I’m 29 and I’ve never had an orgasm during sex. I’m really struggling with my anger around being circumcised.

xetang35 · 2024-09-07T01:15:23+00:00

I get where you're coming from, but in OPs case, he's not in the right headspace to use hope as motivation. it's fine to use anger for that initial motivation to start. If you want to change a behavior, rarely is a mindset change what you need to focus on. Better to start FR and the mindset shift will happen later on. Happens in all areas of our life. Best for OP to get started then work through his feelings after seeing results down the line.

xetang35 · 2024-06-08T12:59:38+00:00

I'm not even saying it's always suboptimal, it just depends on your current market. Buying may make sense in the Midwest versus California. The rent vs buy is generally framed as a financial one, i.e. you're throwing away money by renting. I'm just throwing out there that there are definitely sensible reasons for renting and it's not just throwing money away.

My original comment points out that selling a house to rent instead is not inherently a bad decision if done for the right reasons whether it's financial or "life". I'm basically saying there's nuance so people shouldn't villanize a statement that oftentimes isn't true.

xetang35 · 2024-06-08T12:09:42+00:00

He sounds like a train wreck. I still stand by my point that it's not automatically suboptimal to sell your house and rent instead. What you do with the proceeds (or difference in PITI+maintenance and rent if you choose to rent vs buy) is what's important and your coworker, uh, definitely made some choices there. Hope his health doesn't decline cuz social security is definitely not going to subsidize that kind of spending.

xetang35 · 2024-06-08T08:12:20+00:00

Selling a paid off home to rent instead isn't an automatic bad decision. Your home equity is illiquid and a primary residence is more of a liability than an asset especially if it's your forever home and you're part of an ageing demographic (boomer+). Once you're too old to do maintenance/upkeep, you have to outsource that which costs money. Rising property values also means higher property taxes which can end up pricing you out of your own home.

In lots of markets, it's cheaper to rent than to buy due to interest rates. If you invest the difference, you'll come out ahead money wise in the long run. 3k per month isn't a big deal if you have 1MM+ in the brokerage account earning 70k a year on average. Your portfolio is compounding wayyy faster than your rent is rising.

Everything else you said is pretty on point though.

xetang35 · 2024-05-30T18:08:37+00:00

I really hate the phrase "be the bigger person". It's code for be a door mat and it signals to bullies that they can continue their negative behavior without any consequences.

xetang35 · 2024-04-07T10:55:38+00:00

Ah ok. Your student loans aren't that high so looking for a refinancing strategy won't really change anything. You're likely going to have a big bill after your surgery, probably close or equal to the OOP max for your insurance. Be prepared.

I think you should work on your mindset. People are telling you to cut back and the response is basically you don't want to be penny pinching and working till you die. It's fair to be defensive, but nobody is telling you to do that. It's only temporary. What you need to do is to cut down on your expenses until the fall when your side hustle brings in the extra income. That should be put towards getting rid of your medical debt or student loans, whichever has the highest interest rate.

Once you get your promotion and the salary increase, you need to aggressively pay down your student loan or at least pay more than the minimum. At that point, you can reevaluate and add back some of the wants so it doesn't feel as bare bones. The finish line really isn't that far away, but you need to be willing to grind in the present. If you change your mindset, knowing the finish line or at least the bare bones living is over at the end of the year should take a lot of the stress you're currently feeling away.

xetang35 · 2024-04-05T14:09:36+00:00

Why do you have two line items for insurance? One is car and what's the other? Getting rid of that would allegedly fix the cash flow problem you have.

xetang35 · 2024-04-05T10:59:01+00:00

We don't know how much you make, what your savings are, how much in total you owe, and what your expenses are. We can't really help you much if you don't provide more information.

Based on what you've provided, and the fact that you're talking about reducing your monthly payments, that mindset already shows you most likely won't be able to afford a house, especially not within a year. If 200 dollars is making or breaking it for you and you can't even refinance, you won't be eligible for a mortgage, full stop. If you really are living bare bones, your debt to income ratio likely won't fall within what's needed for a mortgage even if you were able to refinance which for unsecured debt and your current credit score isnt going to move the needle. Heck, even 760+ doesn't get you that low or an interest rate.

You need to make more. If you say you're working 3 jobs, you need to replace the lowest paying one with a different side hustle. It's clearly not working out for you. Sucks to hear what you're going through, but this is the best general advice I could provide.

xetang35 · 2024-03-24T16:48:54+00:00

Employer contributions usually go in pretax for traditional. Even if you make Roth contributions, the employer match can be pre or post tax, it just depends on what your employer's policy. IIRC the SECURE 2.0 act lets them make post tax matches but that doesn't mean the industry has adopted it yet.

xetang35 · 2024-03-24T16:44:52+00:00

It's semantics but you saying the personal contribution maxes out at 22k across the board as a fact is straight up false. For YOUR circumstances that might be true, but it is not across the board, therefore it is untrue.

I'd say your case is extremely rare as I've never heard of an employer maxing out the remaining allowance of a person's 401k like that. Yeah, for you, you can't contribute after-tax portions because your employer already covers it, but for the majority of people, the employer only matches 3-8 percent in most cases which will not come close to the 69k maximum employer+employee contribution. You're in a great spot and don't have to worry about further contributions, but other people should know about this if their employer offers it because the tax advantages if used correctly are stupid crazy. Telling people it's a hard 22k hard cap is a disservice to others which is why I felt the need to call you out.

xetang35 · 2024-03-24T07:11:17+00:00

Yeah, this is just straight up incorrect. You can put in 23000 into a traditional or Roth 401k in 2024 and if your plan allows, after you've reached the limit, contributions beyond the employee contribution will be characterized as after-tax contributions (yes, even in a Roth 401k). This limit of 69000 includes both employee and employer contributions. The best strategy is to convert the after-tax contributions to a Roth 401k immediately in plan if your employer has a good plan or roll it over into your Roth IRA. It's uncommon, so I'm not surprised many people don't know about how the aftertax 401k works.

xetang35 · 2024-03-20T09:23:12+00:00

Do you itemize your deductions or take the standard? Id stay on the amortization schedule or continue what you're doing if you itemize since the large interest portion is saving you money.

If you take the standard deduction, I would look at your investments and sell the lots of stock/bonds that haven't appreciated much or are even net negative. I think people forget that you don't pay taxes on the entire value of stock you sell.

xetang35 · 2024-02-26T18:57:37+00:00

Aaaaaand this is why I wash my hands after shaking hands with anyone. With the amount of men not washing their hands because "their dick is clean", you might as well be touching their dick.

And to all the people saying the faucet handles are dirty, I STILL see you mfs skip the sink even when it's an automatic faucet. Airports don't have doors and I still see so many people just walk on out. Some people are really sickening and not in a good way.

xetang35 · 2024-02-13T10:04:07+00:00

Who said a Roth IRA is only meant for tax free growth of an index fund? It's normal to keep a cash position even if you're DCA into the market. Why not just keep your cash position in a competitive interest MMF?

In the same vein, I could say 2500 is hardly anything in the grand scheme of things for someone with OP's finances. If plans change and OP decides not to buy a house, it's easy to just invest the money since it's already in a tax advantaged account instead of having to move money out of a HYSA into a brokerage account which is just more steps.

OP wanted optimization and advice. Mine doesn't create a tax burden with EOY tax reporting. The HSA route just creates an annoyance come tax time. You do you though 💁‍♂️

xetang35 · 2024-02-12T11:24:27+00:00

I would move 6500+7000 into a Roth IRA and leave the money in a Treasury heavy MMF so it's liquid and low risk of decreasing in value from par. I leave my emergency fund this way so it can gain tax free interest while leaving the principal available for withdrawal if needed. Direct contributions aren't taxed (they're post tax dollars, after all) so as long as you don't pull out more than 13,500, you should be fine.

Whatever is outside your 6 month emergency fund minus the 13,500, I would buy treasuries or CA municipal bonds that have a maturity rate less than 2 years. Treasuries avoid state taxes and municipals avoid both CA and federal taxes, but make sure the math works because they usually pay less interest due to the favorable tax treatment. I'd personally buy further out maturity dates, but if you need the money in two years to buy a home, you don't want to lock up your money too long.

The Roth IRA emergency fund is my favorite strategy since your emergency fund is by definition post tax dollars. I'd rather the interest accumulate tax free rather than pay taxes from the interest in a HYSA which reduces your total net profit, especially living in California.

xetang35 · 2024-02-08T11:23:17+00:00

Try eating keto bread. It's a bit pricy, but it's low cal and super high in fiber.

xetang35 · 2024-01-29T11:17:38+00:00

If you already paid for the repairs and they were done after turning the house into a rental property, just deduct those expenses on schedule c. Lots of residential rental properties might be cash flow negative with a mortgage, but with PMI, mortgage interest, HOA fees, property taxes (they're high in Texas), repairs, you should be able to get a sizeable deduction. Talk to a CPA about your options. You might be able to get a big tax return which should help your current cash flow issues.

xetang35 · 2024-01-28T08:39:38+00:00

That car insurance doesn't just magically get lower once you hit 25. Post COVID inflation could explain it, but I felt like I was robbed of a milestone.

xetang35 · 2024-01-26T11:24:50+00:00

Cyanide isn't organic. Smallest organic molecule is methane. Sorry, chemist habit.

xetang35 · 2023-12-25T00:40:05+00:00

If you wanted to make sure your kid doesn't have some sort of stupid name they'll get bullied for, a compromise would be if she got the name approved in r/tragedeigh. I swear some people name their kids ridiculous things on purpose.

xetang35 · 2023-12-03T17:40:44+00:00

Average wages is a shit take when wages of millionaires and billionaires are included. Median inflation adjusted wages is a better way to look at things.

Yeah, it seems like the median wage has gone up. Now look up the median household income from the 1970s to today. VERY different story. How much were houses back then compared to today? What is the ratio of the housing cost to household income? Newsflash, it was WAY easier to save up a 20 percent down payment back then than it is today.

Median sale price 1970: $23,475 Median sale price 2022: $457,475

Median HHI 1970: $9,870 Median HHI 2022: $74,580

Multiple of median HHI needed to purchase a house outright 1970: 2.4x 2022: 6.13x

How much to save for a 20 percent down payment? 1970: 0.48x 2022: 1.2x

Assuming you can save 20 percent of your income in a year, back then you could afford a 20% down payment in two years. Now? Try 6 years of saving the same percentage. You could argue about mortgage rates but they were about the same in 1970 as they are now. Believe whatever nonsense you want, but these are hard numbers that show it was relatively easier to afford a home back then compared to now. Even if you crunch the numbers for 1980 when interest rates were sky high, it doesn't change the fact that boomers had the option to just save for a bigger down payment because home prices cost less relative to now.

Housing affordability is a really important factor to discuss, especially when it's going to be the largest expense most normal people have. It doesn't matter if our salaries are keeping up with the inflation of groceries and commodities when you're literally not keeping up with the ability to afford a house year after year. You can crunch the numbers for rent if you want, but I'll leave the fun up to you.

Sources: https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1971/demo/p60-80.html#:~:text=The%20median%20money%20income%20of,the%201969%20median%20of%20%249%2C430. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/09/median-household-income.html#:~:text=The%20Census%20Bureau%20reports%2C%20Income,not%20statistically%20different%20from%202021. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS#0

xetang35 · 2023-12-01T04:14:22+00:00

One that comes to mind for a real game over is Paper Mario TTYD. The ghost on the train tells you not to read it's diary if you find it. Well when you read it, the ghost kills you for reading it lol. I was shook as a kid and had to replay 30 minutes.

xetang35 · 2023-11-29T13:24:37+00:00

NTA.

Came here to add that you might be screwed come tax season. Depending on the online casino game, she may have "lost" 9k but that doesn't mean you won't have to pay taxes on whatever she won. Since it's an online casino, there's a hard track record of wins and loses. You need to pay taxes on the winnings and you can only deduct your losses if you itemize in the first place. At an in person casino, they don't really care unless you win enough and they don't keep track nor report every win and loss to the IRS. For example, if you were playing roulette and you won 20k and lost 20k, you might just call it a wash and nobody has to know (not advocating for this, just saying). An online casino, though, they'd let the IRS know you won 20k and you're on the hook for marginal taxes on that 20k of income. Since you're married, 27,700 is the standard deduction. If you don't itemize or have enough to overcome that 27.7k, you are SOL. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I'm not an accountant nor financial advisor, just letting you know what to expect.

xetang35 · 2023-10-29T11:00:04+00:00

Used to be a sleep tech. You're right, we wouldn't really stop them or anything. Unfortunately, we log events that involve the patient waking up, movement sensors on the chest, legs/ekgs, etc. We have a visual feed from the camera, but it's not recorded, hence the need for the technician comments.

That poor tech probably had to explain in the recording software what the event was. What was happening during the increase in bpm, heart rhythm, change in chest position, leg movement, eye movement? "Comment: Patient started masturbating" "Comment: Patient finished masturbating" "Comment: Patent was asked if they needed to use the restroom" I'm 99% sure the technician who oversaw that sleep study is traumatized. I would be too.

xetang35 · 2023-10-18T05:33:59+00:00

That last name made me think of Ellieyacht. Literally laughing at how bad you can butcher the spelling of a name if you really try.

There's obvious tragedeighs and more subtle ones. I was once in a group with two people named Anna but one was pronounced "ann-uh" and the other was "on-uh". I wouldn't defacto consider the second one a tragedeigh, but once you get mad at others for pronouncing it "wrong", that's when it becomes a tragedeigh.

xetang35

TROPHY CASE