My dad is 78 years old, and my mom turns 69 this year. My dad plans to work for another year because he "can't afford to retire". Here is their financial overview:

Assets

• 401(k) and IRA savings totaling just under $2 million.
• Total income of roughly $109k according to last year's IRS filing (including mandatory Social Security disbursements, despite not yet being retired, due to my dad's age) in a low cost-of-living area. Excellent health insurance through my dad's job.
• Outright ownership our single-family home. No mortgages!
• Full-ownership of two SUVs, each purchased new less than ten years ago. No auto loans!
• ~Fifty acres of rural real-estate, including a mid-sized tractor and a giant metal barn/shed that is almost twice the size of our house, and has a loft. No mortgages on the property.
• A sailboat.
• ~$20k sitting in their checking account right now
• ~$400k of (non-retirement) stock investments ALL IN ONE SINGLE GOLD MINING COMPANY!

Liabilities

• ~$70k of credit card debt at ~30% APR (!?), which I just recently this week convinced my mom to pay off, after a year of begging and pleading.
• ~$150k in student loans at ~7% APR in my mom's name which she took out on behalf of the educations for me and my two siblings (I also would have paid these off years ago if I had any say).

What's Wrong?

They choose to live in poverty (of sorts), to forgo basic necessities, and to let their home---which they've lived in for nearly forty years---rot in disrepair.

• About half of the house's exterior paint has flaked off completely. The rest is "boiling" off.
• Our roof leaks every time it rains because we have needed new shingles for maybe twenty years (IDK). The shingles are boiling and warped, just like the paint.
• ~40% of the walls in the house are bare, unpainted drywall from half-finished renovations my dad started thirty years ago.
• ~20% of the walls have drywall on only one side. The other side is studs with bare wires running through them.
• ~30% of the flooring is literally the concrete foundation, also from half-finished renovations my dad started thirty years ago.
• One window in one of the two guest bedrooms has been half-made of duck tape for the past twenty-five years, because it was broken and never replaced.
• There are several inch-wide gaps in the hallway ceiling surrounding the drop-down ladder to the attic through which 130F air pours directly into the central AC intake.
• Our one and only working shower broke last year---the water would only trickle out. Instead of calling a plumber, my dad just suffered with for nearly a month, because it was no biggie---it just took twenty times as long to take a shower is all.
• I thought that the one nice thing we had in our home was a proper stovetope range hood that blows the air outside instead of recirculating it into the house. Yesterday I found out that ours has been blowing the greasy hot air into our attic (where they store belongings) for the past twenty years, because my dad hasn't yet finished its duct work.

Our energy bills are huge. Did I mention we live in swamp-ass Texas and it gets 110F for much of the summer? In the past forty years they haven't invested a dime in energy efficiency improvements. It gets worse.

About ten years ago, our central air conditioner (which was probably installed in 1975 and came with the house when they bought it) broke down.

Instead of shelling out the cash for a new central unit, they bought one of those horribly inefficient portable ones that attaches to the window via a long hose. This brought the indoor living room temperatures down to ~89F in the summer. My dad would sit on the couch in his Walter White tidey-whitey underpants, sweating, two fans blowing on him, complaining constantly about the summer heat. They used shitty window units in the bedrooms. When the shitty portable unit in the living room died after just two years, they replaced it with a slightly less shitty portable unit from another company.

We finally got a new proper central air conditioner to go with our existing central air infrastructure (!) three months ago, after much pleading, protesting, and shaming by me.

A Vignette

Last night, I interrupted my parents nightly Netflix binge to talk to Dad about the roof. I mentioned how it's a no-brainer which pays for itself by adding value to the home (their financial asset!), and that every day we go without a new one, more damage accumulates---which will cost even more to repair.

His reply has been echoing in my head ever since...

"A new roof could cost almost $10,000. Where am I going to get that kind of money?"

My dad refuses to hire contractors, because there are none in existence that he "trusts" to do it right. That's why the paint is peeling. Because before painting the house, he plans to REBUILD the sides of the house with lumber and his own two hands. Because you don't want to paint a shitty house, right? His plan is to wait until he retires, and then just do everything.

Similarly, I talked to my mom days ago about how how a couple professional HVAC renovations totaling about one thousand dollars could drastically improve the airflow, efficiency, comfort, and noise level of our home.

You know what she said?

"Oh, no. I don't want to invest that much money into the house. We're not going to live here forever."

They do not communicate AT ALL. They are both living in the future in separate fantasy worlds.

My entire life I grew up thinking we were destitute, because *gestures around*, but mainly because my dad does nothing but complain about money and how everybody else is a rich doctor. My parents have been extremely cryptic and weird about finances for my entire life. My dad refused to tell HIS OWN WIFE his income for DECADES. The ONLY thing I knew about their financial situation until a few months ago (I'm 37) is that they had tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt. This has caused me and my siblings incalculable anxiety and stress. I was in bed with depression for years, thinking we were going to be thrown onto the streets at any moment. My mom could only tell me "not to worry about it". Yeah, that helps.

Any mention of finances will launch my dad into the same fucking speech about how his income is "going to go down to almost half" when he retires---he basically guilts you for bringing up the subject, in a condescending tone. He is an extremely miserable, dour, joyless man who emits an energy field which doubles the cortisol levels of everyone in a ten meter radius. He is incapable of warmth and affection. He is short-tempered and belittles my mom. My mom puts up with all of it because she's an evangelical and Jesus told her that he will one day make my dad a Christian and a good person, basically. She told me that circa 1997.

I asked my mom why she has all of that money on the "roulette table" (extremely un-diversified, volatile investments). I asked her what in this world she wanted the money for... She said she wanted new underwear and a new couch. That's it. Oh, and she wants her family to be happy. Finally, she revealed the true reason: Jesus tells her when to buy and sell the gold company stock, and she will one day make SO much money on the stock market that my dad will have no choice but to see that God is real, and accept Jesus Christ into his heart as his Lord and personal savior (and make their life and marriage perfect, I guess). She can't imagine or articulate any big-ticket item that she actually desires, she just wants to be "rich". She doesn't want to spend the money she has RIGHT NOW to improve the lives of her family RIGHT NOW.

I am still unpacking the C-PTSD I accumulated from a childhood of extreme emotional neglect. BOTH of my siblings have been involuntarily hospitalized for schizophrenia that manifested in the past three years. During our childhood, my mom spent all day in bed asleep with depression, and my dad didn't know I existed, even though I was right in front of him the whole time. Neither of them have any social skills whatsoever. We ate family dinners at the table together in complete silence for eighteen years. I didn't even know that wasn't normal.

I recently tried putting myself out there and started going to a weekly game night at a local game shop. I had been thinking about it for a long time, but one day after work I finally had the courage and went. I was super nervous that first night, felt very intimidated since by the time I got there the vast majority of people were already playing tabletop games I wasn't familiar with. But I met a nice table of a few people playing a more casual card game. They welcomed me and we had a good time.

We met once a month for the next 2 months. both times fun, they invited me to a friend group discord to help coordinate when we'd hang out. I was hopeful maybe this was the start of a new beginning for me.

I find out today that I was kicked from said Discord without any warning or reason given.

Confused, old feelings of friend rejection surfacing, I message the admin/"leader" of the friend group, let's call her X. To her credit, X actually responds and doesn't just ghost me. She claims I was kicked because I @everyone'd too much and it quote "made people uncomfortable".

I did it a total of 2 times, with a space of a month between, both times were literally "Hey, anyone wanna hang out this week? @everyone".

No warnings, no indication that I had made some unspoken internet faux paus, just immediate punishment.

I tried to explain my side and that I meant no harm and annoyance, and that now that I was actually made aware of the problem, I could act on fixing it. I explained that I'm autistic and that I mess up social cues alot as a result, all but begging for a 2nd chance, just not to be alone again.

But nope, mind was made up. She said as much and then promptly blocked me.

What gets me the most is: All she had to do was talk to me. Just shoot me a message saying "Hey can you please not @everyone", and it would've been resolved. That's it.

Looking back, there were some flags with X that she was a control freak and a wannabe "Queen Bee" of this group, that she wanted a monopoly on when and where we all hung out, for no one else to ever initiate besides her, that she maybe never really liked me to begin with and was waiting for an excuse to do something like this. But I gave her the benefit of a doubt because I wanted so, so badly to belong

I won't miss X, and would be fine never seeing her again, but I will miss the other people (I have no real way of contacting them now. I was still getting to know them while they've been friends with X significantly longer, so odds are they'd side with her regardless). I hope X and her group hang out elsewhere from now on, if for no other reason than to avoid me and the ensuing awkwardness.

All I've ever wanted, more than anything in the world, is a true-blue best friend group who I knew had my back 100% no matter what. No joke, I'd give up all my earthly possessions to have that, it would bring me that much joy and peace. But if there's a god, I guess he's just like "Fuck you, you don't get to have that".

This has been the latest in a line of recent failures to make new friends, something I've struggled with my whole life. And I get more and more discouraged every time. I feel so unwanted

You would think if they had him dead to rights as being a Russian asset, there would have been... Anything about it anywhere.

Also, honorable mention: TACO seems to be old news after libs helped goad him into bombing Iran, so that's fun.

Can't wait for the next one!

I am not shy when it comes to mentioning that out of my family (all Venezuelans), I am the only one that didn't fall for the alt-right Trump pipeline. I mean, very briefly in 2008-2011, I was a libertarian/ancap before that was a mainstream and quit when I found that the AnCap meet ups I was seeing online looked like white supremacist gatherings. Then Bernie came along, and I agreed with him, and I had to investigate Venezuelan socialism to square it away with my internalized opposition. So I did read Capital. I also read the UN and Treasury website on Venezuelan sanctions and realized why Venezuela is having such a difficult time. My brother, who was a Bernie-bro in 2016 has fallen with the alt-right. I cannot overstate how Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and pied piper strategy to run against Donald Trump has devastated the minds of Americans.

He was a Bernie bro, when Bernie got ratfucked. My brother also fell on hard times, he turned increasingly pessimistic and exacerbated his mental illness. His mishandled OCD – his therapist was terrible– led him to stay home and listen to more extreme right-wing content, he was struggling to pay off his student loans (which Joe Biden never canceled/pardoned). And he is now a libertarian/AnCap, Peter Schiff type, a silverbug, an absolute MAGA cretin and evangelical christian weirdo (we are Catholic). And because he is still struggling to find a decent job, applying to CBP.

I found this out recently when my mom called to ask for information, "because your brother is applying to join a federal government agency" and I told them I wouldn't not give them anything, they didn't already know. Come to find out he has taken a fitness test and will join the CBP.

This shit sucks man.

Decided to make a sierpinski's tetrahedron as a first REAL project! I built a shitty angleiron workbench (with an old door ziptied onto it as the tabletop) before but I'm actually trying this time so it's different

170 welds completed so far !! So, only 346 left to go!!...

This was a really good idea until I remembered how complex fractals are, like GIRL, DUH, fuck was I thinking hahaha

Its REALLY scuffed though, I'm talkin like using my stick welder to melt a half inch off the end off of the pieces I had precut to make it shorter so it will fit in the actual dimensions needed, I've been holding the smallest (~2") pieces with a wrench and holding it in place freehand. It's been a lot of fun so far, and I'm definitely improving as I go, I weld my welding stick to my stock way less often now, and achieve arc much more reliably too, which is cool to see my own progress within the project!

I hurt my shoulder a bit ago so I haven't been able to do much lately, but welding is pretty low impact in that I mostly just sit on a folding chair in my driveway next to my shitty workbench lol

Have some more views!

When it's done it'll look like this image I found on google

i'm halfway capable with this kind of thing, but not an expert. not really sure why it would be having this issue. thanks in advance for anyone that can give me some help <3

What will be his legacy considering that he isn't so well known outside the UK? Will he be a failed gender neutral toilet, or a hidden gem of a gender neutral toilet?

Idk if yinz remember but I posted about a year ago that I quit my job and moved back in with my parents while I reassessed what I wanted to be doing. My last job was so bad that I thought I wanted to completely switch careers. I know the person that replaced me there is already gone lmao.

After getting an ADHD diagnosis, medication, and therapy, I realized that it would be stupid to walk away from all my experience at this point. Not to toot my own horn but I'm literally one of the best coffee roasters in the US and I have the credentials and awards and shit to back that up.

All that said, I have my first interview trying to get back into the industry in the morning. I can't really say I'm that nervous, it's more excitement to finally have clarity to move forward. The thing that really sucks is that because there are so few people that do what I do, a new job almost always involves a move, and this would be a move to a new state I've never been to.

I'm not sure what I wanted out of this post but thanks for being a great community for me to shitpost in.

I've got a job interview in 10 hours! It's a merchandiser position for a beverage vendor. If I get this job, it will become my full-time job and my current full-time job would go part-time, as this would make me more money.

Basically, while it won't make me rich, this will finally give me the ability to afford to actually live and not just scrape by begging and borrowing.

I am anxious as hell.

Wish me luck, friends! I need this!

Early June I got offered a badass job through their VISTA program that I was, and am still, really excited about.

The local org went as far as giving me a laptop and everything for it, but apparently Americorps hasn't approved them to get any VISTA people yet, so ive gotta return that shit now and just sit on my ass until anything further happens.

Cool cool cool. Luv 2 live in Amerikkka where I cant make a full time job out of helping people.

Fucking sucks, so fucking tired of this.

Definitely a lot of drawbacks but definitely the most adult job I’ve ever had. Really crushed because I’m feeling stupid because I saw it coming but I’m still unprepared.

Graduated into a recession that feels like it never ended. Never felt like I belong in the world of white collar employment. Never committed to a union of anything.

The world of employment and hiring is made to torture neuroatypical people and I am dreading so much this AI hiring hellscape.

Don’t want to say too much more because I’m still negotiating to potentially take a different position within the same company but it’s gonna be a major defeat either way and I still have kind of a bad feeling.

Sorry to Doom I’m just crushed. It was just my partner’s birthday too so it’s just the worst possible timing. Not that their is ever a good time for this.

It would mean a lot for anyone to check out the show I run with some friends. The money really just covers costs and we have a lot of great free eps too. We’re on apple and Spotify too and I’ll post the RSS later too

https://www.patreon.com/BrokenWind

Any tip/ideas for today’s hiring market are much appreciated too I’ve been in the job for a while now kinda.

Thanks for being such a wonderful little place on an increasingly awful internet. I can’t imagine how much worse I would feel if this place didn’t exist.

I guess it's one of the ways in which capital maintains its own checks and balances, but it's very hard how, as contradictions heighten, your family that at some point might have ignored what you say, now will ostracize you for your views.

My parents have called me saying that me supporting Petro (a socdem at best) is akin to supporting murderers and thieves and they won't support me with that (which ofc I think the same about the people they support, but I won't antagonize them over it cause I know they won't change their views).

Now it's a sister of mine, married to an american, that considers that my criticisms of gringos also applies to her husband (which, to a point but not really).

I'm now understanding that there is a non zero chance that I will end up shunned out of my family altogether at some point.

Some friends and acquaintances have also cut contact from their end and some from my end.

Basically, being a communist means you will very likely lose a good percentage of your initial social network. It's probably one of the ways that capital maintains its control on society, forcing you to choose between community or your ideals, while you build a new leftist community (which is likely to be ostracized from their families as well).

And I'm not alone, my comrades in the area in which I organize are basically in the same position. In most of their families they don't know they are in the communist party for fear of their reactions. Or in the case of one of them, they consider it will be a phase they grow out of.

It's exhausting but enlightening to see how the left continues to be attacked through so many mechanisms.

I see people talking about what as far as I can tell are cartoons performing shows and I'm quite lost. Looking stuff up there's all this jargon that makes it impenetrable. From what I can tell there are like digital puppets that various people perform under? But sometimes the performers "graduate"? (taken behind the shed and shot?) and then sometimes the puppet is gone but then this blue haired thing persists? are they totally different things?

How do you see a performance by a digital puppet? is it all just on screen?

confused boomer noises

Out working at an oil camp today, plumbing in some portable units. It was blue skies overhead twenty min ago. Thunder is intense, lightning to match. Smell of rain is all around.

I'm aware that "occasionally" is a relative term and there does exist some individuals that like to start arguments for clout or drama. If a friend is starting fights with you one or more times a week, they might be shitty, but if it's a few times a year, they might just be a good friend.

To give an example, I've certainly said something borderline bigoted over the years and had a friend mention it to me. Usually it's done tactfully, and usually I take it well, but sometimes it's not. Every single time I'm a bit sad and internally defensive. But that shit passes and I grow from the experience. Someone had to tell me because it wasn't explained to me on school. But imagine the alternative: having the same bad habits and slurs from when we were 12. I'm legitimately grateful for all the comments that have helped me grow today.

I also have this left wing guy friend who has great opinions on economic stuff but still has some bad social views from his upbringing. Randomly he'll ask me about some bullshit that's popped up in this life, and often times I need to mediate some drama he's having. Often I'll need to walk him out of his patriarchal thinking. Thankfully his wife and I are always on the same side, so it's easier than it would be if it's just a random guy. It's cool to see him grow. And honestly I'm not bragging because I had many of the same views back in the day.

I can't stress enough, I'm grateful that I'm not mentally the same person I was when I was a teenager. I'm shocked when I meet people from my childhood that are still dropping slurs and bad tropes like it was 1996. I just assume that all their relationships are like in the The Sopranos, because I can barely tolerate being around them.

I do feel that even the most debate bro leftist is still light years ahead of libs and chuds in this matter. I can drop 20 peer reviewed studies and draw a map and normies will not budge their opinion even the tiniest amounts. I don't feel like anyone here needs this advice.

I don't know why I still have a (banned) account, or why it's subscribed to EngineeringStudents, but look at this.

I know this is just another metastasis of wage labour, but I just feel contempt for these people. Like, your issue isn't with engineering being a shithead profession with nothing of value and just endless upsell! upsell! upsell! lie! lie! lie! bullshit! bullshit! bullshit! but instead you cry over not finding a job in this shitstorm. To be honest, I also feel contempt for my colleagues... probably for the same reason; because they enjoy mucking about in this pigsty too.

Okay, that's it for my unproductive and shitstirring thoughts for the day :)

It's fucking 3 in the afternoon on the 4th you fucking losers. HATE it.

A while back I made a post about a pair of nice cheap Chinese IEMs I got from AliExpress, and to continue in the same vein, here's another post about a cheap AE find.

I got these Xiaomi Mijia Bluetooth bone conduction earphones because I wanted something I could easily wear with a bicycle helmet. They cost about 12 dollars depending on the seller, but if you're familiar with AliExpress' coin system, you can easily find them at 60% off, at which price they're a steal. They don't look or feel too cheap either- you could tell me these were 30 bucks and I'd believe you.

I found my previously existing wireless earbuds to be a pretty bad fit for cycling: not only are the touch controls fiddly to operate while riding (or even when you're just standing still, touch controls suck), but they also block too much outside noise which isn't great for safety.

These fix both of those issues- they have nice definite physical buttons, and since they don't block your ear canals, you stay much more aware of your surroundings. When they're off or not playing anything, they don't affect your hearing at all, so you can just leave them on and forget they're there entirely, especially since they only weigh about 26 grams

These are my first bone conduction earphones and some of the customer reviews question if they use true bone conduction, but they sound fine to me. The sound quality is perfectly adequate- certainly for the price, especially at the previously mentioned -60%. They're not as loud or as bassy as other headphones and you will struggle to hear anything if you're next to busy traffic or a construction zone, but I'll take that tradeoff for safety

They seem to leak a lot at high volumes though so if you're sitting in a quiet room listening to TrueAnon at full blast, everyone in the vicinity will probably hear what is saying, which may or may not be something you want

The promised battery life is 11 hours and this seems to be true from my experiences. I've yet to even hear a low battery beep even after 8+ hours of use

As I often start my posts here, I'll say that I'm middle aged. I've been burnt by people with materially comfort and normie opinions far too many times. I didn't have a very warm relationship with my family, so much of my life was spent trying to find love through friendships. I'd do so much for my friend, only to see them ditch, betray, or sellout me. It happened time after time after time, well into the double digits. I'm not even exaggerating, I feel very resistant to forming close relationships with liberals.

Now I'm polite with liberals. And when bullshit starts, which it inevitable does, I'm not heartbroken the way I was in my 30s.

The British politician, Rachel Reeves, has tried to do everything she can to mass-murder the disabled. She's tried really hard to cut and eliminate disability payments for as many of the most vulnerable in society as possible. She has tried to freeze the elderly by taking away their winter fuel allowance and she has tried to put a limit on how much social care people are allowed to receive in their lifetimes. She has to cut down the government's spending, and she is doing her best to direct all the cuts at the elderly, sick and disabled, although other MPs have fought back against her and put the brakes on at least some of her plans. All this while MPs just awarded themselves a payrise that amounts to millions each year.

Yesterday Rachel Reeves was seen crying in the House of Commons. Suddenly people are pouring out sympathy for her and scolding those who aren't sympathetic. I'm sorry, this woman has just tried to murder thousands of elderly, sick and disabled people through impoverishing them and we're supposed to feel sorry for her because she cried?

This country is insane and evil.

"But there’s a reason. There’s a reason. There’s a reason for this, there’s a reason education sucks, and it’s the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It’s never gonna get any better. Don’t look for it. Be happy with what you got. Because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now, the real owners, the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians."

People don't vote for candidates to make life better, they vote for stopgaps to make it stop from getting worse. Harris was the stopgap candidate, she was merely going to clot the bleeding.

I'm not a mod of any comm and I'm just a regular user. But in light of current GOP events I think we all need to be extra careful not to fedpost. We are going be under an even stronger microscope. What law enforcement (FBI, etc) views as "violent threats" is going to be far different for us than for chuds at a site like StormFront2Trump2028.com.

That's all. I don't mean to start a struggle session. I just thought it needed to be said.