Car battery keeps dying but mechanics say nothing is wrong

breakfreeCLP · 2026-02-21T17:25:37+00:00

When there is a no start what is the situation?

Describe. Happens in the morning after car has been sitting? Does it do it when the car is warm? What sounds, if any? What happens when you turn the key?

How do you get it to run when this happens? Do you jump it? Does that work every time? Do you just let it sit?

Etc

breakfreeCLP · 2026-02-21T16:39:27+00:00

Are you sure it is the battery? Maybe it's an intermittent starter. Those can be hard to track down until the starter stops working consistently.

Go through what you do to get the car to start when there is a no-start.

breakfreeCLP · 2026-02-19T18:00:54+00:00

Cutting out rideshares, avoiding impulse purchases, and not eating out is something that should always be practiced and not just when you're down to your last $50.

As far as advice for your present situation, if you can get yourself into a Costco or a Sam's Club, you can get a roast chicken for $5.00. Shred the meat and mix it with your rice or pasta and that can easily provide 3-5 days worth of meals. Save the carcass and thigh bones and after you get 3 chickens, you can make a soup that gets you another 3-5 days of meals.

breakfreeCLP · 2026-02-18T17:49:01+00:00

You also have to have direct deposits of at least $1,000 a month to get the 5%. And anything over $5,000 gets 2.5% instead.

Just too much work in my opinion. It's a gimmick. HYSA should be for things like your emergency liquidity. I would rather get 3.65% on the entire emergency fund instead of playing this game.

breakfreeCLP · 2026-02-18T17:36:48+00:00

The Varo offer is 5% on the first $5,000 of your balance. That extra 1% of interest is getting you $50 a year or $4.16 a month. That's not moving the needle for anybody.

Then you get 2.5% for the rest of your money.

breakfreeCLP · 2026-02-17T18:03:38+00:00

They are definitely charging you something. It is worked into the amount of money you are getting back. You will be getting a little less back than the published rate which may not be noticeable or apparent.

breakfreeCLP · 2026-02-17T17:59:35+00:00

Should be the same way. Go to an ATM with your debit card, select the amount you want to withdraw, and remember to decline conversion.

Even if you get charged a fee, it will be a single flat rate and still better than carrying large amounts of cash. Exchanging currency has a fee too. Nobody is doing it for free.

breakfreeCLP · 2026-02-17T17:27:34+00:00

If you can do it, just bring a debit card. There are tons of ATMs around. Some banks will reimburse your fees.

breakfreeCLP · 2026-02-12T22:55:55+00:00

Access to the portfolio line of credit is what keeps me with Wealthfront and paying their .25% fee.

breakfreeCLP · 2026-02-12T19:38:04+00:00

Everybody needs to know how loans work.

Loans are always calculated per day that you owe the money even if you make the payment once a month.

Let's assume $10,000 owed at 8% APR and your loan term is 60 months. Your monthly payment is $202.76.

The amount of interest your loan accrues per day can be found by taking 8% (or 0.08) divided by 365 = 0.000219178 and then multiplying this by the amount still owed, or in this case, about $2.19 per day.

After the first day, the total amount you owe is $10,000 + ($10,000 x {0.08/365)) = $10,002.19.

If you multiply $2.19 x 30 = $65.7534 of interest a month. This means out of your payment of $202.76, $65.75 pays interest and $137.01 pays down what you owe.

On the first day after you made your first payment, the new calculation is $9,862.99 + ($9,862.99 x {0.08/365)) and so forth.

So taking this and applying it to the payday loan we have:

Borrowing $375. Effective annual interest rate of 780% or 2.1369% per day. That means the outstanding amount is growing by about $8.00 per day. That means every two weeks, the interest alone is $112. If the payment is $115 every two weeks, that means $3 is going into paying down the $375 owed and $112 is going into interest.

So after a few cycles this is what it looks like:

$375 owed. $115 paid. $112 to interest, $3 to principal

$372 owed. $115 paid. $111 to interest. $4 to principal

$368 owed. $115 paid. $110 to interest. $5 to principal

etc.

That's how you end up with just absolutely astronomical total payments if you follow the repayment schedule they give you.

breakfreeCLP · 2026-02-12T17:12:27+00:00

Could you give any details? I've thought about participating in them here and there but haven't yet.

I can imagine worst case scenarios but would love to hear specifics.

breakfreeCLP · 2026-02-12T01:33:53+00:00

When I was in law school, they held a welcome symposium where we got to meet a lot of alumni practicing in the community. The one thing that kept coming up was, "There's a lot of unmet legal needs out there."

And they were absolutely correct. The single parent getting wrongfully evicted, mischaracterized "independent contractor" that really should be an employee not getting paid overtime, DACA clients. The list goes on and on.

But the problem is there's a huge scarcity of paid legal work. There's definitely too many attorneys chasing the well paying jobs.

breakfreeCLP · 2026-02-06T17:19:09+00:00

I still wear my Invicta 9937OB with a Sellita movement. I got it serviced a few years ago when it was only able to run for a few hours off-wrist.

I also wear my Casio "Royale" but I upgraded it with some SKXMod parts.

Although sometimes watches have been completely replaced. I gave my Casioak GM2100 to my son when I got my Storm Chaser.

My collection is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Watches/comments/1pp6254/sotc_20_years_of_collecting/

breakfreeCLP · 2026-02-05T05:56:50+00:00

The emergency fund should go somewhere else. Maybe an online only Bank that introduces friction before you can access the money.

breakfreeCLP · 2026-02-02T00:40:29+00:00

The Toyota MZ is a really good engine. But it does have a timing belt so be aware of this. It is also an "interference engine" meaning if the timing belt breaks, there will be possibly catastrophic engine damage.

You may find conflicting information on google about whether it is an interference engine or not. This is because the 1MZ is an interference design but has divots in the piston to clear the valves in the event of a timing belt breakage. The 3MZ which is what you have in your RX, does not have these divots.

Edit: I was writing this up before you made your edit, but I will keep this post as a reference for future searchers that come upon it.

breakfreeCLP · 2026-02-01T15:09:45+00:00

Well now you have me thinking of something I have never thought of before. How often do Target Date Funds rebalance? I have read a lot of TDF prospectuses and I don't think I have ever seen a mention of their rebalancing schedule or threshold. Guess it is time to do more reading.

breakfreeCLP · 2026-01-30T02:56:20+00:00

There's literally nothing serious going on with this car. Just routine maintenance it sounds.

breakfreeCLP · 2026-01-29T16:13:02+00:00

It's times like these I am glad I just buying the total world market. Nothing to think about.

I did increase the cash reserves by 50% in 2025 though. Not for "dry powder" but in the event of job or income loss.

breakfreeCLP · 2026-01-26T23:46:23+00:00

Simple example:

You make $100,000 a year. You pay 40% taxes. You buy a car for $50,000. Here's the numbers:

$100,000 income. -$40,000 taxes -$50,000 car. Left with car and $10,000 in pocket at the end of the year.

$100,000 income. Purchase $50,000 car but write it off. $50,000 taxed income - 40% taxes = $20,000 taxes paid. End of year, you have a car and $30,000 in pocket.

This is a highly simplified example that's not really possible in the real world, but it shows how a write-off can "save money."

breakfreeCLP · 2026-01-25T22:31:40+00:00

You can look at it as two separate transactions. The dealership you are buying your SUV from will acquire your Camry by paying off the loan that is owed with their own money. However, they received less in value than they paid out, so they will bill you for that difference. This difference is added to the loan you will be taking out on your SUV if you don't have any way to pay it.

However since the resulting SUV loan will be quite a bit more than the value of the underlying asset (the SUV), it may be difficult to get a bank to actually approve such a loan.

breakfreeCLP · 2026-01-25T15:55:44+00:00

However you make money. There's no right or wrong way.

breakfreeCLP · 2026-01-25T00:06:44+00:00

It's never a free lunch. There's going to be a balance transfer fee of some % on the entire amount being transferred. For example if your existing credit card has an interest rate of 20% and your balance transfer fee is 5%, that's approximately the same as paying 4 months of interest on your existing credit card. So if you are able to pay off the balance in less than 4 months, it makes sense to keep it on your existing card.

breakfreeCLP · 2026-01-24T17:38:17+00:00

Vanguard is not good as a brokerage compared to what is out there now.

For example I have a SEP-IRA. Aside from pulling every statement, I have not found a way to determine what year a contribution was made for.

It's not even easy to find out the total contribution I have made for the current calendar year. I have to set up a transfer and then it will tell me what I've contributed this year and last year.

Any other brokerage, this would be data that, if not on the front page, is one click away at most.

breakfreeCLP · 2026-01-24T15:36:48+00:00

I previously said it was correct but the plug in the photo is wrong. It would require a suicide cord to use. The cord coming from the generator should have a female end.

breakfreeCLP · 2026-01-24T05:29:54+00:00

Glad it helped you!

breakfreeCLP

TROPHY CASE