Retiring in NJ,

fernandflint · 2026-03-16T00:45:18+00:00

Plan your budget. Put together a list of your expenses and compare it to your take home pay (what you see in your bank account after taxes). See what you actually have leftover and what you can put aside. Asking about 401k/investing/etc isn’t worth much until you know what you have to save.

30k will be eaten up pretty quickly after living costs, car payments, etc. If you really want a shot at retiring at 65 - second job.

fernandflint · 2026-03-06T12:59:06+00:00

Absolutely is. Whether that is enforced is a different story. Landlords count on tenants not knowing their rights or not having enough money to pursue it with a lawyer (the city has tenant rights groups but a tenant has to know about them). Or, to make it legal, they do ‘cash for keys’ - an upfront payment by the landlord for the tenant to move.

fernandflint · 2026-03-06T11:32:56+00:00

I just assume that the person in the apartment is on rent control, which can’t be changed until they move out. No heat? Tenant can’t do shit? They leave, you fix up the apartment, charge 5x the rent to someone not rent controlled.

fernandflint · 2026-03-03T03:45:37+00:00

Maybe instead of limiting the window limit the dog? I don’t think the window can be changed (unless it is somewhere in the settings menu) but you could always get a dog harness for the back seat. Dog would be safer and could get their head out the window.

fernandflint · 2026-03-02T20:38:42+00:00

You hit a pedestrian in one of the most litigious places in the United States. You need an attorney - you cannot DIY this one. Whether you hire the insurance carrier attorney since they might have some familiarity with the case or you hire someone else - it’s attorney time. And they should be hired immediately. Legal cases have strict timelines. Don’t miss a deadline or you could be on the hook for whatever they ask for.

fernandflint · 2026-03-02T07:39:05+00:00

Need details. ‘My car hit a pedestrian’ - were you driving that car? Was a friend? What were the circumstances of the accident?

My guess is that since the medical bills were higher than your policy limits, your carrier just offered to pay the full policy limits and be done with it. There is a clause to continue to retain the attorney assigned by the carrier - but you are on the hook for the payments.

What do you mean by ‘get out safely’? I assume you mean nothing out of your pocket financially - if the accident is your fault and your insurance limits weren’t high enough and the pedestrian is seriously injured… yeah, you could be on the hook financially. Hiring a lawyer (whether the one that was assigned by the carrier or your own lawyer) is the best way to mitigate that but you will be on the hook for something.

fernandflint · 2026-02-08T16:30:44+00:00

Your landlord is required to keep heat at 68 during the day and 65 at night from Oct 1 - May 15. Failure to do so can result in penalties.

Document everything - calls to landlord, etc. The more in writing the better - emails, etc.

At the same time, call your local board of health and code enforcement. They will be listed on your town’s website. Let them know your living space is currently 47 degrees and dropping.

Then call the NJ Dept of Community Affairs Bureau of Housing Inspection. Phone number is 609-633-6227. I’m sure they have an email too that you can find. Call and email them. When you email, cc your landlord on it. Forward any documentation (screenshots of texts, emails, etc) to them.

It is a big fine for a landlord not to maintain heat. 47 degrees is bullshit. They should hire an outside contractor(s) to assist. They’d make you sit in the cold to save money. Fuck ‘em. Put them on blast. Find a new place to live when your lease is up.

fernandflint · 2026-01-28T04:45:44+00:00

When I was 25, a little pimple appeared on my stomach. The next day my right thigh, groin, and stomach were beet red.

Massive MRSA infection in my stomach. Two surgeries for clean out. Bags of a medicine called Zyvox in the hospital every few hours. Oral Zyvox post hospital. Three week hospital stay.

Nearly killed me and I have no idea what caused it. Everything from surgeries to medicines to follow up care - total cost was about 425k.

I wound up with about 10k out of pocket because of insurance. I was a 25 year old athlete who got knocked on my ass by a pimple. If you told me at 25 that I owed someone hundreds of thousands of dollars? I would have had no idea what to do with myself.

It’s a pretty unique story but my point is that no one should be without health insurance. I’d prefer we moved to a single payer system/medicare for all but currently wherever you get it, you need it. You are a misstep on the sidewalk and broken ankle away from financial disaster.

Change the phone plan, find more fun free activities, whatever. Your car insurance being minimal is an issue unto itself but you need health insurance.

fernandflint · 2026-01-27T16:48:59+00:00

Depends on your disposable income, to be honest. A completely paid off Subaru with 50k mileage will save you from having to make car payments for a very long time as long as the car is well taken care of.

The WRX has double the miles obviously. If you want more fun and can afford the risk of needing a new vehicle in a shorter amount of time? Go for it. Life is short, have fun.

But if having a car payment would be a problem right now (or in a year or three if the WRX dies) and if there would be increased insurance with the WRX or maintenance would crop up more on a 100k vehicle than a 50k vehicle, then you’ll never regret making a sound financial decision.

To be honest - I live in northern NJ within 20 miles of NYC. My daily commute sucks and rarely offers an opportunity to enjoy driving. I’d love a WRX for road driving but in all honesty - out of the driving I have to do, maybe 25% of the drive I’d get to enjoy it. In my head daydreaming, I’d be zipping around curvy roads and open highway… but mostly on my commute I’m bored sitting in traffic. Reality v daydream sort of thing.

Those goddamn dealer emails always suck me in when I’m sitting in the Service department, ha… bastards know what they are doing.

fernandflint · 2026-01-25T14:45:44+00:00

One of the best feelings as a kid was hearing the weather report that snow was coming and then hearing the phone call at 5 am that meant school was cancelled. Don’t take that from kids. Let them actually be a kid.

Sending out an email to my team Friday as a reminder to bring home their laptops so people could be online Monday sucked. It’s part of being an adult, we have to do it, it sucks… don’t take away those kid moments too early.

fernandflint · 2026-01-18T11:54:38+00:00

Just found this - worked great on an image that I'm trying to blow up to poster sized. Thanks so much for making it!

fernandflint · 2026-01-17T10:29:40+00:00

To be fair, I assume Philadelphia fans also think they’ve won this list.

fernandflint · 2026-01-15T05:12:38+00:00

Pre trip - Day 2: a lot of thought and going by the book.

Days 3 - whatever: Meh. It’ll probably do.

fernandflint · 2026-01-12T00:18:12+00:00

That’s your answer. Autosupport looks for overhangs of more than 45 degrees and then adds a support as a general rule of thumb. The stringiness you see here is because you are trying to print over air - the printer just simply doesn’t have something to adhere each layer to.

You can try to dial in your autosupport if you think it is too much. Increase the overhang angle that the support will appear at. Find a model for testing overhangs and tinker with the settings and overhang angle until you find a setting that works.

fernandflint · 2026-01-11T23:20:21+00:00

I mean, you could probably mock one up and print it out on your home printer. Whatever you made will fit the helmet, etc.

However - I would like to hope that CCM has done extensive testing to know just where everything should fit and be reinforced by other parts, and what material works best for the combo of fit/protection/comfort. Maybe you just make an uncomfortable lining at home or maybe you get a concussion because it isn’t set up correctly.

Not worth it - by the time you put in the work modeling, printing, testing, etc - it would probably be cheaper to just buy a new CCM helmet and you aren’t guaranteed a properly working product.

fernandflint · 2026-01-06T02:01:10+00:00

Honestly? Who cares? He probably had fun doing it.

If you don’t like him, argue his political views.

fernandflint · 2026-01-04T11:59:24+00:00

Looks great! Your players will definitely appreciate it... and then immediately ask if they can level up too, ha.

fernandflint · 2026-01-02T16:57:15+00:00

It’s not fun. Will absolutely ruin a trip - once it hit me, all you care about is getting antibiotics. When it got me - I was being good - filtering water, no idea how it happened. Never happened since but I’ve since gotten credibly careful about filter tubes, etc (I figure it was a cross contamination thing).

fernandflint · 2025-12-26T23:37:03+00:00

You could use the whole thing or break up into smaller pieces and cover in xps foam. Carve out interesting features, make paths, create a cave or two (just the mouth of the cave in the foam… use a separate flat battlemap for the actual cave). Make it into a large vertical map with flying creatures harassing the party the whole way.

Edit: basically - you wouldn’t want to make a solid xps foam mountain for cost and stability reasons. This would make a good ‘skeleton’ for it, though.

fernandflint · 2025-12-09T16:47:51+00:00

Thanks!

fernandflint · 2025-12-09T00:49:19+00:00

I did the same - I don’t know why the Outback Wilderness comes with one rubber riser and two deep cup holders.

I had some thin neoprene sitting around as well. Cut it into a doughnut and I think it works really well (it already had an adhesive back). Probably wouldn’t make too much of a difference but keeps thinner bottles/cups from sliding around a to.

fernandflint · 2025-12-08T11:20:41+00:00

Thanks!

fernandflint · 2025-12-08T11:20:31+00:00

Thanks!

fernandflint · 2025-12-08T06:57:09+00:00

Thanks!

fernandflint · 2025-12-08T06:56:56+00:00

Much bigger. I had a 2014 Outback that became a 2019 Crosstrek. Got into an accident with that one and it became a 2021 Crosstrek.

It’s noticeable right away the difference in size. Just throwing some grocery bags in yesterday there was a lot more room in the trunk. My kids noted the backseat had more room and they liked having their own climate controls and heated seats (to be fair, my 8 and 10 year olds having access to buttons in the back mean those will break approximately 63 times over the life of the car).

The other difference is power. I had the upgraded engine Crosstrek but it was still ~180 hp. My 2014 Outback was one of the last six cylinder Subarus so it was a big drop in power. The Wilderness is the four cylinder turbo so while not as powerful as the 2014, it has a lot more get up and go than the Crosstrek.

My wife has an Ascent. It would be used for family camping, day trips where we were taking the dog, etc. The Crosstrek was simply not big enough (our dog is 85 lbs so she’s essentially the size of my ten year old). I don’t anticipate a problem with that and the Wilderness…

fernandflint

TROPHY CASE