Cries in American

How do you get a full-year’s pay after getting fired?

It wasn’t a great plan

You’re entitled to be mad at the voters for forsaking their fellow citizens as well as the citizens of Ukraine and Palestine. But that doesn’t change the fact that, “not a great plan” wasn’t good enough for voters to turn out for the Democrats. Voters are inevitably going to vote for whatever they perceive as being in their own self interests. It’s up to the political parties to align with what the voters want and the Democrats have continuously failed to do that.

The people are tired of the Dems presenting them with weak bullshit solutions to their very real problems and being told to get on board because the alternative is worse. The cost of living in America is drowning the middle class and the Dems keep throwing us water wings.

I don’t agree that Trump’s policies are the answer but I can understand desperate people looking anywhere for some relief.

I would just get the cape and fly over every world

I think association counts if the sounds associated with it are consistently repulsive. For example, the sound of flies swarming around a pile of crap.

An index that either tracks the top 500 companies or the total market. Look up a 3-fund portfolio if you want to go a little deeper.

Alternatively, max out an IRA if you haven’t already this year and are in a position where you won’t need that money until retirement.

Edit: I realized I’m assuming a lot about your situation. So instead, here’s a general list of priorities that applies to more or less any situation. You should only proceed with a step if all the steps above it are achieved. Also keep in mind, I’m not a financial advisor just a random stranger on the internet sharing my personal financial strategy.

1. Pay your future-self first. Establish regular contributions to your retirement account and HSA if you have one, totalling between 3-5% of your compensation or whatever your company’s matching policy is (That’s not free money, it’s part of your compensation package. Not claiming it is like waving a portion of your income).

2. Pay off all debt since interest is essentially paying a percentage-based monthly fee for owing money and we’re not privileged enough for our assets to cover that expense.

3. Build and maintain a liquid (cash) holding as an emergency fund. This isn’t for investing or expensive new toys, it’s insurance that will cover your expenses for 6-12 months. Put it in a high-yield savings account or money market since it will be a significant sum and inflation will otherwise reduce its value over time.

4. Max out your retirement accounts to the contribution limit, your 401(k), IRA, and HSA if you have one. These accounts have tax advantages that essentially mean you can put more money towards retirement than you could in an individual trading account. This doesn’t have to be one lump sum, you can divide it up into monthly contributions so long as you’re on track for maxing your contribution limits by the end of the year.

5. Open an individual trading account with a broker (Vanguard, Fidelity, etc.) and invest in index funds (3-fund portfolios are reliable and low-cost). If you anticipate a significant expense over the next 10 years, i.e. a down payment for a house you can budget between this and the funds going towards Step 4 but keep in mind the tax advantages of retirement accounts means you’re likely missing out on some retirement gains.

People have lost their lives and homes, and will continue to do so at increasing rates, precisely because of this “now is not the time for politics” sentiment when it comes to climate change. The longer we kick the can down the road, the more people are going to be killed or displaced because of it.

To be fair, it’s one of the more reasonable superstitions considering the potential of being hit by a heavy falling object.

For me it’s more about not subjecting a person to my own residual trauma and a society that’s accelerating towards self-annihilation

The Beatles were also repetitive, dry, corny and cringe but I think you’d have a hard time making the argument that they suck because of that.

No, I’ve lived in suburbs for much of my adult life and I have no interest in that lifestyle. Much like the family in the article, I make enough to rent in the city. But it sucks knowing that living where I want to be comes at the cost of spending the money I could be using to invest in my community and improve the home I’m living in instead to line the pockets of somebody who was either lucky enough to own the land before property hyperinflation or wealthy enough to purchase it after the fact.

It all seems beyond insane to me considering that records show houses in my modest, outer-city neighborhood were selling for around $50k in the early 2000s that now have a market value of over $800k.

I’ve been house browsing in the Portland area for a couple years and am losing hope of ever being able to afford one. Last year I saw a frame of a house, basically a roof on studs with tarp and plywood as the “walls” being listed for sale. They were asking for $300k.

In b4 we all start cosplaying as impoverished people to go grocery shopping.

They also cause fires, severely injure and kill people, trigger people with PTSD, frighten animals and disrupt local wildlife.

Winter is Coming - Light has been my main VS Code theme for years. Alas, no senior title yet…

I’ve got two monitors which mostly ends up meaning I have twice the amount of screen to lose application windows in.

In the fridge (based on a true story)

Somebody on RuneScape back in the early 2000s threatened to report me if I didn’t tell them my password and so I reluctantly told them and immediately got locked out of my free, low level account :⁠-⁠(