[Coronita]

Dumb question. Is this really necessary? I use google fit just to figure out how much I run/walk each day approximately.But I generally don’t count calories to the T. But do you guys run a really tight workaround/diet schedule?

[Coronita]

[quote=harvey]”no cost loan”

LOL[/quote]

No cost loans have slightly higher rates But I think at one point I ran through a bunch of spreadsheets and as long as your 30 year refinanced rate was .25% or lower year your previous rates during the first 10 years of the loan, you still came out ahead in total interest paid. On a 15year, I didn’t bother to run the same numbers simply because on a 15year, much more of your principle gets paid down upfront. And my refinances were always when rates were lower by at least .25% and I typically kept the loan between 2-3years.

Times change and financial plans change too. Its kinda of waist that I threw away 2.5%/mortgage but I sort of want to take less risks this year in terms of investments. And part of that I want to stop bleeding $2600/month on something that doesn’t generate income. So I’ll take the 2.5% return paid to myself.

Eliminating the only mortgage on a rental would be ideal too, but that cash flows $300/month after the mortgage, so why bother.

Plus i want to setup myself in case home prices do correct and i do find something interesting either as a primary or rental. I can borrow more now 🙂 as it was explained to me, I was almost.making out on the number of.loans I’d be able.to qualify for. So I wait.

[Coronita]

[quote=paramount][quote=flu][quote=paramount]The other part of the equation is character development which is why I suggested Notre Dame.

It is pretty tough though to get into Notre Dame.[/quote]

If the kid wants to stay on the west coast, I’d stay with a west coast school.[/quote]

But don’t some schools transcend regions? I recently took my kid on a tour of Notre Dame, and yes it is an expensive school; but as I pointed out pretty much wherever you go in the world Notre Dame (UND) is always recognizable.[/quote]

It depends on how many of the companies on the west coast recruit out outside the west coast for new grads. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but I would check with the placement office at Notre Dame to see what companies are recruiting out there from the west coast beyond your big companies.

I recall when I was a college student looking for a job, it we primarily east coast companies (big and small) and and big west coast companies. Many of the smaller west coast companies didn’t go out there and I had to send my resume to them, and many of them were only willing to interview me if I flew back on my own dime. (Fortunately, since I was from the west coast, it wasn’t a big deal, since I’d interview over the holiday break, which for me was 1 month during the winter)

Disclaimer: this was a long time ago, and part of it probably also had to do with that I graduated right as we were getting out of a recession in the mid 90ies.

[Coronita]

I don’t regularly look except to see what is available at the current time in case of a good deal (unlikely).

Any sort of “gain” one has is on paper anyway, until one goes through the painstaking process of selling. And then above the capital gains exclusion limit, (on your primary only) you then get to deal with paying taxes or in the case of rentals, 1031 exchanges.

Plus, the way I figure, the more I look at any sort of paper gain, the more disappointed I get if things were to go down or stabilize.

Kinda like getting a bunch of unvested stock options or RSU, and then being disappointed when, by the time you vest, your company stock tanks….Lol.

[Coronita]

[quote=scaredyclassic]Right. Few Asians. Easier curve … higher grades. Humboldt. But if the Asians start attending…might get too tough…unless they’re all on acid….or maybe that’ll just get them sharper….not sure…[/quote]

Hmmm. Maybe I can send my kid there for pre-med, and hopefully it will be an easier A.. And if she succeeds in getting into med-school, all the other asian parents can follow the same path, and eventually we’ll screw up the curve there too, just like we do everywhere else 🙂

I never knoew about Humboldt as a path to med-school. I guess you really screwed that up scaredy by bringing it to my attention. 🙂

For the records, I made up the bottom half of the curve when it came to things like biology. lol.

[Coronita]

[quote=paramount]The other part of the equation is character development which is why I suggested Notre Dame.

It is pretty tough though to get into Notre Dame.[/quote]

If the kid wants to stay on the west coast, I’d stay with a west coast school.

[Coronita]

[quote=svelte][quote=flu]
If the OP’s student is a son, I would definitely stay away from Cal-Tech or MIT unless he wants to stay a virgin until he’s 30-40…Also, Cal-Tech would be a terrible school to go if he has a change in heart about being an enginerd.

And frankly, for something like computer science, I think it’s kind of a waste to go to Cal-Tech and MIT for that alone, unless he/she was going to do some serious research. 90% of Com Science isn’t rocket science. And you really don’t need to go through a 4 year com science curriculum to end up doing software engineering. I surely didn’t.[/quote]

Well hopefully he’s not a virgin by the time he starts college~! Most folks I know weren’t.

But again, sex was not on OP’s list of criteria. The most rigorous program with best potential for good internships for undergrads was.[/quote]

Hey, I resent that. Anyway, your point taken.

Rigor also goes up exponentially if you do a combined EE/CS program in the schools that offer that combined program.

[Coronita]

[quote=svelte]While I don’t disagree with the big fish / small pond philosophy being espoused here, it really does not address the premise the OP gave us, namely “looking for the most rigorous program with best potential for good internships for undergrads”.

Not sure how to measure “most rigorous”, US News chose to measure it by the number of papers schools published in the Computer Science area. The rankings this generated:

1. MIT
2. Stanford
3. Harvard
4. UC Berkeley
5. Tsinghua University (China)
6. University of Texas, Austin
7. Nanyang Tech Univ (Singapore)
8. Princeton
9. UCSD
10. National University (Singapore)
11. UCLA
12. Georgia Tech
13. Hong Kong Univ
14. Carnegie Mellon
15. Univ of So Cal (LA)
16. City Univ (Hong Kong)
17. Univ of British Columbia
18. Swiss Federal (Zurich)
19. Univ of Waterloo
20. Univ of London

http://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/computer-science

If one were to use ROI as the measure, then the list is pretty interesting:

1. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
2. MIT
3. Stanford
4. Georgia Institute of Technology
5. Harvard
6. Princeton
7. Carnegie Mellon
8. UC Berkeley
9. Columbia
10. Cornell
11. UCSD
12. University of Illinois, Urbana
13. Yale
14. UC Santa Barbara
15. University of Maryland, College Park
16. University of Texas, Austin
17. UC Irvine
18. University of Washington, Seattle
19. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
20. UC Davis
21. UCLA
22. Rutgers
23. Purdue
24. University of Mass, Amherst
25. Ohio State

http://www.bestvalueschools.com/computer-science-degrees-best-roi/%5B/quote%5D

If the OP’s student is a son, I would definitely stay away from Cal-Tech or MIT unless he wants to stay a virgin until he’s 30-40…Also, Cal-Tech would be a terrible school to go if he has a change in heart about being an enginerd.

And frankly, for something like computer science, I think it’s kind of a waste to go to Cal-Tech and MIT for that alone, unless he/she was going to do some serious research. 90% of Com Science isn’t rocket science. And you really don’t need to go through a 4 year com science curriculum to end up doing software engineering. I surely didn’t.

[Coronita]

[quote=AN]Congrats flu. However, I don’t think you can be serial refi-er going forward anyways, since rates are going up and not down. I don’t think I’ll be doing another refi again on my primary unless we see another 2008.[/quote]

True… 15 year are now around 1% higher than when I got my loan….

Somewhere I’m hoping I’ll hit the stock RSU lottery at the new company so I can quickly come up with a 50-60% down again on another home without touching any more of my current net worth….Ha ha… yeah right….

[Coronita]

[quote=harvey]Did all the refinancing really pay off? Typically a refi takes a few years before the interest savings is break-even with the costs. Seems unlikely that one would come out ahead with several refinances if the loan was going to be paid off in only ten years.[/quote]

Actually, it did. Because each time I did it it was at least .5% difference and each loan I held for at least 2 years and on a 15 year, the principle gets chewed down pretty quickly, especially in some months was was making a double payment for principle only. My first loan was at 30 year @ 5.75%…My last loan was 15year 2.5% ..Lol…. What helped chew down the principle was getting on a 15 year on my second refi, because personally I didn’t like how on the 30 year the first 4-5 years, most of it just goes towards interest payments.

Also, I guess plans change. I was planning to just drag this out, but the Broadcom’s acquisition kinda of threw a positive bone on the equity side, and meanwhile switching to smaller and riskier company made me sort of want to finish this off in case things don’t work out and I join a startup or something else that doesn’t pay as well as before or maybe I’ll just start to take things easier and work less.

Also, I’m looking at the stock market, and I didn’t really do that well this year. I was negative this year on the active managed portion of my portfolio, because idiot me was thinking “oh with a 2.5% 15 year mortgage, I can easily beat that by putting my money into high dividend, high quality stocks like Chevron, Exxon Mobil, and other assorted energy stock..and it’s definitely a lot safer to do that then leaving my money in Broadcom common stock”. Oops… Yeah, that worked out really well for me.

Fortunately, I came out slightly ahead after the stock appreciation from Broadcom’s acquisition and it more or less compensated for the losses I ended up taking in oil/gas/energy. Selling some some index funds earlier for long term cap gains also helped. But yeah, when my energy/gas/oil took nose dive, it got me thinking….Paying of my mortgage is like paying myself 2.5% return, which is still better than the -15 to -20% my oil/gas/energy dividend investment was going to pay me if that’s all I did.

Oh well, chalk this up as lesson learned. Don’t get too greedy and think you can outsmart the markets all the time. Sometimes boring is good.

[Coronita]

[quote=moneymaker]Good Job flu!
After my payment tomorrow I will have a majority equity position in my house (according to Zillow), and I should sign up for earthquake insurance. Probably the state sponsored one I suppose, anybody have suggestions?

Also just thought I’d put this out there, there is a site called nixle that will connect you to emergency alerts via text or voice alerts, just signed up to it.[/quote]

Exactly why I signed up for earthquake insurance myself.

http://piggington.com/ot_i_just_bought_earthquake_insurance

We’re lucky. In San Diego, earthquake insurance isn’t actually expensive.

Also, just upped my umbrella insurance too.
I also got some flood sensors that I attach to my security system and put a few of those in the laundry, bathroom, and kitchen,

[Coronita]

[quote=mixxalot]Neither get a low mileage used BMW M3 and destroy both cars for half the price. Plus no wait time either :-)[/quote]

A used M3 will destroy my wallet in upkeep, and on an autocross, most M3’s aren’t destroying miatas and BRZ’s, at least not the ones I attend.

On a race course, that’s different, but I’ve seen used E46 M3’s with rear subframe damage because the torque on the transmission ripped the rear axle mounts from the subframe. It’s pretty knarly.. I just don’t want to deal with german upkeep.

If you’re getting a used E46 M3 make sure you and/or your mechanic is going over the rear subframe and axle very carefully for cracks….Otherwise, it might end up like this….

[Coronita]

[quote=ucodegen]I don’t know if jumping into ‘tracking’ with a new car is a good idea. The other thing to realize, is that tracking a car is much, much different than running the Qualcomm slaloms. Short wheelbases work well on a tight, comparatively slow track. On ‘track’ like Willow Springs, short wheelbase vehicles can get quite twitchy, particularly if the surface is rough.

Questions:
* Does the vehicle have to be ‘streetable’ or ‘street legal’?
* Do you have a provision for getting the vehicle back should you damage the vehicle to the point that it is not drivable?
* Are you class racing?

The answers above may decide what happens. I know you like small lightweight cars, but on a ‘track’ situation, it is not always the best option.

You might want to look at a Pontiac G8 or GTO, if you can find a manual trans version out there..[/quote]

Hmm. Good points….Didn’t think about that.

I guess this is why you actually want a roof a cage…

RS4 earlier this year @ Willow Springs. Yikes….

Although, I don’t think I would be that aggressive as a beginner for the first few years. I’m not as concerned about chips/dings/etc. I’m more concerned about mechanical breakdown and cost of repair, which I think is why I’m eliminating anything german.

I guess I was thinking that an FRS was reasonable because it’s not that powerful of a car and it’s pretty well balanced, and I wouldn’t be doing any sorts of mods for a long long time until I got better. I wouldn’t be competitive either, just want to have a few weekends of fun. Curb weight is around 2850 and with me in it, it would be over 3000 lbs, so it isn’t exactly *that* light. I would totally get a used one, except used ones seem to cost almost as much as new less a $4-5k, and some of them have 40-50k miles on them.

Ideally, car just needs to be street legal :), though streetable would allow me to ditch one of my beaters. (Trying to kill two birds here)…I thought about getting a tow trailer for my SUV and towing a car, but I don’t think I have room to get a trailer and parking it on the street isn’t an option.

[Coronita]

The problem with a lot of large employers is that they have a minimum GPA requirement for new grads, no matter how good you might be. So in a lot of cases getting a c- at say Berkeley is a lot more damaging than say getting a bunch of a and b at UCSD. Also, think about grad school. Doing crappy at Berkeley may preclude your kid at getting into a top tier graduate or MBA program, especially if he/she doesn’t spend much time out in industry before going to grad/b school.

All else being equal, it’s better to be the big fish in the small pond versus the small fish in a big pond, IMHO.

Kinda like how it works in industry. You don’t want to keep getting promoted to the point you are in a role where you are incompetent.

[Coronita]

I drove both cars and I’m torn.
The 2016 miata is just awesome. Since it has a 500lb advantage and has a really flat torque curve, the 2016 miata just feels lighter and faster than the FR-S. The FR-S is a pretty capable car, and well balanced. Not bad for a $25k car. The big advantage is safety of a hard roof, especially on a road course. Still, I like the new miata better. Supposedly there is a supercharger in the works for the miata too. I think autocrosses will last until mid june, so maybe I can defer this decision for another few months. It seems like the 2017 FRS/BRZ while get a slight revision to the engine and rear chassis to stiffen things up, and that might be a good thing to get a 2016 clearance model.

I’ve looked at the prices for a used FRS/BRZ and frankly the discount isn’t that much. It probably costs about $21-22 for a 2013 versus a new run runs around $25 before taxes. And people tend to beat the crap out of these cars.

Daughter likes the blue BRZ, thinks getting a Miata doesn’t make sense because I already have one, but would feel safer if she took over the SUV when she can drive. Lol.

[Author]

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