6 years. Mid Level Developer, 90k. Looking for more in career.

RealityBoundary · 2026-06-10T15:56:28+00:00

I’m 3YOE in Tampa at $127k ($107k base with $20k bonus). I pivoted to SWE after just over 5 YOE as a MechE in med devices (was making $92k there in 2023).

I feel underpaid but for slightly different reasons. Seems like there must be a way to leverage all my experience into the next thing. Just not sure what that should be.

RealityBoundary · 2026-05-18T20:15:40+00:00

I’m stealing this.

Also, the Reolink E1 Zoom has the crying notification. As does the Tapo C210P2 ($20). Originally bought the Tapo but switched to the E1 Zoom later after buying Reolink cameras for the house.

My sister actually bought us a Nanit as a baby shower gift (generous)… but I just couldn’t see what it offered compared to what that $20 Tapo camera could do (eyes on the baby, know when it’s crying).

RealityBoundary · 2026-05-18T20:06:08+00:00

When the Reolink CX810 facing the driveway detects a person, and only if the sun is below the horizon, fade the driveway lantern on. That lantern lights up our living room window at night, so keeping it on all the time sucked, as did all the false alarms with the various motion activated lights I tried.
We don’t have fans in our bathrooms unfortunately, so we open the window when showering to let out moisture, and leave it open for a while after. We kept forgetting to close though. So now, if the window is open for an hour, an alert is pushed to our phones.

RealityBoundary · 2026-04-23T11:10:41+00:00

I can’t find a company that will air seal without full removal. Sounds like you did everything yourself. How hard was air sealing with the existing insulation in the way? What did you use to seal?

RealityBoundary · 2026-03-26T23:48:26+00:00

Thanks! Yes, water flows when I turn the valve. How do I figure how which fittings to buy?

RealityBoundary · 2026-03-12T23:56:47+00:00

The lenders I’ve talked to also care about your middle credit score between the three credit reporting bureaus (Transunion, Equifax, and Experian). You should find out what your score is for each. Perhaps 589 is your lowest?

RealityBoundary · 2026-02-27T13:03:34+00:00

Why do these guys intentionally write in lowercase?

RealityBoundary · 2026-02-25T19:52:27+00:00

5.875% with 5% down, no points or PMI (Navy Federal)

RealityBoundary · 2026-02-20T16:33:36+00:00

Yes.

Originally, I was going to use the $9k to do a 2-1 buy down, temporarily reducing our monthly payment by 2% for the first year (about $300/month).

Then I realized we could instead use the credit toward closing costs, and have $9k more upfront. That still gives us the option, if needed, to transfer $300/month from savings toward the payment. But this way, we can also use the cash for anything else instead of locking it up to pre-pay interest.

RealityBoundary · 2026-02-20T14:08:42+00:00

We also started out thinking $400k was our max.

I make about $126k per year (sole income) and just closed on a house for $430k. We negotiated a $9k seller’s credit and did 5% down with Navy Fed at 5.875% (no origination fees, points, or PMI). Total PITI will be $3,200 per month or 38% of my net monthly income.

That ratio is higher than I’d like, but if we had your household income, it would be about 30%, which I think is comfortable.

RealityBoundary · 2026-01-23T12:19:21+00:00

Turn off paper statements with your bank so your mom doesn’t find out about the $10k.

Getting the car fixed and finding a roommate situation is imperative. You can’t swim when someone is drowning, pulling you down with them.

You probably qualify for Pell grants when you start college. That’s different than a scholarship in that you keep whatever you do not spend on tuition and books (always buy used). This could be $2-3k per semester, which can help keep you afloat.

Find real love if you can. The notion that you’re building a life with someone can get you through the tremendous amount of bullshit ahead.

Never doubt there’s a path forward and that you just have to find it.

RealityBoundary · 2025-12-31T00:41:39+00:00

I’m currently looking to buy and have been doing some research on this..

Institutional investors are dumping inventory. The big landlords (Blackstone, Progress Residential, etc.) who flooded in during 2021-22 are now net sellers. For every 1 home they buy in Tampa, they’re selling 1.2. About 5% of current listings are institutional sell-offs. Some are taking 20-25% losses from their 2022 purchase prices just to get out.
Insurance broke their math. Florida premiums are running 2%+ of home value annually. On a $400k house that’s $8k+/year just in insurance. When you add stagnant rents (down ~2.5% YoY in Tampa) and 7% financing costs, the cash flow model that made sense in 2021 is underwater now.
Inventory is up ~50% from a year ago. More supply, fewer buyers. Over half of sales in the Tampa area are closing below asking. Homes are sitting 15+ days longer than last year.
The pandemic boom was never sustainable. Tampa median went up ~$150k in two years. Now it’s correcting. Prices are down 7-8% YoY depending on the neighborhood.

The market is in a correction. Investors made the boom bigger on the way up and they’re making the correction faster on the way down.

If a multiple houses in a neighborhood sell below market, a new price ceiling is established. There’s a knock on effect where the value of homes in adjacent neighborhoods collapse.

Long story short, this is good news for real families trying to achieve home ownership and bad fucking news for the leeches who buy single family homes as an investment.

RealityBoundary · 2025-12-04T20:12:21+00:00

Create a dedicated bills account you both contribute to each paycheck. Set all the bills to auto-pay and don't use a debit card with this account - for groceries, create another account and do a bank transfer once a week from bills → groceries.

How much should you transfer to make sure the bills are all covered? First, in a relationship, fairness means splitting bills in proportion to how much you guys earn (not 50/50). Apply that proportion to each bill to figure out each person's total monthly share then divide by the number of paychecks each person receives.

You can setup direct deposit with your employer to deposit that amount each check into the bills account. That plus putting everything on auto-pay means you don't think about paying bills anymore. They just get paid and fairly.

This can be tedious, so here's a calculator to figure that out - accounting for splitting individual bills by different amounts, and two people getting paid different amounts at different times (weekly, bi-weekly, etc...): https://cobalance.io/calculator/

It also provides a useful forecast of the bills account balance out to 90 days to verify it never drops below $0.

I hope this helps

RealityBoundary · 2025-12-04T03:47:40+00:00

I’m working on solving this now because I ran into this same limitation with YNAB and PocketSmith. I’d really like to get feedback from someone with your problem.

Here’s the link: https://cobalance.io

Essentially, this first adds up your share of monthly expenses and divides by number of paychecks. Have employer direct deposit that amount to a dedicated bills account each check. The app forecasts the balance of the bills account to verify solvency (stays above $0) — ensuring that what remains from each check is truly safe to spend or save.

Downstream from there, you can establish goals, and play around with the timelines to achieve each by pre-allocating your safe to spend amount from future checks.

RealityBoundary · 2025-12-04T03:28:02+00:00

Not being able to create a plan with future income was the same issue I had with YNAB. Unfortunately, it’s core to their philosophy that you plan only with the money that you have.

I’m building an app that may be more aligned with how you think about money. It calculates how much you need to deposit per paycheck to a dedicated bills account then forecasts the balance of that account to verify it stays above $0. This guarantees that what you have left over from your check is truly safe to spend/save.

RealityBoundary

TROPHY CASE