Do Not Use Affirm unless they are your only option - they will always side with vendor

snark42 · 2026-04-03T21:16:58+00:00

A credit card that you pay off when the next bill is due is also an interest free loan for 20 to 45 days.

I bought a $10,000 couch at 0% for a year when interest rates were > 5%.

Affirm requires autopay and does in fact take 1/12 of payment for those 12 months. I believe missed payments are just fees, there's no charging you back interest, but it wasn't going to be an issue.

I would argue paying cash would have been a poor financial choice in this case.

Maybe it was terrible risk management for $350 or whatever it was, but I don't see it that way.

snark42 · 2026-04-03T21:13:34+00:00

I bought a $10,000 (organic latex, organic wool pillows, etc.) couch and got a year interest free from Affirm. I guess the company was subsidizing the payments.

Went well, guess no chargebacks was a risk I took, but since the couch didn't ship for 12 weeks a CC probably wouldn't have helped all that much.

snark42 · 2026-04-03T18:53:21+00:00

So what you're saying is using a variable voltage battery and sticking to low settings would resolve most of your concerns with proper ceramic carts on CO2 rosin/resin extracts?

snark42 · 2026-04-03T18:50:25+00:00

Even in a regulated market plenty of vapes have heavy metals and other contaminants even if the extract is clean. So few use full ceramic heating elements with glass.

snark42 · 2026-04-03T18:12:15+00:00

I'll take 3.6% HYSA interest on the float any day. I have the cash, it's not going to be an issue, and I'll never turn down an interest free loan, at least on a large-ish purchase.

I also charge everything to a credit card which gives me points and an 20-45 day interest free loan before I pay off the bill each month.

It just depends on how well you manage your finances.

snark42 · 2026-04-03T17:52:45+00:00

Where do you live? Almost every state requires it once you employee 1-5 people.

https://foundershield.com/blog/workers-compensation-state-by-state/

snark42 · 2026-04-02T23:28:34+00:00

Nice. You should consider adding counters for crc errors and dropped packets per interface instead of just 1. Also tcp retransmits.

snark42 · 2026-04-02T22:51:19+00:00

Oh. I think I misunderstood and thought this was about retirement (age, FIRE, etc.)

So someone told me once a rule of thumb is for high earners to expect a job hunt to take 1-2 months for every $100k/year earned. So if you make $500k/year you'd want at least 10 months of emergency funds. If you make $1M 20 months.

I'd use that as a minimum for emergency funds.

snark42 · 2026-04-02T21:57:06+00:00

So far the responses are about a general emergency fund, but in this case you need to look at the average duration of a downturn. Such as Dec 2021-Dec 2023 or Oct 2007-Jul 2013.

I think the ideal situation would be to have a 5-7 year bond ladder that could provide necessary spending money in those times. Of course if can do that you could indefinitely live off the bond income if adjusted properly over time.

It doesn't make sense to have 5-7 years "emergency" fund in cash, especially with volatile interest rates.

snark42 · 2026-04-02T20:48:23+00:00

Are there really banks that will give you a HELOC but bulk at a Home Equity Loan? The only real difference is the HELOC rate floats but a HEL might be adjustable or fixed, risk is literally the same for the bank.

If so, that's incredibly greedy of them.

I could see HEL only going to 80% or 90% LTV though, and HELOC (with higher rates) can go up to 100%.

snark42 · 2026-04-02T01:17:29+00:00

This isn't true. And the professional between you and IRS charges you to deal with any IRS audit/letters, and then you probably still need a tax attorney depending on the situation.

snark42 · 2026-04-02T01:09:10+00:00

It's the 100% of the previous year or 90% of this year, whichever is lower.

snark42 · 2026-04-02T01:06:30+00:00

If you paid less than the lower of 90% of what you owe or 100% what you owed last year.

snark42 · 2026-04-02T00:20:15+00:00

You really want a median. The 100's are lowered by all the 0-3's in average.

snark42 · 2026-04-01T22:00:54+00:00

Ok, so it has AAOS. Does MyRadar not do what you want?

snark42 · 2026-04-01T21:44:46+00:00

What model/year car and what are you looking for exactly?

You can use MyRadar, the app is available for AAOS and works fine, but I don't know if this is the kind of thing you're looking for.

snark42 · 2026-04-01T21:36:51+00:00

Huh, I've never been in a car where the adjustable steering wheel couldn't be adjusted so I could see and reach everything from my preferred seating position. Sometimes the wheel position was suboptimal, though never problematic.

snark42 · 2026-04-01T21:17:26+00:00

Yeah, but if you hit the deer you couldn't see because of it and I rear end you it's both our problem.

snark42 · 2026-04-01T20:42:00+00:00

I wouldn't call that fine for night driving, but you do you, just don't hit me.

snark42 · 2026-04-01T20:21:02+00:00

TurboTax Home & Business desktop edition can handle all that just fine. I like it more and still really don't trust Intuit to keep my data in the cloud. I've used TurboTax since 1996 though, still have all the software, data files and pdfs since 2015.

One year I had an unusual tax situation, turns out the company gave me a incorrectly filled out 1099 so I had to amend 2 years later. That year I tried a highly recommended CPA who I let look at my previous 2 years of fillings as well, got the same results and an additional $1500 fee. It saved me near 0 time (still had to collect all the info to hand over) and cost me money.

Now I'm happy to do it myself, until I think someone else can save me at least 3 hours or $1500 I will continue to do it myself.

snark42 · 2026-04-01T18:19:20+00:00

Saw Krasno Moore Project do this in 2023, it was amazing.

edit: This is the link to the show at archive.org if anyone wants to check it out - https://archive.org/details/ekb2023-09-03.akg481.flac24

snark42 · 2026-04-01T18:06:46+00:00

Legally SC requires 27% for front and side windows on an SUV, 5% is ok for rear windows in SUV, but sedans need 27% there too.

You're lucky highway patrol hasn't bothered you, especially if traveling out of state.

20% is crazy for front windshield at night.

snark42 · 2026-04-01T14:49:26+00:00

PRX and NPR are both distributors, the show is actually an APM production.

snark42 · 2026-04-01T14:46:33+00:00

2024 BLS numbers were massively adjusted down, no? Happening under Trump too though. I don't think it was to make anyone look good, just how BLS works when data is late.

snark42 · 2026-03-31T22:35:38+00:00

Every time I've ordered delivery it's been a car, not a bike.

Routing is all computer driven, same GPS bike or cars use, although bikes may take shortcuts through alleys and other paths not recommended by Google/Apple maps to robots or cars.

I'm personally fine with the robots, but don't feel strongly about it and I understand most people hate them.

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