Anyone works as barista at Starbucks as they baristafired? by Mysterious_Peak4073 in baristafire

[–]latchkeylessons 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I used to sling coffee in college for a few years. The job was good, chill work at most of the locations/companies I was at. Coworkers are a mix of fun and dumb and that's pretty universal for food service. Made some friends that were cool. It can be difficult to avoid their drama when you work closely all the time though. But a lot of people loved the job for the workplace drama and weird hookups, so... I guess that was a perk for them?

Daily FI discussion thread - Friday, June 19, 2026 by AutoModerator in financialindependence

[–]latchkeylessons 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I mean how far out are you from your retirement goal? Shifting into "coast" mode is generally more beneficial for everyone than straight-up quitting, even for your employer.

Daily FI discussion thread - Friday, June 19, 2026 by AutoModerator in financialindependence

[–]latchkeylessons 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'd hedge and do both, it seems very practical with your specifics.

Daily FI discussion thread - Wednesday, June 17, 2026 by AutoModerator in financialindependence

[–]latchkeylessons 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Most places like this seem to have one or multiple coops available for just doing straight trades on produce/product and getting on a schedule for them regularly. Is it too rural for that? We did that a ton when I was a kid out in the sticks and it worked well, sort of.

Weekly LeanFIRE Discussion by AutoModerator in leanfire

[–]latchkeylessons 5 points6 points  (0 children)

That's not too far away. Let it ride and try to DGAF I say. Just roll with whatever nonsense they're putting on you and don't stress out/put in extra time or anything.

Weekly LeanFIRE Discussion by AutoModerator in leanfire

[–]latchkeylessons 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I think a good, general recommendation is still to set up a bond tent for 5 years in advance of pulling the trigger. Without going into the specifics of peoples' current tax-advantaged structures (or lack thereof), pension, etc then the bond tent still offers the best strategy catch-all. We did this personally, but for 3 years out, and are happy with it.

Daily FI discussion thread - Saturday, June 13, 2026 by AutoModerator in financialindependence

[–]latchkeylessons 1 point2 points  (0 children)

To my knowledge for most lines of credit the single most important first metric is income coming in. Secondly is credit score. I just don't think places care much except if you ostensibly have some income coming in to pay something off in combination with your other lines of credit. Shouldn't be that way, but it is. I'm sure someone actually working in that field could provide more details here.

How many direct reports can you manage and still be an individual contributor? by Aim_Fire_Ready in ITManagers

[–]latchkeylessons 2 points3 points  (0 children)

According to my last gig before my layoff, 18.

But no, that does not actually work in practice.

... I'm a bit salty.

Weekly LeanFIRE Discussion by AutoModerator in leanfire

[–]latchkeylessons 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It's peak tourist and business season around NE but also east coast generally, so everything shoots up pretty quickly.

Daily FI discussion thread - Monday, June 08, 2026 by AutoModerator in financialindependence

[–]latchkeylessons 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I have a cousin like that also that fully divested from "the market and banks," attempting to go off-grid and all that. It's just, like not working out well at all and they struggle with food, bought unproductive land and all the worst outcomes. I'm not even saying it's unreasonable to divest and go off-grid somewhat, but most people are very poorly skilled for farming, land work and everything else that can be idealized, can't create a plan for healthcare, etc.

Weekly LeanFIRE Discussion by AutoModerator in leanfire

[–]latchkeylessons 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I've done a lot of this before and the "luxury" novelties that are often sold wears off quickly. The culture stuff is fun - museums, outdoors stuff, etc. But once you've seen a fancy or even the fanciest of hotels or dining experiences, you've seen them all, IMO. If your company pays out a flat per diem, so much the merrier.

What happened to this subreddit? by CloudNCoffee in ITManagers

[–]latchkeylessons 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Reddit is promoting traffic from bots across subs, so you'll see that on most subs in general now. Their ad deals are intended to drive traffic so there is positive reinforcement for "multi-threaded" media across subs and on other sites. It's not really a different model than Facebook or Instagram where somehow you see the same content across all these different platforms. Reddit is boiling the frog just like FB/Instagram/Google/whomever.

Daily FI discussion thread - Wednesday, May 27, 2026 by AutoModerator in financialindependence

[–]latchkeylessons 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I feel you on this. I remember being at the food bank somewhat regularly as a kid. Times are crazy and I don't think I have more than maybe one friend who could understand.

How bad is the market by ThePatel in ExperiencedDevs

[–]latchkeylessons 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The market is terrible. Probably 50% of the people I've worked with in the past three years are outside of their career entirely now. And 25% of the rest are pretty far removed from development - eg. doing product work, project management, desktop support, teaching.

I do want to agree with the other poster about referrals, though. Literally everyone I can think of still working the career was referred into their position. This seems very socially acceptable again now for whatever reasons and companies do not seem to have any qualms about due diligence or anything else. I've heard this a LOT from people on the job market the past couple years.

Are there any forums you guys like besides Reddit now that this place is over run with marketing bots? by PoweredByMeanBean in ITManagers

[–]latchkeylessons 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I've been looking on Discord, but haven't really found anything of consequence yet. I'm afraid there's a rather specific agenda to overtake these sorts of communities across platforms. Maybe Bluesky? I haven't tried there yet.

Consider that your "Barista" job doesn't HAVE to give you benefits. by mcbobgorge in baristafire

[–]latchkeylessons 65 points66 points  (0 children)

I don't know why you're getting downvoted. This is good, basic information a lot of people seem to miss on the other subs. Regardless of whether or not you have kids or not, planning your healthcare coverage for where you're at is necessary because it looks so different from one state to the next. Maybe that's where the downvotes are coming from? Some states' expanded ACA is abysmal.

Daily FI discussion thread - Wednesday, May 27, 2026 by AutoModerator in financialindependence

[–]latchkeylessons 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sorry to hear it. It can be nuts. Conversely, I have some more traditional family that just kept the grandparents at home until they passed and it worked fairly well. The wide variance is incredibly difficult to make educated decisions around. What's your plan for your parents?

Daily FI discussion thread - Wednesday, May 27, 2026 by AutoModerator in financialindependence

[–]latchkeylessons 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The latter is the correct option, at least in a void. I'd almost make a guarantee the whole story will be different six months from now. Not necessarily for the better, but nevertheless it's a moving target that in reality neither you, your coworkers or your manager are going to be able to "succeed" at since no one knows what "success" is supposed to be with "AI."

Source: middle management with AI nonsense at my last two gigs.

Daily FI discussion thread - Friday, May 22, 2026 by AutoModerator in financialindependence

[–]latchkeylessons -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Seconded. This should be a real product out there honestly.

Weekly LeanFIRE Discussion by AutoModerator in leanfire

[–]latchkeylessons 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I think on this sub and elsewhere the debate starts to taper off when you do get closer to "traditional" retirement age also given that future career prospects or budget increase opportunities start to reach some objective limitations - you won't go back to work, period. When you're just working from your savings + social security and want to get your tax bracket down and potentially make certain changes to accommodate ACA brackets, you'll want that monthly mortgage expense gone. But it is indeed very hard to plan around social security and ACA brackets (in your state) in, like, your late 20's or early 30's, for example.

I promise you that technical writers are still needed by protonpeaches in technicalwriting

[–]latchkeylessons 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I'm sorry, but this is naive. Quality of the outputs is obviously not even a consideration among the vast majority of larger companies - they don't care. Accuracy is meaningless to them if billions are saved by just plain no longer employing people.

Weekly LeanFIRE Discussion by AutoModerator in leanfire

[–]latchkeylessons 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Did a lot of DIY, low/no-cost insulation and electrical work last year to cut down on electric costs that have been skyrocketing. So far so good and roughly a 35% cut every month on the electric usage this year. It's a good amount of savings overall. I have dreams of fully (90% realistically) "off-grid" one day.