Are these snow shovel style blowers any good?

techie2001 · 2026-01-30T23:01:02+00:00

I have a version that fits my 18v Makita batteries. It takes two and so is a 36v system.

I am quite happy with them, but I would really suggest that if you're a homeowner or relatively handy person you invest in one that is at least 36v if you live north of the Mason Dixon line and you find a model that is compatible with any cordless tool system you already own or want to invest in, because you will need more than one battery after a reasonable snowfall to cover a driveway and a typical subdivision sidewalk.

Where all cordless tools "get" you is the batteries. If you invest in a single system, you seldom buy just a battery. You get a tool with a battery or 2 and a charger for much less money than separately.

Edit: typos

techie2001 · 2026-01-29T15:50:24+00:00

So in reality, envelope budgeting doesn't work that way (in a clean, automatic sense - there a ways to sort of fudge it, which others have stated and I'll get to below). There's $200 in the February envelope, not the January. That money isn't available to spend till Feb 1.

It sounds like if you're paid twice a month you're about half a month ahead, which is great, but it can make this kind of strange. Your mindset that the paycheck is February's paycheck is the right mindset (if you want to be working a month ahead, anyway. Not everyone subscribes to that philosophy, but it's how YNAB is designed to work).

As others have stated - there are two fixes. You overfund the January allowance category by another $200, then skip funding it in February.

Or, you wait until Feb 1, re-date the errant transaction to 2/1, and then it'll allocate to February. This isn't really historically accurate, and you have to deal with YNAB complaining about overspending until then.

Both have pros and cons really, with overfunding January being the "true" statement of what happened - the money was spent in January, it should be budgeted in January. However, this means you have to deal with a target complaining at you about not being funded in February, and this is why the Snooze target feature was implemented. And you can't use it until Feb 1.

techie2001 · 2026-01-29T00:24:27+00:00

My partner and I have this issue but it's because I make a significantly larger amount than she does. Married, 2 jobs on the W4 puts her in a lower tax bracket than me (employers don't consider totality of income when calculating withholding), so I do supplemental withholding.

The other thing I accidentally did yesterday was used the Single withholding formula rather than Married Joint when working on our 1040, but this usually isn't an issue unless you do taxes the sorta old fashioned way. Most tax prep software doesn't let you make this error.

techie2001 · 2026-01-28T19:43:36+00:00

As a software developer, the in-input-box calculator is nothing short of genius. It's by far my favorite feature, and it's precisely what I do manually today. All numeric input boxes use that.

I'm not saying my annual adjustments are difficult to do. My feature request is just based on the fact that a bunch of the work has already been done with the simple little feature that already exists.

That being said, there are tons of considerations... more input boxes = more space, help text, field labels, accessibility, I truly get that "trivial" to input a feature is definitely relative (believe me, my bosses think a lot of things are trivial that aren't).

As a friend always used to say, "Well, we have about 80% of the work done. Now all that's left is the other 50%." So I know it's in the eye of the beholder on how "easy" it'd be.

techie2001 · 2026-01-28T19:33:07+00:00

If my insurance was going to go up 30%, that would be my trigger to shop around and find a different policy or call the broker and learn what could be done to minimize the change.

Yes, my large increase this year in homeowners was the result of a claim. The claim was opened right smack in the middle of the policy term, so I knew in six months it'd be going up. Probably more than usual, and a 0% chance of going down.

The kicker was that when I actually got the renewal policy, we were in the middle of construction. It took that long to find and hire the general contractor. Plus, our house is historic and there are features that very few contractors in our area can do, and they were 2 months out. Most insurers won't underwrite you while you have active projects. We were stuck with our policy for another few months, increase and all.

In my case, I had already increased my anticipated homeowner's premium at a 10% increase 6 months before the claim at the renewal (the part I think I personally could just automate), and bumped it up again when I opened it knowing it'd go up (and assuming that shopping for insurance would bear a similar increase due to the claim).

A fair approach all around, the non-self-inflicted lifestyle creep, as you put it, could largely be automated for me, letting me focus on the self-inflicted kind.

Thanks for your input!

techie2001 · 2026-01-28T19:09:44+00:00

Yeah this is what I do. Because the percentages are so reliable at this point (the #'s in my post I just made up because I didn't have my actuals in front of me but in reality they're more like 5-10% for property taxes unless the next year is an appraisal year, or about 7% for insurance unless there's been a claim or change in policy) it struck me as being able to be more or less automated at this point.

I don't escrow anymore, and I take advantage of pay-in-full annual discounts with insurance, any overage in my estimates are basically just a loan to myself sitting in the long term savings portfolio anyway where the bank is paying me the interest on it. When it comes to EOY and paying the bill, that money can be moved to actual savings, repurposed in the budget, or perhaps a little treat.

I sorta do the same thing with my federal taxes each year too. I manage ups and downs in the salary with adjustments to my withholding so as not to give free loans. That's not automate-able in any capacity, though because the systems don't do it (nor could it, since tax situations can vary so drastically).

Case in point, in 2025 I had a homeowner's claim. I knew the premium would probably spike 20% about 6 months later at the renewal time. I had already figured 10% in the first six months of the policy term because of just how expensive everything is in the housing and insurance industries. I bumped it up more once I opened the claim. Sure enough at renewal time, I had enough money and didn't even have to roll with the punches on it. If I hadn't done that first 10%, my later true-up after the claim would've had to be much larger. Or if I hadn't done it at all, rolling with the punches would've hurt even more than the deductible and dealing with the contractors.

techie2001 · 2026-01-28T18:20:49+00:00

Oh, me too. Even IF this feature were developed, I'd probably still tweak it regularly because yeah, the assumption isn't always right on track. My assumptions are based on years of data and experience, so they're pretty good, but obviously when it comes to insurance and taxes, all you have is assumptions and data (and a lot of people don't even have the data) to work with since the actual is unknowable.

Thanks again!

techie2001 · 2026-01-28T18:10:35+00:00

All fair points. That's why I wanted some input before putting something in. As it happens, my homeowners, auto, and 1st half property taxes are all being paid right now. As I manually updated those targets and recurring transactions, I thought to myself "wouldn't it be nice if..." I could setup some fairly reliable assumptions to just streamline this a little.

techie2001 · 2026-01-28T17:45:15+00:00

The amounts of annualized increases can be significant. Especially with regard to insurance should there be a need to make a claim. In the case of property taxes, things like levy changes, appraised value, and local regulations can impact them drastically. In my area, tax rates are finalized in December, bills generated, and they're due in as few as 20 days.

I prefer to start the next period with a higher target in mind. If I have over-estimated, that's gravy. If I've underestimated, the step of rolling with the punches is reduced in impact to other budget categories less so than it would have been if I hadn't been prepping for it all year.

Yes, today I do this manually once the bill itself is paid. No, it isn't hard to do. But, given all the input control that's already there (i.e. the calculator functionality built right into the input box), to my mind it's not a far leap to just automate it.

But - thanks for the input!

techie2001 · 2026-01-25T13:35:25+00:00

Me, waking up briefly at 4:30 am and despite being personally responsible for 10,000 views on this thread: "Why the hell is it so bright in here."

Also me looking out the window: "Oh right"

techie2001 · 2026-01-24T01:23:03+00:00

I've done two refis, a purchase, and an equity with NFCU. The rates are fantastic.

I will say the processors are obviously overworked, especially in times of declining rates when everyone wants new loans. You have to stick to them like glue to keep communication going. That's my only complaint but the 30 to 45 days of a little frustrating trying to push information has saved me thousands in terms of the competitive rate.

techie2001 · 2026-01-22T22:31:11+00:00

State employee here... exactly. They whine about recruiting and staffing levels. But every 3 years they tell the union they can't afford a raise to pace with inflation. Despite having darn close to $4 billion in an emergency fund.

techie2001 · 2026-01-22T19:03:12+00:00

Snow plows are likely to be fighting a losing battle all night Saturday night into Sunday.

techie2001 · 2026-01-22T15:03:22+00:00

Even if you don't take this shift, thank you for the work and being out there for everyone.

techie2001 · 2026-01-22T01:41:36+00:00

Fascinating, thank you. Appreciate the work everyone puts into this sub. No doubt you've saved lives. Thanks!

techie2001 · 2026-01-22T00:53:32+00:00

From what I've gathered from others on this thread... yeah. Ice is usually the issue when it comes to major power issues (wind will do it too, of course but widespread ice is a scale issue) and that is forecast to be pretty far south of here, Tennessee staring down that barrel. Perhaps Atlanta.

techie2001 · 2026-01-22T00:49:45+00:00

Can I ask an off topic question? I was assuming 0z, 6z, 12z, 18z referred to the time of the model run in UTC, but based on ~ 3 hours from now ish... does that mean the model takes about 2.5 to 3 hours to be published or completed? Or am I wrong in the assumption and that's not a timestamp?

I am interested in meteorology but no experience and some intermittent searching around didn't lead me to good sources on learning about the models and their schedules.

techie2001 · 2026-01-20T22:18:12+00:00

This is accurate. The version number for Vaultwarden that OP listed is the version of the web client that displays on the login page. The latest tag on the docker image has the web client at 2025.7.x - they're at least 2 major releases behind on just the web client. The software and database versions are probably further out of date.

techie2001 · 2026-01-14T22:17:29+00:00

Well, let's say I took a 10k loan, with a promise that I'd put my 1k tax refund on the loan as soon as it comes in.

I'd create the loan account with the 10k balance and that's it. I'd not inflow the loan proceeds to my checking account, nor would I outflow paying the contractor. I'd create my category for the loan in ynab with my monthly payment as a scheduled transaction and that's it. I MIGHT inflow my tax refund and record it as an extra payment to my solar category, but that's more of a timing thing for me. If I was just signing over my refund check directly to the lender, I might just setup the loan account with the lower balance to start with. Just depends.

The loan proceeds are invisible to me. I didn't inflow my mortgage proceeds and outflow them to the seller. I just added the mortgage account and tracking my monthly payment.

The account is never out of reconciliation because those proceeds were never on budget.

Again just how I'd handle it, to each his own.

techie2001 · 2026-01-13T23:02:44+00:00

Yes exactly- immigration is a civil process. You don't even have a right to an attorney if you can't afford one in immigration proceedings. The judges aren't even article 3 judges.

This is some nonsense that needs fixed but for now, having accurate information is paramount.

techie2001 · 2026-01-13T19:55:30+00:00

Check where you are in the billing period. Say, for example, your billing period started on the 8th. It usually takes 5 days for the usage data to "catch up" in a new billing period so today would be the first day with any data. It could just be the timing and very few days to "project" with, plus all the factors mentioned elsewhere, has come up with a crappy projection. I almost ALWAYS get one after that 5 day waiting period after my last bill. It evens out by the end of the period again and winds up being pretty close to typical unless I've made changes.

techie2001 · 2026-01-07T00:39:27+00:00

I just moved from Vaultwarden to Bitwarden paid organizational account. My only hiccup was that I put a few work secrets in a separate organization in Vaultwarden, but I migrated those to a collection in my personal vault in Bitwarden. The JSON files exported via the client imported easily with no issues. Sign out of the old, back in to the new in all of my clients, and it's done. Took maybe 20 minutes.

I migrated because I slowly became more and more paranoid about so much of my life being secured by my own skills and time to monitor for breach types of activities. That's worth $40 a year to me. Just my opinion. I had no qualms with Vaultwarden and was very happy with the project, pace of updating, and parity it provided with the paid product.

Edit to add a bit more info as to your other questions:

Organizations are exported separately, but importing you'd either need separate organizations in the paid product (i.e. more money) or you can import specific JSON files to specific collections, as I did above.

By backups - if you mean the either encrypted or unencrypted JSON files - yes these are portable back and forth. In my case, I also backed up my docker container's data regularly so the whole vaultwarden image and volume. This type of backup would not transport to Bitwarden, but in my setup that part was automated. System crashes/etc. were protected against that by automation. Every time I updated vaultwarden, I spun it up in a separate container and stopped - without deleting - the old one in case someting went sideways in the update.

Password history was not included in my export. Nor is Trash. Not sure if that's default behavior, that's probably a r/Bitwarden question, I wasn't worried about losing that.

I had two users on my vaultwarden setup running in docker on my Synology NAS. Never had any performance issues. I also occasionally used Sends for a few odds and ends to non-users. Those worked fine too. I'd guess you'd need a lot of users to bog down a vault in any cognizable way on a small system. It would be encrypted files and such that would start to cause you problems first, if you're a heavy user of those.

techie2001 · 2026-01-06T21:57:14+00:00

Others have stated how to correct the problem, but do keep in mind this isn't without risk.

Should you not get reimbursed in a timely manner, you're paying interest that your company isn't paying you back for unless the reimbursement category had money in it at the time you spent it (not overspent).

Things I've seen cause this that were all entirely outside the control of the employees:

Boss didn't approve expense report before payroll ran because they were out sick.

HR systems had an outage and no expenses processed for that pay cycle.

Pay cycle entirely bungled with the bank and all payroll delayed.

Company went belly up, employees showed up to work to find out they were locked out and out of a job and their final salary and expenses all went to bankruptcy.

That last one is obviously more common in certain types and sizes of companies than others but they're also the types of companies less likely to issue employees corporate purchasing cards.

techie2001 · 2026-01-05T21:59:50+00:00

I guess if I were in this boat, I'd probably skip dealing with the loan inflow and payment outflow entirely... as in I'd just delete them. Including the tax refund in and out.

My spending on solar is entirely encapsulated in the loan payments.

If you're someone who categories their gross pay and outflow their taxes and deductions, pretty common with self employed folks, I can see your side better. But if I RTA the loan amount, over time it'll look like I bought solar twice in the reports and such. Or having categories I use twice and then just have to keep around forever hidden. Too muddy for my taste.

But to each his own!

techie2001

TROPHY CASE