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I'm 60 now, and but for brief moments in my teens, I've been steadily employed since age 12. I've spent the last 8 months putting in motion the realization of a lifelong dream - we bought the retirement home on the lake, and in the next couple months the dock, boat hoist, and grade-A fishing boat w...

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You don't need it, so in my book that puts you in one of the two categories of people who should take it at 62. The other category is those who need it desperately in order to live. Maybe use it to buy long term health insurance, since you mentioned that. Contrary to this advice, most here would sa...

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MA may be fine for some, but we are subject to a few "disadvantages" that make staying with supplemental and Plan D safer. - We live in a semi-rural area with fewer providers. - My wife goes to several specialists that would require referrals with MA, adding additional cost for an unneeded...

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In anticipation of someone pointing out the obvious, in that houses that sell for over asking are located in a more desirable area; that is not universally true, certainly not in our case. If I were looking for a house to buy I wouldn't participate in a bidding war. I would simply buy somewhere else...

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Based on the information you have provided, it's not apparent that the gas company did anything wrong. If you get any compensation from them, take it and be glad. As big dog wrote, " Don't forget that this is on the builder, who screwed up the gas-meter hook-ups. " I’ve never lived in Min...

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I'm shocked at the increases also. We sold in CA in July of 2019 for $492 sq ft, and now the house is $534 sq ft. according to Zillow (+8.53%) We bought our home in SC in September of 2019 for $148 sq ft and now it's $168 sq ft. according to Zillow (+13.51%) Surprisingly, the SC house has appreciate...

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Don't forget maintenance. Conventional wisdom says to budget 1% of the home's value per year for maintenance. In your case that would be $17,000. While that might sound excessive, the cost for repairs can be surprising. I'm assuming OP is in a (V)HCOL area where the land value dwarfs the home value...

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Don't forget maintenance. Conventional wisdom says to budget 1% of the home's value per year for maintenance. In your case that would be $17,000. While that might sound excessive, the cost for repairs can be surprising.

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Based on the information you have provided, it's not apparent that the gas company did anything wrong. If you get any compensation from them, take it and be glad. As big dog wrote, " Don't forget that this is on the builder, who screwed up the gas-meter hook-ups. " Exactly. As someone who...

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MapleSyrup wrote: ↑Tue Apr 13, 2021 10:23 pm Why not just use cash or a check?

I use Zelle to send money to my kids. The nearest one lives 4.5 hours away, the next nearest ones live on the opposite coast from us. Zelle transfers are immediate and there is no need to worry about cash or a check getting there, or being intercepted on the way.

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Permanent landscaping changes are worth it at 3% of the home's value, but if you're talking about plants, or even trees being a significant portion of the cost I wouldn't spend that much. We spent a total of 4.5% of our home's value (actual sales price) on permanent landscaping improvements such as ...

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Native Californian here. - Grew up in San Bernardino/Inland Empire. High desert, 120 temps in the summer, fantastic summer nights. - Moved to Santa Barbara. Moderate temps all year round, but cold and foggy in the summer. - Moved to the Bay Area for college. Rainy and cold in the winter. Ick. - Mov...

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The perfect weather for me simply doesn't exist in the US. I would suggest Monterey CA as having the best weather I've experienced. An amazing (small) city as well. But, it'll cost you... That's where I lived for 66 years, and couldn't agree more. Absolutely perfect weather. It never snows, and rar...

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Our owl decoy has a rotating head which changes directions in the wind, and it works pretty well. https://www.amazon.com/Rotating-Deterrent-Realistic-Waterproof-Scarecrow/dp/B088BLRFTR/ref=sr_1_20?dchild=1&keywords=owl+decoy+with+spinning+head&qid=1618232413&s=lawn-garden&sr=1-20 The...

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OP, some members are saying you are lucky that your neighbor is willing to foot half of the cost. You live in California which passed the Good Neighbor Fence Act in 2013, which requires neighbors with a shared fence line to share the replacement cost of a fence equally. https://leginfo.legislature.c...

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We bought this one recently and love it. It comes with bronze fire glass and serves a dual purpose. It can also be used as a space heater, independently or at the same time as the firepit. There are dual controls, hidden behind the door where the 20 pound propane tank goes. It comes with a good qual...

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So does this mean that if you lived in Arkansas your entire working career it would be advisable to retire in Mississippi and not file for SS until you're 70? And what if you lived near the state border on the west side of the Mississippi river in Arkansas and decided to move to a nearby town in Mis...

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2. Is there a reason why your contractor won't prep the floor? 625' is very little surface area to cover, and a rental like this will take care of it quickly: https://www.homedepot.com/p/rental/EDCO-Concrete-Grinder-10-50200-HD/309419362 Because it creates an incredible mess, and unless there's an ...

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Update: The nightmare continues. I finally found a concrete contractor (my fifth attempt) in a town over an hour away who would actually answer his phone and who showed up to grind the basement floor, albeit a week after he promised to. Several others promised to show up but never did. This one, who...

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Although I'm new to the heat pump world, having moved from a location in CA that didn't even need insulation in the walls, I see value in our twice yearly maintenance visits. We have two systems, one for upstairs and one for downstairs. The techs visits in the spring to check AC functionality an in ...

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That would be the people leaving and selling their houses to FOMO suckers who are going to end up in foreclosure in the next bust. At least, the non trust fundies are... Also renters. Renters leaving in droves. A lot of born and raised getting priced out of the roof over head situation if they're n...

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If you're going to buy a separate system to monitor humidity, I would suggest this one. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JGRBZBB/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 It monitors temperature and humidity, and is listed as 3 stations, but actually has 4 because the display itself i...

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KlangFool. Sure it’s a problem for the renter. He gets evicted from his home for failure to pay rent. Hence, unemployment destroyed them financially — why can’t you see that? ChrisC, A) A renter at most has a one year rental agreement. He just need to pay rent for at most one year at the old locati...

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Electric. Put in several power panels. One main box for main shut off and downstairs stuff and outlets in the garage, one upstairs for upstairs stuff and kitchen and laundry room stuff and third panel for the dock and water side electric. This small panel is on my back steps. My dock has docking li...

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On the other side of the market, we recently bought a well-restored 1930 home on 5 acres in Virginia with numerous old growth trees on the property for $250,000. We did have to tear down the original one car garage and add a modern two-car garage that followed the cues of the main residence. We’re ...

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I would suggest an alternative choice, like the one we did. We owed about the same as you do after being in the house for 22 years. Refis done for improvements and remodels kept the balance high, which was more than the original loan. My wife and I would have been 81/82 by the time we paid it off. I...

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I agree that the bigger the better. We have 6 tv's, one 75" 10' from viewing in the upstairs living room which is adequately sized, 4 x 65" in 4 bedrooms at 10', and a 55" in the downstairs family room at 8' which is adequately sized. They are all Samsung. The ones in the bedrooms all...

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It sort of feels like that. The big difference I see is that there was an enormous home building boom in our area in 2007, and right now, nothing is getting built. Something is being built. Have you looked at the price of building materials? $3 2x4x8 studs selling for $7 $7 sheets of 7/16 OSB selli...

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Filed ours in the important papers section of our filing cabinet. We both got our 2nd shot on Saturday, and all my wife experienced was a sore arm. I got the sore arm, dizziness, and 103 degree temperature and chills. I slept at least 10 additional hours today. I never get sick. I would guess that t...

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My wife and I got our 2nd shot today. Keeping the cards for historical value. Translation: we're old.

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When we bought our house in 2019 there was an existing 50 gal water heater in the basement utility room. The rest of the basement is finished with a bedroom, living room, and full bathroom. The previous owner had a circular 2' deep x 2' diameter excavated hole placed in the floor through the slab ne...

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When I retired from Megacorp (still worked another 7 years) I rolled my 401k, which was managed by Fidelity into an IRA at Fidelity. I combined my lump sum retirement settlement into that IRA as well. Being completely ignorant and naive about investments I signed up for Fidelity PAS at their urging....

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At least there's been some progress to this very real impact of diminished value in California, although the laws may vary in the state where the OP's accident occured. I read an article dated Jan 7th, 2016 that pointed out amended jury instructions 3903J in CA now (from then on) gave victims the ri...

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We moved in 2019 from CA to SC. We got estimates from nationally known moving companies that averaged around 12k. We then looked into pods, Uhaul, Packrat, and U-Pack. We found U-Pack to be the most reasonable and the most accommodating to our schedule. The nationally known movers wanted us to estim...

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I used to be married to someone whose entire extended family, including her, were obsessed with what they were going to inherit. As a result they were always disappointed with whatever they received, even those who got the lion's share. It was a family tradition that every relative, not just the chi...

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Mr. Cooper was rebranded from Nationstar, who tried their best to steal my house in California. I was going through a refi and Nationstar bought my loan during escrow a few days before closing, then refused to provide a payoff amount (against the law), and turned me over to collections for non-payme...

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Don't know if the OP banks with Chase, but since others have mentioned that institution, I've deposited checks by taking a picture of them using Chase Mobile. I've also used the Zelle feature through Chase online where you can transfer money to or from your personal account to or from another person...

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Here in SC termites are a major problem. I paid a reputable long term family business $1,300 for the initial treatment that entailed the inspection and the placement of buried containers of a chemical which surround the house, every few feet. They come back yearly to retreat for $300. They are bonde...

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My latest and best ever, Honda HRN216VYA (21"), self propelled with variable speed easily controllable, good on climbing. It either bags or mulches. I used it to mulch a built up area of leaves that I had blown together and the result was barely recognizable as being leaves because of the two b...

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https://www.americangeosciences.org/sites/default/files/styles/ci__650_x_430_/public/CI_Map_78_EQprobability_US_170505.jpg?itok=BVu1HOjI Both my basic homeowner's and earthquake insurance is going up by 25% for 2019. That may be mostly do to home price increases. Is there a point where a one should...

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This is the second time I've been offered a ridiculous amount to change a review on Amazon purchased from a Chinese seller (different one). Did you update your review to reflect the offers to change your review? I detailed the problem and the efforts by the seller to get me to change the review, in...

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Vested1. I wonder if you are familiar with the website Fakespot? https://www.fakespot.com/company/amazon You copy and paste the url from the product page on Amazon to Fakespot and it will analyze the products reviews and give a grade from A to F on the authenticity of the reviews. Chicago Tribune h...

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Thanks for all the help! We have been asking for the information on the policy that BIL sold MIL but his sister hasn’t shared anything (yikes! and money & family don’t mix). She was supposed to give my husband a form to change his address but just told him she changed his address! Ugh- I’m frus...

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Does anyone know how policy payment are sent? thru direct bank deposit or snail mail? And if the policy pays out for a couple of years- if he’s the beneficiary (main policy holder) of 1/2 of the policy, does he have to add another beneficiary in case he dies? Yikes As to direct deposit vs paper che...

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Amazon review: I'll admit I'm a bit obsessive about being honest, sometimes to my own detriment. I bought a dehumidifier that was rated as being sufficient to handle an area of 2000 sq ft and to remove several gallons of moisture a day. The manufacturer is based in China. The cost was $192. The revi...

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My wife was the recipient of one of these, split 4 ways with her 3 other siblings. It sounds like the same type as the one you inherited. If it is, each beneficiary receives a certain fixed amount every month until the annuity is empty. Only a portion of the money was taxable in our case, based on t...

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I had the distinction of being the world's worst plumber when I worked for a nationally known soft water company for a handful of months. Now I do small repairs on my home plumbing but hire a professional for anything more serious than a pvc repair. My hatred of plumbing work now correlates directly...

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