I know this is supposed to be the Patrick show but it seems like you have a good understanding of your financial position. Maybe you should talk to your wife about longer term goals and get her on the same page. If bigger house is an immediate concern for your wife then maybe bring the kids into the discussion as…

I just paid off $70k in credit cards by refinancing my house (ran up mostly when out of work). Now wife and kids (11, 15) want a bigger house than our 1700sf ranch. 2500-3000sf houses run $300 to $350 vs $225 for what we have now.

I’ve been teaching kindergarten for 16 years. I’m vetted in my retirement, but it’s basically maxed at $35K—not enough for retirement. I’ve looked around, my $70K is what all jobs in my area offer. I need to make more dough. I figure I can work over my 6 week summer break, 2 weeks for winter, 1 week for spring. …

What do you do as part of IT? Data science is math heavy. If you are rusty, I recommend doing some sort of Masters in Analytics or similar course work. It would also help to attend class in person instead of online if possible. This is to help with networking to find the job in the data science field.

I’m so glad I read this article. It almost feels like an immediate answer to a comment thread I’ve been embroiled within. I’ll start out by saying my family didn’t have much money when I was growing up but we could make ends meet (both my parents working; I was the eldest and a ‘latch-key kid who took care of my…

Huh in addition to that screw up, Comstock actually announced she wasn’t going to vote for the bill this afternoon before it was pulled.

There are so many things to be pissed about in the world this article that video, but I’m just going to focus on two:

We had a similar exercise conducted at a hospital I worked at about 5 years ago. Our “trainer” was a knowledgeable, former FBI agent & just about the kindest man you could ever meet. The first thing he told us was, “you’re not Jack Bauer so stop pretending to be”. He said they’d get calls all the time about people…

I have a love/hate relationship with this type of stuff. I hate that it’s obviously junk food pretending to be healthy, and a lot of this stuff tastes awful. But I love it when my friends and family fall victim to this stuff. Wait, did I say “love”? No I hate that too. It’s so infuriating and makes me feel like I’m in…

but most of it is being used up to heat the ground and large bodies of water first.

Thanks for that rather heroic effort, Claire. A note for those who feel the need to taste blood pudding is that it is unlikely you will be constipated the next morning.

How often do you shave your back and what is the blade sharpness life like? Also, any issues with razor bumps or ingrowns?

How often do you shave your back and what is the blade sharpness life like? Also, any issues with razor bumps or…

I’m a wine writer, so I pack wine all the time. Dirty blue jeans are the best. Wrap the bottle in the legs, stuff with dirty t-shirts, and you’re set.

Regarding the raise suggestion, you must know your company’s raise cycle. I am retired from a Fortune 20 company. By the time appraisals were delivered in February, raises had already been decided. So the time for one of my folks to discuss a raise with me was a couple months previous to the appraisal discussion. The…

Exactly, this is why “going on a diet” is bad but “changing your diet” is good.

I turned my back on toxic masculinity (for the most part) shortly after leaving the house. I have not regretted it, and one of my silent triumphs is that the exemplar of said toxic masculinity will never see his grandchildren.

I really agree with your last point. It seems there are a lot of guys who say “no one would ever date me!” when they mean “the most conventionally attractive girls I know won’t date me.”

In my younger more immature/inconsiderate days I actually broke up with a girl because she lived on a dirt road. I got tired of having to constantly wash my car after picking her up. That’s not the reason I gave her, but that was the truth. Some time later the road got paved and we dated again! Younger me was horrible.

Just got married a couple of Saturdays ago and we followed this list to the T. Wedding was at our new home we just purchased with a guest list of 40 people. My wife would probably refer to me as a tightwad, so the fact that I don’t even think or worry about how much we spent is a pretty good indicator we did quite…

Well, and isn’t there also a third dimension, where common, every day people who may not work in the industry but consume things created by the industry also look the other way because cheap is always better? (Thus business managers pressure contractors because they want to be able to win the bid from a consumer who…