"The only thing that helps against horrible neighbors is moving. If you've never learned that lesson, you've never had horrible neighbors."
Having lived next to a terrible neighbour for over 20 years, I can confirm a horrible neighbour never changes into a considerate one. And often they're the ones that never sell or move (why would they, they're having a great time..).
Almost all the neighbours properties around here have been sold a few times, but not him.
Lucky we've been lucky with our other neighbours who are (currently, and most of the owners of the past too) all very nice people.
We'd love to move, but we really like the location, house and garden. That and anything similar is priced out of our range.
We used to think we got really lucky with the price of our place, but maybe no one bought it because they knew the neighbour that lived there.
But yeah, if you can move, move. Don't hang around hoping things will get better, they usually don't.
I stood my ground once against an awful neighbor. The neighborhood was a fishbowl and he already had a bad reputation that he wanted to pretend didn’t exist. My spouse and I put up a fence on the property line and nowhere else, which really embarrassed him. And at one point we figured out he was eavesdropping on us. I found out he had a record and so I started talking with my spouse in the room he eavesdropped on about getting a restraining order and about his record. It took about 3 months but he eventually packed up and left.
There's a guy in my neighborhood driving a 20yo BMW with a modified exhaust. He also has a motorcycle. If I tried to move to a more expensive area, I would have a guy driving a 5yo BMW with a modified exhaust - the building two blocks away is literally that - 40% more expensive, asshole in an M3 flooring it every time he drives out.
A friend of mine had a prolonged conflict with a neighbour who lived off of his dad's money and who would pound his Porsche at any time he would feel like it.
It makes me a little sad to see a lot of peoples comments here about how they're annoyed by xyz thing someone does that doesn't stop at there fence line or unit. So many are being downvoted.
A few months ago I was going through my secondary email and noticed I was getting a $0.01 monthly bill from AWS.
Having not used AWS for years, I logged in to check it out, navigated through the Kafkaesque maze of their services until I found what I was looking for:
A lone S3 storage bucket, with one file, "Squirrel.jpg". A 200kB picture of a squirrel that I uploaded 8 years ago and can't remember why.
I wonder what the cost to AWS was for keeping track of that and running your CC. There's no way they made money off you / that 12 cents/year cost them *at least* 12 cents to collect every year
That's funny. I kept getting a -$100 bill from a credit card for a few months after closing it. Eventually called them and suggested they can send me a cheque instead of a bill next time for similar reasons...
IIRC the CC they had on hand had long expired and they never actually managed to charge me for these minuscule amounts, which is why I didn't notice it for so long.
Corporate probably loaded up the laptop with work monitoring software, and some terrible AV software. Among other bloatware. A PC of your spec should run without noticeable delay, something else is going on there.
Having said that, Windows has made a lot of the basic functionality way to resource heavy.
Another common issue on corporate-issued workstation laptops is that they don’t install the proper GPU drivers. The basic ones that ship with the OS are awful, but work just well enough that people don’t notice that they’re missing something important.
I tried a "flagship Android" phone once (the top of the line Samsung), it was bugging the second I opened the pack. I returned it and got a cheap Pixel budget line phone.
Then a few years later I jumped ship to iPhone, and largely am very happy now. Nothing is perfect, but for me, iPhone is the best I've tried.
Yep this. Avoid lifestyle creep (when you get raises). Invest your money (e.g. world passive mutual fund, or VT ETF). Don't sell investments when the market crashes, just ride it out (assuming you bought diversified fund). Don't stock pick, it's largely gambling and 99% of people can't beat the market doing it. If you must stock pick, do at most, 5% of your investments.
Avoid actively managed/high fee mutual funds/ETFs. Research clearly shows, long term they do worse then the market. (And if there is an active fund that does end up beating the market long term, you have no way of knowing which fund that would be ahead of time)
The Millionaire Next Door is a great book, and gives a good perspective on money.
If anyone here is interested, Google the FIRE movement (Financial Independence, Retire Early).
Even just doing the first 2 letters, Financial Independence, would be huge, and give you way more flexibility.
When/if you retire early, keep doing things to keep your mind and body active. Most people who retire stop doing the things that kept them healthy, and there body deteriorates quickly (with xyz illnesses).
The sad true is that, for many, work forces them to do the basics to keep your body running ok.
But what's the point of it being long-term? I want fuck-off money right now. What's the point of having a bit of money when I'm old, can barely leave the house and everyone and everything I cared about is long gone?
Why do I want to have a million in the bank by age 70 if I'm going to kill myself by age 30-35?
How old are you ? I used to espouse similar view but now that I am past 40, I regret not starting investing in my 20 and see myself living well into my 80's.
That punk-ish no future mentality usually dampen past 30-35!
This is true. On the other hand, I've found myself lately starting to wane a little bit the other way. Let me explain. I'm doing ok, because I got involvednin the FIRE movement early and invested early. Now about to be 40, and having a couple kids, I've realized that so long as I have no debt and good security (enough to see my kids into adulthood) then what is the money for??? To be clear, I haven't started spending my retirement money yet, but I already know I'm never going to quit working. So.... I don't know, you know?
I wonder if you'll view things differently again once you start deteriorating mentally and physically. Fact is that the median person does not live well into their 80s and many of those that do will be severely limited in what they can do during those final years.
Maybe you will. But probably whatever stopped you from doing it today and made you push it away for years will feel the same tomorrow, the same next year and at age 30 and 35, saying "if I'm going to kill myself by 40-45" and then "by 50-55".
Not always and not everyone, people do suicide, but consider there's 37 million people in poverty in the USA, 18 million with cancer, and a lot more with shit lives in various ways - chronic diseases, disabilities, lost loves, hopeless futures, victims of horrors - and out of that vast amount of misery the USA has "only" 50,000 suicides annually. Much less than I might guess from the numbers. Bodies are 4 billion years of survival machines and they don't quit easily and that includes mental trickery as well as physical resilience[1].
I thought I would commit suicide as a teen. I planned it and tried in my teens and twenties. I thought I would force it in my thirties. Did "it get better"? No not really, mildly worse in several ways. Is the world better for me staying around? No, not really. Did I discover a hope for a brighter future? Maybe[2] but not a strong one. Maybe I'm discovering a bit more selfishness and less obligation to do what other people demand.
The years are going by faster now and "the rest of my life" doesn't seem so long. Interesting ideas are still interesting, books are still readable, work is still available, death is coming whether we hurry it or fight it.
> "What's the point of having a bit of money when I'm old, can barely leave the house"
Pay for your healthcare so you can still leave the house, or pay for home help if you can't.
In that 5 years your industry would have left you behind :( unfortunately. Unless you do the type of job that allows this style of living but afaik, it's not tech.
I don't know. I just had a break for approx 3 years with very limited access to the internet. Absolutely nothing has changed. AI is now useful, but it doesn't operate differently than before.
My very good colleague who was absolutely brilliant statistician shared his wisdom: Max the now, min the future.
He focused on the present but hated work, it was utterly boring to him, even if objectively the work benefited humanity. One day he quit and never came back. He spent his time learning to dance salsa. He was in his mid to late twenties.
Of course he was an extreme case. But his zen is important to take and balance together with future planning.
I think you can do both, aim for fuck off money but put aside a little bit for the future.
Edit: if youre wondering what happend to him - he's studying electrical engineering because I suspect he's aiming to not be behind a desk.
> Yep this. Avoid lifestyle creep (when you get raises). Invest your money
This is great advice anyway, even if you were born poor/working class. With the added proviso that you should be paying down your debt, highest interest rate first, since that will have far higher returns than your average investment. Also make sure that you have enough liquid cash set aside that you'll be able to deal quickly and completely with any issues that might come up; this makes a significant difference to your ability to live and work stress-free.
> Invest your money (e.g. world passive mutual fund, or VT ETF).
i despise stock markets, investments etc., so i just kind of have accepted that i'll probably never grow my money passively. from time to time i stumble across advice like yours, talking about ETFs, and feel a bit left out again.
money just sits in my bank account with close to 0% interest. i know that ETFs would slowly generate more money, but i also know that my money would then be invested in a ton of companies i absolutely don't want to be a part of, even when considering that my sums would be a drop in an ocean.
There are ETFs that specifically exclude companies with lots of negative externalities (no Exxon, etc.). The term to look for is "socially responsible".
a bit ironic to recommend a "socially responsible" ETF, managed by the one and only UBS.
but you're right, i forgot that my socially responsible bank claims to have socially responsible ETFs. i just hope that they are actually socially responsible, and not "socially responsible".
lots of things claim to be socially, ecologically or otherwise responsible, but that's exactly my issue. they're claims, most of the time just [insert color]washing.
There is equipment that will dig a small tunnel like thing under concrete, avoiding needing to destroy your driveway (assuming there is space on either side) . Won't be cheap, but it's possible.
Having lived next to a terrible neighbour for over 20 years, I can confirm a horrible neighbour never changes into a considerate one. And often they're the ones that never sell or move (why would they, they're having a great time..). Almost all the neighbours properties around here have been sold a few times, but not him.
Lucky we've been lucky with our other neighbours who are (currently, and most of the owners of the past too) all very nice people.
We'd love to move, but we really like the location, house and garden. That and anything similar is priced out of our range.
We used to think we got really lucky with the price of our place, but maybe no one bought it because they knew the neighbour that lived there.
But yeah, if you can move, move. Don't hang around hoping things will get better, they usually don't.
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