This is pure political theater. Trump vetoed the bill precisely because it was passed with enough votes to be overridden. Therefore he gets to push his own message without the danger of actually torpedoing a must-pass bill, while congress simply overrides the veto and does what it wanted to do anywa...

If your temperature tolerance is that high, probably the cheapest course of action is to stop using the oil system entirely and rely on the warmth produced by your body, your cats, your electronics, and maybe some space heaters, and then make it the next owner's problem. >:D If you feel like spendin...

Yes, everything.

Not taking the bait, sorry.

Subway is fast food that pretends not to be, but it still is. I acknowledge that it's is a guilty pleasure.

Nah, I don't feel like the basic idea can be salvaged. And because I don't believe in the goal anymore, I don't feel comfortable being a part of helping somebody else achieve that goal. Also, a lot of it is frankly a bit embarrassing for me to read today. So many headstrong and unsupported assertion...

Y'all are crazy. Footlong black forest ham on wheat with extra american cheese FTW! Load it up with every veggie they have and no sauce. Mmmmm I'm salivating just thinking about it.

Ultimately it's up to stores to curate their products and weed out the chaff. I feel like Amazon.com used to do a good job of this, but over the last 5 or 10 years, it seems like it's become a dumping ground for shoddy direct-from-the-factory Chinese junk, all sold by merchants with names like "...

I feel like Calvin's dad whenever I go to buy anything online. Just last night I swear I spent an hour comparison shopping for a $12 metal water bottle. And my last two laptops have involved multiple months of investigating options and tabulating their characteristics into spreadsheets for easier co...

So do I, but my credit card usage is a lot more unpredictable than yours, it sounds like. One big factor is that I have to pay a lot of professional expenses out of pocket and then get reimbursed usually two months later, after the bill was paid. I have this situation for job-related travel expense...

MangoMan wrote: ↑Sun Dec 20, 2020 6:34 pm Multi millionaire or not, you would be insane to self insure. One serious health crisis can lead to bills in the millions of dollars. And really, the best part of insurance is the network discount.

Indeed. For this reason, if anything insurance is more important when you're wealthy.

Erm... It's now illegal to not have health insurance. I thought individual mandate was overridden. Am I mistaken? You're not mistaken. They got rid of the penalty fee in 2017. I guess technically the mandate is still there, but there's no penalty for violating it, sooooooo six of one, half a dozen ...

That works if you pay cash for everything. The problem is that credit card spending is a whole lot harder to limit without tracking. Of course, if your spending pattern is stable (as I'm guessing yours is), that might not be so much of a problem. I'm unfortunately very much subject to "spendin...

I'd say all expenses except taxes, medicare, ss etc. Living in a house is a choice, so is health insurance, car insurance etc. It's interesting how elastic the definition of "mandatory" can become. You have to live somewhere, and whatever choice you make, that has costs. Living in an apar...

I guess it depends on how you define "expenses." Do mandatory expenses like income taxes, payroll taxes, property taxes, health insurance, homeowner's/renter's insurance and car insurance count? If I subtract all of those, my family of four's annual spending is a maximum of $21,600 per yea...

I don't track my expenses anymore. What I do is limit the amount of money in my checking account every month (the rest automatically goes into savings and investments), and give myself and my wife private spending accounts. Within the limits of the money in these accounts, anything goes.

My professional life in the software world has taught me that people who are the most openly obsessed with the ideas of logic and rationality are often very emotional people, and these preferences are often more aspirational than descriptive. If I can express a stereotype for a moment, I've found th...

My perception is that there are a lot of theoretically minded people here who don't put much stock in empirical historical evidence when it contradicts their "logical" theories. You know it's funny... Years ago when I was a hard AnCap, I started writing a book about how a totally 100% non...

There are limiting factors for wealth inequality. A soft limit is some form of collective organization/bargaining (i.e. unionization), and the ultimate one is revolution. Like it or not, these are trends that have played out over and over again throughout human history whenever the majority perceive...

vnatale wrote: ↑Sat Dec 19, 2020 7:28 pm I started it but each choice has innumerable options to choose from, most of which I do not even know what they mean or what I have. Seems like an excellent tool if you know what you are doing!

Vinny

You're a smart guy, I bet you can do it. Feel free to ask for help or for definitions.

There are five ducts out of the furnace providing heat. There appears to be only one cold air return. OK so I'm guessing: one register in each bedroom, one in the bathroom, one in the kitchen, one in the living room. Is that right? BTU's / Gallons of oil per hour 85,000 / .65 105,000 / .75 120,000 ...

Looking here: https://www.mitsubishicomfort.com/products/replacement#products You are telling me to avoid "The Dcuted Air Handler" but instead look at the "Other Replacement Solutions"? I believe that is what you are saying above. If so, do you favor one of the four options over...

lol I also don't pay for Sirius XM in my vehicle. They sure are persistent! I get gobs of junk mail about it! I'm sure they've lost money on me.

I read this article too and was similarly depressed, but not by the food budget: it was the debt and housing payments. Food is an elastic expense so if you have to splurge on anything, it makes sense to make it food and other luxuries that provide direct utility IMO. But you're locked into your debt...

Depreciation is part of the equation of "Total Cost to Own". We all know vehicles depreciate. When determining how much it costs to own a car you cannot ignore the decline in value of the car over the years you owned it. Therefore, if I owned a car for five years with operating costs of $...