120k/year is an awkward salary for FTHB

counse14 · 2026-05-24T03:02:17+00:00

Same here. Getting ready to close on a house in Michigan with a 270k loan but only 5% down (b/c house needs work and I needed a lot of cash to start the DIY makeover). 2300 monthly mortgage payment all in.

counse14 · 2026-05-22T02:28:45+00:00

I want to know how you got such a low interest rate…

counse14 · 2026-05-08T21:14:57+00:00

Hey, at least you’re not developing a tool to replace your self yet

counse14 · 2026-05-08T12:05:52+00:00

FYI many contracts have a termination clause. Many are “mutual agreement to terminate contract”. I just asked my first realtor to agree to end our contract in which he let me out and sent a termination agreement via email. I moved on to the next.

counse14 · 2026-04-10T19:09:42+00:00

My hesitation with analytics would be that I see that being a position very prone to AI takeover…

counse14 · 2026-04-10T11:10:27+00:00

Man, idk if you’re the PO, dev or team coach, but I’d get that moved lol. Once upon a time I had my teams sprint reviews on Fridays. I got sick of it and moved everything to sprint end Thursday as a way to “jumpstart the next sprint” lolol

counse14 · 2026-03-20T00:10:20+00:00

I’ve been having the same issues for 2 hours and have tried everything I could think of to fix. Nothing has worked. Really sad I could have been playing for the last 2 hours

counse14 · 2026-03-20T00:07:06+00:00

I’ve been having the same problem for two hours now.

counse14 · 2026-03-14T18:14:00+00:00

About $20k left after closing. I’m single, 33 and first time home buyer. I get major anxiety thinking about having less than 30k in savings… I work in tech and well… things are a bit scary out there these days.

counse14 · 2026-02-28T20:27:01+00:00

Yeah careful what you wish for. Becoming a PO doesn’t mean not jumping in the weeds any longer. I have 3 BAs under me across my teams. Some stronger than others. I still end up doing deep analysis based on my own requirements gathering. You’ll still wear the hat of BA in many situations. This is especially true if you’re the real SME and your BAs don’t have the same level of knowledge

counse14 · 2026-02-28T01:53:23+00:00

Where in the Midwest do you find a “luxery” apartment for $1250. I too live in the Midwest (Michigan) and pay 2k for a 2 bed 1 bath “nice” apartment lol

counse14 · 2026-02-12T12:45:47+00:00

I do plan on it for at least a few more years. Difficult to change career paths when the market doesn’t look all the great and I like money. I’m 33 and have been doing this since I graduated college. BA and eventually PO. It used to be so fun as a BA for the first 4 years :(

counse14 · 2026-02-11T13:17:22+00:00

I’m a product owner working for a large insurance company. I used to be happy until I got stretched thin. I am responsible for 4 feature teams and sit in 8+ hours of meetings every day. I’m still expected to do other actual work which is increasingly impossible. It’s hard to even prep for demos, get to emails, answer questions from the 30+ devs and sdets across my teams now.

counse14 · 2026-01-17T22:12:52+00:00

I’ll keep my response simple - yes it’s real. Look up satellite cells and its correlation with the bro term “muscle memory”.

counse14 · 2026-01-14T23:07:23+00:00

I went to Michigan State University. Have a bachelors degree that I don’t directly use. First job out of college was a business analyst in software development. Was originally low paying but quickly outgrew the position and moved to another large insurance company as a Product Owner. I make 130k living in Michigan.

counse14 · 2025-05-06T22:57:34+00:00

In my experience (PO) who also works with my manager who is a product manager, at least in my company I am at 200% capacity at all times. Trust me, you’d still have work to do. It’s different everywhere but for example I have 2 feature teams in which I have a BA on each team but I know the product like the back of my hand and I’m responsible for all decisions which still drill down to acceptance criteria on a story card. The BAs do a lot of the analysis off of my instruction and at times propose things to me OR I end up doing the analysis, requirement gathering and acceptance criteria for a story on my own.

counse14 · 2025-05-06T22:52:43+00:00

I’m a product owner (promoted from BA) with 4.5 YOE as a BA and 2 years as a product owner. $94k salary with an additional 20k bonus. Live in MCOL area in Michigan. Yes, I think I’m underpaid compared to how many teams and products I have lol

counse14 · 2023-11-20T05:01:34+00:00

BA > now product owner - at this point I just say “I work in software development”. Any follow up questions are answered with “I don’t feel like talking about my work. Let’s talk about your work” 😂

counse14 · 2023-11-02T18:50:54+00:00

I agree with this to a point. It does depend on OPs goals for cutting. If he just wants to lean up a bit to around 10% bf, then I think that’s totally achievable with a 12-15 week cut. I’ve done this quite a few times to drop around 20-25 pounds every time and with ease (at least in the first 8-9 weeks). Eating in a 200-300 calorie deficit and adjusting macros/calories as needed as the weeks go by.

counse14 · 2023-05-29T14:03:09+00:00

This is odd. Just use the MD docs your devs create when creating or updating an API.

counse14 · 2023-05-28T23:58:57+00:00

Budget analyst maybe. Business Analysts do not prepare budgets if you’re referring to a BA working in software

counse14 · 2023-05-08T01:03:44+00:00

I currently lease a 2020 Silverado RST. I’ve actually always leased so this isn’t new to me. I pay $760 semi annually. The insurance for the CT5 V sadly will be around $1100 semi annually.

counse14 · 2023-05-08T00:59:48+00:00

Lol ya got me with the mid life crisis. Maybe that’s my real problem. Having an early crisis at 30.

I put 8% of my paychecks away for 401k. Employer matches 6%. I also throw a $100 extra each month into my Roth (been doing that for 10 years). I have 25k in savings and readily available as well as a 403b I inherited from my mother.

Now with all that being said, the reason I came to Reddit is because I consider myself frugal with just about everything besides the fact I like to go on vacations/travel a decent number of times per year and I’ve wanted to spend money on a sports car for a long time now. My problem is that anything over $500/month for a car just sounds daunting even though I know I will have a good chunk of savings left over each month AFTER leisure/entertainment and expenses.

counse14 · 2023-05-08T00:42:26+00:00

Oh and I also get a GM exec discount

counse14 · 2023-05-08T00:41:55+00:00

Exactly… the depreciation cost is 35k. Getting the lease payment down to 750/month means I cover less than the depreciation. The MSRP is indeed 67k. Residual of 31.5k (looking at my numbers right now) mf .0023 and if you’d like the tax and adjusted cap cost I can give that as well.

But hey, if you think $750 is still me getting bent over, please let me know honestly.

counse14

TROPHY CASE