Rock climbing assuming you have a little spare change for a membership & a local gym. Go boulder. Folks are chill.

Local sports leagues. I was chatting with a friend who was talking about how much fun they’re having with softball… Including how they can now hit the ball 50% of the time.

Top of Mount Denali. If I’m ever strong and technically skilled enough to do it which I doubt my life path and associated finances would allow.

I have a hard time being satisfied with what I have - so I will likely move quite a bit in the future although I’ve promised my partner to try my best to set down roots where we are now.

I would argue that someone can’t sacrifice their future ability to buy just to lower the price on a single unit.

They’re stuck by the incentives of the situation just like everyone else.

We can’t expect anyone to act outside their own good when it comes to huge amounts of money. Especially in a capitalist society where the only thing that protects your quality of life is money. No one is going to step in when things go wrong except your decision to protect yourself and your family by making financially beneficial decisions.

And yeah, that sucks when you are the other major portion of our society who isn’t given the resources to grab that protection/money with both hands and not let go.

And on a more solution oriented note:

1. We need increased supply of dense housing appropriate for the average family, for the 20-30 yr olds who simply need a single bedroom, and for the retirees who need a small place to live after their children move out. Dense housing because driving an hour to where your job is makes sense to only a very small fraction of people and cities are continuing to attract people.
2. Increased pay for the average worker - probably requiring a decreased incentive to drive profits above all else for the large corporations that drive the majority of our market. (Thinking of examples like Walmart that pay minimum wage and then require their workers to receive government subsidies… meanwhile Walmart gets a profit. It’s a little circular.)
3. Kindness so we can all share our stories and think of solutions that change the structure and don’t require individuals to act outside their own interest. If we shut down conversation we’re no better than our silly two party system that seems to make enemies out of each other. Listen and sympathise and learn what each person has been able to build. Don’t be each other’s enemies. That’s letting the system we’re in win.

I would love to buy a condo right now, but rent is cheaper than buying looking at a 5 year time frame until mortgage rates drop below at least 6%. It would be years before the interest and taxes portion of the payment dropped below our current rent.

We’ve literally agreed with our landlords who want to sell after we leave that we’re all sitting still until mortgage rates drop. (Or I guess inflation rises high enough to offset the debt versus investment part of the pile.)

And this is all after moving to Utah from the west coast to get cheaper housing in general… Although the lower paychecks basically balance it all out 😂

I’d love to buy your condos - but if we look at renting versus buying… It’s cheaper to rent versus buy until mortgage rates drop below 6%. We’ll just be sitting here adding to the mortgage payment pile until then.

A house is laughably out of reach.

Wyoming

But just perspective

We used these for our wedding thank you cards to friends. Family got sea turtles. But we got some compliments.

Southwest.

Because I’m terrible at being on time and it’s nice to know I can just cancel as long as they haven’t taken off and not lost the money. Also not paying extra for luggage. And their airport is best for my parents place.

My native French speaking mom will occasionally address my non-french speaking husband in French without realizing unless I tell her and even then she only knows because I’ve told her.

I wouldn’t choose Twilight, but I get the same feeling when I’m reading any romance novel. Not much substance but my mood is ten times better.

Eve - 200 million years of evolution using a female perspective

Actually finished feeling happy to be born female which working in a male dominated industry (engineering) and enjoying male dominated hobbies (skiing, climbing, backpacking) often leaves me only surrounded by guys and feeling ‘wrong’ to not be able to match their ways of doing things instead of able to focus on my unique abilities.

In the middle of The Way of Kings in anticipation of reading book 5.

My extended family is in Europe.

My sister is in Tennessee. I’m in Utah. Our parents are in California. We’re all a time zone apart. I’m an 11 hour drive from my parents. Or a 2 ish hour direct flight. 5-6 hour trip with connections and such. They’re an hour from the nearest airport. My sister has a harder time making the trip.

Everyone I work with is much better to family and it’s a little strange.

The lack of PTO is especially rough when my family is abroad.

I’ve read over 50 books since the start of the year. I only buy a book after I’ve read it 2-3 times. How? Sign up at your local library! (And keep signing up wherever you can get proof of residence; I’ve managed to collect 4 library cards.) And then find whatever system they have for borrowing e-books (mine work well with Libby). I’ve found that I almost never lack for books. A kindle or e-reader could be a good investment to limit screen time; you can download library e books onto them auite often.

Browsing the physical library is more fun than browsing online for books. Just pick the covers you like, check if the summary sounds fun, and give it a shot. Never feel guilty if you don’t read a book you checked out or put a hold on. Sometimes it just doesn’t sound as good two days later.

“a protest against Dutch subsidies and tax breaks to companies linked to fossil fuel industries”

We can do all the activities you mention with a much lower impact. And fighting climate change allows many farmers in developing countries to actually survive. (Think of the problems with cocoa harvests failing or with Mongolian herders losing herds three years in a row instead of once a decade.)

Yes. It’s always a good question to ask yourself:

Would you rather be effective or be right?

Hehehehehe sounds like satire as you point this out to how often the opposite happens

1. A house is not an asset if it’s the one place you can live cost-free in retirement.
2. We all pay into the system with our taxes - including someone who earned enough to afford a home. Why should anyone not benefit from the taxes they paid?
3. Anyone can be sick and in long-term care as they age, including ourselves. As we age, we may not be able to keep working. Those costs add up fast in our healthcare system. And we don’t get to make those choices up front for ourselves or our families. The bills come months if not years later. No one says what you owe until it’s too late. Why should anyone pay a cost they weren’t told would be coming?

I can’t argue that the way the US provides many services based off wealth is fair - I believe we should have a universal system that we all benefit from. Why should someone making less than me get better services than me because my job offers worse insurance than they get? We should all benefit.

But, if the choice is that no one benefits or that of our current system. I’ll choose our current system. Because I don’t know if I’ll be the one on the other side 40 years from now.

What part of California?

I’m going to put in a third vote for YNAB.

I’m not seeing it yet - but YNAB is my current approach and I adore it.

I used to approach it in a project my income for the month and then assign that money into categories and into a savings pool. It was a good spreadsheet. I liked it.

But I find the envelope system that YNAB uses extremely powerful. You can set your categories (and it encourages you to remember expenses that only come up once in a while and budget for them on a monthly basis) and then you use the money you CURRENTLY have to fund them. You assign every dollar a job. Which means I can totally splurge on a fancy dinner… But it means I might be pulling money I assigned to my ski pass out (I sound ridiculously entitled, sorry… the blog posts they have give better perspectives if you are starting from high debt or low income). And I don’t want to pull that money because I’ve been setting it aside slowly for months… So I don’t splurge on drinks and dessert or I suggest street tacos or cooking at home for my friends instead.