The Goat Days of Summer (June 2024 scapegoat blame thread)
9I previously wrote up a whole thing about the endless march of time and how each new Goat is just another mile marker in our continuous spiral toward the big finale, but it got way too existential and…Hey! Would you look at that? Summer is back!
Big props to @DLPanther for keeping a brave face and handling the weight of “goatdom” with relative ease. Also, managed to provide the winning (and only?) nomination for a replacement. That brings me to the June Goat where things are about to get a bit Awk-ward. (See what I did there?) Looks like @awk will carry us into the summer heat and take whatever you have to throw their way!
You all know what to do…goat to it!
- 18 comments, 109 replies
- Comment
Gratz @awk, find your soapbox and have fun!
Ooh, this has potential for mild vandalism. I just realized that I could go around replying to things with a
/showmecommand, then delete my reply. Mediocrebot then replies with the picture, and there’s no way to delete it, or trace it back to me! (Well, moderators can edit or delete, but I’m not if it would be traceable without manual dev intervention. How quick are notification emails sent out?)/showme a goat named awk standing on a soapboxUnblame — I have realized that I can use
/showmeto minorly vandalize any post or reply that I want.Blame — I just announced to everybody, so now it’s going to happen all over and everyone will blame me when actually it was ███ and ██████, with occasional bits of something from █████.
Hey! Who’s doing that! Are you calling me the little boy who cried “wolf”?
You’re going to get my AI privileges taken away.
(Though it’s interesting that the boy gets progressively more distressed throughout those pictures. And the sheep get progressively smaller or invisibler; they already started really small.)
@xobzoo
/showme blame xobzoo this instead of awk
And because I want people to know what I asked for I will not delete my post.
@Kidsandliz That came out pretty well - quite funny!
Mmm I’m suspicious. How do we know awk won’t just sed himself out of this
@unksol vi would anyone think that might happen?
@werehatrack IDK but he seems super replaceable
@unksol @werehatrack Stop being so negative and get a grep, man.
@mikey @werehatrack I suppose that’s a reasonable perl of wisdom
@mikey @unksol @werehatrack I would like to echo much of what’s already been sed, but while I want to cd end of it, I’m not sure how much time we have until chmoderators unlink this for being more || less blameless?
Therefore I will go ’head and host a blame: my cat got the top of his tail covered in rust from something outside. Luckily I was able to traceroute back to the source and spray it down before it spread further.
In any case, I’ve run out of energy and my back Hz, so I’m going get some sleep to refresh.
shutdown -r nowBlame. I never had this kind of fun when I was a toddler:
when gir affe s go wild
@phendrick Based on the link text, I fully expected that to be some “girls gone wild” variant.
Fortunately the link address was clearer.
Blame. My friend helped me “organize” the storage unit (eg got rid of a bunch of things) and now I can’t find stuff that I did not get rid of that I knew where that stuff was before!!! As the AC in there is broken and it is 90 outside (and likely more than that inside, it will not be fun today trying to find something I need next week.
@Kidsandliz Start v e r y early in the morning.
Could’ve been worse. I’ve had friends wanting to help me “organize” by throwing stuff away. Stuff that wouldn’t be there if I didn’t want it. They don’t understand that what I think is important doesn’t match what they think is important. I’ve offered to throw some particular things of their stuff away in response, but they didn’t think that was reasonable.
“tomahto”, “tomayto”.
@phendrick At least in my case she only got rid of things I agreed I didn’t want so that is a plus. She also reorganized part of my kitchen while here too. After she left I put it all back where I wanted it.
@Kidsandliz For the last several days, a film crew was shooting an episode of a series for Discovery Channel in the house diagonally across the street. It’s apparently a variant on the “Hoarders” series, and the objective was to make docutainment out of the process of unjunking a house where someone had just been unwilling to throw away Stuff. It wasn’t trash to start with, but by sitting neglected and unused long enough, it was now trash in fact. Several small dumpsters’ worth of volume was extracted in the process. I have no idea when the series will be shown, and the crew wasn’t sure what it would be called when it came out, but I’ll be mildly curious to see how the situation over there compares to others of my own experience. (Including mine, alas.)
@Kidsandliz Apparently a productive use of superfluous time of both of yours.
@werehatrack Curious:
(1) How many Meh boxes in the discard?
(2) How many of those were still unopened?
@werehatrack Good thing for you the stuff was in dumpster rather than a curb alert. Right?
Back when I lived in a house a women was a hoarder of stuff and not trash. She died in a nursing home after not living there for 7 years. They were throwing everything in a dumpster. I happened to have been home and as things came out I pulled things family might want like photos, quilts she made, etc. that they couldn’t find when going through to get stuff they wanted. The family was grateful. The people emptying the place kept a lot and so did I. I had a garage sale a week later and sold most of it. I did a curb alert on the rest.
The house had serious foundation problems (as the entire area did) and big cracks that went all the way through the brick. My neighbor’s cat got trapped inside via one of those cracks so we went in through an already broken window to rescue the cat (and then boarded it back up). Someone bought the house for back taxes owed, spent a fortune (foundation had dropped 12.5") and it then looked fantastic (he rents houses). Because he had bought the house next to me and fixed it up I told him about the house before it hit the market and put him in contact with the next of kin and then I got a surprise payment of $500 for linking the two of them together.
@phendrick None, as far as I could tell. What was coming out of there was truly worthless trash, not things which potentially might have been of value to someone. I wasn’t over there going through it, but the cartloads coming out to the removal trucks on the street contained nothing identifiably useful.
@werehatrack “truly worthless trash”
That doesn’t preclude Meh purchases, necessarily.
@phendrick While I admit that there could have been half a pallet of TrackRs in there without my noticing, I have never seen an IRK bag go into or out of that house. And, again, it’s not like I really watch.
@phendrick @werehatrack maybe a counterpoint, although you’d have probably noticed. Depends.
My mom and dad raised 5 kids in a relatively small 3 bedroom house. When I was 8-10 they bought a 2 story going to be made into 7 bedroom house at auction that needed the upstairs redone. Plaster. Old fuse box. Aluminum wire. Dad bought nice furniture at auction. I helped tearing down walls and putting up sheet rock but it never got finished. And we started going off to college eventually.
Dad shifted to paying for the olders girls college. Paid rent for me 2 years. Younger siblings. Then Mom got sick and needed a transplant.
That sapped a few years. then moms aunt had no one when she got dimensia. Taking care of her power of attorney. Mowing both their mom’s yards. One 90 minutes away. Plus the other house. Then her mom’s power of attorney. Then his dad died from cancer.
Then they wanted to go see grand kids. Then he had deteriorating cancer for about a year and a half or… 3. They finally sold the second house and moved more stuff from there back to the three bedroom.
The house had deteriorated some. Like it would from 30 plus years of living. . And him not asking for help. And Mom just taking care of him the last few years.
When he passed last year she decided to take an offer as is/leave anything you want. The garage rafters had broke from snow and been jacked up like 20 years ago. And she and my siblings went through the whole house and salvaged everything that mattered. They found stuff in the basement they didn’t know was there but I did.
And stuff I didn’t know was there and gave to me. He tended to collect stuff like his dad. There was enough of us to have a few yard sales/sisters sold on Facebook a bunch of largerstuff to. . Boxes of documents he kept from taking care of other people were removed and burned or shredded. Cause obviously PII/PHI
But we absolutely left the basement and upstairs strewn with random stuff. Nothing to nearly quality for hoarders but probably a few dumpsters she didn’t have to deal with.
And I’m sure the kitchen and other stuff needed redone n
If Dad had died alone at some points. Like some people do. It could have looked like a hoarder if it got sold at at auction and all you saw was them clearing out a house. But he wasn’t stacking newspapers.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@phendrick @unksol @werehatrack
This is a little different, but…
We talk about (seems like a lot more lately) how sad is it when people die and they don’t have family or family living close enough, and all of their precious things just get tossed in the garbage by complete strangers! And It happens all the time!
@Lynnerizer @phendrick @werehatrack might have been a bit of an over share. Not entirely sure why. Maybe close to fathers day although that was not a conscious decision.
/showme where the goat (awk) is hiding
Something went terribly wrong. Please try again.
/showme where @awk, the goat is hiding
@lonocat
if at first you don’t succeed… etc, etc…
@chienfou sometimes you just gotta talk-down, so the bot can process.
@chienfou @lonocat ugh come on you guys
grep $logsdir awk *.06??*.
Ok I can’t get it to escape asterisk but you know what I mean. It won’t take a / or quotes or html.
@chienfou @lonocat I think I read that /showme doesn’t like parentheses and fancy punctuation.
@chienfou @Kyeh @lonocat
grep $logsdir awk *.06??24*
There we go missed the semi-colon. More an HPUX/Linux guy
@chienfou @Kyeh @lonocat @unksol There may be another way.
grep $logsdir awk *.06??24*Yep, enclosing it in backticks turns it into “code” which is not further interpreted.
@Kyeh @lonocat @unksol @werehatrack
thanks for including me but you lost me at “grep”
@chienfou @Kyeh @lonocat @werehatrack
/manpage grep
Really @shawn??
Fine
https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/grep.1.html
It’s Linux search file contents. More or less. If awk was on in the logs and we knew where the logs were and had access we could at least check.
They are probably running windows for at least that half though. We are just making jokes cause
/Manpage awk.
https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/awk.1p.html
Which is commonly used for stream/field manipulation
@chienfou @Kyeh @lonocat @shawn @unksol @werehatrack
/showme geek computer grep code as alphabet soup
@unksol
OH…well NOW I see it…
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@chienfou I mean the laptop screen sort of looks like notepad++ for C in vibrant dark.
But no one would not have it split screen. Or be using a laptop as the main display.
@mediocrebot Looks like you nailed it; found the @awk-ward goat. Now put it to fulfilling its purpose!
Interesting… I automatically interpret backticks as execute the code so I can feed its results as input arguments to something else.
I prefer a way to do plain text in forums but it gets funky some places.
grep butt "grep ass *xml"I can’t figure out how to make it retain the internal back ticks I regularly use in hpux.
Something like a grep | grep - v | awk then backticked . To feed too another command. Which yes crude but when typing on the fly.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@unksol
@Kyeh I meant to respond to @werehatrack.
Discussion about how to get a litteral command line code to be entered. Literally type this at a prompt.
Without the forum processing breaking it
Sorry /shrug
@unksol @werehatrack Yeah, I’m just totally out of my depths here in your fancy schmancy software chat
.
@Kyeh @werehatrack we are just making a bunch of linux/hpux jokes to lure him out. Or amuse us. It wont work but we can make jokes.
They are basically “find file with awk in the name”
Or “find file with awk in clear text”
Then decrypt the package. Which is not a thing.
Trying to get him to respond again. But being silly.
No one can crack modern encryption anyway
@unksol @werehatrack It all seemed pretty clever but way over my head.
@Kyeh @werehatrack I’m not sure if I drove us in A corner. But if you want out.
Is fascinating.
@Kyeh @unksol @werehatrack First glance at that thumbnail made me think of this maze-solving video instead:
(although I think I’m also remembering another video which has some similarities, but I can’t seem to find it again with my limited searching, so possibly I’m hallucinating it)
Reflective metal. Laser cutter.
What??
Get off my lawn.
BLAME: It’s frigging cold in this waiting room at the hospital. UNBLAME: I’m here for the angiogram and possible stent that will clear the way for getting a new date for the cancelled surgery.
@werehatrack Unblame: No stent needed, no angioplasty needed, nothing to fix at all. Blame: That effing anesthesiologist cancelled my surgery for no valid reason.
@werehatrack Well, that’s great that you didn’t need surgery, but jeez, that anesthesiologist sounds highly incompetent.
@werehatrack Glad things were all good! It’s really shitty what you were put through for no reason though.
It’s freezing here at MDAnderson too. It’s called the patient refrigeration project (or here at MDA the cancer patient refrigeration project). It looks like the project is taking place at multiple hospitals.
They’d save a lot of money on laundry and blankets if they didn’t freeze our asses off.
Someone posted a tomato plant giveaway on Nextdoor and I went over expecting to be able to get one or two. Well, this extremely delightful lady had gone overboard growing over a dozen varieties and had dozens of seedlings still available so I came home with 8! So blame because I have to plant them and keep them alive, but unblame because they look beautiful and healthy, and I also got to talk to this lovely person for about an hour.
@Kyeh Where do you live? Post when they are ripe and under the cover of darkness I will be the animal that comes by and sneaks them.
@Kidsandliz I think you’ll have competition; squirrels and raccoons have stolen them in the past, and also deer!
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh garden netting can be your friend
@Kidsandliz @tinamarie1974 Is there a kind you recommend?
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh my dad uses this
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Vigoro-7-ft-x-100-ft-Polypropylene-Deer-Block-Netting-UV-Treated-NMVDB07100/310977993
And
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-1-3-4-in-x-3-1-2-in-x-6-ft-Green-Steel-Fence-T-Post-with-Anchor-Plate-901176EB/205960892
@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 Yes netting works wonders and not just on tomatoes. My aunt and uncle put that over blueberry bushes much to the frustration of birds and other critters.
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh yup dad has it around his whole garden and has built a perimeter 6’ high around his apple tree as well. So far …
@Kidsandliz @tinamarie1974 Terrific, thank you. The lady who gave me these plants showed me around her garden, and she’s put little mesh bags with ribbon ties, the kind that often come with jewelry, around each of the apples on her tree! Now that’s dedication!
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 Raccoons are devious critters. Wednesday night a raccoon made its way into our chicken pen and ate one of the 4 hen chicks (adolescents at this point) that my wife recently introduced to the flock. It’s been an ongoing battle with the local predators and we thought it was secure but apparently one found a gap. So I spent Thursday morning further hardening the enclosure.
Oh yeah - Blame.
@Kidsandliz @macromeh @tinamarie1974
Raccoons are little devils. Very smart, very cute, very mean.
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @macromeh @tinamarie1974 sounds like any 2 year old
@Kidsandliz @macromeh @pakopako @tinamarie1974 But with better coordination and sharper teeth and claws.
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @pakopako @tinamarie1974 And worse, I read a stat a few years ago that estimated as many as half of the raccoons in the US are infected with rabies. I haven’t heard of any cases around here, but still bad news.
@Kyeh @macromeh @pakopako @tinamarie1974
And they they are smart little buggers too. Years ago I was working for a program that took juvenile delinquents canoeing across the state of Florida. We had a very large black garbage bag full of broccoli and other light weight food. One grabbed the bag and started dragging it away from the campsite. In the end to keep that bag and other food safe from them we hung the bags in the outhouse.
Of course when I worked in Canada we had a porcupine who hung out in the outhouse, down the hole, eating the sides of the outhouse. You had to be very careful before you sat down there.
@macromeh CDC statement about rabies in raccoons, from their website:
@Kidsandliz @macromeh @pakopako @tinamarie1974 That porcupine in the outhouse is nightmarish
!
@Kyeh @macromeh @pakopako @tinamarie1974 With the porcupine we’d prop the door open and then kick the side of the outhouse. It would waddle out (this thing was fat!!). Finally it had eaten a hole through the side so no need to prop the door anymore.
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @pakopako @tinamarie1974
I’ve found that a woodchuck works better for holding the outhouse door open - no sharp quills to deal with.
Worldwide consensus says the wombat makes the ultimate dunny door prop, but good luck finding one on this side of the planet.
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @macromeh @pakopako @tinamarie1974 not my favorite suggestion but in some circumstances… A 12 gauge is the correct resolution…
Skittish porcupines. Ok. Pest groundhogs destroying foundation. I try and trap and release. But when they get in the house. Kinda time to end that behavior
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @macromeh @tinamarie1974 @unksol
I’m thinking you meant wire, but if you mean shells, I have a worst case scenario in my head… (Jump to 1:01)
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @macromeh @pakopako @tinamarie1974 isn’t that just ratatouille?
I like the movie. It’s very good. Mice in the house. Sorry
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @macromeh @pakopako @tinamarie1974 just to be clear. Don’t discharge a shotgun in the house.
At certain times if you caught one getting into you attic or digging under your house and you could not trap/release… A 12 guage is… A pretty instant form of death. Just do it outside. You don’t want to clean that up
@Kyeh @macromeh @pakopako @tinamarie1974 @unksol You also don’t want a hole in your house due to the bullet either. I know someone who accidentally shot off a shotgun kept by the back door. They ended up with a hole in the roof. Who knows where it came down. The hole was from going up.
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @macromeh @pakopako @tinamarie1974 if it was any type of bird or buck shot it ended its journey when it hit the roof. Spent all is energy there.
If it was a slug maybe the neighbors yard.
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @pakopako @tinamarie1974 @unksol At one point we had a family of rats hanging out in/under our barn and raiding the feeders in the adjacent chicken coop. I set traps in the barn and took out several of the coop raiders with my pellet gun, but there seemed to be a never-ending supply. After a while, I started finding partially eaten rats in the traps. I’m guessing a weasel (or similar small predator - it def was not our fat & lazy cats
) finally ended our rat problem (and didn’t eat the chickens). Thanks Mom Nature/Circle of Life!
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @macromeh @pakopako @tinamarie1974 @unksol A friend keeps corn snakes in the feed shed for just this reason. About once a month, she finds a skin. And once, there was a clutch of eggs in a secluded corner. It’s been years since she had any significant rat or mouse incursions in there.
@Kyeh Oh wow, lucky you!
How many different varieties did you get, they’re going to be DELICIOUS! 
Good luck with keeping the critters away! My mom got so discouraged she stopped planting them last year! 
I know I miss them but I understand her frustration. She’s even down to only a few flowering plants because of the situation. Have fun growing, and ENJOY! 
BTW, We’ve always had good luck with the mesh covering, I’m sure it’ll be great for you too!
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @pakopako @tinamarie1974 @unksol @werehatrack
We used to have Barney the barn cat to keep rodents under control (and he did a good job), but sadly he died a couple years ago. (However, feral weasels make a fine substitute and require no care or effort on our part.)
@Kidsandliz @macromeh @pakopako @tinamarie1974 @unksol @werehatrack
In fact I hope it has a whole family living there.
I was happy to see a very small garter snake hiding by the hose the other day. I hope it sticks around and doesn’t get caught by the big killer cat down the block.
At this point, everything having to do with a certain belabored cancelled surgery of mine amounts to blame.
I have a new surgery date.
As expected, it is at the end of January of next year. That effing anesthesiologist delayed it by seven months and one week for no good reason at all.
There are those who would expect me to be at least relieved that a new date has been set, but between the fact that it’s that far in the future, it will require an entirely new set of surgical clearances when we get closer to the date, and all the ways that this has gone wrong already, all I feel is exhausted, and terrified of what’s going to go wrong this time. I will spend the next six months, right up until I come out of the anesthesia with the surgery completed, expecting that some new fuckup will stop it in its tracks. And then I get to spend six long months in the process of recovery, which entails daily tasks you really don’t want to know about. If none of that goes wrong, I may be able to resume pretty much normal things at this time next year, with some new ones potentially possible. Maybe. And it will have taken me four years to go from making the decision to actually seeing the shape of the results.
Blame: My credit card was on the floor of the work parking lot. I had no idea I had lost it.
Unblame: I found it before anyone else.
@OnionSoup YAY for the unblame!
It’s SUCH A DRAG to have to get a new card and go through the BS of changing everything! Again, YAY FOR THE UNBLAME! 
!!
What variety of weeds is your yard. I think this might be buckhorn plantain. I want it to die
I want it all to die
https://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/WEEDS/buckhorn_plantain.html
@unksol The scourge of mine is bahia grass. If you have no idea what that means, bask in your lack of need to know.
@werehatrack I do not. Well I’ve never seen it. But this shit just grows like 8 inch stalks when it’s too hot to mow…
I hit it with a herbicide last year. Obviously no good. I got distracted and didn’t do the preemergent this year.
But also do we have a weed expert out there lol.
Just using the state university extension PDF.
@unksol Three days after a rain, bahia will have a forest of seed heads sticking up 16-20" high everywhere, and the seeds are fertile on the fourth day. The rhizomes are thick, the roots are deep and strong, and the road department is in love with this species because it’s resistant to everything up to and including brush fires.
@werehatrack that… Sort of sounds like a plus if it was a grass you wanted… Depending on where you are. Crowd out the other garbage.
Other than the need to mow in a heatwave. The northern grasses are less aggressive but I think mines just all weeds lol
@unksol Having a lawn that goes from dead flat to shaggier than a wheat field in 3 days is not fun. Particularly not if you need to walk out across it in the morning, and cannot do so without having your footwear and your pants legs get soaked with dew. Fortunately for me, I don’t have a homeowner association to try to bill me for a $500 violation because I hadn’t mowed it yesterday, but in parts of this area, that’s also a definite danger. This shit is a royal pain in the ass. And for some people, it’s even an expensive one.
@werehatrack I had just mostly heard it was one of “nice green lawn” variety that only worked down south. I think. My plan has always been to eventually nuke it from orbit.
Round-up the entire thing, kill it dead, then reseed with Kentucky blue grass that should be tight enough to stop anything creeping back in.
If you’re a one off something similar might work? If your neighbors have it and it’s that aggressive… Just. Why?
@unksol Some neighbors have patches of it. Mine is the worst, for reasons. Every year, I plan to rent a sod cutter in November, scour the front yard, till it, sow wildflowers for the spring, and then plant a useful grass variety that’s less problematic when the boom season ends. And every effing year, something happens to trash the project.
@werehatrack hmm. i do still need to put that tiller together.
I like that plan but because of the sloap/runoff into the front yard and snow I’m sure I’d have to kill it all, till it, get someone in with a skidsteer to put in a level sloap finally, then grass to hold the soil all before winter… Then it will have weed seeds coming at it from every direction… And be ruined of you don’t stay in it…
Yards are overrated. At least decorative ones.
@unksol A neighbor across the street put in a veg garden in their front yard this year, with monster sunflowers along one side to attract more birds. (He paid for it in bird splat on his pickup, though!)
@werehatrack my main problem is that there is a cornfield now on the north side of the road. East a quarter mile. And probably what should be a drain tile is ramped across/tilted just right. For them to pull a tractor in.
So if we get heavy rain for a few days it saturates the field. And acres and acres of water flood through that one spot. Into the road, and into my neighbors garage which he tries to damn. Down the side of my house. Washing things out to side of the basement, and down the other side washing out my drive. It’s like a waterfall in spots. And finally flooding the road at the bottom.
I should get everyone together and present to the drainage board because that’s obviously not how it’s supposed to work. There is a drain tile to the north that drops down the hill, then crosses my property to the river south. But that would require trenching out that part and maybe deeping the ditch and culvert that goes under the neighbors to the north… I mean it’s the correct solution but. Id have to talk to people. Lol. Convince government of things.
If it floods it’s out again this year I’ll try. They all know what it does. IDK if they know why. I’m not the most social person but they have always seemed fine. Probably think I’m strange though lol.
But the amount of water that can come across the front yard. Can’t leave soil unanchored
BLAME!!! Kroger was giving away 45,000 coupons for free ice cream today. Getting one (which I did not) is harder than getting an irk. They are all gone!!! I have a big time sads!
@Kidsandliz sometimes I get random “best customer bonus coupons” and sometimes those include like a free bag of tostitoes or something but they are assigned to your account.
Not quite ice cream. Didn’t know they were doing first time first serve ones now. They used to have that free thing Friday coupon. I think it went away… Maybe during COVID? Meh.
@unksol Kroger has probably pegged me as bad customer. While I “clip” coupons they don’t entice me to buy what I wasn’t planning to buy anyway. Many of my coupons go unused because I don’t need the stuff now, they don’t store well to buy ahead or no room in my tiny freezer (we are not allowed to have one of our own in this apartment).
@Kidsandliz I don’t use tons of the ones I sometimes clip, but I do usually shop there instead of Walmart cause sales. And sometimes overstuff the freezer.
Also if you have a cash back at grocery stores card, you get the cash back on other stores gift cards, plus the 4x fuel points.
They did supposedly remove Amazon from the fuel points at one point so have to read the fine print. But. Still get the cash back either way.
AE blue cash is 3%, blue cash preferred is 6% but a $95 “membership” which can make it close some years cause it’s just me… Citi custom cash includes groceries so if you just use it at Kroger/grocery stores it’s 5%.
I don’t mind juggling a few cards/having ones for certain things though. I know not everyone likes it
@Kidsandliz @unksol I have 3 cards with various cashback perks that I use for almost everything (groceries, gas, utilities, insurance, etc.). It’s convenient to have just 3 main bills to pay every month at scheduled times (via online bill pay at my credit union), plus the cashback sweetener. Two of the cards have a quarterly rotating 5% cashback for several categories (e.g., gas, groceries, etc.) so I keep a sticky note in my wallet to remind me which card to use when. And since I pay the balances off every month I haven’t paid any interest or fees in years. Sweet.
@Kidsandliz @macromeh @unksol Churn baby churn! (A … former? … Reddit thread about users posting stories on how to maximize and tie-together credit card rewards.)
@unksol There is other research though that found that if you pay with cash you spend less overall… not sure if 5% back will balance that out or not.
@Kidsandliz there is a risk of overspending. It’s entirely dependent on how they handle their money. If they treat it like cash/have to pay it off every month so they never owe interest/don’t touch the money in savings/retirement I think it’s fine. But credit cards offer that temptation. Personally I would say no one should ever carry a balance, unless they need a loan for a specific reason and it’s a better rate than anything else you can get or invest in. And they understand the terms.
There are times when you actually need a loan. Several of my cards always have a 3% “transfer offer” A 3% flat feet for 18 months is not that bad as long as you know you can pay it back and it’s actually necessary not just cause… I’ve done that before.
A couple of my cards I can get rates for 5 years that are below current personal loan rates. Home equity rates are basically the same rate for now or higher. Until interest rates go down. So if I needed one right now it would be better to do that for home issues than refinancing or getting a home equity loan, pay it off as fast as possible, and when the rates drop roll it in. But home rates may never go back to 3.5 so, has that she 2013 and got worth risking
They obviously want to make money off you or the vendor. Lots of small vendors will either charge more to cover the credit card fees or give a cash discount. These days it’s usually charge more to use a card.
Obviously with major stores they can’t/don’t do thedicashback is figured in. Is that fair? Or worth it? Idk. They are trying to make money off of me.
@unksol The only time I had to borrow from my credit card was for a transmission. The rest of my life I have paid it off in full every month. Independent of that they found though that people tend to spend more if they don’t have the cash in their hand that they are handing over for the purchase. The reasoning was that they could see the cash in their wallet go down and many weren’t sure exactly how much the had charged on their credit card. They were a bit more likely to buy something discretionary with a credit card vs with cash. Each to their own. I pay recurrent bills like insurance with my credit card (well and if I have to buy something online) but otherwise mostly use cash. Works for me.
@Kidsandliz I don’t disagree, and whatever works for people.
Although these days we walk around with a literal statement/receipt in our pocket, so no one has to keep track, they can just check, go oh I have $X left at every purchase. But it can be tempting for some to go overboard. You can be reckless with cash too. It’s just when you run out you don’t have the option. Which can be a good thing. Maybe a kid learns what ramen is.
@Kidsandliz there’s also the secondary payday lending ecosystem which is so much worse than credit cards. Neither are good to carry a balance, but there needs to be regulation on the payday lending scams. At least they did something about credit cards to make it spell it out. Neither is a good option but sometimes people just don’t have one.
@Kidsandliz @unksol Once upon a time, we had usury laws at the Federal level to prohibit this predation, but the open marketing of Congressional favors put an end to those in the late '60s and early '70s.
@Kidsandliz @werehatrack yes it would be horrible if we prevented people from taking advantage of other people and instead acted for the good of society as a whole. That would be a disaster
@Kidsandliz @macromeh @pakopako @unksol Tip for credit card holders:
If you can, pay your credit card balances off more than monthly. E.g., I get income twice monthly, then pay off current balances each time. This has the effect of lowering my Average Daily Balance for the month. ADB is a major factor in computing your FICO score, which affects all sorts of things, such as rates for loans, insurance, car leasing, …
My FICO had stabilized for several years, but went up about 10 more points when I started doing this.
That short-term cash is not good for much else, such as bank savings which pay a pittance, if anything at all for that piece of a month.
Not sure why this came up on the forums, but it’s not entirely wrong
Somewhat blame.
Been getting daily power outages the past week. Short things that knock out my microwave clock, but not long enough to cause my oven clock to reset. I’m a little paranoid at how much worse things will get when summer peaks, but I don’t have AC, regularly keep ice packs available, and can go back to using gas to cook, so I shouldn’t have to be worried.
Maybe it just bothers me more than it should.
/showme ghost GOAT