creepydata

A."security deposit plus first months rent" for an apartment that either doesn't exist or it exists but they don't own it.

Plus all the PII you put on the application is a bonus.

So you pay a "landlord" for an apartment, you show up with a moving truck to collect the keys, and the "landlord" is gone with your money.

No, you're not clear on your understanding, that site isn't run by credit card companies, it's run by the three credit bureaus.

Basically, credit card companies (and insurance companies) buy consumer data from the credit bureaus to send unsolicited offers. That site is for you to register with the bureaus that you don't want your credit report sold in that way. That's how come companies can still send you unsolicited credit offers when they already have your information from elsewhere, such as from your bank account or frequent flyer account.

I don't know which, if any bureaus operate in Canada or how that are allowed or not allowed to sell your data. That particular site gives you specifics information about American law (FCRA), and how things work in America with credit bureaus information sharing - it's completely irrelevant for Canada.

I'm not sharing any sort of "strategy," (strategy for what?) I'm simply pointing out you can't predict the future, you can only make educated guesses.

Yeah, I can relate to restaurants. We started going to them more often (not really sure why laziness?) and they not only became routine it became somewhere of a chore to leave the house when you're hungry. We cut back a lot and when we went out again last Saturday it was literally one of the most fun I've had in quite a while.

>I "knew" when I bought corporate bonds paying 15% in 2008 that they would appreciate.

No, you're ignoring the case where they might have defaulted.

The housing market oftentimes works in cycles and changes with time. In my life I've watched the neighborhood I grew up in go from highly desirable to highly undesirable and now it's back to being desirable again. 30 year mortgage is enough time to see wild swings in technology, the economy, industry, and plenty else.

These all effect housing prices. Dramatically sometimes.

Mountain View is currently dependent on the tech industry and the flow of VC capital to maintain housing prices. Another .com crash and Mountain View house prices will crash accordingly. "Silicon Valley" may even move to the South or something in 20 years.

Right now the neighborhood I currently live in is in a boom due to a large employer here heavily ramping up production and the associated influx of people moving here from other parts of the country for work. I don't really expect the sort of growth we are experiencing now to last in the long term but who knows what will happen.

There's always the unknown.

A house is a house, enjoy it, but don't count on making money on it.

Avocado toast was meant to be both literal and a metaphor for a larger issue beyond just toast.

You absolutely can't "know" ahead of time what assets will appreciate at all, let alone their rate of appreciation. If you knew that for sure you'd be a guaranteed millionaire. Even if you say "real estate historically appreciates," most communities (esp small ones) are prompted up by 1-2 big employers or industries thus house prices in a community are not as secure as you might believe (see Detroit). Plus neighborhoods change over time. Plus you're ignoring the carrying cost of a property and the transfer costs.

However, a house can provide a lot of enjoyment so I am not advocating you don't buy one, just be realistic about what you are buying.

To prevent confusion. If a Canadian looked at it they may believe that it applies to Canadians.

It doesn't do much that is useful in the uncle's situation.

If you register for it then you won't get unsolicited credit offers from companies you don't have an affiliation with. So American Express can only go pulling random people they aren't affiliated with a score of over 700 or whatever and send card offers only to people who haven't opted out.

However, it doesn't prevent companies from marketing credit offers to people they do have an affiliation with. So if you have an AMEX card then American Express can market other American Express cards to you even if you signed up for prescreen opt out, and your bank can market their cards to you, and your airline rewards program can market their cards to you, etc.

I don't have a single friend that has a home server. Most adults don't even own computers anymore, just phones and perhaps an iPad.

That's like telling religious people "you aren't REALLY happy being religious, you are just afraid of going to hell."

It's an idealist mindset vs pragmatic one.

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll give it a read.

Nope. Unless you are a psychopath you have always managed friends/family even if was managed informally in your head. You used to have a Rolodex of phone numbers and addresses. You may have even kept additional information about the person in your Rolodex, perhaps their birthday or anniversary. Important dates and social obligations used to be written on a wall or desk calendar so you didn't forget. You make notes (written or mental) of people's needs and preferences in order to accommodate them. (ie "I better have a vegetarian meal for Susan.", "John works nights so I better not call him until 6." "Sarah likes red wine.", "Joe doesn't like clubing.") You store in your mind what is happening in friend's lives to talk to them about it next time you see them. You made a paper list of people to send out event invitations, thank you notes, or Christmas cards so you don't forget anyone.

It's all social management, even if informal. But it's so natural you might not have thought about it as "management."

Nothing wrong with formalizing it and taking it all digital, if anything it can foster closer relationships if it's easy to use and consolidated. Someone can only remember so much at once and its great they care enough to store that information for easy retrieval in the future. We have never, as a society, faulted people for writing things down, (Rolodex is a generic trademark, for crying out loud), we are all only human. We don't think twice about setting a reminder to take medication or water the plants.

Excuse me? Please don't put words in my mouth; I did not say "people in Mexico just fundamentally care more for their families than people in the US do." I said the culture is more family oriented. You can certainly care about your family deeply and not have a culture of living together and financially supporting one and another/pooling resources. Caring is not the same thing as resource pooling. You may be willing to jump in front of a bus for your sister but not come from a culture where it's normal for you to live with your sister into adulthood. It's simply different cultural expectations/norms than we typically see in the US.

This culture may have come about from a practical standpoint out of need, or maybe not. It's certainly worth noting that even if the culture wasn't such it's certainly practical for maquiladora workers to pool family resources due to low pay.

And yes, um, certainly parts of the US that have a large Mexican-American population would have a more Mexican-American culture.

http://www.livescience.com/38647-mexican-culture.html

>Mexicans put a high value on hierarchy and structure in business and family matters. Especially outside of cities, families are typically large and Mexicans are very conscious of their responsibilities to immediate family members and extended family such as cousins and even close friends.

So the study is about Mexicans in Mexico working in maquiladoras. Multigenerational/extended households/families are rather common in Mexico. Mexican culture is certainly more family oriented than in the US - "familism." Plus since maquiladoras pay very little (Google what the houses of maquiladora workers looks like) pooling resources is probably extremely beneficial just from a practical standpoint.

I'm absolutely dumbfounded this is some sort of revelation to the author. It must be a new thing? Perhaps a product of the "self esteem/entitled generation?" Whenever I hear people (including job ads) talk about "passion" at work I have to roll my eyes. I never though of work as a means to some sort of personal fulfillment, it's a job, it's purpose is to provide you money. That is it! If you get personal satisfaction out of your work that's a nice bonus. Those "passion" people are going to become very dissatisfied with work and life - there's very, very few jobs that have the ability to provide that. We should probably be looking at things in a more practical manner to avoid this.

I always thought jobs advertising that they are looking for someone with "passion" as a ploy to trick the bright eyed and naïve young into overworking before they become disillusioned.

I've actually enjoyed most of the "menial" jobs I've worked. The only unenjoyable job I worked was only unenjoyable due to piss poor management. Now I enjoy working as a software engineer, I like what I do, but it's still just a job, just a way to earn a living.

I'm reminded of Office Space on career advice: "[The question from a guidance counselor of what you would do if you had a million dollars] is bullshit to begin with. If everyone listened to her there would be no janitors because because nobody would clean up shit if they had a million dollars."

You can't just "look at your phone" while processing classified information. Its highly forbidden to even have a phone in your possession while processing classified information.

Isn't that BuzzFeed's business model?

Yes, Amazon [Prime] customers shop that way.

What you are saying is nonsensical and objectively false. I challenge you to actually talk to these people and ask them their feelings on their job. Like any job some are happy, some hate their job, some are working until they can do something else, some are in school, some are ok where they are, some are semi-retired, some are living hand to mouth (unfortunately), some work because they want to, not because they have to, some are ambivalent​, some are lost, some are bored spouses, some are trying to find themselves, some are employed just until they start a family. Just like any other job.

Believe it or not some people don't actually believe the work is beneath them.

What you are saying is like "living without a wage is stressful, being a homemaker doesn't pay a wage, thus nobody is a homemaker if they have the ability to get a job." Of course that is totally untrue. People aren't exactly like you. Being a homemaker would be a nightmare for me - I hire a housekeeper and I absolutely hate kids. However, I can appreciate many people find enjoyment in that, just not me.

I was talking about work stress - I assume a founder of a successful startup probably has enough money in reserve to be able to take a pay cut, even if temporarily.

I know a few people in hospitality who genuinely enjoy it and have the ability to do other jobs - they just would rather not. I have a friend with an engineering degree, ended up hating engineering and tried several "good" jobs. Hated them all, always ended up back in food service. She finally made peace with the fact she really really likes doing food service and that's what she decided to do permanently. Another friend got a business degree, hated being in the business field, though it was too cut throat, didn't like what the felt she had to do to get ahead. Decided to dedicate her life to non-profits for a fraction of the salary she could get anywhere else but feels it's worth it. I know a guy in his 50s who washes dishes 5 days a week. He gave up his cushy office job to do that. He said office work was getting him down and he has enough money to take the pay cut. My aunt cleans offices for a living, enjoys doing so, doesn't want to do anything else. Shes an immagrant and her husband owns a very successful business. She has absolutely no monetary need to work yet she still cleans offices at night. My mom's best friend works at Kohl's, no need to, just wants to, gave up a (State) government position to do so.

I truly enjoyed most "low skilled" work I did. I also enjoy being a programmer, for the most part. There's a lot I miss about the old days though. The pay isn't one of them, of course. I really miss moving around heavy objects, oddly enough, as unusual as that may sound. Just doing so for the hell of it (gym excersing) is incredibly unappealing to me - I enjoy seeing the fruits of my labor. I don't want to sit there lifting meaningless weight, I want to be moving objects from one location to the other and have some sort of satisfaction afterwards that I met a business objective and earned my salary.

Right now I'm programmer until I can afford not to be. Programming for me is only a means to an end, to be financially independent/semi retired. I sound like someone unhappy but I actually enjoy programming, just not as much as physical labor.

Friends probably (almost certainly) were lying.

It's generally a good idea, as a rule of thumb, to avoid mixing family/friendship with business(1) - professionals should already know/understand this and respect it. Friends may have copped out with "thought you were too busy" to avoid further offending broker who clearly doesn't understand professionalism and personal boundaries.

Absolutely consult with your friends/family but tread very carefully when considering hiring them. Never, ever, question why a friend doesn't hire you or take it personally - business is business, friendship is friendship.

(1) I have a friend who learned this the hard way when they hired a mutual friend's dad to cater an event. God, that was a disaster that almost ruined a good friendship.

I only choose to be a programmer because of the pay. I don't intend to program forever, only until I can afford not to.

1) Seek professional help

2) take a vacation/staycation

3) Learn to delegate. Hire people if you need to.

4) Set boundaries between work and life, keep them.

5) Practice some sort of meditation. Meditation is a broad category.

6) Build and/or rebuild your interpersonal relationships outside of work.

You're describing a poor work environment which can occur in tech, especially in startup. There's also thousands upon thousands of blue collar work that don't have a poor work environment.

I felt much better after a day of unloading trucks in a wearhouse than I do now coming home from a day of sitting in an office chair programming. Sitting all day is terrible for your body and it's exausting to boot. One of the biggest shocks of my entire life was the first day I got home from my first programming gig and being more tired than coming home from the job I was working a week before (food service) (1)

(1) https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/stand-up-wh...

I'll offer a counterpoint, as long as your management is effective there's plenty to love about those sorts of jobs. They are actually not bad at all other than the pay. No stress, no thinking, lots of moving around, no worry about the "bigger picture" as a founder must do. I've cleaned hotel rooms, stocked shelves at a discount store, worked the register at a grocery store, and unloaded trucks in a wearhouse. The only shitty "unskilled" job I had was due to mismanagement.

Call me lazy but I would never want the responsibility of being a founder. Seems like much too much to worry about.

Less than what exactly?

It's like an in-game currency for a MMORPG.

...at least that is how I read it.

Strange thing is the same friends would not live in Somolia if given the chance...