What's bugging you? *2023*

[owbc]

3 hours ago, jerichoholicninja said:

Anyone use any of these meal kit services? Do they really eliminate "food waste"? I'm not sure what's so hard about eating your leftovers. From the bits you see in the commercial they look like they create a lot of real waste with everything wrapped in plastic. And I'm sure they are shipped in some sort of insulated container with cold packs that probably often end up in the garbage too.

We've used Sunbasket off and on. They are clearly not a sustainable option due to the shipping and packaging. Given the high cost, it's easier to use Instacart if you don't want to do your own grocery shopping. I didn't think about food waste reduction being a benefit, I would consider portion control to be the more useful feature. I live in a location with mandatory curbside compost pickup so food waste isn't very high on my concern list. 

[LouisEly]

3 hours ago, jerichoholicninja said:

Anyone use any of these meal kit services? Do they really eliminate "food waste"? I'm not sure what's so hard about eating your leftovers. From the bits you see in the commercial they look like they create a lot of real waste with everything wrapped in plastic. And I'm sure they are shipped in some sort of insulated container with cold packs that probably often end up in the garbage too.

My parent's neighbors dropped some off when they were heading out of town and wouldn't use them.  They create an absurd amount of real waste.  Not just plastic, but shipped in styrofoam containers. 

My grocery store tried some of these meal kits.  Not sure if they still do them.  But I'll never order them due to the plastic and styrofoam waste.

[NeedMoreFans]

The housing market is completely broken and I don't know how anyone can actually buy a house unless they are selling theirs in a high cost area, moving someplace cheaper, and buying with cash.  Here's my situation:

Due to many factors, my wife and I want to purchase a larger home in the same school district we live in now.  We will likely sell our house for over $200k more than we bought it for, and after paying off the balance of our current mortgage, we should have about 45-50% of a down payment on our next home.  Notice I said should.

Because of the lack of available homes, there are multiple offers on each available home no matter the condition.  Because of that, we have been advised that any purchase offer we submit cannot have a contingency that we sell ours.  A contingency will make our offer far less attractive.  So we need to take out a bridge loan (which in the form of a HELOC) and find other funds to cover the down payment, which will then be paid off when we sell our house.  

Since we have a balance on our current mortgage, that is considered debt when calculating our debt-to-income ratio (the current mortgage, HELOC, and new mortgage are all factored in the DTI), even though we will pay everything off immediately when we sell our home.  As a result, we cannot get a mortgage big enough for a home we know we can afford.  If this was a normal, or even close to normal, housing market, we could use the equity in our home to calculate our next mortgage, but instead our current home is essentially a liability.  

[homer]

I realize most if not all convention center/hotels are soul less caverns of despair, but the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention center is a cavernous maze of crap. All black holes lead there. 

[RedStickBrew]

48 minutes ago, homer said:

I realize most if not all convention center/hotels are soul less caverns of despair, but the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention center is a cavernous maze of crap. All black holes lead there. 

I share your despair.  The family spent some time this year in Nashville for New Year's, thankfully we stayed downtown.  We did however take the kids to see the ice sculpture exhibit at Opryland.  We ended up leaving right away.  It probably didn't help that it was full of Kentucky football fans for the Music City Bowl game either.

[Samurai Bucky]

21 hours ago, RedStickBrew said:

I share your despair.  The family spent some time this year in Nashville for New Year's, thankfully we stayed downtown.  We did however take the kids to see the ice sculpture exhibit at Opryland.  We ended up leaving right away.  It probably didn't help that it was full of Kentucky football fans for the Music City Bowl game either.

We were there a few years ago during the summer during Covid.  My son's academy team had a tournament there.  It would be nice to go there now that things are opened up.  It didn't seem too bad.

[homer]

Nashville is fine. It's the hotel convention center designed by an 8 year old with ADD that is the problem. 

[LouisEly]

On 2/22/2023 at 11:18 AM, NeedMoreFans said:

The housing market is completely broken and I don't know how anyone can actually buy a house unless they are selling theirs in a high cost area, moving someplace cheaper, and buying with cash.  Here's my situation:

Due to many factors, my wife and I want to purchase a larger home in the same school district we live in now.  We will likely sell our house for over $200k more than we bought it for, and after paying off the balance of our current mortgage, we should have about 45-50% of a down payment on our next home.  Notice I said should.

Because of the lack of available homes, there are multiple offers on each available home no matter the condition.  Because of that, we have been advised that any purchase offer we submit cannot have a contingency that we sell ours.  A contingency will make our offer far less attractive.  So we need to take out a bridge loan (which in the form of a HELOC) and find other funds to cover the down payment, which will then be paid off when we sell our house.  

Since we have a balance on our current mortgage, that is considered debt when calculating our debt-to-income ratio (the current mortgage, HELOC, and new mortgage are all factored in the DTI), even though we will pay everything off immediately when we sell our home.  As a result, we cannot get a mortgage big enough for a home we know we can afford.  If this was a normal, or even close to normal, housing market, we could use the equity in our home to calculate our next mortgage, but instead our current home is essentially a liability.  

1. I know people who have sold their home and the new owners rented it back to them for a month or two before the new owners were able to move in.  If there is that much demand, there will be demand for yours, and just say that you can't move out for 2-3 months and see if someone will bite.
2. Make a bigger offer.  Money talks.
3. Another friend (who has a young child) sold their house and then rented via Air BnB for a few months before they were able to buy a place (in another city).  There were several factors including a job change, but see if you can rent a place for a couple of months so you won't have a contingency.  That rent will be above market rate to have flexibility in lease term, but every other option will cost you money too.

[NeedMoreFans]

1. We could consider a rent back agreement. Our neighbors did that before they moved.

2. We weren't able to get an approved purchase price at our ceiling, so we can only go so high. We think our ceiling will be able to get us what we want.

3. The main issue with this is we don't want to have to move twice in a short time span. With kids and a dog, it complicates things big time. We would have to make sure we rented in the same school district and attendance area as we are in or our kids would have to potentially change schools if we find something temporary. 

The market is also very slow right now and it's anticipated to pick up in the spring. It's just frustrating that it's so broken.

 

[LouisEly]

[nate82]

2 hours ago, LouisEly said:

Chat bots FTW!

[MrTPlush]

20 hours ago, NeedMoreFans said:

1. We could consider a rent back agreement. Our neighbors did that before they moved.

2. We weren't able to get an approved purchase price at our ceiling, so we can only go so high. We think our ceiling will be able to get us what we want.

3. The main issue with this is we don't want to have to move twice in a short time span. With kids and a dog, it complicates things big time. We would have to make sure we rented in the same school district and attendance area as we are in or our kids would have to potentially change schools if we find something temporary. 

The market is also very slow right now and it's anticipated to pick up in the spring. It's just frustrating that it's so broken.

 

I am always somewhat surprised this is such an issue that the banks have no leniency on. If you say you are going to rent out your old house, you usually can use like 80% of that proposed income when buying your new house. Maybe they have more checks into what you are doing before approving the next loan...but I thought it was fairly straight forward. If they can trust you are actually going to rent out your house, can they really not trust that other people are going to sell their old house ASAP and want nothing to do with double mortgages? Especially if you have high equity in that house and in the worst case you will have plenty of wiggle room to sell without being in the red if you have to drop the price to sell.

[MrTPlush]

10 hours ago, nate82 said:

Chat bots FTW!

First message might be...but once I sent an angry response to the very obvious bot text and then a real person responded with the second text.😅

[MrTPlush]

I changed my WiFi password and every single smart device required me to totally reset it and go through the entire connection process like it was brand new. Every speaker, every bulb, the doorbell, the doorbell speakers.

So much for being smart...

[nate82]

24 minutes ago, MrTPlush said:

I changed my WiFi password and every single smart device required me to totally reset it and go through the entire connection process like it was brand new. Every speaker, every bulb, the doorbell, the doorbell speakers.

So much for being smart...

Well the end user also needs to be smart.  Would be better if all of your smart devices were in one hub.  Update the hubs password to the new WiFi password.  That way you only change one instead of all of them.

[MrTPlush]

29 minutes ago, nate82 said:

Well the end user also needs to be smart.  Would be better if all of your smart devices were in one hub.  Update the hubs password to the new WiFi password.  That way you only change one instead of all of them.

Nope, won't let you...not on Google. I believe there might have been a way to forget all the WiFis on each individual device, change the password, and then reconnect them without a factory reset. However, that really doesn't make it any more convenient in the grand scheme as I didn't have any custom settings to avoid resetting. Most of my smart lights are through a different 'hub', but it connects into the Google Home. Same deal though. Had to forget every single light and sensor to reconnect. No other way around it. 

[jerichoholicninja]

Watching spring training games and everyone is bundled up in jackets and hats because OMG it's 60 degrees outside! I get it but still.

[Samurai Bucky]

19 hours ago, MrTPlush said:

Nope, won't let you...not on Google. I believe there might have been a way to forget all the WiFis on each individual device, change the password, and then reconnect them without a factory reset. However, that really doesn't make it any more convenient in the grand scheme as I didn't have any custom settings to avoid resetting. Most of my smart lights are through a different 'hub', but it connects into the Google Home. Same deal though. Had to forget every single light and sensor to reconnect. No other way around it. 

If somebody were to hack into your Wi-Fi network, it is entirely possible they could get the same type of code that would automatically rejoin like your lights, etc. with Google Home.  Although it is a PITA, it is best practice for the safety of your home.

[Thurston Fluff]

I get it has to be done but it is annoying to have the house shake every morning at 8am as they tear down the old school across the street.

[Jim French Stepstool]

On 3/9/2023 at 4:04 PM, Thurston Fluff said:

I get it has to be done but it is annoying to have the house shake every morning at 8am as they tear down the old school across the street.

That reminds me of what they used to call "sonic booms". In the 1960s they were caused when the supersonic jets out on maneuvers broke the sound barrier.

I thought they were kinda cool. But I was a kid & didn't care whether the windows shattered.

[nate82]

Kids singing the national anthem with no training.  OMG that was just horrible for the Bucks Kings game.  I wanted to put sharp objects into my ears.  Would have been better to have a dog and a dying cat doing the anthem than that.  

[hawing]

I have *thoughts* on national anthem performances.  I suspect I'm an outlier on them, so I won't share them here.  I agree that some performances of the Star Spangled Banner are cringe inducing.

[wallus]

Being a non married with no kids decent earner at tax time. My married friends with kids let me know how much I get screwed each tax season.

[homer]

Kids on laps at press conferences.

[owbc]

11 hours ago, wallus said:

Being a non married with no kids decent earner at tax time. My married friends with kids let me know how much I get screwed each tax season.

If it makes you feel any better, I pay $30,000/year for daycare for my two year old.