Yeah, high desert living. I don’t love the rain, but it ain’t bad, and we need it. Plus, it keeps the dust down for a bit.

This is what happens when you abandon Splinter Cell.

What are you talking about? We mostly buy whole foods. I literally posted the kinds of things we’re buying in a comment below.

I’m with you. I’m around $120-125k depending on bonuses. I could in theory make more, but I work remotely, have plenty of PTO, the job’s pretty cushy for several months the year and only rarely super busy and stressful, and I’m already saving aggressively. I haven’t capped off and could make more (heck, I’m not even senior where I am), but it would likely come with work life balance issues and a side helping of misery. No thanks.

Having enough money to live and thrive is important, but knowing when it’s enough and enjoying your life outside of it is just as important.

Same, we’re not buying anything fancy. Bulk meats, some fresh fruit and vegetables, and we buy a lot of dry and powdered goods that keep (wheat gluten, pastas, beans, etc.). Milk, sour cream, eggs, butter, orange juice, some bread. We get some snacks here and there, but minimally and generally it’s stuff that can be added to make meals anyway, like tortilla chips and the like, or dips that can be thinned to make convenient sauces.

We even make our own treats, like I make my own yogurt and peanut butter from starter and whole peanuts and cashews, and my wife makes homemade ice cream sometimes.

I’d like to see that too. It’s probably terrible. My wife and I probably spend $600 every 5-6 weeks and it’s just the two of us, no kids. And we bulk shop (Sam’s Club) so it’s cheaper. Back when we went to the supermarket it was like $500 every 2-3 weeks.

We both have health conditions, so we don’t do takeout, do all our own cooking to account for our needs. Our bill is probably a bit higher do to that, but it mostly involves avoiding salt and sugar and eating healthy as possible.

Seriously, people are nuts about spending, cars and trucks especially. Some of these things cost more than my monthly mortgage, and nearly always financed with crap terms.

My last car before I got the new one in 2020 was an ‘07 Hyundai Accent hatchback and I beat it up for 14 years.

If I hadn’t moved out to the boonies and needed something that could handle at least light off-road, I’d still be driving it. I went for a 2020 KIA Sportage CUV with AWD I put some good all-terrain tires on it (Nitto Nomad Grapplers). It’s not fancy but it has an ICE engine and can handle hills, mud, etc. and goes where I need.

I get that people want fancy cars and shit, but I just can’t even. I got a decent direct drive racing wheel for my PC setup; if I wanna drive something fancy I’ll do it virtually, without the $800+ monthly payment.

Edit - yikes about the girlfriends. My wife is as frugal as I am, probably even more so. She’s very anti-materialism. Back when we were actually broke I spent a lot of time stressed and angry over financial stuff, especially over “big” purchases (like anything over $50 or $100, which is sad to think about now). Nowadays I encourage her to get stuff she wants. She rarely wants things, and when she does, it should be quality, no point in skimping. We have it and we’re talking like hundreds sometimes, neither of us is springing for huge purchases without consulting each other.

I also make a point to donate to our local food bank monthly and buy food for the holiday food drives in the area because I get I have it better than most these days and feel like I should be doing what I can to help.

I make low six figures, definitely not in survival mode. I’m probably abnormal, as I grew up with money insecurity, and had to file bankruptcy in the early 2010s.

When my income started going up, after a certain point I just started living like it didn’t. I save 30-40% of my pay every month. I’m not cheap, but I’m frugal and willing to wait for sales on stuff if it’s not something I need right this moment.

I have well over a year of expenses in a HYSA.

I bought my last car in 2020 for 24k USD fora new previous year model that was still on the lot and paid 1/3rd cash up front with a zero interest deal financing to keep the monthly cost down.

Paid off all my debts, student loans, everything but the mortgage. And since I work remotely and am an introvert, my wife and I moved to the rurals and got a mortgage for half of what it would be in our previous city. I will likely have it paid off in 2-3 years, maybe 6-7 years into a 30 year mortgage.

Living on six figures had not been all that difficult. I don’t even really think about money anymore and it’s a weight off me. It’s living on six figures while keeping up with the Joneses, celebrity influencers, and advertisers, going into massive debt for sake of appearances and potentially invoking the envy of others to prove you’re somehow better or you’ve “made it” and “deserve it” … that’s hard.

A 50 year mortgage is just renting with extra steps and additional responsibility.

I’m down to buy the new controller. I have a Steam Deck and it’s very comfortable to hold, other than the weight. This thing is basically the Deck controls without the screen and a bunch of the weight.

Plus, I’ve personally found the gyro, trackpads, and back buttons to be extremely useful for games that don’t have controller support, or for simply easier use of existing buttons (like putting L3/R3 on back buttons). I’m really looking forward to this, looks way better than the 2015 Steam Controller.

Lastly, that charging connector / wireless adapter all-in-one combo is just nice.

My only concern would be haptics. This really needs to have good rumble motors, and not just trackpad haptics like the deck. The pad haptics are good for subtle effects, but near useless for conveying actual heavy vibration, explosions, stuff like that. Sounds like they accounted for this though:

High definition rumble

Steam Controller’s powerful motors are capable of handling complex waveforms for immersive, accurate haptics.

That sounds closer to something like the PS5 DualSense enhanced haptics, and if so, I’m here for it.

I use utterly unique and very long passphrases for the most important stuff (banking, mortgage servicing, email, etc.), 2FA for those and most other things, and just throwaway crap passwords for things I don’t care about (web forums and most everything else).

Every accusation is projection.

I’m finding it weird how quickly my brain just accepted the switch in the comic.

That’s a protected class. What the fuck?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. President Camacho was not smart, but he was well meaning. As soon as he knew there was someone smart enough to fix their problems he put them on task and worked to improve people’s lives.

There’s nothing well meaning from the current administration and anything good that possibly comes of it is happenstance. The current administration is not idiocracy, it’s a kleptocratic authoritarian nightmare.

I’m a terrible cook personally, but my wife is fantastic at this stuff. Just FYI, you want a delicious cheese sauce, all you need is some milk or half & half, butter, and cheese. If you want it thicker, use less milk, or add a bit of cream cheese. Heat at a simmer and keep warm.

If you let it cool, it will firm up some and makes for a good cracker dip.

New eyewitness photos, surreptitiously captured from inside The White House:

Benefits of living in bumfuck. Though to be real, I’d never buy or build in a HOA. It’s a choice. Renting in HOAs was bad enough in the past.

I know this is a meme, but shit like this is why I allow wild growth on my property. First year I owned my home the ground got muddy as hell from the new build since the ground was all dug up and tilled.

From the second year on I’ve only mowed a path for my driveway and the front walkway and the rest grows wild. Sweetgrass and other native plants anywhere from like 1 to 3 feet tall and the area is high desert (Colorado) so the “weeds” suck up any moisture they can get, no flood, no mud. It’s great. I’ll never understand MFers in the rurals curating lawns.

Plus, it looks nice, and the deer in the area seem to like it as well.

Before you read The Daughters War check out The Blacktongue Thief. And if you like that, I’d also recommend Between Two Fires. Christopher Buehlman is fantastic.