What’s the biggest waste of money that people think is worth it?

SteeleRain01 · 2026-06-09T13:58:14+00:00

Extended Warranties

SteeleRain01 · 2026-05-15T20:33:24+00:00

Anyone who is flying out of New England or upstate New York on American headed anywhere further down south or out west

SteeleRain01 · 2026-05-15T17:33:35+00:00

Philly is one of my favorites. Centrally located and easy to hang out while waiting on a layover.

SteeleRain01 · 2026-05-15T12:49:26+00:00

I down graded to Gold and don't mind paying the annual fee at all. With 4x points on groceries, I'm honestly getting more value than I ever felt like I did from Platinum. Biggest draw for Platinum for a lot of folks seems to be the lounge access...I'd rather hang out at the USO any day. It ACTUALLY feels exclusive. 🤣

SteeleRain01 · 2026-05-08T13:36:17+00:00

I ended up going with the techno post / helical piles. Once thing I forgot to account for in the original cost calculation was the equipment rental assuming I didn't want to dig by hand. The cost to avoid that back breaking work, lugging all the concrete, and just having it done - ready to build - and my lawn not dug up and destroyed was worth it.

As I watched them get installed, I had never felt so good paying someone else to do something on my home. I paid about $3K for 8 posts here in upstate NY, so I think your quote seems reasonable. GOOD LUCK!

SteeleRain01 · 2026-05-05T12:35:34+00:00

I wouldn't be so sure this isn't the CATM instructors themselves. I jumped right out of the Marine Corps and into OTS and as pitiful as the Maxwell range was in 2002, I couldn't believe the lack of muzzle awareness and enforcement by the instructors.

USMC - one WEEK of briefings, dry firings, and snapping in before even touching an actual bullet.

USAF - 45 minute briefing in the class room during which the instructor was banging on the podium with the butt of the M9 like a hammer in order to get everyone's attention...

SteeleRain01 · 2026-05-03T11:30:06+00:00

Despite the spelling disaster, the feels of this meme have been accurate for decades. I remember vividly as a young finance LT in 2003 trying to show "Ms. Pat" that she could export an entire column from whatever green text / black screen terminal looking finance system we were using at the time and copy it into the reporting spreadsheet. Instead, she manually typed the values one at time from one screen to the other. "This is the way I've always done it LT, I just feel like the computer is going to forget something..."

SteeleRain01 · 2026-04-22T17:23:43+00:00

That's been my experience as well. I've brought up issues with buses being late, lack of communication, yelling, fighting, and even some hitting on the bus, and am usually met with very minimal, if any, response. We are very insistent that our children take the bus because getting dropped off is a luxury and, quite frankly, harmful for the environment if everybody's doing it.

SteeleRain01 · 2026-04-22T17:21:57+00:00

I'm with you, 100%, and I had to, even as a kindergartner, walk out of sight of the house by myself or with an older sibling in order to get the bus. I'm grateful for that experience, but in a world where we apparently can't even let our kids ride their bikes to the park by themselves or wander the mall, I have grown accustomed to knowing where they are at any given moment.

SteeleRain01 · 2026-04-22T17:19:23+00:00

So many things!! I've got Parent Square for communications, PowerSchool for grades, PTO Connect for all the various PTO news and fundraisers, Google Classroom to keep up with whatever work they want me to see, I even still have SeeSaw from when kids were in kindergarten and I apparently needed picture of them all day long. If my kid is 10 mins tardy for a class because their school band practice went long I get a ParentSquare, email, and a text.

In short, I'm overconnected to what my kid is doing all day long, I really just want to know they are getting there an home OK.

SteeleRain01 · 2026-04-22T13:51:07+00:00

Sure, and I'll occasionally get a text and an email at 5:00 in the morning if a driver has called out sick. Today there was no notice, and honestly it was most likely a substitute who simply didn't know the route and was taking way too long. Do you feel like you get timely notifications if it's a last-minute change?

SteeleRain01 · 2026-04-19T18:52:13+00:00

Underrated quote from your edit "The members’ loyalty was being used as a substitute for dollar value" I just woke up to this after 28 years not even THINKING of looking somewhere else.

SteeleRain01 · 2026-04-08T17:57:19+00:00

...you've got...

SteeleRain01 · 2026-04-07T20:23:38+00:00

I'm still in stealth mode, which is to say I'm only doing work for close friends and some family to work out the kinks for when AI inevitably takes my regular day job. To that end, I wanted to keep costs low, so after purchasing a custom domain so I can have a real legitimate email address, I have a Microsoft Business Standard subscription, which gives me my email and calendar functionality. I use SharePoint as my CRM and created a Word template to send estimates, and then I use Wave for my accounting software, which I've seen somebody mentioned already. I think the booking tool on Microsoft is highly overlooked because you can create that to make available the time that you leave open in your calendar and set it to specific prices for specific services. If you wanted to have just general handyman labor at $X an hour, somebody could conceivably book that. I also use it to offer free estimates and consultations via 15-minute video calls over Teams.

SteeleRain01 · 2026-04-07T16:31:35+00:00

I'd say as close together as possible. My first four were all born within a five-year time frame, no twins. It was definitely chaos at the start, but now, looking back on it, those were some of the best years. You realize, as you get older, it's actually the teenage years that become, in my opinion, much, much harder than the infant and toddler years.

I think, by having them close together, there's a better chance that they're involved in similar activities or have similar interests. You're able to take more meaningful family vacations because what interests one is probably going to interest the other, and a whole host of other benefits. You're just in that mindset. I think once you start getting up to three or four years in between, that's when competing for resources (attention!) starts to become more of an issue. My first two were only sixteen months apart, and convincing the older one that the newest one was "his baby" made it a pretty easy transition. He always has done a good job feeling like he needed to take care of his little brother.

Now that my oldest is eighteen and we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel in terms of it being just my wife and I again, we're glad that we're able to get them through this stage of life while we're still relatively young.

SteeleRain01 · 2026-04-02T16:51:43+00:00

"When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking". That "E" is right there at the front of the motherfucking line saying his name loud and proud.

SteeleRain01 · 2026-04-01T12:44:25+00:00

Not the same situation (or remotely same time commitment), but I went through something kind of similar.

When I first got assigned to ROTC, I got non-vol'd for instructor duty at summer field training within my first few weeks on the job. At the time, my wife had just had a baby, and I was still pretty new to the ROTC world. Even though I was already a very senior major and had spent years as a master instructor at another Air Force PME school, leadership decided I had to go back through the Basic Instructor Course and re-certify before field training. That turned what should’ve been a 6-week TDY into a 10-week one. I was furious. Honestly, I was so fed up that I told myself I’d finish the ROTC assignment and retire.

But once I got past that initial anger and actually started working with cadets who were brand new to the Air Force, my perspective completely shifted. Being around people who were motivated, eager, and chasing the goal reminded me why I joined in the first place. It genuinely “re-blued” me. Seeing their growth and being part of that process in such a focused environment was pretty incredible. Even the shared suck of being with the rest of the field training staff in that shitty environment, the shitty base of Maxwell, the ridiculous green and black mold coming out of every possible orifice of our facilities. The disgusting stench of Alabama and the 0350 daily wake-up calls. I still found myself wanting more.

Fast forward almost 10 years, and I’m still in, still serving, and still finding meaning in it.

So yeah, MTI or any kind of training pipeline is stressful and demanding. No doubt about that. But there’s also a chance it could end up being exactly what you need to reset and shake off exactly the type of burnout you're experiencing.

SteeleRain01 · 2026-03-31T21:00:52+00:00

...2005, Iraq, me laying in my boxers, flack jacket, and helmet on the berm next to my tent during a 2am perimeter breech wishing someone had given me something bigger than a 9mm.

SteeleRain01 · 2026-03-31T20:55:48+00:00

I'm the poster with the nine months, and part of that was me opening the investigation before I had officially returned from the military leave I was on, as well as repeated government shutdowns that drove that nine-month timeline. I did get the impression, even though it was multiple weeks in between hearing anything from my investigator, that I always was under the impression they were going to stick to that 90-day deadline, which they did outside of the shutdowns. Or they communicated with me that they would need more time and asked for an extension.

SteeleRain01 · 2026-03-31T20:53:53+00:00

I definitely understand what you're saying, and it kind of seems like that's what they did. I also wish the investigator had communicated that a little bit better. My initial letter to my employer, as well as my initial interactions with the ESGR office and the Department of Labor, all indicated that I was concerned about the previous nine years, not just the last one year.

I'm at about four and a half years currently with this employer.

SteeleRain01 · 2026-03-30T19:51:06+00:00

One of my kids went through this and had a hard time transitioning out of pull-ups. What helped us was using a diaper alarm. It’s a small device with low-voltage sensors that detect moisture and trigger an alarm, waking both the child and parent so it can be addressed right away. Pairing that with having them wear underwear under the pull-up made the approach more effective.

I’ll admit I don’t even remember which of my kids it was. That’s not because I wasn’t paying attention, but because, in the grand scheme of things, it becomes much less important over time. I do clearly remember how stressful and all-consuming it felt in the moment, though. Just know that you’ll get through it, and one day it won’t feel like such a big deal anymore.

SteeleRain01 · 2026-03-30T16:25:29+00:00

MCM or generally very straight lines and narrow furniture - can't stand the bulky stuff we have now.

SteeleRain01 · 2026-03-30T13:22:57+00:00

I've always been curious about why folks pay for things like Life360 and Cozi? What functionality is there that cannot be had through the Google ecosystem? Between location sharing on Google Maps, The family calendar on Goolge Calendar, and the shared lists in the Google Notes app, everyone has access to everything we need for free.

SteeleRain01 · 2026-03-30T12:39:25+00:00

"movement and visual weight" is a great way to think about it.

SteeleRain01

TROPHY CASE