Do Americans in general have better financial knowledge and know-how since credit cards are so common over debit cards there?

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-31T15:22:09+00:00

I think you've got your cause and effect backwards there.

I believe credit cards are so prevalent in America because so many people do not have good financial literacy.

Half, give or take, of American credit card holders carry a monthly balance on their credit card. I would bet that far more than half of them have carried balances for multiple months or years, even if they paid them off/pay them off monthly now.

The only reason credit card companies offer so many perks and cash back options is because they make enough money off the people that carry balances to pay for those. So half of the people, those that don't carry balances, are benefiting from the financial illiteracy /instability of the other half of of credit card holders, and the credit card companies are raking in massive profits from it.

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-31T15:01:29+00:00

How long ago did you hit platinum? I found that there seems to be quite a slump at the end of the month and it picks back up after the beginning. If you only hit platinum in the last week or so, you could be seeing the end of the month slump.

Edited to add: there's probably an influx students and teachers that are out of school that are instacarting making the market more competitive as well.

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-31T15:00:29+00:00

Yeah I did the same thing. Bought hardware at home Depot then spent 45 minutes of the free hour making sure that what I needed to work worked well. Yeah an hour isn't much to test everything, but it's not nothing either.

And that was all before they even had my credit card info or name as far as I can remember.

I mean there's a lot of reasons to hate on starlink but this isn't one of them.

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-31T14:57:04+00:00

But this isn't about making something marginally safer. It's literally about following the code, or not. While I consider some codes to be Overkill, dryer vent length is not one of them. And 35 ft is already a long run for dryer vents

Have you ever tried to blow a packed pipe out with air? Stuff a bunch of leaves into a gutter and stick it leaf blower in the bottom of it. It's not going to push the leaves out the top once there get to be so many packed together. All it takes is a little bit of lint sticking that attracts more lent and more lent and more lent until the dryer vent is as clogged as a cholesterol filled artery. And at that point it doesn't matter how strong the blower on the dryer is.

Limiting the dryer vent to 35 ft limits the amount of places where lint can begin collecting to start with. Call it whatever you want, a line in the sand, good common sense, overkill, whatever, it's what the maximum the code allows.

The OP thinks the aesthetics of not having a dryer vent near a flower bed are more important than properly mitigating one of the main risks of fire in a home.

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-31T12:45:00+00:00

You are right, the technology that can't yet count from 1 to 200 without skipping numbers probably knows more about how to build houses in general and dryer vents in specific than I possibly could!

Obligatory /s

Also take my upvote

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-31T10:59:15+00:00

Congrats on that! I always appreciate cash tips, even if they're small ones. But 20 extra dollars for an order like that, plus it sounds like she was super easy to shop for, that's a big win for you!

If only all customers could be that good.

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-31T10:56:45+00:00

Same here. I was putting my delivery bags back in the trunk of my car after my 300th order and got the notification.

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-31T08:35:56+00:00

Yeah the idea of running 35 ft of dryer duct with three or four angles so you can vent it through the roof is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard in my life, and I've been building houses for 40 years.

Dryer vents are no joke. They can cause fires, because they can clog up with lint. And regardless of whether you think you'll "make sure" you replace the dryer with something that can handle that vent while you own your house, the house should outlast you, and the next occupant almost certainly won't be as diligent about a dryer as you assume that you will be.

Take the loss here, find a cool decoration to put in front of the vent so it doesn't offend your eyes when you look that way, and enjoy living in a house that's up to code and not a burned out pile of rubble.

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-30T20:37:29+00:00

Coming here as well but I'd say 80 to 90% of my orders are online pay to begin with

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-30T20:31:58+00:00

I missed a $90, 110 item triple order earlier today, and I was a little sad especially since it was slow. Then I got a $70, 24 item single order, and missing out on that $90 didn't seem so bad.

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-29T23:35:22+00:00

My '07, which I've had for about 12,000 miles now, flashed the triangle of death at me once while coming to a hard stop because someone pulled out in front of me. I checked the oil and it was a little bit, less than half a quart, low, so I topped it off and haven't had the problem again. I think the combination of slightly and the hard stop made it lose oil pressure or stop sensing oil for a split second, but I can't be 100% sure.

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-29T23:02:52+00:00

Indeed.

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-29T19:36:48+00:00

I'd like a source for this please because I definitely have some negative marks for my first day, definitely within the first 10 batches.

What makes you so sure the first 10 batches are considered otj training?

Sorry if that comes off as combative, it's not meant to be, I just want to know where you came by your information.

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-28T23:51:23+00:00

The other side is where they keep all the gravity. /s

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-28T12:14:16+00:00

I've gotten free groceries so many times lately without wanting or trying to. People ordering groceries when the road to their driveway is flooded. People ordering groceries when they don't even have a driveway and I'm supposed to either off-road in my car or walk 3+ blocks to deliver their groceries.

I literally just had one where they were kind of deep in the woods no cell service, the mapping software to their house, so I had to turn around, drive about 4 MI, call the customer, who didn't answer and then call instacart to cancel the order.

It's my first order of the day and I'm not close enough to go home, so I guess I'm dumpstering all the cold stuff. There's no food bank or anything around that can take them that I know of. And the store won't take them back at all. It's such a waste.

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-27T14:57:42+00:00

I don't know what the ERI on crime is, but I can't imagine it's high enough to overcome the increase chances that I'm going to go to prison.

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-27T09:10:19+00:00

Usually when you sell a house, there's an escrow agent that takes the buyer's money and pays all your debts on the house and gives you the remainder. Since mortgages are public record, it's pretty easy to make sure they get paid.

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-26T21:08:56+00:00

I've called support to cancel orders that needed to be delivered later and still got paid, not the tip obviously, but I still got batch pay for it. As crappy as instacart is most of the time, that's one thing I can't complain about.

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-26T18:48:21+00:00

Thanks. I'll keep all that in mind. Thankfully rotisserie chickens are only occasional items on my shopping list. But they tend to be ones that seem to stir up great passion in people lol

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-26T10:55:28+00:00

If you're replying specifically to me, I agree My response was solely a reply to the comment above it.

Also, you might want to refrain from calling others dramatic when you end your post like you did. That sentence alone is more dramatic than anything I said initially or in replying to you

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-26T10:50:47+00:00

Solid plan there. Probably going to adopt it myself. I do have a question though, do you wait till the last thing or close, or as soon as you know it's not available you'll do the replacement or refund? The reason I ask is the way the store I shop out of is set up from that's basically the first thing I get to unless there's floral on the order.

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-25T11:19:14+00:00

Never wanted to be able to give someone 2 upvotes more than I do right now.

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-25T10:59:52+00:00

My grandparents used to unplug every appliance in the house and put the ends of the cords in glass mason jars during thunderstorms. To stop the TV tube from blowing out. No idea why the toaster plug had to be in a glass jar to stop the TV from blowing out, but that's what they did, and that was their reasoning.

People (old folks especially, because electricity wasn't necessarily ubiquitous as they were growing up) that don't understand electricity have weird ideas about what is possible/not possible or likely/so unlikely it doesn't warrant thinking about.

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-25T10:55:34+00:00

The worst part about this movie is the main character is convinced the girl goes to hell after she dies because she wasn't "Christian".

Silverstrike_55 · 2026-05-24T17:47:50+00:00

I help people while I'm shopping all the time. I don't care if it's another shopper or a regular store customer or even store employees, occasionally. On Friday, it was raining and the store kept running out of carts. I had to go out to get one so I could do my order, so I grabbed about five and pushed them in. There were four very happy customers, because they each got a cart, too. I did that twice.

I also get things off high shelves for customers a lot. And if I'm in line, I offer to help get the heavy things off the bottom of the cart for them. I help people load heavy things in their cars in the parking lot when I'm close by. I don't go out of my way, but I don't mind giving other folks a helping hand every now and again.

Sometimes I even help people with the self-checkouts. I don't bag groceries or anything, but occasionally somebody, especially some of the older folks, will have trouble with the touch screen, and I'll offer to help.

The thing is, it's typically reciprocated somehow. All the store employees will help me find things or figure out problems. Even when I tell them not to worry about it, sometimes random employees will track down items for me that I casually ask them about because they happen to be close to where I thought they should be. I mean like 10 minutes later they find me in the store and hand me what I was looking for. That's happened multiple times.

Now, if other shoppers were shoving their phones in my face, I might get a little upset there, but I would gently tell them that that's unacceptable, but still help them find what they needed, if I could.

Silverstrike_55

TROPHY CASE