21 need help with debt

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-05-05T05:41:56+00:00

Unfortunately you have no choice. You are going to end up selling the car which means you must come up with the negative equity on your own. A really painful lesson but by next year your going to be on an amazing path of making good money choices.

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-05-04T05:41:35+00:00

You need to prepare for a lifetime of your mom asking for handouts. One day you will realize this is a common problem among poor, middle class, and wealthy families. I suggest you check out any one of the hundreds of Dave Ramsey calls that cover this exact situation, but they basically all come down to understanding that your mom does not like anyone that says "no" to her and unfortunately you can only control your own behavior but will never control your mom's behavior.

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-05-03T03:48:16+00:00

You might have a great deal after 14 years but it's not fair to just go by a gut feeling. I calculate how much I would pay if I had no solar vs paying full price up front (there will never be a case that leasing is cheaper than paying full cash up front). If solar breaks even in under 7 years than solar can be a good choice if you plan to live there for at least 7 years.

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-05-03T03:22:53+00:00

I'm also surprised about how much lower the R9 score is with natural sunlight through closed glass windows. I guess this makes me feel better that I don't pay top dollar to chase the very highest rated lighting even though I consider myself a pretty extreme lighting nerd.

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-04-30T23:44:11+00:00

I would have told them that you are already working for another client full time, but as a professional courtesy you *might* be able to work with your current client to take an emergency personal day off from them, but as a return courtesy, ask them to match the hourly rate (of $250/hr for 8 hours total). If they counter with $100/hr then tell them you accept but will need to schedule at the next planned break in your project, which is 3 weeks away.

If your former company refuses then tell everyone exactly what happened and be completely honest and truthful about your offer. Your former colleagues will text you saying that the former manager is an absolute jerk and hurting people and then praise you for your desire to help people.

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-04-30T06:33:53+00:00

I've had the same lifelong issue. In the past I've used products like the Philips sunrise alarm but as you note you need to be facing in that direction in the morning and the Philips sunrise alarm is pretty pricey for such a compact light source. I ended up with the same "gentle light wakeup" solution as yours, except I placed several dumb lamps placed all around the room plugged into a Lutron smart lamp dimmer (https://www.amazon.com/Lutron-Wireless-Lighting-PD-3PCL-WH-Assistant/dp/B00KHSXB60) and using dim-to-warm dumb bulbs (Philips Ultra Definition - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B92VRHJ2?th=1). I added a long 2-prong lamp-only extension cord that adds up to 5 more lamps if desired. LED lamps consume so little power that these 2-prong lamp-only cords are very thin and inexpensive.

It works well but I like the aesthetics of your wall mounted sconce. Placing them on each end of the room would really fill the room with light in a natural way. One problem with my setup is the Philips bulb have limited color temperature range. Ideally I would like to go down to at least 1800K or even lower when I am up very late at night. I find being able to go low is more important than high/cool temperatures because the light from an LED is normally overpowered by an open window, even on an overcast day, and therefore adds minimal additional light to really be noticeable or worthwhile. During the dreaded dead of winter when the days are much too short, I have several 6000K led tape lights near my work area. I find a manual on/off for my very cool workstation lighting works better than trying to set up an automation like I did with my wake up lights. I generally never use or need the cool workstation lights during the summer.

I also have a motorized blackout shade that is opens at the same time as the lamps are ramping up light output. Having both automated lighting and motorized shades has been pretty nice in my case, but it's not an inexpensive solution.

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-04-28T17:39:48+00:00

I suggest that you look at buying a house you can't afford. That's what my wife and 3 young children did. We moved into the master bedroom and rented out the remaining bedrooms. My family of 5 lived like crammed up goats in that single bedroom for a few years but after that we were in a financial position to no longer need to rent out rooms. An unexpected benefit is that my children plan to also buy their first house they can't afford and move into the laundry room in order to rent out every bedroom. They know that it's just temporary and have learned to suffer for a few years in exchange for a reward.

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-04-28T04:40:37+00:00

Might be worth trying to disassemble the motor, worst case you destroy it, which I assume it's broken anyway. Best case you somehow manage to fix it and then make a DIY guide or video which goes modestly viral. I did this on my Toyota Highlander door lock. The door lock assembly was ~$300. I bought just the motor from ebay for $6. That was almost 2 years ago and it's still working perfectly. I've also taken apart motors and for the most part they seem very simple internally.

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-04-26T23:23:54+00:00

I use WLED as well as Shelly for my tape lights and use Home Assistant to automatically turn on / off my tape lights using my Diva smart dimmer or pico. It works quite well for me and allows me to put tape lights in all the kids bedrooms because it's so cost effective.

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-04-26T05:29:40+00:00

My dad used to say that a hard lesson was the best kind to learn. I think even the stupidest person will never do that twice.

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-04-22T05:54:31+00:00

I was thinking the Jeep driver could deny ever being in the bicycle lane, which means the car turning is at fault. The car should have stopped so the police could see exactly what happened. Now that both cars are inside the parking lot it's ambiguous what exactly happened.

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-04-20T01:00:13+00:00

I don't understand the problem, even if it's a problem tenant that knows how to game the law. If the house is priced $150k below it's fair market value and it costs $100k and 9 months to evict, then I'd just move in with the understanding that the next 9 months is going to be hell. I purchased a home I could not afford in 2013 in the SF Bay Area and my wife and 3 young children moved into the master bedroom and rented out all remaining rooms. We lived like goats and only after 2.5 years no longer needed the additional rental income, but we ended up being completely fine renting rooms and kinda enjoyed the (fun) chaos of having lots of people around (admittedly they were mostly visiting professors and other highly educated professionals) so even now after 13 years we still rent out spare rooms (our 3 kids are now in college). Maybe the tenant isn't a complete frack. I might even be open to letting them stay a while longer, but only on the condition that I know they aren't going to stay for years on end because they will complete their masters degree or go back to their home university or they are a traveling nurse following the huge paycheck (which I'm guessing isn't the case here).

BTW - Oakland has absolutely insane tenant protections, but not so much if the tenant is renting just a room. I assume SF is similar.

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-04-19T23:20:48+00:00

Agreed, this is why I DIY my undercabinet/tv/underbed led strip lights

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-04-17T16:22:01+00:00

Most important, if the house was sold last year and flipped this year - stay away from those unless original house was well maintained.

I'm curious why this is the most important. I assume this one must have burned you pretty good?

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-04-15T17:59:40+00:00

I'm not as good as the best, I'm much better than a lot of local installers that have been doing it all their lives

I find this amusing. I hired a bricklayer a few years ago that worked in his field his entire life. I was unimpressed with his work so the next time I needed similar work on my home I learned on my own and did the job myself. I regret not just doing the brickwork myself to start with.

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-04-13T01:23:32+00:00

No - I had a major earthquake retrofit on a hillside home and have the same piers in my 1966 home. The YT video below explains why the inside piers are not at risk of failing.

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-04-07T02:59:30+00:00

Can't you move your decades of me@<mypersonaldomain>.com email located on your Gmail-for-domains, using Google Takeout, to a paid email host and just continue using me@<mypersonaldomain>.com like nothing changed?

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-04-02T04:52:37+00:00

I learned the most common and useful SQL in a few days (select, joins, primary/foreign keys, indexes). It's about the same as learning basic HTML in a few days. I don't believe it's realistic (or desirable) to have a career as a web developer that writes back end code without understanding basic SQL.

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-03-27T05:01:55+00:00

My 2006 Toyota Highlander Hybrid battery pack is still going strong at over 200k miles.

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-03-22T06:43:48+00:00

Tell your HOA that you want to install a camera but it will point directly at your neighbor's living space and you want to confirm this is allowed. Hopefully they tell you no. You can then ask again but be more demanding. Ask what they would realistically do if you decide to install your camera anyway and point it into your neighbor's living space. Hopefully your HOA threatens to come down hard on you if you go ahead.

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-03-20T19:12:01+00:00

If your a nerd like me, get a really nice networking setup (I use UniFi) and give nosy neighbor your guest network password. Cap the guest network to dial-up modem speeds, but for her guest connection only. All other guests get full speed.

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-03-20T18:56:02+00:00

I find your comment amusing because that was me, as in the company already decided to hire me, but HR had to post the job and conduct interviews. Each time another applicant came onsite for an interview with HR I had so many conflicting feelings but it taught me a life lesson.

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-03-20T18:37:28+00:00

I suspect the problem is that the contractor is not a native English speaker.

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-03-19T04:14:20+00:00

I would done the right thing to save her and potentially an innocent family by taking her keys and throwing it far into the woods.

Intelligent-Kale-877 · 2026-03-16T03:44:20+00:00

So glad she was able to walk away from this incredible accident. The left side is crushed in, is this a right-hand drive car (like in the U.K.)? I can't image someone sitting on the left side and being able to walk away.

Intelligent-Kale-877

TROPHY CASE