60+ year old thread.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/27/new...-active-fund-managers-are-falling-behind.html

Retired 10 years ago in my mid-fifties. Neither rich nor hurting, but why would I pay any of the "experts" to grace me with their wisdom. The proverbial monkey throwing darts could do better than a lot of these hacks.

 

Same here!

Monday!! Dental appointment with a new provider this morning. T-Bone steak for dinner tonight. This morning it was 24 degrees when I woke up, winter has returned for a brief visit.

 

Wait, what? Snow? Teens? 20's? It's the end of March! You're using the weather all wrong!! It should look like this:



Happy Monday Porch Pals and Gals! Time to dust off the Solar Water System for the greenhouse today. And stuff.

 

March really isn't going out like a lamb is it? At least not here in the east. It really is living up to the phrase, "If you don't like the weather just wait five minutes." Last week we had shirtsleeve weather, and this morning I have a fire going in the woodstove. In between we had warm rain and cold snow.

 

Same here, and I learned that a long time ago. I'm sure there are some excellent "experts" out there, but on average I would tend to agree most aren't, probably the best would require substantially more assets to be under management than the average investors net worth.

 

This is pretty much what I expected to see in this thread. Lol

 

I have the hoist hanging from a steel bar spans 4 roof joists. It's on rollers so I can drop things onto the attic floor after I hoist them up there. I talked to wife's son-in-law about it; he's a building inspector. He proclaimed it safe. I don't think I'll ever lift anything heavier than that toolbox with it though.

 

I'm glad we meet expectations.

 

Someone was thinking of me when they designed that hard to short out battery jump terminal, Mike. I may get a couple battery posts and fab up a custom whatever. Thanks

Or I may convert everything to plug and play with a few of those heavy-duty plug-in
connectors. Already have Anderson plugs on the truck battery, jumpers, winch. A plug might be best for the genny, could tuck it out of the way easily, be there if ever needed. Could be an excuse to get that crimper!

 

Good morning fellow Porchatonians!!!

 

This really sums it up. Charles Schwab does not want to talk to you unless you have $1,000,000.00 to invest, and that is the bottom minimum.

Going to be cold today and warming up tomorrow with rain on Thursday. HVAC spring tune up this afternoon.

 

Mmmmmm

 

17deg this morning.
Supposed to go above freezing today.
Snow squalls yesterday and hail the other day.
Have flowers blooming already, but I think they are froze solid right now.

 

Morning all:

Interesting Tom, never heard that.
I know they are a discount broker and was considering switching over to them when the discount broker I was using sold out. The broker I now use charges 0 commissions, I can live with that, if I had to pay normal transaction fees I would be paying out the ars! Humm, come to think of it, when I just have money sitting in the account and they are paying me NOTHING, I guess I am still paying out the ars, just not as evident!

 

Good Morning Porch Peoples! Successfully re-started the water system yesterday, so I decided I'd look at a little wiring issue on LBR. Turned into one thing after another - starting with the AC guys revisions of my aftermarket revisions, and on from there. Did find the bad ground terminal - wire was corroded 8" deep. Put the main stuff back together, and decided I'm going to yank it and clean it all up later this week. Supply run today down to Harbor Freight, Lowes and more. Try to make the trips efficient!

 

We had a good financial guy - but time marches on and he retired. His son was a loser so went looking for another agency. My father in law had a good guy so we went with him. He has worked - at least for some clients - past retirement and continues to do well for us.

Getting this right can be all the difference, so tread carefully!

 

I keep an account with them so I can use their information tools. I don't know about the "talk" part as I don't normally talk to any individuals unless it is to ask questions about how to use their platform.

 

I was looking at adding solar panels to my storage shed (18x24 ft) as the pool equipment is on the backside of the shed.

Solar to offset the pool pump. 2hp motor, so 2000 watts but needs to have about 6000 watts when the motor first turns on, but a decent inverter and battery will supply that. I still want a grid-tied system but then 2000 to 3000 watts of panels for daytime operation.

The pool pump runs about 8 hours a day, roughly 1600Wh—10c per KW, so $1.60 a day, $48.00 a month.
The electrical cost of operating the pool pump is about $600 a year.

Solar:

Inverter: $1500
Battery: $1500 (this provides surge starting but at 5000 Watt Capacity)
Solar Panel $3000 (Home Depot 10 panel, 3200 W)
MISC wire and panel mount: $1000

$7577 (8.25% sales tax added to the above items). Less federal income 26% solar rebate.

$5607.00

9.4 year payback.

In California, electrical runs about 23c per KW, so it makes much more sense with a four-year payback.

I just don't picture us being here more than three years. Lots of what/ifs, so for the time being content to stay put. The irony is our house has gone up over 3x in value in the past 20 years. Just crazy.

Black zip ties arrived. On the black boom, I used black zip ties. On the yellow frame went with white. Everything is tucked up nicely, still allows folding operation. The initial 20-mile ride shows a 90-mile range is possible with that 19.2Ah oversized battery. I roughly added 15 pounds to my trike, so still manageable. Good thing I work out 4x a week as lifting that 4' up in the air to put on my work stand is more of a challenge. The best part is having the assist getting up to speed; once at 24 mph, I can keep going with no assist! Sixty-mile bike ride this weekend, so I'll see how the knees handle that.

 

Where are you looking at going?

In Nevada we had a neighbor sell his house, bigger and nicer than ours, for twice what he paid for it. I was amazed at the increase over a short time. But about two years later we sold our house for almost 200K more than his selling price.

There are all kinds of places with low real estate values by comparison, so we bought a 240 acre ranch and "retired". Then I put the ranch up for sale in about a year, thinking if it was high enough it would be a long time before it sold. But damn, we had a full price offer in less than a month. So we still found places with low prices. We bought a fixer upper older house for 50K in a county where we can be given a pass on our property taxes because of our age. Now this house is worth four times what we paid for it... maybe more. Especially since we built the pole barn.

By the way, the floor got poured on Friday, pictures soon. Now all I have to do to really move in is get the electric service finished.

 

That is the question. I'm still working, so I would like to stay in the area. I've gotten a permanent "WFH" (work from home) status to be anywhere in the world with an internet connection.

Kids are local to Austin, TX, but my siblings are in California these days.

I'd be fine in a 300 sq ft tiny home. I lived in a 260 sq ft place when I was first out of college (the 1980s). The nice thing with tiny homes is you have to think twice before buying anything as there is no place to store items.

Bend, Oregon, is still on my list, but everyone else has had the same idea. Hiking, cycling, swimming are all good. I still love getting out into the forest for camping.

Austin has gotten too much traffic. I used to ride a nice 50 mile on a wide-shouldered road. Traffic was at 60 mph but very light, and drivers were good. Today it's full of subdivisions of distracted drivers texting their dinner orders.