I guess I find it odd that people who were kids hate kids. It's ageism, lol. Children are literally people just like we are. Just younger. Which is not to say everyone needs to reproduce, live your life however you want of course.

My mom was never very motherly, I asked her about once. She said "I don't like kids ".

"But you had so many! What the heck?"

"Well, I like you all NOW, I knew you would grow up eventually."

Kids are just people.

I make pretty good money and have insurance (sort of) but absolutely have avoided care for financial reasons and I don't actually know anyone who hasn't. Do you know someone who has never considered cost?

That's not accurate - Florida pays in more than we get back by about 11billion, Texas 68 billion. Because we have idiot government that doesn't use matching funds for Medicaid, mostly.

California pays 276B more than it receives because it's an economic engine.

Virginia has the biggest gap in the other direction, receiving 89B more than it pays in.

It's a lot more mixed than just red or blue - some democratic states are better at leveraging the federal money on behalf of their state.

Yeah my husband thinks 350k would rebuild it, because part of the value is the land. But we could not rebuild what we have for any price, because the wood it's made of is not available anymore.

And yes - some of the increase is apples to oranges, just like with cars - the 1967 mustang I had was good for about 100k miles, maybe. New cars last easily 3x that, and safer and more efficient.

But no way is that most of the increase. There needs to be some relationship between pay and housing that makes sense. With insurance and tax, those million dollar homes would cost nearly 8k per month even if no repairs or maintenance- that is so much more than the netpay for a good job, I don't know who is buying them.

I have seen several crashes already, and know price doesn't just increase forever. Am watching with interest to see what happens here.

Right. It was like 2 years of pay for her so 100- 200k seems about right for a house. Not a million dollars.

It's not just size and quality though - my house is the same size as my mom's house was, hers was 13,000 in the 1960s. It's the same size as the old one I bought for 36k in the housing crash in the 1990s, and sold for 80k in 2010ish, after an addition and metal roof. It is actually for sale again now by someone else after more renovations, they are asking half a million and will probably get close to that.

The one we have now (same square footage, half built in 1940, addition in 1990s) we had to pay almost 300k and is "worth" (market, not underlying value obviously) like half a million, we did improve it with hurricane windows and metal roof and roof attachments.

I have never bought as an investment, only as housing. Something is broken, I DO think my house is worth maybe 200k as a real value, I think we overpaid. but the prices now are so much worse than that.

Yes Florida building code is serious so new houses do have additional utility. But I have only lived in older houses and they are also out of control price wise.

The big new ones around here go for 1.5 million now - I could have bought every house on my block in the 1990s for less than that.

The cat I had when I was a kid would pretend to be afraid and confused by birds then SWIPE out comes the paw, down goes the bird.

I don't keep outside cats anymore but it was always so impressive to see her hunt, she did fake cringe away to get them close.

I think he is saying if you wear an outside pad, not a tampon, you need something to stick it to that won't be moving around.

I commute on an electric bike, in my work clothes, and seriously hope to never take a ride so long that I need gear. 6 miles or so is my limit.

There are dozens of us!

Yeah only one of my kids learned to drive the manual but I love it. Lately I take an electric bike everywhere so hopefully the car lasts. The only one I'd trade it for is the Civic SI but those are $$$ and as long as my car will go I will keep it - they can last, especially the stick shift ones.

I was distracted and so busy when I was your age, no time to slow down. Kids, pets, so much work at my job, never time to think!

Do you exercise? That mental feeling of dissatisfaction can be complicated by physical idleness - I do have to exhaust my body to calm my mind.

Do you have people IRL? Even if you are introverted and asexual you still need a baseline level of community, of people to talk with and be with.

You don't need to achieve anything to be a whole person. I do think your instinct is correct that it's something that doesn't exist because there are so many successful unhappy people, you are outwardly successful already. So maybe you are missing physical activity or social activity.

I had the original Pixel, and now the 5, not sure if I will get one next time but this one is still good.

It's kind of like my car - I have a 6 speed 2014 Honda, it does everything I want & nothing I don't want. Newer ones are better in some ways, but not in ways I want.

I don't want a fancier phone or car, I want a more reliable one that does the things I want it to do. Not stuffed with "features".

Olive oil washed gin and gin washed olive oil, that is kind of funny.

I bet that oil would be nice in a salad dressing.