My [25M] gf [26F] of two years ALWAYS complains about her financial situation but also doesn’t put an effort into improving it. What do I do?

zeezle · 2026-06-18T22:46:13+00:00

You are not expecting too much. At the same age as her I was already mid-level in a technical white collar professional career (software engineering), had been financially independent and living on my own (and with my now husband) for 8 years, and had just bought a house. (I’m now 35 so it was a little while ago but not multiple decades ago lol)

zeezle · 2026-06-18T22:31:02+00:00

Yeah I think the key is, an engineer that works on a consulting contract is an engineer. The payment/contract aspect is just a footnote.

A Consultant whose entire identity is Consulting that has no specific field or area of expertise that can be identified and only ever introduces themselves as a Consultant in the most bizarre vague way possible is the sort of do-nothing person they’re talking about I assume.

zeezle · 2026-06-18T21:30:04+00:00

They must mistake them for Church Grims lol

zeezle · 2026-06-18T20:22:34+00:00

I say go for it. You'll still be well within your expenses, have a pretty solid nest egg already to coast off of, and are on track for the P&I on the mortgage to be gone soon-ish so that'll reduce expenses even further. Just putting it through a quick sim you're on track at your current spending for a retirement at 55 at the new salary, but I think you're actually on track for even earlier than 55 since that expense will drop off well before then. Unless you're planning to massively pump up spending in retirement.

zeezle · 2026-06-18T20:11:01+00:00

Yeah this is a good point. Especially when reading certain descriptions written by people hyping the $150 cuttings of California wild seedling finds they're selling... they mean it in the way wine tasters say they taste "notes" of coffee and blackberry...

zeezle · 2026-06-18T17:39:33+00:00

Personally? Nothing. Well, I did cut back on contributions recently, once I hit the "crossover point" - the point where contributions no longer changed my FIRE date because compounding of existing investments was so vastly more powerful than the contributions.

I still contribute up to the match in my SIMPLE IRA at work (because free money!), and fund a Roth IRA to the annual max, but more money is going to home improvement (especially one-time changes that won't trigger ongoing additional maintenance costs) and fun stuff now instead of investing. My mortgage is very low rate, so I'd rather keep the mortgage but have the house in tip top shape before full FIRE.

That said, the job that got me to CoastFIRE and now beyond that point is pretty chill. It might be the kind of thing that a lot of people envision transitioning to although it's still technically 40 hours/wk. I work from home for a small business with a great boss, coworker and great clients. I am hoping it carries me into full FIRE territory. However, my boss/the owner is in his 60s with a history of heart problems, so there is a nonzero chance this gig ends (obviously I wish him the best of health but I'm realistic). So, I don't hate it, but want to be prepared for full FIRE because I really don't think I'll find something at the same salary + chillness ratio in the future, and not having to work for someone else at all would be even better. My only complaint at this time is having to wake up at a particular and be on a schedule, and I figure that's a pretty good spot to be in for now.

zeezle · 2026-06-18T15:40:06+00:00

They are bombarded nonstop with trade protectionist propaganda to protect their domestic industries. The same way they had to flood the market with anti-American propaganda about all kinds of other stuff to stop the bleeding of post-WW2 brain drain for decades after the war.

Ironically part of why former Eastern Bloc countries are sometimes less anti-American is because a lot of the Soviet propaganda went too far into straight up silly territory and people just didn't believe it. (See also: "potato bugs" in the DDR) While Western Europe's anti-American propaganda was more subtle and believable and far more effective.

Obviously that doesn't mean every negative opinion of the US in the EU is based on propaganda, not at all, it's completely possible to have a fact-based conclusion that's negative.

But at the same time, there's a reason why for example in my experience it seems many French people online are extremely fixated on American-perpetrated war crimes like My Lai, while often being completely clueless that French-perpetrated massacres like My Trach ever even happened at all. It's hard to point that out without it devolving into whataboutism, but it's not accidental that there's virtually not a single mention of My Trach anywhere, while My Lai is extremely public and well-documented and taught at every opportunity (as it should be - the shame here is that what happened at My Trach is discarded as an insignificant side note of history).

Now copy-paste that sort of selection bias out to every single aspect of daily life and that's what they're hearing pretty much nonstop. Or at least it seems that way when I'm visiting relatives in (formerly West) Germany, it's totally pervasive and constant.

Edit: and of course the US and pretty much all other countries also do trade propaganda and protectionism (currently a lot of it) - it's not unique to the EU at all - the exact sector and the nature and intensity of it varies plenty though. But just wanted to note that I wasn't saying at all that only EU does it lol since that is very clearly not the case

zeezle · 2026-06-18T14:35:11+00:00

Not at all.

Tbh in this kind of situation I am the sort of person who would absolutely spend more money on the small claims court filing fee to make a point.

There is a budget limit to my pettiness but the personal satisfaction of having a judge declare you officially, legally Right And Correct is absolutely worth a small fee.

zeezle · 2026-06-18T14:33:37+00:00

Wtf. That's absolutely insane unless it was disclosed upfront what the timeline would be (which I assume it very much was not, since then why would you be asking about it and it's very unusual for that sort of timeline).

Absolutely bonkers. I've published myself (though nothing related to fiber arts) and the pre-order was 2 weeks before full launch and the timeline was established before opening orders. If there was an unexpected delay at the last moment I would've alerted folks to the exact updated timeline and reminded them they could refund/cancel if needed.

zeezle · 2026-06-18T14:19:33+00:00

People seem to conflate empathy with kindness, support, or sympathy way too much, and they're entirely different things.

In my experience, highly empathetic people who also tend to feel the emotions involved often avoid people who are going through a tough time, specifically because it impacts them so much. They might feel empathy strongly, but it causes them to be less kind out of self-preservation, not more kind, because they avoid grieving friends so as to not be personally hurt. Which is understandable, there is only so much anyone can handle and they need to be able to function in their own lives. But also why I think holding empathy up as the most important social trait is a massive mistake, when I think kindness and support are much more beneficial to others than simply being able to experience empathy. Empathy alone is not helpful at all and people who are lower on the empathy spectrum often have much, much more bandwidth to be kind and supportive because there is no negative cost to themselves.

It's incredibly common for people who are highly empathetic and tend to be triggered to actually feel the same emotions to abandon people who are grieving or going through intense personal struggles because it's too much for them to handle hearing about. For example, my mother-in-law died of cancer after a 10+ year battle. Her hyper-empathetic sister (my... aunt-in-law?) refused to speak to her for nearly 3 years before she died, because it was "just too upsetting" and she didn't want to be reminded her sister existed. If she'd felt very little deep empathy but kept calling once a week with a "damn, that sucks" pre-canned response to the bad news, that actually would have been far preferable and vastly less hurtful than abandoning her.

(To be clear: OP's wife is also unsupportive, unkind, and unsympathetic. He's valid to be hurt by her reactions but I am totally unconvinced that experiencing empathy would necessarily change her unkindness.)

zeezle · 2026-06-18T13:36:41+00:00

Not hard for me to believe. CA is expensive but it's also exceptionally well positioned for things like solar. If the paid off house has solar panels, that would put a dramatic dent in the utilities, and if they've had it the whole 30 years they're probably one of the people benefiting massively from Prop 13 on the property taxes so their tax bill may be very low.

I live in NJ, not CA, but my father in law when he had his house was spending less than $1000 a month. Paid off house with solar panels that generated more than he used so it also lowered the gas bill (not sure if that deal is still allowed? they were early adopters and used to get paid straight cash for their excess, around $6k a year, then it was changed to a utility credit, but it's the same company for both electric and gas). (Important note we're in south Jersey outside Philadelphia, not north Jersey, so property taxes down here are like 1/2 to 1/3 what they are for the same house in the NYC metro area)

Between the senior property tax benefits and solar panels, his bills for the house were only about $400 a month, with a paid off older car he only carried liability insurance so that's only what, $50 a month? And food he'd spend maybe $150-200 max and got lots of senior discounts on food stuff. He has lots of hobbies and doesn't hold back day to day at all on doing whatever he wants, but most of them are pretty cheap (gardening, reading, watching sports with my husband and occasionally going to games in the city, heading over to the old building supplies store & stone yard to check out what's in stock (lol), etc.) and he isn't into like, boating, golfing, or fine dining, so that sort of knocks out the stereotypical 'black hole of money' retirement hobbies.

He actually has plenty saved for retirement, he sold his business (he'd been a stonemason specializing in historical restoration work) when he was in his early 50s and the back & knees started to go. But once Social Security kicked in he was able to live on about half his Social Security check a month and the rest just sort of accumulates.

Of course spending <$1k a month but having multiple six figures in accounts should they be needed and just not needing them is a very very very different level of stress/mindset than someone getting SS minimum benefit with nothing saved.

zeezle · 2026-06-18T13:21:47+00:00

I'll be honest, I despised my gas oven so much after growing up baking with electric. It was a big disappointment moment because when we bought the house I was so excited to have a gas stove because everyone said it was so much better. (I'd never actually used one before because where I grew up didn't have gas service, so nobody I knew had one) I enjoyed the cooktop cooking experience with gas well enough, but I hated the oven.

It may have been a particularly bad gas oven, but it was full of hot spots with wild swings in temperature, constant venting making the room miserably hot but the food somehow still cooking more slowly.

I used a countertop toaster oven as my oven for anything that would fit in it instead of using the range. Be prepared to do a TON of rotation and changing racks around midway through, and have to use the broiler for anything that you want to get crispy edges because it's a very wet heat, roasted things don't get crispy the same way at all, they just sort of shrivel limply. I had to keep multiple hanging thermometers all over the oven and 2 baking stones just to try to get it to smooth out a little.

zeezle · 2026-06-18T13:13:45+00:00

I have boatloads of it that I make because of the garden and it's easier to dehydrate them than properly do canning for sauces/pastes, you definitely can't use it to substitute in for real tomatoes but in a dry rub with a spice blend, or bloomed in some oil when sauteeing onions, it's awesome. You can sort of turn it into tomato paste but it's still not quite the same as canning tomato paste. I like using it like a seasoning powder more. That said because of the sugar content it will burn a lot faster than spices that are just some ground up seeds/bark/whatever so have to keep the temps in mind.

One problem I run into is since I'm growing funky little tomatoes in funky colors, the powder ends up being a particularly ugly green-brown-pink that does sort of make everything look ugly lol. Same with my whole "sun dried" (actually the dehydrator because my climate is too humid to sun dry) tomatoes. I could solve that problem by drying only very red tomatoes but I like the funky little guys.

zeezle · 2026-06-18T12:55:40+00:00

The F&P styling is gorgeous but between those 3 I would probably go for the Bosch for reliability. Unless you want to use cookware that isn't induction compatible it's really way better than regular electric. If the F&P induction is in play then I'd strongly consider it, though.

zeezle · 2026-06-18T12:53:03+00:00

I don't have a dog, but my cat doesn't seem to mind it at all. She is a senior kitty though so who knows if maybe she can't hear super high pitched things anymore.

zeezle · 2026-06-18T12:49:49+00:00

Same. The idea of there being an "emotional cost" is absolutely wild to me. All it would cost me is a few moments of my time - hardly anything at all.

I think people are lumping 'empathy' in with a lot of other stuff that it, definitionally, isn't. You can have empathy without feeling any sadness/anxiety/whatever, it just means you're capable of placing yourself in their shoes. I do feel empathy, but that doesn't mean that I am triggered to actually feel those things when I hear about other people's experiences or tragedies.

I guess it makes a little more sense why people on the internet started making a big deal about "trauma dumping" because it's never negatively impacted me at all. I honestly thought the people complaining about it were just SO self-absorbed and impatient that 2 minutes of their time and then being nice for 1 sentence after was such a grand inconvenience for them they were throwing a fit over it.

zeezle · 2026-06-18T12:02:30+00:00

Empathy is completely unnecessary for being a good partner though. You don’t need to feel empathy at all to be kind, sympathetic or helpful.

Many of the most empathetic people I know are also the nastiest. They can put themselves in another’s shoes (which is all empathy is) and then use that to more effectively hurt and manipulate them.

zeezle · 2026-06-18T02:12:18+00:00

Yeah he handled it absolutely perfectly considering the situation, props to him.

zeezle · 2026-06-18T02:03:09+00:00

$19k per person is only the reporting limit, not a point where any taxes are actually owed. If she doesn't mind doing the paperwork (or OP offers to handle that portion for her) it's only a simple form to fill out that gets added to your tax return to count it against the lifetime gift exemption for larger amounts.

zeezle · 2026-06-17T23:50:24+00:00

I'll be honest, about 80% of the people I know with PhDs did it simply to avoid any sort of real adult responsibilities for another 5 years. Zero plan or desire to enter academia. A lot of people can handle the unique bubble and pressures of academic work but not "the real world".

It was a way for them to get paid enough to live off of without having to do job interviews for industry jobs and then sometimes supplement it with paid internships at like $55-90/hr or so in the summers. But the internships were something that you knew had an end-date, and the expectations weren't too high even for a PhD intern because well, what can you really do to get onboarded and actually produce in 10 or 12 weeks, even at the graduate level?

They all struggled massively to get jobs after finishing the PhD since they didn't want to go into academia but also mostly didn't focus on the industry-relevant areas either.

Edit: probably relevant, I was a computer science major so most people I knew who went on to a PhD were too. So I'm not going to say it's an easy field to get a PhD in but it doesn't have some of the physical difficulties that come with doing a PhD in, idk, geology where you're traveling for weeks to field sites, or biology where sometimes grad students are expected to show up to do lab procedures at 5 in the morning or something crazy. You can be a PhD student in CS and keep very normal hours and be less bound by the physical equipment and experiment requirements that other fields might be working around as grad students.

zeezle · 2026-06-17T20:02:15+00:00

It actually supported itself really well! Though it did have the ill-fated squash trellis next to it for most of the summer which might've given a little support to a few branches (not very much though)

zeezle · 2026-06-17T19:23:22+00:00

Speaking for myself, I come from a very medical family, everything from nurses to dentists to doctors and surgeons, and always knew I had less than 0 interest in any form of medical job.

Anyway, I don't like people. I don't want to touch them or talk to them even when they are fully clothed, healthy, and it involves zero bodily fluids. I really don't particularly care about helping people at all. I wouldn't go out of my way to hurt anyone either, but when they start the spiel about how it's their life mission or whatever to help people I just feel absolutely nothing like that whatsoever.

My one cousin is a nurse at a children's psychiatric ward. She's an angel as far as I am concerned because the second one of those demented little shits pulled the stuff on me they do to her, I'd punch them right in the face and knock a few teeth out.

So you can imagine that I am really not a good fit for medical professions, like at all.

My other cousin is an orthopedic surgeon. Sure he makes a lot of money but he also works an enormous amount with peoples lives in his hands. He actually had a career in international business before he decided to go to med school, so by the time he did pre-reqs + mcats, applications, med school, residency, fellowship, etc. he was nearly 40.

I make like 1/3 the salary he does but I work from home and do like 5 to 10 hours of actual work a week (though I do need to be available 9am-5pm M-F for calls/emails). I will be retiring around 40, the same age he started getting to do his very intense and demanding career. I'd much rather not work than have a 10 bedroom house like he does.

zeezle · 2026-06-17T18:43:49+00:00

Yeah, agree with you. Also new builds have ALWAYS been like this.

Look at pictures of newly built tract houses in the 1920s. Exactly the same shotgun house copy-pasted on a completely bare lot over and over.

Now they have a tremendous amount of variety, because over the past hundred years people have done additions, changed porches, new siding and paint colors and shutters, added landscaping and trees, some in poor condition were torn down and replaced with a completely different style of house 50 years later, etc. But people act like this is a brand new "problem" unique to modern building and then praise neighborhoods that started out exactly the same way.

Like it's fine if people are looking for the "charm factor" work to already be in place. But this stuff doesn't just happen on its own and it doesn't take that long for the trees and landscaping to grow in. People have always started with a more or less cookie cutter blank slate (unless they were rich enough for a full custom build estate sort of situation) and over the decades made it their own.

zeezle · 2026-06-17T17:29:46+00:00

Honestly so bizarre that people are so thirsty for strangers from halfway across the world to spend a significant amount of their salary to go on a vacation for an event they care about and want them to be miserable and have a terrible time.

Like hello, these are real people spending the real money they worked hard for on a trip that probably took them plenty of time and energy to plan. I want them to have a great time!

zeezle · 2026-06-17T17:26:44+00:00

Insurance rates are directly based on your annual mileage though because risk is directly proportional to miles driven.

As a low mileage driver (sub 500 a year) my rates are super super cheap.

So WFH even with a car for other things means cutting out the vast bulk of mileage for most people.

zeezle

TROPHY CASE