Early Retirement Extreme Forums

I think there are several drivers here. Most you guys have hit. Efficient online marketplaces are good for pricing. Pauperization of society. Changing attitudes towards vintage both from an environmental and quality view. I have a personal take I can contribute. Cost of new tech has gone down. I des...

Experienced DCS player in a real helicopter for the first time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YXnOkXQZfE Yeah that video says a lot. My pal from NASA has no real flight time. But he claims he has high confidence he can fly most of the military helicopters with the exception of the osprey. I thin...

Had the day to think about this some more. This is sounding really good. They have a 'care of life' guarantee whereby if you run out of cash they will keep you in the home so long as you have paid 2 years of care. @Chenda I like the sound of the pay two years and not get kicked out place. You should...

I just ran your figures and it looks like you’ll need about an 8% return to come out to zero in ten years. There is the question of whether ten years is enough, I.e. how much longer will mom live beyond 80. Also what are the terms of the pension when one spouse passes on? But then again if they’re ...

@Frita I’d say stay strong but it looks like you are doing just that. Good luck with things. Hugs. Mental illness is a serious disease. Your husband sounds like he needs some help but it sounds like he isn’t reaching out. Maybe you’re accommodating him. It looks like a tough spot for you two. I feel...

If it's the output, someone else probably just scored a free TV. @Sclass - One of the great things about the zvox (<$100 on craigslist) is https://zvox.com/pages/accuvoice Not so fast. As you theorized the Roku can be messing up the sound track. My LG TV has a Bluetooth audio out as well. There are...

Yeah. When was the last time an LED burned out? They are really tough. So are the cables that I believe are just 50 lb test nylon fishing line with a black jacket over them. So the bad news is that the problem likely lies elsewhere in a more delicate part of the system. Unless a spider made a nest i...

Audiophiles would say there's a qualitative difference in the optical quality. Audiophiles say ridiculous things. Like they can “improve” CDs with green sharpie markers. It’s digital. 1’s and 0’s can take a lot of abuse before they become unintelligible. And there are no lasers, it’s just an LED ov...

No power to the display or anything. The power cord is fine. The first thing it runs to is the start capacitor. Apparently it is just clipped in. Not sure it’s the capacitor. The capacitor is likely used to start the compressor. If there is no display or lights I’d check for a fuse or circuit break...

If VR renders the experience (at least the interesting sights and sounds of it) common, then traveling for real is merely paying a lot to experience crowds and travel diarrhea. So it’s nausea or diarrhea? :lol: :lol: :lol: @J the travel videos I watch of the great pyramids and Rome are on an app in...

[*]It's vastly easier and cheaper to "go" with VR than going for real. I've sometimes thought of blowing $250k on a 2 minute trip to space on a tech-billionaire rocket, but that seems completely pointless now. Yeah it’s one of those things where you get X% the experience at a tiny fractio...

I love that sewing tool. Big money saver. I had a sewing post years ago here where I showed how to make one of those sewing awl needles out of a sewing needle and a piece of almond wood. It’s a slow process but it will save high value items like shoes, backpacks, purses and sporting goods. https://l...

@Frita yeah having animals as a young kid shook me up too. My mom was the 4H mom in our neighborhood. I saw our (pet) chickens, goats and rabbits die by either sickness or slaughter. My dad was brutal…he let us watch the pet fight for its life then we would be forced to smile while eating dinner to ...

After cleaning up my parents place this weekend I realized something awful switches off when your folks die. I mentioned it to the old guy next door and he said “Sclass, I went through that too. It’s because you are next.”

Thanks for posting. I enjoyed the article.

I’ve had difficulties with this question since I retired in 2012. I guess it is a class probe. I have said a number of things and they’ve had different results. Early on - “unemployed.” Some people became genuinely worried about me. Then my dad felt it necessary to say I was sick and disabled. “Reti...

Slinky is good to visualize longitudinal wave vs. transverse waves. Standing waves. I built a switch with optical isolation today using a semiconductor relay that uses an LED and a photo transistor inside. Galvanic isolation. Kind of an interesting concept if you want to switch loads at differing el...

As of 2024, Tesla Full Self Driving is still a lie. It's still not certified as an autonomous vehicle, because it's still not safe. So, the so called FSD is still just a glorified driver assist tool. As far as I know, the only car on the market with actual (but very limited) FSD is Mercedes, where ...

(Robotics? No, it's not even happening now (need to see a generalized robot folding laundry and taking the kids to school, not one doing dance moves), so 2050 is not far enough into the future. Don’t want to disrupt the lively discussion but this jumped out at me. This is changing so fast right now...

With "write off" do you mean tax advantages? As far as I know, tax advantages allow you to buy more car per dollar, but it still takes more dollars to buy a more expensive car. Yes. There’s something called section 179 equipment deduction in the US for small businesses. I guess if you’re ...