Yep, rent increases are another factor to consider. I don’t think it’s an often overlooked one, but maybe I’m wrong. Either way, that NY Times calculator I linked to accounts for it!

One factor I constantly see skipped over is that the price of a mortgage is fixed, assuming you have the 15 or 30 year fixed rate. Insurance and taxes can go up but the mortgage doesn’t yet every article acts as if rent is consistent.

Uh, don’t forget that in general, 6% of your selling price goes to the Realtor as commission for selling your house. Yes, there are ways around that (FSBO, Flat Fee MLS, etc), but most people are going to lose between 3-6% when they sell their home, outside of the closing costs.

Apparently it doesn’t believe me about my actual life - that I got a job in accounting from William and Mary and managed to not die living in DC. I actually messed with it and said I got a degree in finance from HARVARD and lived in DC and it was still like - nope.

I’m wondering what all the assumptions are here - not…

The report I linked just contains the facts. That’s fine.

It does make me wonder, if these first 2-3 weeks of development are so sensitive and most women don’t know they are pregnant and are drinking wouldn’t it stand to reason that most babies would have FAS if this were true?

My wife found out she was pregnant the day we got back from a week long stay at an all-inclusive in Mexico. She is 90% certain that she actually got pregnant the week before we left. My kid was swimming in tequila and he came out just fine...

God, please don’t. There’s enough bs out there telling pregnant women all the myriad things they shouldn’t do, eat, etc. Studies have linked Fetal Alcohol Syndrome to binge drinking, but unless you know an alcoholic who should be getting sober anyway, my recommendation would be to leave your friends alone.

I was absolutely plastered the night before I found out I was pregnant with my first. As I was bawling in the OB’s office, thinking I had damaged my developing baby for life, the nurse said to me “it’s fine, how do you think most babies are conceived anyway? i went on roller coasters the night before i found out i was…

Seems more serious than I thought! I guess I’ll stop procrastinating...tomorrow.

HPV is incredibly common and can be asymptomatic, so the prevailing wisdom is that by your mid/late twenties the average person will have already been exposed to at least one of the strains the vaccine is designed to effect, making it less useful.

Ho. Lee. Crep. IMHO. Worst. Advice. Ever.

My dad and I do woodworking and there’s a special kind of drill bit called a “Forstner” bit that allows you to drill round holes with very flat bottoms. These bits were always extremely expensive; you really could never buy a set. You just gulped, and paid the 30 to 50 dollars for the specific size you needed.

Another great category for dollar store purchases is computer related items like audio and usb cables, screen protectors, tablet cases, styluses, etc.

ps. totally agree about *most* tools, I wouldn’t buy *any* tools from the dollar store expecting them to be my primary tool of that type, but if you just need a few…

LifeHacker loves cheap everything. I’ll bet 25% of entries these days have something to do with getting something cheaper. So, in a sense LifeHacker suffers from the opposite problem De Botton is talking about in the video. LH thinks if it’s cheaper, it’s better. I see where De Botton is going with this video, but I…

This is a good point. You definitely want to consider what the item is valued at in terms of materials and labor, but I do think you also want to consider how important that “actual” value is to you.

well it just turns out they don’t need a guitar

I normally love videos like this, and I hate to pooh-pooh this one, but it’s something we all pretty much know: If it’s beyond our grasp, or in the grasp of just a select few, it’s highly prized.