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CoronitaParticipantFor hiking, I just wear those large straw hats that me look like I’m a asian farmer. They are cheap, and when they break, it’s easy to replace, especially if you’re hiking and the wind carries it away.It environmentally friendly, since it’s made out of biodegradable straws. And you’re providing jobs and a market to some person who made it.
My sig other does the Asian thing and carries an umbrella. Personally, I think it looks way too FOB-ish to carry an umbrella when it’s sunny and not raining, but then again I’ve seen more and more people do this. Fun fact: you aren’t suppose to keep your umbrella open if a horse passes you on a trail. it spooks them out. Found this out on a trail around 92130 where it’s shared with horses.
The problem with an umbrella is it’s bulky and it’s not convenient if you are hiking because it ties up at least one hand…..Also, if you’re hiking in a slot canyons like I was in Utah (where we got lost, ran out of water, and was in the middle of a flash flood thunderstorm and almost ended up on the 6 oclock missing people’s news..), umbrellas are really cumbersome in tight spaces and don’t work well if you need two hands to climb out of the slot canyons quickly. Also umbrella break way too easily. You know they make these $3 dollar store umbrellas and they make these really expensive large umbrellas that are $20-40… Guess what? They all last about the same time. I’ve never gotten good mileage out of any umbrella, cheap or more expensive. Things snag, and break and jam.. So just get a cheap umbrella from the dollar store… There was this super-duper deluxe one that I got from Home Depot with a gift card that was like $35… It broke after 2 uses. My $3 dollar store special lasted for like 6 months.
For my sig other, I offered to get one of these umbrella hats, but sig other said hell no…
[img_assist|nid=27465|title=umbrella hat|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=490|height=300]
I don’t understand why..this clearly effective thing that is more functional than form.. But oh well, not my call.
Besides hiking and beach, the trouble I have is in the car with the convertible with a top down. If you have the top down longer than 1/2 hour, it can get pretty toasty if you don’t wear a hat.I haven’t found a good solution beyond a baseball cap.. If I’m doing 93+mph, a baseball cap is the only thing that really will stay on your head. Anything larger than that will just fly off from the draft. That happened to me. My huge beat up straw hat flew right off my head, and ended up on on the windshield of this big ass truck with a trumpie bumper sticker and really pissed him off that it obstructed his visibility for a split second. Oops, my bad….I swear, I didn’t mean for that to happen…. I don’t see what he was pissed about. If I was driving my x5, it could have been my truck nuts that flew off my trailer hitch and that would have been a lot worse and caused real damage…… Anyway, you could tighten the drawstring really tight, but then the drag on the hat would pull your chin and make it really uncomfortable. Fortunately, I haven’t really gotten sun burned while driving, since my drives are usually less than 1 hours each time. And on a sunny day, I won’t lie though. With the top down, I leave the AC on full blasting in my face. It just works better that way… The same way that if the top is down during a cold day, the heater is on max too. MPG is negligibly effected…
If you’re really concerned about getting burned and drive a lot, you should consider tinting your car, even the front windows and windshield. If you do a lot of driving, you are getting a bit of sun through the driver and passenger window particularly if you are one of the people that like to rest your arm on the door sill.
Technically, it’s illegal to put any darkening tint on the windshield and driver and passenger side front door. SDPD doesn’t really care (unless you are a menace) since so many of their cops off duty drive cars tinted. CHP, on the other hand, hate tints, and if you get pulled over by the CHP, roll down your windows immediately. You could also just get a clear tint, that blocks the UV, like I do. I hate tinted driver, passenger windows.
Also, despite what any tint installer says, the tint film will eventually go bad and start to peel. 10-15-20 years later. You’ll need to get them replaced. The rear window could be tricky to remove because the rear glass usually has the rear defroster lines on the glass and once you put a tint on top of that, it’s kinda tricky to pull the tint off without destroying the defroster lines on the glass. For most americans, this isn’t an issue because they don’t keep their cars that long, and they often spend upgrades on their cars they don’t even own (lease)… But hey, that’s ok too. Whatever floats people’s boat.
Also, have you considered just wearing a mask? I mean, with the pandemic, people won’t even think you are weird and a good face mask does cover a good portion of the skin on your face.
I think I went full circle on this one…from straw hats, to umbrellas, to umbrella hats, to baseball caps, to convertibles tops, to truck nuts on an suv, to window tints, cops, and finally wearing a mask during a pandemic.
Did I miss anything?
CoronitaParticipant[quote=deadzone][quote=Coronita][quote=deadzone]Mexico City is a very expensive place to live, by the way, if you want to live with US level creature comforts. I think salary would go much further in many areas of the US.[/quote]
H1-B EB-2, typically reserved for Masters/PHD and more heavily skilled people.
Anyway, the guy closed escrow last week and moved in this week. Nice home. Living the american dream…at least a preview to it…pretty happy to be here.[/quote]
Sure, but no guarantee he will ever get a green card, not that it is necessary. Best bet is to marry a US citizen.[/quote]
Yes, i fat fingered. $2k is for house rent + live in nanny + driver + general food/etc.
We pay him about $10% less than an equivalent Senior Engineer here in SD.
As far as visas are concerned. That was a concern with the trump administration, less so under a normal administration. During the Trump days, at my previous company, we had a few people from Spain that had their greencard status put on hold, and then they had visa issues, so they left our company, when back to Spain, and worked for a subsidiary there. But that was more attypical in the high tech field… Lots of Qualcomm engineers started as H1-Bs, and because they can’t go anywhere else for the next 5-6 years ( in the past), they put in their time. At the end of the 5 years they didn’t want to go….because they fully vested their stock grants and were sitting on a very nice stock option/RSU grant. That’s one way to keep employees and not worry about base pay raises. Qualcomm typically had lower than average base pay but the stock grants more than make up for the difference. Also they were on 6 month review cycles and had a hefty bonus. Intuit, use to be the same way also, their annual bonus was 20%+ cash on top of stock. Not sure these days. Illumina has a pretty good package too, though typically they only hire good scientists… not so much the low level IT type work. Also , unlike years past, things are slightly better with the transferability of H1-Bs across employers via an I-129. So H1-B’s to some extent ,are no longer “stuck” at an employer waiting for greencard eligibility, in case it turns out to be a bad employer, closes, etc.
Lots of foreign talent don’t need to “marry” for a greencard. They can make it on their own perfectly fine, and in a lot of ways, probably prefer that. We’re not talking about mail order bridge and grooms here….Besides. the purchasing power of that is less now too with inflation and the rising cost of housing here in the US, lol.
CoronitaParticipant[quote=deadzone]Mexico City is a very expensive place to live, by the way, if you want to live with US level creature comforts. I think salary would go much further in many areas of the US.[/quote]
H1-B EB-2, typically reserved for Masters/PHD and more heavily skilled people.
Anyway, the guy closed escrow last week and moved in this week. Nice home. Living the american dream…at least a preview to it…pretty happy to be here.
CoronitaParticipant[quote=deadzone]Mexico City is a very expensive place to live, by the way, if you want to live with US level creature comforts. I think salary would go much further in many areas of the US.[/quote]
My employees say they get a full driver and nanny and their rent is like $200/month for a pretty decent place.
CoronitaParticipant[quote=The-Shoveler]Seriously?
We have a few engineers in Guadalajara but they don’t seem interested in immigrating (but really never asked the so don’t know).
Also agree bingo nights would be much more productive use of the HOA’s board members time LOL.[/quote]
Lol my engineers in Mexico city were basically making US wages in Mexico city. so they have been saving like crazy and are in a good financial position to own outright in UT, or close to it. They still want to come to the US because of the opportunity once they have their green card.
CoronitaParticipantGiven how successful Bingo night was at one of the senior centers in Carlsbad… I’m going to have to talk to one of my condo’s HOA board to organize such an event…so that the really bored old lady and dude on the HOA board can find something more productive to do instead of pestering people with random bullshit…
That said. Some of my employees from Mexico City recently decided to move from Mexico City to Utah. They liked it better there because they said the cost of living for them is affordable more so than CA…So a lot of my engineers on my team that currently is in Mexico City is seriously considering relocating to Utah. I think my senior engineer from there just closed escrow on a house. So I can see how it can be appealing to new immigrants moving forward who are just starting out.
They would have done this sooner but the trump administration previously put a hold on a lot of visas along with the pandemic, the embassy was basically shutdown and my engineers couldn’t even get their TN visas renewed. But now that things are opening up again, and visa applications are starting again by the Biden administration, the backlog is receding so we got a lot of folks on TN visas that we are now applying for H1-B status with the eventual move to permanent residence. That’s great news.
So I think EconProf, you are correct. Having a lower cost of living, and housing cost, is beneficial to a lot of peoplem specifically the high tech immigrant workers first starting out looking to plant their seeds in the U.S who can now work remotely. A lot of them figured out it makes more sense to do this in places like UT than CA these days.Over time, I’d expect UT to end up being more diverse as more immigrants starting out find these places are better for their wallets.
CoronitaParticipant[quote=EconProf]Lots of fun anecdotes here about skateboarding, baseball cards, and relocations of rich people to San Diego’s coastal areas. But yesterday a factoid came out from the Hoover Institute of Stanford University that is more relevant to RE trends. CA has lost more businesses to other states so far this year than all of last year: 74 so far in 2021 vs. 62 in all of 2020. So the exodus of people (as per Census Bureau) and businesses is accelerating.
San Diego’s advantages for the wealthy elite will always make it a destination for the refugees from LA and the Bay area, pushing up prices in desirable neighborhoods. But it is still in CA, where governmental policies continue to drive away businesses and people.[/quote]G23…
BINGO!
CoronitaParticipantYeah, well I was one of the people that actually took some money off to the side to be a little more cautious. But you know when I did that, it wasn’t significant enough to save my accounts when the markets declined…since when the markets declined the rest of my portfolio took a hit…at the same time, when the markets climbed fast, my portfolio didn’t climb as fast…Slow going up fastcoming down still…Story of my life….I should have just left things alone…
50-60% is impressive. I think my 1 year underperformed @ 27%
50-60% would have been nice. no early retirement for me…
August 29, 2021 at 1:28 PM in reply to: Retirement Planning: Reducing Return Target and Risk? #823046CoronitaParticipantI am looking at one of my Vanguard accounts I had since 2002. I think it’s the oldest one out of the 26 accounts and it is consistently invested on index funds. Average return has been 7.1%…But there were years that it looked awful, like a deep downturn. Personally, that’s what I’m trying to avoid. Those deep downturns don’t matter if you have another 10-15 years to wait it out. But it would suck if you are drawing from it right after a downturn. I’ve been talking a lot more with people who are seriously considering early retirement. just thinking….
I guess it’s part of the ongoing The Great Resignation….lol…
August 27, 2021 at 11:27 AM in reply to: Retirement Planning: Reducing Return Target and Risk? #823034CoronitaParticipant.
August 27, 2021 at 8:54 AM in reply to: Retirement Planning: Reducing Return Target and Risk? #823033CoronitaParticipantThe older I get the lazier I get, I experimented in 2 retirement accounts with those time/age based target retirement funds of funds, and I didn’t think they were that bad…In a lot of way, they were good in that they were buy and forget.
For one account, it was Vanguard Target 2035 https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/profile/VTTHX
For another account, it was Vanguard Target Income
August 27, 2021 at 8:35 AM in reply to: Retirement Planning: Reducing Return Target and Risk? #823032CoronitaParticipantlol
August 26, 2021 at 9:09 AM in reply to: Retirement Planning: Reducing Return Target and Risk? #823021CoronitaParticipant[quote=svelte]The longest downturn in the 20th century was about 10 years – The Great Depression.
Therefore at 20 years out, I would keep the pedal to the floor…keep virtually all the money in the stock market and maximized 401K contributions.
At 10 years out, re-evaluate. How is their health? Do they plan to retire early? Does the job market look good in their chosen field(s)? Is the stock market way overvalued? If poor health, early retirement, employment problems are imminent, or an extreme stock crash looks likely then move to a more conservative position.
At 5 years out, I would start moving to a more conservative position. Most financial planners would recommend 60% stock 40% stable, Warren Buffett recommends 80-90% stock 10-20% stable. They should shoot for something in that range at 5 years out, depending on their risk tolerance.
The above is what I’ve been implementing in my own life.[/quote]
The is considerations to retiring early. Like soon.
As far as medical/health, it appears that with the Covered California PPO Platinum plan, it’s roughly $1600/month or $19200/year. In addition, there is a a 10% coinsurance up to $4500/year for in network or $20,000/year for out of network. So out of pocket medical cost would be $23.7k-39.2k in the worst case.
No mortgage or rent.
Passive income of $120k/year. Imho, it’s going to be tight, but assuming early retirement, doable to live off of the passive income. But the question is, what about the the retirement accounts. Assuming early retirement, they can be touched after 59 1/2 years, which would be 13 years away, instead of 19. So maybe bank that at 4% with a 50/50% split between equity and some income/dividend/fixed income basket in case things go sour for the next 10 years, and there’s maybe 9 more years after that to recover.
The other angle is if one does an early retirement, instead of at 65, I think the social security benefit is severely crippled.
One thing I was suggesting is maybe take on a job that provides health insurance to clamp down on that cost. For instance, if you work X number of hours at starbucks, you get medical coverage. Do something simple that is flexible.
CoronitaParticipantLol…
Going back to work video… This was hysterical
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