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You can either build a power system or get a so-called solar power station. There are advantages to both. Something like a Bluetti or Jackery is basically a self contained system including a battery charge controler and inverter. They are a bit expensive. You can make your own power system...

Well to explain more as well as why I prefer investing to how SS is run… (Bet you didn’t think I’d go there again…) ;-) The individual median salary in the USA is currently $44,225 annually and 13.3% goes to SS and Medicare. But let’s see what the projection would be if that 13.3% went into an...

I rarely use PayPal so don’t know the ends and outs of it. But how do you withdraw funds from PayPal? The only time I’ve used it was to pay for a specific purchase. Can you withdraw the money to pay for an emergency or a credit card bill? I’m not sure that I would consider PayPal to be a bank.

My point exactly. And to make it even more interesting, most financial advisers would be thrilled if their clients invested 15% of their earnings.

I recently read an interesting book - “Ours Was the Shining Future” by David Leonhardt. One of the key points that he makes is how conservatism and liberalism is divided between fiscal and cultural. As an example, most of the MAGA folks are conservative culturally, but also fairly liberal...

^^^^ Crooked politicians are elected by the people. So the people get what they wanted.

Guess you never got a 1099-B form. Trust me, capital gains are included on the federal income tax form and becomes part of your AGI. Exercise of options are included as well. Also 1099-Div for dividends and 1099-INT for interest earnings are included as part of your AGI. And these are all...

It is already.

I read much about his regrets. The big thing he regretted was that he felt they would push prices up too much. But that is somewhat circumvented by the greed factor and that they tend to be index funds consisting of hundreds of companies. The greed factor is that by pushing the value of any...

But he wouldn’t even have a 401K with Vanguard.

Because in order to be successful, it has to be used. For example the 401K system has produced many first time millionaires, but only to the folks that exercised the option to take advantage of them. We know that the median balance in Vanguard’s 401K system for someone in their early 60s is...

True - we all need a nanny…

Which is why I said that I didn’t think most folks would be successful because it required discipline. ;-) I’ve argued many times that the best way to teach personal finance is to create a spreadsheet which demonstrates the power of compounding, both on the savings side and on the expense...

No - I don’t consider it fun at all. It’s simply a means of compounding a portion of what income I had. I basically did most of my investing on auto pilot. I used index funds and just had a portion of my income to go into investing in those funds. I was very passive. I turned on automatic...

One more thought - and this might be controversial. I’d like to see SS disappear. I think that most folks could do much better the money they put into SS than what SS provides. But I don’t think that it will go away, nor do I think that most folks would be that successful on their own. It...

I don’t know how true that is any more. Generally when benefits are granted they become so popular that they become hard to get rid of. That’s one of the reasons that congress couldn’t remove Obamacare even though there was a republican majority in both houses when Trump was president. I...

Sorta. While SS administers the other programs, the money does not come from the SS fund.

Well I think we should do away with Social Security, Medicare, and Medicad. And we should just shoot old folks who didn’t save enough to be self sufficient, or so like the Inuit use to do - take ‘em out and let the bears get ‘em… (Wonder if this comment will get the discussion back on target?)

Yes, but not just the wealthiest. Consider the farmer. He is not employed by anyone and receives no salary. He initially pumped what funds he had into his land and from year to year lives in debt from the time he plants seeds until he sells his crops. He might have some chickens, maybe a...

Most RVs have a battery disconnect switch. The disconnect switch must be in the on position to connect the house batteries to the rest of the system so that your lights and other devices in the RV will function. In some cases alternator charging requires that the batteries be ‘connected’ and...