retired at 33; former engineer and attorney; FIRE blogger; professional dilettante
North Carolina
Joined September 2013
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Growing your wealth may require a bit of struggle and sacrifice at times. It might even be a grind!
You know what's even more of a grind?
Being poor forever.
Kudos to whoever bought Seat 24G for $24. Our plane isn't that full and you have a decent chance to have that entire row to yourself all night.
A lottery ticket to get lie flat "first class" for $24 (plus the $250 to $1000 you actually paid for the economy ticket)
I'd rather have a neighbor with a car in the driveway propped up on blocks than have an HOA
(and not just because I had a car propped up on blocks yesterday in my driveway, but just for a bit!)
🚨#BREAKING: Outrage is erupting in North Carolina after an HOA just DOUBLED monthly fees to **$2,500/MONTH** for homeowners who were paying just $158/month just five years ago...
...and the homeowners say the HOA board tried to charge homeowners $7,500/MONTH JUST IN HOA FEES!!!!!!!
On Monday night, the board backed off $7,500...
...but voted to DOUBLE fees to $2,500 a month instead.
Yes, $30,000 a year just to LIVE IN YOUR HOME THAT YOU BOUGHT.
Nearly SIXTEEN TIMES what families were paying a few years ago.
Families who bought what they thought were their forever homes are now being told to pay $30,000 a year in HOA fees, or GO INTO FORECLOSURE!!!!!!
The neighborhood is Magnolia Cove in Sherrills Ford, Catawba County NC.
Jill Menson and her husband bought their house believing it would be their LAST home and five years ago, their HOA fee was $158 a month.
This summer it shot up to more than $1,200.
Plus a $10,000 ASSESSMENT on top of that.
On Monday night, the HOA board voted to raise fees AGAIN, from $1,250 to $2,500 a month.
That’s nearly SIXTEEN TIMES what they paid five years ago.
And the meeting?
It was held over ZOOM.
Menson says they’ll be forced out with nowhere to go, because no one will buy a house carrying fees like that.
So they went to the state for help.
The North Carolina Attorney General’s office told Channel 9 there are NO STATUTES limiting how much an HOA can charge.
None.
As long as the board follows its own documents, it can charge whatever it wants.
In Jill Menson’s words:
“Nobody is helping us.”
THIS IS ABSOLUTELY ABSURD AND SHOULD BE ILLEGAL!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe I can finally afford to add a 1TB SSD to my computer
BREAKING: Elon Musk has said:
"As of the past few weeks, debt markets have almost entirely shut off access to money for any company that doesn’t have substantial revenue independent of AI data centers. That means the 200+ neoclouds are going to see guppy-level death and consolidation. Some will make it through, but not many.”
Folks will say "saving $1k/mo is impossible" when they could really just do a combo of get a roommate, go out less, take the bus, and skip doordash.
I can only imagine the caliber or "consultant" they hired to tell them whatever they want to hear. Nice $460k pay day if you can get the grift flowing your way!
The answer seems to come down to how unbearable the crowds are at your Costco (Sams has app self-checkout), and how close the 2 warehouse stores are.
Otherwise they are similar enough (yeah Kirkland is best thing on earth etc etc etc). It's all just bulk commodity goods fellas
My Norway trip with careful planning would be $10k cash for 3 of us for a month. Probably $30k if I didn't travel hack and planned on dining out occasionally. And we're mainly just looking at rocks and trees and water in our compact rental car.
50k for a month is less of a joke today than 5-10 years ago. No longer as unreasonable. Throw in a few biz class tix for a family and hotel rates that might be $300-500/nt (and you need 2+ rooms for family if in Europe).
$12k on biz flights and 30 days at $1200/day?
I will say the toilets in Europe have had a great track record for us in the 20+ airbnbs/hotels we've been in.
Kitchen sinks - not so much
Once we get Europe to install shower curtains, window screens, AC, dishwashers, clothes dryers, blinds/curtains, and fans, then we cookin!
We can't even do math to figure out how much an 18% tip is and they want us to do real time price monitoring to make sure we don't get fleeced when buying a beer? While drunk?!
Not sure why plumbing works so differently south of the equator... Water flows the opposite direction?
Every time we travel, it's amazing how so many things just don't work. I think we spent the entire summer in South America in various Airbnbs where a toilet was always broken, leaking, or malfunctioning. Fortunately had 2+ bathrooms everywhere except 1 place. Bucket flush worked.
No, we're going to be traveling for majority of the next couple of months so we went ahead and put it up now so it'll be up while we are back home here and there before actual Christmas.
