zurch1818

I'm guessing a lot of those people without college degrees may be in the trades where a degree isn't technically required. They may have gone through an apprenticeship or some other training/certification. Also, I know there are coding boot camps that people can go though that aren't technically a degree but you can get a great paying job. Just speaking in facts (don't want to get political), the cost of a 4 year college degree has gone up from the time I received my BS in 2009 and MS in 2011. I can only imagine what my parents would have had to pay for the same degree and credentials I have. I was lucky to have my parents pay for my BS and fortunate enough to have my MS funded through a research project but I can completely understand people not wanting to get a huge student loan. Maybe people are starting to comprehend that a 4 year degree is expensive? As you can tell, this is a topic I am very passionate about and I can probably discuss more. Would I do what I am doing right now if I had to pay for my education? I don't know. Over the last 5 years, I learned that I really like coding and I have automated a lot of my current job. I find coding to be way more fun than my current job (not that I hate what I'm doing). I would probably give a hard look at doing a coding boot camp instead of going to college. I probably could get to my same income level I'm at now at a fraction of the cost (if I had to pay for my school).

I heard from our accountant in our 401k meeting that a lot of people in our company are taking their 2022 Q4 quarterly bonus (which for me was 10% of my annual salary) and pocketing it instead of investing into retirement. I am still running the course and keeping my contributing 18% towards my Roth 401k. I guess if the market tanks, I'll be buying at a low time. It shouldn't be going down forever and with me having low expenses, I guess I don't really short-term care what my retirement account does as I'm 20+ years away from retirement. I have stopped contributing to my brokerage account and started putting money in a HYSA. My plan is to use the HYSA for more short-term expenses, the brokerage account for a bridge retirement account until I can start using my actual retirement accounts. With son #2 and #3 on the way, we are going to have to buy a minivan, so I guess that we will have to use the HYSA for that. It's going to be interesting having 3 kids under the age of 3. I just learned that I can convert the company match and profit sharing 401k contributions (pre-tax) into Roth (after-tax). Does anyone think this is a good idea? Our 401k advisor is not very big into Roth because he thought the government would tax it sometime down the road, so take the tax advantage now. I on the other hand think that tax brackets are going to be more variable and I would much rather have a better pulse of how much money I'll have in my retirement accounts. I look at it a different way. When I pay taxes on it now, it has a smaller basis and it is effectively like investing more money because I am investing the taxes + the actually contribution. I guess if you invest the tax savings into a brokerage account, this wouldn't be true. With the Roth, I won't have to pay taxes on the contribution + growth. Sure my tax bracket could be higher now than when I retire, but paying taxes on the growth seems like it could actually be more costly. @GAME05 - Is your 401k Roth (after tax) or Traditional (pre-tax)? One thing to consider is if it is Roth, you can always withdraw from the principal (not growth) without any penalty. I don't know if your 401k allows for this or not...but when you retire, you should be able to roll over your 401k into an IRA and do this without issue. Obviously, this is only beneficial if it is Roth as I don't think you can do this with traditional.

I don't have a problem with as long as duplicate topics get merged. I just remember last season a thread would be started when something happened and then 1 or 2 days later, there would be an "article:" that regurgitated everything that was already said and it added nothing. Either these topics should be merged or simply whoever wrote the article should just post it in the thread that already exists. I realize the whole point of it is to drive clicks for advertising dollars but I am already a caretaker and just find the site to be cumbersome to navigate.

My dad's criteria for wearing shorts is if it is above freezing. I really don't understand. It is kind of comical when he walks past someone in full winter gear and he is wearing shorts, a sweatshirt, and a baseball hat. Speaking of presenting yourself, although I disagree about his opinion about what temperature to wear shorts, there is one thing I've learned from that I do agree with. Whenever you go and buy something from a commissioned salesman (car, furniture, etc.), wear your bum clothes. A dirty sweatshirt and sweatpants are quite effective at keeping those pesky salesmen away. When they do finally come at you, they already are starting at the low end because they think you don't have any money. From my experience, they sometimes can really push the financing but I just pay with a credit card (or check if it is a new car). This strategy obviously doesn't work with buying real estate as the buying agent is sort of on your team.

I think the last game I was at was at least 7 years ago. However, my family swears by tailgating/parking in the Blue Mound lot (I believe it is called the Molitor lot if you look at a map). It's usually easy out after the game and seems to be more of a local crowd that parks there as it really isn't advertised on how to get there from the interstate. Coming from Madison, you actually have to get off at Hawley (or earlier if traffic is really bad) and turn East on Bluemound. The walk to the stadium is pretty painless too. For whatever reason, it seems this lot fills up slower than the other lots, so if you aren't planning on tailgating and just get to the game, it can still cut down on your walk time.

My wife and I just made 2023 Roth IRA contributions. With that said, we still have a little bit of money that we have earmarked for more short-term expenses. I'm looking at getting a high-yield savings account since with my dad retiring in a few weeks, I am going to be losing my sweet deal of prime interest rate (7.5%) for our emergency fund/short-term saving fund. I'm looking at the bank being part of the FDIC, the interest rates, minimum account balances and it seems that UFB Best Savings has an APY of 4.11%. Does anyone have any experience with them? Does anyone else have any other recommendations?

I seem to remember a few years ago when owners wouldn't sign players past their early 30's. I don't know what changed since then. Also, I thought baseball viewership is decreasing with an aging demographic and cord cutting from my generation. I don't understand how TV revenue can explode in the future like it is now. Teams must be pumping in money from other sources (like the Mets).

I concur with those bills not showing on your credit score as you didn't borrow money and pay it back. My guess is if you have no lines of credit open (including a mortgage), your credit score would be undefined. You can't divide by zero. Fun fact, if you lump sum pay something off (ie car/house), your credit score can drop 75 to 100 points. This is what mine did when I paid my house off. It's been about 9 months since I did that and my credit score is now starting to creep back up. It's such a stupid arbitrary number that just doesn't make any sense to me. My credit rating was always good/excellent this whole time, so it wasn't that big of a deal...plus I have no intentions of ever going into debt again. I just started a Mint account and I see that you can get a free credit score from them. It is pretty nice being able to see all transactions in one app.

Just curious, what would you do if they didn't have a credit score? Would you look at their paystubs and their past rent payment history or would you just deny them?

I've heard good things about Mint but I haven't ever used it. I remember about 10 years ago I didn't like what was available for budgeting and cash flow, so I created my own Google sheet. It is annoying that I have enter my bank account balance and credit card balances each time I want to use it, but everything else is automated. It's also nice because I have variable income and I have built in a paycheck calculator that converts gross pay to net pay within a few pennies of the actual paycheck. It does everything I need. Up until recently I haven't had a reason to look back. The problem I have now is I'm married and the sheet confuses the heck out of my wife and she just refuses to use it. Maybe I'll look into Mint again as I know things have changed a lot since the birth of my spreadsheet. UPDATE: I just put all of my accounts in the Mint app. I think Mint does a better job of organizing past transactions than what I have and it has come a long way since I looked at it last. I think my spreadsheet does a lot better job looking to the future (since I have the paycheck calculator built into it). I think it will be enough to appease my wife though.

The theory is if you have a credit card you are more likely to spend more money than if you have a debit card. I can see how the theory can be true for natural spenders. As a natural saver, I feel just as much pain when I put something on my credit card as my debit card (mostly Woodman's), so why not get some rewards when I pay it off in full each month? I also have always been a fan of cashback cards as then I get to decide on what and when the dollars get spent on. It's only about $500 cashback a year or so, so it isn't life-changing money. I can always just save the rewards in an index fund or a high-interest savings account and create my own miles that can have an ROI. I just feel like I might get scammed and lose my miles and get no rewards at all. Maybe I should reconsider? It's also depressing how little 2% to 5% can be over a year. I bet that's why they switch to points. 1,000 points sounds awesome until you calculate it is only $10. Marketers........

Or you can just use the Brave browser and block scripts (works on Android and Windows). This also works remarkably well on the New York Times.

That sounds really nice (assuming you still get a chance for a raise). If not, you should really approach your supervisor for one or bring something up about asking how you can add more value to the company which makes you worth more (or some other HR jargon). Our company is also what I would deem small (60 total employees) but the owners are all about reviews, so we actually have quarterly reviews (which one of them is an annual). That just sounds like awfulness. I'm sorry you have to go through that. Our annual review form is kind of brutal about setting goals and talking about what works and doesn't work. There is a spot where you grade yourself up top but then it is all essay after that. You get the top spot and then your supervisor writes a response right below it. I am the leader of our group, which means I conduct all 5 team members reviews (20 total per year plus my 4 that I have with my supervisor, an owner of the company). My third quarter is brutal because that is my annual quarter plus I have 3 of my team members that also have annuals. That's 4 annual review forms I get to fill out. I do really enjoy working for my company. I actually had my 10 year anniversary a few months ago and have no intentions of leaving. I just liked it better when I was just an engineer and didn't have to manage people on top of being a technical expert.

I'm at a point in my life where more time off is more valuable to me than more money in the bank. In my last annual review, I actually requested no salary adjustment but an extra week of vacation instead. Against my wishes, my company instead gave me a raise which that covers roughly 2.5 weeks of my old pay. I'm contemplating just taking an extra week of unpaid time off and pretending it is vacation. Doing the math on that, I still come out ahead from my original request. Am I crazy to do this?

It's not MLB...but Jack Eichel (NHL) had disk replacement surgery and is dominating the NHL so far this year. He wanted disk replacement instead of fusion which is actually part of the reason the Sabres traded him to the Knights.

I feel like the major league forum is turning into Wall Drug with all these articles that could be duplicate threads. For example...Why does there have to be 2 threads on the Renfroe trade? One an article: and one about the trade as it happened.

Haha. Exactly! Watch out for those Dairy Super PACs. Too bad mint chocolate isn't on the ballot. That's a great flavor. If you have more choices, negative campaigning doesn't really work. It means you actually have to be for something. What a novel concept. I'm also just thrilled to get all these get out the vote messages and calls. Regardless who the candidate is, I usually text them that I already voted for their opponent, so please get off my lawn.

The worst thing about all the political ads is they seem to be 99% negative. What if we were voting on ice cream flavors instead (wouldn't those be some entertaining ads)? It's like eat vanilla because chocolate is evil. What does chocolate being evil have to do with the flavor of vanilla? Why do we only have two flavors of ice cream on the menu? What If I want strawberry or a craving for cookie dough? What if I have a milk allergy and I want popcorn instead? Let me rank my deserts. Let us have have the craft beer choice explosion. #rankchoicevoting

Stolen bases is not directly part of slugging percentage or OBP. The only thing I can think of is that base stealers are fast, so they may have more infield singles and increase OBP. It's supposed to be a measure of hitting. Also, errors negatively impact slugging percentage since it is equivalent to making an out. Sacrifice flies also count against OBP. You are correct in saying that HBP increases OBP. Stolen bases do count in the stat wSB. This is a linear weight sabermetric stat that I don't think I've ever used before as it doesn't help me in fantasy baseball. The stat wOBA and xwOBA on statcast are much more useful. If you are curious, just type in a player's name on baseball savant. It shows percentile rankings, so it is a good way to start learning sabermetric stats. You will see xwOBA on there amongst others.

Don't forget the brewers flipped the Richards from this trade and also packaged Bowden Francis to the Blue Jays for Rowdy Tellez. It becomes much more difficult to pick a winner then as the Brewers needed offense (still do...but it isn't as dire of a need compared to when we didn't have these two players).

Thanks for the insight on individual stocks vs mutual funds. I completely agree that not all mutual funds beat the market. That was pretty good insight to buy Nvidia and AMD at that point. I think that's a average 50% ROI, which is crazy! Nice work doing your homework on that one! It doesn't seem like that is sustainable forever (similar to a high babip). I just looked at one of the mutual fund I bought and that ROI was 15% since 2012. I feel like in the long run, I don't want to be buying lottery tickets and do "set it and forget it" instead. I feel like for every one of those, I would lose out on others. If I can get 10-11 percent returns on mutual funds that beat the market (which is what I've done), then my money will double every 7 years. With my income level and how I'm investing, in the long run that will more than enough to sustain the lifestyle I want to live. Maybe I would buy some rentals with cash in 5 to 10 years? Real estate with a rental does seem to have a pretty good ROI and seems more sustainable and something I would have more control with than an individual stock. I can pick the property, the tenant, and the monthly rent. The value of the house will also go up too. If I ever needed to get out, I could sell the house. I believe there are only 2 times in the last 100 years where housing prices crashed, the great depression and 2008.

Investing in single stocks is too risky for me. I know a lot of people do it but it something I personally wouldn't ever do. If I were to invest in something more risky like that, it would be into a business that would play a physical active role rather than with a public company. For retirement, I believe in very boring compound interest from slow and steady growth style mutual funds. I'm happy my work has a pretty good mix of them. The stock market is on sale right now, so my wife and I just decided to start our early retirement brokerage account, something to tap into before we can touch our main nest egg. It can also double as big purchase fund. We invested in two Vanguard index funds, their growth one, VIGAX and their total stock one, VTSAX, to try to diversify a little bit (yup very boring). They seem to have a very good track record.

I'll be honest, I thought I read Marlins and not Mariners when I first saw this trade. I was very confused as this goes against everything the Marlins have done throughout their history.

Awesome Jimbo! Congrats! Glad to hear you landed something. Hopefully this new place has a great culture that matches what you were looking for and also gives you an opportunity to add value to the company and gives you room to grow.