BeamerBikes

He’s a twink, who bakes, and has a love of old land yachts. When I was 20 years younger, I would have likely married him on the spot. Now, I still would wanna hang out with him. Mainly for the baked goods.

Aye, I may be a bit hypocritical. I park the long term oh shit everything has gone to hell I shouldn’t feel bad liquidating this pile. True immediate emergency fund is cash at home. I view the ibond as something more than the savings account, but going to month to month emergency. As opposed to I have sell funds out of my brokerage in a down market to keep from eating alpo and a roof over my head type. It’s just hard enough to get transferred that it’ll prevent be raided for a new car desire versus need.

Decent rate - I view it as the place to park the emergency funds. I’ll likely optimize/trade up from the lower fixed rate .9% bonds, and that will take me up to the limit for the rest of the year. I’ll lose 3 month interest, but it’s unlikely to see higher fixed rates anytime soon. God help us all if we do.

There was a Monopoly slot machine that had old Uncle Pennybags occasionally exclaiming - “Gold never gets old”. I flirt with the idea of gold as an investment, but then Warren Buffet words about investing in 100ounces of gold versus 100 acres of farm land - in 10 years the farm land would have produced something for society. One day I might buy a coin or two but it will be more to look at/admire than serious investment. When shit truly hits the fan, you can’t eat gold.

I found that treasurydirect is getting more and more unreliable. I snagged an additional $5k, I’ll wait to see what the rates are for the rest. The website being finicky on when it will decide to be available is causing me some pause. Like seriously?!?! They don’t want paper bonds anymore. It’s the middle of the business day. Keep your login page on your rinky dink site up!

I played the VIX for awhile in 2016-2018. Played again the past couple months. I did alright, BUT, I don’t have the stomach for the gamble and watching the news cycles. I have a day job, and it distracted me too much. I also feel like the volatility is a rigged game. Folks are moving the markets with timed statements during market hours. Sooner or later, there’s going to be a crisis of confidence. Because folks are going to see through the empty talk and lack of hard numbers while businesses and consumers are frozen. My advice from the volatility day trading, do it out of a Roth account so tax time isn’t a headache AND never stay in it when you can’t watch it. If you stay in a position too long, it can drop like a rock quickly and then you have to hold until the next crisis. These days that’s like a couple days…. Ha!

I won’t be giving any financial advice for anyone. I rebalanced in February, and thought I was crazy. Now it’s officially crazy times. Everything to follow is your mileage may vary. I’m not a professional advisor. Just middle aged single income a bit cynical doing alright for myself. The thumb is on the scale in the markets, and speculation is a fool’s errand. Agreed with BuffaloKyle in this case. If you are in the market, keep some quality companies and time for diamond hands. If you can’t stomach the gyrations, just don’t put new money in. Build up a “sleepy money fund” in high yield savings/iBonds. Sleepy money isn’t bad if it helps YOU sleep better. Back to basics - try to zero out your debt, live within your means, etc. it’s not get rich quick, but it’s peace of mind.

This is unlike any other environment in my opinion. There are massive active inputs being put in place by Washington in unheard of time frames. As result, I don’t think the old advice other than “Cash is King” and “No debt is best” applies until things settle out. My other concern would be making sure to take advantage of any gift cards or loyalty points. If the company associated with them goes bust or falls on very hard time, the gift card value evaporates with them or points gets devalued.

If this sell-off keeps up leading to a harder slowdown, I think the politics discussions will get much easier because even the die hard folks are going to be saying “Shut up Stewart!” When lots of folks start facing wide-spread hardship across the political spectrum, the culture wars and personality cults will fade into the background. Least that’s my hope.

This time it “feels” like it will be different than downturns in the past. Moderator note: politics redacted. The American consumer is done. Current retirees are entering retirement with very little savings. Housing costs are $$$ more than ever, mortgage defaults just hit another high. Definite pain is already here for most without savings/investments. Once the investment class get spooked, it’ll pull the last leg of spending out. Trying to find a bright spot here. Those that can adjusting lifestyle might be in a better spot. Meanwhile, if you already learned to make do with less, the adjustment won’t be anything new.

To be clear, I’m not trying to time the market for advantage. This is more I didn’t feel comfortable with the risk of being all-in even with just target date funds. Given the outsized returns of the previous couple years and all the uncertainty, I wanted to sleep better knowing that a significant chunk was safe at 4-5%. If I had overreacted - tariffs go in and the market didn’t think any of it, I’d go back in. In this case, I may have rebalanced/profit taken at the right time and/or just got plain lucky at the Stock Market Casino. Either way, I know I will end up going back in eventually for long term growth. I just don’t recognize the valuations, and I don’t buy into the AI hype train. I stick with businesses I understand in the Vegas brokerage account. Mostly stay in target date low expense funds for the vast majority of the retirement. I’m not going to try to time the bottom, and I accept I might miss out on some upswing. Bigger believer in accumulating via saving versus growing aggressively.

It’s going to be interesting if/when we see where it will bottom out this year. S&P 4900 would be close to a 20% peak to trough. I’m still a bit of a novice investor. I pulled way back out of equities at the beginning of February, and told myself I will let things shake loose. If things don’t go to shit by April/May, maybe I overreacted and it’s time to hop back in. I didn’t pull everything out, but I probably parked 60% in high yield money markets. I’m still contributing to my 401k. It’s hard to watch the markets these days.

L33t skilz

The site has started to render weird on iOS on chrome. I have switched between render as mobile vs desktop and both have a pretty clunky layout. Anyone else seeing this?

Yeah, I may just hang on to my paper ones. I’m a novice coin and currency collector so there’s a little charm there. I luckily don’t have a pile of the EEs anymore. My dad used to get them with every paycheck, a throw back when steel companies partnered with the treasury during WWII for war bonds.

Update - I might be looking at making a larger life insurance payment this year for the cash value add. The base fix rate is attractive enough for a “safe” investment. Depends how the bonus looks this year from my company. Viewing the policy as potential tax free withdrawal vehicle should I retire early. It won’t be much to be the sole option. However it might come in handy if I need to keep my taxable income low in a year for Roth conversions? I enjoy having options.

You can convert your paper bonds into a treasury direct conversion account. I’d recommend doing that either soon OR wait for a long while. Why? That conversion activity is based out of West Virginia and the office is getting the DOGE treatment. Who knows what paper bond servicing is going to be like a year from now? I likewise have some very recent paper bonds I need to convert. Debating holding onto them for the long haul to admire them as a semi collectible until I need the money and/or normalcy returns.

Part of me wants to see if it will do a dead cat bounce, but the other part of me is…. The cat just fell off the cliff, the bottom is still a ways down. As others have mentioned, if you compare it to Ford or GM, you will have valuations maybe $20-$30. What makes Tesla special? Elon? Maybe that’s not such an advantage anymore? Robo-taxis? Who’s going to get in a robo taxi when there going to be a crap load of folks driving for uber again as a side hustle? Self-driving tech? Only an advantage if they can sell their cars and right now, that’s questionable. I’m also an EV owner btw. Just never was a fan of Tesla’s design philosophy and lock in. So it’s not the car for me.

From Florida - Alleged Florida killer of 2 disabled men may have been 'targeting the elderly, gay community,' police say https://www.yahoo.com/news/alleged-florida-killer-2-disabled-173313867.html

Probably best to move/merge it into there

There’s a thread already started for him in the spa & massage section

Interesting article there’s a paywall but gist of it. Cardiologists and other docs are going on the GLP-1s themselves and noticing other peers doing the same. The Physicians Really Are Healing Themselves, With Ozempic - The New York Times WWW.NYTIMES.COM At cardiology conferences and diabetes meetings, doctors can’t help noticing that thin seems to be very in.

What someone pays in income tax relative to what I pay in income tax has no bearing to my approach to tipping. My fight with taxes is with my respective government officials, not with someone providing me a service that isn’t in a tax scale. I don’t assess any service provider by what I perceive they pay in taxes. If there’s great - reliable - consistent services rendered, I will choose to show appreciation in a variety of ways. Cash just happens to be the most commonly appreciated. All that being said - I likewise endorse the idea that in lieu of tips, being a low drama reliable respectful client means more to any provider than a one timer who’s takes up your time and still ends up trying to short pay. Having a regular client that states hey are you free tonight at 7pm (and usually shows up on time), there’s minimal back and forth, and a generally pleasant interaction for both - there’s base income that will keep the lights on. Another good sign - if you are still getting your appts taken by provider, odds are they okay with the arrangement.

Let me add - so enjoy your collections and treasure it as it makes you happy. If you can start parting with the collection to someone else who shares the interest, all the better.

I’m going to be down in Miami for work. I planned to tack on some weekend fun. Debating between something new Staying up in FLL to check out the stripper bars there(haven’t been there yet), being a beach bum, unplug. so recommendations for best place/area to stay close to beach and/or Uber-able to Johnson’s/LeBoy? OR Renting a car and taking two days to check out some of the keys that I usually drive through in the past Key Largo, and then acouple days in Key West for the weekend. Unsure if Mardi Gras is a big thing in Key West. I don’t know what the Bourbon Pub dancer crew looks like these days.