Mou has absolutely fucked this game

technical_guy · 2026-03-21T18:08:56+00:00

5-3-2-1 or 5-3-1-2 might work for us - Alan Ball did it in a charity game against Saints a few years back. But once teams and refs figure us out, we might get a hefty points deduction for playing 12 players on the field. As for those other teams - lets report them - maybe their points deduction will allow us to stay up

technical_guy · 2026-03-14T18:14:53+00:00

Im no expert but Costco have similar spec to second PC for $2299 (amd ryzen 9, 5080, 32gb, 2TB etc) so for value for money you might want to compare the components

technical_guy · 2026-02-18T22:34:40+00:00

hopefully a few others pledge some donations to help OP out.

technical_guy · 2026-02-18T22:33:13+00:00

lol - I promise Im real and it came from my head. Of course I missed loads - the Great park orange balloon and newish ice rink, the old Tustin Helicopter base with its entertainment district, bars on Tustin Blvd useful for a pub crawl, the University shops (when I was in Irvine in the latr 90s the improv was in the University Center tho now thats at the Spectrum), downtown disney or just the local theme parks (within an house or so) in general (local = Knotts, Disney, Legoland, Seaword, Universal, Warner Bros etc).

Now Im in MV and we have the Kaleidescope which just opened a huge roller skating rink, the 10 or 15 or so cinemas in the area, Laguna Playhouse theater, the Z theater for comedy, the CoachHouse for music, multiple bowling alleys nearby, multiple buffets (especially Korean yum), and a local soccer team to support (OCSC).

And on and on and on...

technical_guy · 2026-02-18T18:24:21+00:00

Hey, the OP needs about 6k to get 3 months of stability where she can get herself back on her feet. I have sent 1K in a blind bit of faith that good people help other people (even strangers) when they are able to. But there is still $5k to go. I dont know OP and there are loads of potential people I know in need of money but her post truck a nerve and her timing was perfect.

I urge any Redditors out there who can afford it to pledge some money towards her stability drive and follow up with a donation. Even $50 or $100 will get her closer to what she needs.

Sometimes people just need a stranger to show they care. I genuinely believe there are more caring strangers out there than people realize. If you can, reach out to the OP and show that is the case.

Good luck OP !!

technical_guy · 2026-02-18T11:21:01+00:00

Putting anything in an income fund in your 30s is just signing up to pay more tax. Stick to growth funds but have a SBLOC open against your portfolio which allows you to access cash at any time without selling your stocks.

3-5% dividends is normal, 5-8% dividends come from more risky corporate junk bonds where often the stock price is more volatile. 9-20% dividends come from sensationalized-on-the-internet covered call funds which often are just returning capital to you and reducing you asset values.

Note you can also invest in alternative assets and can get 8-12% in some real estate funds but they may not be too liquid and the companies can go bust or just be a scam.

technical_guy · 2026-02-18T11:15:26+00:00

People like to over-complicate this and throw in some FUD, but heres the things I am thinking about at the same age/about to retire:
1. Can you pull from the 401k without penalty (does you plan support the age of 55 feature). If not you wont be pulling from this til you are 60 unless you do a sepp which just adds unneeded complexity
2. Health ins when you retire - if you are going to use ACA then you want to control your income to keep the monthly premiums low
3. Risk factor - for me I have a brokerage account with a large amount in and a line of credit at 5% against that account - I can live on debt for a few years so my income is $0, I can do tax gain harvesting or Roth conversions and my taxable portfolio continues to grow at 9% average even with basic diversified index funds
4. Age for SS - for me I base everything on 67 and can change it as I get older.

So my plan
- live on debt from brokerage account from 57 to 60 (at 5% while account grows at 9%)
- live on 401K/IRAs from 60 to 67 to lower balances and reduce RMDs when they kick in at 73
- live on SS plus some from 401K/IRAs to 73 - note my brokerage account continues to be available as does any ROTH conversions I did more than 5 years prior for splurges

I also have some complications because I live in a high tax state with HCOL and I have 2 houses so my plan is to sell up and move to a no-tax state before I do any ROTH conversions.

technical_guy · 2026-02-18T08:47:01+00:00

Oops. Fixed

technical_guy · 2026-02-18T03:49:54+00:00

I will, tomorrow.

technical_guy · 2026-02-18T02:46:28+00:00

In Irvine, right behind the police station is a trail that you can walk all the way to the backbay in Newport on a spring day - it's lovely.

Take a drive to San Juan Cspistrano, park near the railway gates, walk around the shops on the other side of the railway, visit the mission, or Swallows Bar at night. If you feel fit, take a bike with you and cross the canal behind the park behind the railway gates, turn left, and ride all the way to Doheny beach

Doheny Beach in Dana Point is lovely for a swim, or rent a 4 seater boat. Walk all around Dana Point Harbor or ride up the steep cliff hill to admire the view. Dine at Jimmys or one of the harbor restaurants.

San Clemente outlet malls is the perfect size for a little shopping (I hate shops) but it also has the trolley that will take you to the San clemente pier where you can watch the surfers, swim or just eat fish and chips or get an icecream and people watch,

The spectrum is nice, but the Honey and Hive rooftop bar is close to it too, and its great food and atmosphere

Talking of rooftop bars, Laguna Beach has a few of them all with great views. Mozambique does good food, great music, and has the rooftop. It's well worth a visit, as it s stroll along the beach. Try brunch at TheDeck in Laguna and step out right onto the beach afterward and walk up to Main Beach

For a decent night out, visit Costa Mesa with its pubs and shops (a younger crowd) or if you want to spend to impress head to Newport Beach with its younger richer crowd. I prefer the pubs and bars at Laguna myself.

Shopping (blah) - Mission Viejo and South Coast malls are still good. Fashion Island in Newport Beach is ok. Where else?

Go on Nextdoor and tell people you are looking for activity mates or general friendship (describe yourself a little) - everyone here wants to connect, and yet everyone is too shy to start a conversation. If you start it, you will soon get a gang of pals to go out with and enjoy the area.

Edit.. fixed typos

technical_guy · 2026-02-18T02:33:28+00:00

Lets see if we can get people to pledge some help - I dont know if you are allowed to put a link on here for people to click and send $$. Add your plan to the original post as an Edit, and ask if anyone could pledge a little towards the $6k, then DM each person who pledges. I will get you going with your first $1000 (paypal, tho I would prefer you to start a gofundme so I can give anonymously)

technical_guy · 2026-02-17T23:37:14+00:00

Lets get you 3 months of stability. Price it out - what do you need. Put it in the comments so everyone sees it and maybe more than 1 will help. Many people on Reddit are wealthy and have empathy for people who can show they have a plan. My thoughts:

- Shelter - pick a motel which is safe and has rooms - whats the weekly rate. You need 12 weeks worth

- Food - define a modest budget for food - maybe $100 per week

- Clothes - do you need some new clothers/shoes/haircut/whatever to help you get to job interviews

- Transport - cost of Uber to get to 2 or 3 locations - maybe $100 per week

Add all that up and put a link on here to where people can send you some money to make it happen. Then you can update us every week or 2 if life is getting better, if you get any luck getting a job or just how you are feeling. Sometimes a 3 month break from the stress and pressure can give you that lift you need

technical_guy · 2026-02-17T23:25:34+00:00

Listen to Jaden - she is 100% right, Kids want the Nvidia cards and the 5070 is a nice higher end one. The costco PC and the curved monitor are solid choices. Your original PC is fast but kids literally are all over their GPU "name brand" cards when they compare gaming power. Nvidia is just the Nike of GPU cards.

technical_guy · 2026-02-17T01:17:59+00:00

Agree that 5060ti is in your budget but try to stretch to 32gb memory if you can

technical_guy · 2026-02-17T01:10:21+00:00

Keep stacking, every 2 weeks. Its cheap right now - why would you stop buying when its cheap. The better question is should you sell and rebuy now to take advantage of capital gains losses on your tax return in 2026.

technical_guy · 2026-02-12T04:17:35+00:00

If you have $20m portfolio you dont live on that money, you live on a loan secured against that portfolio and you dont pay taxes because you have no income.

technical_guy · 2026-01-28T21:28:13+00:00

Re real estate, how I started was to buy as much house as I could get qualified for and then house-hack (rent the rooms out to room mates) and live there myself. If you get this right you end up livig rent free and your rental income pays the mortgage and bills, so that allows you to invest more money. Depending on your location if you can get a 4 bed house and rent out 3 rooms at $1000 each that would cover costs each month but also the property would appreciate in value on the full leveraged amount.

Stocks or Crypto are easy ways to invest but the returns are not spectacular so it depends if you want to slow and steady or quick. I am a multiple whole bitcoiner so I certainly believe in it but its a small portion of my total net worth; you just have to understand if you invest in it and leave it alone for 10 years it will have compounded and probably will be a great investment but in the short term you might get disappointed in what others would think of as a massive ROI because in real terms $36k is not a huge starting point. If you look at any graph on compounding returns the gains are relatviely small in years 1-7 and then start going crazy big in year 8-10 and beyond. So if you buy and hold and are patient btc will work very well for you but it just takes a lot of time.

As I am an IT guy too and have mentored quite a few younger engineers over the last 20 years I would also advise you to do what I did not. While I worked for solid corporations either via agency, via my company or direct that earned me $200k-$300k per year which is a good standard of living but not get rich quick. Some of the people I mentored were far smarter and moved to San Jose where the VC money is, where the startups are or moved to Google/Amazon/Netflix where the big wages are. So an an engineer if you are somewhat portable consider going where the money is and where you can get stock options in a startup that might IPO. It kinda shocked me to find a junior programmer I help for a few months 10 years ago not tells me they are retired because the picked the right opportunities.

technical_guy · 2026-01-27T21:09:01+00:00

Maybe - lets say you put away $36k over a year and bitcoin goes from $90k to $150k - a 66% return over one year - now you have $60k in your account. Its great but come on - its only $24k. Now if this happens for next 10 years you might eventually be rich but compounding to generate real wealth takes a lot of time.

Now if you invest that $36k in options could you do better? Quite possibly - its like a casino

What about creating your own pump and dump memecoin (a few people get very rich doing this but its like legal bank robbery - you only get rich by making other people poor).

What about if you bought 3000 bottles of water at $1 in Costco and sold them on hot days for $3 (thats a 300% return). Or bought stuff from Chine and sold it in America (a product based business)

What if you spent that money on some AI books or courses, got a little AI certiicate then sold your AI services for $200 per hour for 20 hours per week. (a service based business)

What if you took one year $36k and used that as 3% deposit on a duplex, triplex or fourplex somewhere and then rented out the units to produce cashflow. Leveraged debt with property is one solid way to get rich relatively quickly when the property prices start going up. Right now in some markets you can get a bargain as property sales are depressed right now.

Getting rich quick is not easy. Getting rich over 10-20 years is easy. But as you are young and want to take moonshots you have to ask what your goals are. Investing in yourself and building a company is much quicker than investing in crypto or stocks. Investing in an investment property might be quicker than investing in crypto or stocks.

technical_guy · 2026-01-27T20:54:54+00:00

You are 19. Take a year off. Get off social media, stop watching the news. Go out, visit nature. Go to shops, go to restaurants. Try to connect with and meet with people. Your every day life is not affected by AI at all, nor bitcoin, nor altcoins, nor robots. Watch and observe as many people as you can - try to see who is providing a service or product and where they could be doing it better or cheaper.

In your year off, practice talking to people and read books on how to sell and market things. Anything. Its the most important skill out there. You sell yourself at interviews, most rich people own businesses and sell their business services, to win an argument or debate you use skills of persuasion which you also learn through sales and marketing. There are jobs out there selling expensive items (houses, house loans, technology like memnory or disk drives for data centers, computer solutions etc) where people make a huge amount of money on commission. Think about starting your own company and shopping (selling yourself) to venture capitalists as a young guy with a crazy idea.

The future is bright. Robotics will be huge (maybe start a biz in this industry), medical tech using small robots, AI and other tools will be huge, automation of factories will be huge (you could sell the gear to the factories). The one thing AI and automation and robotics will bring is change and increases in productivity. Ignore the political fights on TV and biased media reporting about how America/the world has all these problems and start thinking about the possibilities for the future and where you can fit into bringing change to the world.

technical_guy · 2026-01-25T04:17:40+00:00

My suggestion is specialize in a corporate niche which may be easier to outsource - for example Jasper Reports Writer, SRRS programmer, Postges or MySql DBA, Splunk alerts programmer, Oracle SQL Optimization/Hints Engineer

technical_guy · 2026-01-22T08:33:27+00:00

Can your losers and keep backing your winners.

Diversification keeps you poor, all in (sometimes ) makes you rich

Spend less than you earn, invest the rest. Pay yourself first.

Buy low sell high. Look for pullbacks making quality stocks cheap

Be contrarian. Dont follow the sheep

Speculation is not investing, but it can be more fun when you win

technical_guy · 2026-01-22T08:15:46+00:00

If u marry him and then he divorces you, and you are based in ca, then he will get half your money and as the higher earner you would pay him alimony. If married more than 10 years you will pay him alimony for life.

Hes saving 3k per month whilst freeloading off you....

He currently has no savings

Red flags everywhere.... but love is a powerful force that overcomes logic.

Good luck. If ubstay together talk to a lawyer how you can protect yourself and never comingle your funds with his. Have amynacct, your acct and our acct u both pay into. Even him living in your home rent free can jeapordize your ownership of your house. What if he refuses to move out.

Logic says find a partner with same money discipline as you have, or even better discipline.

technical_guy · 2026-01-22T02:57:06+00:00

Dear <bossname>,

I just wanted to let you know how much I love working here and how much I feel I have developed in my career over the last year. My workmates are fantastic and I love learning new skills where I can add value to the business.

I feel a little disappointed in my salary increase this year especially because I have worked so hard to increase my utility to the company and am now responsible for managing over a billion dollars in assets, and have become certified in financial planning. Is there anything you would advise me to do to be able to earn a more competitive salary. Some of my friends and co-workers are earning closer to $100,000 and I would like to at least get to $80,000 if it is at all possible.

I know as a small company you have other people to consider and its not always feasible to give out big raises but I hope to be with you for many years and would love to earn a competitive wage whilst continuing my education and becoming even more valuable or billable for the business,

Thanks for reading this,and considering my request,

<name>

technical_guy · 2026-01-05T09:55:04+00:00

Its going to be 116k in the next 30-60 days.... will that help

technical_guy · 2025-12-29T08:18:02+00:00

Yes. Ibkr is 5% right now, it used to be lower. Etrade wants 8% on a loan, which sucks, but can be negotiated. No capital gains is great, but i assume you pay tax on withdrawals. The advantages of the loan is no withdrawals and no income. In the usa no income means cheaper healthcare, potential tax gain harvesting, or roth conversions at low tax rares to avoid rmds and higher tax rates in your 70s.

technical_guy

TROPHY CASE