Bogleheads.org

This crosses Personal Finance and Personal Consumer Issues, but I recommend the recent segment from Last Week Tonight on timeshares and timeshare "exit" scams (warning: some salty language): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd2bbHoVQSM I've seen a number of threads on these issues before, but this is an eye-opening watch. It's worth the 25 minutes, including for the absolute evisceration of Dave Ramsey and his endorsement of a timeshare exit company which later turned out to be a total scam (and then his bizarre doubling down). I had actually seen that endorsement mentioned in a few bogleheads threads. I absolutely loved it. Dave Ramsey is the worst kind of person, like other fake gurus. My list of pariah financial "experts&q...

You're shopping for a volvo or BMW and your plan is to save a few bucks on tips to underpaid service workers in order to what send a message to the business that you are giving your money? I need to retire from tipping threads. Genuine question: do you think Starbucks workers are underpaid? I rarely visit a Starbucks, but from what I understand, the workers there essentially type in my order and then put a cup in an area and then push a button. What type of special skill does this position require that 98% of the population doesn't already have? In theory, we could probably train several types of animals to do this work. Starbucks workers often make at least $15/hour with health benefits, education benefits, paid time off, parental leave.....

CletusCaddy wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 5:52 pm A family of four survived a fall off a 250 cliff in a Model Y

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna64547

Buy the car

Even if it is a bad decision financially? I am regularly shocked about the fear-mongering regarding car safety on this board.

OP, if you think you may be in for a layoff and losing your job would negatively impact your family financially (ie. you are not yet independently wealthy, which you clearly are not), there are bigger priorities than a new car. Your 6-7yr old Mazda is hardly a "death trap".

Doctor Rhythm wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 2:44 pm I'm in the camp that says to buy a cheap bike from Target or Walmart for a young child, preferably one that's Spider-Man themed. Remember that for a child, Spider-Man > Shimano components, especially if we're talking about training wheels ("Yeah, man, but these are titanium training wheels"). Unless they had really rich parents, every kid from my generation learned to ride on something like that and we all turned out fine.

That said, if you don't feel comfortable making adjustments or doing minor assembly, you could go the more expensive route of buying from a bike shop.

We got our Spiderman-obsessed son's first bike on Facebook marketplace for $15. Sold it after he outgrew it for $20.

As a wife and mother who works from home 100% and also has the grandparents stay for long stretches, I absolutely think you are doing the right thing. You will be amazed at how having the right home for your family will give you mental peace. One less thing to have constantly niggling at the back of your mind. Congrats on the offer, hope everything goes smoothly and you’re settled in soon. We're definitely outliers; same size family but smaller home than OP's current home, I WFH full-time and wife is hybrid (we have an ad hoc home office in our spare bedroom - our kids still choose to share a room), and my in-laws have lived with us for extensive periods of time (longest continuous stretch was ~6 months). I guess there were specific moment...

Get a balance bike. Strider is the most common brand. They’re not too expensive but they also last a long time so check out Facebook marketplace or Craigslist for a used one. We got striders for both of our kids, I think they were both like $15 on Facebook marketplace. Both were able to start riding bikes, almost immediately upon trying, before the age of 4 because they had spent so much time on the striders. I'd definitely look at Facebook marketplace and Craiglist before going to a retail store, kids grow out of bikes fast. Our kids have nicer bikes now, but they each went through two FB marketplace specials (like $10-$20) before we spent $250 on nicer bikes that should get them through adolescence. The old bikes were then sold on FB mar...

Hello, We just closed on a new home and are approaching our first payment. Our loan advisor told us two things...1) Make a double first payment and 2) set up bi-weekly payments instead of once a month. I can easily see/understand the math between the bi-weekly plan. However, has anyone ever heard of the double first payment? We do plan on staying in this home until retirement (25-28 years away) if that impacts anything. We have the funds...just wondering if that is the best place to put them versus keeping them in our savings account or investing them. Thank you! Usually to set up biweekly payments, you have to make a double payment. I don't know why. But biweekly payments may not do what you think. By default, they will hold your partial ...

rockstar wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 4:51 pm

Johny Fever wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 4:46 pm Very simple...Happy wife happy life. AND you can afford it. Yea things will cost more to take care of a bigger house but it should be fine. Life is short...enjoy the fruit of your labors some.

If you need to spend a lot of money to make your wife happy, you’re better off divorced since you’ll be broke either way.

Is there any way to kill that old terrible adage on this board? Women actually think it is more ridiculous then men do (at least in the case of my wife).

MrBobcat wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 8:03 pm

bloom2708 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 9:23 am Spiff up the resume.

Find a new job, closer to home. It happens.

The OP and family can do it. Read up on www.rootofgood.com.

Family of 5, mid 30s. Retired on a budget of $3k per month. It can be done, but most are not willing to do what their family does.

I've lived on that budget, mid 30s but at the time it was a pay check to pay check type of thing.

We live on that budget now, with a family of 4, but I completely agree that most are not willing to do what it takes to live on that slim a budget. Furthermore, it's really difficult to estimate future budget if you have young kids.

Our local mechanic charged us $95 last time and no recommendations; we were also getting the oil changed and AC recharged. We have been using the same mechanic for about a decade and they have always been trustworthy. We get an alignment whenever we get new tires, so only once every few years. Don't recall ever getting the hard sales pitch for added repairs as a result.

Work-life balance is a catch word for getting paid while staying home or wherever. I belong to a large advanced R/D group (not S/W) including Western Europe and East Asia. The arrangement is not for cheap labor. The majority in the foreign countries hold advanced degrees and many of them are highly experienced. They are as good as those in the US and well paid, but the cost is still lower. I see no downside in shifting more workloads abroad. In light of the wfh rage, it is about time for employers to take a fresh look. 8301, It goes both way. At OP's pay level of 70K per year, it is not worthwhile for OP to stay at a job with a lousy work life balance. Does anyone in your team work at this pay level? It is time for the employee to take a f...

New TV prices are the same at all major retailers because they are controlled by the manufacturer. I would never buy a large screen TV online and have it shipped to me because it's fragile and hard to ship back in case of any issues. I would only buy locally and pay extra to have the store install it in my home and set it up. That way, if there is something wrong with the TV, they will take it right back. A year ago I bought an 83" Sony OLED at Best Buy for $5,499. At the time they were running a special promotion on their credit card that gave 15% back in points, so I got $825 to spend at Best Buy. I also purchased their Totaltech membership, that gave me free wall installation, set up and haul away of the old broken TV, plus extende...

Has he visited the campuses? I'd think the very different vibes of these places would bring him to prefer one over the others. Also, he could start and realize he wants to do something totally different. I started at MIT (literally a half-century ago) and left after four very-undistinguished semesters for an art and design school, which worked out very well for me. I normally think I can thrive anywhere and don't put much credence into these things, but I was pretty much all ready to go to Cornell for grad school, then I visited. Took me all of an hour to realize it was not for me (and had nothing to do with the weather, I was moving from Utah). This is a huge financial and time investment, IMO it is definitely worth it to visit the school...

Fascinating the number of conservative responses in this thread. I wouldn't have thought much about buying a 615k house on a 200k combined salary. Would you buy a $615K house on a $150K salary? That is the math I did when I read they may be sending 3 kids to private school at $10K/child. I think that is being overlooked here My response to the question would have been much different a few years ago, when mortgage rates were half what they are today. Also, OP asked "would YOU buy a house at 615k if you were us"? We're in a similar family situation (but better financial situation) and IMO this home upgrade is clearly a want (the current home sounds like it meets their needs fine - it's bigger than ours) that we wouldn't feel comfor...

watchnerd wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 2:40 pm

White Coat Investor wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 2:34 pm There's very little I would want to do at a gym that I can't do at home with that stuff.

Cable exercises (which are more used in bodybuilding than powerlifting and weightlifting) are the big 'missing piece' in most home gyms, as cable stacks are just gigantic and expensive.

In a home gym, can get part-way there with rack-mounted pulleys and plate-loadable loading pins.

I have Archon pulleys, but I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've ever used them.

Bumper plates are nice for deadlifts though even if not strictly needed. Bumpers are nice for pulling, but you'll run out of room on the bar pretty quickly. You can usually fit about 450lbs. of bumpers on a standard 7' bar. ? Are you talking about competition bumpers or Crossfit type black bumpers? Because on a 16.5" sleeve, I can fit 6 x 25 kg (2.5" thick) /150 kg competition bumper plates per side = 300 kg plates + 20 kg bar + 5 kg competition collars = 325 kg = 715 lbs Obviously "crossfit type" bumpers. I doubt many people here are considering purchasing competition bumpers, which are usually 2x-3x+ the price. I primarily use "crossfit type" bumpers, but I bought 6 45lbs. steel plates so I have some room wh...

alfaspider wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 1:12 pm Bumper plates are nice for deadlifts though even if not strictly needed.

Bumpers are nice for pulling, but you'll run out of room on the bar pretty quickly. You can usually fit about 450lbs. of bumpers on a standard 7' bar.

Following this thread. I was never too interested in super high end stuff, but at my current gym, they have Eleiko plates, bars, and platforms. The thing that surprises me the most is how quiet they are even when I drop heavy weight from a deadlift position, etc. That is actual utility over cheaper stuff. However, those platforms get extremely expensive as well as the quieter drop weights. The other benefit of high end bars is the type of bearings they use. Needle-bearing bars usually have smoother spin than bushing-bearing bars, which doesn't really matter for the power lifts (squat, bench, dead) that aren't ballistic, but it matters a lot for snatch and clean & jerk. For someone who isn't a competitive weightlifter, I doubt they'd be...

We make ~$300k/yr, spend <$50k/yr (so save A LOT more), have the same size family, I WFH and wife is hybrid, our (paid off, worth ~$420k) townhome is 3bdr and 1450sq. ft home, and we don't feel comfortable spending >$600k for a home (with current interest rates). We're kind of sitting on the sidelines waiting to see if the market tanks and then we'd upgrade (we want a basement, primarily because in-laws will be living with us at some point). What you are looking at sounds like what we we'd be interested in, but that's >$1M where we live. But you asked what we would do. We refuse to stretch at all for a home when we already have one that meets our needs. I don't think what you are considering is out of line with what most people are willing ...

In my case I traded in a 2022 Ford Maverick Hybrid. Did you not like the Maverick? Any issues with it? I traded it in on the Forester mainly because I did not feel it would be a dependable vehicle. Lot's of recalls and owners having problems. Seems to be more problems with the hybrid version. Read some of the problems here. It was a great investment as far as trading it in! https://www.mavericktruckclub.com/forum/ I'm honestly surprised at how few (and how limited in scope) the recalls to date have been and you have to expect that the people having problems are going to be the loudest. We've owned our Maverick hybrid nearly a year and zero issues, and the powertrain itself is pretty proven. It's our first domestic manufacturer vehicle and ...

Am I being foolish to not buy a home? Am I setting up my spouse and future child(ren) for failure by not building so-called equity? Is American homeownership a culture problem? Our family does not know our income level or financial situation. I suspect they think we are not saving money and a home would act as a "forced savings." No. In most areas of the country, it is terrible time to be buying a home and the numbers you shared seem to suggest it's the case in your situation. Certainly buying a home can be a financial boon, but it generally isn't. Don't listen to anybody else; buying a home may be the biggest financial decision you'll ever make, so don't do it unless you want it for lifestyle reasons and it makes financial sense...

I walked into the dealership, they had several new 2023 Foresters. We drove a Limited and loved it. The latest generation is a big step up in comfort from earlier Foresters. Dealer gave me $750 below MSRP. Drove out the same day in my new Subaru. Sorry that is being coy. You paid over MSRP because of other things added, such at TTL, Documentation, Delivery, and what not. Is there a problem reporting what I asked for which were two dollar amounts please? Here we pay taxes only on the difference between the selling price and the value of your trade in. In my case I traded in a 2022 Ford Maverick Hybrid. They gave me 33k for it. Which was 8k more than I paid for it a year ago. So taxes were very little as I bought the Forester for 35k plus TT...

Ouch. 67% My recollection is thats a fairly typical 6 year graduation rate for US universities. https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=40 So why is this so low? I don’t know. One school of thought is that lots of kids don’t finish because school is too expensive. I.e. they run out of money. So if that’s a concern for anybody, they should really focus on value. And if you have infinite money, you really don’t need to worry about graduation rates, because if your kid puts in the work, they will graduate. Maybe also being in one of the biggest metro areas in the US? People come and go without finishing. The data doesn't support that assertion. The schools with the highest graduation rates tend to be the best schools most of which have v...

I'd be curious to hear what brand of bar and plates BH's have in their home gyms. I did deadlifts and power cleans regularly when I belonged to a gym, and am now looking to expand my home gym. Wonder if there's a happy medium between Rogue and a Dick's Sporting Goods 300 lb set? Most of my stuff is Fringe https://www.fringesport.com/ and Rep https://repfitness.com/?gclid=CjwKCAjw5dqgBhBNEiwA7PryaD774w1t7W8T3RMoki3rTJLxBaWyXPpK4fRKu19PH25wws6zW4yr2RoCJO4QAvD_BwE (purchased on Black Friday sales), significantly cheaper than Rogue and I'd be shocked if any of my bars and plates did not last my lifetime. I have extensive experience with Rogue, Eleiko, etc. from college football, powerlifting comps, and my current combat sports gym, and exercis...

Everything Everywhere All at Once, watched last night. Me and SO (both very math, engineering, analytic brains) thought it was very bizarre and maybe a little creepy weird in some spots. Not sure if there was a deeper meaning other than about the relationships, we really didn't get. If anyone can explain more about the movie or why it was so lauded maybe we will be able to think back and understand it better? Wondering if anyone else had the same reaction to it or is it just us? If you didn't get it, you probably won't. It's about generational trauma and the attempt by both mother and daughter to resolve those issues at the precipice of disaster (possible Suicide). The writers and directors reach both the younger and older audience by comb...

smitcat wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 8:36 am

whodidntante wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 11:01 pm

vanguarded wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 10:42 pm I always imagine the Boglehead response to a question like this to be "somehwere around 16"

The best predictor of your income is the income of your parents. But I prefer the outliers.

Interesting - that is not at all the case with us.

All anecdotes aside (and mine is the same as yours'), there is a very strong evidence-base to suggest this is the case. It is pretty much the same across all related metrics of "success": financial health, academic achievement, various lifestyle habits, physical health...the single best predictor is the parents.

whodidntante wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 11:01 pm

vanguarded wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 10:42 pm I always imagine the Boglehead response to a question like this to be "somehwere around 16"

The best predictor of your income is the income of your parents. But I prefer the outliers.

I think I first started making more money than my mom at 16 (when I got an on-campus job as a janitor - paid 3x what I was making at Baskin Robbins before - my first semester in college) and earned more money than she did most of my 4yrs of undergrad. One of my brothers started making more than her around the same age, possibly the other one as well.

Everything Everywhere All at Once, watched last night. Me and SO (both very math, engineering, analytic brains) thought it was very bizarre and maybe a little creepy weird in some spots. Not sure if there was a deeper meaning other than about the relationships, we really didn't get. If anyone can explain more about the movie or why it was so lauded maybe we will be able to think back and understand it better? Wondering if anyone else had the same reaction to it or is it just us? If you didn't get it, you probably won't. It's about generational trauma and the attempt by both mother and daughter to resolve those issues at the precipice of disaster (possible Suicide). The writers and directors reach both the younger and older audience by comb...

...I would appreciate any practical advice from those who have made this transition. Explain to them that the expectation that "college will be the time of your life" is just marketing from the colleges themselves. It may well be the time of their life, sometimes, but it will also be hard and lonely at times. That doesn't mean they're doing anything wrong, or that they're at the wrong college. We need a clapping emoji... This is a pretty constant debate in college threads. I fall on the side that all the best times in my life occurred in the real world (and I certainly don't feel like I did the academia thing wrong) and wife and I are in 100% agreement that the kids don't get a blank check so they can attempt to make college the ...

They may be / will be having sex, drinking a lot, buying buddies adhd drugs to use during finals, doing other illegal drugs, buying fake ids that scan real that tsa doesn’t like, etc so if you haven’t had an adult discussion with them as of late about these things you might consider easing into it. Some % of illegal drug use may cause psychosis/ mental illness. If you see the symptoms don’t wait to get them help and stop the drug use. Sometimes no drug use can have same symptoms. Wife and I have never tasted alcohol or consumed a non-prescription drug in or lives nor partook in the other mentioned activities. My daughter's biological father is a drug addict who has had his life ruined by substance abuse, we have multiple siblings on both s...

I'm not very handy, but I'll pretty much give anything a shot and we have a lot of more skilled friends. I've recently done some plumbing and electrical and it worked out fine. My threshold probably is if it will require me to rent heavy machinery or tools. You're shortchanging yourself! When I say I'm not handy, I literally mean that "job + my input = at least 3 jobs" :oops: You can find tutorials about how to fix anything on youtube. My wife is a lot more handy than I am, but her patience to watch videos and play around with things is a lot less than mine. Mine too -- especially when it comes to plumbing, although she has a full workbench of tools out in the garage for various other things. On the other hand, she wouldn't begin...

wilked wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 7:22 am Is the question at what point did you and your spouse each hit $500K in net worth? Or when you and your wife combined had over $2MM in assets, such that each is a millionaire?

In that case, my personal liquid NW is ~$900k, our paid off home is worth ~$400k. So if I take half of the home, I'm just over the threshold (I'm 41). Wife's liquid NW is ~$500k, so (with her half of the home) she's in the neighborhood of $700k (she's 36). Combined, I think we hit $1M NW like 3yrs ago. We'll likely hit $2M combined sometime next year.

Kind of an odd backdoor brag thread.

an_asker wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 7:46 am

stoptothink wrote: ↑Wed Mar 15, 2023 1:47 pm I'm not very handy, but I'll pretty much give anything a shot and we have a lot of more skilled friends. I've recently done some plumbing and electrical and it worked out fine. My threshold probably is if it will require me to rent heavy machinery or tools.

You're shortchanging yourself! When I say I'm not handy, I literally mean that "job + my input = at least 3 jobs"

You can find tutorials about how to fix anything on youtube. My wife is a lot more handy than I am, but her patience to watch videos and play around with things is a lot less than mine.

ScubaHogg wrote: ↑Wed Mar 15, 2023 9:54 pm

Edit to add: am I reading it correctly that you are spending almost 50% of your take home in mortgage and property taxes?

OP has to know this, they bought too much house and there is pretty much nothing they can do that is going to make up for that decision. Not only is PITI high for their income, but $1k/month in utilities and landscaping for a home with only two residents is pretty difficult to swallow. I agree with others, cut spending to the bone for a few months and get rid of the credit card debt, otherwise, not really much they can do.

$150k is more than the median NW for someone my age (41). Can you imagine the "normal" family making these decisions; the difference in costs can be truly life-changing in many cases. We're bogleheads with a 7-figure NW, but $150k is still a heck of a lot of money to us; it's nearly what we bought our home for in 2015. As you remember, you and I had this precise conversation almost precisely four years ago . Vulcan is absolutely correct, the difference being he thinks the gamble may be worth the cost. Me, I don't like to gamble and I'm not that wealthy. We do OK, but I'm not delusional; the difference between paying <$30k total for an undergrad (today's cost for our local universities) or $250k (today's cost for some "elite&...

toblerone wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 1:11 am I just watched the show and there is a definite left-wing bias in the presentation from beginning to end. There were some entertaining interviews, but overall it seems like a blame shifting attempt by PBS, and otherwise not very informative or interesting.

I'm shocked...not.

I'm surprised by all these comments about "skin in the game." If your child fails or barely passes their first year, then you can re-evaluate paying for an expensive school and have them transfer somewhere else. Otherwise if you can afford to pay for their school why wouldn't you? One read could be that it's from parents who can not comfortably fund an expensive education who are trying to get around the principal-agent problem where under some conditions the student decides and the parent pays. Since the student isn't paying there's no (or at least a different) cost benefit analysis. If I pay the same no matter what, why wouldn't I pick the one that might be 10% better (that's 2x the price)? If 'skin in the game' means that the ...

It's hard to find someone good, especially if you have a habit of doing it yourself. A couple times, I've looked around for recommendations - left messages with a few companies that were highly recommended, only to never receive a call back. I've had stuff done by highly recommended companies where they left trash around my property. If you DIY, you're going to clean up after yourself to your own standards, you're not going to ignore yourself, etc. Same sort of thing happened when covid hit. We wanted to support food places in our area. But probably four times out of five, they just couldn't get things right. Our garbage disposal broke a few weeks ago and we were insanely busy. It looked liked a fairly easy job, but I couldn't find 2hrs or...

I'm not very handy, but I'll pretty much give anything a shot and we have a lot of more skilled friends. I've recently done some plumbing and electrical and it worked out fine. My threshold probably is if it will require me to rent heavy machinery or tools.

We are planning the following: 100% Paid books/tuition for 2-years of Community College, living at home. 100% Paid books/tuition for in-state University, living at home. Anything else? They are responsible for it (i.e., room and board if they want 4-years away). From one runner to another- I wholeheartedly agree with this approach and what I have always advocated. I attended CC for my first 2 years before transferring to a large State University and it saved a heck of lot of money and didn't negatively impact me whatsoever. Why people decide to substantially increase their college debt because they just have to attend a university or worse, a private college for the first couple of years, is beyond me. Same here. I didn't end up brainless ...

I had a bit of a non-traditional college experience, with a big commitment to an extracurricular study/research project. I had a little time to party and be a college kid, but not much. No time for a job, even part-time. My parents provided partial financial support, maybe in the 1/2 to 2/3 range, and I covered the rest with loans and income from working over the summer. Looking back, I don't think the amount of parental financial support had much effect on my level of effort. There are probably kids where having some "skin in the game" will affect their work ethic, but I think most will probably apply whatever work ethic they've developed to that point regardless of amount of loans. Loans feel like free money at that age and lif...

Know that many of your guests, though happy to support and celebrate your love, and having fun in the moment, will also see the wedding as a financial and time burden. This is especially true for the bridal party which will entail spending $1,000+ per person in some cases so really you are putting the expense on all of these other people who may feel obligated to attend. Elaborate weddings are, in my mind correctly, viewed as an attempt to one-up the other friends who had a wedding already. Forgive me for saying this but more often than not it is the bride showing off to friends and family in a super basic biological sense, "look at the man I landed and the resources we command." Almost everyone I speak to would rather send a gif...

We are planning the following: 100% Paid books/tuition for 2-years of Community College, living at home. 100% Paid books/tuition for in-state University, living at home. Anything else? They are responsible for it (i.e., room and board if they want 4-years away). There are plenty of times when CC credits don’t transfer even with an articulation agreement or transfer as generic credits, which fulfill neither gen ed nor major requirements. Living at home is socially stunting, and a lot of lifetime friendships form freshman year. CCs also vary hugely from excellent, well resourced places to grade 13 and 14 filled with slackers and low achievers. Now there's a generalization. Living in a dorm does seem to be a right of passage in American cultu...

This thread has been interesting to read as a prospective groom. Judging by others' comments the cost of a venue-wedding has climbed precipitously over time. The half-dozen or so venues my partner and I are considering range from $17k-31k for ~75 guests' worth of food plus site fees. This doesn't include other amenities i.e. flowers, music, photography, etc., which we haven't even begun to price out. Her parents have offered $80k, and mine $15k, so the funding is available, but I'm having trouble abiding the expense on principle. The unspent funds are ours to use freely after the wedding. With the price of housing being what it is, I can't make a party this expensive make sense. It is partly that but you also have areas of the country/worl...

I'm no expert, but I would be very surprised if there is any material performance difference between a name brand and a similarly rated generic brand tire. (Note that I'm not talking used or too-good-to-be-true priced tires.) That is my philosophy with most products I buy, however. Exact same philosophy. It has been a few years as I no longer subscribe but Consumer Reports did find fairly significant differences in performance (and when I am talking about performance I mean more than just safety to include things like ride and noise) between tires some years back. Now how much of this matters 99% of the time in the real world I don't know. Bottom line to me is buying my Michelins at Costco isn't costing me much more than another brand of t...

This thread has been interesting to read as a prospective groom. Judging by others' comments the cost of a venue-wedding has climbed precipitously over time. The half-dozen or so venues my partner and I are considering range from $17k-31k for ~75 guests' worth of food plus site fees. This doesn't include other amenities i.e. flowers, music, photography, etc., which we haven't even begun to price out. Her parents have offered $80k, and mine $15k, so the funding is available, but I'm having trouble abiding the expense on principle. The unspent funds are ours to use freely after the wedding. With the price of housing being what it is, I can't make a party this expensive make sense. Framed in any other way, if your parents said you can have $9...

We've had two separate orders from Temu. In one case, the sizing was way off on two items (this is a common problem when ordering from China) and we had to return. It was pretty straightforward, although it took bit longer than an Amazon return would. Depending on the item it is definitely worth it to us to go with Temu over Amazon; in some cases the items we purchased were 1/5 the price for the exact same item (we have both Amazon and Temu versions). My daughter just had to have this specific toy for Christmas and wife and I both agreed the price was outrageous for what it was. I think it was like $85 on Amazon. We bought it and it was there for Christmas...and then we saw it on Temu for like $8 a few days later :oops: We're almost certain...

grogu wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 3:39 pm I'm no expert, but I would be very surprised if there is any material performance difference between a name brand and a similarly rated generic brand tire. (Note that I'm not talking used or too-good-to-be-true priced tires.) That is my philosophy with most products I buy, however.

Exact same philosophy.

I expected that her 12k miles a year on her car would drop. It went to 18k miles a year. The pre-school does cost money. We initially didn't plan on this. On this note, it's important for her to think about what day-to-day life will really be like. I've had the fortune(?) of spending a lot of time at home with my kids in recent years (even before COVID) and (as many people learned during COVID) it's not all fun and relaxing. If you feel socially isolated and stir-crazy, and decide to fill the void by putting the kids into numerous, expensive activities per day, driving around between them, and getting food on-the-go, then I can see how it might easily become more expensive than daycare. My own wife is a homebody, although social isolation ...

I have 2 kids in band right now through the school. It's been very clear over the last couple years that neither one of them likes band. They hate practicing and they hate waking up early for practice. I didn't make it past 7th grade for band in school and neither did their older brother. It hasn't come up yet because they know they'll need to finish the school year, but what is everyone's thoughts on when to push a kid with an activity vs. let them stop. In a perfect world, my son will continue with band and actually enjoy it. He's a little harder to convince to join an activity, so once he's in, I like to encourage him to keep going. He is on a couple of travel teams, which he enjoys but he's a homebody so I like to keep him in more orga...