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3 yr. ago

  • Same, we're not buying anything fancy. Bulk meats, some fresh fruit and vegetables, and we buy a lot of dry and powdered goods that keep (wheat gluten, pastas, beans, etc.). Milk, sour cream, eggs, butter, orange juice, some bread. We get some snacks here and there, but minimally and generally it's stuff that can be added to make meals anyway, like tortilla chips and the like, or dips that can be thinned to make convenient sauces.

    We even make our own treats, like I make my own yogurt and peanut butter from starter and whole peanuts and cashews, and my wife makes homemade ice cream sometimes.

  • I'd like to see that too. It's probably terrible. My wife and I probably spend $600 every 5-6 weeks and it's just the two of us, no kids. And we bulk shop (Sam's Club) so it's cheaper. Back when we went to the supermarket it was like $500 every 2-3 weeks.

    We both have health conditions, so we don't do takeout, do all our own cooking to account for our needs. Our bill is probably a bit higher do to that, but it mostly involves avoiding salt and sugar and eating healthy as possible.

  • Keep your head up bro, you'll make it. Sounds like you're already putting in the effort and thinking about the hard stuff and the costs involved, which is more than most ever do. Lotta folks just spend and spend and put their heads in the sand when the future comes up.

  • Seriously, people are nuts about spending, cars and trucks especially. Some of these things cost more than my monthly mortgage, and nearly always financed with crap terms.

    My last car before I got the new one in 2020 was an ‘07 Hyundai Accent hatchback and I beat it up for 14 years.

    If I hadn’t moved out to the boonies and needed something that could handle at least light off-road, I’d still be driving it. I went for a 2020 KIA Sportage CUV with AWD I put some good all-terrain tires on it (Nitto Nomad Grapplers). It’s not fancy but it has an ICE engine and can handle hills, mud, etc. and goes where I need.

    I get that people want fancy cars and shit, but I just can’t even. I got a decent direct drive racing wheel for my PC setup; if I wanna drive something fancy I’ll do it virtually, without the $800+ monthly payment.


    Edit - yikes about the girlfriends. My wife is as frugal as I am, probably even more so. She’s very anti-materialism. Back when we were actually broke I spent a lot of time stressed and angry over financial stuff, especially over “big” purchases (like anything over $50 or $100, which is sad to think about now). Nowadays I encourage her to get stuff she wants. She rarely wants things, and when she does, it should be quality, no point in skimping. We have it and we’re talking like hundreds sometimes, neither of us is springing for huge purchases without consulting each other.

    I also make a point to donate to our local food bank monthly and buy food for the holiday food drives in the area because I get I have it better than most these days and feel like I should be doing what I can to help.

  • I make low six figures, definitely not in survival mode. I’m probably abnormal, as I grew up with money insecurity, and had to file bankruptcy in the early 2010s.

    When my income started going up, after a certain point I just started living like it didn’t. I save 30-40% of my pay every month. I’m not cheap, but I’m frugal and willing to wait for sales on stuff if it’s not something I need right this moment.

    I have well over a year of expenses in a HYSA.

    I bought my last car in 2020 for 24k USD fora new previous year model that was still on the lot and paid 1/3rd cash up front with a zero interest deal financing to keep the monthly cost down.

    Paid off all my debts, student loans, everything but the mortgage. And since I work remotely and am an introvert, my wife and I moved to the rurals and got a mortgage for half of what it would be in our previous city. I will likely have it paid off in 2-3 years, maybe 6-7 years into a 30 year mortgage.

    Living on six figures had not been all that difficult. I don’t even really think about money anymore and it’s a weight off me. It’s living on six figures while keeping up with the Joneses, celebrity influencers, and advertisers, going into massive debt for sake of appearances and potentially invoking the envy of others to prove you’re somehow better or you’ve “made it” and “deserve it” … that’s hard.

  • Putting it toward my mortgage payment.

  • Calm down Don Corneo.

  • In far-flung new-build land, you might have to drive into my neighborhood to access any of those. And don't bother taking the bus, because there are probably no bus routes either.

    That was actually a positive to me, I had it built in a semi-rural ex-urb. Nearest city is about 30 miles away.

    Can’t speak for the quality of the build, other than it’s been four years, and the only issues are ones I expected (the floating floor is cheap and I’ll have to replace it in the next few years, and the exterior stain is peeling on trim bits and needs a touch up due to Colorado sun and weather extremes).

  • A 50 year mortgage is just renting with extra steps and additional responsibility.

  • Working on this now. Not sure if I'll make early retirement, but I plan to have my house paid off inside the next 2-3 years. I'm in my early 40s, and the house is my last debt. Everything else is paid off other than monthly revolving spend. And the house is a new build, was constructed in 2021, so shouldn't have any major issues for quite some years. Also have a fully paid off solar and battery setup to keep electric costs low (I pretty much just pay the grid tie connection fee monthly, no usage billing).

    Hoping I'll be able to retire by 55 since I'm tired of the grind, but if it doesn't happen, it won't be the end of the world.

  • I use utterly unique and very long passphrases for the most important stuff (banking, mortgage servicing, email, etc.), 2FA for those and most other things, and just throwaway crap passwords for things I don't care about (web forums and most everything else).

  • This article writer has some weird fuckin' priorities. And is still only getting halfway toward common sense.

  • No illusions on my part. RAID5 NAS with periodic disk archive backups.

    • Books
    • Audiobooks
    • Retro game ROMs
    • FLAC music collection
    • Movies, TV, and anime series

    Got what I need locally and intend to keep it that way. I'm sick of sites like Amazon with "Buy Now" buttons that are really "rent now via restrictive terms and only via devices we approve until we decide you no longer need access."

  • Weird. I wonder if quality is regional. I have a pair of Skechers sneakers I’ve had since 2023 that are still in goods shape, as well as a pair of boots from 2022. The sneakers are kinda worn at this point, but not to the point they need replacement yet. And I’m not exactly easy on my stuff, I live in a rural area and the terrain is rock and soil mostly.

  • I’m finding it weird how quickly my brain just accepted the switch in the comic.

  • I’ve found sketchers to be great. I wear wide and double wide, and they always fit to size.

  • There's some great modern jazz coming out of Japan these days. Check out the likes of:

    • Hiromi Uehara (and the Trio Project)
    • Takuya Kuroda
    • Sinsuke Fujieda Group

    Also, UK too, check out the Ezra Collective.

    Plenty of modern jazz out there, it's just not mainstream anymore.


    Edit - forgot about Ibrahim Maalouf. Dude is incredible on the trumpet. Between him and Kuroda, trumpet jazz is alive and well.

  • Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, for the original PlayStation. All these years later it’s still an amazing standout.

  • Neat write up.

    Power consumption is a big reason I ditched my full size server for an AMD mini-PC. Way more efficient with a tdp of 25w, and idles pretty low (sub-10w, I forget the exact wattage).

    I’m not really doing a lot with it, it’s mostly for Plex and Jellyfin, and I’ve got a separate VM hosting home assistant. It’s running Proxmox, and plenty of headroom if I needed more VMs or containers.

  • I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. President Camacho was not smart, but he was well meaning. As soon as he knew there was someone smart enough to fix their problems he put them on task and worked to improve people’s lives.

    There’s nothing well meaning from the current administration and anything good that possibly comes of it is happenstance. The current administration is not idiocracy, it’s a kleptocratic authoritarian nightmare.