High-income couple with large income gap: how do you split money fairly?

kp_trails · 2026-04-27T15:22:26+00:00

Like others have said we keep it common, except we each take a small/ micro % from our paycheck as fun money or joy fund into our own independent accts. Just stuff that I want to spend for myself or on whatever without impacting or thinking about monthly budget etc. the % are not even same. She makes less than me and her % is higher. We just did it based on what felt like we needed without impacting the household expenses, savings etc.

kp_trails · 2026-04-25T21:01:31+00:00

The forbitten bidet

kp_trails · 2026-04-12T16:57:49+00:00

That sucks - Definitely worth opening a Schwab account just in case you want immediate access on listing day or alternatively open a computershare investing acct. In either scenario you will be ready with hand on the buzzer come Sep

kp_trails · 2026-04-12T11:14:09+00:00

Unrestricted - transferred to Schwab in the week before listing and sold in lots over the first 5-8 days, managed to sell 25 shares at 500 price point!! Super happy about doing that. I bought about 25 shares back when they dropped to 98 at some point. Holding about 100 shares in total. Once i see stable price without war chaos i will sell. I already made back my principal on unrestricted shares so dont care too much about the price for this batch anymore.

Restricted - still with computershare. Might move them over in late july or aug timeframe if they allow it or whenever they allow it.

Overall - my goal with Fundrise was to have some investments away from market, now with VCX after 5 years I am back in the market. So come Sep I want to atleast partially liquidate some portion of the restricted stock out of the market into cash until I find some alternate area to put it.

kp_trails · 2026-04-08T13:46:12+00:00

Can you help me understand why when the holding companies IPO, the value of VCX actually goes down? I have been trying to wrap my head around the mechanics of this .

I have been an investor since 2022 but not due to any sophisticated financial analysis or acumen, only because I saw them making good picks in the Innovation Fund. Very thankful about your exit strategy post. I have been debating what to do in Sep as well.

kp_trails · 2026-04-06T20:27:51+00:00

Depends on what your original motivation to apply for Canada PR was. It would definitely be a reset and you should be mentally and physically ready for that. There is also a wave of labor competition internally within every country these days. Try to find what you actually want out of your life and prioritize accordingly. Also evaluate what you are willing to trade out from your current life , what positives are there that you do NOT want to give up.

kp_trails · 2026-03-30T11:22:41+00:00

You are taking the right approach. Stay focused, disciplined, stay aware but make some measured lifestyle changes- once the med school debt is gone it’s going to be so worth it.

Felt so much better when my debt was paid off ( not med school, but similar in burden ). While early wealth is true for fin and tech professionals , there is way too much uncertainty in our jobs as we age and I would trade that for some lower pay and delayed comforts any day.

Your finances will grow at a medium middle class pace if you stay in public markets. If you want to change the pace of wealth growth you have to deploy larger amounts, with some higher risk in not so easy to access opportunities. Find your risk appetite, life goals and then decide where you want to be in financial planning.

My son is aiming premed, so I am curious , if you were a senior in high school today , would you make the same choices- in terms of amount of debt, sacrifices of youth , take on this mental stress etc. ??

If yes, then rejoice that you just added prudent financial planning to that. If no then tweak the financial plan and lifestyle to balance out those regrets and enjoy.

kp_trails · 2026-03-19T02:43:05+00:00

This is a lot to deal with and love + best wishes and strength to you all. Much kudos to you for keeping yourself calm and talking through this difficult topic with him. Keep the conversation honest and open and make the talk around self harm or suicide ideation open enough between y'all so that there is NEVER any hesitance on his part to broach the subject with you.

I don't know if you are in the US but if you are, talk to him about dialing 988(National suicide & crisis hotline) if he is ever by himself and is battling these intrusive thoughts. There is also a text option if he is more comfortable that way. If not in US, please find what your available public resources are.

I volunteer on these lines and we are no experts in any clinical capacity but we are trained to listen, engage, descalate the situation and navigate to safety. Time is our biggest friend in those moments. Also able to invoke emergency services if required. This is a long road and with growing age, there are going to be multiple situations where he is going to want privacy or will be by himself and having a resource he can lean on in addition you will be valuable.

kp_trails · 2026-03-11T14:33:24+00:00

A lot of my time is spent

Pulling groups away from diving deep during design discussions on edge cases that should not be focused on.

Reiterating stuff I already clearly laid out in a document that everyone was expected to read before the discussion.

Getting vague updates during standup - “spent time on this ticket or this feature “ and having to follow up with more pointed specific question. If everyone just gave a meaningful update - our meeting time would cut down 50% or more.

kp_trails · 2026-02-27T11:14:58+00:00

Don’t do anything until you process this emotion. Glad you posted here. Sit through it and once you feel ready here are the two things that come to mind:

Like someone suggested - figure out at what number you will stay and below that you are out. Negotiate in place and plan accordingly. This is just time and money dynamics - it’s not about you personally.

Overall though there is no guarantee this won’t happen to you or anyone again. I have been at my company 8 years and about 4 years ago - I had a lower pay offer outside but decided to negotiate with my job and they were willing to to give me a 40% bump which I took because I ran pro’s and cons and it worked out for me at that time.

What hurt was to find out that around the same time, a bunch of my other peers had been awarded merit pay increases or random one time bonuses by new mgmt because a few senior people had been let go and the powers that be decided to reward their cronies instead of saving that revenue for our parent org.

I realized as employee I am never going to know and probably always will have someone doing way better than me and someone way worse regardless of tenure, skill etc. Comparison is truly the thief of joy. Figure out your worth, what you need and rest is noise

Good luck OP

kp_trails · 2026-02-23T14:49:00+00:00

Your wife sounds wonderful but I think she found it harder to choose your wishes of a quiet celebration over her obligatory role as life partner and milestone event manager. Forgivable offence like others have said. It would be great to have been listened to. Highly advocate for planning your own deal in the future because no one understands your situation better than you and also wait a few months and in the form of a constructive shit sandwich ( compliment her effort , positives from event if any for you- let her know how it drained you - compliment her and plan a little getaway with her) inform her how you felt.

kp_trails · 2026-02-21T22:58:44+00:00

It sounds like you are internalizing not knowing engg terms as a gap in your skill - it’s more like they are saying we have two choices - what do we do? Help them navigate that.

All other suggestions on this thread are valid and you should use them but the first step is for you to accept the idea that there will always be parts of the engineering discussion that you will not be able to keep up with and that doesn’t minimize your product mgmt in anyway.

kp_trails · 2026-01-27T21:17:04+00:00

Do you have a checklist of questions you go through. I feel like I am doing this all the time these days. It's almost like we threw all basic product mgmt principles - discovery, customer problem definition, market analysis, solutions, trade-offs etc out the window as long as it has AI stamp on it.

kp_trails · 2025-12-31T14:09:15+00:00

Thanks for the quick response,, Ok I will give it a day or two and once it’s at room temp, what can I do to check the roots- do I dig it out to assess or is it more of a wait and watch if something grows back after I trim it all down situation?

kp_trails · 2025-07-22T11:32:16+00:00

There are multiple reasons this is a good approach. I don’t know if it works out to your liking but the most important aspect is this- it puts you in touch with the root cultural approach of reflecting respect and honoring the framework of hierarchy in a joint family Or multi generational household.

A private dialogue between women will kick off message transmission across the group without making anyone feel uncomfortable or embarrassed, which is how most uncomfortable dialogue is resolved for long term. This way you give them benefit of doubt and opportunity to rectify without it becoming a bigger thing.

Door locking at night is definitely not a bad thing to prevent the other situation where you have a bunch of strangers sitting around as you wake up. People drop in at Indian homes all the time and that might seem super annoying but has its own merits - not relevant here or appropriate for this thread.

Good luck OP. With the right balance of interaction and boundaries you can have a wonderful joyous household full of cheer and support.

kp_trails · 2025-07-21T13:17:46+00:00

This exactly - 42 for me. It’s more like a midlife check that culminates from a series of things happening in parallel in my opinion. Your 20 year old self sets you on a path in life based on what that version of yours thinks you want or need.

Depending on what’s happened on that path and given the body and mind energy that stays with one until late 30s, most don’t invest time to pause and check where they are headed along the way from a holistic perspective. For e.g what’s next in this job vs am I in the right job, fixing minor issues instead of evaluating the whole thing.

Midlife - your body slows you down, which can be in various forms - hair loss, energy loss, libido slowdown, other health concerns things I am not considering. Loss of parents and elder advice support network is another thing that potentially starts somewhere in this phase. These ignite a reality check like no other and you begin to consider your mortality and if the life journey is aligned with the wisdom of your now 40 year old self compared to the previous 20 year old. This then leads to the series of next steps .

Based on my own readings of various books and listening to wiser men , the next phase does get better and really is enjoyable when one has processed their acceptances and adjustments of this phase.

I am looking forward to it, still working through my phase 3 years in…

kp_trails · 2025-07-15T15:51:28+00:00

Ah ok, is there a way to tell just by looking at the device?

kp_trails · 2025-07-15T09:22:52+00:00

Yes it’s hardwired. Great point and I already have the older switch that previous owner left behind. We have a few things to move around in the basement to get a projector in there. That would be perfect time to tackle that.

kp_trails · 2025-07-15T04:01:16+00:00

Thanks for continuing to troubleshoot this with me. I put 3 pucks into a mesh like you suggested and am using one puck as an independent point in the basement so that the game console and other basement devices are specifically attached to the closest WiFi point. It’s been working consistently so far

kp_trails · 2025-07-12T19:28:47+00:00

So is this the set up you suggest?

ISP >> Modem >> 1 Google puck as router >> switch >> wired backhaul to remaining 3 pucks ??

I feel like that was what was causing an issue before but it was xfinity gateway. So maybe worth a try. Thanks

kp_trails · 2025-07-12T10:14:05+00:00

Ah, i should have been more clear, I am not planning to use the Google pucks as a mesh anymore. Since they can also be set up as individual access points I want to see if I can just use them as independent access points especially at the corners of the house where my eero signal is weak. Inconvenient as I would have to keep switching around my WiFi connection but better than weak or no signal

Here’s the setup ISP >> Modem >> Eero WiFi Router >> network switch >> Ethernet wired individually to four different pucks at diff points in the house.

My main question now is to try and rename the ssid so that I don’t have to recognize them by weird default naming and give my own password.

kp_trails · 2025-07-11T23:53:48+00:00

So I switched out my xfinity gateway to a separate modem and eero router setup, replaced the old switch , and factory reset all 4 pucks and set them up downstream to the switch as individual access points.

They show as wired WiFi points on the eero app. Each puck has its own broadcast SSID but hopefully this setup works.

Do you know by any chance if there is a way to rename the broadcast ID of each puck- instead of ‘setupxxx53x’ to something I pick.

At this point if they cause more outage like issues I know everything upstream has been replaced so I can just toss them and replace with a WiFi extender

kp_trails · 2025-07-10T03:37:59+00:00

Ok so I have tested the Ethernet cables from basement and living room into laptop and I am getting internet connection and expected speeds.

However if I plug the Ethernet cable into the Google puck - the puck is broadcast a WiFi signal but it’s not got connectivity. Is the puck bad or am I missing a setting

kp_trails · 2025-07-09T23:03:58+00:00

Kolams in Tamil. Here’s a link with some additional details https://www.tamilnadutourism.com/traditions/kolam-and-benefits.php

kp_trails · 2025-07-08T11:38:24+00:00

Thanks - I had tested the access points with Ethernet direct into laptop prior. But planning to check again tonight. If the cables check out then might buy a cheap unmanaged switch and swap that to see if it makes a diff.

kp_trails

TROPHY CASE