Glad you guys are ok over there! Those winds looked terrifying!

Thank you! I don’t know how those in storm surge areas are fairing. Those are always the most devastating areas in a hurricane.

70% of my area is without power but somehow I still have it. Likely people will be without power for multiple days. Add to that, many people I know are “trapped” in their neighborhoods (unless you have a giant lifted truck) due to high levels of standing water in the roads that has not yet receded. I don’t live in an area with storm surge flooding, so the flooding in this area is due to the torrential rains. Thankfully my neighborhood does not flood. Weird that for me everything is as normal basically but other people are having a bit of an ordeal.

At least in my area, we didn’t get large trees downed, only small ones, so I don’t know anyone with trees falling through their roofs or anything thank goodness. At least everyone I know is safe even if they are without power and can’t physically get out.

Tornadoes touched down very close to some people I know across the state as well, but thankfully no one was hurt either. One even had a tornado in their same neighborhood.

I live a bit north of where the eye made landfall, so our winds and storm surge were not quite as high as in Sarasota/Bradenton, but we had some of the heaviest rainfall in a very long while for the area.

Idk it’s pricy to own a home nowadays unfortunately. I bought only last year and my mortgage payments are a bit higher per month than people seem to pay for rent on a similar type of unit. It’s not that I got a “bad deal” on the residence either. Home prices just don’t make sense nowadays.

I will say that around 2931, rent prices in my area skyrocketed up a whopping $400-600 in one year, but they have since seemed to stabilize.

While your fixed rate mortgage costs don’t go up every year, your property taxes, insurance, and HOA fees will. So with the above in mind, it doesn’t really seem as economical anymore to own a home.

I’m with you on most of this but I think having a reliable car is pretty important in the US due to lack of good public transport. In many cases, after a car gets to be a certain age you end up having to repair too many things on it and it becomes an unreliable money pit. I’m very glad that hasn’t happened to you, but I think for a lot of people it makes sense to get rid of their car once it gets too old. And then try to buy a lightly used car outright.

Wow, you make $200k/yr and only have $15k in savings? Not that $15k is a bad amount to have for the average person, but it just sounds so unbelievably low for your very high income. I mean, I knew the cost of living in California was wild but I didn’t realize it was that out of control.

The but about higher income making it easier to have mistakes is a big one.

I have a friend online who wants to make money, but doesn’t seem to have the ability to do so without going back to school. Going back to school would incur student loan debt, so they do not wish to do so.

I have a crazy amount of student loan debt, maybe $150k. But people don’t understand that federal student loan debt is absolutely nothing like credit card debt. There are basically no downsides to it besides paying another monthly bill (that you can use an income based repayment plan for).

People don’t understand how incredibly useful excess income is even if it ends up with a lot of loan debt. I had a similar hesitancy back before I went back to school, but I don’t regret it at all. I think I ended up like tripling my income.

Even if you end up with a lot of loans, making say $80k/yr is astronomically easier to survive on than $40k/yr for example. You have to think that something like rent or food prices are going to be somewhat similar in your area no matter how much you make. Sure, you could choose to live in a lavish place I suppose, but if you live reasonably then it’s more than worth it.

As an example, the average rent price for a not shitty one bedroom apartment in my area is maybe around $1.6k, which would equate to $19.2k/yr. That’s almost 50% of the gross income of the person making $40k/yr while only around 25% of the person making $80k/yr. So even if the person making $80k/yr has a $1k/mo student loan bill (you can get it cheaper if you wish), the difference is dramatic.

The person making $40k/yr will have a little over $20k left over at the end of the year for remaining expenses and savings, but the person making $80k/yr will have more than double that at $48k left over. Obviously there are a lot of nuances in this but still.

So it’s absolutely worth it to incur federal student loan debt if it means you will make a lot more more money. Private loan debt is a bit different.

This is metal af honestly. I love that they were able to do this.

Wholesome

What made you decide to start dating if you hadn’t done so prior? If you don’t mind me asking. I’m also 30 and haven’t ever dated really so I was just curious.

Wow wtf I had an almost identical dating experience…I went on one or two (can’t remember which) awkward, uncomfortable dates realizing I wasn’t into doing it. I felt really bad about it too!! I was probably early 20s at the time. I’m 30 now and have never tried again.

Sometimes I think about trying again with someone from an ace dating website, but no one on there is mutually interested and geographically close enough.

I’ve always wondered about the people that make these. If you hate your spouse this much then why are you married to them?

Definitely the latter. Tmi (but the OP is tmi anyway) but I have never been able to feel sexual pleasure so I have never had an orgasm. Nothing wrong with me to my knowledge. I’m not paralyzed or anything and I never had any traumatic sexual encounters. It just doesn’t work like that for me.

I’ll finish the video…eventually…

Stupid question but why do you like need to get rid of your oven specifically? Can’t you just not use it? It’s already basically built into the counter space for most residences.

So watery. 🤤 And yet there’s a smack of ham to it!

Generally I do agree with that statement. But I think this can be taken in a lighthearted manner. Not every joke needs to be so PC to the point where you’re afraid to say anything and all humor is lost. Humor is subjective tho so I think it’s fair to not like the joke.

I mean…yes and no. A down payment for a single family home in today’s market is many orders of magnitude more expensive than $20k. But I agree that weddings are too expensive. Just have a small party and use that money elsewhere.

Welcome to Lemmy! I think the downvoted are more because there are conversation focused communities as opposed to this one, but you’ll find your footing!

Jeez dude I hope your hand is still functional ok