Hey, I’ve been there! Related to Christmas, every year Nevada City has a Victorian Christmas celebration where they all dress fancy and neighboring Grass Valley has Cornish Christmas, that seems to celebrate the working class. Total speculation on my part, I’m guessing in the 1800s all the mine owners lived in Nevada City and all the miners lived in Grass Valley.
I’m a big fan of gardening with native plants. Here are a couple of sites that might help you if you want to try that:
https://npsnj.org/native-plants/plant-lists/ https://www.jerseyyards.org/jersey-friendly-plants/native-plants/ https://www.backyardgardenlover.com/new-jersey-native-plants-list/
From a design perspective I’d probably start off with a couple of small shrubs on either side of the steps that are either evergreen or have year-round interest. If you go with native plants, you could check out inkberry holly (need male & female plants to get fruit) or catawba rhododendron. I’m sure there are other great options, but I’m not from the area and just recognized those two from my region. For non-natives, cryptomeria globosa nana or gold mop cypress might fit well.
Beyond that, I’d find a good local nursery and tell them how much space you have to fill and load up with perennials. My personal preference would be to focus on creating a butterfly/hummingbird garden. Just buy 2-3 of everything and plant them in little groups using the recommended spacing as a guide. Then, load mulch between all of the plants and wait for it to fill in over the next 2-3 years. I like bark mulch, but currently use pine straw (that’s the big thing here in the south); I despise rock mulch.
Another option is to get a seed mix from a place like prairemoon.com and just spread it and let nature take its course. It will take longer, but save you time and money compared to buying and planting individual plants.
From there you can just keep going and replace all your grass and never have to mow again! :)
Its not always sinister, sometimes its just the petty bureaucracy of HR trying to standardize things to benefit themselves. I once got switched from salary to hourly because HR was trying to align job titles across departments.
My title at the time was Sr. Analyst and they were switching to a numerical title system. My boss said to write up a justification for why I should be slotted as an Analyst 3, which would stay salary, otherwise I would be slotted as an hourly Analyst 2. I asked if there was any benefit to the higher title and was told no, so I declined and was switched to hourly. For me it was fantastic because I regularly worked over 40 hours and traveled frequently, so I started getting lots of overtime pay.
I pretty much only buy cables (of any kind) from Monoprice.
My regret is buying a grinder with a timer instead of a scale. For a while I got consistent results from it, but now I get wildly different quantities from day to day. I want to replace it with one that works better, but haven’t been able to justify the cost yet.
I agree with this recommendation. After taxes, paying off the loan is probably slightly more profitable and improves your monthly cash flow.
My plan is to move to the EU and I assume I will want to get a local account to handle local transactions. I would not necessarily need a local brokerage account if I can keep my investments in the US, I would just need to work out the reporting requirements for local taxes.
A lot of the details will depend on my work situation at the time (local employment, US remote, or retired). I’ve started a list of things I will need to figure out, but am mostly just adding to the list right now since any potential move is still several yeats away (at best).
Thanks for posting this question. I can’t provide any helpful answers, but I plan to move out of the US in the future and was not aware of this issue. I will be adding this to my long-term planning list.
If you have any debt (credit cards, auto, student loans), I would pay that off before adding more than the 12% to retirement.
If you are debt free and have some short-term savings, I would contribute to a Roth IRA before adding to the 401k. At a mid 5 figure income level, the tax savings from the 401k aren’t that impressive. Meanwhile, the IRA gives you some flexibility to draw funds for a first time home purchase, major medical expense, or potentially the option to withdraw prior contributions without penalty. You then have the flexibility to invest according to your knowledge and risk tolerance.
I would probably only choose the 401k if the tax reduction was meaningful and I earned too much for a traditional IRA (those 2 things typically coincide). Another possibility is if your company has a good ESPP program, ideally one that allows you to sell shares immediately after they are purchased (no minimum holding period). If there is a holding period (my employer requires 1 year), you have to think very hard about how much risk you are taking on during that time.
I also use a double edge safety razor, but have an electric razor also for a quick morning shave. Other things I do:
I cut my hair with clippers I bought 15+ years ago for the price of 1-2 haircuts. This probably only works for people with simple, short hair, but has saved me thousands of dollars compared to getting a monthly haircut at $20+
We put a basket with cloth napkins next to the dining table and a basket with washcloths on the kitchen counter and have drastically reduced the quantity of paper towels that we use
I’ve thought about it, but right now everything works exactly the way I need it and the only complaint I have is the occasional pop-ups from MS trying to get me to upgrade to win11 or switch my browser. My main uses for my devices are games and I just started back to school, so MS Office is nice to have. So, it’s hard to justify putting in the effort to change things now, especially when I know how to use MS products very well, particularly modding games.
My desktop and laptop are both eligible to upgrade, but I keep declining and will likely switch to linux when win10 support ends.
Right now I’m putting most of my extra cash in TFLO, which is a short term treasury bill fund. It’s a very safe fund for preserving capital with a current payout around 5%. I do also have some money in stocks, but right now I’m just taking advantage of the safe returns while deciding how I feel about the broader economy.
Musicolet is my preferred music player OurGroceries is what I use to keep shared lists with my family (mainly grocery list, but also things like a travel check list and favorite meals for when we can think of what to have for dinner).
One other thing to consider is if you get insurance through your employer, you lose it as soon as you leave. Imagine if one of you has a long-term illness that puts you out of work before dying. All of the premiums paid by that spouse would be lost with no payout.
For myself, I have just enough supplemental insurance through my employer to cover funeral expenses for my wife (who is currently in school) and my kids, no supplemental insurance for myself. I should add a term life plan for me outside work, but have not done so yet.
Also, I think you can stack different durations to account for increased savings over time. For example, you might get a 10 year and a 20 year term life plan for 500K each. If you died in the first 10 years, your family would get 1M total. Hopefully in 10 years your savings has increased enough to live with a smaller insurance payout, but you could always add more coverage then, if needed.
I agree with the MMF approach, I’ve moved almost everything out of my HYS account and am using my brokerage account for savings now.
The lodgings were on the top floor next to the well-guarded premises of a respectable dealer in stolen property because, as Granny had heard, good fences make good neighbors.
I keep a little in a MMF for quick access and the rest in a treasury bill ETF (TFLO). My HYS account is nearly empty now.
If I were doing this, I would get an average balance for the month (start of month balance + end of month balance divided by 2) and multiply by monthly interest rate (interest rate divided by 12). I would add that interest payment to the end of month balance and that would become the next months starting balance. My spreadsheet columns might look like this:
Beginning Balance formula would be =sum(Ending Balance, Interest Earned) from the previous line
Deposits and Withdrawals would be numerical entries
Ending Balance formula is =Beginner Balance + Deposits - Withdrawals
Interest formula is =average(Beginning Balance, Ending Balance) * rate / 12
One of my prior roles was moved from a proper office to an open office and one of the “selling” points was “you can work from anywhere in our cool new building!”. So, I spent most of my day anywhere but my desk. I got my work done and half my time was spent in meetings either way, but if I didn’t have somewhere to be, I’d be in the quietest spot I could find in the building (cafeteria mid-morning/afternoon, conference area when there were no meetings, outside, the lobby, etc.). I was regularly commended for adopting the new culture.