dream_weasel

Thx sorry I didn't read all your comments in the post, I was using that question as a proxy to whether or not your discussion was in good faith. It seems like the answer is yes.

I frequently wonder how many better metrics are available that just aren't as easy to capture as stepping on the scale, grabbing blood oxygen, and taking blood pressure. I'm sure that part of the balance is value of vitals versus time or effort to collect them.

What science would change your mind? There's never going to be a magical cutoff number for cholesterol or height or weight that separates healthy and not healthy.

Heuristics are useful tools and sometimes that's the best you get. You need water to live, clogged arteries cause heart attacks, insulin resistance leads to diabetes. Exactly how much of any given thing causes bad outcomes is going to vary case by case, but doesn't negate trends.

I say all this as a former wannabe body builder who hasn't had a BMI under 25 in about 20 years, but I still know a BMI of 60 or 80 is no good.

I don't think $7 is a particularly hefty fee. If it's a grocery store they typically aren't paying employees to do shop for you, it's an extra service for an extra charge. I think I pay $10 per order from my local grocery.

Every time.

Yeah I kinda figured that was the case but I didn't want to sound like some rich prick that people here in the comments would like to eat lol. As I understand it, you're just better off taking the interest off your bank accounts vs trying to swing a single rental. Flipping can work but it requires an amount of skill that not everybody has, especially if you have to hire contractors to do the work for you. But yeah if I were to do it, I would probably run straight to a management company.

It seems to me that the average "slightly above average Joe" could afford a second property; my parents are not wealthy (they are semi retired and generally gross less than 20k/year, but own all their stuff outright) but found a house to rent to my brother and I while we were in college and it was a huge boon for everyone involved. My family income is significantly higher, but we don't have a pool full of money to swim in. From the outside it looks like real estate is an attractive, stable way to grow an investment as opposed to stock market dabbles.

As an aside, and this is all an incredibly "first world" kind of a situation, but I'm not sure how you address the bitterness of some circles (like maybe this thread?) toward the layer of people who got ROI on hard work: I'd also be a proponent of limiting legacy wealth and eating billionaires. I was in college for 15 years at a state school and worked 10 at a university before I made big boy money and got stuff on my own. Not everybody who has some extra money got it by lucky birth or by exploiting the masses and I've still got loans to pay, why not own some houses for people like past-me to rent and make a little extra for the effort? I guess it's easier to see it this way from this side of the problem.

I appreciate a sane viewpoint.

Buy a second house, fix it up, then sell it OR rent it to help cover the debt and maybe generate enough income to retire early. It's one of not very many ways regular(ish) people can reliably climb the financial ladder or not work until 75.

Nobody needs 40 properties, but I don't see anything wrong with one or two. I'm not a landlord myself, but I've rented and owned and can see the appeal of a second property.

I prefer to do mine on the grill with a few pieces of a louisville slugger Maplewood bat on the coals. Instead of 12 hours though I wrap mine in foil at about 7 hours when it hits the stall.