Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Infinite money losing glitch

Word on the streets is that online gambling is a big problem? We’ve all seen the advertisements, surely. No major sports broadcast is complete without ads for DraftKings or BetMGM. Some of the services even give new users “free” money to bet as an introductory offer. Remember when few years ago every other ad was about crypto? I feel like we’re now in a similar era of sports betting.

I personally don’t partake in gambling because I don’t subscribe to forsaking my hard-earned money like that. We all know how incredibly shitty the odds are. The most risk I am willing to take with money is putting it into the broad stock market.

People are saying online gambling is a problem because lots of young men are falling into addiction and debt. But that’s just the natural outcome, isn’t it? Only a very few subset of bettors can win - by design. Otherwise the game wouldn’t exist. A game that creates many losers will of course have negative consequences. So long as the carrot remains ever gleaming, legions will keep returning and returning.

I think the allure of gambling is the possibility of a huge monetary reward in a short amount of time. Social media has shown everyone the world is indeed our oyster, but most of us don’t have the sort of capital to make that possible. I absolutely cannot traditionally invest my way towards affording a brand new Porsche 911 GT3, unlike the many influencers on the Internet. Online gambling then becomes an alluring shortcut towards attaining the lifestyle that social media has promised us.

There’s a money shortcut available to women that’s closed to men: selling your likeness online. Any reasonably attractive woman has potential to earn money quick if she is willing to forgo a few bits of clothing for people to watch. Heck, if a lady is attractive enough, she can be fully clothed and simply stream herself playing video games. That sort of leveraging of beauty is typically not an avenue open for men. So they instead funnel towards online gambling. Or day trading.

Listen, if all it takes for me to be able to buy a GT3 is to “YOLO” my entire savings into a five game parlay? Hmmmm…

You get a layoff! You get a layoff!

Word on the streets is that Amazon is cutting 14,000 personnel in its vast corporate offices. That is a lot of people soon to be out of work. The greater Seattle area is in shambles, as the kids say these days. This news comes only a few days after Target announced similar corporate job cuts. All of this coming right before the (hopefully) busy holiday shopping season. Who has money to spend right now, honestly.

The pending Target layoffs hits close to home as my cousin works there in corporate. The problem is, he’s nowhere near the company headquarters in Minnesota. A corporation looking to trim down will certainly look first at folks working off-site, no? I hope the best for my cousin.

The best did not happen for my friend who got laid of from Stanford earlier this year. Even education, the once believed lead-pipe lock of job security (especially at a world renowned university like Stanford), is not immune from the current economic headwinds. I somewhat worry for my position, because I too work for a university. An institution that just this week forecasts dire budget straits for the coming fiscal year. Not great!

We’ve seen so many layoff news throughout 2025, and yet the U.S. stock market is currently, as of writing, sitting at all-time highs. One suspects, basing on sheer mathematics, the bottom has to fall out eventually, no? Folks out of a job aren’t wont to keep on spending.

I’m glad I recently downsized my car to something cheaper, netting a solid difference to add to the rainy day war chest. The current economy is too uncertain to be making daring money moves, at least for someone in my lower middle class position. If I do get unfortunately laid off, I want to have at least 12 months of money runway. I know, right to privilege jail, right away.

It is pure greed

The homies and I were eating lunch at a Shake Shack. The gentleman next to us friendly interrupted us to ask whether or not the food there is worth it. I bluntly replied a resounding no. $20 for burger, fries, and drink will forever be too damn high, no matter how gourmet it is (I would say Shake Shack is only slightly above McDonald’s). The only reason we were there for lunch is there was a buy-one-get-one offer on the Shake Shack app.

Apps are downright mandatory these days when eating at chain restaurants. Most will have deals that aren’t advertised in-store. The gentleman was bemoaning the fact he did not know about the free burger offer. In these times of inflated eating out costs, app deals are the only way to get me to spend money at restaurants. (Unless I’m eating with others.)

Speaking of inflated costs: can someone explain how can banks possibly charge $5,000 for simply closing on a mortgage? This feels like pure fat off the top, doesn’t it? The institution is already making money on the loan by adding points on top of the benchmarking lending rate! You mean to tell me that it cost $5,000 for a few people to crunch the numbers (I concede that underwriting due diligence requires some labor) and press the return key on a keyboard?

Worse: when it comes time to refinance - with the same bank - you will get charged another $5,000 for closing that. For what is presumably a formality! The bank knows your information already, and have records of you paying on time. Unless the borrower is completely upside down on house, all the bank has to do is rearrange the numbers internally. And for that, the easiest $5,000 made ever. Even a Porsche cars salesperson would blush at such wetting of the beak.

Be realistic

Sometimes you must get honest with yourself: are you infatuated only with the ideal, or is it something you’re really going to do (or want)?

An example is the person who bought a treadmill thinking he will run marathon amounts of miles (or kilometers for those you with nationalized healthcare) every week. What ends up happening is the treadmill will sit and gather dust after the first week of ownership. He fell in love with the image of himself being a fit runner, but his actual proclivities never made the change. He’s never going to be a runner, and that’s okay!

My family bought a $400 Vitamix mixer thinking that smoothies will become a regular thing. That unit has since been gathering dust on the counter. Same thing with that air fryer, too…

I’ve had this ideal of owning enthusiast cars and taking them on many roadtrips, documenting them along the way. That practice has not materialized at all in the past decade plus of driving. What I actually prefer is owning the cars, but not to have too much to do with it otherwise. If it were possible for a car to never require maintenance and the paint always keeps shiny - sign me up. I much rather be driven (or walk) everywhere than get behind the wheel.

It’s being painfully honest with myself that explains why I’ve never owned more than one car at time. I enjoy seeing enthusiasts’ garages with a fleet of cars. It would be nice in theory to have many cars of my own, representing different varieties the automotive world has to offer. But if I can’t even be bothered to do anything with one car, buying any more would simply be a burden.

Being realistic is why I recently sold the BMW M2. It was costing too much money to support the ideal of being an owner of such an amazing car. I don’t use it, it mostly sits, and the insurance for the car is amazingly high. I would be lying to myself if I kept the M2 on the pretense that sometime in the future I may use it as I’d imagined. It’s highly unlikely, given the five prior years of ownership it hasn’t already happened.

Spending money is easy. So is imagining our changing lifestyle with that new purchase. I think it’s important to deeply think over whether or not it’s merely the idea that we are enamored with. Are you buying a house just for the sake of buying a house? Will your present lifestyle actually be improved? Or will the house just add more costs and responsibilities that, in the end, you really don’t want?

I like fries

I remember the first time I had French fries as kid. It was of course at a McDonald’s. I was hooked to that crunchy and salty goodness ever since . If I’m ever heinous enough to be on death row, or unlucky enough to catch a rapidly deteriorating terminal illness, my last meal would definitely be French fries, with a side of fried chicken.

For heath reasons I seldom indulge in the French delicacy. A few times per years is the maximum. Nowadays also for price reasons, I am skipping the fries when I buy burgers. $5 for a scoop of fries is downright robbery when it’s just a bunch of potatoes and saturated fat. The margins on that has got to be up there with soft drinks.

Good news is, modern technology has made making fries at home easy and almost as good as the outside stuff. An air fryer is all you need, plus the requisite multi-pound bag of frozen pre-cut fries from Costco. Entirely self-contained, no oil splatters. Admittedly this still cannot beat the absolute freshest batch right out of a proper oil vat, but it’s pretty damn close. For the price difference, it’s unbeatable.

The trick then is to buy only the burger from McDonald’s, or the chicken tenders from Wingstop, as takeout. Have the air fryer at home set on a timer, and you’ve now got fresh fries to go along with soon as you arrive. Even better: I can have fries anytime I want without leaving the house. The kid me would have fainted at the thought of such joyous reality.

Healthy can be cheap

The greatest-of-all-time (GOAT) in terms of comfort food for me has got to be fried eggs. Pair it with some rice and roaster seaweed, and you’ve got the perfect poverty peasant meal. I am lucky to have income above the poverty line, and that combination still remains a constant meal choice for me. Love it.

Whoever said it is expensive to eat healthy is a lie. Rice, beans, and lentils are exceedingly cheap per pound. And it’s got your main three macros covered: carbohydrates, protein, and fiber. Beg at a street corner for a few hours, and you might be able to add an egg or two to that mix.

What does get expensive is variety. No one wants to eat rice, beans, and lentils for three meals a day, every single day, three sixty five days a year. A variety of healthy foods can get pricey. Especially if you’re like me and prefer the nicer kinds of fish (raw salmon is the GOAT), and the most prime USDA cuts of beef. Sweet potatoes are definitely pricer than lentils.

If I were indeed poorest of poor, I’d have no issues eating the same cheap thing for all the meals. Blaming poor health outcomes on the high cost of groceries completely forsakes the agency of a person. Even peasants have choices they can make. Of course it’s tough to eat without variety. I hate it too! But that’s the sacrifice one has to make for the sake of health.

The discipline to eat monotonously also comes in handy whenever I need to enact some austerity into my spending. That’s why eggs, rice, and seaweed will never go out of style for me.

Buona fortuna

I was at Costco doing my usual weekend shopping when I noticed the usual five pound bag of whey protein by Optimum Nutrition is now over $67! That is crazy. I’m old enough to remember when the same bag was only $35. Us weightlifters are in shambles when it comes to feeding our protein addiction. Instead of picking up weights ever, I should have joined a monastery…

The annual Monterey car week was only a few weeks ago. It’s always fascinating to me how certain car enthusiasts can drop multiple six figures on a car like it’s nothing. These people spend on vehicles like how I don’t think twice about paying extra for the larger size of fries. There’s a certain level of wealth that I cannot fathom or comprehend when way more than my entire net-worth is concentrated into a single object.

How bad can the overall economy be when hundreds of enthusiast cars are changing hands on a daily basis on sites like Bring a Trailer and Cars And Bids. People are capable of dropping $50,000 - $100,000 on what is most certainly a secondary car (if not tertiary or further). Heck, I don’t even have that. I’ve been contemplating and strategizing on buying a second car to compliment the BMW M2 for over two years now - still can’t financially justify pulling that trigger.

I can certainly relate to those Youtube videos about how seemingly everybody else has more money than me. Granted there’s zero envy involved here. I understand fully my income situation and how much I can spend. It is what it is, and it’s the only thing I can control. But one can always daydream, right? Especially when the PowerBall jackpot is sitting at 1.8 billion dollars.

It would only be due to buona fortuna if I am ever in a position to drop six figures on a car like ordering appetizers at a restaurant.