I could probably get a job at either of my local grocery store bakery departments with that.

I loved this book, so I will definitely check out John Dies at the End. Thanks for the recommendation!

Mine is off at the moment.

I’m not sure I understand. You can stream music for free on Spotify, Tidal, Deezer, Pandora, Bandcamp, YouTube, and probably several other services. Not to mention the thousands of radio stations you can stream. It seems like there are exponentially more music streaming options compared to video. If you’re asking about sites where you can stream without ads, I’m guessing those exist too, but I suspect most people are either willing to listen to ads or pay for ad-free with one of those services.

Since it sounds like you have younger kids, I’d take a decent sized portion of it (maybe 2-8k) and use that to make lasting family memories. Seeing everything of interest in a short range (zoos, aquariums, caves, gardens, museums, national parks, whatever), more frequent small vacations (driving distance or short flights to the beach/mountains/whatever), occasional major vacations (other countries, theme parks, cruises, whatever your family finds interesting). Or investing in lifelong hobbies that you can do together, like skiing, art, tennis, restoring cars, etc.

After that, the rest I would add to my FIRE plan. It would not necessarily mean retiring sooner (though it might), but it would be about adding flexibility to my life. If my savings were larger, I could always just to dip into that to pay for college or I be better prepared to deal with an unexpected layoff or emergency.

Skyrim, Fallout: New Vegas, and Mass Effect Legendary are my favorites that I come back to repeatedly. Of course, they were all probably perfectly playable on your old PC.

Hitman World of Assassination was good and not playable on your old PC. I have not replayed it yet, but it is definitely repayable with the option to approach every level in different ways.

I’ve gotten bored with the Assassins Creed games, but the newer ones are very pretty and they’re open world with lots of story and tons of things to do.

You mentioned Far Cry 3, there’s also 4, 5, 6 New Dawn, and Primal. I haven’t played 5, 6, or New Dawn, but 4 plays the same as 3 (just a different story) and I actually like Primal quite a bit.

The Just Cause series is really over the top mayhem, but I enjoyed them. Lots of open world destruction for a…just cause (or maybe just because).

The Saints Row games are ridiculous, childish fun. Very similar to GTA, but makes GTA look classy by comparison. I think Saints Row 4 and Gat Out of Hell are the best ones. The first 2 are quite dated at this point. There is a recent remaster of 3, I liked the original, but haven’t played the remaster yet. There’s a newer one that’s just called “Saints Row”, I’ve only played a little of it so far and its pretty bland.

I find it so frustrating that I have to wait until Feb to do my taxes. Let’s gooooooo!!!

I’m the opposite, lived most of my life on the West coast and then moved to the East coast. Some time zone related things that I’ve noticed:

• I love to start work early and end work early, so there was a period of time where I could work 6am to 3pm and still be online later than many of my east coast coworkers. This schedule was ideal for me. Now I have to work until 5 or 6pm every day and I don’t like that very much.

• I could get up and trade stocks early in the morning, which is convenient for me because I don’t do a lot of stock trading and don’t need to stay on top of it throughout the day. Now I get up and think, “I need to make that transaction later today”, then 4pm rolls around and I realize I’ve forgotten to do it yet again.

• Not a time zone thing, but I’ve been to Hawaii once and would love to go back. When I was in California, it was a 5-6 hour flight, now its more like 12 hours. I’m not willing to make that trip. I do have the option to go to the Caribbean or Europe instead, which is nice though (if I ever get around to it).

• I don’t watch sports, but I always thought of the Super Bowl being an afternoon game. Then I moved East and realized people were staying up past midnight to watch the game (and party) and then trying to go to work or school Monday morning. No impact for me, but for my lifestyle, afternoon games would be preferable.

• I used to do a lot of online gaming with people from all over the US and Europe. Lots of my friends would stay up very late or even all night gaming. I could keep up with them when it meant staying up until 10-12pm (my time). Staying up until 2 or 3am would not work for me. I don’t play online games anymore, but that would be a challenge for me now.

I’m neutral on the housing market right now. People buying houses are generally living in them (or renting them), there’s very little house flipping like in 2005-06. There’s also no interest-only mortgages, so people actually have the cash flow to stay. Rates are probably not going up, but they might come down a little. If they do drop, I think prices will go up proportionately such that the monthly payment is the same either way. New housing is being built, but not fast enough to make a major impact on demand in the near term.

Altogether, I think housing in the US is “fairly” valued on a supply/demand basis at the moment. If we get a recession, prices might dip, but I would be very surprised to see another crash like 2007-09. However, I also don’t expect to see prices go up quickly from here other than in response to lower interest rates. So, if I were making a new purchase decision today, I’d be thinking about the following:

• Do I plan to stay 5+ years (the longer, the better)
• Can I comfortably afford to pay the mortgage (or is it at least comparable to rent)?
• Can I afford a major repair bill? Especially if any of the big ticket items will hit their typical end of life in the next 5 years.

Here are some of my major home maintenance expenses from the last 10 years:

• Water supply line to the house failed (polybutylene): $2.5k
• Tankless hot water unit failed: $3.5k
• Wildlife exclusion due to rats in the attic and crawlspace: $2k
• Electrical repairs due to rats in the crawlspace chewing on wiring: $3.4k
• Totally gut and rebuild kitchen & bathroom due to plumbing failure: $2k deductible, plus my homeowner’s insurance increased every year since
• Replaced failed mini-split HVAC system: $3.5k
• Dig up and repair sewage line that was clogged with roots: $3.5k
• New sod to repair the lawn after the plumbers dug it up: $1.5k

Those are the big items I recall that I had little choice in. I also replaced my way past end of life 2 zone HVAC system for about $30k. I could have kept the old one running longer and I could have gotten a cheaper replacement (maybe $22k), but the old system was struggling and couldn’t keep the house comfortable anymore. I seem to recall hearing a good rule of thumb is to set aside 1-2% of your home’s value every year for major maintenance and that seems about right from my experience.

I think the only reason the US continues to exist in its current state is due to the global power of the US currency. It is the dominant currency for international exchange, which gives the US government extraordinary influence in international affairs AND gives corporations and wealthy people a reason to be based in the US. There are historical similarities with other countries having a dominant currency such as the British Pound or Dutch Guilder during those countries periods of imperial dominance. The empire is likely to persist as long as the currency remains dominant no matter how badly it is mismanaged.

I’ve blocked as much news out of my life as I can manage with the exception of some financial news. That includes blocking all the news communities on Lemmy. Things still slip through, but I also push myself to just ignore the bits that I still see and move on with my life. I’m much happier as a result. In terms of being aware of big news, if its a big enough deal, the fine folks here at Lemmy will create memes to let me know.

Its a very thin layer of leather on the outside and very thin layers of fabric on the inside. It is 2 credit cards tall, so depending on how many cards you have, you distribute them across 4 pockets. The billfold section is split into a shallow and a deep compartment, so you can arrange things at 2 levels, if you want. I rarely carry cash, so that part usually just has some small notes or receipts or nothing at all.

So it is partly the layout and partly the materials that keeps it thin. “Nice” wallets are usually all leather or mostly leather, which makes them much thicker and tri-folds are the worst.

I checked out of curiosity, its an Allet Original (was called classic leather when I bought it) and I’ve had it for 9 years. Its still in great condition, but apparently they cost almost twice as much now (I paid $35, they’re $66 now).

I got several wallets as gifts ages ago, but I got sick of carrying fat wallets and found a slim wallet to buy for myself and have used it for as long as I can remember now. I would never trade it out unless I somehow found an even skinnier one (or it gets lost or destroyed).

That’s my understanding as well, but I don’t see a good reason not to, so I do it anyway.

I rinse everything thoroughly before putting in in the dishwasher to avoid ever having to clean the filter. I check it a couple of times a year, just in case, and it seems to be working for me.

I like to use disposable aluminum baking/roasting pans. You can get them cheap and they fit easily under sinks to collect drips until you decide its worth dealing with. For particularly low volumes of water, like an infrequently used bathroom sink, just sprinkle some baking soda in the pan to keep it from getting smelly. I prefer to wait until the problem becomes unbearable or I have to sell the house to deal with it.

I guess my egg timer wasn’t so smart then. It’s cute though.

I bought an egg cooker a few years ago. It cost about $15 and very quickly steams eggs with great results. The reason I bought it was because I thought it was a good, efficient way to handle smaller batches, but I found that for some reason it doesn’t produce the foul egg smell that is typical with boiling eggs.

The way I’ve seen it, it appears to primarily be used by the various British and former British colonies, including the US. For these groups, anyone from outside the colonies living in “our” territory is an immigrant (who is certainly a lower class!). However, if we choose to reside in another country, we are not immigrants, we are “expats”.

Not everyone uses this term, but those that do frequently congregate in English speaking enclaves and make no attempt to integrate into their new home. They often see the locals as a sort of servant class, particularly because they probably came with enough money or income to make them wealthy by local standards.

As you might imagine, people with this attitude are probably not very popular with locals.