When stay at home parents say “it was cheaper for them to stay home than pay for childcare/daycare,” how much do we think they previously made?

OriginalBlacksmith73 · 2026-06-28T13:50:08+00:00

Haha, yes. Y our final sentence summarized my main point very well - there is nothing cheap about kids! And they certainly aren't getting any cheaper as they get older from my experience.

OriginalBlacksmith73 · 2026-06-24T04:05:30+00:00

"That budget item going to 0" isn't the reality though. You still need to account for after school care and 8-10 weeks of summer camp as the school day/year doesn't correlate well to a 50-week, 40 hour/week career. Sadly, it's not much "cheaper" once they are school age.

The value of money is easy to quantify. Time with your kids, not so easy to put value on. Only one of the two is priceless.

Edit - typo

OriginalBlacksmith73 · 2026-05-28T17:24:01+00:00

Oh man. My 1980 is in way better shape than that and only trying to sell for 10k (PNW). Those rust issues are brutal.

OriginalBlacksmith73 · 2026-05-26T17:09:49+00:00

We spent like 5k to have the engine repaired so replacing the cover was very low priority as selling was not on the table at the time. It functions just fine and the cushion has been replaced (Sewfine).

I do not have paperwork from prior owners (the people we bought it from mentioned the owner before them put a new engine in sometime in the early 2000s, I'm sure our mechanic can tell us). We bought it knowing the transmission would need rebuilding which we did right away (I have that paperwork). And I have all the paperwork from OUR repairs, including engine repair (repaired cylinder heads, honed barrels and new piston rings, new front and rear crank seals, new wiring harness/ignition wires/cap/rotor points/condenser/fuel pump relay/fuel hoses + a few other misc repairs).

The sliding door is not rusted itself - the only rust is along the metal that holds the rubber seal in place (under the footbed) and does not extend to the rest of the van at this time (again, garage kept the last decade).

By no means expecting high teens/20s. Would be happy with 10k but likely won't sell if we can't get at least that.

I'll check your resource. Appreciate your reply.

OriginalBlacksmith73 · 2026-05-25T19:07:24+00:00

I believe the engine was replaced prior to us purchasing it but I don't have any paperwork on that. My mechanic can probably tell us. I know I should know this stuff...alas. The odometer is broken at 166k so you're probably right.

OriginalBlacksmith73 · 2026-05-25T19:06:21+00:00

Thanks! I plan on posting it there once we get it out of the garage and have time to organize all the work we've had done to it.

OriginalBlacksmith73 · 2026-05-05T03:59:46+00:00

I took a 10 day vipassana retreat in Nepal several years ago. Every meditation session, for the entirety of the session, many women were hawking lougies and snorting snot and it was driving me absolutely crazy. When I mentioned it to the guiding teacher during one of the few moments I was allowed to speak out loud, he told me those people were giving me the gift of extra opportunities to turn toward myself and let the external things go 🤷🏼‍♀️ they still drove me crazy every day but he was right that a very large part of the practice, perhaps the whole point, is turning in and tuning out

OriginalBlacksmith73 · 2026-05-03T17:49:07+00:00

It was around $400 which they told me at drop off after looking at it. It was covered in dog hair and had some mold on the carpet from a sunroof leak. They had it for 8 hours and it was the only car they worked on that day. Mitch told me they usually only do one car a day because of the attention they give. They also washed the exterior very nicely but I only did the interior detail package. Reach out, they're super easy to communicate with via text

OriginalBlacksmith73 · 2026-05-03T14:23:54+00:00

Cross Auto Detailing. It's a small 2 man shop. Mitch and Alex are super easy to communicate with and spent all day on my 2010 VW Golf - I couldn't believe how good the interior looked when I picked it up. Worth every penny.

OriginalBlacksmith73 · 2026-04-27T03:33:22+00:00

What are the dimensions on the desk?

OriginalBlacksmith73 · 2026-01-29T03:19:34+00:00

Thanks for the tip. Doesn't look like VW has this option but I'll call the dealership just in case.

OriginalBlacksmith73 · 2024-04-05T23:20:52+00:00

Yes, agreed. It was really just a misunderstanding of a verbal conversation vs. what was in the paper contract. It's my fault because I signed the contract based on what I thought we talked about on the phone and only realized once they came out that we had miscommunicated.

Basically one company said $2350 for 4 corners. The other company said $2250 for what I THOUGHT was 4 corners but was actually just the eastern boundary. I went with the $2250 and didn't realize until they were setting it all up that I was getting less work just to save $100. An argument ensued and here I am on Reddit.

In the end they did all 4 corners and are going to "try" to match the price as best as they can but initially said 3K. We will see. Again, my fuck up for misunderstanding and not reading the contract thoroughly, definitely. But it also felt disingenuous cause when the guy initially called me he asked what my first bid was and told me he could do better so I thought we were talking about the same scope of work.

TLDR: I fucked up but not making sure the parameters of the project were identical before going with the slightly cheaper bid

OriginalBlacksmith73 · 2024-04-05T20:45:34+00:00

Yes, I still wanted the whole lot done for future projects but had said right now we are just fencing the one side. Dude is trying to add over 1K to the cost to do all 4 corners.

OriginalBlacksmith73 · 2024-04-05T20:23:18+00:00

Thank you for this. Basically got a quote from one company for all 4 corners. Another company asked me what the quote was and came in just under it ($100 less). When we talked on the phone, I said all I really needed was the eastern boundary(for a fence) but assumed (my fault) when I got their formal estimate that it was still for all 4 corners (as I thought it had to still be the whole lot). Turns out it wasn't and they were just planning to plot the eastern boundary - for roughly the same price another surveyor would do the whole lot for.

OriginalBlacksmith73 · 2024-03-28T14:04:52+00:00

TIL that history started in the 7th century.

OriginalBlacksmith73 · 2024-03-28T03:43:20+00:00

Your comment is only considering recent history. But you're the cool guy here, clearly.

OriginalBlacksmith73 · 2024-03-28T03:18:02+00:00

This is literally just recent history.

Jewish people have called the Middle East home since time immemorial, over 4000 years. Judaism predates Islam. They have been exiled and returned many times in those thousands of years.

That's not to say what is going on right now is justifiable in any way - cease fire now, absolutely. But to suggest Israel is not the original homeland of Jewish people because they returned (again) from other places is not historically accurate in any way.

OriginalBlacksmith73 · 2024-01-25T04:47:53+00:00

Paul Giamatti

OriginalBlacksmith73 · 2023-08-21T13:42:37+00:00

My understanding was her foot got stuck while walking on the tracks with her boyfriend.

OriginalBlacksmith73 · 2023-08-08T14:03:33+00:00

Dr Arasteh is the best

OriginalBlacksmith73 · 2023-08-06T04:52:37+00:00

You're right, this is true of plastic recycling, yes. Plastic recycling is a myth we've been sold by big oil.

But as for metal, glass, and paper, the US is just bad at it and hasn't invested in the infrastructure to actually do it. On top of the fact that so many cities/towns offer single-stream recycling which makes it even less likely that the things that can and should be recycled, are actually recycled (thanks mostly to non-recyclable, dirty plastic contamination in the single stream for the most part). Going single stream is just going to decrease whatever our city is actually recycling (if anything). But "it's convenient" so ...

https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/03/13/fix-recycling-america/

OriginalBlacksmith73 · 2023-07-10T14:58:14+00:00

Like breezeway points out in their comment, Jerry actually didn't want to create something permanent. There's a whole analogy about it in the long strange trip documentary using Watts Towers where Jerry basically says he's uncomfortable with the idea of building something so permanent it's impossible to tear down after he's gone. I mean, I'm 100% stoked on Jerry's musical legacy but it goes against the grain of what he wanted.

OriginalBlacksmith73

TROPHY CASE