Comments

Episode-2124- Listener Feedback for 12-4-17 — 19 Comments

  1. Jack,

    The segment on taxes, cattle and electric fences was spot on.

     

    One that would be great in a smaller form to share to the sheep.

     

    Thanks for the show.

  2. Hello Jack,

    Another great show, I enjoy your research into the questions that you get and are able to respond to in this segment each week.

    A small item about tankless heaters, that is, I am sure obvious to you, but maybe not the listening audience,

    You need a fuel source like Propane or Natural Gas for them, Electrical power will not bode well due to the sudden draw/surge it will require to “flash heat” to the appropriate temperature.

    Go ahead and call me something impolite, but there are newbies out there listening,

    I hope that they, like me become members of the MSB, so that you can keep up the great work.

    Again, thanks for all that you do. I try not to miss an episode, thank goodness for the podcast, I some times binge listen, while GSD.

    Regards,

    • @grog,

      They make electric tankless water heaters though. They are supposed to save money compared to the big tanks. So, I would think they actually work. For our house it would be perfect since we don’t have a lot of room. I was going to replace it once the old tank goes bad. You might need 240V, not sure though. I was actually just looking at them yesterday. They run from $500 to $1k.

      • Yep there are plenty of GREAT on demand electric hot water heaters today.  And it isn’t any problem to install them.  We installed one for the out door showers ourselves and the Permaethos farm, it was easy as pie, and ran two showers at the same time just fine.

  3. Jack,

    Yeah, Mr. Money Mustache is a popular financial independent blogger that brings in about $400k/year just on his blog. His post on the simple math of financial independence is probably his most famous post and is highly recommended.

    He kind of has an interesting view on government. He is like a hard core capitalist in some ways and then a standard big government guy in others. He was big on public schools. Then he had a kid and since he is retired he would volunteer at school quite a bit. That was when he figured out that government schools sucked so he took his kid out and started home schooling him. But at the same time still advocates for government schools. He does the same thing with charity. He thinks it is good the government “redistributes” wealth but then won’t give a dime of his money to government to redistribute but insists on running his own charity and he tries to minimize how much he gives the government within reason.

    He spends about $24k for his base expenses for a family of 3. But then he spends off the books that makes it much more. I think he does the $24k number just to show that it is possible to live a good life on a little amount of money. But, of course, he likes a better life so he spends much more. But it still isn’t extravagant, I would imagine around $40 to $60k.

    • I’ve also followed MMM a bit.  Jack is correct that he assumes the Standard Mileage Rate as the vehicle operating cost.  He has stated this repeatedly in his articles advocating that people ditch their gas guzzling Prius for a bicycle.

      Not my bag, but a fascinating dude with an unique philosophy.  At least he practices what he preaches.

  4. On taxes. Every time I purchase something from the store I start “swearing” 9 to 11% around hear. It seems extremely outrageous to me. And now with minimum wage going up to $15 hear in AZ over a few years. I won’t be going out to eat pretty soon.

  5. Hello again Jack,

    Ozzie’s “Mama, I’m coming home was a “Salute”. if you will, when a service member was leaving “Theater” in Mogadishu, Somalia. Great song, a little pain, but makes it something special, as only a Veteran will ever know.

    Thanks again for all that you do.

    Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Blessings of your God to to you and yours.

    Keep bringing it on,

    Damn God Job. Don’t get down, Keep it up.

    Thanks

  6. On VR Schools:

    I recently read “Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline (reading assignment for the No Dumb Questions podcast).

    Entire story is set in a VR world. ALL kids go to school in a VR school on a “planet” that has been coded to be violence-free and is only for schools. It’s sci-fi now (the level of VR detail/experience, extent of adoption in society), but it’s all possible. We have things like Second Life and other virtual worlds and the VR/haptic interaction. We just can’t quite put both together yet, so we’re at the bottom end of the adoption S-curve.

    If the babysitting aspect of school can get knocked across our society, then the buildings will be obsolete almost immediately.

  7. For firewood, call your local tree services and ask them to drop bigger stuff off at your house.  You will have to call them to stop shortly after or it will look like the Neverending Porridge Pot of logs.  LOL

    Doesn’t matter much what wood it is other than some species are hard to split.  Cut and dried for a year, or at least through the summer, it will give heat, and certainly in TX where it doesn’t get that cold.  (I’m in MO, burn everything, and heat 97% with wood.)

    The trees Jack suggested are solid, but your better investment would be in trees that produce food with some Black Locust mixed in for feeding the soil.  Those trees will also give a small firewood dividend over time from dead branches and pruning.

  8. I planted what I thought were hazelnuts I got from local extension office. Only one survived and it was growing different than the ones I bought from Arborday. I didn’t pay much attention since I knew it would be few years before getting any nuts. I was out back last month and checked it to see if it had any hazelnut flowers on it.  Found totally different seeds on it instead. Turns out they sold me ironwood instead. Any uses for ironwood other than just firewood? One tree won’t give much at this point.

  9. On the car taxes.  You will flip when you understand what I pay for vehicle taxes in Lincoln Nebraska.

    We have a sales tax when you buy a vehicle.  Then each year until your vehicle has no value you pay a vehicle tax on top of your licensing fee.  However, here’s where it gets bad.  The city has a wheel tax on top of the other taxes.

    This means my 2000 Camry that is no longer taxed as property value still costs $125 a year to license due to a $75 wheel tax.  Pickups have an even higher wheel tax, due to them having bigger tires.

    Of course we also have a state and city fuel tax per gallon.

  10. All electric is horrible for heat. My son (in Texas) pays more for heating than AC. It is a large older house, not well insulated. Summers are hot. AC runs much more than the heater.  His electric bill is higher in the winter.  He decided to heat some with wood, picked up a load of red oak from a downed tree in someone’s yard. He still has to split it.  Free wood is not hard to find here if you are willing to clear it out of someone’s yard after a storm.

    When we built our shop/cabin on 4 acres of hardwood trees we put in a wood burning stove for heat, the next summer we added CHA so we can heat with electricity if we want.  We were out there this week when it was cold (low 20’s) yet it was very toasty with just the wood heat.  The stove came with a blower which doesn’t work well.  Putting a fan behind stove did wonders, or running the ceiling fans, or just the fan in the central heat and air system.  Kept the upstairs room warm too.  Any kind of air movement helped even out the temperature.

    First thing my husband did was load up the stove because it was cold. I was melting, opened the window some, and we learned that even if the stove holds more, doesn’t mean the wood lasts longer, just means it gets hotter.   It wasn’t hard to keep up the heat, the bed of coals lasts a long time. just add a couple more logs.   Better the next night with less.

    Lots of wood on the ground, storm damage, etc.  Sorting out the rotten from the good wood, stacking, drying etc will keep us busy. But it was a great feeling to know that we will be able to keep it warm as long as we have a small stack for firewood ready.   Stove gets hot too, one morning we put cast iron pan on the stove, and cooked eggs and bacon.  I am used to using the electric stove and forget that is an option.

    We are still learning how best to do things.

  11. One that Jack missed on the ‘selling picks and shovels to the miners’ of cryptocurrency – beginning of this year I bought some stock in Nvidia, the manufacturer of the graphics chips preferred by cryptocurrency miners, and it’s up 80%. It’s a far cry from the crypto increases but for people that don’t like the volatility of it, PC hardware is going UP in value over time for the first time I’ve ever seen largely because of demand for mining so I think buying into the GPUs, RAM, etc are a good way to get into the ‘picks and shovels’ of cryptocurrency.

  12. I had just recently listened to your part on paying taxes on autos… I don’t think the list is accurate because it claims Michigan requires a property tax on cars… we do not pay a property tax on vehicles, we pay a yearly license plate renewal if we drive it on the road, not if it sits in a yard and it is a fee based on estimated weight class.