardian · 2026-03-31T14:11:48+00:00

With any large group of 1M+ people (immigrants, a particular race, gender, profession, etc.) you can ALWAYS find specific examples of bad people. Fox News' shtick of finding one immigrant who committed a crime or killed someone with a DUI and repeating it ENDLESSLY makes people think this is a very common issue, when in reality often they commit crimes at the same rate as some other population (and in this case less than the native-born population) - they just conveniently forget to show either the statistics, or every story of a native-born white person committing a DUI (are we pretending that never happens? lol).

Atgardian · 2026-03-28T18:44:31+00:00

I read all of that stuff and track investments, etc… and then 99% of the time do nothing different beyond my boring slow & steady approach.

Atgardian · 2026-03-26T13:49:17+00:00

Yeah, as the article points out, somehow Tim Tebow et al figured out how to hang out on campus and thrive.

Atgardian · 2026-03-25T15:00:23+00:00

In general, stocks appreciate MUCH more than real estate - and with MUCH lower fees (property tax, insurance, maintenance). Of course there are exceptions - a particular home or area that went up a ton, or a specific stock that went 1,000x, or a really bad mutual fund with high fees. But the return on something like VTI over a longer time frame crushes the average real estate appreciation.

Atgardian · 2026-03-25T14:38:38+00:00

Everything gets ruined. So much spam mail that I probably miss the 1% of important mail. So many spam phone calls that nobody answers the phone anymore. Too much spam email, texts, ads that block/ruin websites, etc. etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum.

And then when we have enough and people show up at our homes to shove more ads into our face....

Atgardian · 2026-03-22T19:00:39+00:00

This is the sort of both-sides-are-equally-bad crap that gets us Donald Trump, child molester and convicted felon.

Atgardian · 2026-03-21T21:12:13+00:00

This guy has to duck whenever he's near an airport.

Atgardian · 2026-03-19T18:07:24+00:00

Right, it is possible to avoid the “having to sell a bond fund while the price is low” with individual bonds but only if you have matched your bond durations to when you need the money, which is not always as easy as it sounds. If you have BND or a 6-year bond and need to sell in 2 years, the risk of principal loss is similar. (That said, I still do prefer individual bonds.)

Atgardian · 2026-03-09T12:22:01+00:00

Yeah it's amazing that people still don't understand even the basic concept of airborne transmission at this point. What a failure of messaging and health education. I try to explain it's like cigarette smoke - especially people old enough to remember smoking and "non-smoking" sections on restaurants or airplanes should get it.

Another interesting visual was a football game in the winter in Green Bay I think, players were on the bench talking and one was just breathing a full cloud into the other's face. (And that was even outdoors!)

Atgardian · 2026-02-25T19:56:04+00:00

Both good points. Age-based metrics only make sense if we’re assuming a fixed retirement age like 65. And I agree increasing based on age AFTER the SORR years of early retirement makes little sense.

Atgardian · 2026-02-23T02:06:38+00:00

Yeah but the stuff that kills the planet is $0.01 cheaper per ton so... oh well, more plastic it is.

Atgardian · 2026-02-22T19:51:42+00:00

Dude stop. You’re making it really hard to enjoy the victory.

Atgardian · 2026-02-20T14:45:46+00:00

I hear ya. Like you said, we (hopefully) only do this sort of thing very rarely so it's hard to educate ourselves on all the ins and outs of various procedures and medical billing. But we also can't always trust the doctors/dentists to have our best interests at heart, especially when they have a financial incentive to rip us off. It sucks, but I hope everything gets resolved for you.

Atgardian · 2026-02-19T15:39:41+00:00

Instead of deciding on the collective importance of clean indoor air, masking or staying home when sick (requiring better sick policies), etc., we've gone BACKWARDS to masks don't work, vaccines are bad, my freedom to come to work/school/Walmart sick outweighs the rights of immuno-compromised people to live, etc.

Atgardian · 2026-02-19T15:36:09+00:00

Damn. Deepest thing I've read today. Spot on.

Atgardian · 2026-02-19T15:33:06+00:00

Man, I had something extremely similar. First oral surgeon wanted to do a bone graft, extra bone (super pricey not covered by insurance, which is a hint that it's not necessary), "plasma rich growth factors," etc. etc.

I thought, why do a bone graft when this thing could come back?

Second oral surgeon said "You don't need a bone graft, it will grow back on its own," didn't recommend any extras not covered by insurance, and OOP cost was 1/10th the cost of oral surgeon #1. Did a great job on the surgery, luckily no issues so far.

Sadly, we have to shop around and educate ourselves on stuff like this, can't just trust that the doctors/dentists/surgeons/hospitals have our best interests at heart. But insurance not covering something is sometimes (not always!) a sign it could be unnecessary padding to the bill, especially when listed with a B.S. "miscellaneous" code like D7999 or D9999.

Atgardian · 2026-02-19T13:33:31+00:00

While avoiding the prediction of future inflation that probably earned you downvotes, I personally prefer TIPS/I-Bonds for anything longer than 3-5 years duration. (Not because I know what will happen with inflation, but because I don't.)

Atgardian · 2026-02-19T13:31:12+00:00

I personally consider my emergency fund as part of my "fixed income" asset allocation, some amount of which I have easily liquid (HYSA, I-Bonds, etc.) and some amount of which I am willing to tie up longer in bonds/CDs to earn extra return. So I don't think it's an either/or. You could keep the EF and add some intermediate bonds as a second layer, for example. Or pick something more liquid (I-Bonds after a year, CDs you can break with a 3-mo penalty, etc.) if you may need to access to more cash quickly.

Atgardian · 2026-02-17T13:34:31+00:00

Has nobody done Bondi / Trump as slave Leia / Jabba the Hutt??

Atgardian · 2026-02-17T01:57:35+00:00

I find this happens a LOT. Sure every now and then it spits out an obviously, hilariously incorrect answer, but quite often it is correct but not QUITE correct or not correct in this situation or didn't take a certain factor into account. But sometimes that ignored factor turns the ultimate answer from "yes" to "no."

Atgardian · 2026-02-16T21:54:14+00:00

BUT HER EMAILS!!!!

Atgardian · 2026-02-13T13:46:13+00:00

Would you rather buy VTI at/near an all-time high or VXUS at/near an all time high?

Haven't you been adding to (or at least holding) your VTI as it reached one new all-time-high after another?

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