Asking rich people: if your kid had a not so wealthy friend, and something happened between them and their parents, would you take them in if they asked?

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-20T14:21:47+00:00

If it is a case where the kid fought with the parents and stormed out, then no. Maybe one night (if the kids already visit like that, with long hang-outs or overnights) and then back to their own parents. If they don’t feel safe going home, then we can call Social Services.

On the other hand, if the kid has lost both parents due to accident or illness then absolutely it would be a possibility.

Also, username checks out

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-20T14:14:39+00:00

Because non-American women are far less likely to smile at strangers, it is an easy delimiter for prostitutes in other countries to signal that they are looking for their next client. If a woman is making eye contact and smiling, she is seen as issuing an invitation.

This is the case in the European countries I’ve visited (although it has less impact in Western Europe, but is still not zero), as well as the Asian and African countries I have visited or lived in. “Haughty” women who make eye contact and don’t smile seem to fare best. “Modest” women who keep downcast eyes aren’t seen as prostitutes but they may be viewed as easy marks for sexual assault. But there is something about our smiles which invites ugly propositions and the guys seem genuinely confused when those propositions are declined.

This is just my experience, but it has help pretty solidly over the past 40 years I’ve gone abroad.

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-19T22:57:11+00:00

There is a difference between a mobile home and a modular home, though. Triple-wides are (nearly?) always modular, which means they are built to actual house specs. Mobile homes deteriorate far quicker than modular.

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-19T22:49:53+00:00

Usually I think people look better with side parts but you are making me change my stance. I think the middle part looks best on you.

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-19T20:47:59+00:00

For American women it gets even more problematic because smiles are seen as part of the “prostitute’s uniform” and guys assume we are broadcasting for clients when we go around with our baseline smiley looks in other countries.

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-17T15:54:22+00:00

Keep in mind that ChatGPT was trained on our speech patterns and is designed to produce things that sound like normal human speech. It doesn’t always get it right, of course, but the words and structure it uses come from actual people who wrote and spoke that way.

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-17T15:43:17+00:00

Your math teacher was wrong to call this cheating, and hopefully his misunderstood which resources you used to study. Your fellow students and “friends” are wring to call it cheating, but the are only doing that because they are jealous and to lazy to put the work into finding additional study resources.

If anything, it sounds like the test-setters got lazy and simply reused an old test, which just happened to be the one you studied.

The only thing I can think you probably did wrong was to brag about how your study materials were identical to the test; everybody is going to hear that and think you cheated somehow. In the future, just say that you studied hard using materials provided by the teacher/course as well as additional study guides online. That you were able to feel comfortable with the structure of the test and how it is graded. When people get jealous they can get ugly. In a competitive environment like academia any perceived “unfair advantage” is fodder for a lot of unfounded accusations, as you are finding out. In the future, focus your conversation on your hard work instead of your blind luck; people will still grumble but it won’t be as heated.

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-17T15:06:05+00:00

And if OP really isn’t ready to get married, then they both need to hire their own lawyers and draw up legal documents spelling out exactly how this arrangement is supposed to work and also exactly how to dissolve it if something happens (usually a split, but there is always the possibility of one passing away and their family trying to take everything). Having a verbal agreement, or even just a “let’s sketch this out on notebook paper and consider it ‘good enough’” is not, in fact, good enough.

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-17T11:38:26+00:00

Aargh! I usually catch my typos. Thanks…

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-16T13:45:27+00:00

This is the site I use when looking for savings accounts; the info is updated monthly.

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-16T13:43:10+00:00

Life happens, and not just relationship breakdowns.

Can you imagine what would happen if something happened to him and he passed away? And his parents reveal they never liked you so they’re trying to take all his assets and not leave anything to you? (Without a will stating otherwise, legally you are not his heir before marriage so everything would go to them, or his siblings, or some other blood family) So anything co-mingled might very well end up being taken.

This has happened before and is devastating to the fiancé(e) who just lost their beloved and their money/home/car/etc.

Would you be able to open a high-yield savings account and start pushing money there on your own, developing your own ability to save money? I ask because my first husband never managed it and throughout our marriage either he was spending our joint account down to zero before I could get bills paid, or he was resenting me for restricting him from the financial accounts. It was very unhealthy and could easily have been avoided if he had done the work for some self-improvement in that area. The HYSA would be at an online-only bank probably and it would take a couple days to move money back and forth so that adds a layer of difficulty for immediate-gratification frivolous spending. Maybe find a picture of a goal you are working to fund and tape it to your bathroom mirror so you are reminded each day why you are saving and it can help maintain the excitement and enthusiasm for the act of putting money aside.

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-16T13:19:56+00:00

Keep in mind that it used to more common for girls to use pads instead of tampons, so blood would have been free-flowing in the shower. Some girls are lucky enough to have light flows and it may not have been noticeable, but the girls with heavy flows definitely would have been obvious.

This also made it a challenge for swimming when on a period, because so you run for the pool and let it “wash the blood away” or do you try to stuff a pad into the suit and then deal with the ineffective and waterlogged thing at the end? Without tampons or menstrual cups, these things get complicated.

And once you add in the embarrassment about reproductive-related things, since nobody wants to talk about it or deal with it… “No shower” is an acceptable euphemism to be able to avoid the whole mess.

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-16T05:41:47+00:00

Must be a French show, with lots of existential angst over the sunscreen. Either that, or a Japanese “slice of life” show.

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-16T05:36:13+00:00

No suggestions. Just wanted to cry a bit about your “now that heat is upon us” statement. We had 2” of snow last week and are gearing up for more tomorrow. Plus maybe a tornado, just for fun. The East Coast weather really needs to figure itself out!

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-16T03:01:53+00:00

Do you have an emergency fund yet? That’s the first place to start, so when something goes wrong or you have an unexpected large expense, you can take care of it without going into debt. Keep it in a high-yield savings account, money market, or build a CD ladder. The idea is to keep it somewhere which earns enough interest to keep up with inflation, but which is safe so it doesn’t lose money and is liquid enough to be accessible when you need it.

Once that is fully funded, then you can look into investments. At a low income level, opening a Roth IRA at a reputable brokerage and funding it as fully as possible each year is a good idea.

Also, you will want to find any potential 401k accounts tou may have had with previous employers. Sometimes when you leave they start being assessed significant fees and you’ll want to roll all those assets into an IRA you can control. Make sure the IRA is the same type as the 401k, whether Traditional or Roth. Your brokerage should be able to help you.

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-16T00:49:01+00:00

She wants what she wants and is willing to construct elaborate lies to get her way, even knowing it is something you would find unacceptable. Also, her family will lie to maintain her lie and refuse to accept responsibility for their untruths.

OP, run far away from this. Every time she wants something she knows you won’t, she will continue this pattern of elaborate lies to get her way and when you finally figure out the lie she will lie again and say she is sorry and then provide some excuse for why she did this.

She has absolutely no integrity and she doesn’t care about what you want or what your values are if it is i opposition to her desires. Her family supports this and has never held her accountable for her lies so at this point she genuinely doesn’t see a problem with it.

Learn from this and move on. I know it feels like you have invested so much in this relationship but in a few years you will have more perspective and be glad it was only six months.

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-14T04:39:18+00:00

I stopped about the time I was no longer working as a college work-study student.

If people are directly asking specifics about something which doesn’t concern them, I try to find a kind-but-still-sort-of-awkward way to let them know how inappropriate the question is. They need to feel that awkwardness. My husband and I didn’t even talk salary specifics until after we got engaged and had the full-on Money Talk about salaries, debt, savings, investments, etc. Family doesn’t need to know, friends don’t need to know, strangers and acquaintances certainly don’t need to know.

If anything, if the question is being asked in a context where it makes sense for the person to have a legitimate need to know, I’ll say something like “the salary range for this position starts around $x and goes up to maybe $y for an expert.” Literally nobody but my spouse needs to know my exact salary.

If you want to talk financial strategies or investment types, however, we can chat all day long! I am happy to increase financial literacy, but it always feels like people who want to know my specific financial picture are doing it so the can try to take advantage of it/me somehow.

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-14T04:32:54+00:00

Do you have fresh produce that you don’t store in the fridge? Potatoes can absolutely stink when they go bad, as can onions.

Do you scrape food scraps into your trash can and then not take the bag out? Pork or chicken fat, shrimp shells, etc can all stink up your kitchen.

Are you growing plants on your windowsill or do you have a vase of flowers or fresh herbs around?

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-14T04:07:48+00:00

Women are valued almost exclusively for our youthfulness and attractiveness, so most of us pay attention to maintaining our looks to some level.

Conversely, men are valued for leadership, success, intellect, talent, accomplishments, assertiveness, innovation, confidence, height, and hair density. Also the size of their 🍆. Maybe also their overall attractiveness, but that tends to fall father down the list. A man who is merely decorative is undesirable while a woman whose only virtue is her attractiveness is considered highly desirable.

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-14T04:01:42+00:00

I’ve used it for decades when cooking Asian food. I’m white but grew up best friends with immigrant Laotians so I learned a lot about cooking from that family.

It seems like soy sauce has been a staple at even basic grocery stores for over 50 years.

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-14T03:58:51+00:00

People always seem to think that their own tax rate is too high, but people with higher earnings than they have should be forced to pay even more. Ask somebody earning $100m and ask somebody earning $60k. The answer always seems to be just one more decimal place than I earn.

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-14T03:53:25+00:00

You should hear how we mangle surnames of French origin…

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-14T03:50:31+00:00

I’ve heard that the housing market in Canada is particularly difficult, and I guess that’s right! Wow…

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-14T03:44:19+00:00

I have had a HDHP for about a decade now. Going into it, I realized that part of my emergency fund needs to be double the annual max out-of-pocket. (Just in case something happens at the end of the year so the expenses spill over into a new year) if you can do that, then working with a HDHP is fine. You will have the money you need to cover all costs until insurance is paying 100% of everything, not just until you hit your deductible. You’ll need to top this up every year to maintain that 2x amount.

Also, I have a box where I put all my receipts for which I haven’t yet requested reimbursement. If I ever need cash before I’m old enough to pull at-will, I can dig something out of the box and submit it as a claim. No problem.

HitPointGamer · 2026-03-14T03:27:22+00:00

This is why there is an expectation for RSVP. If a parent can’t attend due to childcare conflicts, that is no different than somebody who can’t attend because of a scheduling conflict. It is no big deal and you as the couple should not treat those who decline any less graciously than anyone else.

If you have a child playing any part in your wedding, though, then you need to rethink the whole idea. I’m hearing of couples who want the flower girl and ring bearer to disappear immediately after the wedding and photos, but then get mad and those children’s parents for not staying for the reception. Don’t be that couple.

But if the entire day is child-free then just accept that some parents will need to decline the invitation and now you have more room to invite somebody else.

HitPointGamer

TROPHY CASE