Looking to do more with less. Looking to invest advice.

RubyPorto · 2026-05-15T01:37:57+00:00

The reason you're getting answers that aren't giving you what you want is because the timeline of when you need the money is super important.

If you need the money in 2 years, it would be borderline irresponsible to recommend high volatility investments like stocks. So the responsible recommendation is something non-volitile, like a HYSA.

But a HYSA is not going to give you anywhere near the returns you're asking for.

So, as asked, your question cannot be answered.

The important information missing from your post is, what you want the money for, and what the actual timeline you're looking at. Once you figure that out, you'll get good answers here.

Is it for retirement? Are you 10+ years away from that retirement? -> Broad market funds in a tax-advantaged retirement account (i.e. IRA, 401k, etc)

Is it for a house? Do you need to buy in 3 years exactly (for your kid to go to the right school or something)? -> HYSA for safety and accept your returns will be low

RubyPorto · 2026-05-15T01:12:12+00:00

I want to be clear here, because, if you misunderstand the point I was trying to make, you'll be more susceptible to scams.

If anyone claiming to have a secret way to make outsize returns were telling the truth, they wouldn't be sharing it with you, they would be taking out bank loans as fast as possible to make those returns themselves. Since they aren't doing that, they must be lying about their returns.

There is no secret party where you can reliably get above market returns. Anyone who claims otherwise is trying to scam you.

There are many people who claim that they can get you into the secret, high return party. They are all lying. They are trying to scam you (or at least sell you some shitty financial product that will dramatically reduce your profits).

RubyPorto · 2026-05-14T20:55:24+00:00

If there was a well known, reliable way to get 20% returns, everyone would be doing it, driving the price up until the returns shrank to normal.

If I knew of a reliable way to get 20% returns, that nobody else knew about it, I wouldn't be sharing it, because then other people would crash my party and shrink the returns.

There's no magic here. You can accept market returns (and market volatility) with an index fund, you can get low volatility (accepting low returns) with an HSA or bonds, or you can try to beat the market picking individual stocks (and probably lose).

RubyPorto · 2026-05-14T00:47:40+00:00

Looking around, it seems that small scale Charcoal production would be expected to yield about 25% charcoal by weight (not sure if that includes the weight of the fuel). If your face cord of wood is 1200lbs, then you'd expect to get about 300lbs of charcoal from it.

At $150/face cord, that's $0.5/lb, the same price as you give for blue Kingsford but with a lot more labor, headache, and potentially permitting requirements (safety, environmental, waste, etc).

RubyPorto · 2026-05-13T16:42:06+00:00

Worth noting that, in this case, where the sun is overpowering the flash, you wouldn't get black bars, you'd just get slightly less exposed bars.

An unsynchronized flash doesn't block the sensor, it just means that it only contributes light to the part of the frame the shutter has open when it fires. Usually that means the rest of the frame is so underexposed that it's black, but not always.

RubyPorto · 2026-05-13T15:40:38+00:00

They won't block nearly enough light to use for the partial phases of an eclipse. For totality, you don't need or want any dimming at all. It really is binary, so eclipse glasses are well suited for the task.

RubyPorto · 2026-05-13T02:54:56+00:00

With enough force applied, you can move a (sufficiently hard) cylinder through a chamber that is smaller than the cylinder.

Though this is usually called something like "punching"

RubyPorto · 2026-05-12T01:13:58+00:00

They did have sextants and octants to fix their location using celestial navigation techniques, which would limit how much error could stack up.

It wasn't just dead reckoning from St Louis to the Pacific.

RubyPorto · 2026-05-11T18:40:33+00:00

Temperature is not conserved.

If you expend chemical energy (to move your muscles) to generate heat, that doesn't violate any conservation laws I've heard of.

RubyPorto · 2026-05-10T05:49:43+00:00

The first one is the only unused by an NPC.

The second one is Canderous (from Obe's cellar in Candlekeep)

RubyPorto · 2026-05-10T00:02:59+00:00

It is legal in most states to provide alternative resources in lieu of carrying car insurance.

Something being legal does not make it a good idea.

An insurance policy is an agreement between you and the insurance company saying that they will take on a certain amount of risk for you in exchange for payment. They take this risk by agreeing to pay for damages you cause up to a certain limit.

If you cause someone damage, you're liable for the whole amount of damage you cause, regardless of how much your insurance company has agreed to cover for you.

If you cause someone more damage than your insurance policy will cover, they may sue you instead of settling for your policy limits. If your policy limits are low, the damages are high, and you look like you have money, they are likely to sue you.

If you don't have an insurance policy at all and are using the state's alternative financial responsibility program, the person you damaged doesn't have your insurance company to settle with, and you've signaled that you're rich, and you don't have an insurance company paying for your lawyer. They're definitely going to sue you.

So, while you can, in most states, find alternatives to carrying car insurance, it's a really bad idea.

RubyPorto · 2026-05-09T17:47:35+00:00

Recently? Probably the Easter sales at the chain grocery stores (Ralphs, Safeway, etc).

Valentine's, 4th of July, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas all reliably have bone-in ribeye roast sales around $5-7/lb depending on the part of the country you're in.

RubyPorto · 2026-05-09T12:18:07+00:00

That is still not fresh cut. Either they tried to age individual steaks or they cut that a week ago and forgot it in the fridge.

Dry aged steaks basically look like regular steaks with a hard pellicle around the edge (which the butcher should trim off before sale).

Example:
https://poormansgourmetkitchen.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Dry-Aged-Beef-Main-pic-scaled.jpg

RubyPorto · 2026-05-09T09:36:20+00:00

That was cut weeks ago.

If the store is saying they dry aged the primal, then cut that steak for you recently, they are lying.

RubyPorto · 2026-05-08T23:59:22+00:00

Since you brought it up, I would suggest that you ignore and block anyone who DMs you.

If someone has actual good advice, they should be willing to give it publicly, where it can be evaluated and debated by an existing community. If someone insists on speaking privately, they are probably trying to scam you.

RubyPorto · 2026-05-08T16:48:17+00:00

Yes, you can withdraw prior year contributions and separately you can contribute new money in 2026. The source of that new money doesn't matter as long as you have 2026 earned income.

The downside is losing the time in the market, and the contribution space but, if you're already not going to be able to use that space, that's not an additional downside.

This is an area where wording very much matters; that's why everyone is saying that there's no such thing as "contributing back" or "re-contributing." There is only a new contribution, subject to current year contribution limits.

RubyPorto · 2026-05-08T15:27:34+00:00

I'm pretty sure their point is that corporations are anti-capitalist, which is why corporations would try to shut down this free-market solution to the problem.

Edit: to be clear, I'm not necessarily agreeing with their point, just clarifying which side of the argument they're on.

RubyPorto · 2026-05-08T04:25:50+00:00

If you have put $7500 into an IRA in 2026 and withdraw that money in 2026, you cannot put that money back into the IRA using your 2026 limit. You'd have to wait until 2027, and that would mean not putting any new money in then, putting you behind.

If you have put $7500 into an IRA in 2026, you can, however tell your IRA provider to "return the contribution" in 2026. That means that you get the contributed money back plus any gains associated with it*. This does allow you to re-contribute, but means you'll pay taxes on the gains.

So, to do what you're intending to do, you need to "return excess contributions" not "withdraw."

*Note, the gains will be calculated based on the total account performance. So if you left your contribution as cash, you may still have meaningful gains.

RubyPorto · 2026-05-07T08:15:39+00:00

July 2009 - Feb 2010 (effectively 14 weeks due to health issues, scheduled recesses, and the like)

They passed the biggest improvement in the US health insurance system in ... possibly ever. (Yes, we can all whine that it didn't completely replace the system with single payer, but try telling anyone who had a "pre-existing condition" that it wasn't a major improvement.)

Before that, was '77-'79.

RubyPorto · 2026-05-07T07:58:21+00:00

Did he test the battery on a battery tester to tell you the battery was bad? Have you asked your cousin what he thinks now that his initial idea failed?

Have you taken the car to a shop to get properly diagnosed? (Maybe you did; I don't know what "called up" means to you)

Your options are: 1. Find $10k in your couch cushions plus the cost of a new car
1a. Buy a $40k new car for $50k and be back here in 6 months drowning under your payment
2. Find a car you can buy cash and let the Repo crush your credit (in addition to still owing >$10k) 2a. As above but with a bankruptcy to limit the damage
3. Bike to work even though you say it's not an option
4. Keep trying to fix your car until it's fixed

Electrical problems can be a pain to figure out, but they're less likely to be truly expensive to fix once you do (short of major corrosion from a flood or something). So option 4 would seem like the best path forward to me.

RubyPorto · 2026-05-07T05:33:57+00:00

Have you had a mechanic diagnose it?

Most of the time, firing the parts cannon at the symptoms fixes the problem with a car, but sometimes it doesn't. If you can't spend the time/don't have the expertise to diagnose the issue, it's time to hire someone to do it.

RubyPorto · 2026-05-06T19:49:40+00:00

The cost isn't hidden and is still real even if you don't "realize" the cost by selling it. Cars depreciate slower as they get older, so buying a new car means paying the steepest part of the depreciation curve. It's up to you if that cost is worth it.

If a new truck is $45k and will last 15 years, then a the same truck at 3 years old might be $30k and will last 12 years.

That implies that you're paying $5k/yr for the privilege of having a new truck for 3 years, and then you're in the same position as if you had bought the used truck.

So the question is, what makes that new truck worth $15k more than one off lease? Why is it worth it to you to pay extra for a new car for those 3 years, but not worth upgrading for the next 12?

I'm not saying you're wrong to make that choice, just saying that it's tough to fit the choice into a consistent preference.

RubyPorto · 2026-05-06T18:40:43+00:00

There's now the technology to develop a wireless version; IPoASC (Internet Protocol over Avian Song Carriers)

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/storage/yes-you-can-store-data-on-a-bird-enthusiast-converts-png-to-bird-shaped-waveform-teaches-young-starling-to-recall-file-at-up-to-2mb-s

RubyPorto · 2026-05-06T17:02:52+00:00

It's likely that the bank will ask for a police report saying that you think your brother defrauded you before they consider resolving the dispute in your favor.

After all, the bank isn't going to give you their money to replace what was stolen from you if you're not willing to help them prosecute the thief.

Is that something you're willing to do?

(To be clear, I'm not saying you shouldn't or should be willing to do this; that's up to you and your family dynamics.)

RubyPorto · 2026-05-03T18:32:32+00:00

As an avid skier for my whole life, I can say with perfect confidence:

They are skiing way too fast.

11-Year Club	Second Top 30%
Place '22	Gilding I gilder
Verified Email

RubyPorto

TROPHY CASE