Hot, but a little bit cooler. National map has us on the edge of a system for the next couple of days, and we seem to be getting some overcast and cloudiness. That is definitely helping with the overall temps, but it’s still hot and humid by any measure. Only 103F in the shade yesterday. It was less than 100F for longer though, and cooler overnight. We may finally be getting a break.
I did my auction pickup (for the BOL) and chatted with the auctioneer for a bit. He’s noticing several new businesses opening that have bins full of merch from the same sort of sources he has. They have different models for selling. He’s going to try some new stuff too. There is a lot of competition in the secondary/reseller space, and a lot of evolving business models. I think that like most markets, it will consolidate and regularize and that will happen fairly soon. Some deep pocket big players will enter the field and the mom-n-pops will be forced out. Year, maybe two…
D1 hurt herself at school, so picking her up killed my late afternoon plans. Nothing too serious, just bruising. We went grocery shopping instead. I scored some meat, finally. Choice sirloin cap roasts, $5.50/pound. I bought 5 or 6 for the freezer. Made one for dinner that was well received. In the store I was giving lessons on prices, grades, moving up and down market, and inflation. They had very few items on sale this month. Lays Classic potato chips are now $5/bag. They used to be $2.50 for the same “party size”. That’s 100% price increase in a year or two. Other items are up 30-50%. And there were things I would normally buy that weren’t available. The bill is getting bigger, and the shopping cart isn’t as full…
Today is another auction pickup day, but also a drop off day. I’ve got a pickup truck load for the auctioneer. It would also be nice to do settlement and get paid for a few of the previous auctions. I’ve been letting that slide for various reasons, but I don’t want to get too far behind. And some money coming in never hurts.
Some of it I’m stacking. Some of it I’m using for improvements. Some is just daily living. But all of it is cheaper through the auctions and thrift stores than it would be through retail.
Save some money, use it for stacking!
nick
Our household shopping basket has gone up from +/- EUR 100 to +/- EUR 180. Inflation is real.
Over 40 years ago, Heinlein wrote that when he made his first story sale, $50 of groceries would fill a station wagon. “Now I can pick up $50 of groceries unaided. Perhaps I’m getting stronger.” Today, I could fit $50 of food into one plastic grocery bag. Except, of course, plastic grocery bags are banned in NYS.
(C’mon, family members, shuffle off this mortal coil so that I can shuffle out of NY…)
(Mostly joking but not quite entirely.)
A response is coming to me. Rhymes with “mo yama”…
I can’t quite track individual grocery item price increases over the years because someone-who-isn’t-me threw away my shoebox of grocery receipts which I’d kept for almost ten years, I’ve changed items as tastes change or as gaps have appeared on shelves or as some things become more expensive than I’m willing to pay, and the number of people I’m feeding changes.
Despite all that, I can confidently assert that food prices are going up at well over 4% or 8% or whatever the government-supplied number is. I’d say it’s in the ballpark of 25% per year but that’s barely better than a guess.
Gasoline prices have been heading back up, too. $3.799 for regular unleaded, up to 10% alcohol, at the cheapest place around; everywhere else was at least $3.899 for the same. No-alcohol premium for the mower was $4.699 at the same place.
(And I annoyed myself by putting a gallon in the gas can because I’d meant to empty it and replace the EPA-approved spout with one that works.)
Switzerland claims a low inflation rate, but it’s hard to say how they come to that. Housing is rapidly getting more expensive – tight zoning restrictions restrict building. Renting (which is common here) is tied to mortgage interest rates, which have gone up, so renters get hit twice as hard. I haven’t measured food prices in any disciplined way, but I have regular “sticker shock”, so they are definitely going up.
Coming up on retirement, this is one of those things that worries me. We have enough to retire at today’s price levels. With cumulative inflation over 20 or 30 years? Not so sure…
Biden to Lahaina families: I experienced a housefire too, you know
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2023/08/22/biden-to-lahaina-families-i-experienced-a-housefire-too-you-know-n572748
Can’t wait to hear his story after getting an earfull from a UFO abductee.
I have a cold, so I’m kind of taking the day off from work. Instead, I rearranged a bunch of network hardware (and software) in the house. Replugging cables, getting devices hooked up over their horrible firmware interfaces, etc. Just a big clean-up round that I’ve been putting off for ages.
Sometimes, you have to wonder what engineers who design devices are thinking. Just one example: I had a device attached with an ethernet cable, but I really wanted it on wifi instead. I tried to change the network settings, but no: the wifi settings are disabled if it’s plugged into the network. Of course, if I unplug it, I have no way to enter the wifi settings. The only solution was a full factory reset, and setting it up all over again…
So that was my day so far. One device left to tackle, but my patience is all done. I think our home network is too complicated…
It’s hot here, too. At least, hot for Switzerland, with temps in the mid-30s (mid-90s, for you barbarians). My turn to walk the dog, but between having a cold (who gets a cold in summer?) and the heat, I’m not going to be very ambitious…
Interest rates are heading towards 8% here, which should be cratering the housing market, but the various levels of government and the banks have to keep the party going so all kinds of tricks get employed.
Over the last few months, through my wife’s nephew, I’ve become aware how much the military has been bought off with perks like housing assistance to look the other way on the Ukraine situation, no matter where it leads.
House prices are just another form of control.
Switzerland claims a low inflation rate, but it’s hard to say how they come to that. Housing is rapidly getting more expensive
– The US accomplishes it by not counting housing, transportation, or food, iirc. Using the older, historical method, inflation is 8-10x the current ‘official’ rate.
Much like the Dow Jones Industrial index or the NASDAQ, they adjust the basket of stocks over time to manipulate the number.
n
plugs is a total disaster. I guess the Dumbocrats will run him since the Redumblicans are so spineless and inept that they can’t come up with a viable candidate. When top Redumblicans say they won’t vote for tRump if he wins the primaries, you know the fix is in.
When the Redumblicans ran Bishop Mittens against Obola, I left the party and didn’t look back. The party has been a disaster ever since.
I was surprised plugs didn’t work in a “Beaux died in a burn barrel fire, in Iraq, you know, so I know how you feel” comment.
Back to school time (mid-august) is the major cold time in Florida. So summer colds are the norm.
Just a bit cooler this morning. Some cloud cover.
Bus was 10 minutes late.
I’m sleepy this am.
n
summer colds
– absent a negative wuflu test, I’m gonna say that this year, right now, it looks like the new variant burning thru the population.
I was sick with cold symptoms, so was D1, and we didn’t test. My auctioneer closed his shop for 3 days when one employee with cold symptoms popped positive last week.
Whether or not it’s more or less than a cold, the test is picking up on it, and I think that’s what’s going around at the moment.
n
Biden doesn’t know if he’ll end up on a debate stage with DeSantis, who has real medals from his service in Iraq.
Fallujah, not a Green Zone bunker which allowed Beau to continue running the Delaware Attorney General’s Office and explore a Senate campaign for Scranton Joe’s vacated seat.
The “good” son.
WRT home prices, in places like Houston with high demand, they’re building as fast as they can and people are still buying.
Many of the buyers are from out of state, where they might have sold a very expensive house, and need to roll the money into a new home or pay capital gains tax. This leads them to pay more than they might have if they were not flush with cash.
Oregon, Washington, and Colorado had similar situations in the past when Californians moved there.
I can’t believe the amount of new construction in and around Houston. A lot of it is “brown field” or repurposing industrial or commercial land, and ‘infill’ where the last empty lots in an area are finally built out, or the crappiest house on the block is torn down to build new.
The density goes WAY up when this happens. 1 acre single family lots in my area are being sold to developers who put 12-18 new homes in the same space.
There is so much mixed use development happening ‘inside the Loop’ that all the small existing businesses are being driven out.
It’s all exacerbated by Houston’s lack of zoning rules too.
n
The town we used to live in had a little development, where the houses (which were tiny) were nearly touching. $¾ million each. Crazy, even for Switzerland, but they sold nonetheless.
Houston is similar to Austin in that a lot of H1B/L1 labor is imported to work in technical fields, and Indians prefer new, large houses. Lot size is not as important as interior square footage.
Often, the house purchase gets driven by the wife’s dowry which can be sizeable, easily 100s of thousands.
Austin has become the new “it” destination for Subcontinent the way San Francisco is for Mainland Chinese. Houston is acceptable but not as much of a status symbol.
Move to Austin. Drive a Tonymobile. Live the dream.
We just got 15 or 20 minutes of heavy rainfall. Excellent ! First rain since early June.
Austin will probably get zip out of the storm.
Tomorrow is watering day for most of the addresses in the Fancy Lad part of our MUD. Last week the pressure dropped so low in the system in that part of the community that we had a boil water alert which lasted two days.
Man, oh man, do I hate them Fancy Lads.
Supposed to rain in SA around 6:00pm. In the 50’s at night in Vegas.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/08/biden-falls-asleep-during-the-ceremony-honoring-the-hundreds-who-died-in-hawaii-wildfires/
Wake him when they get back to Tahoe
“What happens if you can’t trust the police to do their job?”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2023/08/what-happens-if-you-cant-trust-police.html
“You get this sort of situation.”
That situation is a low level riot.
https://www.kimdutoit.com/2023/08/22/still-relevant-3/
Wow. We even got a 15-minute shower here in Far West San Antonio, totaling a “trace” of rain. And the air temperature is about 85F, substantially lower than the 2PM temps for the past 3 weeks.
Hoping for a little MORE rain, now.
Amateurs. They’re serious about coordinated/filmed riots in Austin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UULg9qYvjk8
Very glad you’re back to your old self! 😉
Still busy. Still exhausted.
Had to call an ambulance for mother-in-law last week. Wife was unavailable, though we eventually got hold of her, so daughter had to go along to translate. I will say that she handled herself very well throughout, from finding me when she saw Grandma collapsed, to handling most of the 911 call, to going along and translating until my wife got to the hospital. I had to coach her a bit, like telling her to grab a backpack with snacks and a battery pack for her phone, but she handled it all like a champ, calmly and efficiently. So anyway, I had to do a lot of driving to take the kid back and forth to the hospital (70-90 min round trip, with traffic) to see Grandma, on top of doing everything around the house and yard plus earning my paycheck. Passed out this afternoon, but at least I didn’t get imprints of my computer keyboard on my face, heh.
Playing with t-bills over here. I had two 4 week t-bills. I had two deposits today. One for $1000 as expected and one for $4.11. Now I know more. The renewing t-bill pay interest and renews at the current rate which is a little higher, not at what the rate was when I bought it.
On one hand, 26 weeks looks the best. It locks in the rate for 6 months. Currently 5.55%
On the other hand, 4 weeks repeating might pay more if rates keep rising. Although currently 5.39% and over the last month it’s varied up and down .01% rates need to jump a bit to beat the 26 week t-bill. I don’t have the kind of money that 0.2% and change difference in interest is going matter enough to worry about.
I have to think more. Or just do and go drink a beer. Frost is paying 1% on savings. 4.45% on CDs with the kind of money I have. Anything over that is gravy. I have to drive into the edge of Austin to a Frost branch to open a CD. T-bills are clicky-click on-line and done.
So I think I’m going to put most of the proceeds from selling mom’s house into an auto renewing 26 week t-bill. And the rest, after I pay off the truck in a couple of weeks, into a few staggered a couple of weeks apart 4 week t-bills just so it’s not locked up if I need the cash.
It’s a plan. Might not be a good plan. But it’s a plan.
No rain anywhere in Houston that I visited today, except for about 6 drops hitting my windshield when I had a load of stuff for the auction in the back… clouds made me sweat until I had that unloaded.
Picked up my stuff. Dropped off stuff. Got approval to continue dropping off stuff next week too. Got a check. Will get more checks. Payroll comes first, and I totally support them with that. I can wait. Payroll cannot.
Finished listening to the 1st Harry Dresden audiobook and started the second while out today.
Stopped by MicroCenter to get a part. I need a replacement voltage regulator for the little guitar amp I picked up at the bins, and wanted to get working. Since I could drive right past, I decided to stop in on my way home. They had a creality resin 3d printer on sale for $99, so that came home with me. I’ve got one I bought used, that needs attention before I can get it working, so I just bought the new one. I’d promised D2 to get her set up with 3d printing. I got the small filament machine down from the attic, and now this resin machine. We need to find homes for them in her bedroom and get them set up. And I need to get her set up with a TinkerCAD account. She tried but was honest about her age and it required a parent to approve the account.
She has joined the D&D club at school. I’m raising a geek.
n
She has joined the D&D club at school. I’m raising a geek.
Congrats !
Another day, another patch. I just released version 16.17d for a user. And the road never stops …
“FEMA Order Surfaces for Media ‘Blackout’ of Maui Disaster Images”
https://trendingpoliticsnews.com/fema-order-surfaces-knab/
“Among this muffled media landscape comes an anonymous tip: A reported FEMA letter dated August 19, 2023 that urges an official media blackout on new disaster footage.”
So much for freedom of the press.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
I have another thing I need to get done. My HEB 401k has, atm, about $65,000. The balance bounces around enough to make me nervous. 58 grand to 72 grand does not seem stable.
I can get a monthly payout for about 5.5 years if I go with $1000 a month. They hold back 20% for taxes. My income is below where I actually pay any taxes. So I’ll get the 20% back when I file taxes. I need to work the math a bit more and perhaps change that amount.
The money was taken out of my pay pre-tax and my plan is to get it and the earnings back at a low enough level I don’t pay taxes. I didn’t make the rules.
Then , somehow, if the adding machine is correct, I’m hitting 66 in October. WTH? I still have all of my teeth. So getting it all out by time I hit 72 seems like a good idea. Dad made it to 86, Mom to almost 93. I think I’d rather have the money in my savings account and t-bills and cash in mayonnaise jars in the attic than in the 401k.
@paul
I’m confused. HEB should have no say in drawing from your 401k, unless you’re still working or waiting for vesting. You can transfer it to Fidelity or some other brokerage without penalty into an IRA, and then draw down however you please. The 20% withholding seems bogus to me.
Also, you can invest the money, while still in the 401k or IRA, however you see fit. Which can mean T-bills or cash (held at the institution). Or stocks or paper-based gold certificates.
I have 156 friends on farcebook. I go months without logging in, but there are groups I need to check up on, and some family members.
I found out today that a long-time personality in my non-prepping hobby, about my age, received a very high award at the annual convention on Saturday night. He was there to receive it in person.
He did not wake up on Sunday morning. RIP Buzz.
The back side of his business card said (from memory, so a paraphrase): “This card identifies the bearer as a close personal friend of Buzz.”
So I went to my friends listand reviewed it. 8% of my friends are deceased. And that doesn’t count the pederast priest I deleted a year ago, also deceased.
I’m not working and I’m vested. I’m just going by what the website says.
Transferring the money is an option. I know nothing where to transfer to.
The HEB 401k site makes it look like they have to withhold minimum 20% for taxes. But I get that back when I file, so, not a big deal.
HEB has the general fund, the aggressive fund and some kind of general stock market fund. I have it all split up. There is no “buy t-bills” option.
Anyway. If I pull it out slow I don’t have to pay income tax on money that went into the account pre-tax. SS isn’t taxable and I sure don’t make enough interest om my savings account to matter.. My goal from the beginning.
And yeah, I’m confused, too.
But the house and land are paid off other than the annual rent known as property taxes. The truck is almost paid, next month for sure. I just need to have maybe 20 grand in savings in case the well goes to hell.
re: pederast priest
I’m not a believer, but I gave my word prior to marriage that my kids would have a “catholic education”. Given my knowledge of English, I hedged, hence the lower case “c”, but nonetheless all three boys went to parochial school through 8th grade, and two of them through high school. I also added to their education when I could, although I have to say they really received good schooling. The Catholics in that area made it clear. They teach religion in the religion classes, and science in the science classes. When there’s conflict, you need to deal with it on your own. But there was seldom conflict.
Wife (now ex-wife) and I made a point to get to know all the parish priests well. We hung out with them, played volleyball with them, sat on school committees with them, had them to dinner, went to shows with them.
My middle son dabbled in stand-up comedy for a while, and one of his self-deprecating stories was along the lines of: “I was so ugly as a kid, even the priests wouldn’t go after me.” This was after one of the retired priests died, and it was discovered he was on the repeat offenders “naughty” list.
Now that they’re all adults, I let them in on a secret. Every one of the priests who ate dinner at our house heard me guide the conversation to my hobbies. Besides home-brewing, music, and theater, I also mentioned my interest in firearms and reloading. And I told them all the amusing story about the neighbor whose dog attacked my youngest in the park. And how I walked up to the neighbor’s house, with his rottweiler on a chain, and told him if I ever saw the dog running loose again, “I have a shotgun and I know how to use it.”
The story was true. The telling of it was both deliberate and passionate.
The end result seems to be as I had hoped.
From yesterday:
Margaret Hamilton is still with us.
Quite common, may even be an IRS requirement. TIAA-CREF withholds 20% mandatory and they would not budge on reducing the amount withheld.
TIAA-CREF 401K is a 10 year payout. Unless I die.
Interesting. Empower IRA withholds 10% for tax, but I can select more, and if I can justify it, could request less. I’m not sure what rationale or justification they would need.
@steveF, your years of setting examples and teaching your daughter the details of how to behave in difficult situations is paying off. You deserve praise, and should share some of it with her. It never hurts to call attention to what may seem obvious.
I rolled over my TIAA 401k (actually a 403b or something like that) to a TDAmeritrade IRA, and ultimately to Fidelity Of course, that was after I got fired. Not in Houston; I’ve been fired twice and laid off twice. The first firing was me getting caught in the crossfire of a Jesuit university power struggle. Collateral damage.
I haven’t taken funds from my retirement accounts lately, so I don’t know how they’re rigging the mandatory withholding these days.
I suppose I need to look into that before I reach the age of RMD.
Yep, as the penalties for not pulling the proper amount of funds are significant. The RMD does not have to come from multiple accounts with a few exceptions. Pulling the required RMD from just one account is generally enough to satisfy the RMD. I am affected next year. The IRS will get their pound of flesh.
Interesting. Empower IRA withholds 10% for tax, but I can select more, and if I can justify it, could request less. I’m not sure what rationale or justification they would need.
I’ve got my wife withholding 30% on the Fidelity IRA that she inherited from her father since we are both still working. He passed in 2020 so she has seven more years to distribute it to herself. She is taking extra just to make sure.
“Joe Biden Spits on Constitution Again and Announces New Student Loan Bailout Scheme – Will Cost Taxpayers Hundreds of Billions of Dollars (VIDEO)”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/joe-biden-spits-constitution-again-announces-new-student/
Biden is getting desperate for votes and wants to buy votes with our money.
She deserves the praise and I’ll take just a sliver, for showing over the years how I handle emergencies calmly and effectively. Albeit with profanity usually following the resolution.
Somewhat related to that, when my not-yet-wife’s son first arrived in the US, he didn’t speak any English on arrival so I put a lot of time into helping him learn, but even for a bright eight-year-old it takes a while to pick it up. Except… I drove him to school in the morning because her job schedule interfered. One day during his second week in the country, someone blasted out of a driveway right in front of me. I avoided an accident, and yelled “Shit!” while doing so. See if you can guess what word the kid picked up after hearing it only once.
“An Officer’s Duty (Theirs Not to Reason Why Book 2)” by Jean Johnson
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1937007693?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number two of a five book military science fiction paranormal series. I reread the well printed and well bound MMPB published by Ace in 2012 that I just rebought new from Amazon. This is my third or fourth reading of the book and series. I am reading book three now and have ordered books four and five.
Ia is a heavyworlder, born in the year 2472 and raised on the independent colony world Sanctuary, a 3.2 gravity newly colonized planet. At 15 years of age in 2487, Ia experienced the awakening of her precognitive and telekinetic abilities. Being one of the strongest precognitives ever known, she watched the future invasion of the Milky Way galaxy by an overwhelming force of wasp like creatures in a crowded Dyson sphere who proceeded to kill everyone and everything in the galaxy 300 years from now.
Ia traveled the 700 light years to old Earth and joined the Terran United Space Force Marine Corps on her 18th birthday. At one hour per light year, the trip took over four weeks and allowed her to finish making her 300 year plan to restructure the two billion person strong military forces of the Terran United Space Force to fight off the future invaders.
Ia was been promoted in the field to second lieutenant when the officers on her spaceship were kidnapped. She led the crew to rescue their officers and got to keep her commission by going to the Officer’s Academy. Then she is assigned to blockade duty of the Saliks, the carnivorous amphibians who like to eat other intelligent beings while alive.
Here is my 2012 review: “Second in a series of books about a precognitive woman from a heavy gravity (3.2g) world who foresees a terrible future in 400 years. She joins the military to change the future so the human race will be ready to fight the oncoming terror, long after her death. This is the story of her life fighting the Saliks on the Space Navy Blockade force.”
The author has a website at:
https://jeanjohnson.net/
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars (I may add this to my six star list)
Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (745 reviews)
Early Dr appointment so I’m headed to bed. Stay frosty my friends.
n
lpdbw says:
Talk to them, and they can do it automatically. The IRS has increased the age at which mandatory distributions must begin; I think it’s 73.5 years, but talk to your IRA firm, and they’ll tell you.
Re payouts from retirement funds: I’m of mixed feelings, and would be interested to know what y’all think. Most of my retirement is in a pension fund. When I retire, I have a one-time choice to have none, some or all of it paid out in cash.
Our financial advisor says “take it all out”, because investing will earn (on average) a higher return than the pension fund will ever provide. In case of early death, the kids will get the money.
My paranoia says: Investments can also go down. The pension fund is obligated to pay out at a fixed rate, regardless. Of course, that amount also never changes, regardless of inflation over the next couple of decades. In case of early death, the pension fund keeps the money.
I’m tempted to take out half, and leave half. What would y’all do?
@Lynn: As always, many thanks for your recommendations. I’ve now read the first book, and am just starting the second one. I don’t think they belong on your six-star list – a lot of the main character’s dialog is stilted and just not believable for an 18-year-old from a back-of-the-galaxy colony world. But I can certainly agree with your 5-star rating!
Anyway, how the heck do you find the time to read so many books?