Buy a reliable used car from a sensible low cost brand, with low mileage for $8-10k
If you're planning to use it as cheap and reliable transportation for 7 years, what can you get for $10K? I'd estimate that you don't want something more than five years old, and from what I can see that's half off price new. You may be able to get more out of it, but it won't be reliable. I don't know what used car prices are where you live, but that doesn't sound like realistic advice where I live.
drive it for the next 7 years without abusing the mileage
Abusing the mileage? What's that? Most people put most of the miles on their vehicles for their jobs. Most of mine is commuting to work and back, with some for going to stores and visiting close friends and relatives. I'd be hard-pressed to cut 10% off my yearly mileage and still work and eat.
and financial trouble will never mean loss of transportation.
Assuming you always keep several thousands of dollars that you can get hold of quickly if the car needs major repairs, since those can be expensive. Alternately, focusing on low TCO means not buying insurance on the car itself, so if you're in an accident and it's ruled largely or all your fault (and these things happen), you suddenly need to get $8-$10K to buy a new car.
n three years a $35k vehicle will have depreciated by that much, you'll have paid very little principal and be upside down
I paid a little under that for a new car, on a four-year zero-interest loan. After three years, I will have paid off 75% of the principal, and the car will be worth a lot more than $8K, so I won't be underwater. TCO is the car payment, gas, and inexpensive scheduled maintenance. After four years, the payment goes away. I get the best years of the car, and the solid knowledge that it has gotten its scheduled maintenance. After seven years, it's going to be more reliable than a twelve-year-old vehicle.
Not everyone feels the way you do. Many people enjoy luxury food, or driving good cars. I'm not keen on high-class food or sporty cars, but I really like my Subaru Forester. Personally, I spend more conscious time in my car than in my bed, and as long as I wake up feeling good the details are unimportant.
Fancy clothes and jewelry have a real payoff in some ways. Someone who wears them is sending a message, and "I'm more powerful than you" can be a very useful message. Some people have art projects, and for some their art is how they present themselves. I write mediocre novels, myself, but that's me.
Know what makes you happy, and know what's useful to you, and spend your money accordingly. Avoid making up reasons to feel superior to other people; that's transitory but addictive pleasure. You really don't write like a truly happy person.
People have financial challenges. Why is that a story at all?
People get murdered. Why is that news at all?
The significant part of this is the number and extent of financial challenges. We can't base any sort of policy or action on "people have financial challenges", just like the criminal justice system can't base anything on "people get murdered". We need to know, at the very least, what the general impact is.
You're confusing having a different view of the country with being against the country. Lots of people think the Electoral College never did serve its intended purpose (aside from giving slave states an advantage) and should be abolished for the good of the country. I've found that lots of people as patriotic as I am have different ideas of what's good for the country.
So, it takes something like the Republican-controlled congresses in Obama's terms to make me think they're going over the line. Currently, Trump isn't putting party over the good of the country, but rather his business interests, which is no better.
The Western interest in the area is primarily getting oil from it, not who controls what. Aside from some temporary disruption, whether Saddam or the House of Saud controls whatever oilfield is irrelevant to Western interests. Saddam was interested in territorial expansion, which doesn't affect our interests significantly, and was very willing to continue selling oil. It's been made clear that refusing to sell oil carries consequences.
The proper analogy here is not my various accounts, but rather the name over the door of the grocery store I go to. If it says "House of Saud" over the door, and goes through an acquisition and remodeling, during which I shop at the Ayatollah's next door, and it reopens with much the same things with a "Saddam" sign over the door, what do I care?
The only country in the Middle East that resembles a modern democracy in any way is Israel. We have no cultural interest in any other part.
Sigh. I've read plenty of history, enough to know that you're wrong. I also don't consider "It looks like something I oppose" from a pseudonymous slashdot poster a refutation.
Hitler wasn't a socialist. The Third Reich was capitalist and heavily favored the rich industrialists. The National Socialist German Workers' Party had both nationalist and socialist movements before the mid-30s, when Hitler terminated the Socialists with extreme prejudice. If you read "Mein Kampf", you'll find a passage somewhere (it's horribly disorganized) saying that you do not change your propaganda when your doctrines change. Ford was fond of Hitler as an anti-semite, a capitalist, and an authoritarian.
Study some history from a viewpoint that isn't locked to one political stance, and come back when you can avoid embarrassing yourself among historians.
You seem to be describing Federal taxes in an ideal case. You' seem to be assuming maximum contributions to a non-Roth 401(k), and you're completely ignoring state taxes. As it happens, cayenne8 may not feel like investing to the absolute max in non-Roth retirement accounts is the optimal course of action, for many reasons, and cayenne8 presumably lives in a state with taxes.
Most people don't structure their life around tax avoidance.
What I mean by "potential" here is not really well-defined. It's the amount of success I'd get for a certain amount of work and luck. Someone who grew up malnourished in a boring slum with parents who didn't care and crappy schools would have had to work a lot harder than I did to get to where I am now. To give a car analogy, my car currently has a supply of chemical energy in its tank, which presumably counts as potential energy since it isn't doing anything, and so I can move it much more easily than if I had to put it in neutral and push.
It's more expensive to get a degree than it used to be. Having one is very definitely better than not having one, but right now I don't know if it would be worth the expense to a given person, which I find sad. It's kind of like Tesla stock: I think the company is probably going to take off and become big, and having their stock would be really nice, but I can't see buying at that share price.
Luck is also a slippery thing. Having started luckily, of the more socially approved sex, race, and sexual orientation, I worked my way into a position where the only luck in keeping up my lifestyle is avoiding major medical problems until I'm ready to retire, and that doesn't require much luck at all. I'm lucky in having found my present job, but I would have landed a decent one in any case (once I started dying my hair). If I was trying to be rich, I'd need my advantages, a whole lot of hard work, and luck.
To keep in tone with the insulting nature of your reply, you've got to be a deplorable to think that we have to take any single-sourced information as true, or as something there's "no denying" about. That Microsoft by itself can't provide the necessary tests is beside the point.
Moreover, your reading comprehension is thoroughly lacking if you can't see the difference between "used less power in one test" and "superior". If using less power does mean superior, then indeed you should leave your laptop off at all times (particularly if it runs Windows 8 or 10), If you actually want to do something with your laptop, and think that accomplishing something is superior to accomplishing nothing, even you should see that battery life isn't the only criterion for "superior".
I'm getting pretty good at hitting the invisible X on the notification to fix my Microsoft account so I can so something with my other Microsoft devices, which number almost but not quite one.
There's no denying that Edge drains the battery a lot less.
I'm waiting for the large number of peer-reviewed journal articles to have as much confidence in that as I have that AGW is going on. Heck, some independent tests would help.
And yet the numbers are clear that Edge is superior.
Leaving the computer off drains the battery even slower. Hence, by your reasoning, leaving the computer off is superior to running Edge. I'm finding that conclusion almost plausible.
Significantly fewer people voted for Trump than voted for Clinton. The deplorables are, fortunately, in the minority.
Seriously, I made an effort to figure out where the Trump voters were coming from. Aside from the fact that they fell whole-heartedly for the most successful con job in history, they appear to be entitled assholes, wanting to live in homogenous communities, enforcing their values on others elsewhere, and demanding jobs that pay decently for low skill.
You'll also find competent people who did everything right and wound up a lot worse off than you.
I was born to a middle-class US family living in an area with a good school system. I am very intelligent, with high analytical skills. I was raised with a halfway decent work ethic. I can take credit to absolutely none of these, and none of this makes me more worthy than anybody else. It's luck.
I've done some things that I can be legitimately proud of, but most of my earning potential was luck.
Sometimes I have to remind people that we don't get broadcast or cable, since they assume the latest shows are a semi-mandatory part of the common culture. I'm not superior about it. We have our own time-wasting habits.
Last time we had television service, it was expensive, the shows were almost unwatchable due to commercials, we had to watch on somebody else's schedule, and we couldn't get Minnesota Twins games. Getting the shows from Amazon Prime is much superior.
It's not a matter of what tax planning and advice you can afford so much as what tax avoidance you can afford. My wife and I make the bulk of our money working for our livings, and there's real limits on how we can shelter that.
We're comparing democracies to democracies here. The difference nowadays between a republic and a monarchy in developed countries is negligible. There is no such government type as "Socialist". The difference between, say, the US and France is that their people have made different decisions, not that their forms of government are particularly dissimilar.
The Constitution empowers Congress to tax and spend for the general welfare. A constitutional amendment explicitly allows Federal taxes based on income.
You're obviously worth more than $20K more than your salary to the company, since they've got that tucked away in total compensation. If suddenly we went to single-payer, they wouldn't just give you a $20K increase. However, other companies would raise salaries to get the best people, since they would have more money available from payroll, and pay would slowly work its way up. Eventually, you'd get a five-figure raise out of it.
In 1942, the Japanese occupied a couple of Aleutian islands that nobody really cared about. The US later evicted them.
One of the Pearl Harbor attack pilots wound up on a small Hawaiian island and used his pistol to take over.
However, the US hasn't always had a large defense budget or advanced armed forces. In the 1870s or 1880s, a French admiral on a US warship waxed nostalgic when he saw weapons that he hadn't seen the like of since he was a very junior officer. The US wasn't invaded and occupied then either.
The US military has proven extremely effective in battlefield situations, less so in things like military government. Carrier groups have really good defenses.
Fun fact: if US health care costs were reduced to be equal to the next highest country, we'd save more than the entire cost of the F-35 program in under two years.
Slashdot Mirror
If you're planning to use it as cheap and reliable transportation for 7 years, what can you get for $10K? I'd estimate that you don't want something more than five years old, and from what I can see that's half off price new. You may be able to get more out of it, but it won't be reliable. I don't know what used car prices are where you live, but that doesn't sound like realistic advice where I live.
Abusing the mileage? What's that? Most people put most of the miles on their vehicles for their jobs. Most of mine is commuting to work and back, with some for going to stores and visiting close friends and relatives. I'd be hard-pressed to cut 10% off my yearly mileage and still work and eat.
Assuming you always keep several thousands of dollars that you can get hold of quickly if the car needs major repairs, since those can be expensive. Alternately, focusing on low TCO means not buying insurance on the car itself, so if you're in an accident and it's ruled largely or all your fault (and these things happen), you suddenly need to get $8-$10K to buy a new car.
I paid a little under that for a new car, on a four-year zero-interest loan. After three years, I will have paid off 75% of the principal, and the car will be worth a lot more than $8K, so I won't be underwater. TCO is the car payment, gas, and inexpensive scheduled maintenance. After four years, the payment goes away. I get the best years of the car, and the solid knowledge that it has gotten its scheduled maintenance. After seven years, it's going to be more reliable than a twelve-year-old vehicle.
Not everyone feels the way you do. Many people enjoy luxury food, or driving good cars. I'm not keen on high-class food or sporty cars, but I really like my Subaru Forester. Personally, I spend more conscious time in my car than in my bed, and as long as I wake up feeling good the details are unimportant.
Fancy clothes and jewelry have a real payoff in some ways. Someone who wears them is sending a message, and "I'm more powerful than you" can be a very useful message. Some people have art projects, and for some their art is how they present themselves. I write mediocre novels, myself, but that's me.
Know what makes you happy, and know what's useful to you, and spend your money accordingly. Avoid making up reasons to feel superior to other people; that's transitory but addictive pleasure. You really don't write like a truly happy person.
People get murdered. Why is that news at all?
The significant part of this is the number and extent of financial challenges. We can't base any sort of policy or action on "people have financial challenges", just like the criminal justice system can't base anything on "people get murdered". We need to know, at the very least, what the general impact is.
You're confusing having a different view of the country with being against the country. Lots of people think the Electoral College never did serve its intended purpose (aside from giving slave states an advantage) and should be abolished for the good of the country. I've found that lots of people as patriotic as I am have different ideas of what's good for the country.
So, it takes something like the Republican-controlled congresses in Obama's terms to make me think they're going over the line. Currently, Trump isn't putting party over the good of the country, but rather his business interests, which is no better.
The Western interest in the area is primarily getting oil from it, not who controls what. Aside from some temporary disruption, whether Saddam or the House of Saud controls whatever oilfield is irrelevant to Western interests. Saddam was interested in territorial expansion, which doesn't affect our interests significantly, and was very willing to continue selling oil. It's been made clear that refusing to sell oil carries consequences.
The proper analogy here is not my various accounts, but rather the name over the door of the grocery store I go to. If it says "House of Saud" over the door, and goes through an acquisition and remodeling, during which I shop at the Ayatollah's next door, and it reopens with much the same things with a "Saddam" sign over the door, what do I care?
The only country in the Middle East that resembles a modern democracy in any way is Israel. We have no cultural interest in any other part.
Sigh. I've read plenty of history, enough to know that you're wrong. I also don't consider "It looks like something I oppose" from a pseudonymous slashdot poster a refutation.
Hitler wasn't a socialist. The Third Reich was capitalist and heavily favored the rich industrialists. The National Socialist German Workers' Party had both nationalist and socialist movements before the mid-30s, when Hitler terminated the Socialists with extreme prejudice. If you read "Mein Kampf", you'll find a passage somewhere (it's horribly disorganized) saying that you do not change your propaganda when your doctrines change. Ford was fond of Hitler as an anti-semite, a capitalist, and an authoritarian.
Study some history from a viewpoint that isn't locked to one political stance, and come back when you can avoid embarrassing yourself among historians.
You seem to be describing Federal taxes in an ideal case. You' seem to be assuming maximum contributions to a non-Roth 401(k), and you're completely ignoring state taxes. As it happens, cayenne8 may not feel like investing to the absolute max in non-Roth retirement accounts is the optimal course of action, for many reasons, and cayenne8 presumably lives in a state with taxes.
Most people don't structure their life around tax avoidance.
What I mean by "potential" here is not really well-defined. It's the amount of success I'd get for a certain amount of work and luck. Someone who grew up malnourished in a boring slum with parents who didn't care and crappy schools would have had to work a lot harder than I did to get to where I am now. To give a car analogy, my car currently has a supply of chemical energy in its tank, which presumably counts as potential energy since it isn't doing anything, and so I can move it much more easily than if I had to put it in neutral and push.
It's more expensive to get a degree than it used to be. Having one is very definitely better than not having one, but right now I don't know if it would be worth the expense to a given person, which I find sad. It's kind of like Tesla stock: I think the company is probably going to take off and become big, and having their stock would be really nice, but I can't see buying at that share price.
Luck is also a slippery thing. Having started luckily, of the more socially approved sex, race, and sexual orientation, I worked my way into a position where the only luck in keeping up my lifestyle is avoiding major medical problems until I'm ready to retire, and that doesn't require much luck at all. I'm lucky in having found my present job, but I would have landed a decent one in any case (once I started dying my hair). If I was trying to be rich, I'd need my advantages, a whole lot of hard work, and luck.
Given the typical election results, 66 to 63 is significant. Traditionally, we don't count people who don't vote.
To keep in tone with the insulting nature of your reply, you've got to be a deplorable to think that we have to take any single-sourced information as true, or as something there's "no denying" about. That Microsoft by itself can't provide the necessary tests is beside the point.
Moreover, your reading comprehension is thoroughly lacking if you can't see the difference between "used less power in one test" and "superior". If using less power does mean superior, then indeed you should leave your laptop off at all times (particularly if it runs Windows 8 or 10), If you actually want to do something with your laptop, and think that accomplishing something is superior to accomplishing nothing, even you should see that battery life isn't the only criterion for "superior".
I'm getting pretty good at hitting the invisible X on the notification to fix my Microsoft account so I can so something with my other Microsoft devices, which number almost but not quite one.
I'm waiting for the large number of peer-reviewed journal articles to have as much confidence in that as I have that AGW is going on. Heck, some independent tests would help.
Leaving the computer off drains the battery even slower. Hence, by your reasoning, leaving the computer off is superior to running Edge. I'm finding that conclusion almost plausible.
Welcome to the Norwegian prison. Here's your Windows 10 laptop!
The fiends!
Significantly fewer people voted for Trump than voted for Clinton. The deplorables are, fortunately, in the minority.
Seriously, I made an effort to figure out where the Trump voters were coming from. Aside from the fact that they fell whole-heartedly for the most successful con job in history, they appear to be entitled assholes, wanting to live in homogenous communities, enforcing their values on others elsewhere, and demanding jobs that pay decently for low skill.
You'll also find competent people who did everything right and wound up a lot worse off than you.
I was born to a middle-class US family living in an area with a good school system. I am very intelligent, with high analytical skills. I was raised with a halfway decent work ethic. I can take credit to absolutely none of these, and none of this makes me more worthy than anybody else. It's luck.
I've done some things that I can be legitimately proud of, but most of my earning potential was luck.
Fortunately, 10% of the shows available should be plenty. There's lots of crap TV. There's some good TV. I try to watch that.
My wife was once told that too many people write stories with built-in commercial breaks.
Better slackjawing at a screen than finding reasons to feel superior.
Sometimes I have to remind people that we don't get broadcast or cable, since they assume the latest shows are a semi-mandatory part of the common culture. I'm not superior about it. We have our own time-wasting habits.
Last time we had television service, it was expensive, the shows were almost unwatchable due to commercials, we had to watch on somebody else's schedule, and we couldn't get Minnesota Twins games. Getting the shows from Amazon Prime is much superior.
It's not a matter of what tax planning and advice you can afford so much as what tax avoidance you can afford. My wife and I make the bulk of our money working for our livings, and there's real limits on how we can shelter that.
We're comparing democracies to democracies here. The difference nowadays between a republic and a monarchy in developed countries is negligible. There is no such government type as "Socialist". The difference between, say, the US and France is that their people have made different decisions, not that their forms of government are particularly dissimilar.
The Constitution empowers Congress to tax and spend for the general welfare. A constitutional amendment explicitly allows Federal taxes based on income.
We actually have fifty-plus educational systems, of widely varying quality.
You're obviously worth more than $20K more than your salary to the company, since they've got that tucked away in total compensation. If suddenly we went to single-payer, they wouldn't just give you a $20K increase. However, other companies would raise salaries to get the best people, since they would have more money available from payroll, and pay would slowly work its way up. Eventually, you'd get a five-figure raise out of it.
In 1942, the Japanese occupied a couple of Aleutian islands that nobody really cared about. The US later evicted them.
One of the Pearl Harbor attack pilots wound up on a small Hawaiian island and used his pistol to take over.
However, the US hasn't always had a large defense budget or advanced armed forces. In the 1870s or 1880s, a French admiral on a US warship waxed nostalgic when he saw weapons that he hadn't seen the like of since he was a very junior officer. The US wasn't invaded and occupied then either.
The US military has proven extremely effective in battlefield situations, less so in things like military government. Carrier groups have really good defenses.
Fun fact: if US health care costs were reduced to be equal to the next highest country, we'd save more than the entire cost of the F-35 program in under two years.