Valdair

I think they meant more like they wouldn't have been able to afford the same house 4 years later, due to appreciation of the house, the increase in property taxes on that appreciation, and higher mortgage rates to boot. That or they had a variable APR loan.

The former case happened to us and is how my coworkers and I sometimes discuss the housing market - house values increase so fast where we are, buying a month later would have gotten us an appreciably worse home. A month later, worse again. Prices were increasing 25+% YoY. If we hadn't locked in when we did (Dec 2020) I'm not sure we would have found a place. The mortgage rates seem to not matter because so many of the buyers scooping up houses are older families with lots of money buying investment properties, or whole ass corporations (often foreign corporations) willing to pay 20% over asking, in cash, and waive inspection, to lock out any other prospective buyers.

Insurance is about 50% more than when we bought the house and taxes are maybe 10% higher due to rate increases and the increasing value. We would barely be able to afford half the house we're in if we bought today.

The only reason we switched from doing our own to paying a CPA is when my wife started operating her own business. This was more to have someone to ask questions about making sure she covers all of her tax obligations who can answer authoritatively and back us up if anything comes back to us in the future (since she is sole prop. and going it alone). We paid $200 the first year, and considering turbotax would have been about that much, getting our taxes filed for us was practically just a bonus. She charges a little more now, but it's still worth it IMO just to not have to deal with doing the actual paperwork and having someone who will help us out if anything does come back to us. I would say anyone who just has W2 income and maybe some stock sales doesn't have a complicated enough situation to warrant a CPA, and should just use FreeTaxUSA (and hopefully over the next couple years, the auto filing program with the government will eliminate the need for that, too).

it feels like treading water and then rather suddenly having a credible chance.

That's a good reminder. Just haven't had one of those years yet. Thanks for the perspective.

I didn't think an expense ratio of 0.08% was considered high?

Everyone always quotes the growth of the S&P500, but isn't pretty much no one 100% invested for their entire retirement in the S&P500? My 401k is in a target date 2055 and my Roth is split between FXAIX (S&P500, 55%), FSPSX (international, 20%), FSMAX (extended market, 15%), FXNAX (bonds, 10%). It's a little conservative but not that conservative.

Fidelity says my Roth 1Y returns are 10.8% compared to S&P 500's 10.3%. It says my 1Y returns on my target date 2055 are 18.0%. Neither of those numbers can be accurate so it's hard to know what to read in to them. If I try to calculate my returns in a very simple way (take current value, subtract contributions from the last 12 months, which can be easily looked up, call that number X, then find the growth rate that takes the account value I had as Nov. 1st last year and compound that at different rates until it produces X as of now - this gives an upper bound on returns, since the returns of the various money deposited throughout the year at random times is treated as not growing at all), I get 1%. And that's 1% before inflation.

I know the S&P500 is 10% YoY over really long time scales, and I also know that number is like +/-15% year to year. But it feels like my fund picks are pretty normal yet they're not worth any more than what I put in to them since I started saving. Because of that, I'd have to have a 30+% savings rate in order to catch up to the "X salary by Y age" rule because the assumptions over the growth rate of the accounts are wildly off in the years since I started investing.

Thoughts? I have to admit I've been nervous about this for a while now, with "once in a generation" events happening on a seemingly yearly basis, I started saving for retirement in 2019 and it seems like things have essentially traded sideways since then - my accounts are barely worth more than the money I've put in to them. The article is quite gloomy.

Unfortunately you can't just recuse yourself from society. You're still impacted by who the president is even if you don't vote for them.

You're still using public utilities. Driving on public roads. Interacting with people who went to public schools.

Acting like both choices are the same because they will always eventually do something you don't like is disingenuous and you know it.

The people I know who've given up on housing affordability unfortunately are not shifting in to retirement. They're so hopeless they blow their money on hobbies because they don't foresee any possible path to homeownership or retirement and value a few bucks here and there on discretionary spending more.

Same, I was averaging 5~10 fights per long rest by the end of the game because I was trying to efficiently swap people out depending on who was low on health or spells, or use whoever I thought would have the most relevant dialogue for the quest(s).

My default roster was usually either Shadowheart, Gale and Laezel or Karlach, Wyll and Astarion. I was playing an archer sniper ranger so I basically always had two melee, one caster blaster and me as DPS and CC through arrows. I actually really liked the arrow system to give bow users more utility and if I ever run a campaign I'd like to adopt that. I'd make them cheaper though.

I never got to actually use Halsin. I tried to swap him in several times and it just never worked, then he was killed via plot events in act 3 via a mechanism where I could not save him. I used Jaheira a bit in late act 3, just for the Harper & Minsc stuff, not much after that. Never used Minsc, too much overlap with me, Laezel and Karlach.

I found both Wyll and Gale pretty frustrating, but that's likely because I was trying to be so conservative on rests.

Don't know how people have already run through 3+ times, I spent like 150 hours on my first run and saw probably 85% of the game... also the ending was pretty disappointing. I'm not itching to dive back in but I'd be interested in DUrge as well as interacting with Minthara more.

I had no idea the crucible was even usable for that, wasn't telegraphed at all. I found the buff/debuff to be infuriatingly inconsistent and eventually the lava mechanic just broke altogether and the only way to leave that zone was to fast travel out of it, and I could never return.