I’m a big fan of the Kroger butter chicken sauce. It’s gotten pretty expensive so I don’t buy it as often as I used to, but I think it’s super tasty. I usually throw it together with some mixed frozen vegetables and rotisserie chicken served over rice. It basically takes as long to cook as it takes the rice cooker to finish the rice.

My 97 year old grandma spent Christmas in the hospital with COVID and congestive heart failure. I’m honestly shocked she isn’t a part of this statistic.

General retirement advice is to contribute 15% total to your retirement account. Since your employer adds 12%, you should contribute a minimum of 3%.

As for your coworkers advice, it may or may not be valid. Contributing to your 401k or a taxable account, both allow you to invest your money. The 401k comes along with tax advantages. Assuming you are making Traditional contributions, then you are saving taxes at the marginal tax bracket (potentially 22 or 24%). If you contribute enough to drop your MAGI to the 12% bracket, then the tax benefit is much less. You can still contribute to Roth, which means you can withdraw that money tax free in the future but you have to pay taxes on it now.

Another thing to consider is the fees in your 401k. Since you are limited to the options provided, sometimes fees are quite high. If you don’t have any options that cost less than 1%, you likely are better off investing your money elsewhere.

Finally, you get into the really personal part of personal finance. What are your goals? Do you have short/medium term goals that you would prefer to save this money for? For instance, if you want to save up for a down payment for a house in the future, putting that money in a 401k is a bad choice. Do you have a comfortable emergency fund to pay for unexpected expenses? Do you have high interest debt to pay off?

A good resource is this flowchart from r/personal finance: https://imgur.com/u0ocDRI

We took the dogs to run around at a park before the festivities. We were definitely the only people there.

Absolutely, they are both a part of the problem. However the former likely won’t recognize they are a part of the problem because of the unconscious nature of their biases. So they won’t ignore the data because they don’t trust it, or whatever, but they won’t recognize how their actions contribute to it.

In the case of unconscious bias, they probably brush off the data because they don’t believe they are a part of the problem. It’s those other doctors who are overtly racist that are the problem…

Agreed.

I should not know her name. I should not know her intimate personal details.

She should have been able to mourn her loss in private with her loved ones. Not on the national stage as an example. She should not be at risk of prosecution because of this unfortunate situation.

This seems like the author stole the concept of Bob the World’s Worst Market Timer.

But the point still stands. Investing in broad market indexes and forgetting it is the best thing you can do financially for yourself.

if I did, I would have to be obliged and follow their cultures

This doesn’t seem true to be. There is no culture police who will come and enforce the way you live your life to follow the norms of your ethnic label(s).

I don’t have a culture

This is impossible. Everyone has a culture. You may not follow all the cultural norms or traditions of where you are from, but it is guaranteed that who you are was impacted by the culture you were raised in. There is no such thing as neutral, otherwise you are saying your personal culture would fit in everywhere in the world (Mexico, USA, Italy, Russia, Japan, Philippines, etc).

What do you think the term Latino means, and why don’t you want to identify as one?

FYI Central America is also in North America

Ehh…I think that’s a little different in that they needed a judge to determine who had the right to make medical decisions for her. The judge themselves weren’t making the call for what should be done, only if it was her husband or parents who had the right to make medical decisions.

This is more along the lines of my appendix is on the verge of bursting. I want it removed. My doctor recommends removal and is willing and able to do so. The govt says I don’t think it’s bad enough yet and if you do it now I will criminally charge you. Wait until it explodes and you are at risk for sepsis before I will allow you to undergo surgery, despite the fact I have zero medical experience.

Imagine having to get a judge to signoff on any other medical procedure, and it really highlights the absurdity.

…this feels a lot like the death panels a certain sect was screeching about back in 2008/2009

If you don’t know much about investments, there should be a target date fund that is a mix of stocks and bonds. Pick the date that is closest to your expected retirement date (eg if you’re 25 and aiming for retirement at 65 you’ll pick the 2065 fund), and invest in that one.

A good thing to ask about is the expense ratio. This is how much the fund will cost you in fees, and can seriously impact your returns. If the fees are 1% or higher then seriously reconsider that fund.

John Oliver did a piece on 401ks a while back that was very informative.

Anything a chiropractor can do that will actually help, a PT can do better. They’ll also teach you what exercises to do to prevent needing to see them again.

A chiropractor will just tell you to come to them more often, and take more of your money over time.

Ikea sells cloudberry jam, or at least they used to a few years ago when we impulse bought it.

This has been a week of learning famous people I had thought were long dead, have in fact been alive…by seeing news articles announcing their deaths.

This reminded me of my first year at uni when a guy decided to speak in a fake British accent, I guess to sound cooler. Unfortunately for him, we could all tell it was fake and that made him decidedly uncool (and the butt of a lot of jokes). I think he gave it up after a couple of weeks.

The fact is, the coolest thing you can do is be confident in yourself (including how you sound when speaking naturally).

I can see all posts and comments when I go to my profile, in order from most recent to oldest. There is an option to select just posts or just comments as well.

Chicago Tylenol murders