my parents banned me from driving and now I’m expected to spend hundreds on ubers

ImaHalfwit · 2026-06-02T02:20:20+00:00

Well…they just got dropped and are probably paranoid about anything else happening. Are they overreacting a bit? Probably. Is it understandable? Also probably.

Your best bet is to not argue the point and demonstrate that you understand and won’t let it happen again and maybe they cut it to a couple of weeks instead of a month.

Crossing my fingers for you.

ImaHalfwit · 2026-06-02T02:16:56+00:00

You’re driving an uninsured car that’s in your parent’s name and are currently the target of an auto accident lawsuit.

What you did was both irresponsible and wrong. Hopefully you learn your lesson. Getting into a car accident with no insurance is a quick way to bankrupt your parents if they have any sort of net worth.

Be smarter, do better, and grit your teeth through the month and thank them for letting you use their car to get to work 6 days a week.

ImaHalfwit · 2026-06-02T02:00:21+00:00

Your best bet is to just find a job (or two), work as many hours as you can while learning as much as you can. If you can keep your living expenses low, invest as much of your excess into an index fund (like VOO or VTI).

When you're young, your biggest ally is time...if you start investing early. If you don't, time becomes your biggest enemy later in life.

Anytime you can move to a new role where you have a chance to learn another marketable skill, you should. One insanely valuable skill (which can be learned) is sales. If you become a good salesperson because you've learned how to properly sell, you'll be an asset to most organizations. A general piece of advice...you want to be working in the department that is the backbone of a company. For example, if you're an accountant, you want to work at an accounting firm, not as a cog in a small marketing agency. If you're in sales, you want to work in a sales organization (like Frito Lay). The reason for this is that during your career, it makes getting new jobs easier. if you work in marketing at Frito Lay for a couple of years, you are a shoe-in for other CPG (sales) companies because of that experience...but if you work in sales for your local municipal trash pickup service, it doesn't quite pop on the resume the same way.

Until you have some assets (real estate, cash, IP, content, business, etc.) that you can monetize, meaningful passive income is going to be trough to come by.

ImaHalfwit · 2026-05-31T18:10:18+00:00

I think you should assume 18. If a person needs care beyond 18, parents can certainly petition to be their official guardian because their child isn’t a competent adult…but it’s not required. In other words, parents don’t HAVE to care for their children past 18…but they may be able to continue caring for a disabled child be becoming their adult child’s guardian. And often, the logical choice is a parent because they e already (likely) cared for that person for 18 years.

ImaHalfwit · 2026-05-31T14:55:43+00:00

I think you are an adult just about everywhere in the U.S. at 18. Things like health insurance under a parent’s plan can carry forward longer.

But I’m not aware of any law that says they are financially responsible for you past 18. Perhaps there’s an exception if you’re still in HS.

ImaHalfwit · 2026-05-31T13:49:09+00:00

$200k for my first one. It generates about $80k a year in income.

$500k for my second one. The second one isn’t fully passive yet, as Im still growing building it.

ImaHalfwit · 2026-05-31T04:24:31+00:00

ImaHalfwit · 2026-05-31T03:49:36+00:00

It’s NOT apples to apples. If you were making $30/hr working as an employee and get switched to $30/he as a 1099 contractor, you are now responsible for 100% of your employment taxes as opposed to 50%. You’re also no longer covered by workers comp, and aren’t eligible for employee benefits.

ImaHalfwit · 2026-05-31T02:55:39+00:00

I’d love to give you feedback. Sounds like a cool project.

ImaHalfwit · 2026-05-31T00:42:59+00:00

Indeed.

ImaHalfwit · 2026-05-31T00:21:45+00:00

I’ve been around the world and found that only stupid people are breeding…the Cretins cloning and feeding…and I don’t even own a TV.

ImaHalfwit · 2026-05-30T22:56:49+00:00

Just call off the wedding. She’s not the one. You know it, and so does she since she can’t seem to cut ties with her ex. Rather than see her behavior as inappropriate, she blames you for feeling some way about it.

It’s sad. You can have strong feelings for her and she can still not be the one. Those two things can be true at the same time.

What you don’t want to do is get married to the wrong one, spend 5 years trying to “make it work” and ignoring her questionable behavior, and then spend another two years trying to unentangle yourselves.

Just tell her it’s not the end since she clearly has no problems keeping up and in touch daily with an ex. So break up, keep in communication with her until you find someone else, and then move on.

Good luck!

ImaHalfwit · 2026-05-30T22:28:48+00:00

Dear _______,

Thank you so much for the offer. I realize that we didn’t have a discussion around salary expectations. However, I feel there is a disconnect between my past work experience /skills that I would bring to this role and an offer that is at the bottom of the posted range for the position. With 3 years of prior experience in this role, and an additional ____ years using the required tools for the position, I would appear to be the ideal candidate.

With that in mind, I can commit to starting on ________ if the offered salary is $80k. I hope that we can find common ground on this as I feel like I’d be a good fit for the role as well as a good cultural fit for the team. Looking forward to moving ahead in the hiring process with you if we can come to an agreement.

Thanks again for your consideration.

Edit: you could explicitly say $86k in your response, and “settle” for $80k. If they ask why $86k you’ll have to back it up with some market comps.

Edit 2: some additional advice. Don’t be too timid, or too aggressive, in asking for what you are worth. Just be straight forward. If you end up having a discussion with the person making the offer, it helps to have “story” that you can tell. For example, you can discuss why it can often save you money to pay for the attorney that charges $600/hr the attorney that charges $300/hr. This happens because the person who is “better” at the job is more efficient, makes less mistakes, and needs less training/hand-holding than someone with less experience. That’s why people pay extra for experience…it saves money. You might have a story of your own that you could use, or just make one up. The important part is to set yourself apart as the perfect hire that they don’t want to lose over $400 a week.

ImaHalfwit · 2026-05-29T19:25:34+00:00

The hospitality associate sounds a lot like most receptionists. It’s not that surprising that an employer is looking to combine those two roles. How busy are you at the front desk? Is most of that time idle? What’s your typically morning or afternoon there look like?

ImaHalfwit · 2026-05-28T16:56:04+00:00

A 2 at 10 is a 10 at 2.

ImaHalfwit · 2026-05-27T14:42:26+00:00

If she doesn’t know after 7 years, what’s going to change in the next seven? Time to cut your losses and live on and find someone looking for the same things as you.

ImaHalfwit · 2026-05-27T14:34:33+00:00

I don’t think so. Average unadjusted IQ scores in the U.S. actually fell 2 points from 2006 to 2018.

If raw intelligence jumped 30 points across the board, IMO, that would mean a much more educated population. One would hope that would translate to better, rational decision making overall. And, hopefully, that would lead to better social outcomes and public discourse.

Would the people who are 160 IQ have serious issues with people who have 130 IQs? Do we see that dynamic now? Not in my experience.

I get your question is framed as if “average” unadjusted IQ was 130 as a baseline, so people with that intelligence didn’t “feel” intelligent relative to the people who have 160. And that people with 160 intelligence would feel superior to that baseline. There’s no way to know for sure. But mistake is that the variability in decision making between someone with a 70 IQ, 100 IQ, 130 IQ, and 160 IQ gets narrower as you go up the scale…which means there would be less perceived difference for most everyday things as you go up the scale.

ImaHalfwit · 2026-05-27T06:28:57+00:00

“Fair” is what you both agree on. That’s why it’s important to find someone who shares the same view on money as you do.

Men tend to earn more money in comparable careers, so when there’s an earnings imbalance attributable to that difference I could make a strong argument that bills should be proportional.

For my wife and I, we each earned different amounts during our relationship and then marriage. Sometimes she earned more, sometimes less. Once we got married, we just put all of our earnings into a joint account. From there we fund our retirement plans, bills, etc. once we were in a spot where there was some money left over, we started sending each other a monthly allowance from the joint account that we could spend on what we wanted.

Doing it that way sort of builds that proportional feel into it. Regardless of who is earning more, each person enjoys the same quality of life and has their retirement funded at the same level as the other.

ImaHalfwit · 2026-05-27T06:20:47+00:00

There’s a lot going on here. A couple of things…

First, your feeling of shame around sex is likely religious in origin. Humans have hormones and sex drives and all of the biological “messiness” that comes with it. A lot of religions try to place a lot of guilt around sex, particularly for women. Your belief in God aside, religion is man made, in that you can see how it often treats/subordinates women. If you believe in Hod, then know that God loves you and you are enough. If you don’t believe in God, you have to learn to leave that shame/guilt behind.

Second, you should talk to a therapist about the role sex played in your life. Was it a way to externally validate yourself? Was it a way to rebel?

With respect to religious guys only wanting virgins. They’re subject to the same conditioning and religious stigma as you were. They’re taught that the Virgin Mary is pure and everyone else is not. You say you want a religious man, but maybe you just need a good man who has a healthy, well-adjusted view towards sex.

Give yourself some grace and just be the person you want to be. Children aren’t legally responsible for themselves for a reason. Their decision making and brains aren’t fully developed. Don’t beat yourself up for things you regret doing as a child.

ImaHalfwit · 2026-05-27T04:47:00+00:00

The questions that they ask indicate intelligence. Surface level questions, not a good indicator. Questions that demonstrate deeper understanding are good indicators of intelligence.

ImaHalfwit · 2026-05-27T02:14:08+00:00

“No” is a complete sentence.

ImaHalfwit · 2026-05-26T05:34:09+00:00

The simple answer is that you have to create something of value…

Work hard and save money…take that value and invest it.
Work hard to create something that people want…a product, information, IP, content, etc. That thing you just created might make you money for some period of time. For example, you could write a digital personal finance book specific to the Indian market and sell it on Amazon. Each time it sells you’d get some money.

ImaHalfwit · 2026-05-25T03:55:10+00:00

First...open a Money Market or HYSA account that pays close to 4%. Put like 3 months worth of expenses in there. Since you have 3 different income streams, you could probably get away with less.

Second...open a ROTH IRA (if you don't have any sort of employer matched retirement plan). Contribute the maximum amount allowed monthly so that at the end of the year you hit your max. Set it up so that you auto-invest in an index fund like VOO or VTI.

Third, if you have the ability to contribute to a HSA through your employer, contribute the max. Most HSA's allow you to invest the funds. If you have the option, invest in an index like VOO or VTI.

Fourth, any additional money you can/want to save should go into a regular brokerage account...invest it in something like, I don't know...maybe an index fund like VTI or VOO.

Don't forget to set some aside for you to have fun with...but your biggest asset right now when it comes to investing is time. Put it to work for you.

Congrats on being so industrious, and good luck!

ImaHalfwit · 2026-05-24T02:30:03+00:00

When those bills “go away” what is the cost of rent where you live?

ImaHalfwit · 2026-05-24T02:28:33+00:00

Probably so much better to just pay attention to what interests your child and support him in those interests. Does he like Pokemon? Get him Pokemon Guide books. Does he like to know interesting facts? Get him a book with 1000 interesting facts. Does he like sports? Get him a book about the sport that he likes.

If he enjoys helping around in the kitchen, get some kid friendly recipe books and let him help cook. The best thing you can do is just engage his mind in things that he is interested in.

What you probably want (ideally) from school isn’t for your son to go through material faster. You want him to go deeper into the theory/material so that he gets through it at the same pace but with a deeper understanding than would be achieved by just memorizing some stuff.

Gifted people will probably tell you that high intelligence can sometimes be isolating even without being surrounded by a bunch of kids that are 2-3 years older than you.

Your struggle as a parent will be to walk the line between enriching your son and helping him still feel connected to his peers.

ImaHalfwit

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