RIP bakermedia.ca

[Thomas E.]

At age ~61 has Alan finally given up on his bakerMEDIA site, and business? The lame excuse for a website, bakermedia.ca, is unreachable. Linkedin says he claims to have a full-time job, working for a Toronto-based financial consulting company. The company site shows him as an employee. RIP bakermedia.ca. You won't be missed.

[Alan]

On 2024-01-08 05:05, Thomas E. wrote:
> At age ~61 has Alan finally given up on his bakerMEDIA site, and business? The lame excuse for a website, bakermedia.ca, is unreachable. Linkedin says he claims to have a full-time job, working for a Toronto-based financial consulting company. The company site shows him as an employee. RIP bakermedia.ca. You won't be missed.

Just curious, dick:

Do you check my website and my LinkedIn page (the one you called my
"company website) every day...

...or just once a week?

:-)

[Thomas E.]

Maybe every month or two, at the most. Of course, you deflected, dodged the question, so typical of you, dickhead.

[Alan]

Wow.

You admit to regularly stalking me...

...and you don't think you deserve to be called a "dick".

[Thomas E.]

Not stalking, exposing your lies. Your only defense is to attempt to discredit the source of truth.

[Alan]

"Maybe every month or two" you look at my website...

...and goodness knows what else...

...and you don't think that's creepy, dick?

I haven't lied.

Sorry.

[Thomas E.]

On Monday, January 8, 2024 at 11:31:12 AM UTC-5, Alan wrote:

Just answer this question, why is bakermedia.ca no longer responding?

[Alan]

Just answer this question: Why is it any of your business...

...dick?

[Alan]

On 2024-01-15 20:57, Tyrone wrote:
> Jesus fucking Christ. MUST you 2 ALWAYS perform this dance in public? What
> does ANY of this have to do with Macs?
>
> Here is a suggestion: Why don't you 2 get a room and blow each other in
> private?

And your contributions to this group have been...?

[Thomas E.]

Because you insist on calling me bad names and insulting my honesty. There, I answered your question.

So, I checked your 2 page bakermedia.ca URL on the Wayback site. Pitiful record, pitiful site. The last record was 21 Dec 2021.

So just tell the truth. Is your insulting/consulting business defunct? Well, the insulting part is clearly not, but the rest?

Are you going to force me to show people how to find something you really don't want revealed? Or are you going to be truthful for a change?

[Thomas E.]

Sorry you can't see the relevance. Anyway, this group as a Mac vs. Windows discussion died at least a decade ago.

[Alan]

On 2024-01-17 07:49, Thomas E. wrote:
> On Monday, January 15, 2024 at 11:09:06 PM UTC-5, Alan wrote:
>> On 2024-01-15 19:52, Thomas E. wrote:
>>> On Monday, January 8, 2024 at 11:31:12 AM UTC-5, Alan wrote:
>>>> On 2024-01-08 05:05, Thomas E. wrote:
>>>>> At age ~61 has Alan finally given up on his bakerMEDIA site,
>>>>> and business? The lame excuse for a website, bakermedia.ca,
>>>>> is unreachable. Linkedin says he claims to have a full-time
>>>>> job, working for a Toronto-based financial consulting
>>>>> company. The company site shows him as an employee. RIP
>>>>> bakermedia.ca. You won't be missed.
>>>> Just curious, dick:
>>>>
>>>> Do you check my website and my LinkedIn page (the one you
>>>> called my "company website) every day...
>>>>
>>>> ...or just once a week?
>>>>
>>>> :-)
>>>
>>> Just answer this question, why is bakermedia.ca no longer
>>> responding?
>> Just answer this question: Why is it any of your business...
>>
>> ...dick?
>
> Because you insist on calling me bad names and insulting my honesty.
> There, I answered your question.

How does that make it your business...

...dick?

You've earned your bad names and you DO lie...

...ALL...

...THE...

...TIME.

>
> So, I checked your 2 page bakermedia.ca URL on the Wayback site.
> Pitiful record, pitiful site. The last record was 21 Dec 2021.
>
> So just tell the truth. Is your insulting/consulting business
> defunct? Well, the insulting part is clearly not, but the rest?
>
> Are you going to force me to show people how to find something you
> really don't want revealed? Or are you going to be truthful for a
> change?

Wow.

Stalking and now you're threatening doxxing, dick?

[Thomas E.]

Where did I lie in this string of posts? Did I ever lie or just have a different opinion based on facts as I knew them at the time?

[Thomas E.]

You lie by omission all the time. You simply cannot answer a straightforward question if the answer contradicts the false image you have created of yourself.

[Alan]

Not wanting to answer a question posed by a stalking DICK isn't "lying
by omission...

...Dick.

[Alan]

I note for the record that you don't deny stalking and threatening to
dox me...

...dick.

[Thomas E.]

Oh, but yes it is a lie. Your lie is that you are/were supporting yourself as an independent consultant. You have been a full-time employee of a Toronto firm for some time now. Your independent consultancy failed to support you so you became an employee, or at least you claim full-time employment. The bakerMedia site was disappeared. Can't afford the url renewal fee? You claim to be an elite FF driver at the local track, but your record does not support that claim. You have a selfie photo of yourself on your employer's site that in no way resembles your current appearance on LinkedIn. Another lie. In fact when I pointed out that the company photo resembled the unflattering LinkedIn version you changed it to what makes you appear healthier and without scraggly facial hair. Which is the real you?

[Thomas E.]

> >> Stalking and now you're threatening doxing, dick?

> >
> > Where did I lie in this string of posts? Did I ever lie or just have a different opinion based on facts as I knew them at the time?
> I note for the record that you don't deny stalking and threatening to
> dox me...
>
> ...dick.

I note for the record that you have slandered me repeatedly. I note that my definition of stalking is not taking an occasional look at certain sites and noting/recording changes. I note for the record that you are paranoid about people finding out facts contradicting the favorable image you attempt to portray on public facing sites.

[Alan]

You don't know the first thing about me.

You have suppositions based on supposition...

...dick.

[Alan]

I've called a grown man names and he calls it "slander".

> I note
> that my definition of stalking is not taking an occasional look at
> certain sites and noting/recording changes. I note for the record
> that you are paranoid about people finding out facts contradicting
> the favorable image you attempt to portray on public facing sites.

I note that you left out one of your activities from your definition of
"stalking"...

...dick.

[-hh]

Got cite? Or is that merely your assumption?

> You have been a full-time employee of a Toronto firm for some time now.

So? Times have changed since the 1970s: generations after yours don’t stick
to just one or afew companies for their entire working career: it’s now common
to change every ~5 years.

> Your independent consultancy failed to support you so you became an employee,
> or at least you claim full-time employment.

Speculation, plus no proof that it was ever exclusively full time.

> The bakerMedia site was disappeared. Can't afford the url renewal fee?

Hasn’t the Farmecon LLC website has disappeared too?
Ouch. Projecting your own “can’t afford it?” paradigm onto yourself.

> You claim to be an elite FF driver at the local track, but your record does not support that claim.

“Elite”? Really? Let’s see the cite.

Plus this isn’t the only time that you’ve gotten jealous & petty when you can’t be the
sole center of attention, especially for when it’s someone who has some skill clearly
better than you: you should go fly for 30 minutes on just 15 minutes of fuel to show
readers that you’re halfway good at at least one thing. /s

> You have a selfie photo of yourself on your employer's site that in no way resembles
> your current appearance on LinkedIn.

So?
Is there a condition of employment that requires image synchronization that’s being violated?
FYI, the professional headshots a stalker may find of me are also out of date.

> Another lie. In fact when I pointed out that the company photo resembled the unflattering
> LinkedIn version you changed it to what makes you appear healthier and without scraggly
> facial hair. Which is the real you?

Because we all know that a random picture on the Internet is profoundly important! /s

-hh

[Thomas E.]

The FarmEcon site disappeared because I shuttered the business over 2 years ago and transitioned some investments to income generation, seeing no drop in income.

Search for FarmEcon.com in Google. Takes you to https://www.hugedomains.com/domain_profile.cfm?d=farmecon.com where I have the URL for sale. Will I ever get that advertised price? Likely not, but per WHOIS I own it for a few more years, until 2027. It's assigned to the GoDaddy URL sales site until expiration.

Then try a bakermedia.ca search. It's dead, no hits. On WHOIS it shows a 2032 URL expiration date. So the URL is apparently still owned by Alan. In fact, I have a copy of his un-redacted URL registration. Wayback has the URL last record as 12/21/2021. The site must have disappeared after that. A Google search "bakermedia vancouver bc location" shows the correct business location, so that is still left.

On LinkedIn Alan still claims to be involved in bakerMEDIA. If so, it must be very part-time. He shows working for companies, 1994-1997 and 2001-2003, after moving to Vancouver in 1994, nothing after 2003 until February 2018 when he took his current job, which he claims as full-time.

The deletion of the company site and a full-time job all suggest that bakerMEDIA is defunct, or nearly so.

Actually, 2018 was a very interesting year for Alan. About the time he took the current full-time job he bought another FF race car, the one with the Honda engine. I have publicly available evidence that strongly infers that already in 2018 and going forward he was having growing financial issues, falling behind on a very important expense item until catching up very recently. There were good reasons for finding that job in 2018. Among them were that the bakerMEDIA gig was not prosperous enough to buy a race car or keep an important expense item current.

The difference in the photo images is simply an indication that he is not consistent in portraying reality. Having held the current job for 6 years does indicate that his job performance has been satisfactory. It's twice as long as he has held a job in the past. I'll give him that.

If his consulting practice had been lucrative why is he not still not doing that full-time? My consulting was, in contrast, very rewarding personally and financially. I worked it actively from 2003 to 2022, and even collected my last income in 2023. Net income, IRS basis, was about $1.3 million before 401K contributions. As you know, some expenses become deductible just because you are running a business from home, so this is lower than actual. Since I also had pension and SSI income I'll admit I did not solicit many projects. They were referrals for the most part.

Simply Google "thomas elam farmecon" for a small sample of my non-confidential projects that made it into the public domain.

Why go to all this trouble? Alan has repeatedly called me the "lying little shit" and a liar in general. I am neither. My body of work for numerous clients over many years indicates that I was known and respected in my chosen field. However, it's important for Alan to discredit those who disagree with his version of reality. His reality is a lot grittier than he would want you to believe.

[-hh]

> The FarmEcon site disappeared because I shuttered the business over 2 years ago

So? You could have left the reports up, and just said you’re no longer actively consulting.

> Search for FarmEcon.com in Google. Takes you to https://www.hugedomains.com/domain_profile.cfm?d=farmecon.com where I have the URL for sale. Will I ever get that advertised price? Likely not, but
> per WHOIS I own it for a few more years, until 2027. It's assigned to the GoDaddy URL sales site until expiration.

You’re asking $8K! GoDaddy’s appraisal tool says that it’s worth just $1555:

< https://www.godaddy.com/domain-value-appraisal/appraisal/?domainToCheck=Farmecon.com>

> Then try a bakermedia.ca search.

GoDaddy says $948 for that domain..basically two thirds as much as your domain:
not as “bad off” as you’re trying to imply.

> ... On WHOIS it shows a 2032 URL expiration date. ..
>
> On LinkedIn …

Stalking by Tommy.

> The deletion of the company site and a full-time job all suggest that bakerMEDIA is defunct, or nearly so.

That wasn’t the question. The question was if it ever was represented as full time.

> Actually, 2018 was a very interesting year for Alan…

Even more stalking by Tommy.

> If his consulting practice had been lucrative why is he not still not doing that full-time?

Don’t know, don’t care, because it’s none of my business. But I do know that a lot
of people are seeking a better work-life balance than what old Boomers tolerated.

> My consulting was, in contrast, very rewarding personally and financially.

Because you got travel boondoggles? /s

> I worked it actively from 2003 to 2022, and even collected my last income in 2023.
> Net income, IRS basis, was about $1.3 million before 401K contributions. As you
> know, some expenses become deductible just because you are running a business
> from home, so this is lower than actual.

SS & Medicare is 15.3%, but only half of that is unique to self-employment to be
comparable to a regular job. Plus write-offs for laptops, office, etc and it’s a 10%
variance or so in total. Another are business travel costs, which of course are usually
customer-approval specific, but not a big money suck…unless one wants it to be.
Plus wasn’t there also a corporate donation to a local theater for tickets too, eh?
The write-off game is very much just that for some folks.

> Since I also had pension and SSI income I'll admit I did not solicit many projects.
> They were referrals for the most part.

You were nevertheless still hustling for work for more than decade beyond normal
retirement age. That shows that you weren’t anywhere near ‘comfortable’ without it.

> Simply Google "thomas elam farmecon" for a small sample of my non-confidential
> projects that made it into the public domain.

Despite how you still own the domain and could have just left those papers up?

> Why go to all this trouble? Alan has repeatedly called me the "lying little shit" and

> a liar in general. I am neither. My body of work for numerous clients …

…is not representative of the crap that you regularly tried to pull here. As such, your
consultant work is irrelevant and not a defense for your poor behavior here.

-hh

[Thomas E.]

Yes, I was not comfortable at all with where I was in early 2003. I did some teaching and started consulting. I was offered a 6-figure job with AVMA out of Chicago, but did not want to move there. The consulting grew organically to the point where I could not meet classes and travel to see clients. Consulting won, and within 15 years or so I had built up a sizable net worth and income stream. I took the site down just to make sure no one would see it and call me anyway. All my clients have my contact info and know how to get in touch if they need something from a past project. That happens occasionally. 95% of the work I did was not on the site anyway.

The work was rewarding because it helped people solve problems. I took about 5 or 6 international consulting trips. The wife went on 4 international trips, Canada, Germany, France, and Austria. That was less than 5% of the work. She did go on some short U.S. trips. Yes I enjoyed the travel, she did too, so what? All the work was done right here in my office. The trips were for client-requested meetings to present results.

You got the 10% number about right. My gross margin over business deductions was about 90%. The Social Security contributions added to my eventual benefits. I get within a few dollars of the maximum for age claiming at 66.

There were no charitable donations taken on my LLC Form C. Those all were on the Schedule D at the time, now are QCD adjustments to income take out of IRA RMD funds. The matching came from my ex-employer, not my LLC.

I was not hustling for work. I cannot remember soliciting for anything except one project. Someone in a meeting asked if anyone knew how to do X. I volunteered and got the assignment. The rest were all people who approached me with requests. I turned down a few that I knew were beyond my capabilities.

My behavior here is intended to defend myself against Alan Baker's assaults on my character. And you are the person who falsely claimed to have had an FAA friend in London who could look at my flight logs and make a judgement on their accuracy! That is reprehensible! You also criticize disguised as personal finance advice while not having complete knowledge of a person's strategy, goals and investment portfolio. Look in the mirror yourself.

[-hh]

Silence still from Tommy.

> Yes, I was not comfortable at all with where I was in early 2003. I did some teaching and
> started consulting. I was offered a 6-figure job with AVMA out of Chicago, but did not want
> to move there.

Your loss, as that would have enabled a higher retirement savings rate and been able to shave,
oh perhaps 20-25% off of the years that you worked since 2003, so maybe your retirement could
have been at age 70 instead of 75 or whatever.

> The consulting grew organically to the point where I could not meet classes and travel to see clients.

The conflict there was classes vs travel. You chose travel. As I called it, a "boondoggle" motivation.

> Consulting won, and within 15 years or so I had built up a sizable net worth and income stream.

Started slow, ended slow, and averaged well under six digits. Shouda' gone to Chicago /s

> I took the site down just to make sure no one would see it and call me anyway.

Self-contradiction of wanting us to find your papers but hiding them. "Check!". /s

> All my clients have my contact info and know how to get in touch if they need something from
> a past project. That happens occasionally. 95% of the work I did was not on the site anyway.

Which based on your numbers, effectively didn't happen for your last three years (94% retired).

> The work was rewarding because it helped people solve problems. I took about 5 or 6 international
> consulting trips.

"Five or Six"? How is it then that your old "brag" spreadsheet that you shared has 21 international trips
listed for business for the years of 2004 - 2015?

> The wife went on 4 international trips, Canada, Germany, France, and Austria.
> That was less than 5% of the work.

4/21 = 19% of international business trips.

> She did go on some short U.S. trips. Yes I enjoyed the travel, she did too, so what? All the work
> was done right here in my office. The trips were for client-requested meetings to present results.

That's been discussed before, where you've tried to imply personal wealth from leveraged business
trips paid for by others (and including using frequent flier miles thereof as well): there's been quite
a bit of the proverbial “yee-haw, I’m traveling and you’re not...I’m rich!" over the years.

> You got the 10% number about right. My gross margin over business deductions was about 90%.

Yet another instance of where you've had to admit that my parametric are close enough.

> The Social Security contributions added to my eventual benefits. I get within a few dollars of the
> maximum for age claiming at 66.

Which was $45K/yr; I'd figured ~$35K for each of you, as I figured that yours would be the
higher of the two; hers can be as low as $25K/yr and the prior numbers are still on track.

> There were no charitable donations taken on my LLC Form C. Those all were on the Schedule D
> at the time, now are QCD adjustments to income take out of IRA RMD funds. The matching came
> from my ex-employer, not my LLC.

That doesn't explain how Farmecon was the listed benefactor: was it done as an advertising expense write-off?

> I was not hustling for work. I cannot remember soliciting for anything except one project.
> Someone in a meeting asked if anyone knew how to do X. I volunteered and got the assignment.
> The rest were all people who approached me with requests. I turned down a few that I knew were
> beyond my capabilities.

LOL, I've had enough time with contractors to know that there's *always* hustle for the next gig.

> My behavior here is intended to defend myself against Alan Baker's assaults on my character.

Too bad you're doing such a poor job at it.

> And you are the person who falsely claimed to have had an FAA friend in London who could
> look at my flight logs and make a judgement on their accuracy! That is reprehensible!

No, what's reprehensible is that you claim that it is a false claim. For example, I never said where
they lived in UK, just that one would fly into London to go visit them. Go look it up. In the meantime,
they are retired, but still working in the aviation industry, consulting for Boeing and L3. They also
had a nice snow ski trip last season to a place I've never heard of: Val du Claret, Tignes.

> You also criticize disguised as personal finance advice while not having complete knowledge of
> a person's strategy, goals and investment portfolio. Look in the mirror yourself.

Nope. My mirror doesn't have the hypocritical cracks from frequent brag attempts about my income
or net worth. Just take a look at how many you stuffed into just your last reply.

-hh

[Thomas E.]

Incomplete data extrapolated to fit your version of reality and wildly wrong. I hope your retirement projections are better.

WE DID NOT want to move to Chicago. That was a mutual decision. It worked out great from my perspective. There is more than money.

[Thomas E.]

More

You were correct about a number but totally mischaracterized international travel. 21 is correct for business-related international trips. Several were very short. In all there are 162 trips in the records. That includes business and vacation. Not all vacation trips are in the records. All the business trips are in there. Every business trip in those records is the result of a client request.

All business where the wife did not go along were go out, do the job, come home. On 4 of the 21 international business trips the wife went along. We paid all of her expenses and for the entire vacation time. The clients paid nothing for our vacation days. Yet you call this a "boondoggle"?

The post-2002 international trips were so memorable that I had to go back and count them to refresh memory. After 1987-2002 79 international trips spanning 615 days of travel (and about 350 total trips including domestic) for my ex-employer's business another meeting in (you name the country) had little value to me. Been there, done that. It was rewarding at first, but at the end just routine business travel. About the only meaningful benefit I got was a bunch of free airline tickets to Hawaii and a few to Europe.

[-hh]

Silence from Tommy.

> > > I was not hustling for work. I cannot remember soliciting for anything except one project.
> > > Someone in a meeting asked if anyone knew how to do X. I volunteered and got the assignment.
> > > The rest were all people who approached me with requests. I turned down a few that I knew were
> > > beyond my capabilities.
> >
> > LOL, I've had enough time with contractors to know that there's *always* hustle for the next gig.
> >
> > > My behavior here is intended to defend myself against Alan Baker's assaults on my character.
> > Too bad you're doing such a poor job at it.
> > > And you are the person who falsely claimed to have had an FAA friend in London who could
> > > look at my flight logs and make a judgement on their accuracy! That is reprehensible!
> >
> > No, what's reprehensible is that you claim that it is a false claim. For example, I never said where
> > they lived in UK, just that one would fly into London to go visit them. Go look it up. In the meantime,
> > they are retired, but still working in the aviation industry, consulting for Boeing and L3. They also
> > had a nice snow ski trip last season to a place I've never heard of: Val du Claret, Tignes.

Silence from Tommy.

> > > You also criticize disguised as personal finance advice while not having complete knowledge
> > > of a person's strategy, goals and investment portfolio. Look in the mirror yourself.
> >
> > Nope. My mirror doesn't have the hypocritical cracks from frequent brag attempts about my
> > income or net worth. Just take a look at how many you stuffed into just your last reply.
>

> More
>
> You were correct about a number but totally mischaracterized international travel. 21 is correct
> for business-related international trips.

Mischaracterized? It was directly from your context, where you said: “I took about 5 or 6
international consulting trips.” So how is it that you now admit it was 21 instead of the 5
you just claimed before you got caught?

> Several were very short.

Does that not make it a business trip? Nope.

> In all there are 162 trips in the records. That includes business and vacation. Not all
> vacation trips are in the records. All the business trips are in there. Every business trip
> in those records is the result of a client request.

Of course there’s more; I was addressing just your claim of “I took about 5 or 6 international consulting trips.”

> All business where the wife did not go along were go out, do the job, come home.

As if that’s not typical. Especially when the customer holds the purse strings.

> On 4 of the 21 international business trips the wife went along. We paid all of her
> expenses and for the entire vacation time. The clients paid nothing for our vacation
> days. Yet you call this a "boondoggle"?

Notice that you didn’t mention who paid your expenses?

As was noted long ago, your flight costs were covered, as well as some days.
Yet that didn’t result in humility, but the proverbial “yee-haw, I’m traveling and
you’re not...I’m rich!" bit.

> The post-2002 international trips were so memorable that I had to go back
> and count them to refresh memory.

Should have done that prior to claiming “I took about 5 or 6 international consulting trips.” /s

> After 1987-2002 79 international trips spanning 615 days of travel (and about 350
> total trips including domestic) for my ex-employer's business another meeting in
> (you name the country) had little value to me. Been there, done that. It was rewarding
> at first, but at the end just routine business travel.

Yet that “ just routine ” hasn’t prevented you from “name dropping” the above metrics.

You’re not the only one who’s ever been on the 2-3 trips/month grind, despite how it
apparently entertained you so much that you made the effort to keep track. Frankly,
I learned how it hinders a healthy work-life balance to be away so much from family.

> About the only meaningful benefit I got was a bunch of free airline tickets to Hawaii
> and a few to Europe.

Plus FFM flights … didn’t you have a South America cruise planned that was using some?
Granted, I’m currently guilty of having an accumulated balance myself, but most of my
recent redemptions have been to upgrade a flight that I’ve already personally paid for;
most recent one was NYC to Tokyo in First Class. No crying babies upfront! /s

-hh

[-hh]

> Incomplete data extrapolated to fit your version of reality and wildly wrong.

Nah, it’s already been parametrically narrowed down that your average wage
was under $100K/yr, and IIRC more like $78K, so “six digits” would be easily
20% higher.

> I hope your retirement projections are better.

They’re doing fine, which is why I’ve mentioned Roth-ifying near term, so as to
limit & manage taxable RMDs when they eventually kick in…

> WE DID NOT want to move to Chicago. That was a mutual decision. It worked
> out great from my perspective. There is more than money.

It’s quite ironic to hear you try to claim that there’s more to life than money after
repeatedly posting what your net worth is, as well as working an extra decade+
longer than average. If you could have retired at 63 with a $200K income stream
before SS or 401k/IRA distributions…would you have taken it?

-hh

[-hh]

On Monday, January 29, 2024 at 10:00:37 PM UTC-5, -hh wrote:
> On Monday, January 29, 2024 at 6:31:29 PM UTC-5, Thomas E. wrote:
> > On Friday, January 26, 2024 at 8:04:32 PM UTC-5, -hh wrote:
> > > On Friday, January 26, 2024 at 10:55:19 AM UTC-5, Thomas E. wrote:

> >> …

> > > > Yes, I was not comfortable at all with where I was in early 2003. I did some teaching and
> > > > started consulting. I was offered a 6-figure job with AVMA out of Chicago, but did not want
> > > > to move there.
> > >
> > > Your loss, as that would have enabled a higher retirement savings rate and been able to shave,
> > > oh perhaps 20-25% off of the years that you worked since 2003, so maybe your retirement could
> > > have been at age 70 instead of 75 or whatever.

> > ….

> >
> > I hope your retirement projections are better.
>
> They’re doing fine, which is why I’ve mentioned Roth-ifying near term, so as to
> limit & manage taxable RMDs when they eventually kick in…
>
> > WE DID NOT want to move to Chicago. That was a mutual decision. It worked
> > out great from my perspective. There is more than money.
>
> It’s quite ironic to hear you try to claim that there’s more to life than money after
> repeatedly posting what your net worth is, as well as working an extra decade+
> longer than average. If you could have retired at 63 with a $200K income stream
> before SS or 401k/IRA distributions…would you have taken it?

Apparently, Tommy is busy still calculating out his numbers for that simple ‘what if.’
Frankly, I didn’t think it was that hard of a question, for when the revenue is roughly
the same (or better) with zero labor required, most folks would say it’s a no-brainer.

In the meantime, the “Nashton Mystery Machine” is coming due on the clock for it to
be replaced (yeah, it’s been ten years already), so I’m open to product suggestions.

-hh

[Alan]

Well... ...oddly enough for someone who races cars and teaches others to
race cars, I find myself strangely disinterested in learning about
current offerings.

I used to read Road&Track every month, and eagerly read every page about
every car they tested, but I just don't anymore.

I had a good time in 2022 (I think it was 2022) teaching a student who
brought his Audi SQ7, but honestly I thought it was a bit ridiculous as
a car one would actually buy. Very capable, to be sure, but too big, too
heavy... ...just too much.

[-hh]

> > replacement

> > In the meantime, the “Nashton Mystery Machine” is coming due on the clock for it to
> > be replaced (yeah, it’s been ten years already), so I’m open to product suggestions.
>
> Well... ...oddly enough for someone who races cars and teaches others to
> race cars, I find myself strangely disinterested in learning about
> current offerings.

Well, getting older doesn’t help. I think a lot of it is recognizing that there’s
basic capabilities and competencies which result in a lot of product that’s
not in top tier, allowing it to be cognitively ignored.

> I used to read Road&Track every month, and eagerly read every page about
> every car they tested, but I just don't anymore.

AutoWeek was my read; they’ve stopped publishing paper and IIRC that’s
why I’m now getting Car & Driver. Okay enough but it’s not like I make it
a point to read each issue the day it arrives.

> I had a good time in 2022 (I think it was 2022) teaching a student who
> brought his Audi SQ7, but honestly I thought it was a bit ridiculous as
> a car one would actually buy. Very capable, to be sure, but too big, too
> heavy... ...just too much.

The Q7 (& it’s twins) is a big platform, which a few customers will need,
but is also largely an example of American “supersize” in everyday life.
Reminds me of a coworker who ‘needed’ a GMC Suburban because
they had one teenager child. Naturally, both they & their spouse were
tipping 250lbs…a coincidence! /s

And also an example of the gratuitous horsepower of the last ~decade,
at the expense of fuel efficiency. The SQ7 has 500 HP; similarly, one
candidate I’m looking at has varying tiers where the slowest one apparently
has a 5 sec 0-60mph. While that would be fun to torque Nashton with, its
not really needed for public road driving. But marketing is marketing, etc.

Good news is that turbo-4’s have gotten a lot better in minimizing lag off
of a dead stop…but the likes of SUVs are still pushing a lot of air from an
efficiency standpoint, if that matters much based on one’s annual driving.
I’ve seen miles decline a lot during the CoVid telework change, so the
cost factor here isn’t as much of a factor..even at $4-$5/gallon. Plus it
also helps to live in a “compact” region where lots is close by, too.

-hh

[Thomas E.]

Just to make your head spin a little fast I offer the following.

To get off to a good start we paid off the house in 2003. Knowing that we had no debt was a confidence booster.

Your parametric "wage narrowing" is a joke as is the claim that taking that Chicago job was a good idea for speeding up retirement. The limits on retirement contributions at the offered Chicago salary were a fraction of what I was able to put away in a self-employed 401k. By putting away the max in my own 401k in 2003-2023 (last 2 years were 0) through my own contributions and capital appreciation I built what is now an IRA worth well over $1 million today. If I take what we put in minus RMD withdrawals the non-discounted net cash IRA outlay has been $197k. I about 4 years the net will be zero. An employee plan with its lower contributions would never have done that for IRA current value or past and future $RMD.

And, of course, there are 4 other retirement accounts and a substantial amount of other investments not in qualified plans. The wife worked for a while too after we got married in 2002.

Over that same 2003-2023 span we had one lean year with under $150k income. The average was $204k. The decision to save as much as possible was very deliberate. We currently receive monthly: 2 pension, 2 Social Security, 5 RMD and 1 dividend payments. My ex-employer also heavily subsidizes our Medicare Supplement plans and pays for my Part B premiums, all tax free. And, our investments' market value continues to grow long term. The 2023-2024 YoY growth after the 2022 slump is over $500k. An unusual yoyo 2 years to be sure, but it all keeps the mind active.

Life was much simpler when I got only a salary, bonuses and stock options. I say that, but AMT liabilities arising from Incentive Stock Options income and later reclaiming AMT after the ISO's stopped was a bit complicated and risky. Not to mention that you may need to borrow the money to pay for the exercise and then wait at least a year to sell to get LTCG treatment on a gain that may not materialize. See:

https://www.esofund.com/blog/amt-tax-calculator#:~:text=If%20you%20exercise%20incentive%20stock%20options%20%28ISOs%29%20you,value%20at%20the%20time%20of%20exercise%20as%20income.

https://www.brightonjones.com/blog/amt-stock-options/

It took me over 10 years to reclaim the AMT I paid, but it was a nice Federal tax liability offset while it lasted.

But more to the point, moving to Chicago would have meant losing family and friend connections, downsizing, higher taxes and living expenses. It is likely that at that time, having just paid off the house, we would need to mortgage a home in the Chicago suburbs. Moving was never seriously considered for many reasons.

I also enjoyed working for myself. It gave me the freedom to do jobs my way. I turned engagements down too. You should try it, very liberating.

As for the consulting international trip count my underestimate is the result of those forgotten ones being not very memorable. The few I did remember were mostly the ones with the wife. The rest were just work. Fly somewhere, a meeting or two, fly home. BFD. When working for Lilly those OUS trips often included 1-2 weeks, multiple projects, and multiple destinations. More memorable, and some downtime to sightsee.

Have you ever run a run your own business to the extent of having a self-employed 401k?

[-hh]

Silence from Tommy on the $200K at age 63 question.

> Just to make your head spin a little fast I offer the following.
>
> To get off to a good start we paid off the house in 2003. Knowing that we had no debt was a confidence booster.
>
> Your parametric "wage narrowing" is a joke as is the claim that taking that Chicago
> job was a good idea for speeding up retirement.

You're the one who tried to brag that the AVMA was a six-figure job. You've not only
admitted that that was more than you were making where you were, but the other numbers
you've provided have enabled a parametric estimate of at least how much more.

> The limits on retirement contributions at the offered Chicago salary were a fraction
> of what I was able to put away in a self-employed 401k.

And the AVMA didn't offer any pension? Because the reason why the tax code allows
self-employed businesses to have such higher 401k provisions is because there isn't an
employer pension.

> By putting away the max in my own 401k in 2003-2023 (last 2 years were 0) through my own
> contributions and capital appreciation I built what is now an IRA worth well over $1 million today.

Which if we KISS apply the 4% rule for an annuity equivalent is a pension of just $40K/year.

> If I take what we put in minus RMD withdrawals the non-discounted net cash IRA outlay
> has been $197k. I about 4 years the net will be zero. An employee plan with its lower
> contributions would never have done that for IRA current value or past and future $RMD.

But that assumes no employer match on the 401k, as well as no pension benefit.

Since the self-employed 401k is ~2x what an individual employee can set aside in an
employer's 401k, we can parametrically model the What-If of you taking that AVMA job
and making the same max individual 401k contributions as ~1/2 of what you've now
ended up with, which would be $500K ...

... and the ramifications of this are that the the employer's pension portion only needs
to be just $20K/year to be at break-even. Less, if there was also an employer match
going into the 401k.

> And, of course, there are 4 other retirement accounts and a substantial amount of other
> investments not in qualified plans. The wife worked for a while too after we got married in 2002.
> Over that same 2003-2023 span we had one lean year with under $150k income.
> The average was $204k. The decision to save as much as possible was very deliberate.

Except that you've just admitted that there were 4 other retirement accounts plus RMDs
that were all contributors to these income totals, which parametrically means that your
years of working as a consultant must have always been *less* than the numbers you
just stated above. Golly, more parameterizing.

> We currently receive monthly: 2 pension, 2 Social Security, 5 RMD and 1 dividend payments.

Think the SS was already SWAGed at ~$60K/yr in total. Figure two pensions adding up
to about the same sum and you're already at $120K/yr out of your $204K/yr average,
and there's still the RMDs to subtract off (and dividends) before one gets down to just
what the average consultant gig was paying per year.

> My ex-employer also heavily subsidizes our Medicare Supplement plans and pays for
> my Part B premiums, all tax free.

IIRC, I can expect to have ~five years of 100% free healthcare, after which it drops to
just 70% subsidized. What did I win? /s

> And, our investments' market value continues to grow long term. The 2023-2024 YoY growth
> after the 2022 slump is over $500k. An unusual yoyo 2 years to be sure, but it all keeps the mind active.

Golly, you already know what your 2024 growth was? /s

Nah, its more likely that you're counting all of 2022, plus YTD, rather than just YoY, so as to
squeeze out a slightly bigger number from the past five weeks' gains to try to brag about.

> Life was much simpler when I got only a salary, bonuses and stock options. I say that,
> but AMT liabilities arising from Incentive Stock Options income and later reclaiming AMT
> after the ISO's stopped was a bit complicated and risky. Not to mention that you may
> need to borrow the money to pay for the exercise and then wait at least a year to sell
> to get LTCG treatment on a gain that may not materialize. See:
>
> https://www.esofund.com/blog/amt-tax-calculator#:~:text=If%20you%20exercise%20incentive%20stock%20options%20%28ISOs%29%20you,value%20at%20the%20time%20of%20exercise%20as%20income.
>
> https://www.brightonjones.com/blog/amt-stock-options/
>
> It took me over 10 years to reclaim the AMT I paid, but it was a nice Federal tax liability offset while it lasted.

Of course, there's other ways to manage stock options which are less likely to trigger
AMTs (plus AMT has temporarily disappeared as a real factor, due to the 2017 TCJA).

> But more to the point, moving to Chicago would have meant losing family and friend
> connections, downsizing, higher taxes and living expenses. It is likely that at that time,
> having just paid off the house, we would need to mortgage a home in the Chicago suburbs.
> Moving was never seriously considered for many reasons.

Because one can never make new friends/etc. Plus a CAP flight from Chicago back to Indy
is <200 miles. Nevertheless, it is fortunate that you mentioned it and how it was a "six figure"
income opportunity, as that paramaterizes that you were earning less at the time.

> I also enjoyed working for myself. It gave me the freedom to do jobs my way. I turned
> engagements down too. You should try it, very liberating.

Perhaps I already am, and just haven't bragged about it.

> As for the consulting international trip count my underestimate is the result of those
> forgotten ones being not very memorable. The few I did remember were mostly the
> ones with the wife. The rest were just work. Fly somewhere, a meeting or two, fly
> home. BFD. When working for Lilly those OUS trips often included 1-2 weeks, multiple
> projects, and multiple destinations. More memorable, and some downtime to sightsee.

Routine business travel does get tuned out ... but then not invoked in brag attempts.
Given how you've kept such meticulous records and even counted air segments, its
not really a particularly believable excuse.

> Have you ever run a run your own business to the extent of having a self-employed 401k?

I've never been laid off to have been compelled to strike out on my own to need to: with
an existent employer 401k, any side business affairs don't need to incur the overhead to
go duplicate that capability, as it is easy with multiple income streams to leverage them
so as to facilitate shifting of expenses/income to maximize tax-advantaged accounts, etc.


-hh

[Thomas E.]

I'm going to answer just these comments:

"But that assumes no employer match on the 401k, as well as no pension benefit.

Since the self-employed 401k is ~2x what an individual employee can set aside in an
employer's 401k, we can parametrically model the What-If of you taking that AVMA job
and making the same max individual 401k contributions as ~1/2 of what you've now
ended up with, which would be $500K"

I never got to the stage of asking about fringe benefits. The prospect of relocating to Chicago killed it. As the AVMA is a not-for-profit I doubt that the retirement benefits were very generous. Also I was already almost 57 at the time, so it was going to be short term there, not much chance to build up credits or a 401k

Your 500k assumes that I would have worked there well past age 65. And, you are assuming things about an AVMA 401k plan. Sorry, but again you assume facts not in evidence. ie, you lied

"Plus a CAP flight from Chicago back to Indy
is <200 miles."

Are you f'ing kidding. You cannot use CAP aircraft for personal flying!

"Think the SS was already SWAGed at ~$60K/yr in total. Figure two pensions adding up

about the same sum and you're already at $120K/yr"

LOL again! The pensions and SS add up to under $100k. The rest is dividends and RMD's. Which is the payoff for all that fun I had consulting.

You are spending a lot of time stalking my finances. All to no avail. You will never have the complete picture, and if you did there are many alternatives you could suggest. What I did worked.

[-hh]

Still

That 'heavily subsidized' is probably the $6K/year that Tommy mentioned in July 2019
as a 2016 change in his retirement benefits. At that time he also noted that it apparently
wasn't indexed to inflation. Hopefully that has changed for the better for him.

> I'm going to answer just these comments:
> "But that assumes no employer match on the 401k, as well as no pension benefit.
>
> Since the self-employed 401k is ~2x what an individual employee can set aside in an
> employer's 401k, we can parametrically model the What-If of you taking that AVMA job
> and making the same max individual 401k contributions as ~1/2 of what you've now
> ended up with, which would be $500K"
>
> I never got to the stage of asking about fringe benefits. The prospect of relocating to
> Chicago killed it. As the AVMA is a not-for-profit I doubt that the retirement benefits
> were very generous.

So you didn't even look? Pity, for there's a 2016 comment on Glassdoor that says that their
employer 401k match is up to 10%, which for a $100K+ salary is an additional +$10K+/year,
which is a 40% increase in contributions (using 2016's limit of $24K, an employer's 10% of
$100K = +$10K = $34K/$24K = 1.42 = a +42% higher rate of investment.

> Also I was already almost 57 at the time, so it was going to be short term there, not
> much chance to build up credits or a 401k

So? The point was only that it would be *shorter* than what you actually did, which was age 75+.

> Your 500k assumes that I would have worked there well past age 65.

But not to age 75 (actually 78), which is where your current 401k balance comes from.

Now using Glassdoor's reported 10% employer match, the accumulation rate would
have been substantially (+42%) higher than than what was modeled in the $500K KISS,
and that (plus whatever employer pension) is how working years get chopped off.
Keeping it simple by ignoring progressive compounding/etc from more money earlier,
figure roughly 20 years/1.42 = 14 years, which is ~6 years earlier for retirement.

> And, you are assuming things about an AVMA 401k plan. Sorry, but again you
> assume facts not in evidence. ie, you lied

False: I simply noted that the baseline parameterization didn't assume that there
was any employer match from AVMA to sweeten the deal.

But now that we know that they do, we can update those numbers, as seen above.
And this is just from the 401k benefits portion, still not counting any additional pension.

> "Plus a CAP flight from Chicago back to Indy is <200 miles."
> Are you f'ing kidding. You cannot use CAP aircraft for personal flying!

Except for how you've previously admitted to using one of CAP's vans for personal use,
so we know that you're already predisposed to trying such things.

> "Think the SS was already SWAGed at ~$60K/yr in total. Figure two pensions adding up
> about the same sum and you're already at $120K/yr"
>
> LOL again! The pensions and SS add up to under $100k. The rest is dividends and RMD's.
> Which is the payoff for all that fun I had consulting.

Tommy, on Jan 26, 2024, 8:04:32 PM: "I get within a few dollars of the maximum for age
claiming at 66." which if you're telling the truth is ~$45K of that claimed "under $100K",
which means that the other three sum to <$55K and would average just $18.3K each.

An average SS pension is ~$1500/mo = $18K/yr, so assuming that for the Mrs, the balance
after SS is just $37K/yr for the sum of the two pensions. Since you've bragged about your
Eli Lilly "golden parachute" & pension from working there for 23 years, if it alone was less
than $35K, it would IMO be just an average pension amount.

> You are spending a lot of time stalking my finances.

Merely because you've invested so much here in telling everyone about your finances
and how we're apparently supposed to be impressed and jealous of you. It's been
a modestly entertaining math puzzle.

> All to no avail. You will never have the complete picture, and if you did there are many
> alternatives you could suggest. What I did worked.

It did "work" ... eventually ... taking you into your upper 70s, which is clearly why
the aforementioned question is *still* being dodged by Tommy:

"If you could have retired at 63 with a $200K income stream
before SS or 401k/IRA distributions…would you have taken it?"

Well?

-hh

[Alan]

I think you'd agree that there's a lot that getting older "doesn't help"
with...

...but what's the alternative.

;-)

>
>> I used to read Road&Track every month, and eagerly read every page about
>> every car they tested, but I just don't anymore.
>
> AutoWeek was my read; they’ve stopped publishing paper and IIRC that’s
> why I’m now getting Car & Driver. Okay enough but it’s not like I make it
> a point to read each issue the day it arrives.

I always preferred R&T to C&D and I can't even tell you why I've almost
never read AutoWeek. Probably laziness.

;-)

>
>> I had a good time in 2022 (I think it was 2022) teaching a student who
>> brought his Audi SQ7, but honestly I thought it was a bit ridiculous as
>> a car one would actually buy. Very capable, to be sure, but too big, too
>> heavy... ...just too much.
>
> The Q7 (& it’s twins) is a big platform, which a few customers will need,
> but is also largely an example of American “supersize” in everyday life.
> Reminds me of a coworker who ‘needed’ a GMC Suburban because
> they had one teenager child. Naturally, both they & their spouse were
> tipping 250lbs…a coincidence! /s
>
> And also an example of the gratuitous horsepower of the last ~decade,
> at the expense of fuel efficiency. The SQ7 has 500 HP; similarly, one
> candidate I’m looking at has varying tiers where the slowest one apparently
> has a 5 sec 0-60mph. While that would be fun to torque Nashton with, its
> not really needed for public road driving. But marketing is marketing, etc.
>
> Good news is that turbo-4’s have gotten a lot better in minimizing lag off
> of a dead stop…but the likes of SUVs are still pushing a lot of air from an
> efficiency standpoint, if that matters much based on one’s annual driving.
> I’ve seen miles decline a lot during the CoVid telework change, so the
> cost factor here isn’t as much of a factor..even at $4-$5/gallon. Plus it
> also helps to live in a “compact” region where lots is close by, too.

I understand about efficiency. As much as I love the 135i, it still
stings when I realize I'm filling it up every week (pretty much) with 50
litres.

But you're right about turbo-lag having mosly been handled. The
twin-scroll turbo in the N55 engine basically feels like it doesn't have
lag—at least not if I'm driving in my own "sport mode"; meaning I'm
keeping the RPM nearer the HP peak than I would typically do when
cruising in the highway. I won't fault a turbo for lagging a little when
I'm in 6th gear and only turning just a couple of thousand revs.

:-)

[-hh]

Yup. Comes back to being aware of where one’s at and the future ahead,
such as informed by the retirement “smile” curve for budgeting, where it
starts as the “go go” years before progressing to the “go slow” years and
then finally the “no go” end. As such, there’s a finite number of ‘cars next’
before it will be no more.

> >> I used to read Road&Track every month, and eagerly read every page about
> >> every car they tested, but I just don't anymore.
> >
> > AutoWeek was my read; they’ve stopped publishing paper and IIRC that’s
> > why I’m now getting Car & Driver. Okay enough but it’s not like I make it
> > a point to read each issue the day it arrives.
>
> I always preferred R&T to C&D and I can't even tell you why I've almost
> never read AutoWeek. Probably laziness.
>
> ;-)

I found AutoWeek to have been few enough pages each publication such
that I’d pick it up & read through it when it arrived, as opposed to it being
set aside like many of my monthlies have..where it can then sit for weeks.

> >> I had a good time in 2022 (I think it was 2022) teaching a student who
> >> brought his Audi SQ7, but honestly I thought it was a bit ridiculous as
> >> a car one would actually buy. Very capable, to be sure, but too big, too
> >> heavy... ...just too much.
> >
> > The Q7 (& it’s twins) is a big platform, which a few customers will need,
> > but is also largely an example of American “supersize” in everyday life.
> > Reminds me of a coworker who ‘needed’ a GMC Suburban because
> > they had one teenager child. Naturally, both they & their spouse were
> > tipping 250lbs…a coincidence! /s
> >
> > And also an example of the gratuitous horsepower of the last ~decade,
> > at the expense of fuel efficiency. The SQ7 has 500 HP; similarly, one
> > candidate I’m looking at has varying tiers where the slowest one apparently
> > has a 5 sec 0-60mph. While that would be fun to torque Nashton with, its
> > not really needed for public road driving. But marketing is marketing, etc.
> >
> > Good news is that turbo-4’s have gotten a lot better in minimizing lag off
> > of a dead stop…but the likes of SUVs are still pushing a lot of air from an
> > efficiency standpoint, if that matters much based on one’s annual driving.
> > I’ve seen miles decline a lot during the CoVid telework change, so the
> > cost factor here isn’t as much of a factor..even at $4-$5/gallon. Plus it
> > also helps to live in a “compact” region where lots is close by, too.
>
> I understand about efficiency. As much as I love the 135i, it still
> stings when I realize I'm filling it up every week (pretty much) with 50
> litres.

Telework really crashed our mileages; I figure it cut at least 15,000
miles off our annual totals … at ~25mpg, that’s ~600 gallons, for a
ballpark savings of somewhere around $2K/yr.

> But you're right about turbo-lag having mosly been handled. The
> twin-scroll turbo in the N55 engine basically feels like it doesn't have
> lag—at least not if I'm driving in my own "sport mode"; meaning I'm
> keeping the RPM nearer the HP peak than I would typically do when
> cruising in the highway. I won't fault a turbo for lagging a little when
> I'm in 6th gear and only turning just a couple of thousand revs.
>
> :-)

I’ve found the most noticeable delta between a single vs double scroll is
from a stop. Sure, one could double-pedal it to bring the rpm’s up before
launch, but this is for mundane around-town stuff. I still wonder why anyone
would actually pay extra to add “launch control.

-hh

[Alan]

On 2024-02-05 16:16, -hh wrote:
>>>> Well... ...oddly enough for someone who races cars and teaches others to
>>>> race cars, I find myself strangely disinterested in learning about
>>>> current offerings.
>>>
>>> Well, getting older doesn’t help. I think a lot of it is recognizing that there’s
>>> basic capabilities and competencies which result in a lot of product that’s
>>> not in top tier, allowing it to be cognitively ignored.
>>
>> I think you'd agree that there's a lot that getting older "doesn't help"
>> with...
>>
>> ...but what's the alternative.
>>
>> ;-)
>
> Yup. Comes back to being aware of where one’s at and the future ahead,
> such as informed by the retirement “smile” curve for budgeting, where it
> starts as the “go go” years before progressing to the “go slow” years and
> then finally the “no go” end. As such, there’s a finite number of ‘cars next’
> before it will be no more.

Truth.

>
>>>> I used to read Road&Track every month, and eagerly read every page about
>>>> every car they tested, but I just don't anymore.
>>>
>>> AutoWeek was my read; they’ve stopped publishing paper and IIRC that’s
>>> why I’m now getting Car & Driver. Okay enough but it’s not like I make it
>>> a point to read each issue the day it arrives.
>>
>> I always preferred R&T to C&D and I can't even tell you why I've almost
>> never read AutoWeek. Probably laziness.
>>
>> ;-)
>
> I found AutoWeek to have been few enough pages each publication such
> that I’d pick it up & read through it when it arrived, as opposed to it being
> set aside like many of my monthlies have..where it can then sit for weeks.

I think I've identified a fundamental difference between us:

I love to binge:

TV Shows

Books

Magazines.

If I get a magazine, I'll read it from cover to cover in the next 24
hours... ...or less.

I don't even want to think about how high the bill would be without
telework. But visiting my sister-in-law and niece on a regular
basis—formerly 45 minutes away, now more like 75—puts a serious numbers
of miles on the BMW.

>
>> But you're right about turbo-lag having mosly been handled. The
>> twin-scroll turbo in the N55 engine basically feels like it doesn't have
>> lag—at least not if I'm driving in my own "sport mode"; meaning I'm
>> keeping the RPM nearer the HP peak than I would typically do when
>> cruising in the highway. I won't fault a turbo for lagging a little when
>> I'm in 6th gear and only turning just a couple of thousand revs.
>>
>> :-)
>
> I’ve found the most noticeable delta between a single vs double scroll is
> from a stop. Sure, one could double-pedal it to bring the rpm’s up before
> launch, but this is for mundane around-town stuff. I still wonder why anyone
> would actually pay extra to add “launch control.

Are you a fan of Top Gear?

They talked about launch control and how silly it is in everyday
driving. I won't pretend to remember the precise words, but basically
they talked about how big a prat you'd look, sitting at a stoplight,
revving the engine to 3000-4000 RPM,

[-hh]

I’d love to be able to do that, but competing interests for time, especially in the
pre-CoVid commuting era: get home, check Mail, make dinner, pay bills, do
chores, etc. Saturday mornings used to be a respite; often would spend the
time then on Photoshop/Web development creation.

Understood. I was on a routine for a few years of ~500 mile weekends
~1X/month to help take care of my mom.

> >> But you're right about turbo-lag having mosly been handled. The
> >> twin-scroll turbo in the N55 engine basically feels like it doesn't have
> >> lag—at least not if I'm driving in my own "sport mode"; meaning I'm
> >> keeping the RPM nearer the HP peak than I would typically do when
> >> cruising in the highway. I won't fault a turbo for lagging a little when
> >> I'm in 6th gear and only turning just a couple of thousand revs.
> >>
> >> :-)
> >
> > I’ve found the most noticeable delta between a single vs double scroll is
> > from a stop. Sure, one could double-pedal it to bring the rpm’s up before
> > launch, but this is for mundane around-town stuff. I still wonder why anyone
> > would actually pay extra to add “launch control.
>
> Are you a fan of Top Gear?

I’m aware of it and have seen some clips, but didn’t have the TV
channel to regularly watch it.

> They talked about launch control and how silly it is in everyday
> driving. I won't pretend to remember the precise words, but basically
> they talked about how big a prat you'd look, sitting at a stoplight,
> revving the engine to 3000-4000 RPM,

Yup, pretty much a novelty gimmick AFAIC for wannabe's like Nashton
who believe that 0-60/etc is the sole meaningful performance metric.

Thus said, looks like if I were to stick with the same make/model as
present, the decade has improved the 0-60mph by 0.6sec…probably
the classical “keeping up with the Jones” spec creep over time.

-hh

[Thomas E.]

First, I took N410CV on a short familiarization flight right after it arrived from the factory. I paid for the flight; fuel used and an hourly maintenance fee. This is encouraged. It was fun. (So was the 1.1 hour orientation flight for a CAP cadet yesterday.) CAP has a program for familiarization and proficiency flights, the corporate C mission. I used it.

Second, the decision to stay here and strike out on my own rather than take a job and move to Chicago was not solely financial. As Yogi once said, "When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It". You can theorize all want about what that AVMA job might have meant financially, but it was "The Road Not Taken" per R. Frost.

Your financial assumptions are pure speculation. Among other things, how do I know the job would have turned out to be something I really wanted to do? My experience doing some consulting with NGOs like AVMA was that they have an agenda to push, and don't mind stretching the truth to influence opinion and legislation. Not my cuppa.

You can drive yourself nuts second guessing decisions. I have never looked back and wondered how it would have worked out. Instead we made a decision, and it turned out to a good choice for both of us. Maybe it was not the best, but that's not relevant. My financial advisor worked with us to invest to get to where we are today. In the meantime, because the consulting was not full-time (you assumed AVMA full-time for 9 or 10 years?) and the wife also was able to retire early, we enjoyed the income and freedom to travel from 2003 to today while I was earning the assets to fully retire 2 years ago.

Maybe AVMA was a better option financially. But in SO many other ways it was not.

[-hh]

FWIW, I did a verification check on my own benefits; the permanent "70% subsidy" part has a
cap of $15K/year in 2024, so more expensive plans can have a lower contribution percentage.

> First, I took N410CV on a short familiarization flight right after it arrived from the factory.
> I paid for the flight; fuel used and an hourly maintenance fee. This is encouraged. It was fun.
> (So was the 1.1 hour orientation flight for a CAP cadet yesterday.) CAP has a program for
> familiarization and proficiency flights, the corporate C mission. I used it.

Dodge, because N410CV wasn't a CAP van. IIRC, both ed and myself caught your 'indiscretion.'

> Second, the decision to stay here and strike out on my own rather than take a job and
> move to Chicago was not solely financial. As Yogi once said, "When You Come to a Fork
> in the Road, Take It". You can theorize all want about what that AVMA job might have
> meant financially, but it was "The Road Not Taken" per R. Frost.

So? How does that actually justify you not even researching the benefits of a job offer
that you've voluntarily bragged about its "six digit" pay?

> Your financial assumptions are pure speculation.

No, they're parameterizations of things that you've claimed. As I've said before,
they're based on numbers which you've voluntarily bragged about: if you've bragged
about being over 5ft tall on one occasion, and said you're under 6ft tall on another,
it paramaterizes your height to be between 5'0" and 6'0" and it wouldn't be inaccurate
to say that your height is roughly 5'6", plus or minus 6".

> Among other things, how do I know the job would have turned out to be something
> I really wanted to do? My experience doing some consulting with NGOs like AVMA
> was that they have an agenda to push, and don't mind stretching the truth to influence
> opinion and legislation. Not my cuppa.

All of those questions are irrelevant, because you still invoked them for a reason, such as
to "name drop" what their job offer was, to try to imply what you were worth.


> You can drive yourself nuts second guessing decisions. I have never looked back ..

...never - - except for this past week's "six digits" offer from AVMA from two decades ago ... /s

> My financial advisor worked with us to invest to get to where we are today.

Which was working to age ~76, and also implies that:

"If you could have retired at 63 with a $200K income stream
before SS or 401k/IRA distributions…would you have taken it?"

...is a scenario which was quite far out of your reach.

> In the meantime, because the consulting was not full-time (you assumed AVMA full-time

> for 9 or 10 years?) and the wife also was able to retire early, we enjoyed the income and ...

No, I merely was parameterizing on what you focused on: money.
Given how late in life you worked until your financial advisor was confident
(as per your own comment, above), even if working at AVMA had been ten
years, that still would have been age ~67 or so, at least a half decade less
time than what you ultimately ended up doing.

Plus it might have also been tenable for you to have a side consulting gig too, but it
appears that you simply didn't really bother to check out their offer in any real detail.

> ... [we had the] freedom to travel from 2003 to today ...

For all of 4 international business trips that she accompanied you on over those ~20 years.
Wowzers! /s

In any event, it does come down to "Now or Never" for you, to wrap up your harder travel
ambitions before they become untenable. As I'd advised you a few years ago, there's things
like the maximum age to rent a car in Ireland (75), which are doors which are closed/ing for you.

> while I was earning the assets to fully retire 2 years ago.

At age 76, if it was after June 2022. Average retirement age in the US is age 64 (63F/65M).

> Maybe AVMA was a better option financially. But in SO many other ways it was not.

The answer depends on what you could have chosen to do with extra years of earlier
retirement, which again invokes the question that you've been dodging:

"If you could have retired at 63 with a $200K income stream
before SS or 401k/IRA distributions…would you have taken it?"

-hh

[Thomas E.]

> it parameterizes your height to be between 5'0" and 6'0" and it wouldn't be inaccurate

You are so wrong on so many levels I don't know where to start. But I will.

First, from 2003 on I was partly retired, working part-time. I gave up teaching in 2006 and that eliminated any fixed work schedules. The AVMA job would have been full time.

My last year of significant consulting was 2020, and that was only about 100 billable hours. If you look at all the hours I spent PART-TIME teaching and consulting in effect I worked the equivalent of another 10 years or so, not 20.

To answer your question about retiring at age 63 with a $200k guaranteed annual income the answer is probably yes. BUT, there is no way working full time for 9 or 10 more years was going to get me there on pension income alone. That would have required an additional ~$13,000 per month in pension income for working 7 years for a low six figure salary. Please explain one more time where that $13k per month is coming from.

As I explained before, in that instance CAP allowed us to use the vans for personal transportation.

Finally, I offer this:

In March 2002 we bought a house and with that came a mortgage. Later that year we were married. In December 2002 I learned that my department was being eliminated and all of us in that department were losing our jobs effective February 28, 2003. I put in for retirement rather than the option of looking for another job within the company.

Part of that decision was 24 months severance, which we used to pay down the mortgage. We finished paying off the house a few months later using proceeds from option exercises.

At the time the wife was working full-time and consulting opportunities were starting to arrive for me. We also had substantial cash left from the option exercises. I rolled what was left in my company 401k into an IRA. Our 2004 income, with no mortgage payments, wife’s salary, my pension, and some part-time teaching and consulting was about $200k. We still had company medical and drug insurance too and substantial assets outside of the IRA 401k. Pretty comfortable, and the same as your $200k figure, but at age 58, not 63.

Bottom line, when I received that job offer we had already been through the wringer. No way were we going to put more stress on ourselves, pull up roots, sell the house we just bought, lose the wife’s salary, and move to the Chicago suburbs, all in our mid-50’s. That would have been a really stupid decision, even if the job had panned out to be better than consulting financially.

[Thomas E.]

Oh, BTW, you told yet another lie. Drivers over 75 can rent a car in Ireland.

https://irelandfamilyvacations.com/ireland-car-rental-over-70-myths-facts/ireland-travel-tips/

[-hh]

> You are so wrong on so many levels I don't know where to start. But I will.
>
> First, from 2003 on I was partly retired, working part-time.

Not being disputed ...

Besides, you're not really by choice on either part: as you've told us before & say again below,
Eli Lilly abolished your job. Similarly, it's phenomenally rare for consulting to ever be 'full time',
if for no other reason than one has sunk time spent generating new client leads/jobs.

> I gave up teaching in 2006 and that eliminated any fixed work schedules.
> The AVMA job would have been full time.

As you've already conceded, largely because it afforded you travel, you prioritized your consulting.

> My last year of significant consulting was 2020, and that was only about 100 billable hours.

Also not disputed (recall "95% retired"?); a lot of people were adversely affected by CoVid.

> If you look at all the hours I spent PART-TIME teaching and consulting in effect I worked
> the equivalent of another 10 years or so, not 20.

A claim we're expected to take on faith, but the mortality clock doesn't care. For example,
just how many international vacations did you actually then take in 2010-2019 while being
allegedly so "part time"?

As per your prior oversharing, you had a Israel/Turkey & a Caribbean cruise in 2010, nada
in 2011, Normandy in 2012, Italy choir in 2013, Ireland & Greece in 2014, New Zealand in
2015, Rhine in 2016, another cruise in 2017, Scandinavia choir in 2017, cruise in 2018...
...so just over 1/year. Even if one adds in annual ski trips to double the trips to ~2/year,
that's pretty underwhelming for being supposedly part time for so many years ... that is,
if the time was the sole constraint and not money (ie, being able to afford the trips).

Now in contrast, a meaningful prosperity brag would be more like having 20+ international
personal trips covering 300+ days to point to, over the same decade.

> To answer your question about retiring at age 63 with a $200k guaranteed annual income
> the answer is probably yes. BUT, there is no way working full time for 9 or 10 more years
> was going to get me there on pension income alone.

Fortunately, the question wasn't constrained to require only pensions.

> That would have required an additional ~$13,000 per month in pension income for working
> 7 years for a low six figure salary. Please explain one more time where that $13k per month
> is coming from.

So then the Lilly pension is ($200K - $13K*12mo) = $44K/yr. See how parameterizing works with data?

> As I explained before, in that instance CAP allowed us to use the vans for personal transportation.

For incidental "Round & About", sure, but not for a boondoggle road trip.
If your unit's travel officer doesn't know the JTR, that's not my problem.

> Finally, I offer this:
>
> In March 2002 we bought a house and with that came a mortgage. Later that year we were
> married. In December 2002 I learned that my department was being eliminated and all of us
> in that department were losing our jobs effective February 28, 2003. I put in for retirement
> rather than the option of looking for another job within the company.
>
> Part of that decision was 24 months severance, which we used to pay down the mortgage.
> We finished paying off the house a few months later using proceeds from option exercises.

Such things happen, particularly in private industry.

> At the time the wife was working full-time and consulting opportunities were starting to arrive
> for me. We also had substantial cash left from the option exercises. I rolled what was left in
> my company 401k into an IRA. Our 2004 income, with no mortgage payments, wife’s salary,
> my pension, and some part-time teaching and consulting was about $200k. We still had
> company medical and drug insurance too and substantial assets outside of the IRA 401k.
> Pretty comfortable, and the same as your $200k figure, but at age 58, not 63.

Same ... except for the "minor detail" of working, not retired.
Whoops, 'twas actually another Tommy brag attempt.

> Bottom line, when I received that job offer we had already been through the wringer.

An emotional one more than a financial one, due to two years' prepaid severance.

> No way were we going to put more stress on ourselves, pull up roots, sell the house we just bought,
> lose the wife’s salary, and move to the Chicago suburbs, all in our mid-50’s. That would have been
> a really stupid decision, even if the job had panned out to be better than consulting financially.

Yet you still chose to volunteer it here as an attempted brag. I could have made a similar brag
about an offer I received a few years ago, which was completely unsolicited on my part, but it
has no real bearing, as I refrain from your type of "look at me!" posturing attempts. Bottom line
is that you worked well into your 70s before you were finally comfortable enough to "safely" retire,
despite your quite frequent attempts to try to posture yourself as the envy of the newsgroup.

-hh

[ed]

On Monday, February 5, 2024 at 10:16:10 AM UTC-5, Thomas E. wrote:
> ...

> The pensions and SS add up to under $100k.

A few years ago you told us your pension was s$145k. Now your 2 pensions and 2 SS payments are under $100k? You take one of those pension options that steps down after you start taking SS?

I feel for ya that you had to work until so late to get where you were comfortable enough to fully pull the plug. I'd encourage you to be a little less frugal and spend some of the money you've worked hard for rather than focusing on where you're going to leave it.

[-hh]

> Oh, BTW, you told yet another lie. Drivers over 75 can rent a car in Ireland.
>
> https://irelandfamilyvacations.com/ireland-car-rental-over-70-myths-facts/ireland-travel-tips/

Read for comprehension, Tommy.
First, on your own citation, note the "UP TO AGE 75"...is without restrictions:

"Most car rental companies in Ireland will rent to drivers up to age 75 without any additional restrictions."

Second, note that while the webpage does name of a few companies without additional restrictions,
it identifies what the additional restrictions are for some companies, including Hertz:

"Senior Driver Policy: Customers over 75 years are eligible to rent with the following specific conditions
-You must drive on a regular basis;
-You will need to provide to the counter a letter from your insurance company to state that you have
not had an accident within the last 5 years, that you hold a current policy of motor insurance with you
and that you are currently driving;
-You will need to provide a current letter from your doctor to state you have been in good health."

YMMV on how cooperative Hertz is to accept one's reservation if one's not already a Gold
Member and possibly also with relatively frequent domestic rentals to support a request.
YMMV also on how easy/hard it is to obtain the two letters that they required.
And
YMMV on if that traffic circle accident was more than five years ago now.

Point is that "age" is a logistically complicating factor when it comes to travel.
It is most easiest to just avoid by not waiting too long, which was the point I was
making several years ago ("go now") when I first pointed this issue out to you.
After all, it is never totally insurmountable, as one can just hire a private driver.

-hh

[Thomas E.]

Hertz is only one of many. I can supply all that info, but would rather go with a company that does not require it. At 80 it does really start to get more complicated, but car hire is far from the only way to travel, especially in Europe. The traffic circle accident was the wife's, not mine. However, my 5-year window is not up until November this year. :(

Car hire has not been a barrier at all up to this point.

[-hh]

> Hertz is only one of many.

Of course, although not all suppliers are present at all destinations…or even just
“major” brands. Case in point, my spring dive trip’s rental car company is a one
shop “no name” (oh, and offers a 5% discount for cash instead of credit card).

> I can supply all that info, but would rather go with a company that does not require it.

You assumed that you can get that letter, but it’s apparent that you’ve not ever tried.

Plus suppliers are free to require surcharges, or their in-house insurance, etc.

The point remains unchanged: a rental car is no longer a logistical ‘non-issue’ to
hire as they typically had been during one’s younger business travel working years.

> At 80 it does really start to get more complicated, but car hire is far from
> the only way to travel, especially in Europe.

For Europe, with its well developed mass transit and tourism. An example is
your bragged August 2024 trip to Paris, with the Viking Mosel Rhine river cruise
down to Zurich: it has a four (4) hour bus ride over to Trier for its start: the need
for a rental car was avoided through the itinerary selection.

> The traffic circle accident was the wife's, not mine. However, my 5-year window
> is not up until November this year. :(

Yet you did assume above that your insurance company would so easily issue a letter for you.

> Car hire has not been a barrier at all up to this point.

Keyword being “up to this point”. Age is a constraint which imposes limitations
on travel options, and increases expenses to minimize/offset/compensate.
That door is closed and closing. Similarly, another place it will crop up is in
being able to confidently pass the physical to retain a private flying license.

-hh

[Thomas E.]

You are SO f'ing wrong. I've never needed that doctor's letter so why would I go to the effort until I do? The upcoming cruise package price includes several days in Paris and the bus trip to Trier with a couple of interesting stops. There are 4 of us going. Car rental? Why? You just want to bitch.

Again, I never needed a letter from my insurance company, so why bother?

Even if car hire becomes difficult there are still wonderful things to do in the U.S. and Canada. It's not the end of the world.

You are right about the FAA physical. I just had my annual post-cataract follow-up last week. My eyes are still in very good shape, but there is more to it than that. I am well aware every day gets closer to the decision to stop flying. I hope a doctor does not need to tell me I cannot pass a Class III. Already had that happen about 15 years ago, but it was my eye doctor, not the AME, who told me. Surgery fixed the eyes, but I to take 6 months off flying and go back to the eye doctor to make sure I could pass the Class III before it came due. As it turns out, I needed glasses to get to 20-20 but can still pass the Class III without them. I am required to have those glasses available when I fly. Yesterday I flew 3 of our cadets. Also recently passed an IFR checkride. I'm really going to miss it when I can't do any of that. But that day gets closer every day. Got any suggestions on how to make that stop?

Basically, you just want to bitch. Only 3 days until CSMA goes away for a while.

[-hh]

I've never needed a MD's letter either .. but then again, I'm not over age 75.

Thus:
when have you ever tried to rent a car in Europe since you turned 75, so as to make
your "never" claim relevant?

> The upcoming cruise package price includes several days in Paris and the bus trip
> to Trier with a couple of interesting stops. There are 4 of us going. Car rental? Why?
> You just want to bitch.

No, what I was referring to is that you have *options* which don't require a car rental,
such as your Paris/Cruise plans for next year. Doing that itinerary is particularly easy
do to in a lot of Europe specifically because of their infrastructure in rail, river cruises, etc.

> Again, I never needed a letter from my insurance company, so why bother?

Again, if you've never tried to rent a car in Europe since you turned 75, irrelevant.

> Even if car hire becomes difficult there are still wonderful things to do in the
> U.S. and Canada. It's not the end of the world.

Sure, although both the US & Canada are much more automobile-centric, so it
can become a bit harder than place like Europe.

> You are right about the FAA physical.

Of course I'm right...as I usually am, despite your frequent whining to the contrary.

> I just had my annual post-cataract follow-up last week. My eyes are still in very good
> shape, but there is more to it than that. I am well aware every day gets closer to the
> decision to stop flying. I hope a doctor does not need to tell me I cannot pass a Class III.
> Already had that happen about 15 years ago, but it was my eye doctor, not the AME,
> who told me. Surgery fixed the eyes, but I to take 6 months off flying and go back to
> the eye doctor to make sure I could pass the Class III before it came due. As it turns out,
> I needed glasses to get to 20-20 but can still pass the Class III without them. I am
> required to have those glasses available when I fly. Yesterday I flew 3 of our cadets.
> Also recently passed an IFR checkride. I'm really going to miss it when I can't do any of
> that. But that day gets closer every day. Got any suggestions on how to make that stop?

One can't. That's the reality.

The only real mitigation is to not be overly miserly with ones resources to not end up
waiting too long at which point its too late. As I've said before, "do the hard stuff while
you're still young enough [to do so]". Because as one advances, even stuff which used
to be easy becomes more of a challenge, and with additional barriers, such as car rental
companies who impose additional requirements after a certain age.

> Basically, you just want to bitch. Only 3 days until CSMA goes away for a while.

Nah, it's entertaining to watch _you_ bitch about how your brag attempts just aren't
anywhere near as grandiose as you constantly try to make them.


-hh

[-hh]

There were references to this age factor to travel prior to the later "$30K" budget comment,
such as this comment from 2015:

"...I would have expected that you would have had a lot more personal international
over the past decade based on how you had spoken of it...particularly since there's
also the "do the hard trips before you're too old for them" aspect; ..."

<https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.mac.advocacy/c/9pVOXPkbztI/m/L6pcEJ4wCwAJ>
Sep 8, 2015, 3:10:49 PM

TL;DR: it took Tommy a mere eight (8) years to finally figure out that advice.

> > Basically, you just want to bitch. Only 3 days until CSMA goes away for a while.
> Nah, it's entertaining to watch _you_ bitch about how your brag attempts just aren't
> anywhere near as grandiose as you constantly try to make them.

To illustrate that I'm practicing what I've been preaching, Tommy had bragged that
he'd spent over $100K for his 2013-17 trips, but he included some 2018 expenses,
leading to this observation:

"So correcting for the five year period by removing these 2018 expenses is
then $96,422, which averages to $19,284.40/yr."

Looking at my own historicals, the last year prior to CoVid where we'd not spent
at least 95% of the above average was way back in 2005, which itself was only
due to the refund on a cancelled trip (not by us) which otherwise would have put
the annual sum's total over, and pushed this notional "first under" back to 2003.
Have fun with this math puzzle, Tommy.

-hh

[Thomas E.]

Hugh, you just can't seem to get a grip on the fact that people don't have the same reference points. I came from a family that never traveled far for anything. By the time I was in my mid-30's I had been to about 6 states and one business trip to Asia. From that background my business and vacation travel from that point forward were more than I thought I would ever see. Sorry if it disappoints you, but based on my experience you are an upside outlier on international vacation spending. We are also above average based on the same reference point.

I'm not wasting my time on your math puzzle.

[-hh]

Your whine doesn't matter when I'm using the reference point that *you* chose.

> I came from a family that never traveled far for anything. By the time I was in my mid-30's I had
> been to about 6 states and one business trip to Asia. From that background my business and
> vacation travel from that point forward were more than I thought I would ever see.

Yet that didn't stop you from creating your "yee ha! I'm traveling overseas and you're not!" brags.

> Sorry if it disappoints you, but based on my experience you are an upside outlier on international
> vacation spending. We are also above average based on the same reference point.

Oh, I know that I am an upside outlier - - but I also don't go initiating gratuitous brags
about it. Indeed, it mostly only comes up when you try your swagger.

> I'm not wasting my time on your math puzzle.

Of course you won't, because you know that its a contextualized putdown of another of your brag attempts.

-hh

[Thomas E.]

I call bullshit. You have posted links to photos of travel to exotic places. You just cited a dive trip to a remote place with only one car rental option. You bragged about owning the last model year of the Porsche 911 with an air-cooled motor. You bragged about the benefits of a Roth conversion. You have a very high opinion of yourself, your life choices, and your opinions, Hugh. That is blatantly obvious in many of your posts.

[-hh]

> > Of course you won't, because you know that it's a contextualized putdown of another of your brag attempts.
> >
> >
> I call bullshit.

LOL! Good luck with that.

First off, note that my above statement is "...I also don't go initiating gratuitous brags..."

As such, not only do you need to provide cites for each of your below claims, but you
also need your cite to show that I had *initiated* the cite .. ie, I was the thread OP, not a
respondent to someone else (eg, your own brag attempt).

> You have posted links to photos of travel to exotic places.

Yeah, but how often was that in response to something else, not an OP? Cites required.

> You just cited a dive trip to a remote place with only one car rental option.

Actually, they have two, sometimes three. And it's in the Caribbean, so how "remote"
is that really? But again, where was this *initiated* by me? Cites required.

> You bragged about owning the last model year of the Porsche 911 with an air-cooled motor.

Nope, never happened.

> You bragged about the benefits of a Roth conversion.

Bragged? By showing the math of a tax optimization strategy that most anyone can use?
Plus what was it posted in context to? Wasn't this your credit card 2% spiel? Cites required.

> You have a very high opinion of yourself, your life choices, and your opinions, Hugh.
> That is blatantly obvious in many of your posts.

Merely your opinion.

The actual issue here that Tommy perceives that his own high opinion of himself has
been threatened by someone who simply isn't intimidated by his brag attempts.

Instead of being more humble, Tommy goes on the attack to try to disabuse them.
And as seen above, Tommy is willing to bend the truth and make outright false claims.

-hh

[-hh]

Speaking of credit cards, I recently got an email from said above "remote" island.
The relevant portion said:

"Remember [company's name] gives a 5% discount for pmt in cash."

I'll leave it up to Tommy to calculate how much 5% is on a two week long car rental /s

> > You have a very high opinion of yourself, your life choices, and your opinions, Hugh.
> > That is blatantly obvious in many of your posts.
>
> Merely your opinion.
>
> The actual issue here that Tommy perceives that his own high opinion of himself has
> been threatened by someone who simply isn't intimidated by his brag attempts.
>
> Instead of being more humble, Tommy goes on the attack to try to disabuse them.
> And as seen above, Tommy is willing to bend the truth and make outright false claims.
>
> -hh

-hh

[Thomas E.]

A 1-off discount is also an inflated claim.

[-hh]

No, its merely yet another real world example of my prior comment that some businesses
offer discounts for customers using cash. In this case, their discount is 5%.

FYI, this advice came from the same business that I'd previously mentioned as having provided
a $672 cash discount savings. This time, the cash savings is going to be north of $700...


-hh

[Thomas E.]

So a few businesses offer more than the 2% I get on all credit card purchases? I get 5% off retail at Target by using my Target debit tied to my checking account. Viking gives a 3% discount for debit in lieu of credit card. What's the big deal about that? News at 11.

[-hh]

> So a few businesses offer more than the 2% I get on all credit card purchases?

Still is better than not getting any. Just the one that’s $700+ off is equivalent to you
needing to spend over $35,000 at 2% to match: how long does that take you?

> I get 5% off retail at Target by using my Target debit tied to my checking account.

Likewise, how many months (years?) does it take you to spend $14,000 at Target?

> Viking gives a 3% discount for debit in lieu of credit card.

And 3% is equivalent to $23,333, so how many Viking cruise vacations is that?
Have you even taken Viking on a cruise that many times?

> What's the big deal about that? News at 11.

It’s not..until you tried to make a big deal about a 2% card being the end-all.
And I’m not even suggesting any hustle - just to keep one’s eyes not shut.

-hh

[Thomas E.]

Your opinion of me is just that, one opinion.

If I were offered a $700 cash discount I'd probably take it too. But it is a 1-off for you. I'm not suggesting you ignore it for a 2% credit card rebate. You can have it both ways. You are the one making an issue out of a $14,000 exception. BTW, no idea where your exception applies, but I have asked local car dealers for a cash discount and found they all work on a cash and/or a loan basis for net purchase costs. I don't do loans, so for me it's cash. Credit and debit cards are not an option for me in that case.

The 2% Visa was originally compared to Apple's 2% on everyday purchases, but only when you use Apple Pay. Otherwise it's 1% on everyday purchases. My point was my Visa cash back gets you more rebate dollars on those routine purchases, many of which are not available via Apple Pay. And yes, my Visa card is in my Apple Wallet/PayPal, and used for all everyday purchases. So that's not a difference vs Apple MC. I get almost all the monetary benefits (exceptions - Apple's goods and a few other merchants) and no hassle. There are no fees other than foreign transactions on my everyday Visa, but I have a different 1.5% rebate Visa card I can use that has no foreign transaction fees. All my cards are paid off monthly, no interest or late fees. My $100k cash reserve backs that up, and a good portion of that earns a 5% APR.

If you thought I was bragging, you are wrong. I was pointing out that there are options to the Apple MC that are better for all everyday purchases.

As of tomorrow it's goodbye for a while. Google Groups shuts down for posts, and we are off to Colorado for two glorious weeks. I started that annual trip 40 years ago, and only missed 2 years. Some were one week, some were 3. We have tried a few places other than Colorado, but always went back. To California mainly, but Keystone, A Basin, Breck, Copper, Vail, Beaver Creek, Aspen, Snowmass, Winter Park, Sunlight and Telluride are where so many incredible memories reside. And, we can drive there too. So, it's back to Beaver Creek to make more great memories this year. When we can't ski we will go there for the summer experience, and more great memories. We have some great summer memories already. Both 2 years missed ski seasons involved summer Colorado trips to the Vail area.

Adios Hugh. You will no doubt get to gather great memories this year too.

[-hh]

> Your opinion of me is just that, one opinion.

As well as the reverse.

> If I were offered a $700 cash discount I'd probably take it too. But it is a 1-off for you.

Actually, it is an "again", as I had noted this year's discount being larger than last year's.

Plus you're clearly being disingenuous on such occasional opportunities when you've
avoided answering the question of how few Viking cruises you've taken to use their 3%
cash discount, or how many years it takes you to accumulate $14K in charges at Target.

> I'm not suggesting you ignore it for a 2% credit card rebate. You can have it both ways.

Precisely what I *have* been doing, thank-you-very-much.

> You are the one making an issue out of a $14,000 exception. BTW, no idea where your

> exception applies ...

Clearly, the $14,000 comment was that 5% of that amount is the $700 I'm saving. And if
you want to add in last year's $672 cash discount, then ($700+$672)/5% = $27,440 would
be needed in Target-only purchases to be at an equivalent savings.

> ... but I have asked local car dealers for a cash discount and found they all work on a cash

> and/or a loan basis for net purchase costs.

They've been that way for decades. Years ago, I had a friend buy one of his cars on
his AmEx, because the salesman didn't mention a limit on how much he could put on
a CC for its "deposit". Needless to say, the salesman was blindsided & unhappy...but
they did honor the purchase.

> I don't do loans, so for me it's cash. Credit and debit cards are not an option for me in that case.

Loans are another area where there can be opportunities. We had one purchase awhile back
where the salesman noted that there was a manufacturer promotion for something like a $500
or $750 discount on the price if it was financed - - he suggested that we finance it, pay the loan
for 6 months (because that was the Corporate "look-back" on loans) and then pay it off in full,
pocketing the savings. It worked.

I'm similarly debating doing a modest $50K loan on my next purchase, as its easier than
disrupting some larger lump sum distribution schedules; it can be thought of as effectively
a 12 month bridge loan. I still need to run the numbers to see what the net cost would be,
to see how much I'm paying to be lazy.

> The 2% Visa was originally compared to Apple's 2% on everyday purchases, but only when
> you use Apple Pay. Otherwise it's 1% on everyday purchases. My point was my Visa cash
> back gets you more rebate dollars on those routine purchases, many of which are not available
> via Apple Pay. And yes, my Visa card is in my Apple Wallet/PayPal, and used for all everyday
> purchases. So that's not a difference vs Apple MC. I get almost all the monetary benefits
> (exceptions - Apple's goods and a few other merchants) and no hassle. There are no fees
> other than foreign transactions on my everyday Visa, but I have a different 1.5% rebate Visa
> card I can use that has no foreign transaction fees. All my cards are paid off monthly, no
> interest or late fees. My $100k cash reserve backs that up, and a good portion of that
> earns a 5% APR.

Apple Pay ... or Apple Card? I think you're comparing to the latter, not the former.

> If you thought I was bragging, you are wrong. I was pointing out that there are options
> to the Apple MC that are better for all everyday purchases.

When you diverted to talking about your personal cash reserves and interest rate, it has
utterly nothing to do with a comparison between two credit cards: that's a brag attempt.

> As of tomorrow it's goodbye for a while. Google Groups shuts down for posts, and we
> are off to Colorado for two glorious weeks.

And a ski trip has relevance to comparisons between credit cards ... how?
Oh, right: its another lame brag attempt.

> I started that annual trip 40 years ago, and only missed 2 years. Some were one week,
> some were 3. We have tried a few places other than Colorado, but always went back.
> To California mainly, but Keystone, A Basin, Breck, Copper, Vail, Beaver Creek, Aspen,
> Snowmass, Winter Park, Sunlight and Telluride are where so many incredible memories
> reside. And, we can drive there too. So, it's back to Beaver Creek to make more great
> memories this year. When we can't ski we will go there for the summer experience, and
> more great memories. We have some great summer memories already. Both 2 years
> missed ski seasons involved summer Colorado trips to the Vail area.
>
> Adios Hugh. You will no doubt get to gather great memories this year too.

Of course we hope to do so again this year; as I've said before, we believe in getting them
done before we're "too old for the hard stuff".

-hh