I do B2B hardware and software projects. I hate sales and advertising but I will post something I’m working on about once a week on my personal LinkedIn. It’s amazing how many customers reference that stuff when I have my first meeting.

I really wish it was MediaWyrm. I want something where I can share, rate, and track books, movies, tv shows, podcasts, etc

Each has their place. I use Pixelmator, Affinity Designer, Sketch, and occasionally Gimp and Photoshop. Canva is really good at doing things like throwing together a flyer. I used to create social media posts for a pre-school and Canva was super easy to create templates that lay folks could edit. Virtually no learning curve.

Affinity is my vector tool of choice currently but these space seems to be a field with lots of options.

I bought at the peak myself to have stable housing while raising kids.

If house prices just stayed flat until wages caught up and then only increased similar to match wage increases (not inflation) that might be a reasonable compromise between the middle class who have a house and don’t. Those who own will still be paying down a mortgage so increasing your equity that way without being decimated if you have to move. Unfortunately at this point, that could take awhile before wages caught up.

I’m not arguing in favor for house prices going up but just wanted to point out how a lot of people use the value of their home. You can pull out money from your house and your interest payments don’t change when the value of your house goes up.

I’ll give the example of my neighbor. They bought their house 10 years ago at about $250k. Interest rates were around 4.5%. We’re in a location that got really hot during the pandemic and the house value jumped to about $700k. At that moment, they had the same payments as 10 years ago. Then interest rates dropped down below 3%. His balance on the original mortgage is probably about $175k and now he refinances the house with a mortgage of $325k, pays off the old loan, and pockets $150k out of the house. But due to the lower interest rates, his payment is the same as it was 10 years ago. He just has $150k in his pocket. Meanwhile, I’m the schmuck who had to buy the identical house at $700k at 5% and pay 3x for the same house.

Working for me.

For the same reason there are McDonalds everywhere. They are familiar and convenient despite almost always being inferior.

I lived adjacent to a neighborhood like this. It was much quieter than middle aged neighbors with Harley’s. Little Cessnas and Pipers are not that loud.

I agree.

Also check out Greenlight which has a built in parents interest feature.

This was my mom. Lots of therapy and 20 years later I’m good now. One major thing I do differently as a parent is apologize to my kids when I screw up.

If you do something against the rules then you have an appropriate punishment. Yelling and berating is never an appropriate punishment. If yell at my kid because I’m mad I always apologize. Hopefully it will lessen their therapy bills.

Yeah. That would be a pain

Hiccups are most likely a demonic possession. Try praying next time.

There are not a lot of incentives to make things easier/cheaper. Changing government processes is slow and hard. Take immigration. It is currently a long and hard process to legally immigrate to US unless you fall into certain categories. I’ve heard politicians on both sides say my entire life that we need to improve the process for legal immigration yet little has been done.

I think flexibility is key. There are days where I peak my productivity at 4 hours. There are days where I get in the flow and can be productive for 12.

One time 20+ years ago I was at a Sonic and there was an empty lot next door. A helicopter landed and 2 kids ran out and went over to the sonic and ordered food. Became a core memory.

Visible is pretty great. I don’t really have any issues with it. I pay $25/month. Spouse has upgraded Visible plan of $45/mo and an Apple Watch $5/mo. My 3 kids have Tello $9 plans which gives the unlimited text/talk and 500MB of data. That’s just enough to track their locations, Otherwise they tether for free on our phones. Everyone has an iPhone.

25+45+5+3x9 = $102 all in. No additional fees or taxes.

boo

I use Visible and Tello for phone lines. Have 5 iPhones and pay less than $100/mo.

Buy store brands. A lot of times store brand is cheaper than name brand in bulk at Sam’s/costco.

Buy reliable used cars in cash and learn how to do some auto maintenance yourself.

There are high end thrift stores where you can find barely used quality clothes. Rich people often where them once or twice and then get rid of them.

Date nights in the middle of the week. Lots of places have specials.

Slickdeals.net

Hate to see local business fail but there are a ton of breweries in this town. To be successful you really need to nail both the quality of the drink and the atmosphere.

Still, I’ve heard most just break even.

Yeah. It’s extremely common. Fluoride treatments, sealants, crown replacements aren’t necessary. And things like veneers, and whiting are pushed pretty hard.