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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:If it's 3 times in a row, they're lucky. If they do it 20 times in a row, I want to know how. Like, if you watched a guy walk around a casino, pull 20 slots and win all of them, you wouldn't think that maybe he knew something you didn't? Holy moley, no, I wouldn't. Something that's possible just by random chance can and in fact will happen on a long enough timeline.
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# ? Jan 8, 2016 18:23 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 23:54 |
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Is it possible to find inefficiencies in any market and profit off them in a predictable, reproducible way in the long term? Yes. Is this the guy who's doing it? Probably not.
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# ? Jan 8, 2016 18:39 |
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ITT: Goons rediscovering why gambling is a bad idea(inevitable long-run losses), and also why gamblers keep gambling despite it being a bad idea(lucky streaks & short-run gains that convince them that they've found the One Weird Trick to beat the system).
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# ? Jan 8, 2016 19:32 |
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Bitcoin could be the most stable currency/stock/whatever you want to call it, and the lack of legitimate exchanges would still be enough to gently caress you over quickly and completely. There is no reliable way to cash out that doesn't involve the risk of getting mugged or your bitcoins simply disappearing.
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# ? Jan 8, 2016 20:41 |
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Suspicious Lump posted:How do you even sell bitcoins? Seriously is there a legit way to do it? I keep hearing stories of people getting mugged or arrested for using fake/stolen gift cards. I've accepted Bitcoin instead of Paypal a couple times when selling things on message boards. Converting BTC to dollars is hardly the situation you describe, anymore. I get BTC transferred into my Coinbase wallet, and then immediately transfer the money into my checking account, where it shows up between 24-48 hours later, just like Paypal.. The only difference from Paypal is that the buyer can't dispute the transaction (which is why I'd never use BTC as a buyer.) But if people want to buy something from me using BTC, I really don't care because I immediately turn it into dollars.
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# ? Jan 8, 2016 22:29 |
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Craptacular posted:I've accepted Bitcoin instead of Paypal a couple times when selling things on message boards. Converting BTC to dollars is hardly the situation you describe, anymore. I get BTC transferred into my Coinbase wallet, and then immediately transfer the money into my checking account, where it shows up between 24-48 hours later, just like Paypal.. The only difference from Paypal is that the buyer can't dispute the transaction (which is why I'd never use BTC as a buyer.) But if people want to buy something from me using BTC, I really don't care because I immediately turn it into dollars. Guys, we goooot onnnne...!
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# ? Jan 8, 2016 23:24 |
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Nail Rat posted:Holy moley, no, I wouldn't. Something that's possible just by random chance can and in fact will happen on a long enough timeline. Okay I'm not going to defend the bitcoin guy because he clearly just got pretty lucky on that one gamble, but jackpot on 20 fair slot machines in a row lies on a timeline of billions of universe-lifetimes. At some point the only reasonable option is to entertain the notion that the slot machines aren't actually as fair as you thought they were.
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# ? Jan 9, 2016 00:13 |
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Weatherman posted:Guys, we goooot onnnne...! Someone who's pointing out the facts?
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# ? Jan 9, 2016 02:26 |
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I think the problem is that it's easy to cash out small amounts but that dude had like $350k and getting rid of that at once would be a huge problem.
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# ? Jan 9, 2016 03:46 |
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The way to consistently beat the market is by takin advantage of information. Either by knowing information the market (remember the market is just a concept meaning a bunch of other people) doesn't or by interpreting public information better. In the slots example it's like placing a bet that the winner guy will win on the next machine he plays. Given the odds of him winning based on known information and whats happening in reality leads to the assumption he knows more information than the casino. You don't know for sure he may just be that lucky. But you can form a reasonable theory and bet based on that. The bitcoin guy made a choice and made significant gains. We are not arguing that. But we are suggesting he wasn't bading his decisions on a careful consideration of evidence and risk management. His actions do not align with any reasonable approach. Instead we are forced to assume he is either an absolute genius who has come up with a strategy so far from the normal that he will shortly revolutionise investing or an idiot that got lucky. He invested half his net worth in bitcoins based on.... erm they always go up? Or something? So i draw the conclusion he is a lucky idiot.
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# ? Jan 9, 2016 13:22 |
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I'm sure this is a stupid question. After seeing so many stories about lottery winners coming from a trailer and ending up right back in the trailer, how would you go about handling a $900MM win? I was thinking if it happened to me I'd take the annuity and try to keep as much of that income pre-tax into tax deferred accounts like 401Ks. But honestly, I wouldn't know what else to do after that. So, what's the strategy to handling that kind of windfall? How much is $900 million annuitized? E: I'd like to add, I'd pay off my CC debt, my car, and my house. I'd make sure to keep as much of that money 'away from me' so I don't spend it on meaningless frivolity like Bentleys and rims and poo poo. I probably would install some new windows in the house and do a minor refresh of the kitchen, but nothing like selling my home and moving to Beverly Hills or some nonsense.
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# ? Jan 9, 2016 19:10 |
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Sounds like a great topic for a new thread.
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# ? Jan 9, 2016 19:16 |
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BloodBag posted:I'm sure this is a stupid question. After seeing so many stories about lottery winners coming from a trailer and ending up right back in the trailer, how would you go about handling a $900MM win? I was thinking if it happened to me I'd take the annuity and try to keep as much of that income pre-tax into tax deferred accounts like 401Ks. But honestly, I wouldn't know what else to do after that. So, what's the strategy to handling that kind of windfall? How much is $900 million annuitized? This seems like a pretty solid plan.
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# ? Jan 9, 2016 19:37 |
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You've got ten million dollars coming to you a year. You could move into a new house. You can spend money to improve your life without it being bad with money.
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# ? Jan 9, 2016 19:41 |
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FrozenVent posted:I know a guy who won $20k playing the slots, I still think playing the slots is dumb. Gamblers will only tell you what they've won- never what they've lost. Same thing goes for overly-talkative daytraders. melon cat fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Jan 9, 2016 |
# ? Jan 9, 2016 20:01 |
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As rightfully suspicious as I am of anything on arfcom, that did actually look like pretty solid advice. Particularly the parts about retaining a large law firm that doesn't know you or your family. Seems like most of the trouble lottery folks get into is from choosing from the options presented to them, when those options are all ultra-skewed from the fact that they're a rube who came into a huge sum of money and every bloodsucker in 1000 miles knows where they live. I've always thought you'd be better off going to the financial area of a large city and walking in to the biggest skyscraper and retaining them. Minus the strange gun-wankery in some of the posts, another poster there had the idea of the first time you get sued you find the meanest lawyer you can and fight it to the death, no settling. Once you start settling the blood's in the water, if everyone knows lawsuits get fought over years and then they lose/ get such a small amount as to be useless, no one will bother.
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# ? Jan 9, 2016 21:00 |
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BloodBag posted:I'm sure this is a stupid question. After seeing so many stories about lottery winners coming from a trailer and ending up right back in the trailer, how would you go about handling a $900MM win? I was thinking if it happened to me I'd take the annuity and try to keep as much of that income pre-tax into tax deferred accounts like 401Ks. But honestly, I wouldn't know what else to do after that. So, what's the strategy to handling that kind of windfall? How much is $900 million annuitized? "What do I do with a $900 million lottery jackpot" is a question much too complicated to answer on a forum, but I would just like to point out that things like pre-tax retirement investments do not apply to enormous windfall incomes. That is, unless you for some reason wanted to continue working at your job and earning a wage after your name is published as the winner of the biggest powerball jackpot in history. Also you probably will want to move before people look up your address and hound you.
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# ? Jan 9, 2016 21:49 |
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Probably the first things to do would be to leave your house, get some new cellphones and disappear for awhile. Let the dust settle, find a good law firm and accounting firm, get things moving there, then head back to deal with people. Also a bodyguard.
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# ? Jan 9, 2016 22:16 |
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Why pay a bodyguard when you can have a will that says your estate goes towards paying the national deficit?
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# ? Jan 9, 2016 23:16 |
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CitizenKain posted:Probably the first things to do would be to leave your house, get some new cellphones and disappear for awhile. Let the dust settle, find a good law firm and accounting firm, get things moving there, then head back to deal with people. Doesn't it vary by state whether you have to be identified as the winner? I always thought it was super loving dumb that anyone would/would have to be publicly identified. Yeah it might be hard to keep it a secret exactly but at least it would help somewhat not to have your picture standing with the huge check in every newspaper (around the world if it was as big as this powerball one).
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# ? Jan 9, 2016 23:39 |
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Some hilarious contrast with the 30/30 about Athletes who are BWM, some American football players that are really GWM. http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-the-redskins-players-are-so-frugal-1452014607?mod=e2fb
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# ? Jan 9, 2016 23:43 |
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Can't you elect to not be identified if you win the lottery in the US? In Australia we just had our biggest single powerball win ever ($70 million), and the media just refer to the winners as "a Hervey Bay couple". Apparently asking if you'd like to remain anonymous is one of the first things the people from Tattersall's says to winners.
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# ? Jan 9, 2016 23:54 |
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Hocus Pocus posted:Can't you elect to not be identified if you win the lottery in the US? Even if you can't I imagine it would be worth dropping whatever it takes to get lawyers to work out a way for a third party to claim on your behalf so they can take the heat.
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# ? Jan 9, 2016 23:59 |
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Hocus Pocus posted:Can't you elect to not be identified if you win the lottery in the US? Only six states let you remain anonymous - Delaware, Kansas, Maryland, North Dakota, Ohio, and South Carolina
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# ? Jan 9, 2016 23:59 |
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Tars Tarkas posted:Only six states let you remain anonymous - Delaware, Kansas, Maryland, North Dakota, Ohio, and South Carolina Then get a lawyer to write up a trust for you, sign the trust's name to the ticket, and have the lawyer show up with the ticket on behalf of the trust to claim the prize. Then the state lottery commission can only release the information that they have, which, as far as keeping your name out of the press, is nothing.
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# ? Jan 10, 2016 00:09 |
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Craptacular posted:Then get a lawyer to write up a trust for you, sign the trust's name to the ticket, and have the lawyer show up with the ticket on behalf of the trust to claim the prize. Then the state lottery commission can only release the information that they have, which, as far as keeping your name out of the press, is nothing. Only four other states allow anonymity through a trust. There may be ways around it, but as is it's very difficult to remain anonymous. It's not that surprising given that it's in the lotteries best interest to publish winners. asur fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Jan 10, 2016 |
# ? Jan 10, 2016 00:16 |
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Craptacular posted:Then get a lawyer to write up a trust for you, sign the trust's name to the ticket, and have the lawyer show up with the ticket on behalf of the trust to claim the prize. Then the state lottery commission can only release the information that they have, which, as far as keeping your name out of the press, is nothing. Doesn't work in every state and definitely doesn't work in Canada. We just had someone up here sue to keep their winnings anonymous and all it did was hold up the money for a year before the suit was thrown out and the parties were identified anyways.
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# ? Jan 10, 2016 00:19 |
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Craptacular posted:Then get a lawyer to write up a trust for you, sign the trust's name to the ticket, and have the lawyer show up with the ticket on behalf of the trust to claim the prize. Then the state lottery commission can only release the information that they have, which, as far as keeping your name out of the press, is nothing. Yeah apparently this is actually virtually impossible. Everyone thinks they've got some super-special trick, like a state lottery commission hasn't heard and seen everything tried. The best is when everyone is like "Oh I'll have money to burn fighting them releasing my name". No you won't, you won't see a single drat penny until the commission is satisfied and if you try and pull anything other than showing up, showing your ID, and signing pretty much everything, they're not giving you squat. I mean maybe you can weasel out of any but the bare minimum interviews and stuff, but you're drat well going to appear on camera and they're not giving you a dime till you do. Christ you people don't know anything about winning the lottery
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# ? Jan 10, 2016 02:33 |
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Mojo Threepwood posted:Yeah, one of my friends used to work at an all season resort in Donnelly, Idaho, and I can't imagine what work a cubicle dweller in their early 30s could find in that small town to enable them to enjoy the resort whenever they pleased. My friend was working there in the summer building trails while finishing an accounting degree, and his accounts of illiterate coworkers and getting his foot crushed by a boulder make it seem like a young man's game. We did a ski/snowboard trip every year to Tamarack and the half finished resort never so much as moved the entire time I lived in Idaho. Just a giant concrete abomination next to the small part that was finished.
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# ? Jan 10, 2016 02:49 |
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Uncle Enzo posted:I mean maybe you can weasel out of any but the bare minimum interviews and stuff, but you're drat well going to appear on camera and they're not giving you a dime till you do. Ok, they might make me appear on camera, but can they stop me from wearing a wig, fake beard and a fat suit?
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# ? Jan 10, 2016 02:58 |
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Uncle Enzo posted:Yeah apparently this is actually virtually impossible. Everyone thinks they've got some super-special trick, like a state lottery commission hasn't heard and seen everything tried. The best is when everyone is like "Oh I'll have money to burn fighting them releasing my name". No you won't, you won't see a single drat penny until the commission is satisfied and if you try and pull anything other than showing up, showing your ID, and signing pretty much everything, they're not giving you squat. Seems like changing your name would work right?
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# ? Jan 10, 2016 03:36 |
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Hashtag Banterzone posted:Seems like changing your name would work right? That's usually public record, so you'd only shake people who aren't willing to do legwork.
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# ? Jan 10, 2016 03:57 |
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Craptacular posted:Ok, they might make me appear on camera, but can they stop me from wearing a wig, fake beard and a fat suit? This is more or less my plan, except with big attention-grabbing glasses that aren't the style I normally wear, and I'd wait a few months and grow a full mountain man beard and let my hair grow. Then go back to my norm after the mandatory attention has ended. I doubt they'd let you get away with fat suits and stuff, but hey no one said I had to wear my normal clothes with my normal hairdo. Big odd suit, big glasses, tons of facial hair. Spend a bunch of time shouting the day before so my voice goes super deep and cracks. My real name, but other than that they don't have much to go off of other than "White guy, 6 feet-ish, blue eyes". Won't keep away the determined people but it'd keep down the attention-grabbers. Also people saying to take the annuity rather than the lump sum cause that way it protects you from your own bad decisions- you do know there are tons of slick and utterly predatory companies that will "buy" payments from you, so you can have your money now now now? Taking the annuity gives you zero protection whatsoever from getting ripped off.
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# ? Jan 10, 2016 04:42 |
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If you take the lump sum the math is in your favor of actually growing the wealth more than what the annuity would give you, if intergenerational riches is your bag. Lotterychat derail has nothing on this though. Some dumbass is feeling nosy and snoops on his girlfriend's phone, finds out that she has 5500 in credit card. This surprises him because she lives pretty frugally and hates credit. Instead of acting like a normal person he works himself up over it and confronts her. She says she does it for airline points and is going to pay it off. He brilliantly asks if she knows how credit cards work. She informs him that she is independently wealthy and has about 800k worth of securities. At this point he decides he wants to die alone and asks why, if she's so rich, doesn't she buy more poo poo and pay off their debts? Except they're more like his debts, but when they get married, it'll be their debts and...wait...why is she getting so mad? I guess I'll never understand women
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# ? Jan 10, 2016 04:54 |
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I didn't win tonight but I'm the only person in the world with my name so I'm screwed in terms of publicity if I ever win a big jackpot.
Zero One fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Jan 10, 2016 |
# ? Jan 10, 2016 05:49 |
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Guest2553 posted:If you take the lump sum the math is in your favor of actually growing the wealth more than what the annuity would give you, if intergenerational riches is your bag. This is pretty great. quote:She said I have no idea what I'm talking about, and I guess I don't. I mean, I'm not a complete idiot, but I have no idea how stocks or bonds work, or why she would purposely spend money for airline points or how the hell she ended up with 790k. Google isn't being terribly helpful plus I don't even know what to Google for. I don't think she inherited it, but she couldn't have just saved 790k, because I know she hasn't actually cumulatively made 790k, and you can't just poof money into existance, can you?
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# ? Jan 10, 2016 06:09 |
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quote:I shouldn't have said anything about her car or apartment. It's just that the car doesn't have heat and she's always complaining about it, but I think now, looking back that it's a weirdly fond sort of complaining, like calling a beloved dog Fartsy.
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# ? Jan 10, 2016 06:14 |
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That dude has the financial mentality of a poor person while his girlfriend has one of a wealthy person. He assumes that when they get married they will combine finances. He assumes that they will share everything. Although she is bad with relationships for not discussing all this poo poo before two years in. Both my wife and I have significant wealth of our own and we discussed finances and everything from the get-go. We both contribute to the household but combining our finances will never happen due to legal complexities (this obviously excludes shared assets).
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# ? Jan 10, 2016 06:30 |
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Craptacular posted:I've accepted Bitcoin instead of Paypal a couple times when selling things on message boards. Converting BTC to dollars is hardly the situation you describe, anymore. I get BTC transferred into my Coinbase wallet, and then immediately transfer the money into my checking account, where it shows up between 24-48 hours later, just like Paypal.. The only difference from Paypal is that the buyer can't dispute the transaction (which is why I'd never use BTC as a buyer.) But if people want to buy something from me using BTC, I really don't care because I immediately turn it into dollars.
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# ? Jan 10, 2016 07:43 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 23:54 |
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Guest2553 posted:If you take the lump sum the math is in your favor of actually growing the wealth more than what the annuity would give you, if intergenerational riches is your bag. I think what he was really asking was, why do you drive a car with broken heat and live in a lovely apartment and lead an uncomfortably frugal existence while chiding your SO about student loan and modest credit card debt, all of which are valid questions of someone with $800,000 (10x salary) in the bank. It's almost as though at some point hoarding money becomes an end unto itself. Also, what did this person spend $5500 on if as OP reports she is an extreme frugalist?
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# ? Jan 10, 2016 15:15 |