#i like that theyre so similar professionally but complete opposites personally | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ratgingi · 2 years ago

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Do you have any fun facts or headcannons about your ocs? You have really cool characters :DDD

THANK U ...... im grabbing you forcefully and sitting u down amongst my plushies to ramble at you

misc facts under cut :-]

- i dont really have specific ethnicities for most of the jack dlc cast, but exie + her sibling, cora's little brother jr, and margo are all mixed

- nobody knows why charlie never takes off his gloves. even lillith hasnt ever seen his actual hands. if you met him past a certain point in his life you just missed the chance i guess. its entirely possible that its just because he likes being mysterious about it

- murr and his brother atticus (who ive yet to. design and show off. dont worry about that) are twins and complete opposites personality wise, atticus is a very pretentious rich guy and lives in a different state. in murrs route there would be a scene somewhere where youd be able to videocall atticus, during which you and murr just get bullied for being poor like 30 minute straight

- outis' friend, stop, has been hit by cars on multiple occasions, and it absolutely will happen again. theres a margo end im working on in which you get to hit them with a car actually

- juniper is friends with ashton, kipper, and alma. they have a band together but its only for fun :-]

- cinder lives in a little house somewhat out of the way of town that she built herself and she has a massive garden that a lot of the flowers in her shop comes from. oopsie and kipper work for her and often get to visit her place to help gather flowers for the shop

- roe collects things he considers 'timeless', such as books, trinkets, and photos. his house has a lot of these things. also he likes birds. he has a friend who owns an aviary that he visits occasionally when he gets stressed

- when roe flips his head around in the morning to keep the sand flowing, it feels similar to how popping your neck does. however, much like popping your neck, if he is not careful about how he does it he can injure himself. and it also make a horrible popping noise when he does it

- margo did have a typewriter head for a short period of time but got bored of it and had her head changed to the bell. when she gets stressed and needs grounding she shakes her head around and it makes a loud bonging noise. it was already cracked like that when she got it

- continuing head talk, the part of outis' head that is damaged is not the main part but the reciever. the part of the reciever that allows it to hook onto the main phone is broken and doesnt allow it to stay in place for more than a few seconds. he often has to hold the reciever in order to keep it from dragging on the ground and getting further damaged on things, and he has a slight bit of hearing trouble

- michy likes to experiement with all kinds of fasion, which does include more masc styles sometimes. she absolutely rocks suits and likes ones that have silly patterns on them

- juniper befriends stray cats and brings them into the apartment building often to feed them and stuff. jackson lets his friends have spare keys to his place, so theres been multiple times hes come home to her having brought 3 random strays into his place to feed them leftovers from his fridge

- charlie is very strong, however lillith is the one who does all the heavy lifting around the morgue, usually because they volunteer to do so. they dislike showing off their strength in front of others but are genuinely stronger than pretty much everyone in jack dlc. jackson is a bit stronger than they are but they could easily kick his ass because everyone could

- three townies i havent talked much about are military, gym, and dancer. theyre a polyam couple that would appear across a few different routes, mili is a security guard with military style training, gym is a personal trainer at well. the gym. but theyre named gym because they also used to be a professional gymnist, and dancer is a professional ballet dancer. mili is a butch lesbian nd is very smart and scary but shes also pretty kind and mostly keeps to herself, gym is genderfluid, pansexual, and a bit of a snarky asshat who is big on gossip, and dancer is a transwoman whos very sweet but has a short temper much to her own dismay. dancer and gym are the other two townies who appear during kara's scene at the funfair

- i havent talked abt them yet so margos gingling a chameleon for a head, coras is gonna be either a rat or some sort of reptile, and alex + bernies is a two headed jackalope

#THANK U FOR ASKING ABT THEM sitting on my knees weeping #interactions #jack dlc #dlc wiki

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corvidshipping · 3 years ago

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modern au red/milo dump while i try to get myself together to answer asks nd work on ATJ:

(tw for alcohol mentions near the end, also this is an EXTREMELY long post, its so long that even after i split it into categorized sections each section could be its own post)

CLOTHING

milo absolutely has no sense of fashion. i feel like this is basically canon - for the styles at the time, he dresses fairly basic, mostly focused on looking put together for his job (definitely dresses aimed more towards how he would like to be treated by his peers, despite his actual position - then again our best example outside of the expedition is when he's about to deliver what he considers the most important presentation of his life, so who knows, maybe he usually dresses like a slob). aside from that his main concern seems like practicality and comfort. his wardrobe is dominated by earth tones - beiges and greens set with white and greys. all of that taken into account, i can see him dressing like this in a more modern era:

basically- a lot of cardigans, usually collared shirts or comfortable turtlenecks (since he does still occupy a research position at the smithsonian, even if only in title), big ol' coats, khakis and chinos and slightly stiff dress pants complete with ironed creases. i can see him wearing similar clothes outside work, just more comfortable - jeans and knitted shirts, henleys, more turtlenecks, and comfy cardigans over short sleeved shirts. i dont really see him wearing a lot of prints, i think he'd veer more towards solid clothes in lighter colors, but maybe he has a few. hes definitely the kind of guy to think of wearing the single graphic tee he owns as "bold and wild".

im very married to the idea of him wearing converse though. i cant explain it. milo in converse keeps me going in this world

hes kind of broke so i think maybe he got the converse secondhand maybe? or a gift of some kind. aside from the converse i can see him wearing a lot of oxfords and maybe wingtips

i want to see him in a hawaiian shirt so bad. i am losing it at this thought. he buttons it all the way up to his neck like someones awkward dad. milo wears a hawaiian shirt to "let loose". he wears it with like, khakis. or knee length jorts AHHHHDJHDSGJHDSJGh

a tie??? does he wear his hawaiian shirt with a tie???? does he think it makes it look cooler?????????? i am sobbing

red is the COMPLETE opposite. in the canon 1914 setting, red is already very rebellious for an AFAB person of their era- theyre openly a suffragette, they frequently refuse to wear skirts even in public and dress in mens clothes even before they were openly nonbinary, despite not being accepted into the male-dominated research fields and colleges they continue to educate themself with or without help, they purposely aim for an "unfeminine" silhouette when they dress, refuse to wear corsets, etc. (spoiler alert- there's a clear reason they get on so well with audrey in ATJ)

theyre also easily mistaken by people that didnt know them prior to their transition for being just a very small/young cis man- even though they canonically have a very soft "traditionally feminine" face

so basically, in any era theyre set into, red is always gonna aim to be ahead of the curve- both in their personal beliefs and practices and in their fashion. theyre also very androgynous in their clothes, although they tend to aim a bit more masculine (thats partially due to the era though, and having been forced into skirts exclusively for their entire life- i think in a modern setting where its more acceptable for AFABs to dress and act in a less hyperfeminine way, theyd be more okay with a fluidity in their gender presentation).

all that taken into account, i can see them dressing like this:

lots of baggy clothes, especially baggy jackets and shirts. they like loose fitting high waisted pants like JNCO jeans, cargo pants, etc but they arent averse to pencil legs. they rarely ever wear skinny jeans or drainpipes though. messy hair is a lifestyle for them- their haircut is definitely home-done

you know how in BICSTLY they used to have really long hair before they cut it? in a modern au i can see them impulsively doing the cut at like 3am and waking milo up at his door cause they screwed it up and he ends up having to help fix it (even though hes literally no better at cutting hair than them. worse even)

definitely have an undercut bob- bob on top, shaven on the bottom layer. they might end up growing their hair into a mullet at some point if they get bored. probably dyes their hair all the time out of boredom and then regrets it later and has to use dye remover.

lots of ripped tights and fishnets, leggings with big loose crop tops, big hoodies, safety pin jewelry and homemade jewelry. maybe some sticknpokes.

all that said, they still know how to dress in a professional situation. since its a modern au theres really nothing holding them back from the education and career they canonically want but cant get in the 1910s, so i imagine they would work at the smithsonian as well, maybe their father helped them get the job? potentially in that case they might be his assistant- after all, he trusts their opinion on artifacts more than anyone else's.

at work you can still very much see the punk/skater/grunge/goth style but its more understated- turtlenecks, high waisted and looser dress pants, lots of black, slightly unbuttoned collared shirts with a loose overcoat and no tie

since i elaborated on milos shoe taste i may as well elaborate on red's: they definitely wear converse as well, probably newer than milo's since their father is fairly wealthy and they can afford it. they also have a doc martens collection. they have a pair of demonias but they never wear them and milo is really the only person to even know they own them, let alone see them in them. they really dont like to wear heels much, but they own a few just to play around with. they have a bad habit of wearing any laced shoes untied, but they never trip over the laces. they also use lace code- their most-worn Docs have purple laces on the right foot and yellow on the left. some of their Docs have (reclaimed) pink laces.

has an extensive pin collection including feminism pins, anti-racism pins, punk-related pins, skater-related pins, and pop culture pins (80s music, modern music, old movies, etc)

MUSIC TASTE

milo's into a lot of older music- stuff from the 50s is his favorite. really into jazz and ballroom style stuff. his favorite band is queen, i think- he likes the old-fashioned sound, the jazz-chamber-ballroom influences, the diversity of their lyrics, and the complexity between the guitar riffs, the basslines, and freddie's vocal runs as well as the vocal harmonies.

sometimes he hums good old fashioned lover boy to red and they two-step in the living room in their pajamas :pleading:

also very into rush. yes, he is a rush guy :pensive:.

also listens to a surprising amount of lo-fi? he really likes stuff that remixes older music with hip hop and lofi elements, like earl grey. nearly exclusively into instrumental stuff but also very into louie zong. he listens to it while he works a lot.

knows a lotttt of foreign artists, especially niche ones. fuckin LOVES casiopea

red's spotify is a goddamn mess. everything from 2000s emo, to classic 70s punk, to post-punk and new wave, to 90s pop, to rap. they cant be easily classified at all

their favorite bands are oingo boingo, prince, queen (they listen to a lot of their harder-rock music, but milo knows theyre into the ballads too. theyll never tell anyone else though), doja cat, lil nas, fall out boy, and billie eilish.

red recites the intro monologue to lets go crazy very seriously to make milo laugh, sometimes. they get very into it with their facial expressions. sometimes it devolves into a full air guitar/keyboard/drum and wild dancing session. milo does not know how to participate in this but he loves watching them have fun with it. sometimes they pull him off the couch to make him dance with them, though

they are a huge sucker for dark pop, vaporwave, retrowave, EDM, hip hop, emo, punk... etc etc. anything that combines any two or more of those genres in an original or interesting way gets their attention right away

there's a lot of sharing between the two of them- even though their music tastes are so different, they like a lot of the others taste, and theyre always up to listen to whatever their partner is playing.

red is a huge softie, and milo has found them more than once listening to or humming something he was playing for them the other day because it reminded them of him

speaking of which- in the 1914 canon, red can play piano. i think that carries over to a modern au, where they could play piano and by extension keyboard. i like to think they experiment with a lot of instruments but i doubt they ever really mastered any others. maybe theyre okay at drums or bass?

they learned to play and sing teo torriatte for milo, as a surprise. when they first performed it for them, they had everything set up for when he got home from work- the lights were dimmed, they had candles lit around the keyboard, they draped stuff in cloth to make it look pretty, they scattered flower petals around. when milo walked in and saw it all, he almost proposed then and there- the only thing that stopped him was that he would kick himself for the rest of his life if he did that without a ring.

HOBBIES/ACTIVITIES

milo is still an avid chess player in this, but i like to think hes in some kind of groupchat or text or discord server for it. he doesnt necessarily consider any of the others in the chat close friends, but he does know them all by name

he tries to get red into chess but they never really get it

he tells them all about the stuff that goes down in the games and they just. do not understand. but they love listening to him get excited about it anyway

"red you're not gonna BELIEVE this, eddie played an italian game on star today! i thought for sure she would see through it since everyone knows it but she slipped and he beat her in like, 13 moves! i wouldnt have believed it if i hadnt been there!"

"yes sweetie please tell me more" (barely disguised pained expression)

red is a skater and a regular at the skate park by the smithsonian

most regulars there know them by name, they can spot a newbie a mile away

they have a sticker of a broken tv with a skull inside of it on the underside of their board, its become recognized as a symbol of them unofficially

since theyre so regular and have been going there a lot longer than most of the other skaters that frequent the place, a lot of what they say is kind of just accepted as the rules

they have a bad habit of lecturing new kids who show up without knee/elbow pads or helmets at the very least. all the other skaters enforce it too. kids dont end up showing up without protective gear very often after their first visit

they brought a first aid kid and left it there and everyone has kept it stocked pretty well without them having to have much input. its kind of just a communal first aid kit

they once drew the broken tv symbol on the inside of a half-pipe and everyone started calling it red's ramp after that

they also started calling the bowl at the center of the park the Soup Bowl and now thats just accepted as the name. some of the newer kids genuinely thought that it was called that by the park and were shocked when they found out it was just a random nickname red gave it one day

theyve brought milo a few times but hes extremely awkward on his feet and could never really get his balance on a skateboard, and quite frankly red is afraid of what might happen if he tried even a low ramp, so he usually just sits at the rim of the bowl while red skates around

everyone knew he was their boyfriend before they even met him. a few of the regulars called him by name right away. one of them was certain red had brought him before.

but no

they just talk so fuckin much about him that its like they already know him

aside from skateboarding, red is pretty good on rollerskates/blades

they tried to take milo to a roller rink once but it was a disaster and they ended up going home, changing into pajamas, ordering chinese food, and marathoning movies till they fell asleep on the couch together. so not a total loss

theyre both very into movies. red is deep into horror and milo likes indie/art movies and just Cannot handle horror at all, but they both agree on old movies, from the 80s and 90s to like the 30s.

red has shown milo some of the classic horror movies and the niche old ones (from like the 40s) since theyre not difficult to stomach

every so often when red brings up wanting to see a horror movie milo is like "aw babe we can watch that tonight i promise it wont be bad" and he genuinely thinks he can handle it this time

he cant

he never can

it is always a lie

red ends up holding him every time and talking him to sleep, but it thankfully never causes like a major panic attack or anything like that

they love going to museums together, of all kinds. they love art museums. they also go to aquariums and aviaries

sometimes they like to go to other history museums and criticise the veracity or accuracy of exhibits/translations, all in good fun of course. theyre never actually being mean about it

SIDENOTES/UNCATEGORIZED

they both used to work at starbucks, when they were younger and before they worked at the smithsonian. they worked at separate stores 2 blocks from each other.

milo cant stand soda or carbonated drinks, red can and will chug a java monster in order to survive a long workday if they must. milo is constantly concerned for their health and wellbeing

they r both lightweights when it comes to drinking. they can split a six pack and both be falling-over drunk by the end of the night.

given the changes in beauty standards people DEFINITELY think milo is more attractive than they would in 1914. cmon. hes a lil twinky nerd. you think people wont eat that up?

he never really catches onto the flirting much though

did u think i would forget ki/da and the others? youd be wrong.

i simultaneously like the idea of something similar to the movie happening, but also just like... ki/da just being a regular person living on the surface. in either case they r all friends still

in the case of ki/da just being a regular person on the surface- i like the idea of atl/antis just being A Place in this au, maybe its a bit of a closed off country though? like, not many foreigners live there and to get there you basically need to be there as a diplomat or a scholar

maybe ki/da visits DC as a diplomat? she is a princess, after all

red meets audrey online cause they both yell at the same misogynistic asshole on twitter

they exchange discord names in the replies of the tweet and tell the guy not to interrupt them while theyre talking in his replies

i like to think red and milo are selected to go on an academic visit to atl/antis (to learn about the culture, with permission of the king), and audrey ends up as the mechanic on the ship during the visit and theyre like (spiderman pointing meme) at each other

red and audrey have so many inside jokes that they basically speak a different language. milo gets some of the terms from context and pop culture (they use "so very" in real life- as in "wow, that shirt is so very.") but he is hopeless to learn all of it

one of their inside jokes is any variation of "milo hot girl summer" and they REFUSE to explain it to him no matter how much he begs

milo wears that iconique tank top on the ship and they say it literally any time he bends over, picks anything up, reaches for anything, moves, BREATHES. he is bewildered and at this point concerned

(in truth, the joke came from red taking a really blurry picture of him in a short sleeve shirt where he looked pretty cute and captioned it "milo's having a hot girl summer rn" and they just could not stop repeating it once audrey met him IRL)

they have a minecraft world. i do like to believe that every so often vinny finds a way in- theyre never sure how- and griefs the shit out of them by blowing up EVERY. monument.

this post is getting long bc im enraptured by the idea of an atl/antis modern au so im cutting it off here but expect WAY MORE later

#paper_heart.txt #s: i didn't say it's the smart thing. but it is the right thing #alcohol ment tw

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themoneybuff-blog · 6 years ago

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Questions About HELOCs, Vegetables, Old Papers, Scams, and More!

Whats inside? Here are the questions answered in todays reader mailbag, boiled down to summaries of five or fewer words. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question. 1. Is HELOC the best option? 2. UTMA and UGMA 3. Second job or career advancement? 4. Buying scissors 5. Fresh vegetables and grocery shopping 6. Financially responsible television? 7. Disposing of old financial papers 8. Realities of job applications 9. Financial independence scam? 10. Physical tracking of Triggers questions 11. Thoughts on secular Buddhism 12. Financial advisor One of the strangest things about exercise, at least to me, occurs when you work a muscle that hasnt really been worked in a while. Youll finish and youll feel fine for the rest of the day, but then tomorrow youre really sore in a bizarre place in your body and, often, youre even more sore the following day. I spent most of this weekend walking around with my arms in an awkward position because it hurt to swing them as I normally do when I walk. It was uncomfortable, but it was a reminder that I had worked hard and improved myself. I think this is true of any meaningful improvement in your life. Yes, it will probably hurt a little. Yes, it might leave you feeling a little sore in some way or another. The question is what you take away from that soreness. Is it a sign that youre on a good path? Or is it something to be avoided? On with the questions. Q1: Is HELOC the best option? I live in one of the most expensive areas in the country, in Northern California. My husband and I have an almost-4 year old, and now our second baby due in August. Moving out of the area is not an option for a number of reasons, most importantly that we want our kids raised near family, all of which live in this immediate area. We both have full-time jobs that pay decently well, and are trying hard to eliminate any non-essential expenses. However, just the cost of the mortgage on our small condo, childcare for two kids, and health insurance will be more than were earning. So, we need a way to pay the bills until both kids are in public school, at which time well again be earning more than were spending. Our home has accrued a decent amount of equity since we purchased it two years ago, so our mortgage consultant recommended a Home Equity Line of Credit. What are your thoughts, though? Would any other type of loan be a better option for us? Julia Without a fuller picture of your financial state, I cant guarantee you dont have other options. However, a HELOC is probably the best option available to you with a reasonable interest rate attached to it. Im sure youre aware of the core problem with this situation: you are riding a financial and professional tightrope. If anything happens to either of your jobs, you are almost immediately falling into a seriously perilous financial state. My suggestion, along with the HELOC, is to leverage your family as much as possible right now to help with this. Accept every possible family invitation you get to share a meal or for free/cheap babysitting. Ride-share with them as often as possible. More than probably any point in your life, you need to be very careful with your spending. Any situation in which youre spending more than you earn is one that is fraught with risk. Q2: UTMA and UGMA My wife and I had our first son a couple weeks ago, and are trying to figure out the best savings options for him. He has started to receive some gift checks written out to his name, so we need to set up some type of bank account for him. Can you help explain the difference between at UTMA and an UGMA? He has separate 529 plans already being set-up by his grandparents, but we wanted him to have some experience with a regular bank and interstates that well be able to teach him with once he gets old enough. Charlie Theyre very similar. There are two big differences between the two that really matter and which one you choose depends on which factors you care the most about. With a UGMA, youre restricted to paper assets cash, stocks, bonds, insurance policies, and so on. A UTMA can hold other kinds of assets in addition the one that most people care about is real estate. A UTMA allows the account custodian to control the assets up to age 25 (depending on specific state rules), while UGMA accounts mature at age 18. If you anticipate your child ever having to apply for financial aid for college, I probably wouldnt use a UGMA or a UTMA. The FAFSA assumes that 20% of the balance of the UGMA/UTMA will be used for college education each year, whereas it only assumes that about 6% of a 529 balance will be used in that way. In other words, theyll be able to receive more financial aid if their college savings is in a 529 rather than a UGMA/UTMA. If you think that paying for college is fully in hand without paying for student loans, a UGMA/UTMA can be a very flexible tool that enables you to gift money to a child while still keeping a hand on the wheel until theyre reasonably mature. Q3: Second job or career advancement? I currently have M-F job in a research lab. On the weekends I work for my uncles construction company that I have worked for since I was 17. He has encouraged me to use the weekends in other ways but I always felt like I needed the money. Lately I have been wondering if I would be better off long term spending the weekends building skills, going to conferences, and building professional relationships. Short term I definitely lose income but long term? I cant decide. Jameson Your uncle sounds like a good guy, and hes probably correct that you can be using the weekends in better ways. If youre in a situation where youre financially stable and able to keep paying off any debts and saving for the future with just your M-F job and youre pretty confident you want to be in that career for the long haul, Id lean toward spending weekends building skills and going to conferences and building relationships and such. Take it seriously, though; dont fall into a rut of using that time for idle things. (Theres nothing wrong with thoughtful leisure, though.) If youre not sure what you want to do, then Id keep the construction job and give some serious thought to your future while getting rid of debt just a little faster. In either case, Id loop your uncle into the decision and use him as a mentor. Not only does he seem like a sharp guy, you may want to keep that door open for the future in case things go awry and you need to go back to construction work. Q4: Buying scissors Whenever I buy a pair of scissors they always seem like they get so dull they cant even cut through paper after like 20 uses. Where can I get a decent pair of scissors that arent junk in three months? Bonnie Rather than just buying new scissors all the time, just sharpen the ones you have. Its not a hard process. Get some coarse sandpaper at the store and then cut through a sheet several times with the sand side down. Then, take a piece of aluminum foil, fold it in half four times so its 16 layers thick, then cut through it several times with the scissors. Then, take a piece of steel wool and cut through it several times with the scissors. Your scissors will be sharp after doing that, probably sharper than when you bought them. You just need to do that every several months or whenever you notice the scissors getting dull. Even super cheap scissors will be quite good if you do this. Q5: Fresh vegetables and grocery shopping How do you balance trying to not go shopping as much with buying fresh vegetables and fruits? On the one hand frugal advice is to minimize your trips to the grocery store but on the other hand healthy fruits and vegetables can go bad so quickly. Macey I cant speak for everyone, but heres what we do. First, if something requires genuinely fresh ingredients, we make those meals within a few days of our grocery store visit. They become a priority. Second, we treat flash frozen vegetables and fruits as being the equivalent of fresh for most purposes. We buy quite a lot of frozen vegetables and fruit. Third, we often do a lot of meal prep, meaning that our fresh vegetables and sometimes fruits make it quickly into meals that are popped in the freezer. Ill buy a ton of fresh spinach, for example, but a lot of it will go into four pans of frozen lasagna. Fourth, a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables dont go bad all that quickly. Most root vegetables last and last. Many fruits last for a long time, too. Finally, we store some of the most perishable stuff in the fridge, following directions on how to best store them to maximize life. If we can stretch something that should only last a few days into lasting for a week, thats a big win. Those steps enable us to buy a ton of fruits and vegetables without them going bad. If we notice something starting to become overripe, to the point where we dont want to use it but its not quite inedible, well throw it in the freezer and use it for making stock or for making fruit bread in the near future. Q6: Financially responsible television? It seems like everything on television outside of a few hokey reality shows is centered around people living way beyond their means or else rich people. Everyone is just spending tons of money and living in fabulous houses and buying tons of stuff. I never really noticed this until you pointed it out. Its such a strong subtle nudge to do the same. What can a person watch that isnt about spending money? Mary I completely agree. Depicting expensive lifestyles on television seems to be the norm everywhere, and knowing the the median American household income is around $60,000, the truth is that most Americans cant live like that. It either becomes something to try to emulate, which is a road to financial ruin, or something to try to ignore, which is hard, or else youre watching shows that revel in values that run in opposition to your own. To tell the truth, I dont watch much television at all any more. What I do watch is generally fantasy or sci-fi or documentaries. I mostly read or play tabletop games instead of turning on the television. Q7: Disposing of old financial papers Im following standard advice and keeping old papers for seven years, but what do you do with them after that? The advice seems to be to shred them but the idea of shredding a box of papers seems like a lot of work with a home shredder where you have to unfold everything and it only takes a few sheets at a time. Maxwell One thing you can do is see if theres a community paper shredding day or one sponsored by your bank. Theyll bring in a HUGE industrial shredder that can shred your whole box of documents in a few seconds you literally toss things in there by the fistful and they get utterly decimated by the blades. Another option is to burn them. Just go camping, use those documents for kindling, and then toss them in there while youre getting a few logs burning. One of my friends likes to rip them up by hand, then put them in a big tub of water so that they turn into this giant paper pulp chunk, then he dries that out, then he takes that big paper pulp brick on his camping trips and breaks off pieces for kindling. Q8: Realities of job applications I am a hiring officer for a Fortune 500 company. There are some popular misconceptions floating around about getting a job at a large corporation. I hope you will be able to share this with your readers. Youll often see media reports that open jobs get hundreds and hundreds of applications for a single job. That is true but it is not the whole story. What actually happens is that if we list a job opening, we will get 500 or so applications, but 480 of them are garbage and irrelevant. Probably 400 of those applications dont meet any of the requirements for the job. Another 60 or so only meet one or two of the requirements. Another 20 might be viable for the job but theyve presented themselves so poorly that we can easily disqualify them. This covers things like resumes with several misspellings or cover letters that use offensive language. That leaves 20 people that are legitimate candidates. Do not be intimidated out of applying for a job that youre completely or even mostly qualified for. Just put in enough effort to submit an accurate resume without spelling or grammar errors and a respectful cover letter that actually addresses this specific position. Thats probably enough for you to make it through the cut of 480 applicants to the final 20. It doesnt mean youll make the next cut, but youll be in that discussion. Mark This is really good advice and its something Ive told many people applying for jobs. Make sure your resume is well edited and matches the job youre applying for and also make sure your cover letter actually addresses the position in question. Thats usually enough to make the first big cut because the vast majority of applications dont even make that threshold. Remember, many job applications are just tossed out there like email spam, just sent to anything even vaguely close. Many other people dont have any idea how to present themselves as someone you might ever want to hire. If you can beat those thresholds, youll probably find some success. Yes, some jobs are filled internally and some others are filled thanks to personal recommendations, but there are many that are filled via open job searches. Dont give up. Q9: Financial independence scam? I was at a store in town minding my own business when this guy in a suit comes up to me and starts chatting. I knew him vaguely as I had seen him a time or two before. He eventually starts talking about financial independence and at first I thought he was talking about financial responsibility but then he really wanted to meet me for coffee to talk about it and gave me a business card. Is there a financial independence scam out there? What was going on? Tim This seems way off to me and I wouldnt follow up with it. Theres a very high likelihood that this individual is involved with a network marketing or a multi-level marketing business think Amway or something like that. Part of the pitch to many people centers around the idea of being financially independent because you run your own business, when youre mostly just trying to sell unwanted stuff to family members. I would in general be wary of a person I barely knew coming up to me, striking up a conversation about something like my finances, and then trying to get me to go get coffee with them. Id simply decline the offer and walk away. If I ever did end up accepting an invite and then someone started mentioning anything like that, Id politely get out of there as fast as possible. Q10: Physical tracking of Triggers questions As per your recommendation from late last year I read the book Triggers in January and am excited to dig into these questions. I spent some time thinking about some personal behaviors I wanted to develop and curb and came up with a list of 12 questions to ask myself each day. How do you physically do these twelve questions and record the answers? Could you walk me step by step through exactly what you do? Marie I use a grid-paper notebook (this one, to be specific, though any grid paper notebook would do just fine) and a black pen. I devote a two page layout per month to this. On the left page, I write out the questions I want to answer as a numbered list. So, it might look something like this: 1. Did I do my best today to be an involved parent with my oldest son? 2. Did I do my best today to be an involved parent with my youngest son? 3. Did I do my best today to be an involved parent with my daughter? 4. Did I do my best today to build a lasting and loving marriage? 5. Did I do my best today to create and write meaningful material for my readers? [] My current list of questions for this month numbers 22. It varies month to month. At the end of each month, I give some careful thought to what I want to work on in the next month, and that might mean deleting some questions and adding others. At the start of each day, I review the questions for that month and think about each one for a bit. I try to visualize what I can do today to make that habit happen. On the other page, I simply have a big grid. Each row is simply numbered with the number of the question 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on. Each column is a date 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on. At the end of each day, I score each question from 0 to 10 based on how I felt about my effort for the day, not the results. So, if I sat down with my daughter and had a really good conversation with her and then later on also did something fun with her, Id probably score that an 8 or a 9. Some people find it hard to give an exact number here, but I just trust my gut on it. I find it hard to give myself a 10 I do occasionally, but not very often. (The individual numbers are fairly arbitrary just find a system that is meaningful that works for you.) I record that number in the square where the row for that question and the column for that date intersect. Then, at the bottom of each column, I average the days scores. For me, a day where I have an average of a 7 or above is a pretty good day (and I usually know it it has felt like a good day). Anything below a 5 average is usually a bad day unless something really unusual and disruptive has happened (and I usually know that, too). At the end of a month, I will average all of the scores for that month. Questions with an average score of an 8 or above are usually removed as I view that as something Ive firmly adopted and am doing well. Questions with an average score of 4 or below are often removed, too, as its obviously not something Im committed to sometimes it comes back as a refactored question. The other questions usually stick around unless I decide I need a priority change. The whole point of this is to keep new habits and behaviors in the front of my mind all the time and to really keep an eye on my efforts to improve those behaviors. It really seems to work when I take it seriously. However, its worth noting that you wont see giant transformative life effects from changing a few behaviors. It takes time for those to build up in your life. Its like a quarter of a degree difference in an airplane flight it only seems like a big change after a lot of time. Q11: Thoughts on secular Buddhism I cant believe you would share information about Buddhism. I thought you were a Christian. Disappointed. Amy I dont see them being in much conflict at all. I find far more conflict with Christianity in many of the articles I write on strict financial issues than I do in secular Buddhism. Buddhism has absolutely no reference to a singular, personified deity like the Abrahamic God. None. As far as I can tell, Buddhism basically puts the idea of a deity into an area of beyond human understanding and really doesnt worry about things in that category. I would describe Buddhism as non-theist. My understanding is that Buddhism is basically a set of tools to make your own character and values stronger, which is literally how the Dalai Lama describes it. The tools that Buddhism provides can strengthen ones Christian beliefs, or whatever beliefs they might have. To me, its little different than reading about any school of philosophy and using what it can teach in ones life. If you want to dig into this more, I suggest this article. Q12: Financial advisor Do you use a financial advisor? Why or why not? Jerry I do not use a financial advisor. Sarah and I met with one once, partially because I wanted to actually interact with one and also partially because we hoped that a financial advisor could address or at least reaffirm our answers to a few financial questions we had. I felt like the advisor was not explaining anything to me that I didnt already understand from reading a few good books on investing and he was also trying really hard to sell me on products that did not seem like good investment options to me. This was a fee-based advisor; he wasnt even getting a commission from this sale. We just ended up trusting our own research and did things on our own. I would far rather spend several hours reading up on a financial topic and understanding it myself than paying a financial advisor to explain it and recommend options that I may or may not even want. Im going to end up making a lot of money from that invested time. Got any questions? The best way to ask is to follow me on Facebook and ask questions directly there. Ill attempt to answer them in a future mailbag (which, by way of full disclosure, may also get re-posted on other websites that pick up my blog). However, I do receive many, many questions per week, so I may not necessarily be able to answer yours. https://www.thesimpledollar.com/questions-about-helocs-vegetables-old-papers-scams-and-more/

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