handiacefailure

12 hours ago, arnemgreeves said:

if anything credit cards should be banned. let people save money. 

Nope, I make a lot off my credit cards   Just know how to use them correctly   I get things like lounge access and free primary rental car insurance coverage and protection on lurchases with my credit cards and can keep my diamond status on delta which saves me over $10000 in international upgrades using the certificates and has gotten me quite a few domestic upgrades for free.    Just have to be respnsible

15 hours ago, Whitman said:

I knew that spanker.   He passed away a few months ago

I worked in title insurance for years and we would get title insurance orders sometimes and the two owners that are both real estate lawyers didn't care for them.   I'd only do it as a last resort and if you really want to stay in the home.

It's hard to get one on a condo and there are a lot of restrictions involved and you are still resonsible for making the tax and HOA and insurance payments.   And every reservse mortgage I did was on a house owned free and clear.    

If you own the house free and clear I would just sell it and downsize    

Was able to get reasonably priced tickets Saturday when I was in NYC and saw it.   I really enjoyed it.   Josh was perfect for the part.

Not west end theater, but if you are in London and an Abba fan, I'd really recommend seeing the Abba Voyager show.   I saw it last year and am going back to London in a couple weeks and planning on seeing it again.   I really like the dance booths.   It's a small sitting area with a dance floor for about twelve people

This is a good site for what's going on in London:

West End Favourites

WWW.LONDONBOXOFFICE.CO.UK

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West End Shows - London Box Office

On 4/11/2023 at 1:47 AM, BenjaminNicholas said:

I no longer will watch most of what Seth is involved in

He's unable to stop himself from being himself and can't just be a selfless, listening, great interviewer.

It reminds me of the same massive annoyance I often feel when watching old Dick Cavett reruns. 

Friend of mine saw Seth perform with someone and felt the same way and said like with Chita he wanted to be the star of the show instead of the accomoniast..   I can just imagine what one of his Broadway cruises would be like.

I love the Sirius broadway channel and some of the interviews he can be iritating as well.   I love his "dueling divas" show he does on Saturday with Chrstine Pedi.   I'd love to see one of Christine Pedi's live performances but she always does them during the week.   Her Youtube videos doing the impersonations are great and I enjoy listening to her in the morning on Sirius.  

Saw it Sunday.   Really recomend it if you are in NYC before it closes but I love Ben Platt.

He was great in the part and is based ona true story.   

I've only had a few spin off and they weren't that successful.   A friend of mine owned McD's stock when they spun off Chipolte and IIRC it was successful for him.

I track all my investments in quicken and whenever I have a spinoff I make sure to back up the file before having the spinoff entered.   I always do all my dividends in a DRIP and it enters a spinoff in quicken its uses the DRIP shares as a separate entry and I've have had a couple times where I didn't do the entry right and had to reinstall my backup data file

On 7/3/2023 at 8:28 AM, Xander said:

I bought in at the IPO and am still wondering WTF they are doing with the money. In 20 years they’ve added maybe three features to the platform. And messages still can’t sync well across devices. Unfortunately they are the largest with the most active base. 

Hope you didn't invest money in it you can't afford to lose.   Would have been a great short.   Problem with those websites is they come and go.   Look at how popular Manhunt and adam4adam were and I can't remember the laost time I was on either

I hired Dmitry Osten recently (one of my favorite hires) and even though we didn’t talk about doing it (always hire him for a kink scene) and he did some.   Ended up being really hot but not something I would want to do a lot or on a regular hook up.   I told him I love the RussianMaster porn shoot he did and he did that in that video.   I did it with Paul Pratt years ago but he just like to spit on guys and Dimitery did it in my mouth and it was pretty hot.

Too bad he isnt allowed into the US anymore.   Hopefully he’ll go back to Toronto but said it was a pain to do a canada tour if he can’t include the US with it.  

When a provider quotes a price that I feel is way too high and then will come down when I give him the coutesy of telling him the originally quoted price ut of my range.   Also when they have photos that haven't bee updated inthe last year and have been on RM for a long time with no reviews

7 hours ago, edinbrooklyn said:

I knew people that got really burned from putting it all in one basket. As mentioned, diversification is key. I’m an ETF fan!

If you own individual stocks you need to diversify and dollar cost average.   

8 hours ago, augustus said:

Talk about screwed up!........Just read on the news that SVB had a foreign branch in the Cayman Islands with deposits of $13.9 billion when it failed, mainly money of Asians.  Those deposits were not covered by the FDIC and those people lost their savings.  But on top of that those foreign depositors who also had loans with SVB are being told they have to pay those loans back.   Deposits in foreign branches of U.S. banks aren’t considered deposits for purposes of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act.  

Makes sense.   If the money is in out of US bank, why would the FDIC cover it?   AFAIK, if a country has out of country banks and you have money in the US branch, I don't even think you can access the funds.   Citizens bank has branches in London, and when I banked with Citizens I tried doing a withdrawl in London when the ATM wasn't working and was told I couldn't access my funds at the branch.

When any US bank fails you have to pay back your mortgage/loan, even if it's over $250K.   

2 hours ago, HoseMaster said:

He wants $400/hr, $1,000/4 hours, or $2,000/overnight.

Thanks   Usually $300 is my limit but might be willing to hire him for $400 if he can do an incall and will play rough

Surprised he hasn't been reviewed yet.   Hot twunk that did a few kinkmen videos and he has always been a bottom but see he did a video recently where he subbed.  And he mentions kink in his listing.   Would love to sub for him and he'd be hot to bottom for   For tops he's definitely great at that role

9 minutes ago, Lucky said:

Could someone please indulge my lack of knowledge here? I bought my I-bond on May 9, 2022.  I understand I cannot cash it in for three months after the first  year without penalty. So if I cash it in on August 9th, do I get all the interest earned to that date?

You have to hold it for a year before you can even touch it and then you lose the prior three months of interest.

Suze Orman explained it in her podcast a few weeks ago how it worked and it may be on her website as to how they figure it.

From everything I've heard if you look at the value of the ibond on treasury direct it has the interest penalty figured in and whatever value is listed is what you would get if you cashed the bond in today.

5 hours ago, Bokomaru said:

So many money market funds are paying between 4.5% - 5% now. And they are completely liquid.  So if locking your money up in an ibond or CD is an issue, MMFs are a great option, practically risk free. A fee is involved, true but only about 0.2% usually. (Note I’m taking about money market *funds* not accounts.)

If you are going to do a MMF you are better off just doing a 30 or 60 day treasury, especially if in a state that has a high state tax rate.   While not totally liquid, most people won't need access to their fund in 30 days anyway.

Something to be careful of with a MMF as well is it is considered an investment and not a deposit account so not FDIC insured like a regular money market.   There is some other kind of coverage but can't remember all the details.   There have been reports of MMF's dropping in value as well but it's usually only for a day or two and they recover.

 

On 6/12/2023 at 7:11 PM, Luv2play said:

I take it you spend more than $1million per year on these cards.

No but spend about $450K which is very easy to do as a business owner.   When I retire I'll probably only keep a couple of the credit cards for every day spend but will keep my Hyatt, Marriott and Hilton cards just for the free night, the annual fee more than pays for the free night.  

20 hours ago, Vegas_Millennial said:

This is good to know because I'll be in London in August.  I didn't know I could cash out unused funds from a transit card.  I always assumed I had to use it or lose it.

Not sure if this is still the case but before they had tap and pay you could buy an Oyster card at LHR station and you had to pay a deposit and then on your return you could use the Kiosk and it would refund your money and the deposit on the card and disactiate the card.

I always thought the card fee was absurd if they would reissue the fee and let you keep the card and also they would disactivate it.   Everytime I went to London I would have to buy a new oyster card and wait in the line to get the refund.   Was also a pain having it refunded in coins since my bank in the US only takes bills but I woud just the coins at Duty free and put it towards my purchase and pay the balance on my credit card.

7 hours ago, Vegas_Millennial said:

I have read on here a few times about a PIN for credit cards.

Will I be able to use my non-PIN US credit cards in Europe, without a PIN (most have a chip now)?  I did so in Canada a decade ago.  They made the US customers sign their receipts while Canadians entered their PIN.  

The only time I've heard of it being an issue is at some gas stations that have no humans and I ran into an issue at AMS train kiosk onetime but I just went to a human, just sucked waiting in line.

14 hours ago, mike carey said:

@handiacefailure I'm an android guy not apple (I started to write 'I'm an android not an apple guy') and I don't remember any trouble using Google Pay in the US in April, although that might have been pure luck with the places I tried (I had a card I used half the time that wasn't loaded in my wallet). In some places they still wanted a signature as well rather than a PIN ffs. I suspect that the point of sale terminal technology needed for chip and pin is also needed for mobile wallets and some big firms haven't seen the need to invest in it yet.

And I can use Google Pay to tap on and off public transport in Sydney (not, or not yet, in some other Australian cities). I believe that also works in NYC but I knew I needed a physical Metro Card for the JFK air train so I didn't try.

The London transit system has had the capability since before covid to pay with you phone or watch and I love it, beats having funds left on an oyster card and cashing them out at the airport.   Chicago's and NYC's system has also had tap and pay for a while but like you said in NYC you can't use it on the Airtrain which sucks since you have to pay a fee for the stupid MTA card.

17 hours ago, mike carey said:

Good grief! I'm gob-smacked! PINs have been the only thing here for about 10 years (apart from contactless for below [usually] $100). The financial authorities decided that signatures were insufficient for security so they made chip and PIN the standard. Signatures aren't accepted as proof if a transaction is disputed.

Unfortunately it is very hard to get a pin enabled credit card from a US bank.   Only place I found that has one is PenFed.   Fortunately most places take apple pay in other countries so it isn't really a big deal but a pin card can come in handy at the Amsterdam train kiosk and some gas stations overseas require a pin.

And apple pay still isn't very common in the US.   Walmart and Kroger still don't accept apple pay and most restaurants don't have apple pay either.

And speaking of ApplePay discover is giving five percent back on all mobile wallet purchases next quarter if you register up to a Max of $1,500 in charges.   I really miss the promo they had when Discover was first enabled for Applepay and gave a 10% cashback on all ApplePay purchases with no Max.   I bought a new dishwasher from BestBuy and a bunch of gift cards for places I shop at from a small grocery store near me that accepts applepay.

On 6/5/2023 at 9:41 AM, Jim_n_NYC said:

I just put in an order on 3-mo treasuries this morning at a listed rate of 5.19%.  So, the annualized compounded return will be more than that...probably about a full % point above the current I-bond rate.

Did the same thing.   And I live in a state with a high tax rate so it's nice there is no state income tax either.   

And it's a lot easier to buy treasury's now that you can add a bank account online without going through the BS of getting the seal from a bank.

10 hours ago, FrankR said:

Yes, good luck using a credit card in the Netherlands. None of the grocery stores and shops I visited accepted them. Cash and debit cards only. It was eye opening. 

Didn't try using it a grocery store, but no issue at all using my credit card anyplace in Amsterdam when I was there in 2013 except bars and for edibles.   

There's places I've been to in Paris and London that only take plastic.  

On 6/5/2023 at 5:44 PM, Kevin Slater said:

Also, often the ATM will prompt you with a screen saying something like "the conversion rate we're offering you is XXX" which is invariably worse than the spot rate your bank will give you.  You have the option to accept (meaning the charge will go through as dollars but at their bad rate) or to decline (meaning the charge will go through as ,say, Euros and then get your bank's exchange rate).  You're best off declining their proffered rate of conversion.

Kevin Slater

Agree.   Same if a merchant will ask you if you want it charged in US or their currency.   The conversation rate sucks.   I know Harrods in London gives you the choice and a lot of duty free stores at airports will.

Also make sure you travel with a card that has no foreign transaction fees.   There's a couple out there with no annual fee like the PenFed visa (which also is the only credit card I've found that is US based that has a PIN capability which is great oversears).