71F, 94%RH and yep, back in Houston…
Still, it looks like a nice day outside.– EDIT — started raining đ
This week, instead of what you did to prep specifically, what made you what you are today? What changed you path or set you on the right path? Whether guidance, a person who helped, habits, tips and tricks, or ‘words to live by’, what do you tell a promising kid who needs just a bit of guidance?
For me it was a couple of things, and some minor things helped.
I was deep in credit card and student loan debt. I’d just realized that I’d made it thru my youth and probably WASN’T gonna die young. Suddenly I decided I’d better get myself and life in order for the long haul.
So.
I had a steady job I was good at that paid pretty well, but lots of debt. My roommate (R.N.-a great guy) told me that if I wanted to succeed, I needed to save 10% of every dollar I made. Just deposit my check, and make a 10% transfer every time. Kick start the savings by trying to get thru one pay period without cashing my check, then deposit that in savings. That way, you see yourself making progress.
The rest was simple but hard. Get rid of credit card debt. I did this legally, but the laws have changed to make it harder. If you do the math and see where you will be in ten years if you continue on, or if you take drastic action, you’ll be convinced to just do it.
Get rid of consumer and school debt. You are ruining your credit anyway (it’s probably already ruined by all your credit cards) so do it all. If you don’t pay your student loans they will eventually settle for whatever they can get. Save your cash, make them an offer. Pay them off one at a time IN FULL and at reduced totals.
Get right with the IRS. They will work with you, but you’ve gotta do it and stick to it.
The KEY to this was saving cash. Without that initial 10% saved, I wouldn’t have been able to do any of the rest.
That was the point my life turned around. I went from living in the moment, and changed my focus to longer term. I started saving money so I had options and flexibility.
A while later, in a different city, and a different life (made possible by having money in the bank) a good friend told me to make a 10 year plan. What did I want in ten years? How could I get it? Making the list (home of my own, debt free, money in the bank, start a family) lets you decide if you are making progress or not. It lets you judge choices. It took me FIFTEEN years, but I got there.
Finally, two minor things have helped more recently.
Break your addiction to the “Snooze” button. If you are hitting it more than once, you aren’t getting any more good sleep, and you aren’t getting up. Set it for your final awake time. GET UP and just get started on the day. Set a backup if you don’t trust the alarm or yourself. In a while, you will both start to wake up, and trust the alarm. This has made a big difference in my mornings.
The second is something I read, that was very hard to internalize but helped me a lot in my work and relationships with people in general. Indra Noori (CEO of Pepsico) said the best advice she ever got was to “assume positive intent”. In other words, assume people aren’t trying to screw you no matter what it looks like initially. Most people are not villains. Most are doing the best they can with what they have and what they know. It may screw you anyway, but that’s not usually their goal, they just want to get thru the day and go home. Changing your default assumption will change the ‘color’ of every interaction and opens up a wider range of solutions to any problems that come up. Seriously, this helped a lot.
So, what or who helped you prep for life?
n
@Nick,
Good words, and now I have to think about it. I’m working at making my life better, and your words help.
And I’m going to steal your second point. It’s something I believe most of the time anyway. I’ve never seen it put so well.
My thanks.
It helps that I grew up with parents who grew up on farms during The Great Depression. Sure I wanted to be lazy, what kid doesn’t, but I found that there was satisfaction in good hard work and doing what was right. I value my time and my money. Being prepared was a way of life back then, that’s how I grew up and that’s how we live every day.
Sure, I failed. Got enticed by Amway and allowed the credit cards to get out of line. Tried to work it out but one credit card company spoiled it for all and we declared bankruptcy.
We then set about paying off the credit card companies that had wanted to work with us. It took us five years, but we also saved during this time. Every raise I or my Wife got was put into savings, not things. We can now easily live off of Social inSecurity alone, with our IRAs/401Ks/457Bs/Deferred Compensation there for emergencies and when Social inSecurity goes away (pay attention, when not if).
We have taught the Kids the same, they save over 20% and all raises go to more savings. They have ZERO school debt and new cars that they paid cash for.
The misguided youth of today:
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/article205447734.html
Final word of advice:
Make a decision, then make it right.
Most people are not villains. Most are doing the best they can with what they have and what they know. It may screw you anyway, but thatâs not usually their goal, they just want to get thru the day and go home.
Sorry. I’ve worked for a lot of “high functioning sociopaths”. Maybe it is the nature of tech work or telecommunications companies — I’ve worked for both VZ and the Death Star. Academia administration is a league of mental illness all its own.
Before the new job came up, I was seriously considering calling it a career once I hit the year mark at CGI.
I guess I’m lucky in some ways. When I started off on my own, I wasn’t finished with school yet. I moved into an apartment, and made enough to cover all my bills. I had envelopes that I kept for each major category, and it helped me learn to budget. And yes, I had never even heard of Dave Ramsey…this was in 1997 or so…was he even national then? Anyways, the next year I moved to another state (for my girfriend, now wife). I got my first real job, and never looked back. I never had (and still never have had) any credit card debt. No student loans either – was lucky that parents paid for it.
One big thing I did when I first started out, was not only to save money, but to save enough to where I was a month ahead. In other words, when the month started, I already had the previous months paychecks in checking ready for the months expenses. I didn’t, and still don’t, count this as savings, its just a buffer.
Thins are a little more complex now, but the basics still apply.
Newsom is getting some shade from the female candidate in CA. I guess Newsom is a horndog, too. This will be interesting.
@greg, the post was getting long, so I didn’t mention this point. If you do find actual villains, separate yourself from them.
This is a key point. Surround yourself with people that are what you would like to be, as much as possible. If you hang out with thieving scumbags, you will soon act like one. If you hang out with positive and successful people you will become more like them. It has been shown (to my satisfaction at least) that it’s easier to be dragged down than to be pushed up.
The transition can be difficult. The new group will see you as where you come from and be reluctant to accept that you wish to be different. It may take a transitional group that is ‘just a bit better’ to help you move along.
I acknowledge that the world of work, and some fields in particular seem to have higher than normal percentages of sociopaths. The Noori quote doesn’t negate that, it just changes how YOU relate to the people and situations you find yourself in. Even sociopaths don’t think of themselves as the bad guy in the story. Assume positive intent. Assume they aren’t screwing you intentionally, they are doing what they think is right based on their knowledge and skills (or lack of same). If they think they are right, they are NOT gonna change for you. If you can see WHY they think they are in the right, you can work with or around that to get what you need.
If you determine that they are NOT starting with positive intent, that’s worth knowing too, and will determine how you continue in your relationship with them. I recommend avoiding them if possible. There is enough bad sh!t in the world, you don’t need to add more into your life.
Is the constant battle and stress of dealing with lying abusive sociopaths worth it? Will you stay there while it destroys your family and homelife by turning you into someone who can survive in that environment?
Financial security gives you options. That’s really why I concentrated on that. Once you have your finances in order, you can make changes in the other areas of your life.
n
(I’ll state that you don’t need to progress serially thru this, you can and should work on these things in parallel. Don’t try for more than a couple at a time as that will almost always fail due to natural inertia.)
#1 – I never expected to live past 50. I lived a fast life with lots of motorcycle time and sports like skydiving so the prospect of old age never occured to me. Until I watched the turn of the century from a rooftop in London and realized I was 50. YIKES.
#2 – But still, I had a good IT management job with a huge international telco and over $750,000 in stock options so what could go wrong?
#3 – Then a couple of years later I am in Hong Kong with no job and no stock and no prospects when MCI folds leaving me without a pension.
#4 – I read Robert Kiyosaki’s book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” and it completely transformed my thinking. I took a small inheritance and used it to build an ATM business, small real estate holdings, and a self-storage facility. My son left his construction job to run these for me until I end my IT career.
I may not have much in “savings” but I have a couple of millions in properties and investments and five completely paid for houses. Looking forward to a busy retirement in the next year or so when I quit IT and take over my ATMs full time.
Newsom is getting some shade from the female candidate in CA. I guess Newsom is a horndog, too. This will be interesting.
Newsom is Moonbeam’s heir apparent. The party is probably testing the damage control apparatus for Newsom’s inevitable 2020 Presidential run if Trump looks vulnerable after the midterms in November.
I think Governor Newsom is a foregone conclusion unless he’s done something *really* outrageous by Dem standards. And, remember, this is the party of Larry Clinton, with many of the same Silicon Valley money people supporting Newsom — “outrageous” would have to be pretty bad.
I recently heard some guy on the radio talking about retirement. He said you need to change your thinking. You don’t want a big pile of money in the bank, the .gov will steal it or inflate it away. You want income streams. Preferably income streams that will track inflation so that you can continue to meet your expenses.
This simple idea changed my thinking on “saving” for retirement.
n
@Nick said:
” You donât want a big pile of money in the bank, the .gov will steal it or inflate it away. You want income streams.”
.gov can get those income streams too. As long as you consider nothing safe or a sure bet and diversify everything (assets and locations) you will be about as prepared as you can be.
.gov already has me locked in for the next couple of years with health insurance for the spouse. I cannot draw on any 401K’s or other tax deferred instruments until she gets on Medi-we-dont-care.
I got laid off several years ago at the end of 1993. Did not have a job for several months and was down to my last couple hundred dollars. I had known a year in advance and prepared as much as I could but the car loans, credit card debt, etc. made that a struggle.
I kept the wife and son informed of our situation. Very limited Christmas for 1993. Surprisingly the son understood. But it was still tough when we got invited to some friends house for Christmas and he got to watch the other kids open lots of expensive presents and my son only had a couple of presents. I know material things suck, but it was still hard on my emotions. About three months into the no-work situation the son offered me his allowance and said he would mow lawns for money if that would help.
After going through that I made a vow to become debt free within 10 years. No home loan, no car loan, no credit card debt. I made it and now realize what a trap credit card debt can become. Home loan is not so bad as you have equity to back up the loan. Car loans you may have enough value in the car to cover the loan. But credit cards, those really suck.
I still have credit cards, you cannot live without them. I pay them online two, sometimes, three times a month when the balance gets high. Thus paying no interest as I never carry a balance. I put a lot on my Costco credit card because of the money earned. Last year was over $700.00 in rebates. The Costco Citi card no longer charges foreign transaction fees so that card will be used extensively on our upcoming Europe trip.
When spousal unit gets on Medi-we-don’t-care I will be talking with my financial adviser about moving money into income streams. I can live, not well, on SS, VA, and a small retirement. But I want to do more. That is why I saved the money. I want to have no money in savings by the time I turn 80 years old. Let the damn government (well the taxpayers) take care of me. I will be damned if I want to give that money to a nursing home.
Another option floated by my financial adviser is a reverse mortgage. He generally does not like them but in my case says it may make senses. My son has no interest in dealing with the house or the selling of the house when I die. With a reverse mortgage I can get a monthly income stream and when I die the house becomes the problem of the mortgage holder. They can fix the problems and deal with selling the house. We have no intention of moving and a reverse mortgage may be a decent option. Use that equity for myself, not my heirs.
And when I go into a nursing home and .gov looks for assets they can deal with the mortgage company, probably put a lien on the house. Screw the mortgage company if they lose money on the deal and get nothing. Screw .gov if they get nothing.
Anyway, got my train tickets for use in Germany. Seven days within a 30 day period, do not have to be contiguous, first class, all day, any train, anywhere in Germany, two adults, for $570.00. Just the train from Frankfurt to Haltern for two of us would be $200.00. We will be making six trips, a couple of them over three hours. The tickets are a bargain.
I order them on the DB website and have them mailed to my house. Took about a week to get the tickets. A single piece of paper. You fill in the start date when you take your first train trip. Then you fill in each day that you travel when you start the travel. Have to be careful as it DD/MM not MM/DD is in the US. Made that mistake once last year but the ticket checker understood and notched the day traveling.
Timely
https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/7-lies-will-keep-ever-reaching-potential/
Like Nick, mostly right.
Success is a long, winding road and everybody on it gets his face smashed in the dirt now and again. It doesnât mean youâre a failure when that happens; it just means youâre like all the other successful people.
Let the damn government (well the taxpayers) take care of me. I will be damned if I want to give that money to a nursing home.
If you don’t have enough money to pay for a nursing home then you will go to a Medicaid home. Do you like the smell of urine ? Personally, I would rather choose my nursing home like my father-in-law does.
If you donât pay your student loans they will eventually settle for whatever they can get.
I wouldn’t count on this. If you have a federally insured one, you may be on the hook for the balance between what you pay the lender and the total amount. And it isn’t dischargable in bankruptcy except in the most extreme cases (i.e. total disability, etc.)
I read Robert Kiyosakiâs book âRich Dad Poor Dadâ and it completely transformed my thinking.
Glad it worked for you. The book seems to contain a fair amount of fiction and bad advice.
“Baker Hughes: US rig count gains 6 units to 990”
https://www.ogj.com/articles/2018/03/baker-hughes-us-rig-count-gains-6-units-to-990.html
“The US drilling rig count gained 6 units to 990 working during the week ended Mar. 16, data from Baker Hughes indicate. This total is up 201 units from a year ago.”
492 of the rigs are working in Texas. I imagine that they are watching their nickles and dimes, no overtime allowed.
If I could make a YouTube video about the Florida bridge collapse it would be something like this. Some language a bit profane.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=17&v=ioC61QW7SHQ
You know, it almost looks like the bridge was built using a modified Hardieplank. Surely not.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/miami-dade/fl-reg-fiu-bridge-collapse-20180315-story.html
“I wouldnât count on this. If you have a federally insured one, you may be on the hook for the balance between what you pay the lender and the total amount.” [unless something has changed, I’ve never seen this.]
It’s what I did. Let them hang for as long as it takes you to get the money together. Let it go to collection. The collection agency is happy to take whatever they can get, the original lender got the .fed guarantee (or one of the dozen ‘servicing companies’ who bought and sold the loans did.)
You’ve screwed your credit when you let the first card go ninety days, and then charge off, might as well get some benefit from the credit purgatory you’ll be in the next ten years.
Also, never admit to a past bankruptcy to a current bill collector. They’ll put that note right back in your file, and it will be there from then on, not just during the 10 years it stays there from the court order.
n
Google Fiber guy just left the house, and it’s up and running. There was a little bit of a problem. He cut a hole in the drywall in the wrong spot – one cavity over from where he should have. This was after I showed him the measurements. Hell, I even have a picture of the wall before sheetrock went on, showing where everything is at. In the end he got the second hole in the right spot. The outside install looks nice. The fiber jack inside is right beside a Cat6 jack, so I have it connected to that and the network box is upstairs with the other equipment. I could have had the fiber jack installed upstairs, but I didn’t want a fiber cable running up the side of the house – errr, I mean the wife would have had serious objections to that….
Anyways, I got the 100 Mbit service, and it’s nice. I don’t like Google’s network box. It is a basic router/wireless AP. You can’t have the device function only as a router (like you can with a cable modem). So my only option to continue using my Cisco ASA firewall is to set it up in the dmz and forward everything through that. So far it’s working ok. I’ve tested from the outside and can hit my mail server by IP. I’m waiting for DNS to update to check name resolution.
And I’ve already called Comcast to cancel that service. A truly happy day!
A low voltage trim ring and a blank plate will fix the missed stud cavity…. <$10 but it sounds like that shouldn't have been needed... They (Comcast) pulled the fiber to my pole, switched over, and installed the media converters last week. No visible change in our service as it's still coax to the house, and the same modem. Supposed to be faster and more robust. Def should enable higher speeds in future. The technical thing I'm hoping for and haven't checked yet is that my ping times and number of hops will decrease now that the fiber is in place. I had dozens of hops just to get out of Houston, each with latency. nick
Hmm, 23 hops to microsoft.com and the last 12 on msn.net with average 150ms times…
Tracing route to microsoft.com [104.40.211.35]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms 10 ms 7 ms 192.168.1.1
2 3 ms 2 ms 14 ms 10.0.0.1
3 15 ms 13 ms 16 ms 96.120.16.169
4 52 ms 35 ms 27 ms ae-209-sur03.tidwell.tx.houston.comcast.net [69.
139.209.237]
5 96 ms 13 ms 11 ms ae-60-ar01.bearcreek.tx.houston.comcast.net [68.
85.245.201]
6 46 ms 23 ms 27 ms be-33662-cr02.dallas.tx.ibone.comcast.net [68.86
.92.61]
7 27 ms 23 ms 24 ms be-12493-pe01.houston.tx.ibone.comcast.net [68.8
6.84.158]
8 23 ms 22 ms 32 ms 50.248.118.54
9 23 ms 32 ms 40 ms ae0-0.hou01-96cbe-1b.ntwk.msn.net [104.44.226.22
7]
10 28 ms 29 ms 29 ms ae5-0.sn1-96cb-1b.ntwk.msn.net [104.44.227.253]
11 135 ms 138 ms 158 ms be-84-0.ibr02.sn4.ntwk.msn.net [104.44.9.74]
12 132 ms 139 ms 135 ms be-6-0.ibr01.atb.ntwk.msn.net [104.44.4.46]
13 140 ms 139 ms 141 ms be-3-0.ibr03.atb.ntwk.msn.net [104.44.4.43]
14 138 ms 165 ms 134 ms be-4-0.ibr01.was05.ntwk.msn.net [104.44.4.22]
15 135 ms 145 ms 135 ms be-1-0.ibr02.was05.ntwk.msn.net [104.44.4.19]
16 140 ms 271 ms 147 ms be-6-0.ibr02.nyc30.ntwk.msn.net [104.44.4.28]
17 140 ms 140 ms 140 ms be-12-0.ibr02.lon30.ntwk.msn.net [104.44.5.107]
18 138 ms 157 ms 134 ms be-1-0.ibr01.lon30.ntwk.msn.net [104.44.5.36]
19 180 ms 151 ms 136 ms be-2-0.ibr01.lts.ntwk.msn.net [104.44.5.39]
20 136 ms 141 ms 158 ms be-5-0.ibr01.amb.ntwk.msn.net [104.44.4.232]
21 140 ms 140 ms 136 ms be-1-0.ibr02.amb.ntwk.msn.net [104.44.4.212]
22 202 ms 147 ms 140 ms be-2-0.ibr02.ams06.ntwk.msn.net [104.44.5.44]
23 134 ms 133 ms 187 ms ae122-0.icr04.ams06.ntwk.msn.net [104.44.10.77]
Hmm, what's up with hop 8? back to houston? local caching? if so it sure is slow....
n
You know, it almost looks like the bridge was built using a modified Hardieplank. Surely not.
From what I read, the bridge is a suspension concept, similar to the same firm’s design for the Sunshine Skyway bridge which has stood at the mouth of Tampa Bay since replacing the original bridge in the mid-80s. For some reason, the base was moved into place without the tower and cable system being attached.
Miami. If I had to guess, somebody’s cousin supplied the concrete and cut corners on the mix betting that the cables would be attached immediately. When discovered, the cracks in the concrete could always be blamed on the non-traditional design … IIRC just like they’ve done with the Skyway over the years.
Hmm, 23 hops to microsoft.com and the last 12 on msn.net with average 150ms timesâŚ
Hmm, what’s up with hop 8? back to houston? local caching? if so it sure is slow….
n
Microsoft.com does not terminate in Seattle IIRC. They were in San Jose when I worked for the Death Star.
San Jose terminates a nice fat fiber bundle running up over the hills from Monterey. The union thugs nailed that sucker in the run-up to what was supposed to be a big strike year for them in 2009.
“National debt hits $21 trillion”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/national-debt-hits-21-trillion
I don’t know how to fix this. The collection day will come someday though. I am betting ten to fifteen years off though.
Hat tip to:
http://drudgereport.com/
Prepping.
Bought a bigger propane tank. Bought a propane burner head to fit on the small 20# tanks. I’d been planning to get the el cheapo Harbor Freight unit, but the Mr. Heater unit was literally a dollar more. It’s made in mainland China now, so it’s not well built as it once was, but they apparently have *some* quality control, so it’s a better bet.
Fiber.
I’ve heard of it. Out here it’s 12Mb DSL and, given the Yelp ratings of the local wireless and satellite providers, glad to get it (it took ten weeks..).
Windows updates.
The bog standard two year old I5 Win10 laptop was put away for about three months during the move. When I booted it about a month ago, it then took three days to install various upgrades. Two weeks later it took about a day to install more upgrades. A week ago it took about six hours. Yesterday it took about three hours. These times include some overnight periods, when I wasn’t available to hit “continue” or “reboot”, but still, 100 enforced hours lost time to do upgrades?
As far as I can tell I’m up to date now (1709), but I imagine there is a “spring creators” update in the pipeline. This is insane. It’s just an annoyance to me, but what do people whose business depends on uptime do?
Student Protests.
My friends kids were talking about the local JC protests Wednesday. There were the usual loud progressive types making noise, and the entire school had a mandatory 17 minutes of silence for the Highland kids that were killed. I suggested they wear their MAGA hats and NRA t-shirts: they replied that they’d probably get expelled. One had already been kicked out of his school club for a minor non-PC joke. Intimidation works.
Most people are not villians. True, although villains do exist. So does another category: the incompetent. People who expand one’s understanding of the old saying: “Never attribute to malice what is adequately explained by incompetence.” Hand them a solution on a platter, and watch them turn the platter upside down to see what’s written on the bottom. Hand them a second solution on a second platter, and they trip and drop it on the floor.
Apropos of nothing at all, let me just toss out a random factoid: In the past few months I have (literally) doubled my dosage of blood pressure medication. Thankfully, I expect this to be temporary…
@Ray: Enjoy your time in Germany. Wave at us, if you pass near Switzerland đ
@Nick: For grins, I did a traceroute to Microsoft, to compare with yours. 30 hopes total. The first 5 hops are all in Europe, under 20ms. Then the transatlantic link on ip-plus.net and immediately (the very next hop) into msn.net in North America, at 111ms. Hops 7-17 wander around inside msn.net, all under 120ms. Then the final 13 hops give no information (just * * *), no matter how high I set the timeout. Some sort of hidden internal nodes?
@lynn said:
“I donât know how to fix this. The collection day will come someday though. I am betting ten to fifteen years off though.”
The way to fix this is to bring back the Biblical Jubilee.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_(biblical)
Do that or prepare for the completion of Armageddon.
@lynn said:
âI donât know how to fix this. The collection day will come someday though. I am betting ten to fifteen years off though.â
The way to fix this is to bring back the Biblical Jubilee.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_(biblical)
Do that or prepare for the completion of Armageddon.
Hmm. If I owned any tbills, I would sell them …
As usual nowadays with all of the apocalyptic fiction, there is a story about this:
https://www.amazon.com/Buck-Out-Ken-Benton/dp/1514666979/
If you donât have enough money to pay for a nursing home then you will go to a Medicaid home.
Place my aunt was in, in Harriman TN, was OK. No urine smell, disinfectant smell sort of. Best I can describe it just smelled like old people. Place was clean, staff was pleasant. When I get to be 80 I will probably not enough left of my brain to know any better.
Do you like the smell of urine?
I will probably contribute, drop a few logs in my diaper or on the floor. Make them work for their money.
Wave at us, if you pass near Switzerland
@Brad. Have been there on three different trips, no plans this time. Have been to Luzern,Bern, Jungfrau, Lauterbrunnen on one trip. Next trip was to the Eiger spending the night in Lauterbrunnen. Third trip was to visit the ice cave Eisriesenwelt. Boardwalks were slippery and I fell and cut my head fairly badly. Good trips. I want to go back to the Eiger.
Well, the rain stopped, the sun came out, and I got to dig out my hamfest stuff. Loaded the truck, and tried to put my vertical antenna on the pipe… no luck, got the diameter of the sleeve wrong. Oh well, I’ll just cut a pipe for a sleeve, but it means more time spent on the “30 minute” job.
Got my bank together, the truck loaded, and getting ready for bed. Need to head out early tomorrow to get set up in time for the early birds. They flock thru the swapmeet area and swoop up all the good stuff. I want them to be swooping thru my junk this time.
n
added- scheduled tomorrow’s post to drop at 6:41 am, don’t know which time zone. I’ll check at some point and make sure it posted.
This:
“This is a key point. Surround yourself with people that are what you would like to be, as much as possible. If you hang out with thieving scumbags, you will soon act like one. If you hang out with positive and successful people you will become more like them. It has been shown (to my satisfaction at least) that itâs easier to be dragged down than to be pushed up.”
is the best advice you can give your children. I’ve seen more than one decent but directionless person make bad choices that destroyed their futures. No matter how much they profess to like you, in the end, this is the truth. “If it comes down to me or you, it’s you.”