This piece was inspired by SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr’s excellent Gilbfin pieces. Read them first. This is an addendum in which I synthesized a bunch of things that ran around in my head while reading them that has been important on my family’s journey to financial stability. [AUTHOR’S NOTE: Trashy published a similar article along these lines earlier in the week, I wasn’t aware of the article when I wrote this, and highly suggest reading his article along with this.]
I want to say first of all that I am a fan of the Dave Ramsey method. I have used the EveryDollar app for three years now, and love it. What I ran into, and maybe others can relate, is that my budget is not the median $46000/year budget. Let me say first that I have been ridiculously fortunate, and also prodigal. But for context, let me also add that I bought a house in 2017 and in 2017, 2018, and 2019 I had unexpected house expenses on the order of $6000/incident in each year. An unexpected $6k in the middle of a budget cycle sucks for all of us. The $1000 emergency fund got blown up every time, and we’d spend most of the next year digging out. Additionally, we were, and through 2019, continued to be casual Ramsey-ists. I don’t think we’re ever going to be “gazelle focused” in our current lifestyle. A chance conversation in January or February of 2020 changed my outlook on budgeting, and has guided (thus far effectively) my approach to Ramsey-like budgeting that makes our budget more stable without changing the fundamental approach.
I was riding with my, sadly now former, boss in January or February of 2020 when we were both in Detroit for something. My boss grew up on a working ranch in West Texas. Literally two stoplights in the town. He has fun stories like, “that time my dad dropped the tractor on my arm when we were changing the tire and busted it” and “that time I got kicked by a cow and lay in a field as I listened to the police sirens go back and forth past me while I lay there with busted ribs.” He also happens to be one of the sharpest minds I’ve ever known. I miss working for him. A true West Texas sage. Anyhow, the story he told me was something like this:
When my son was just driving, maybe 17 or 18, he must have called me 5 times in 18 months because he’d run out of gas. So after the last time, I came out with the gas can, put a gallon in his car and told him, ‘follow me to the gas station.’ When we got to the gas station, I told him, ‘the difference between always having a full tank of gas and always having an empty tank of gas is one tank of gas.’ I said, ‘you put $10 of gas into your car every week. Sometimes you use $9, sometimes all $10, but when you use $12 worth of gas you call me because you’re broke down on the side of the road. I’m gonna buy you that one tank of gas. If you put $10 of gas in at the beginning of the week and use $9 that week, it will only cost you $9 to fill up the next week. If you use $12, you’ll still have gas and if it ain’t hard to find an extra $2 to pump it full.’
And then like every dad worth a shit I’ve known he added, “and then I told him don’t ever call me again if you run out of gas on the side of the road, I’m not comin’. He never ran out of gas again, as far as I know.”
For some reason that conversation crystalized a connection with one of the Iron Laws we have here: “foreseeable consequences are not unexpected”. One of the things we had struggled with for 3 years of trying to do the zero dollar budget was when we’d have decent-sized but not exactly regular expenses. Mrs. L would tell me on the tenth of the month, after we’d done the budget, “I’m out of contacts” and we’d have to either find $90 for this month or $650 for a years’ subscription. We’d usually settle on six-months for $340, or three months for $175 depending on what we could scrounge. Or the car would need tires, etc. We’d burn the entire emergency fund, and spend a couple months refilling it before we got back to paying more than the minimum on our debt. Or, we’d be making a budget and it would be, “oh yeah, we’re going to go to a nice dinner and buy each other some stuff for our anniversary. What do we cut for that?”
Now maybe the rest of you aren’t literalists and had this built into your budgets, but my budgeting philosophy prior to this conversation was always to basically maximize our debt retirement, and then cut that back when foreseeable, but unexpected expenses came to pass. But our debt was always yoyoing around a set point rather than truly declining. (There were other issues that got addressed as well as far as getting everyone on board with the budgeting process, in which my experiences are much like trashy’s. Having to tell my wife “we can’t do that $300 thing” was difficult. Once I took on the role of sole provider, it was hard to get my ego to say no. I want my family to have nice things. I may cover that in a later post.)
After that conversation with my boss, I went home and redid our next budget. I revamped our budget to try to give us that “one tank of gas” by the end of 2020 so we always have it going forward. I revisited our past three years worth of data to determine how much we spent on these Iron Law expenses and then started filling tanks. Car repair, house repair*, contacts, running shoes, Valentines Day, anniversaries, etc. Anything that had thrown our monthly budget into minimum debt repayment or tapped our emergency fund. Or worse, gone on credit. When we found out we were going to have a baby, I started building up a foreseeable fund for both baby stuff and doctor stuff. Luckily, our home expense this year was a new pool pump where I managed to buy the pump and get the electrical work done for about $800 which was half the price the pool shop wanted to charge us for installing a new one. Plus its a variable speed pump which saves me about $15/month on the power bill. Sometimes it takes a little luck to get ahead.
There was one other benefit. Money saved is fungible. When I changed jobs and went out on my own, I realized that I wouldn’t get a full paycheck for about 2 months, and had startup expenses to be self-employed (COBRA is about your only choice when your wife is pregnant and you leave a job). I borrowed $15k. There were still several points where we were down to our last $500 in real money before a check came in. However, when my little sparkplug changing mishap cost us $700, the money was sitting there waiting for us. Between the end of May, the last time I got a regular paycheck, and September when I really got the cashflow (hopefully) stabilized, we paid more than the minimum in debt reduction every month, and never dipped into using additional credit. When the emergency fund got tapped it was against invoiced but unrealized income. We always knew it was going to refill without changing the next budget . When the money finally started coming in regular, our savings account reflected all of those tanks we’d filled and didn’t need to tap this month.
So we may sit on significantly more than our Ramsey emergency fund of $1000, but the interesting thing is, once the tank is full, the carrying cost is built in. For significantly less than we put back in 2020, we’ll always have money for foreseeable but not exactly predictable consequences for a much smaller monthly cost, and a little extra fungibility for when priorities change. Thing is, if a tank gets full and we don’t incur the expense, we just zero that out until we draw on the full tank.
For example, I budgeted for 4 pair of running shoes a year. Mrs. L will buy 2-3 and I will buy 1-2. If Mrs. L and I come up with needing a new pair the same month, we’re looking at $250-$300 in unforeseen expenses. Once you have a newish pair each (we’re both going long on our most recent pair because of the pregnancy), you can drop $50/month in a tank and never worry about finding shoe money again. And if she doesn’t need a new pair for a while and mine are good, when we get to $300 in savings, we’ll just reroute the $50/month to the next tank to fill or debt reduction. Contacts, car repairs, whatever. Same thing. Figure your annual cost as the amonut required to fill the tank, fill that as fast as you can, then reduce to 1/12 of your annual cost. If an expense comes early, you might have to find some $200 or $500, but you never have to find $1200 in a month when you already planned to have a birthday party, your car needs tires, and you’ve only got your $1000 emergency fund. Plus fungibility. If you have to raid one of your other accounts this month, you might have several months to make it right. You are much less likely to end up cash poor.
I can’t even say it put off our debt-free date. (Borrowing the startup money did, but that’s a business expense to get to a better final ending. Maybe Dave would beat us up, but working for myself has been worth every dollar in interest if we pay the minimum each month [we won’t].) What it did was solidify our finances, and give it us a better ability to “manage with certainty” to steal another solid principle of a former employer that I admire. By the time we have our one tank of gas at the end of this year, it would take a truly unforeseeable expense to break our budget**.
*I should point out that given some of my descriptions of housing expenses, I am not expecting to put back the full $6000 in unforeseen annual expenses during that 3 years in a single year, or really ever while we have non-mortgage debt. I am hoping to get to having 1% of what we paid for the home put back for annual repairs and maintenance. That seems like a reasonable “full tank” foreseeable expense to me. Ideally, when we get to the 4-6 months expenses stage, that covers things like new roof or replacing worn out floors. We could just arbitrarily raise our emergency fund, but I prefer the month-to-month stability of this method.
**We made one other slight modification to debt reduction. I ran the numbers on this, and it saves us about 4 months over 30, given we pay the same amount to debt every month. After we finish the smaller credit card, we have another credit card and a car payment that have similar principals but different minimum payments. Let’s say the car payment is $500 minimum and the credit card is $200 minimum, but the card has $1000 less in principal. Throwing the extra money at the car payment (which is maybe $450 in principal now, where the credit card is $120 in principal) is going to save us four months to pay both debts off. On the one hand, I get Dave’s method. On the other hand, ceterus paribus, maximizing your PRINCIPAL payment is the way to getting out of debt fastest. Excel can be your friend. Once you have a stable budget, (stable debt payment amount) paying extra on the larger of two principal payments of similar (+/- 20%) sized debt can have large effect on total cost and therefore time to debt-free. If you can’t reliably predict how much you are able to allocate month-to-month to your debt retirement, I suggest Dave Ramsey’s debt snowball method. Fewer creditors are better.
My elbows are made of steel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8uU_4XBugA
They didn’t give you a bionic arm for that purpose.
had unexpected house expenses on the order of $6000/incident – I blame poor American housing stock and lack of proper regulation. This would never happen in good European houses.
Do Euroserfs get houses these days? I thought you stacked them in squalid little cities now
well an apartment is a perfectly good house. I live in one myself. And it is better than yours so there.
I’ll gladly give you my neighbors in the name of equity.
They don’t even get distinct vocab anymore, it seems.
“The housing ration has been doubled to 400 sq ft, enjoy your Mansion, Citizen!”
That reminds me. I ordered holloween candy and I have to make sure I don’t eat it.
well a survey I conducted of one household says the average Romanian has 1100 square feet of space
Fascinating. I had no idea that the average Romanian consumed so much English-language libertarian media.
Yeah, Romanian apartment buildings would just turn to dust and collapse.
Both you and trashy seems to blame your wives for some things. I blame patriarchy and misogyny.
Also, keep in mind that the overarching issues is, as always, capitalism.
Under socialism there would be no need to budged. What would you buy anyway?
Both you and trashy seems to blame your wives for some things.
Marriage is hard. Both of us (wife and I) carried baggage into the marriage. I sucked at being the man in the relationship for the first few years. Wife sucked at being the woman in the relationship for a while. Candidly, yeah, I blamed my wife for blowing it when I called her up to the big leagues during my law school stint. In reality, I put her in a really shitty situation and share a large portion of the blame.
This marriage thing is starting to seem like a hassle to me… The again beats drinking alone
In a marriage you end up drinking while listening to their nagging about your drinking or some other perceived shortcoming.
^^^THIS^^^
And they will nag you while they are drinking..
I sucked at being the man in the relationship – should ev spanked her?
According to this guy, spanking is an option: https://biblicalgenderroles.com/
Sure! Never hurts!
*gigglesnort*
It was 50/50. I made some poor choices as well. It just seemed, for some time, like every month we’d make a budget and get halfway through the month and there’d be an “oh yeah…” Like I said, it’s a longer post, but I’ve always made the vast majority of the money, so I was elected treasurer by default and got to make the budget.
^^ This is me, too.
It was a cycle of determination, steady decline, growing anxiety, and a blowup fight. I was on a monthly bitchy cycle like a teenage girl, and it was 100% driven by the numbers.
I, for the life of me, couldn’t figure out why she refused to consult the budget before she swiped the card. That dynamic is what caused a heap of resentment to build up. Heck, it flashed back out for a few minutes earlier this month when I had to use my gun money to bail out some Amazon purchases.
I ended up divorced because of this. The “We make a lot of money, why can’t I spend what I want” thing got very old eventually…
“If YOU want to spend what YOU want to spend, then we need to revisit the ‘WE MAKE’ part of the equation.”
Yeah, I believe it. I was dangling one leg off the precipice a few times, myself.
in conclusion the gays are lucky
#MeToo. I thought we were a team, she thought we were her exclusive support system, can’t believe how long that takes to heal.
The main reason that my argumentative, crochety, emotionally distant parents just celebrated their 51st wedding anniversary, is that Mom is really good with money, and Dad has the good sense to let her handle most of the finances.
Debt kills relationships like Steve Smith kills boyish, hairless hikers…
I made some poor choices – how very unlibertarian of you
You Need a Budget operates on this premise. I (tried to get) into this when the dude was just a random commenter on a blog. He began selling his Excel sheets. And then this blossomed.
Shit. That was supposed to be a new post.
I know a lot of people who vouch for YNAB. Tis good stuff.
I’ve tried YNAB (even have a former coworker who works there now) and EveryDollar, and they both had ways of doing things that just annoyed me. I use a basic spreadsheet (the original template came from the facilitator of the FPU course my ex-wife and I took years ago) and run with it.
EveryDollar, and they both had ways of doing things that just annoyed me.
EveryDollar still pisses me off whenever I transfer money between tracked accounts. Why do I have to delete one or both? They need a transfer option. Like, where the fuck am I supposed to put the withdrawal from my checking account that paid my credit card? The credit card credit is there. I shouldn’t have to delete any transactions.
That’s fairly typical unless one of you already owned a bigger house than you needed.
More space for more baggage isn’t a great solution.
I am lucky – I married a woman that has the propensity to spend of a Scottish Jewess. No Lincoln leaves her clutches unbruised.
“You’ll have had your knish”? 😉
I spend more than my wife. I also make more money than my wife. I call that fair.
as long as you spend it on booze and hookers it is ok
Well, booze probably is my biggest monthly expense after the mortgage. I don’t have a need for hookers.
I don’t have a need for hookers. – weird…
Nobody “needs” hookers…
Orphans are allowed as well.
our home expense this year was a new pool pump – ahh pools unnecessary decadence his is why you have problems
For example, I budgeted for 4 pair of running shoes a year. – running is lame. squat more.
I don’t know what you’re saving all that money for. President Harris is going to take it all away from you anyway.
Good financial planning includes the possibility that the world won’t end next month.
Honestly now that I think about it I don’t think I ever made a budget…
*shrug* I don’t.
I’ve been working it out because once we retire and are on a fixed income, I don’t want any surprises. We haven’t really needed one during our earning years because we just naturally stay away from indebting ourselves (on consumption).
retire – how quaint
And you freaked out about Cuties?!?
I certainly did not
HAH HAHA HAHA!
Dude has a B.S. in Comp. Sci.
All the more reason why we need electric cars, so poor people aren’t wasting their limited funds buying gas.
Just plug ’em in and they go!
For example, I budgeted for 4 pair of running shoes a year. Mrs. L will buy 2-3 and I will buy 1-2. If Mrs. L and I come up with needing a new pair the same month, we’re looking at $250-$300 in unforeseen expenses.
Keep an eye on Woot.com. You can get last gen Brooks, Saucony, Asics , and others for 55-70 on a fairly regular basis. Wife takes advantage when shes running (not now because of impending kiddo) , and I buy all my walk-around shoes from there.
Great article, and great timing on your part. Having a new kid really brings the importance of financial planning into focus.
sinking funds are awesome. Properly executed, they make those irregular and unpredictable expenses painless.
My other trick is “ugly shoe arbitrage” on Amazon. I can usually get the ugly color of whatever the current Adidas model is for $85-90 instead of $125-$140. So my closet has red, gray, and orange running shoes. Some of which really ARE ugly. They feel the same from the inside. Man, that sounds like such a euphemism.
Great for riding your moped.
Ambassador Franklin? Ben, is that you?
I have a pair of tennis shoes (actual tennis shoes) that are orange and yellow for that exact reason.
I never knew a runner that didn’t have knee problems. Lift Moar!
You know one now.
My knees are perfect. My hips, ankles and feet on the other hand…
But yes, I’m retired now. Lots of barbells, hiking and occasional hill sprints.
If you see me running, you better be running too, because whatever is chasing me can’t be stopped by a 9 mm.
Glad I read this far before popping off – I was gonna say that the Ramsey plan absolutely recommends sinking funds for foreseeable expenses. Good article Brett! Sometimes seeing the nuts and bolts of this stuff in action helps solidify the concepts for others. Oh, and thanks for putting the GlibFin series out, trashy. I recommitted myself to getting out of debt back in March, and should be there by next April, so seeing these articles has helped me keep my focus (which as a single guy can be difficult).
Yeah, once I learned to USE them in EveryDollar for more than just Christmas and semi-annual car insurance, it was a revelation. Like, “wait, just because I don’t know the date I’ll expend the money doesn’t mean I don’t know approximately how much I’ll need.” Like I said, I was a bit of a literalist about the whole budget for the month thing.
Things I wish my dad had taught me, series 1…though I’m not really sure he ever budgeted either.
Steve Scully (former Biden intern and moderator for the next debate if it happens) screws up DM and public Twitter, then claims it was hacked.
What “more bad stuff?”
I don’t know, but it’s clear that the Dems are really really pushing hard. They are bringing everything to the game, that’s for sure.
Feel like Trump has failed to keep up with them, bought his own bullshit about Biden.
He’s right about Biden being demented though. The people around Biden not so much.
I dunno. Trump is doing things through his channels. Maybe engaging through the DemOp controlled channels is pointless, so that’s why you don’t see much engagement there.
His channels. He’s utterly worthless. Can’t even put down an insubordinate bureaucracy.
Yeah, I’ve been disappointed that the Swamp has been trimmed only in a few spots. FFS, McCabe still has a job?
Proving that the Presidency is far more about style than substance and this is why Trump irks so much.
Really, I’ve gotten to the point that I don’t much care who wins – because it isn’t going to really make a great difference (save, perhaps, judicial appointments – and for the most part Trump has done well on this).
My concern is mostly to keep the Dems from having the House, Senate, and Presidency. At that point, the accelerator gets mashed to the floor. I think they learned from ObamaCare and Virginia – when you have it all, grab it all. Obama and the Dems “wasted” that golden year on ObamaCare; think of all they could have gotten done in addition to ObamaCare.
VA (and CA) are the model, I believe. Jam through your wish list (and make sure it includes “reforming” the electoral process in your favor).
“because it isn’t going to really make a great difference“
I’d agree if it wasn’t for EOs, the damage a malevolent President can cause with those is enormous.
I can’t believe anybody even uses the “I was hacked” thing anymore. It’s 2020. Everybody knows you just botched it.
What the heck does TMITE stand for?
CWAA (Christ What An Acronym)
Something something drugs something ass.
I was just really pleased with how well the two recent big “what’s that mean” acronyms dovetailed there.
What purpose does the UN serve, again?
Let’s interrupt the gender bias instead of the women who are speaking.
We can all help stop the cycle of manterruption by recognizing it, calling it out, and stopping an interrupter in his (or her) tracks.
You just assumed my gender. How dare you.
Women are known for their ability to shut the fuck up, on the other hand.
Go fuck yourself. Harris tried to play that game and Pence wasn’t having any of it.
I’ll try this again so it doesn’t get buried after I Gilmore’d.
You Need a Budget operates on this premise. I (tried to get) into this when the dude was just a random commenter on a blog. He began selling his Excel sheets. And then this blossomed.
In civilized Europe you don’t need gas as you take the bus everywhere. or the train. or subway. tram. etc
*that’s the joke* disclaimer invoked
Serious question: How much do you pay for the bus, train, subway, and/or tram? Comparable to having a car with gas and maintenance?
My city doesn’t have very good public transportation. It’s way too big. But for a long time I used what it did have (the bus) and saved on gas, wear and tear, and parking downtown. I also got to chill for that 45 minutes each way, read or stitch or whatever. Lovely. Now my commute is about 30 feet, on my feet.
In the before times, I would pay around $125 a month to commute. It’s heavily subsidized so I’m pretty sure I pay way less than if I had a car.
Hell yeah. That is when I used to do all my reading. Now I do it in bed before sleep and wind up re-reading the same fscking passages over and over. ?
As always it depends on the travel. Bucharest has a decent public transport. Based on where I live it is great but it is not so for most.
A monthly pass on all buses and trams is 50 Lei (12 US). A monthly pass on the subway is 70 (17 US). Unlike most EU cities in Bucharest tram/bus is separate from subway.
Gas is about 4 USD a gallon… 1.1 a liter. Traffic is a bitch. SO probably driving to work for the average person costs quite more than public transport.
I also got to chill for that 45 minutes each way, read or stitch or whatever – it is hard to chill standing up with people pressing into you on all sides like in Bucharest public transport.
I commuted for a while by Metro. It saved me money because work subsidized (the already subsidized) cost. It took longer and I decided the inconvenience wasn’t worth it. But, in terms of gas, oil it didn’t. The only way the numbers work – and I’m referring to the Metro’s numbers – are if you include depreciation. All the depreciation, which, if you use your car on weekends etc isn’t right. Now, at the time I had a serious gas guzzler that got about 12 mpg. Yet it only saved me money when my job subsidized my cost. Fresh.
For me the decision to drive versus use public trans usually comes down to the cost of parking or the neighborhood I have to go to. No way I am taking a train and bus to get to the Cook Country Criminal Court campus.
I place a very high value in not being on someone else’s schedule and in not sharing spaces with people I don’t know.
And if at all possible, I’d like to avoid ever being at the Cook Country Criminal Court Campus. Though if I were there, I’d probably have government funded transportation and accommodations.
County. I doubt there’s public transport to a country campus.
I even read it as county but duplicated the typo of country….
Yep. The DC Metro is insanely expensive. The only reason it even approaches capacity is because most government employees and contractors ride it for free.
Just using myself as an example – I live about 17 miles from my office, so 34 miles round trip. Driving that in my Tacoma, I’ll burn about 1.7 gallons of gas on average, or about $3.75.
The same trip on Metro (bus + rail) would cost $15, round trip, and would also more than double my commute time.
The DC Metro is insanely expensive. The only reason it even approaches capacity is because most government employees and contractors ride it for free.
I’m assuming a good part of the expense is from subsidizing all of those government employees and contractors.
Now my commute is about 30 feet, on my feet.
But as a woman, your foot probably isn’t 12inches long, so it takes more than 30feet to get there, ergo, Patriarchy.
I was never able to read on the commute because I had to transfer and the train was too crowded. I rarely had a seat.
51st comment is mine.
Back away from the numerology, bub.
The point being, people are (and should be) held accountable for the foreseeable consequences of their actions, whether they were “intended”/desired consequences or not.
IOW, handwaving away the bad results of your actions as “unintended consequences” should be mocked.
But for your purposes, close enough. Expect (plan) for the foreseeable.
There’s that “Isle of Wight” again. “In other words”?
Agreed. Foreseeable cannot be unintended.
Every summer we can rent a cottage… ?
(Have visited some of IOW; it had a quiet ’50s charm.)
Happy birthday, John Lennon.
Forgot about that. And Chris O’Dowd. Many entertaining Libras in history: Oscar, Buster Keaton, et al.
It’s a fair cop. I guess Brett’s Iron Corollary of Personal Finance is: foreseeable expenses are not unexpected.
these titles are getting a little ostentatious.
BICoPF is perfectly fine. No need to stand on ceremony.
Some ceremony is required to unroll the TP it’s scrawled on.
It’s a fair cop.
But Kamala isn’t.
[TEMPERATURE EXCURSION DETECTED]
Heh.
Governor Whitmer of Michigan has done a terrible job. She locked down her state for everyone, except her husband’s boating activities. The Federal Government provided tremendous help to the Great People of Michigan. My Justice Department and Federal Law Enforcement announced…
…today that they foiled a dangerous plot against the Governor of Michigan. Rather than say thank you, she calls me a White Supremacist—while Biden and Democrats refuse to condemn Antifa, Anarchists, Looters and Mobs that burn down Democrat run cities…
…I do not tolerate ANY extreme violence. Defending ALL Americans, even those who oppose and attack me, is what I will always do as your President! Governor Whitmer—open up your state, open up your schools, and open up your churches!
Yeah that response was on point. “People that work for me stopped people that were going to murder you. A thank you would be nice.”
I don’t like the “your” in the last sentence. Only reinforces their tyranny.
“I’d rather you just said, ‘thank you. And went on your way.'”
Watch me slide in all nonchalant with an OT link about horny elves:
https://www.thecut.com/2020/10/amazons-lord-of-the-rings-tv-show-should-be-sexy.html
That’s the rapiest sentence about dwarves I have ever read.
____________________________
Now in terms of budget I’m on my third diet coke of the day so am looking at increasing the budget for that. Twelve diet cokes a day keeps the Wu-flu away, or something.
Just imagine an incredibly sweaty orgy between characters who were crucial to many of our sexual awakenings. – is there need to imagine? I think there are multiple LOTR porn out there
Whore of the Rings 1 and 2, not bad. Can’t recall any others on pornhub, so they either suck, are softcore, or have good DCMA staff.
characters who were crucial to many of our sexual awakenings
Alright, outing myself here…I never read Tolkien. Those of you who did as an adolescent: hhhhwhuuu?
None of the characters in the Dune books were involved in my sexual awakening.
Look, whoever wrote that initial article is just… off.
Now, on the other hand, I would like to send out heartfelt appreciation to all the models of the 1992-96 Sears Catalogs.
You needed to go deeper…
https://www.thecut.com/2020/05/are-you-an-aragorn-girl-or-a-legolas-girl.html
I must confess to having had a crush on Aragorn from the Peter Jackson movies since middle school but
is just ridiculous
Covid-19 claims another victim.
*heavy sigh*
NNNOOOOOOO!!!!!
A local neighborhood just announced they were changing the November Chocolate walk to a “drive-through” model this year.
Cleveland Beer Week has been cancelled this year already.
Uh…you lost…
Dovere: If Biden does win, why shouldn’t Republicans and Trump supporters spend the next four years the same way that many Democrats have: talking about resistance, marching in the streets, saying Trump is not a legitimate president?
Clinton: You didn’t see that after [George W. Bush] was elected, even though it was contentious and decided by the Supreme Court. No, there was a widespread understanding that this election [in 2016] was not on the level. We still don’t know what really happened. I mean, there’s just a lot that I think will be revealed. History will discover. But you don’t win by 3 million votes and have all this other shenanigans and stuff going on and not come away with an idea like, “Whoa, something’s not right here.” That was a deep sense of unease. From the get-go, Trump didn’t want to be the president of all Americans. He had every opportunity in his inaugural address to reach out to the entire country. And he chose not to. So the unease, the worry, the fear even about what’s going to happen, unfortunately was validated from day one.
…and you didn’t.
Oh, her. Miserable.
There were a shit ton of Democrats claiming George the Lesser was an illegitimate president for 8 fucking years. Yes, they kept it up even after he beat Kerry.
So essentially you’re saying the last 4 years of Democratic insanity has been purely to assuage Hillary Clinton’s Ego?
One silver lining in all of this shit is that every day of Hillary Clinton’s life since November [election date] 2016 has been a miserable one.
With Bill jabbing her in the ribs about his 8 years as president. Must be what hell is
Unless you’re Bill.
No, there was a widespread understanding that this election [in 2016] was not on the level.
Widespread in pre-established anti-Trump circles, yes. There are explanations for this understanding that don’t require it to be true.
We still don’t know what really happened.
Yeah, we do. Hillary stupidly tried to win the wrong game – the popular vote. Trump focussed on the right game – the electoral college – and threaded the needle.
From the get-go, Trump didn’t want to be the president of all Americans.
*sigh* At some point, the gap between their narrative and yours is just too great to waste time on. Yeah, yeah, we get. Orange Hitler Bad.
Not only that, but we know from released documents that Hillary and her ilk were the ones that started the whole rumour about trump russia as a ploy to delegitimize him.
I’m becoming more convinced that Hillary didn’t conceede that first night, not because she was distraught at losing, but because they were planning and trying to figure out how to reverse the results.
Sounds plausible.
From the get-go, Trump didn’t want to be the president of all Americans.
+1 Basket of deplorables.
It was calling millions of Americans “irredeemable” that was really chilling. That reads them out of society. Its what you say about people you intend to crush. You know, untermencschen.
And by all Americans, they mean the ones that agree with us.
Yeah, we do. Hillary stupidly tried to win the wrong game – the popular vote. Trump focussed on the right game – the electoral college – and threaded the needle.
And Bill apparently tried to explain that to her and her team, but they wouldn’t listen. He lost one election in his life, early on, due to her (mostly) and never again. Like McConnell, the man knew how to win an election.
I’d just like to point out that Clinton still didn’t win that game. Nobody got more than 50% of the popular vote. If we’re going to play this “president of all Americans” game, why don’t we start seeing election results with actual majorities first.
Yeah, even by popular vote the election would have gotten thrown into the House.
The top 3 popular vote getters were: Clinton, Trump, Johnson. I guess we still end up with Trump unless Gary Johnson could pull off a miracle.
The hell it didn’t happen after Bush 43.
The big differences between then and now:
1. The civil service and judiciary were only 60% Democrat instead of the 80%+ they are today
2. The national security apparatus was not half as monied and powerful as it is today (a result GWB significantly contributed to)
3. The “traditional” news media had not yet been zombified by the clickbait model (Dan Rather had to resign back then, today he wouldn’t — and doesn’t anymore — face any consequences for the lie he told)
4. The Internet was still the province of nerds, not taken seriously by normies, and seen as separate from the real world
5. The tech giants hadn’t yet fully applied the lesson learned from the dotcom bubble crash: get in bed with government
Mike Pence is the Antichrist.
The Lincoln Project’s Steve Schmidt says the fly that landed on Mike Pence during the debate last night is a “sign historically of sin” and the “mark of the devil.”
And the lowest circle of hell is dedicated to…
People who play Baby Shark.
And they call Trump unhinged.
You mean, like this?
He’s a demon. If you value your immortal soul vote Biden/Harris.
Did he say that the time a fly crawled all over Obama’s face that one time?
These people just make shit up.
Which all sounds totally sane and normal. Definitely convinces me to pay attention to him.
The Lincoln Project is just the middle step on the road from being one of the few “Republicans” left inside the beltway to being part of the “blue wave” of right-think that has come to dominate everywhere around DC.
Good stuff, Brett.
Early in our marriage it was a real challenge to keep a ready pool for those bombs you know will drop. It’s much easier now, 29 years in, but I still can never shake the feeling that I’m too close for comfort.
One thing after owning houses and cars for a long time, you get pretty good at anticipating expenses (hint: don’t be optimistic about the lifespan of mechanical things).
I like to keep a 100K in my vault just in case. Plus it’s fun to roll around in a kiddie pool full of hundos.
I can only manage 110 trillion… ZMD
I have no doubt I’ll retire a millionaire, I just worry everybody else will be millionaires too.
Good man! All the bacteria on the bills does wonders for your immune system.
If you roll quick enough, you can pick up enough coke to get a buzz.
And a shitton of papercuts.
When I think of our reserves, I never think of what’s in the safe. That’s for TEOTWAWKI.
Wait, Ramsey is selling a subscription now for $130/year? Seems a little steep.
he has debts to pay off.
35¢ per day is a lot?
It is when you are pinching pennies to pay all your debt…
or when you convince enough people to pay you $0.35/day each.
Maybe not, Bogleheads is free:
https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started
Thanks for the article Brett! It was a real “oh, of course” moment for me. We’d been setting aside money for regular expenses that happen on longer-than-monthly cycles, but I hadn’t thought to do the same for the less perfectly predictable (but still entirely foreseeable) expenses like car repairs. Time to rework my spreadsheet…
The wife and I bought one of Ramsey’s books shortly after we got married. Since then, neither of us has attempted to kill the other to collect the life insurance…
…yet.
I’m not sure what Mrs. Dean’s game is. She’s known for years the life insurance is worth more than I am. So she’s keeping me around for some reason. I just can’t figure out what it is.
Still finding flaws in her plan.
She’s keeping him around for his flaw finding abilities?
Well, he keeps inadvertantly bungling her attempts.
Somebody has to open jars. Not even pickle jars, anybody can open pickle jars, You know the tiny ones they put capers in? Those are a pain in the ass.
Nope. I have the best jar opener. It has a ratchet and a lever.
By jeezus, I love my life.
I don’t know how y’all do this marriage/combined households shit. I have both admiration for those that do (my parents: 50 years) and horror at the thought of it for myself. Like, I wouldn’t climb Everest, but those that do have some balls (and are crazy)
How many votes does it take to swing an election?
Nearly 50,000 voters in Franklin County — Ohio’s most populous county — received incorrect absentee ballots in the mail, elections officials said Friday, revealing a major glitch that appeared to affect one in five ballots the county had sent so far.
And people wonder why there’s been several lawsuits regarding the election in Ohio already.
What’s the term for when you’re nostalgic for something you can only remember bits and pieces of, but not the name?
Old age
Senile dementia?
*sarcasm*very funny*/sarcasm*
half-heimer’s.
I tracked down the thing. It was a 1993 tv series called Time Trax. (Not to be confused with the software of the same name)
Turns out I never watched the original broadcast, just a few reruns on those odd cable time slots. It is also oddly boring.
Looks vaguely familiar.
So looks like Coinbase is going to be hiring.
60 Employees Leave Coinbase Over CEO’s Pledge To Be Apolitical
I know this was mentioned here before, but good on them.
Good for them. They’ll eventually be whipped into line but at least they’re trying.
This is why we’re fucked.
Have you not heard anything we’ve said about polls?
The reason revenues suffer after political stands by companies is because the claim made by the poll is bunk.
Well, that poll doesn’t answer the question of what position the companies should take. At least some of that 68% isn’t woke.
“We are in favor of dogfights, lethal gladitorial contests, and chariot races. Dogfights get expensive though, have you priced planes recently?”
I said before that i had looked at the job openings, but they didnt have one that fit me. With 60 more opening, I should check again!
Give the trash every opportunity to take itself out.
Pelosi introduces bill under 25th Amendment for commission to evaluate fitness of future presidents
https://www.yahoo.com/news/pelosi-25th-amendment-legislation-trump-covid-raskin-162259179.html
I’ll say it again. The biggest threat to our democratic institutions that Trump poses, is that his enemies hate him so much they’ll undermine every democratic institution we have to get one guy. This is stupid, short-sighted, and dangerous.
Pelosi, is stating that this is for the next President. Just more ammo for those who think they want to give the Presidency to Harris for 10 years or so.
And Trump has already taken taken that line of thought…that this is to oust Biden if he wins to backdoor Harris as first female president.
to backdoor Harris
Willie Brown could not be reached for comment.
What procedural process do we use to determine the fitness or lack thereof of the Speaker?
Semi-related. Refinancing rates are as low as 2.0% for a 15 yr fixed loan. Hunting down random documents is fun. Why haven’t I ever scanned my SSN card? Cause nobody had asked me to produce it until now.
I’m wrapping up a refinance. Easiest one so far. Closing is next week.
Shit, I refinanced in April.
I also keep a pad of money for various expenses like gas and groceries. I think it’s a good thing to have.
Grrrr.
Up until today, HR was telling me that although I couldn’t used the new bonus super unlimited covid sick time, but I could use regular sick time to quarantine.
Today. The day I’m leaving, they’re “whoops! we meant you could use vacation or unpaid leave to quarantine”
So what’s the point of a special sick time if no one can use it?
If his company took government money, they have to “provide” it?
It’s because I’m travelling to a coof-infested hellhole voluntarily. If I were going there on Official Company Business, I could use the special time.
Of course, if I actually manage to get a positive test, I could also use the time…
Who here works at a bio testing lab?
RC Dean’s hospital does the tests in-house.
We’ve been using the special COVID19 emergency paid sick leave pay codes and have been getting corresponding credits from our payroll processor. However, to get the big bucks, we have to submit forms to the IRS directly. Every time my boss submits one, they respond with “you did it wrong,” and of course, their instructions are gibberish.
of course the instructions are gibberish, they don’t want to actually give anyone the money.
Wait, last day? So congratulations?
Last day before vacation.
I actually have a good job. HR weasels gonna HR.
That’s what I thought, but maybe I had missed yet another job change here.
Not OT?
I have a wedding to attend coming up and the wedding registry makes me shake my head. So much shit requested that they will never actually use.
This one probably isn’t that unreasonable (compared to everything else on the list), but as an example a 3 piece decanter and whiskey glasses for $55. You can pour from the bottle it came in and buy glasses from the Dollar Tree for $2.
Guess I’m just going to go for the Home Depot gift card.
Meh. We used our wedding registry for “shit that would be nice to have that we would never buy ourselves”. We also didn’t expect anything from anyone.
We did the same thing, but after 10 years I know we probably sold or gave away a good portion of it or it is sitting in the attic.
We tried to do a wide variety of things. If folks wanted to get us a $2 spatula, great. If they wanted to get us a $200 pot and pan set, great.
There are still a few things from our registry sitting in my Amazon wishlist. I knock a couple out each year.
I’d want the HD card.
Me too, and since they are buying a house the HD card is going to be eventually appreciated more than the 18 wine glasses.
Guess I’m just going to go for the Home Depot gift card
That’s nice. I added some tools/power equipment to our wedding registry but no takers.
Someone gave us a high end flatware set. A decade and 4 kids later, I think we have 1 knife and maybe 1 spoon left out of the original 48 utensils. I now buy a 36 count pack of diner forks or spoons every so often off of Amazon when we start running low again. Not making that mistake again. I still can’t figure out where they all go.
Have you checked under the kids beds?
I have fancy crystal wine glasses that I enjoy using. I even take them outside. Of course I got them from a thrift shop. So I don’t care if I break one.
Great supporting article on budgeting and debt.
Speaking of Iron Laws, wasn’t someone going to make a Iron law poster for the Glibs cafe press site?
Coop was.
R C Dean made a jpg. It was nice, but it wasn’t fancy. Maybe he will post it again. His link no longer works.
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
Crazy Nancy Pelosi is looking at the 25th Amendment in order to replace Joe Biden with Kamala Harris. The Dems want that to happen fast because Sleepy Joe is out of it!!!
I don’t disagree.
‘Crazy Nancy Pelosi is looking at the 25th Amendment in order to replace Joe Biden with Kamala Harris. The Dems want that to happen fast because Sleepy Joe is out of it!!!’ — President Donald J. Trump
‘I don’t disagree.’ — Rebel Scum
‘such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice-President as Acting President.’ — Amendment 24, Section 3
‘or acted as President,’ — Amendment 22, Section 1
Assume ACB -> SCOTUS. Assume 25 invoked Biden. SCOTUS yes/no 3 terms President Harris?
Newly parachuted in senior exec has decided he wants everything organized by function, not geography, further broken out by the division they support. Just so the people supporting the red headed stepchildren divisions know that they too are red headed stepchildren.
This is after spending the last several years to organize and consolidate by geography to reduce duplicative overlap in the support functions.
Is it quitting time yet for the day? Further tempering the eye rolling is knowing this clown will jump again in a short time.
Remember, his job isn’t to fix anything, necessarily, just to change it enough that he can complain about comparing apples to oranges during his annual performance review if everything isn’t better. Also, make vague statements about ROI and time horizons.
My favorite thing about this is the coworkers who actually believe this will be the end state.
They don’t realize it will change again in another two years and at least one “essential” person in the transformation will be gone or transferred.
If he last 24 months in his current position, it will be one of the longest periods on his Linkedin.
I used to be that category as your coworkers, back in my salad days. Now I’ve become one of those eye rollers who laughs at the latest announcement and can pull out the last time it was tried along with the stated rationale for why it was changed. I try to still keep it under my hat except with one or two very close friends who think similarly.
I’m convinced that one of the reasons for aggressively record retention (really, record deletion) is to bury those previous announcements in the memory hole.
FIL bday and he has been itching to go to casino to blow off steam. Not that I want to go, but I am going to oblige the request and do some unfinancial planning.
Have him bring the money by your place, feed him a bottle of booze, kick him in the nuts and empty his wallet.
Heh. Well it was either a 100 gift or 100 gambling. He has ‘everything’ he needs or wants.
Cunte.
“They are not following the rules. We know what happens when you don’t follow the rules: the infection rate goes up,” Cuomo advised. “And it just proves our point from the get-go. We know how to control the virus, but you have to control the virus. You have to be disciplined. And when you don’t follow the rules, it goes up. And that’s what’s happening in these very small clusters. Now, these are religious groups, it tends to get more complicated, frankly, because of some cultural aspects. But that’s what we’re seeing in New York.”
“The cluster is a predominantly ultra-orthodox cluster,” he continued. “The Catholic schools are closed because they happen to be in that cluster, but the issue is with that ultra-orthodox community. This is not a matter of religious freedom, right? I don’t care if you’re a Roman Catholic, you’re Jewish, you’re Muslim, you’re an atheist, you have to follow the rules of the state, the laws of the state. And I understand the beliefs of the ultra-orthodox, I’ve been very close to them all my life. I’m a big supporter of theirs, but they have to follow the rules, Jim, because we’re seeing the truth. And the truth is if you don’t follow the rules, the infection rate spreads, people get sick, and then you make others sick. You know, we’re talking about Brooklyn. We’re not talking about a hermetically sealed community in a rural area. This is in the middle of Brooklyn. They will make other people sick.”
Fuck off Andy. They’ll develop herd immunity and move on like normal people.
Meanwhile all the goys will be hiding in their basements.
“Fuck off Andy. They’ll develop herd immunity and move on like normal people.”
Bwahhahhahahhahhaha! /the statists
When Cuomo talks about the Virus he is dog whistling to the Nazis.
I want one number out of your idiot mouth, Cuomo: percentage of occupied hospital beds. We were told that everyone would get this, that many people would die, that the important thing was not to overwhelm the system. In retrospect that was a fatuous proposal because of course you fuckers would use it as an excuse to impose more restrictions far longer than needed, if indeed they were needed in the first place. But that’s what we were sold on, so tell us how many beds are monopolized by covid patients, and then shut your fucking mouth.
‘I want one number out of your idiot mouth, Cuomo: percentage of occupied hospital beds.’ — commodious spittoon
‘Experts’ cite Mount Sinai Hospital proof doom.
Demanding actual data or interpreting relevant paragraph from internal memo differently = science denier = conspiracy theorist Wuhan flu not exist. / prog
‘We continue to experience very high occupancy of available inpatient beds and a large number of admitted patients in the Emergency Department. Please look at all possible options for discharging patients as soon as possible. Nursing, Social Work, and Case Management are all aware and will work with you to facilitate patient discharges.’ — David Reich, COO, Mount Sinai Hospital
I don’t care what religion you are, as long as you worship the State primary and foremost!
dammit
I don’t care if you’re a Roman Catholic, you’re Jewish, you’re Muslim, you’re an atheist, you have to follow the rules of the state, the laws of the state.
You silly sky daddy worshippers, you thought that your religious convictions were superior to the State? I AM YOUR GOD! GENUFLECT TO ME OR I’LL DESTROY YOU!
Only a Democratic governor could get away with such explicit religious discrimination. Is he running for the LP nomination?
Sarah Silverman’s breasts are bigger than I remember.
This is insanity. Hollywood liberals have lost their minds. Do they really think this is the best way to get out the vote? Why do they think so little of the American people?
Her boobpedia page says they are a C cup.
Wait, that’s a thing?
yes. Why wouldn’t it be?
Yes. I think the spam filter here used to filter out boobpedia links (Q had it linked in his profile for a while) or else I’d link directly to the page.
Voting is life!
/asshats
Louisiana man…
Louisiana priest and two women were arrested on obscenity charges after a churchgoer reportedly discovered the trio allegedly filming themselves having an orgy, police said Thursday.
The bystander on Sept. 30 reportedly witnessed and filmed Rev. Travis Clark, Mindy Dixon and Melissa Cheng having sex while a phone propped on top of a tripod in the middle of the Catholic church recorded the act, according to New Orleans news outlet Nola.com.
Clark was still wearing part of his priest attire and the women wore corsets and high heels, as sex toys and upgraded lighting lined the altar, New Orleans police told the local outlet.
The most wholesome story about a Catholic priest I’ve read in a while.
Upgraded lighting?
I’d have thought that to be hit with an obscenity charge in New Orleans, there would at least have to be a live goat involved…
A conservative writer posted this and it’s hard to dispute.
Libertarians 2012: Truth is the enemy in an empire of lies
Libertarians 2020: Sure, I don’t like the CIA, but Trump is so mean and conservatives don’t care about Tik Tok
Kinda proving that there is no party that any sane person would be devoted to.
This afternoon’s Glibertarians.com meetup livestream link
Excellent stuff. The brain pan size of you contributors like trashy and TPTB are XL to say the least. But the thing that stuck with me most is a thought I had while reading this submission: I need to move back to FL just so I can get drunk and piss in your pool.