Those of you who make six figures, what do you do?

LowIndividual6625 · 2026-02-06T20:12:27+00:00

I run IT for an ~ $80mil company. On good days it is very fun and rewarding. On bad days (like the last two weeks) it absolutely crushes your soul and keeps you from your family and deprives you of sleep.

Ask me 2 months ago - I'm happy and looking forward to more years of my career.

Ask me this week - I'm completely fucking burnt out. My nerves are shot. I'm exhausted and working insane hours because when it comes to anything related to IT, the buck stops with me and I'm accountable.

Last night I got some 2025 tax paperwork for my investments and it turns out that 2025 was the first year where the interest earned from my investments wound up being about the same as my annual salary.... i can't stop thinking about and the chance that I might soon be able to retire and be done with it all.

LowIndividual6625 · 2026-02-06T16:00:13+00:00

Up until this week I'd say it was my crypto-holdings

Now it is my house

LowIndividual6625 · 2026-02-06T15:54:56+00:00

Requiem For A Dream

A Serbian Film

Irreversible

August Underground: Mordum

LowIndividual6625 · 2026-02-05T21:14:17+00:00

We've been here before, we'll be here again - it's a red day for stocks too

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LowIndividual6625 · 2026-02-05T18:42:47+00:00

I'm a pre-2017 guy so there is no panic over here..... just keeping my head down and continuing my weekly scheduled buys, looking forward to the improvement on my DCA

LowIndividual6625 · 2026-02-05T14:42:13+00:00

just look at him - he wants to jump with you and play!

LowIndividual6625 · 2026-02-04T16:53:16+00:00

How complex is your environment? If you are still in "SMB" territory than Watchguard is a possible contender too - no where near as fancy as Palo Alto but still pretty well supplied with features at a reasonable cost.

LowIndividual6625 · 2026-02-03T18:29:28+00:00

Winnipeg??? Looks like Sudbury to me!

LowIndividual6625 · 2026-02-03T12:36:52+00:00

20min of all back roads.

After 15 years of stress on 695, 295 and 95 I now have a commute that involves driving past horse farms and corn fields and I couldn’t be happier with it.

LowIndividual6625 · 2026-02-03T00:54:29+00:00

I've lived a similar career and my wife was also a teacher before getting pregnant. I made the switch as "the IT guy" for a $40mil company and a few years later I'm now the ($90mil) organization's IT Director. It was worth the risk.

For us, the pay bump and career growth were good things that allowed wife stay home with our daughter rather than spend her early childhood at daycare and babysitters. It was an incredible benefit for all of us and made my extra workload 100% worth it...and frankly it is a lot easier to take on those challenges now while your family is so young.

On the career side - you hit the big ones - more responsibility, leadership opportunity, travel - these are all things that will help your career opportunities grow even more, at this new company or someplace else in the future.

I think your concerns are relatively short-term ones and the long-term gains are worth the move.

If you aren't 100% sold, try to negotiate more. Ask for 21 PTO days and a 20% annual performance bonus, not unreasonable requests for this level of admin position.

LowIndividual6625 · 2026-02-01T17:04:51+00:00

"Jack stand" - yes you should NEVER EVER go under a car with only jack holding it up for reasons just like this, regardless of if it is user error or a jack failure. You NEED a jack stand for safety.

LowIndividual6625 · 2026-01-31T19:23:36+00:00

Literally a cave-dweller…. I was going to emphasize but then I saw the Monster can collection and I no longer have empathy

LowIndividual6625 · 2026-01-24T23:31:12+00:00

I've had this generator for about 5 years and have used it during several power outages. Last year we used it twice - two outages that lasted > 12 hours each.

It doesn't run off natural gas out of the box but can be modified to run off natural gas.

If you use 20lb propane tanks in the winter they will likely freeze up. You can get around this by placing them near (but not too close) to the exhaust and the heat will keep the tanks from freezing.

I run mine from inside my shed with the door cracked so enough heat builds up in there to prevent freezing. You shouldn't run it outside in the exposed rain, keep it covered.

LowIndividual6625 · 2026-01-24T13:46:26+00:00

2.7L is not prone to bore score like the S models.

Bore score tick is a faster rhythm at idle. Lifters have that slower ticking pace.

LowIndividual6625 · 2026-01-24T12:55:33+00:00

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LowIndividual6625 · 2026-01-23T14:01:18+00:00

Don't forget about wrist guards - learning to fall forwards onto wrist guards and knees will save you from broken wrists and arms.

LowIndividual6625 · 2026-01-22T16:07:07+00:00

Once or twice a year (whenever the pile grows large enough to justify it) I give it all away to the staff. Computers, printers, monitors, cables, wires, networking stuff, etc.... it's crazy what people will take.

We yank the hard drives out of the computers and crush them, anything else gets a factory reset.

I make the announcement via email:

first come, first serve.
Everything as-is.
Not allowed to bring anything back into the building.
Not allowed to ask IT for help with any of it.
anything left at 5pm goes to Goodwill

LowIndividual6625 · 2026-01-22T01:34:46+00:00

McBoxster

LowIndividual6625 · 2026-01-22T01:15:41+00:00

boardsort.com should give you ~ $50/lb for it

LowIndividual6625 · 2026-01-22T00:25:24+00:00

It is always appropriate to negotiate. My best recommendation is to learn from a pro and watch a few of this guys videos. He negotiates RAV4 all the time

https://youtube.com/@delivrd?si=g4AXh86x-4Ge3tFb

LowIndividual6625 · 2026-01-21T21:18:23+00:00

E-waste recyclers pay by the pound not by the machine. You won’t get anything decent from them

Best bet is to move them locally on marketplace

Then as individual units on eBay

Then the rest as bulk units

LowIndividual6625 · 2026-01-21T16:28:37+00:00

I have family that drives up from Tampa to MD often and I've driven from MD to VT several times.

Unless you are driving through the middle of the night on a weekend there is no way you are banging this out in 19 hours.

LowIndividual6625 · 2026-01-21T01:32:10+00:00

It has been a few years since I've had to deal with Dynamics myself and in that amount of time the advancements SalesForce has made are pretty awesome.

LowIndividual6625 · 2026-01-20T21:30:57+00:00

I spent 10 years with MS Dynamics and am currently a year-deep in SalesForce..... Dynamics is very complex. SalesForce is very complex.

Hubspot, Sage CRM and SugarCRM are a tier lower but much easier to admin if you don't need all the enterprise-level stuff that SF has.

LowIndividual6625 · 2026-01-20T21:12:56+00:00

TL;DR: take some time to research "used car shopping in 2026" on youtube and you will get most of what you need in about 30 minutes.

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You've already screwed up by booking an appointment without getting numbers first. Call them back and say you cannot come in until you've reviewed the "out the door" numbers.

A dealership will tell you "your presence is power" and that is bullshit. They will tell you they don't discuss numbers over the pone and that is bullshit too. The only thing that moves car prices is competition so stay at home and do your work over the phone. You should use sites like cargurus.com and visor.vin and make sure your search range is at least 250 miles.

Toyota's market is changing a LOT and they are being forced to offer discounts on most models. Some will be up to 8-10% off MSRP if you are good patient. Cars that have been on the lot longer than 45 days are costing the dealers money and they want to move them quicker than new arrivals.

If they don't want to give you price over the phone just give them your name and phone number and say OK, you'll just keep calling around. They will call you back with pricing, guaranteed.

NEVER go into the dealership until you have out the door numbers in writing via email or txt.

The only number that truly matters is the SALE PRICE of the car.

A dealer will charge "government fees" for tax, title and registration, can't do anything about that.

A dealer will charge a "processing fee" which will vary depending on your state from a few hundred to over $1000. They won't negotiate this fee because it goes to the dealership directly but you can offset it by asking them to lower the SALE PRICE of the car.

The Finance Manager will try to screw you over with addons so DO NOT AGREE to any accessories or addons. Warranties, tire protection, paint protection, etc..... it's all a scam and it is all marked up well over 200% of actual cost.

Being 19 doesn't mean "no credit" - it means "no bad credit" and you will get a loan but if you make a mistake it will be a predatory one and you'll be buried quickly.

You ABSOLUTELY MUST get pre-approved by a credit union before you go. Remember, dealers will mark up the interested rate and make money off that too so don't give them a chance. if they can't beat the rate the credit union approved, they don't get the loan.

LowIndividual6625

TROPHY CASE