The horror! Can you imagine attacking civilian infrastructure in a sovereign country that was just minding its own business? How dare they!!!

With 2%, it was absolutely the right move to fully finance, as long as you can comfortably make payments and are living within your means. Depreciation is irrelevant, as long as you plan to keep the car for at least a few years.

As for the gap insurance, probably not the best move, but if it makes you feel secure, it's a small price to pay.

Might be interesting information...but I'd never know, because this may be the least beautiful data I've ever seen.

I envy those of you that can do this. Those of us with kids who are home on their 2- or 3-week break from school are stuck catering to those bums.

Very good point. And if you really want to do it, get an expert opinion. I have a close coworker who is huge into expensive Scotch. I was in Scotland and felt like I had to bring him something back. I was at a loss until I thought to seek out an expert at a local bottle shop. Got a great recommendation at a reasonable price, something local and rare. Coworker was very impressed.

Nope. They cut you off after 15 in any given day. Beers, cocktails whatever, they all count the same. I've seen it happen. Drunk dude was not happy....

Yep.

*15 drink daily limit

Betting now they reduce it to 14....

LA Fitness is a pain in the ass to deal with, but they will negotiate if you go in and ask if they offer any discounts. They'll pull the "let me talk to manager" bullshit and all the hard sell tactics, but if you hold your ground you can usually get little to no down payment and $20-40 per month. Could vary depending on how in-demand their facility is, but I've done this at 3 different locations with varying levels of success.

Good luck!

This is true. I work for an Australian company, where the boundaries are probably much wider than most...

Had to do the same thing a while back. Here's the one I told that went over well (some words changed but same basic structure):

A young newlywed couple wanted to join a church. The pastor told them, "We have special requirements for new parishioners. You must abstain from having sex for two weeks." The couple agreed and came back at the end of two weeks. The pastor asked them, "Well, were you able to get through the two weeks without being intimate?" "Pastor, I'm afraid we were not able to go without sex for the two weeks," the young man replied. "What happened?" inquired the pastor. "My wife was reaching for a can of corn on the top shelf and dropped it. When she bent over to pick it up, I was over come with lust and took advantage of her right there." "You understand, of course, that this means you will not be welcome in our church," stated the pastor. "That's okay," said the young man. "We're not welcome at the grocery store anymore either."

Double check that. I've never seen a company stock scheme that didn't have a holding requirement. Otherwise you can just buy as much as possible at the discounted rate and then sell right away and make bank. My company has a 2-year hold requirement in order to get the discount/match.

The major downside is risk. A single stock can easily tank and you could lose most or all of your investment.

Whether it's worth it often depends on how much of a discount or match they offer, and whether you believe the company is stable enough to maintain or grow its stock price.

My company has a 50% match for all stock purchases, which is amazing, so I bought a bunch over the last 10 years. It had gone up and all was well....then Covid hit and my industry went to shit and the stock went from $60 to $8 overnight. I lost over $20k just like that. It's back up a bit now, but even with the match factored in I've still lost money.

This is the first song that came to mind for me as well. Went to Mexico around 2005 and this song was played everywhere all day long. Probably heard it 100 times in 5 days.

Pick one airline and stick to it, and get loyalty status that will get you upgrades. Flying first class, or even just extra legroom economy, makes a big difference. Once you have status, it's easy to get at least extra legroom.

If your company books with a travel management company, ask if they have a sales rep for your chosen airline that can get you a status nomination to start off, since you won't have status until you fly enough.

I flew a lot for a couple years (before covid) and actually grew to enjoy it quite a bit.