I respect your opinion, but I think you are wrong. They smell like a wet dog that has rolled around in a pile of ripe garbage. The taste is vaguely sweet, but with a strong sulfur + rotten egg component. The burps are the worst part of eating durian. You’ve eaten the durian, survived without throwing up, but then it…

I have lived in SG for ~15 months, and I’m looking forward to returning to the US. I miss my freedoms... I hate the idea that the media is controlled by the government, and hate the idea of the restrictions put on people here. Living here as a foreigner means I don’t have to deal with a lot of it, but I would hate the…

Smoking is allowed in certain places. Chewing gum is allowed, but you must dispose of it properly, but gum can’t be imported for sale in Singapore. Locals must go across the straights of Johor to buy their chewing gum.

No durians on public transit in Singapore, but otherwise you are good to go with your painful, stinky, taste-like-wet-garbage fruit.

I’ve read the article you mentioned (can’t remember the source) and I agree. Many of these incidents are pure accidents. The incident rate is very low, which means that any solution is going to have a high per capita cost. Some sort of aftermarket solution, or a solution integrated with a car seat, would be a…

Fuels are shipped through common pipelines in batches. The interface between regular and premium will be downgraded to regular. Mid-grade is splash blended either at the terminal when loaded into a tanker truck, or at the station.

For TVs and other consumer electronics, skip the warranty and save the money instead. The depreciation curve is steep. If you have a problem outside the manufacturers warranty period, chances are that the item can be replaced for a fraction of the original cost.

I agree with other posters here... get the 30 and make extra payments. Money is cheap right now, so take advantage of it now. The 30 year mortgage gives you more options if unexpected expenses come up. You just have to have the discipline to make extra payments.

My thoughts exactly. You don’t see the future, but you see what people are doing or are about to do. Psychic QBs would be much less likely to get blindsided. Psychic batters would have a better idea of where a pitch will end up. Psychic athletes would be useful in football, soccer, baseball, basketball, hockey, rugby,…

I recently consolidated all my Chase card due dates to a single date. I’m considering moving all of my credit cards to a single due date just to make things easier. I get paid on the 15th and the final day of the month. Since the mortgage is due on the 1st, it might be good to have the card payments all due on the 16th

I’m no expert either, so I’m not sure I can tell you where to stick your money that will hedge against a market correction. I don’t think gold is the best place simply because its history is rather volatile. Plus is it one single “thing” as opposed to a broad slate of things.

You’re welcome. If you remember, please let me know what you decide to do and why. I’m curious as to your father’s justification of “but taxes” for not selling, and what his end game idea is for the investment. Perhaps he doesn’t want you to buy a house, and would rather you save the investment for retirement.

What does Betterment cost to use? What are their fees?

Your dad says “but taxes”... OK, so have you looked into the tax implications of selling your investment? If you need the money to buy a house, then you need to cash it out at some point. If you invested it in an index fund without any special tax treatment (like an IRA), then you payed taxes on the money you…

If you perform the same this year as you did last year, you are considered a failure in business. In business, growth is the name of the game... steady-state is considered failure. Contraction is even a bigger failure.

I think it depends on the amount of time you spend on your commute. If you commute 20-30 minutes to work and home each day, I could see tolerating a car like this so you can afford to drive something awesome on the weekend, or whatever else you want to spend money on. If you spend an hour or more each day on that…

Ah, OK, that makes sense. When I joined Progressive, my rates were super low. Over time they would increase... $10-$20 for a 6 month policy despite the fact that my wife and I are getting older, and our cars were getting older.

Owch, that sucks. Good call on switching companies. I wonder if it was directly related to the mechanical breakdown coverage, or if they, for whatever reason, decided they didn’t want you as a customer anymore. Your personal particulars may have bubbled up in an actuarial algorithm to show increased risk, hence the…

It turns out Progressive offers a similar program, though I didn’t check out their rates. I would guess they would be similar. $250 deductible per “event” as well. If you buy a new car and plan to keep it for 7 years / 100K miles, then this seems like a relatively cheap way to insure yourself against major mechanical…

A 65 year old does require growth in their portfolio as they could easily live another 15-20 years. The cost of living today is higher than it was in 1996 or 2001. However, having large exposure to stocks is also a bad idea. I knew quite a few people who delayed retirement plans due to the great recession and the…