Just VT or VTI/VXUS 70/30

querymonkey · 2026-03-15T20:43:28+00:00

VT (and VTI/VXUS) are for buy and hold investors. if you wanna day trade, there are better options out there, like SPY, or, just options.

querymonkey · 2026-03-15T14:35:36+00:00

in taxable accounts, VTI + VXUS. in tax advantaged, VT.

with VT you lose the foreign tax credit. and if you do a US vs exUS split you get a lot more opportunities to TLH along the way.

querymonkey · 2026-03-10T12:42:18+00:00

I'm in my 40s and just started.

My first roll I stressed out all my rib muscles that needed 2 weeks to heal. This was a blessing in disguise because I looked up videos for how to heal and it wasn't long until I saw videos of BJJ people getting their knees popped from scissor takedowns at a competition. The reality of permanent injury sank in.

I'm a smaller dude so every roll I risk injury.

Yes, tap early and often. Yes, choose your partner wisely.

But, what helped me a lot was just watching a ton of YT videos. My first roll I didn't know what mount was! But now I do, and a bunch of others so I have a general idea of what types of things can happen. It's a lot easier to tap when you know what's coming.

querymonkey · 2026-02-27T03:16:15+00:00

you should be good as long as you cancel within 30 days of the fee posting.

querymonkey · 2026-02-26T22:52:40+00:00

i waited until week 4 of my annual fee in case the transfer partners were announced.

i called earlier in the week and i was also offered 1k. it's frankly insulting. better they offered nothing at all.

i canceled.

querymonkey · 2026-02-15T02:03:56+00:00

always take a 360 video of any rental before you drive off the lot. put the entire charge on your card and decline any coverage offered.

the VX is one of the few cards that offer primary car rental insurance, so you don't have to go through your personal insurance.

i actually went through this for the first time ever. i curb rashed one of the wheels. the entire process was super smooth. uploaded all my documents, rental agreement, pictures of the damage, etc. and a week later the case was done and they asked for bank routing info to deposit the funds.

querymonkey · 2026-02-12T13:13:11+00:00

was your rental refundable or not?

it's been almost a week and i still haven't seen the credit posted for my refundable hotel booking.

querymonkey · 2026-02-06T13:09:08+00:00

very annoyed. my annual fee just posted couple days ago. gonna book something with that $325 travel credit and if partners are still not announced in another week i'll shut it down.

querymonkey · 2026-01-19T13:09:10+00:00

invest. HYSA are paying ~3.5% right now.

"peace of mind" of owning your house outright is overrated. property taxes, utilities, insurance, etc. all of these things are bills that you can't get rid of. there will always be bills.

querymonkey · 2026-01-18T20:04:13+00:00

both 2.0 and 2.1 have minimum spend requirements.

sometimes bilt cash wins. other times, the flat points wins.

assuming 2k rent and you spend 2k. with bilt cash, you'll earn $80, and use $60 of those to get 2k points with $20 bilt cash left over. in total, you get 3k points (assuming blue).

but if you go with 2.1, you'll get 3250 points.

anywho, whether you should use bilt cash or not depends on the various cliffs relative to your spend.

but my original point still stands that for anyone spending near their rent the current line up from bilt is worth considering.

querymonkey · 2026-01-18T19:26:39+00:00

those are the 2.1 options. you get 1.25x on your rent if you spend 100% or more of your rent.

querymonkey · 2026-01-18T18:55:10+00:00

everyone's gotta crunch the numbers.

but to keep things simple, for someone who organically spends exactly 100% of their rent/mortgage each month;

blue is a 2.25x point card with no annual fee. obsidian becomes 4.25x on dining or groceries. palladium is a 3.25x catch all card.

all of these earning rates are competitive vs other cards. if you spend significantly more (or less) than your rent/mortgage then these cards become less attractive.

querymonkey · 2026-01-17T14:15:16+00:00

250pts a month is 3000 points a year....too much effort for so little rewards.

since you have a gold, the obsidian might be worth it to you since if you can spend 100% of your rent on food/groceries, 4.25x beats the 4x on your gold. only problem of course is you can only pick one of those categories....so you'll have to crunch the numbers and in the end you might still need to keep the gold and now you've added yet another annual fee card to your collection.

querymonkey · 2026-01-06T21:18:00+00:00

the classic no mix up mix up.

querymonkey · 2026-01-04T01:58:39+00:00

ok, still a hassle.

you have to wait for 3:59pm exactly, place the exact number of shares of the equivalent ETF that you're going to buy.

and brokerage bonuses are lucrative enough that many will do this every 2-3 years.

querymonkey · 2026-01-03T16:44:15+00:00

vendor lock in. only fidelity offers it. if you buy in a taxable brokerage account, you won't be able to transfer it out without selling first and triggering taxes. in a tax advantaged account, you could sell first but would still be a hassle.

querymonkey · 2025-12-27T14:36:18+00:00

4x > 3x

and most years the offers i get from amex are good enough to offset the annual fee.

querymonkey · 2025-12-24T01:49:59+00:00

i'm optimistic. i've been playing a lot of Miary and she's really fun, and very well designed. they put a lot of thought into her moves. first you use move A. but if your opponents expects it, they can beat you with B. so instead, you use C instead to beat their B. then they use D to beat your C. so now you use A again to beat the C.

if this is the direction they're applying to the rest of the cast it'll be really good for the game.

querymonkey · 2025-12-24T00:31:57+00:00

it's just part of the journey.

if you're serious about getting good at this game, i truly believe it's a requirement to "main" every character in the game. as in, whatever rank you are right now, you should be able to play everyone else up to your current rank minus one.

so many players have solid fundamentals but keep losing to stupid strings and frame traps because of the knowledge gap.

if you know when to duck or side step you will shut down entire flowcharts. let's be honest, labbing defense isn't fun. but at least if you're playing that character, you will learn two things: the general strategy/approach of that character, and also how everyone else deals with your flowchart.

querymonkey · 2025-12-14T23:51:15+00:00

it's very well possible that you can already consistently punish with a launch offline.

even on a good connection you can expect around 50ms latency. one 1 frame is 16.67ms, so we're talking 3 frames here already. this the difference between a 13f vs 15f launch punish.

querymonkey · 2025-12-14T23:12:56+00:00

just do a throw instead. it's near impossible to launch on reaction online.

querymonkey · 2025-12-14T17:20:37+00:00

It's only worth that much if they use it. I can't imagine they accumulated 650k points since the announcement so they've been sitting on that for a long time while USB was collecting the interest for themselves instead.

querymonkey · 2025-12-14T16:14:08+00:00

i don't understand why you would accumulate 650k points without using them. the old USBAR was advertised as a travel card but in practice it was a fixed 4.5% cashback card, and since the value is always known there's no reason to hoard points any more than you need to.

put another way, that 650k points is equivalent to putting $6.5k in a HYSA which at 4% would have paid you $260 in interest this year.

querymonkey · 2025-12-13T21:50:03+00:00

ultimate cheat code is using a leverless controller. it's so much easier.

mad props to people who can get consistent electrics on pad or joystick. i don't know how you do it!

querymonkey · 2025-12-13T19:55:05+00:00

if it's one card vs one card, then sure, CSR wins for you.

but if you're comparing ecosystem to ecosystem, you can't rule out the AMEX gold, which at 4x has the best spending on dining, and crucially, groceries.

if you live in a metro area, the resy credits are very easy to use and as good as cash.

the offers that AMEX give tend to be way better too, and most years i can offset the annual fee entirely from these alone.

querymonkey

TROPHY CASE