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Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity
Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity is an officially recognized disability in Sweden (this is not recognized as an illness because no diagnosis exists for this condition).” Professor Johansson gave the example of a head ache “ how can one measure the pain or prove the existence of a head ache?” Sweden ranks in the top 10 in the world for healthcare. Magnetic Flux poses the largest threat to individuals with EMHS.
Ford vs Ferrari Part 1 - Greasing the Wheels
From the guys who brought you The Greatest Short Burn of the Century.. Oh man, oh man, oh man.
Not again.
-Drizzy
Preface: Please believe me when I say I really wanted to take this month off and enjoy the snow in Tahoe. But as I was driving, something caught my eye...
Make no mistake. This stock is not going to be nearly as volatile or profitable as GME. In fact, this might be so boring that most of you will ignore me yet again.
And that’s exactly why I like it. I’ll do my best to make this engaging, but the fact is, this is going to be a slow grind. Both this DD and the stock.
Also, as a bonus, Reddit is currently public enemy #1 in the eyes of the media. Why don’t we do a quick heel-turn and join their side? Are they gonna hate us for buying boring value stocks? They won’t know what hit them. That will be a fun show to watch.
Anyway… let’s take a look under the hood.
As always, not financial advice. Just education. NOTHING IS A RECOMMENDATION. We are just sharing knowledge here. Ok SEC? Intro: Ford (NYSE: $F -- NOT NASDAQ:$FORD), is another depressed deep value multiple expansion arbitrage play. No short squeeze this time. The GME asymmetry may not be seen again for 10 years.
It might seem boring and unsexy on the surface, but Ford is a fantastic company in the midst of one of the best turnarounds in American history. And with a little help from our friend Mr. Options (or as Buffett called, Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction) we can turn a boring old Ford into a lightning fast Ferrari using the quadruple income option wheel strategy. Don’t try this at home. If you don’t know what CSPs, CCs, or vega are, stick to shares. Those should work just fine.
Let’s break this down into 5 parts: electrification story and leadership, multiples expansion, technical analysis, options, and the trade.
By the way, in 2019, the Ford F-Series was second only to the Apple iPhone, which raked in $55 billion, in terms of total revenue generated. The F-Series generated more revenue than the NFL, MLB, NBA, and the NHL combined, which added up to $40 billion. Just something to think about.
The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round...
Electrification story and leadership: Let’s jump into history for a second. Ford had a meteoric rise from 1997 - 1999 from $15 to around $32 at the peak. This was due to $F reporting massive earnings increases each quarter:
They were just feasting and feasting. Jim Farley looks like the best person alive to revitalize Ford, capable of tripling the stock in 2-3 years. Look at the last two quarters:
- Q3-2020 - Adjusted EPS: 65 cents vs 19 cents expected, Automotive revenue: $34.71 billion vs $33.51 billion expected (due to pent up demand)
- Q2-2020 - Adjusted EPS: A loss of 35 cents per share versus a loss of $1.17 per share expected, Automotive revenue: $16.6 billion versus $15.95 billion expected.
Here are excerpts from the Q3 earnings and some other notable highlights:
Farley: Now that plan, which was introduced to the Ford team and many stakeholders on October 1, is very straightforward. Among other things, No. 1, we will compete like a challenger, earning each customer with great products but as well services with rewarding ownership experiences. Number two, we're moving with urgency to turn around our automotive operations, improve our quality, reduce our cost and accelerate the restructuring of underperforming businesses.
And third, we're going to grow again but in the right areas, allocating more capital, more resources, more talent to our very strongest businesses and vehicle franchises; incubating, scaling and integrating new businesses, some of them enabled by new technology like Argo's world-class self-driving system; and expanding our leading commercial vehicle business with great margins but now with the suite of software services that drive loyalty and generate reoccurring annuity-like revenue streams; and being a leader in electric vehicle revolution around the world where we have strength and scale. So now speaking about EVs. To start with, we're developing all-new electric versions of the F-150 and the Transit, the two most important, highest-volume commercial vehicles in our industry. These leading vehicles really drive the commercial vehicle business at Ford, and we're electrifying them.
Quick sidebar here from my buddy M: "Whereas traditional manufact / consumer / industrials are valued on an EBITDA multiple, SAAS has historically been valued on a revenue multiple, which translates to flat out higher valuations. EVs themselves are not necessarily a higher margin product that justifies a higher multiple (at least not that I've seen), but tech services / subscriptions are the real money makers in this game. Hint Hint companies like Apple throwing everything they have at trying to integrate services and subscriptions over the last 5 years"
This further justifies the expansion multiples we expect will catch up to leading EV automakers (see below).
We own work at Ford. And these electric vehicles will be true work vehicles, extremely capable and with unique digital services and over-the-air capabilities to improve the productivity and uptime of our important commercial customers. The electric Transit, by the way, will be revealed next month, and you heard about it here first, for all of our global markets. We believe the addressable market for a fully electric commercial van and pickup, the two largest addressable profit pools in commercial, are going to be massive.
Now you're going to see our strategy of electrifying our leading commercial vehicles and our iconic high-volume products expand very quickly at Ford.
When you look at our results, they reflect the benefit of our decision two years ago to allocate capital to our strongest franchise, namely: pickups, a whole range of utilities across the world, commercial vehicles and iconic passenger vehicles. Additionally, we saw higher-than-expected demand for our new vehicles in the quarter.
Together, these factors, plus the strongest performance from Ford Credit in 15 years, led to a total company adjusted EBIT margin of 9.7%. That's 490 basis points higher than last year.
As an outcome of all this, we generated $6.3 billion in adjusted free cash flow.
The strong cash flow in the quarter gave us the confidence and the ability to make a second payment on our corporate revolver, which we did on September 24. So now we have fully repaid the entire $15 billion facility, and we ended the third quarter with a strong balance sheet, including nearly $30 billion in cash and more than $45 billion of liquidity, which provides us with the vital financial flexibility we need.
Check out this credit
downgrade weeks before Ford paid off their revolving credit facility. Smells like GME?
Alright. What about Q4-2020 and beyond? Ford is expected to post a loss. TA is signaling a beat (see the TA section). Ford is spending this money in order further restructure and deliver on the following items in their pipeline:
Bronco:
Mach-E vs Tesla Model Y. Just the fact that there is debate between the better car is bullish for Ford.
The upcoming 2021 F-150 has positive consumer reviews as well:
- The 2021 Ford F-150 Is So Stuffed With New Tech & Gadgets That Even Tesla Owners Are Impressed!
- DeMuro - The 2021 Ford F-150 Is Totally New and Really Impressive
- Some other nice features: Fold down the shifter, lay seats down completely flat, speakers in headrest, tailgate worksurface (pen/pencil holders, rulers) C clamp, 120V outlet, bottle opener, light), sensing running board, tailgate step and railing, and more. Watch the video.
Ford Raptor launch (just happened today, customers are excited. Look at the comments on YouTube and IG)
Further potential tailwinds:
The Postal Service told Trucks.com that it expects to reach a contract with one or more of the teams bidding for the business in the federal government’s second fiscal quarter of 2021. That works out to the first quarter of next year.
- There is a historical inverse relationship between gas prices and car sizing. Tell me if I'm reaching here. But as America continues to head towards electrification and energy independence under Biden, larger gas cars will be more in demand. Furthermore, the aftershock of COVID will continue to propagate the dedensification of cities. Less commuter vehicles, and more travel vehicles. And look who is conveniently positioned to take advantage of all of this?
- Dr. Anning Chen is also a killer CEO of Ford China. This is largely intangibles (which Wall Street cannot model), but watch his interviews here and here.
- Dr. Chen used the COVID shutdown to improve the operational efficiency of the company. It has not shown on the bottom line thus far, but it will later.
- CTO Dr. Ken Washington bio. Ex Lockheed.
- Kennard on the board.. PE guy, on the AT&T board and former FCC chairman.
- Vojvodich. Ex CRM and ADHZ.
- Regarding the above leadership and BOD members, experienced executives are a better fit for running the day-to-day than any other. Add a sprinkle of savvy techfin folk and you have a recipe for a elite transition.
English please? Ford is a strong company. Farley is delivering on his promises and can lead the company towards an operationally efficient turnaround towards electrification. Combine this with a loyal customer base rivaled only by AAPL, and you get another special opportunity. This is the turning point.
Multiples Expansion: Now here lies the crux of the thesis. Amidst all the EV hype, Ford is being unfairly ignored at an extremely depressed multiple compared to the other companies in the EV space. Here are some comparisons (numbers may be slightly outdated, pulled earlier this week, more relative comparison than absolute):
$Ticker - Market Cap - TTM Revenue MM - TTM EBITDA MM - Revenue Multiple - Ebitda Multiple
TSLA - $810B - $28B - $4B - 29X - 202X
NIO - $92B - $12B - ($7B) - 7.6X - (NaN)
GM - $78B - $116B - $18B - 0.7X - 4.3X
F - $44B - $131B - $10B - 0.3X - 4.4X
That’s an eyesore. Let’s focus on just TSLA and Ford, because why not. Assuming Ford can quickly turn towards electrification (from the evidence above), these two companies are fair comparisons. No Tesla is not a software/energy company, look at their automotive % of revenue. Stop it. It has only recently dropped to 80% due to the expansion of their leasing division. Energy is still a tiny part of TSLA.
Revenue Multiple: TSLA = 29X
F = 0.3X
EBITDA Multiple: TSLA = 202X
F = 4.4X
Yes those numbers are correct. Look at them for 60 seconds and tell me what you see. Quick quote from my buddy M:
Just zoom out and think. TSLA is for sure ahead of the rest on their tech and charging infra right now. But in terms of just overall bottom line infrastructure and manufacturing capability; once the GMs, Fs, and VWs of the world can get the ball rolling, they are way ahead in that aspect. Much more experience in production and retail / distribution channels, as well as logistics sourcing. Plenty of battery makers, and self driving tech makers out there too right now. Small to mid scale M&A will probably be the name of the game if I had to guess.
This is why Burry is short $TSLA, but two scenarios can unfold: either the high-flying stocks drop, or Ford rises. I believe we will land somewhere in the middle, with Ford rising as we begin to enter the optimism phase in the final third of our bull market.
Shorting is a dangerous game anyway... So I’ve been hearing on the news...
TA, Options: Exhibit A from our resident chart whisperer J (who will remain unnamed because you monkeys keep bothering him).
Larger view.
As you can see, the trendline has broken out.
Exhibit B from our resident quant T (also to rename unnamed):
Starting on 1/4 you'll find right tail distributions into any liquidation which represent large buying. Which has led up to a recent run-up and eventually left tail distributions which represent short coverings which lead into the gaps and thinner distributions where there aren't any major bids. Even with the pullback on 1/22 we see more right tail distribution after the profit taking from the recent run-up, which means someone is buying up the inventory.
This is unusual for F, where F trades within tight ranges. On 2/1 you can see a bimodal distribution which means a new player has stepped in, which we assume has additional knowledge apart from the larger players that were already in the market. The recent range between 10.70 and 11.20 indicates that the market has accepted this price range as fair value. Without additional research at first glance we can see that a large player (or players) is buying up a significant amount of inventory.
On 1/4 we find that the volume increased to 77,559,128 from the previous trading of 34,462,454 (125% increase) and 33,127,776 the day before that. Volume has been higher since.
On our first major left tail distribution (which represents short covering) since the buying on 1/4 the volume was at 113,707,973.
Exhibit C 250k shares of F 10.92; 100k F 11.04; 3.53m F 9.78; 708k F 9.78; 500k F 9.64; 377k F 9.50; 338k F 9.50; 201k F 9.75; 192k F 9.80; 150k F 9.77
These are blocks of shares bought in the past 7 days
Top OI changes:
+19610 F 02/05/21 11 C 43821 38% 13% 48%
+12904 F 02/05/21 12 C 31929 38% 11% 52%
Top OI positions:
170902 F 02/19/21 10 C +807 26% 49% 25%
112480 F 02/19/21 12 C +3207 29% 29% 41%
The percentages are bid mid ask.
Someone is bullish on Ford. For an earnings play, daily RSI is oversold looking towards an
uptick.
Options gamma is interesting to note as well.
Open interest on 2/5 $13 and $15Cs are also notable. Could be covered calls? Could be someone knows something?
Could be Jeff reading too much into the tea leaves. Not financial advice. Just showing you what I see.
The Trade: The simplest way is just to purchase shares and collect dividends as Ford may reinstate them sometime in 2021. Possibly leaps if you feel adventurous.
For the option junkies like myself, and as a tribute to the greatest company in American history, I will use the wheel(s). The GME trade was a very special and momentous occasion. Now that we have a bankroll, we’ll just quietly play theta gang as we enjoy our lives and spend time with our families and loved ones.
Here’s a good summary. This is not for amateurs. I mean, none of this is financial advice anyway, just educational.
But in a nutshell, I will: 1) Buy shares, 2) Sell CSPs 30-45 days out with 0.3 delta, 3) sell CCs with 0.3 delta (will reconsider this if Ford goes vertical) 4) Collect dividends.
The Wheel doesn’t work on everything. Here are the qualifications from the above post, let me know if this sounds familiar:
- Profitable company that has solid cash flow
- Bullish, or Very Bullish, analyst ratings
- Priced around $10 to $50 so that I can afford to take the assignment if needed and I stay away from sub-$10 stocks as a rule
- A stable chart without wild gyrations (especially those caused by CEO tweets!)
- A nice dividend is always a good thing, both that you may collect it if assigned the stock but also that dividend stocks tend to more stable and predictable.
Hmm...
Conclusion: Ford is a massive, complex, multinational corporation so I’ve likely missed very many things, but I wanted to get this out before ER so I can flex again. (No market manipulation here lol. My buddy's multi-million dollar block buys didn't move the needle one iota.) There are many things I haven’t covered, and simply don’t know yet. As more facts begin to unfold, and as I spend more time with the stock, I’ll share the information here. Also, every time I post about an equity, it seems to go down. Lol... (GME).
With all this in mind, this is still a very risky bet. Nevertheless, I like what I’ve seen thus far. Ford looks like a fantastically healthy company in the midst of a turnaround towards electrification with a phenomenally depressed multiple according to the market’s appetite. It deserves a multiple trending towards TSLA’s, not a dying auto manufacturer. Jim Farley has shown early to be a great CEO and I think he can continue the transformation. We’ve begun to enter a phase of exuberance, so I’ll choose to long Ford instead of short TSLA.
As a bonus, we have the opportunity to join forces with the boomers and talking heads and bet on one of their favorite companies. Time for America to be on the same side again. We’ve been divided for too long.
I know my GME posts were lucky. I’ll stake my reputation on another bet. One call sure is lucky. What about two? In any case, investing is a marathon, not a sprint. Glad to be a part of this journey with you all.
Note: I will not discuss GME in the comments, which all depends on Ryan Cohen. There is nothing further to add until Q4 earnings. And finally, we’ve officially entered the last phase of our very long bull market. This is not necessarily a sell signal yet, as some of the greatest returns can come in this period and can last for a long time. I will do my best to look for the signal and sound the alarm. The world will be celebrating, and I will be bearish. Burry’s passive indexing bubble call in combination with Thiel’s government debt bubble call will lead us into a dark time of unprecedented proportions. Tail risk hedging won’t work as the declines will be slow at first, and then fast and violent and unrecoverable. Be careful. Listen to Ken Fisher. Thank you very much for your time.
Positions: Bullish shares, LEAPS, on-going quadruple income wheel strategy as Ford reinstates the dividend. Timeframe 12-18 months. Watch out VIGILANTLY for macro risks. Bear market is on the horizon. Drop some Fs in the chat to pay respects.
PT: $32 with a chance of $98 if we start to see exuberance in the broader market.
-JA
submitted by Jeffamazon to wallstreetbetsOGs [link] [comments]
I came back from the dead and nuked ex-fiancé's life insurance money plans!
Throwaway for obvious reasons...
So I will start this story by saying that I don't think I am a good person, and a story with some collateral damage. But this is a story about one bad person getting revenge on another bad person.
Backstory: I[34m, now] was raised by a single mom because dad passed away when I was younger, but I had many male role models in older brothers and he left behind a generous life insurance policy, so I largely had a good upbringing. However, I was not ever very social and from my early teens I spent a lot of time in front of my computer. This habit got worse as I went to college and it resulted in me spending 80% of my time gaming, working, reading, or whatever on a screen. As a result, I was not very attractive and quite obese at the age of 20. For these reasons, I never really dated and did not even lose my virginity until I met my exfiance. On top of this, I was raised very religious because my mom became really religious after the death of my father so I always thought it was a bad idea to "play the field". The only thing I had going for me was that I had become somewhat proficient in several coding languages and expanded on these in college. I would not say that I am a good IT person or coder, but with a little bit of coding knowledge and a lot of creativity you can create residual income streams and I had a decent job in IT where I could work from home 3 days a week. At the age of 24, I was still overweight and a social reject, but through my mom I met a woman from her "bible study" that would eventually become ex-fiance[36f, now]. We hit off and started dating. She had a 2 year old son at the time and they became the only thing in my world that I cared about. It did not take me long to get physical (LOL) all those years of pretending I was "saving myself" went out the window when I finally had the chance to lose it. To be honest, she really broke me out of the shell I had become more sociable within a couple months of meeting her. I even took on a fatherly role for her son and within 6 months of dating she got pregnant. Being the religious person I was, I immediately proposed and wanted to marry before the birth of the baby. Then she dropped a bombshell on me.... she was still legally married.... to a guy in prison. This did not bother me too much as she had always talked about her troubled past and I thought I would be the one to save her from it anyways so I just took this as it came with the territory. She began the divorce proceedings shortly and we planned to get married as soon as those were finished. I was riding high after the baby was born and I thought I had really carved a place for myself in the world. I even started losing weight and spent less time online than ever. She was always kind to me and I thought we let each other know everything we were thinking... boy was I wrong.
There were a few red flags that I was too love struck to see. 1.) She told me early on that the only reason she got involved with my church was that she was on probation and had pending court cases and thought it would help her case. 2.) Despite me earning a comfortable 6 figure income with side projects and my main IT job, she insisted that she keep her part time job and my mom had to help me take care of the kids to deal with it. 3.) She knew WAY TOO MANY PEOPLE - like what suburban mom with a secretarial job has 200 contacts in her phone? 4.) We kept delaying our marriage due to sick relatives or other issues (although she did go through with the divorce to the prison guy)
Then something happened that shook me out of her spell. She got pregnant for a second time and this time with twins. We had only been with eachother for ~4 years and we were about to have 4 kids. 2 more than I thought I would ever have. She claimed she was on birth control at the time, so we were not using condoms. Anyways, after the twins were born I started seeing my doctor about a vasectomy and my exfiance encouraged it. I wanted to get some swimmers frozen before the the operation because we could completely change our minds in 5 years. So I go in for the visit and the doctor comes out to tell me that my sperm count was low and they were mostly immobile, but this problem might be temporary and I should try to eat a healthier diet and stuff for a few weeks and come back. When I came to the second appointment and the same problem arose, the doc started doing some investigating, but you know where this is going. SO... the doctor says that its likely that I am infertile (this turned out to not be completely true, as I now have a child that I KNOW is biologically mine, but it still propelled the following events.) I mentioned that I had 3 biological children and the doctor looked anxious and started talking, but I was in shell shock and did not really know what he was saying. I think I left the doctors office before they were even done with me. I did not even get in my car, I just walked until it started to get dark and eventually called an Uber to get home. My fiance was worried and already asleep inside and I just lied to her and told her my car broke down, phone died, and I was at the mechanic late and forgot to let her know. I fell asleep and woke up the next day and immediately got on the computer to research similar stories and started to give myself false hope. The first post I read was about how fertility assessments are not true and I should 100% get a test. I thought for sure this would show the doctor was wrong, but I got the test back and within a week I knew the kids were not mine.
The first person I told was my mom, I went to her house and cried for the first time in my adult life. She consoled me and then told me a story that I was never meant to hear. Essentially, I am the product of an affair myself and that dad actually died from an overdose on pain meds after he found out. Well, I don't know why the f#$% my mom thought this would comfort me, but in reality it just gave me an unhealthy view of women for a while. After the story and calming down, she insisted that I "man up" and honor my commitment to these kids because "I am the only father those kids had ever known". Up to this point I had always been a pushover, and I really considered her words to me for about 24-hours before I completely snapped. I called my fiancé and told her I had to stay the night at my moms house because of a family issue and she offered to make us dinner which I declined. At this point, the twins are about 6 months, the boys are 2.5 years and ~5 years old. I won't lie and say that I felt nothing for these kids, but it was hard to look them in the face and I knew I was done being their father. I knew this would tear them up and damage them, but I couldn't stand to hear them say "dadda" to me because every time it was like a knife in my heart. I kept my cool and did not expose anything and my mom did not say anything I assume because she thought I was "manning up". I spoke to an attorney, because I wanted to get myself off the birth certificates of these children and I thought I could seamlessly slip out of this situation because we were not married. Unfortunately, after going through the paperwork and financials, since I had tangled much of our finances and I "took on a fatherly role" I would be responsible for at least the boys child support and she would get equity in the house and my side businesses. Basically, the lawyers said that I would likely be on the hook for something like 25% of my income for many years to come. I pretty much ghosted my lawyers after paying them their initial fee, because I did not like the idea of state-enforced cucking.
The revenge starts here. I started to make a plan to disappear and leave them all with as little as possible. The start of this was destroying all of my passive income streams and getting myself fired. Getting myself fired was easy, but it got a bit cringe, basically did some of the stuff from office space, smashed an office printer in the courtyard, didn't do anything while working from home except send memes to coworkers, but I did not do anything to clients because my boss was actually a friend of mine, but my office mates had a good time watching this. After this, I did not even try to file for unemployment and began living off our savings. My exfiance let me handle all the financials despite both of our names being on everything, so she did not notice our accounts slowly draining of money and the financials going to chaos because I left her checking account filled with a few thousand (credit card debt skyrocketed because I stopped paying our cards LOL). I sat there for months wondering if I should end it and follow in the footsteps of my would-be father, but ultimately decided against it. I got ancestory test kits for the kids in an effort to find who their actual father was, because I was hoping to get them away from my ex, but this resulted in even weirder findings. Essentially the oldest child was a cousin/half-brother to his siblings and so the prison guy's brother must have gotten her pregnant, also I did not see any family members from the test that I thought would be a good fit. So that was the end of that investigation. I also tried to distance myself from my mom, as I had become disgusted by what she did to my dad and her newfound cheater allegiance with my ex. I formulated a plan to get away, FAR AWAY, from everything by just vanishing on a "hiking trip". I really hyped up this hiking trip and claimed I would be in the (insert location here) for a week alone with my thoughts in the trails. Before the trip I took the then ~6 year old out for ice cream and cried for the second time in my adult life. The 6 year old was obviously distraught over seeing his "dad" cry and started trying to calm me down. I guess I was crying that I had to leave him, and I told him I was sorry dozens of times but I think he was just confused about the situation. I was more concerned about losing him, because I knew he was not my child and I was able to form a bond anyways.
I left that afternoon and actually made my way to the lodge and checked in. Now the next part I will mostly skip because I am not sure if it was legal or illegal or whatever but cut to 6 months later and I have a new name and live in a new city where I was able to restart my IT career and was slowly working toward my old income status again. I started stalking my ex on facebook and other social-media. I won't lie, it was cathartic to say the least. The chaos of them trying to get into accounts must have been hell and she figured out that our comfortable finances were not so comfortable after all. Begging for money on facebook is sooooo trashy. Once again I won't mention the legal stuff, but a lot of people went looking for me and I considered phoning the police to let them know that I was okay, but decided against it (eventually had to pay a hefty fine for this, but it was well worth it). I worked on myself for a long time and got into great shape. Lost my religion and descended into a hedonistic lifestyle. I became unrecognizable. I continued stalking this woman for about a year when I heard she was dating a new guy and got pregnant almost immediately. Of course, my mom was still in her life taking care of my "supposed children" while she was doing god knows what. Then on the one year anniversary of me leaving she posted a memorial page... for me. This made me decide that my revenge was not quite done and I decided to call up my brother and let him know I was alive. My brother and I had drifted over the past 10 years, but he was blood and was always there when I was younger. I told him why I did what I did and we caught up and I asked him not to tell anyone yet and he agreed. But then he told me about my mom and my ex-fiance suing my insurance company to honor my life insurance. Somehow, she had managed to keep up this policy going despite its hefty cost. The payout would be substantial (7 figures) and she would be awarded the premiums that she had paid since my alleged death if she won.
Well I am not the kind of uncivilized person that would defraud an insurance company so I started my plans! I drove the 1000mile journey to my old city when I heard she had an upcoming hearing and listened to "highway to hell" half the way down.
I went to the court early and sat down. Now at this time I had grown a beard, lost 60 pounds and generally looked good. I looked so different that my fiance and mother passed right by me in the court without giving me a second look. I thought they would be meeting in a big court room and I was already planning to barge in and yell something about objecting and being a cringelord like usual. But they ended up going to a small room with some lawyers from the insurance company. I decided frick it and knocked on the door several times until they opened it. They were all confused to see this scraggly dressed man with a beard and I simply said "I believe you are trying to settle the issue of whether I am dead". My exfiance realized it was me almost immediately and let out a gasp or something. But the lawyers were just confused. Everyone ended up stepping outside the room and a whirlwind erupted and the bailiffs were called over. MY ex screamed and slapped me and they had to actually put handcuffs on her! This was a big deal for the insurance company I guess and the lawyer's boss/client actually showed up and asked for statements and everything. Even a detective showed up and I started to regret coming but I gave my statement and did not really lie about anything, but I was vague about where I was currently living. I ended up staying in town for almost a month, and it was a crazy month in a cheap motel. I showed evidence of my ex's cheating to anyone who cared and I tried to meet with the kids, but the youngest did not know me and the then 7 year old told me to "fuck myself", which is fair I guess. The police were pissed off and started civil litigation for the costs of searching for me, a detective or soemthing actually flew in from another state to question me. Luckily this whole time I did not get arrested for anything as I did not want my fingerprints being linked to my new name an such. Essentially I had to pay a large fine and immediately paid the fine in cash to the surprise of the police. As far as I was concerned I was done with this town. My ex-fiance served me a civil lawsuit for multiple different things and my mom helped, but I was a leaf in the wind long before anything came of it. I am back in my new city and never plan to go back. I stopped spying on them after a few months of ruining her insurance plans and moved on with my life. This happened some years ago and I am much better off now, but I am tired now and need to go to sleep. If there is interest I will let you know what happened with me after all this.
UPDATE:
Hello everyone, thank you for taking interest in my life. I only want to do 1 update and lay it all out. Mostly I just wanted to let people know where I went with my life, because a lot of people seem interested. I might answer a few questions in the comments if someone has a burning question.
I am not going to say anything about how to disappear because we can't discuss potential crimes on this board, but look up the case of how **Jack Barsky a former KGB spy entered the US and obtained credentials. Literally millions of undocumented immgrants do this to be able to work for companies in the US as well. Uncle Sam just wants those taxes paid. I'm not sure about the details of the insurance investigation and how they were looking for me, but I never got so much as a phone call from them before I met them in person.
I have no intention to try to seek revenge anymore, because I believe "violent delights have violent ends" now. As far as I am concerned, my ex-fiance's life is hard enough and anything else I did would just hurt the kids. After everything blew up with my ex, I left the town and did not reach out to my brother anymore and even stopped checking up on the situation with my Ex. Having no family and friends and starting over in the world is lonely and terrifying, but equally exciting and hopeful.
So how did I reset my life upon reaching a new city? Well I had a lot of money in cash that I used to stay in a motel for a few months while I got all my documents in order and looked for work. Because I thought that my home computer would be searched when I went missing, I could not really plan much of this stuff beforehand. I realized that without a college degree linked to your name, it was difficult to find a job with my skillset. So I decided to just make my own company and post advertisements about setting up custom dispatch software, editing videos and presentations, among other tasks. I only received a few different jobs doing this and it did not even pay my living expenses. After I did a few jobs for the same company, I made friends with a project manager and got hired at a reasonable salary. To this day, my finances are only about 70% of what I was making before, but I am happy with what I have.
I spent a lot of time finding people with similar stories on the internet and eventually got involved with a Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) group. We basically just talked shit about women all the time and the positive feedback loop made me a pretty resentful/misogynistic person. I went so far as making fake accounts to harrass women online, so I don't want to go into anymore details because I am a bit embarrassed and remorseful now. I got on Tinder and started hooking up with women to make up for lost time. Throwing money around and lying to them became a way of life for me and I would cheat on basically every woman I got with because I thought they were all doing it too. I got caught and I would pretend like I didn't understand why they were mad with me until they left or tried to forgive me just for me to do it again. Not proud of this either.
A couple of years ago one of the women that I was sleeping with regularly got pregnant and came to me all excited with the news. Now I immediately accused her of cheating and threw her out of my apartment and there was just a look of shock on her face. Remember, I thought I was infertile so in my mind I just put another THOT in her place. I continued to mock her for a bit and even messaged my MGTOW buddies about what I did. I openly confessed to cheating on her and showed her proof. I agreed to a paternity test while she was still pregnant just because I didn't want her to get the courts involved and I was shocked with the result. I cried and tried to hug her and she screamed threw some papers at me and told me she never wanted to see me again. I went home and drank, happy that I was going to be a dad(for real this time) but sad who I had become. Like I said, I don't want you to root for me because I am not a good person.
For the remainder of the pregnancy, she would not even speak to me long enough for me to explain my actions, but I totally understood why. When the baby was born(a girl), I showed up to the hospital to sign the birth certificate and at the same time met with her lawyer (which turned out to be her sister) to go over child support stuff that we had already spoke about. I went for a "hail marry" and offered to sign any paper they wanted if she would just have coffee with me for 30 minutes to explain things (She wanted full custody and generous payments). I never got a lawyer because I just wanted to make amends and I thought a lawyer would throw up obstacles to try to protect me or my finances.
I met with her for coffee and to my surprise she let me speak uninterrupted for almost 20 minutes. I did not completely tell her the truth about my past, but she understood why I wanted a paternity test, but did not excuse my behavior in mocking her, throwing her out, and cheating. I signed the papers, but begged her to let me see my daughter and be part of her life. She said that I was unstable and that I needed intensive therapy before that would ever happen. Of course I obliged to the therapy.
I learned a lot in therapy and did a lot of research about the fallout of cheating and whatnot. Turns out there are a lot of women who had been hurt by cheaters and homewreckers too(duh) and that my view of women was toxic to say the least. I cut it off with my MGTOW buddies because I thought that atmosphere would be a detriment to my progress. I don't want to attack that group, because I think there are some good people in that group that are just broken and looking for answers. I think having a baby girl was a real punch in the gut to stop treating women so poorly.
I was finally able to see my daughter when she was 7 months old and began supervised visits every other weekend. I had dutifully paid the child support and made every attempt to talk to her mother and try to make amends. One night after our daughter we got drunk and started kissing which turned into sex. When we woke up the next morning she was emberassed and just asked me to leave, but she made it seem like she kind of wanted to make things work. It took a long time but we moved in together after she lost her job to Covid19 and are currently living together. Her family hates me and this has held us back from marriage talk or anything. Hell, I skipped our daughter's 2nd birthday celebration because her lawyer-sister didn't want to see me. I hope this turns out well for me, and I know I already have better than I deserve. For now, the pandemic has me working from home and my girl takes care of our daughter and makes me food and such. She is still suspicious of me and comes into my office to see what I am doing regularly, but I don't mind. For now, I'm just going to try to be there for my daughter and try to make it up to her mom. I'm still trying to think of things I can do or say but for now I am still in zoom therapy and just doing my best. I don't think I can ever really tell anyone everything, which is why I decided to tell the strangers of reddit. I am sorry for those people that thought I was a hero in my initial post.
Please don't let your hatred boil inside you friends, I almost missed out on something great and I may still miss out if I am not careful. This is going to be the only update, unless I come back years from now to tell you all what happened. Best of luck to everyone.
Small edit: Someone corrected me that the spy I was thinking of was Jack Barsky not Yuri Besmenov!
submitted by LazarusThrowaway to ProRevenge [link] [comments]
My expat fatFIRE journey abroad (long)
I am 32/Canadian and had a very high paying career that had a short shelf life. During my high producing years I wanted to move out of Canada to another country where I could save as much as I could for my future because I knew my income would not last forever.
"Abroad" was a weird term form me. Despite being Canadian and having lived most of my adult years in Canada I felt like everywhere was abroad for me.
I was born in one of the poorest countries of Europe and lived there until I was 17 years old. The country has come a long way today but when I go back I never fit in. I definitely feel more connected with Canada than the country I was born in.
I think a big reason why I focused so hard on work was to never get back to the level of poverty I grew up as a child. Think of North Korea and Venezuela in one combo. In 1997 there was a complete lock down due to civil war and my family was lucky enough to survive because we had a vegetable garden and chickens. If you left your home you could be shot/robbed or worse be killed from stepping on a mine. The city was covered in them.
The other reason was that women got treated like second class citizens where I was born and my childhood was a living hell where I wasn't even allowed to walk on the street alone (even after they took out the mines), talk to members of the opposite sex or have any friends. Dating was not a concept and if they know you are "dating" you have to immediately get engaged and then married and have children or else you are a "whore".
I always had a bubbly personality when I was young, I liked to act, dance, and really liked learning. I was also interested in entrepreneurship and got a full scholarship at York University to study business but to my parents a woman is not suited for business and they pushed me to study molecular biology instead. I hated my University years. I battled depression and never really saw a future for myself with biology.
I ran away from home at 19 and asked my local university what help was there for someone like me that wanted to start a business. To my surprise they were very helpful and told me about grants and loans I could apply to get started. My first business was face painting and entertainment for children's birthday parties and events. I remember I got a $5000 loan and it seemed like so much money at the time. It helped me buy my first car and get started. I grew my business from just me to having 10 employees, having permanent booths in theme parks and festivals in Canada. It was hard work but I loved it. During the time I was still in university and most of my work was summeweekends so it worked out ok.
I remember I was growing more and more fed up with my studies and walked out of my last exam with a smile feeling absolute freedom. I never finished my degree and I was so ok with it even if I was one exam away from graduation. I didn't care about the crazy amounts of student loans I had accumulated. All I wanted was to grow my business and make money. It gave me that thrill that sitting in a lab using a microscope never did.
One day I became curious about online streaming and after having a few drinks with a friend I made an application on a popular site (at the time). The site was more like webcamming but you were allowed to do whatever you wanted on cam as long as there was no guys.
I didn't think much of it because I was doing well with my other business. At the time I had a rocky relationship with an ex bf and decided maybe going online and flirting with men would make me feel better about my break up. Then saw this email about the site I had previously applied had accepted my application.
I did my first stream completely clothed, having fun and chatting with people. I made $4.00 usd which was shit but I had so much fun doing it so I started researching the industry more. After a few more streams I decided this had a potential to be something big and I decided to make a business plan and focus on it entirely. I was constantly doing 10-12h on cam and loved to come up with new creative ideas to entertain people.
I went from making $4.00 my first day to making just shy off a million dollars a year. The money was not the focus but being the best at what I did was.
During my high earning years I knew I had to save and plan for my future. Most of the other performers would have one good month making $150,000 then disappear and not be relevant again. I don't know how I managed to last in the industry for over 8 years, but I am greatful that my hard work was combined with luck and being at the right place/right time.
I moved to Mexico when I was 26 years old.
My life in Mexico was great the first two years. I was dating someone that was super supportive with my work schedule. It was the honeymoon phase. We would always eat out and enjoy nice places and expensive travel. I was always frugal with everything else but vacations and experiences. Looking back my mistake was that I paid for everything and my bf at the time felt used to this cushy life that ended up expecting it. He was bad with managing money too and had a lot of debt which stupiditly I ended up paying off.
During this time I had bought various income properties in central Mexico (in a retirement village) and the agreement was that since I was making more money with my online business which required long hours on cam, my ex was supposed to take care of property management. At first he was engaged then ended up not so pationate about it. I felt used and underappreciated.
When I realized all this I was pregnant with our child. He told me he was unhappy living in a retirement village and wanted to move to a bigger city in Mexico. I told him we could try it out because it would offer more opportunities for our child as well. That's where things went downhill. He constantly ignored me and refused to help with chores in the house. I had a high risk pregnacy so I couldn't do much myself either.
After a few months he ended up cheating and experienced a mental break down, trying to commit suicide. I was crushed. I didn't know what happened and despite my efforts to send him to get the best medical help in the country he never was the same. I really wanted to help him get back on his feet again because I thought we were a team for life. I was wrong.
He ended up leaving the country one day when my son was only a few months old and has not been back in over 3 years. I have never heard back from him and I don't know if he's dead or alive.
I was crushed and myself experienced a complete burn out from work/personal loss at the time. Physically I became ill too and dropped down up 42 kg. I knew I had to do something about it because I had a son to take care of.
Looking back at it now it was an amazing opportunity for me to realize there was more to life than work. It helped me realize that I should have not provided everything just because I loved someone but let them provide and create on their own. If they refused I had to know they were using me as a wallet and to not get involved.
RETIREMENT
It's been one full year since I have been completely off work. It happened in 2020 out of all years. Before I tried to work on and off but my love for my job wasn't the same.
I can say I feel much less stressed than I did years ago. My health is better and my sleep schedule is so much better than it was before.
For the first time I now feel more Integrated in Mexico and I don't think I am missing out much not living in Canada.
Where I live it's safe, it has a high quality of life and there's a lot of international business around. Not that I want to open a new business here but I think it's important to be surrounded by other people that have seen more of the world and are also successful.
On top of that I have always felt like a hybrid of many cultures and being surrounded by people that have moved around the world means that we get to be hybrids together and they understand me better than say someone that lived in Canada/USA all their lives and never left the country.
Mexico has many bad things as well but no county is perfect. Choosing the right location to live in Mexico is very important to not be affected a lot by the bad things.
The pace of life is also much more calmer than in Canada and the US. This can be bad if you want to start a business here but it's a good place to be during retirement.
Also people are a lot less "offended" from things and I find it's easier to make friends than it was in Canada. My general perception of Canada was that people in Canada are very helpful to strangers but much colder if you want to have a meaningful friendship. Of course there are exceptions but that was my experience.
One thing I did not like about the western culture is the victim mentality that the youth of today are embracing. If they can't get something they usually blame the government for not doing enough for them.
Some women blame men for "the patriarchy" and some Canadians blame foreigners because 'they took away their cheap homes and they can't afford real estate'
Having lived in a real "shit hole" country where women get treated like crap I want to remind you that Canada and the US are the land of opportunities compared to most of the world.
Success is not guaranteed for anyone but all the information is free in English for you to look up and use it to your advantage. You don't even have to learn a second language to access it.
Being a woman or a minority gives you the same legal rights as everyone else if not more sometimes. I don't think most western feminists know what it's like to live in a muslim country.
My point is: Westerners are not grateful enough for what they have.
Complaining is human nature so of course it happens in Mexico but the majority know that their government won't do shit for them and they focus on what they can do as an individual. This can be bad too wich is reflected in the general sentiment Mexicans have for public property but that's another problem I won't get into.
Overall i am happy where I have come in my journey. I know I haven't got it all figured out despite having a 4.5 million net worth I don't feel complete being 100% retired.
I am currently building real estate in Mexico, investing in stocks and excercising to keep me busy.
After things open up I will travel more but the urge to have everything figured out which I experienced immediately once I stopped working is less.
Also: It's lonely at the top:
I like to think of myself as an easy and approachable person, however I think having a different upbringing and dedicating and reaching high levels of financial success at a very young age, makes relating to most people not as easy. I think humans form stronger bonds when they share and solve similar problems together. That's why I lurk in this forum from time to time. It makes me realize at the end of the day I'm not alone.
A lot of the questions that get asked here on a daily basis are questions that I ask myself all the time.
The funny part is that no one has the answers, I don't either and the more I live the more I realize that the answers don't matter.
The only realisation I have so far is:
The key to being rich is living in the moment, enjoying the company of your loved ones and being greatful for what you have.
Don't let your brain trick you into overthinking and stay away from the compulsion to use fatFIRE calculators all the time.
Just get out for a walk instead and leave your phone at home. We could be hit by a car tomorrow and none of that shit matters as much as you think.
Edit: since many have asked the country was Albania. I responded here how I ended up in Canada:
https://www.reddit.com/fatFIRE/comments/lh30x8/my_expat_fatfire_journey_abroad_long/gmwn401?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3 submitted by brightwall7 to fatFIRE [link] [comments]
Lockdown 3.0 Things to do, plus help and support.
Disclaimer I want to thank everyone for the gilds, replies and suggestions. I just do not have time to reply to everyone, but I am reading everything. I am not sure how much bigger the thread can be, I already typed this but it vanished so I think I'm at the limit. I will try to keep updating, but I don't expect the thread to be up top for much longer and will likely vanish soon, so if you need anything save it. Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it.
Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions:
For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month!
For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k.
I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device.
Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers
- Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
- Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
- Now TV (I believe it's 7 days)
- Disney+
- Britbox
- Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder
If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system.
Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section.
Completely free TV
If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox.
Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like.
Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird.
Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device.
For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV.
Anime
If you are into Anime there is
The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two.
PC Centric software
If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design
Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12.
Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development.
The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals.
Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap.
Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam.
**BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however.
IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff.
Game Store Fronts
- Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
- Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
- GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
- Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
- Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
- Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
- Games with Gold Bleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.
Gaming Subscriptions
Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months
- Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
- Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
- EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
- PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.
There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that.
Audiobooks & Ebooks
- Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
- Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
- Marvel Unlimited No experience with this. ItFuckingWont wanted me to add it. A subscription service for Marvel.
Education
- Sign Language BSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
- BBC's Bitesize here is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.
If you need some spare change
Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. These are NOT a quick way to make a fortune. These are small things you can do over time for a bit of pocket change
- If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the details According to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
- Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
- Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
- There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
- Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
- Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."
That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment.
Hope it helps someone at least
PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year
fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75!
tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books
Learning Language
Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments:
Togtogtog Gives a lot of links for Spanish
Board & Tabletop games
Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games
ilyemco suggested these
HEALTH
I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix.
Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7.
If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery.
HELP & ADVICE
The lockdown Rules.
Reasons to leave home include:
- Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
- Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
- Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
- Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
- Communal religious worship
- Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house
I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)
Support
FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THE ROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
_riotingpacifist wanted these links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:
Update:
Digital Art
These are Free
- Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
- Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
- Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.
You can pick up a drawing tablet on Amazon quite cheap these days! Small ones that are just a black slate such as the wacom ones are good but takes some practice to get use to, but very worth it if you can't afford a dedicated drawing tablet with a screen.
Office suit software
A couple of free applications for word processing, spreadsheets etc.
- LibreOffice This has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
- Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.
Music Making
I'm going to direct to matthewharris806 for some links as all the programs I've used like Reason are expensive, or cheaper stuff in bundles such as Magix software.
Games development
D_Dad_Default gives some links for that here
submitted by MrSoapbox to unitedkingdom [link] [comments]
Dear Reddit. I have started writing a book of short stories about my life as a hobo. True to my nature of blowing money faster than it came, or blowing the opportunity of even making it, I love you assholes and will let you read the book for free as I write it from the beginning. Enjoy
Chapter One: Bozeman or Bust (lots of bust)
I had done it once again, like so many other years before, by traveling north to one of the harshest and coldest states that a hobo could possibly go to during the dead of winter, late-January 2021: Mon-fucking-tana. Or as the locals jokingly say, "Montucky". (edit: Shout-out to Montucky Cold Snacks, the cheap horse-piss watered down beer that is Montana's equivalent of Washington's "Rainier Ale" or Oregon's "Session Lager"). I digress.
If I was a goose, I'd surely be the Jonathan Livingston Seagull of the flock…the black sheep shitshow of a goose flying in the completely wrong direction at the worst time of the year. As forementioned, this was not the first time, nor second time, that I've done this. In fact, it's become a habit, if not straight-up routine.
Laramie, Wyoming circa November 2016. Glendive, Montana circa January 2015 Minot, North Dakota circa January 2014. Yukon, Canada circa November 2013. Bellingham, Washington circa January 2006. The list goes on, and on, and on…
And here I am. Bozeman Fucking Montana, circa January-February 2021. The locals say it's an unusually warm winter, which by Montana's standards might include 5 inches of snow in the afternoon and temperatures dropping below 10F degrees at night. However, according to the high standards of a low-class hobo born and raised on the Gulf Coast of Alabama, this weather is colder than a witches tit.
Now, that's not to say that I ain't prepared though. I assure you that I am. Sixteen years of living on the road and rails has made this black goose a well-seasoned bird, with all the trimmings. I have a military sleeping bag that can keep me alive down to negative 30 temperatures. My military backpack is waterproof, and so are the snowboarding pants that I wear under my insulated Carharrt overalls. I have alpaca wool thermal pants, merino wool socks, thermolite waterproof boots, thinsulated gloves, and several wool and polyster beanie hats. My dual-layer mountaineering tent can withstand hurricane-force winds and all the snow that a blizzard can muster.
Winter? Montana? Bring it bitch. Hit me with your best shot. You know I like it. wink
Sigh. However, DESPITE the freezing temperatures and shit tons of snow, there's a lil secret that I've learned during my many years of traveling, and that secret is certainly DUE to these wintery conditions: Jobs! Lots and lots and lots and lots of jobs! Jobs here, jobs there, jobs every-fucking-where. Hotel jobs, restaurant jobs, retail jobs, construction jobs, maintenance jobs, driving jobs, even jobs just to help other people get more damn jobs!
You want a job during winter? Well they got jobs out northern Californie way, Oregonie way, Montanie way, Washingtonie way, North and South Dakotie way, and every which way can go above above the Mason-Dixon line!
If you can't find a damn job in the Northwestern United States of America during winter, you ain't fucking looking, and that's a fact. If you got one arm and you can swing a hammer, or punch a number on a cash register, then consider yourself hired on the spot and you can start today.
Before this chapter turns into an entire damn book of its own (A Hobo's Guide to Finding Jobs) let's get back to the story here: Bozeman or Bust.
As I begin this chapter, I have a red-wine hangover that is enough to drive me to a bullet in the head. I made a pot of coffee only to puke it back up on my hands and knees in front the porcelain thrown. I think it was good ole Earnest Hemingway that once said "Write Drunk, Edit Sober". Experienced words of wisdom from a fine man that knew everything a man could possibly know about drinking shit tons of wine and writing shit tons of stories. I wouldn't be lying if I was to confess that Mr. Hemingway, along with Mr. Steinbeck and Mr. Twain, are drunken heroes of mine that I could only hope someday to sit alongside in the bookstores of Hell and Hades with a gallon of cheap Merlot. Salut, gentleman.
After puking, rolling cigarettes, drinking coffee, and puking several times more, I was finally able to sit down to try and remember what-the-fuck happened yesterday; a solemn meditation technique that involves tons of coffee and contemplation; a time to worship the asinine achievements that are accompanied in both rejoice and regret.
Yesterday started off sober as a saint. I had a job interview at this place I had found on craigslist, some place looking for fresh warm bodies to fill up their production-assembly line. I took a bus to the address they had given me, which ended up being the adress to the Bozeman City Bank.
"A bank?", I thought, as I wondered around the parking lot dumbfounded and confused for a solid 5 minutes, checking the address several times on my phone, wondering why on earth I've been sent to a state bank. After circling the parking lot, I noticed a door on the side of the bank that said "Job Choices Employment Services: Second Floor".
Godammit. I had been fucking conned. Fucking craigslist. I know what's going on here…this a goddamn employment agency that wants to take 10-15 percent of my paycheck, take away my rights to healthcare and benefits, in the so-called promise of finding me a "great career path of opportunity".
Employment agencies. Just like rats. The only "opportunity" here was them: Creatures of opportunity, parasites hellbent on scavaging peoples money and benefits. "A not-even-close-to-great career path of 9-5 slave-labor bullshit involving years of suckling away your mind, body, and spirit", the sign on the door should have read.
This was definitely a mistake. And anyone that has ever had the unfortunate pleasure of being with me can you tell one thing about me: I fucking love mistakes. I love making them, and I love learning from them. I am a walking-talking connoisseur of mistakes. In fact, I just made a mistake trying to spell connoisseur, so I asked Google "Hey Google, spell connoisseur", and due to lack of interpreting my Alabama accent, Google made the mistake of showing me the word Coitus. I have now learned that the word "coitus" is another word for sex. As a writer and the son of an English teacher, I love learning new words. As a human male, I love sex. So learning a new word for "sex" is a fantastic trade-off for that fortunate mistake!
I digress.
I decided to walk into the bank, up the stairs to the second floor, and down the hall to the employment agency. A well-dressed and very sexy debutant by the name of Tracy stood up and greeted me with a smile that was formal, professional, and admittedly very sexy.
While my dirty mind started playing cheap porn music, along with vivid images of me and Tracy wrecking that office like wild alleycats, I was suddenly snapped back into reality with Tracy's sexy voice, saying:
"Hey, you must be Mr. Huck! Are you here for the 3:00 o'clock interview? Could you please start by filling out this application? You can have a seat over at the desk here"…
Godammit. This employment agency was GOOD. I was Tracy's submissive little slut. I walked right where Tracy told me to walk, sat right in the chair Tracy pulled out for me to sit in, and I started filling out the application with the ballpoint pen that Tracy had somehow put in my hand without me even realizing it. Tracy could have stolen my wallet and the 11 dollars inside of it as well, had she wanted to, and I wouldn't have even noticed. And even if I had noticed, I would have let her do it anyway. Godammit!
As I started to fill out the application, I got to the section I dreaded most: job references. Oh boy…allow me to tell you a little about Huck's references, or lacktherof:
At my last job, I was fired because of a fight that broke-out between my ex-girlfriend and myself, which began with lots of shouting and shoving, and ended with me getting a black-eye from being punched in the face twice. Fun fact: Italian women are fiery as they are fierce, and bold as they are beautiful. And just like their male Italian counterparts, such as Sylvester Stalone or Al Capone, they know how to land a solid right jab. This fight erupted in the worker's dormitory for all employees to hear and see. And although I was the one with the swollen black eye, I was the one they decided to fire. C'est la vie, such is life. Que sera sera, it be what it fucking be.
We can scratch that job off as a reference, without a doubt.
The job before that, I was at a marijuana farm called "Great American Cannabis", in which my managers and co-workers tried to recruit me into a far-right group of sexist and racist baboons called "The Proud Boys".
There was a pre-determining factor in why that farm had hired me, and assumed I would be interested in their idealogical gang. That pre-determing factor was the very same factor that led Google to teaching me the wrong word and definition: my Alabama accent.
Great American Cannabis had hired me based on a phone interview, in which they assumed my southern accent indicated two things, in which case one of their assumptions was right, and one was wrong:
Assumption Numero Uno: Huck has an Alabama accent, which therefore indicates that he has years of experience working on farms, growing plants, and being an honest and hard-worker.
Assumption Numero Dos: Huck has an Alabama accent, therefore he must be idealogically aligned with far-right beliefs including sexism and racism.
Welp, I am proud to say that even that although a 50% winning percentage may be fine and dandy with gambling in Vegas, and can be seen as half full or half empty based on however optimisitic or pessimistic you might be, in the case of Great American Cannabis and The Proud Boys, those odds ended pretty badly.
As it turns out, despite being raised by a racist father and surrounded by bigotry in the not-so-sweet home of Alabama, those very dispositions made this black sheep child rebel from such ass-backward beliefs, and I am staunchly pro-civil rights, which means I am pro-immigration, and a proud supporter of the sufferage movement for womens right.
Obviously, that did not go very well with my co-workers at the farm, and I was fired within the first month. But wait, theres more tragic humor to the story of this farm, which I'll organize in two keypoints:
Keypoint Numero Uno: The farm was owned by Iranian immigrants. I…shit…you…not. That's right. YOU DID READ THAT CORRECTLY. Not only was the farm owned and managed by a minority group of immigrants, those very immigrants came directly from the very country is at the VERY TOP of White-America's shitlist: Iran.
Keypoint Numeros Dos: After I was fired based almost entirely according to my leftist and progressive views on race and gender equality, within just a couple of weeks nearly everybody on the farm was fired and replaced by cheaper immigrant labor in the form of Laotian women. That's right…a white-blooded American-born legal-working male, was replaced by brown-blooded, foreign-born, mostly-illegal-working females, on a farm owned and managed by right-wing racists and sexists that were anti-immigration. Once again, I…shit…you…fucking…not...let THAT shit sink in.
I literally cannot make this shit up, and let it be forever proof that reality, however tragic or ironic it may be, is far greater than fiction. You can write that last sentence in a letter, shove that puppy in an envelope, slap that bitch with a stamp, and mail it to the fucking MOON. Or you can mail it to Iran, or Laos, whichever you prefer.
However, I digress.
So, being that I was fired from Great American Cannabis by a bunch of Iranian Proud Boys, you can scratch that job off of the "reference" list as well. Sigh.
So, how about the job before that? Well, that's a hell of a story too, but I'll make it quick and cut shorter to the chase:
I worked on a fishing boat for a Mormon captain. Although I loved him like a Dad, and he often treated me like a son, my job ended in these words:
"Huck, I really like you. You're one of the hardest working deckhands I've ever had, despite it being a very terrible year for fishing. However, as a man that is a Latter Day Saint of God, as a Mormon, I'm going to have to ask you to leave because of three reasons:
1) You smoke cigarettes, marijuana, and drink alcohol and coffee.
2) You curse worse than a sailor.
3) You are an atheist/agnostic."
And in case you, the reader did not know: Mormons HATE cigarettes, marijuana, alcohol, AND coffee. They are forbidden to curse, and they are not even allowed to tolerate the company of anyone that isn't a believer in God.
Well Godammit. How in the hell am I so goddamn misfortunate and unlucky, to be the must FIRST FUCKING PERSON in the entire HISTORY OF FISHING, that has gotten fired for using curse words and drinking whiskey. I couldn't even absorb the fact that my boss was firing me because I couldn't get over the fact that I was possibly the first sailor or fisherman in all of ocean-faring humanity that had gotten fired for doing what sailors and fisherman are guaranteed and known to do best: drinkin' and cursin'
We can also scratch THAT job off the possible reference list as well.
It was at this point in the office of Job Choices Bozeman that the porn music had long since stopped playing in my head, and that I suddenly and swiftly fell deeply into a full blown existential crisis right there in Tracy's office while simply trying to think of a single reference from my last 3 jobs. The unbelievable amount of misfortune, tragedy, irony, and utter insanity of my last 3 job experiences had truly started to sink in, and I was beginning to legitimately lose my temporary grasp on sanity along with my faith in humanity altogether in one great, big, sloppy sandwich of existential fucking crisis.
Allow me to self-diagnose this existential crisis sandwich by peeling off some of the layers of this enormous stinking onion that is in the middle of it all: Either that curse that was put on me a few years ago by a Mexican trainhopping gypsy from New Orleans is proof that curses are indeed fucking real, or either I am the unluckiest son of a bitch on this entire planet that is so very unlucky that I am slowly (or quickly) coming to the conclusion that this entire life is a simulation that is programmed by some sick comedic asshole that specializes in the tragedies of both irony AND misfortune. And though some people in this world call that programmer God or Allah or Jehovah, I call him Jeff. I call him "Jeff in Programming", with same amount of disdain and hatred that Michael Scott refers to "Toby in Human Resources" in the American version of the show "The Office".
(Sidenote: If you do not understand my last reference because you have not watched The Office, then you need to stop reading this book right now, go sign up for one month of Netflix, and spend that entire month binge-watching one of the greatest sitcoms ever made in the history of television: The Office (US Version). Go. Now!)
I digress.
As I collapsed into a full-blown existential crisis while thinking of job references on the second floor employment services office above Montana State Bank, my fantasy-based relationship with Tracy was also about to crumble into an existential crisis as well, based on two very important qualities:
Quality Numero Uno: Tracy and I had no relationship that actually existed outside of my head and a stupid job application form. We had never knocked over all of the filing cabinets, water-cooler, or broken the copying machine with tantric sex. That scenario never existed period.
Quality Numeros Dos: I was about to not only lie, but also commit non-existent adultery to Tracy, thus putting a very real end to a not-very-real relationship.
I stood up from the desk that me and Tracy had never fucked on, and I told Tracy that I had to use the bathroom. And though I did really have to use the bathroom, it wasn't for the purpose of pissing or taking a shit, it was for the purpose of throwing the application in the toilet and sneaking my way down the hallway and out of the employment agency. In which case, that is precisely what I did.
Upon stepping out of the door and back into the parking lot of Bozeman City Bank, I noticed another hot little woman across the street: A dazzling red-headed freckle-faced damsel by the name of Wendy, who promised in her fertile bosom the birth of two-dollar cheeseburgers and loaded baked potatoes. I went inside Wendy's house, and began to have an oral relationship by penetrating my mouth with nearly everything that was offered on Wendy's dollar-value menu.
Stop here, acquire coffee, booze, and cigarettes until I feel like writing again, which may be later tonight, tomorrow morning, or possibly fucking never
submitted by huckstah to vagabond [link] [comments]
Peegate update
The modmin team of AITA agreed that my update was not up to standard with the subs guidelines and decided it would be best for it not to be there. A special thank you to
u/SpiderGwen42 for telling me i could write it on my own page.
I apologize in advance for the very long read, a lot of things happened. Here is the link to the
first part TL;DR peeman is not moving in.
Each section that is divided was written at different times throughout the last few days. I didn’t want to overwhelm you and make you wait with 6000 edits so here is the whole story.
—- So I showed Ted the post as you guys suggested and after reading some comments Ted understood that he had done wrong by me and that even though I was okay with it it was still inappropriate of him and the whole family to be how they are. He apologized profusely for not demanding more from himself, his family and his brother when the whole thing happened and that Ash moving in with us was absolutely not going to happen. Being an engineer too he asked some professional contacts if there were any job opportunities for Ash. One of those contacts ended up being someone who works for the same company Ash did and told Ted that Ash hadn’t been fired, that he had quit but that he was welcome to have his job back.
Ted went to confront Ash about this (we live a couple hours away) while i was at work (I work 2 jobs, one at night 4-12pm and one part time during the day( because i want to and it brings me joy not because my husband is lacking in any way) and found some stuff that started a chain of events and truth unveilings that tbh just make me sad more than anything else. Yeah yeah i know i’m being spineless again and should be outraged but i’m just tired right now and want to just sleep but i’ve gotten enough nice and hateful messages that i figured i owed you guys closure.
—- I’m probably going to get crap for sharing all of this but right now I don’t care, this is a resumed (yet still very long) version of everything that happened since my OP:
B stands for brother (of ted’s), if I say wife #X please refer to the number of brother, not that any of them have multiple wives.
B#1 doctor with some type of military background. Wife, 3 kids. B#2 surgeon, wife, 2 dogs and a bearded dragon B#3 engineer, fiancé and dog B#4 teacher and researcher, wife, 1 kid B#5 ??? Works in IT not sure of details, wife B#6 doctor, single and ready to mingle B#7 “chef”/ businessman,wife, 1 kid B#8 car sales, wife, 3 kids, fish B#9 Ted (wife and cat) B#10 Ash
I sat down with Ted to talk about everything you pointed out, he apologized immensely, we cried together, promised to do and be better. As you are now all aware his family is complicated and not rocking the boat was embedded into his heart. We both agreed to go to individual therapy, and if both therapists suggest we do couples then we do couples therapy too. He ordered a tshirt that says ‘The most okayest human in the universe’ to cheer me up a bit.
Anyway Ted calls his connections and finds out Ash didn’t quit, is pissed about all the drama this is causing and goes to confront him. He goes into his place, Ash is not there (Ted has a key for emergencies) he goes in anyway and waits. He eventually has to go to the (guest) bathroom and it’s locked, so he goes into his room to use that bathroom and found a “situation” was the word he used when he told me. He called me, tells me to stay home and that he would be home later because he had to involve his family and didn’t want to subject me to more than he already had which had me thinking the worst but at that point I was scared and just told him to come back soon and be safe.
About 2 hours later wife#8 calls me crying to ask if I’m okay i say idk Ted just told me vaguely about the situation and I haven’t heard since, she asks if I want to know which I did and then she starts off by apologizing saying that they didn’t know the whole story that B#5 had read my post and called B#7 to complain about me sharing the story online (apparently having your BIL pee in your stuff isn’t common enough that he knew it was our family by reading it /s), B#7 reads the story an says there’s a few things about my version of events that sound off to him, he contacts B#2 who contacts their mom and by this point they’ve all read it. I did have missed calls from B#6 and B#2 that I didn’t answer because I was working,
Anyway as many of you guessed the therapist part of Ash’s story was sketchy, turns out that the “therapist” he had been going was a friend of his with 0 actual training and just pretended to be his therapist so his mom would get off his back about it. He faked going to therapy (which his mom paid for) for about 3 years. My MIL found out and kept it secret, which she excused by saying she had forgiven other brothers for worse. All of this came to light because B#2 confronted her about Ash not apologizing to me because they were under the false impression that he had apologized and I had forgiven him (since I have a track record of being a doormat and the fact he was best man) which is why they were pushing him to live with us. They also didn’t know “the territorial incident” had been going on for months, they knew it was a few instances but not as many as they actually were.
Back to wife#8 she tells me B#3, #4 and #8 were coming because Ted had asked for help which freaked me out and she tells me to talk to wife#1 because she could use some support. I hang up and Ted had been calling me while I was on the phone and he just kept saying he’s so sorry and that his brothers will take care of everything so I just tell him to spit it out that I just spoke with w#8 and didn’t currently have the patience to be kept in the dark and apparently Ash has some mental issues and absolutely despises me and had pictures of me on his bathroom covered both in pee and manjuice. He apparently also had some of B#1s daughter (F14) (I honestly don’t know what she did to him to deserve this).
Ted, disgusted and enraged with this goes into the bedroom and finds in his nightstand photo books that were supposed to be at his parent’s, which you can take a wild guess whose pictures were cut out and scratched off (all the comments about psychotic behavior were more accurate than I would’ve liked) which he drops out of disgust when he sees our wedding photo yellow stained. He goes to pick it up and the cat is under the bed frightened and malnourished, when he coerces her out she is also covered in dried pee and manjuice.
At this point B#6 calls him because I wasn’t answering, Ted tells him what he found and that Ash is not home and that he had to take the cat to the vet and B#6 tells him to stay there until they found out where Ash is. They start calling each other, B#1 is furious, threatened to kill him because of his daughter (which is the reason he wasn’t one of the ones to come). Now all of the brothers know and there’s a lot of feelings going around ranging from fury to concern and they don’t know where Ash is.
Ted calls his mom to confront her about lying and covering and reuniting them (although she didn’t know he was lying about the therapist when she reunited them) and she cried and said that she knew B#1 through #8 had tormented Ash when he was little and she had done nothing about it and failed as a mother and that she had been trying to protect him now to make up for it. I do remember when we got married my MIL was very on top of Ash and I just thought she was just being motherly, later Ted told me he also remembers his mom asking if it was a good idea to have him as best man which we were both too Naive to notice as odd as she had always pushed Ted to be present in Ash’s life, which she told him in their confrontation that the more present Ted was in his life the more stable he was. She said she never told him because she didn’t want to put that kind of pressure on him (Ted) and that by the time she realized he had been lying he seemed “fine” and had “outgrown” his issues.
After hanging up on his mom is when he called me apologizing and tells me all of this, I called out of my other job because there’s no way I can go to work like this. I have a lot to think about but I’ll keep you posted.
—- I called Ted and told him I was on my way there because someone has to take care of the cat, he said he didn’t want me seeing any of that but I’m honestly just worried about the cat and at this point I’m just numb and wanted to feel useful.
About an hour into the drive I got a notification from our ring (the doorbell that records the people at your door) and it’s a delivery of sunflowers which are Ted’s favorite flower (he is very secure in his masculinity please don’t make this into a thing), I tell the delivery person to read me the card (with this type of doorbell you can talk to the person at the door) and it’s from Ash saying something along the lines of “OP (me) did me dirty by sharing our problems online. Anything that comes from it will be on her”. And I just broke down, I had to pull over and just cry my heart out, I called my neighbor to please take the flowers and throw them out (and send Ted a picture) and I just drove back to go to my sister’s place because I honestly don’t know what to do.
I am so lost and all of this is so messed up and I had a huge family before any of this happened and I feel like I lost a lot of people who I love that I thought also thought of me as family but not even in my sheltered version of the world can I see or justify any of all of the things that are happening right now and I don’t want to lose my husband and I’m worried about the cat and I’m scared Ashton is going to hurt himself or my husband and I called wife#1 and she is so scared for her daughter and I don’t want her to be scared but I don’t have it in me to console her because I’m just as scared and I rationally know none of this is my fault but I am the common point between everything that’s happened and I just don’t know what to do.
—- I’m “okay” or as okay as a person can be in this type of situation. I’m at my parents house and Ted is here and he brought me my cat and life sucks less with a cat on your lap. Where to start? You’ll probably have a thousand questions by this point and I don’t know how to answer any of them since I’ve just been waiting to post all of this, maybe I won’t post it at all and keep you all wondering, I will say both this situation and some of the messages I’ve gotten have made me lose some of my faith in humanity but I guess that’s part of what makes us human.
You wanna know what’s the worst part out of all of this? I have legitimate peetsd and I don’t say that in a quirky way anymore. Every time I hear someone peeing (as in the pee hitting the water) I get this sense of dread in my chest and the world just becomes a bit staticky, going to the bathroom myself has been a whole experience. I had my first therapy appointment tho, we luckily and tragically live in a world where you can just throw money and make anything happen, thanks daddy for paying for an emergency shrink.
That was an update of how I’m doing since some of you have asked, but I’ll get to the point and the reason of why you’re all here. What happened to Ash? After the flower delivery I just couldn’t deal with this anymore and made my way back to my sister’s, Ted immediately left and came to me. B#6 is the one coordinating everything else, out of all of my BIL he is my favorite and I don’t care if the other see this, most of them have been trash to me at some point or the other clearly #10 taking the cake.
I haven’t had it in me to ask what’s going to happen to Ash, I think he needs help above everything else, b#1 clearly thinks differently and I guess he’s trying to get the police involved since his daughter is a minor. I asked Ted to see the pictures (b#2 said to document everything) because I thought it would help. It did not. It just raised more questions but hey, I have a therapist now that can talk me through them.
I guess right now I don’t have anything more to say, I’m sorry to have wasted your time, but I’m sure this isn’t over and I’ll have more to say maybe later, maybe tomorrow idk.
—- Well they found Ash, b#3, #4 and #8 showed up at his place and he was there this time. Apparently he hadn’t noticed Ted had been there and didn’t know about the shitstorm that was coming. Punches were thrown, yelling, more punches and one appointment to the ER later Ash is currently in a psychiatric hold being evaluated for a myriad of things. Ted’s mom keeps trying to get in touch, I don’t know if it’s to apologize or to inquire about what’s happening (because in general everyone is mad at her) but I’m done with her. I think this is the worst reality check a person could ever have but I certainly have learned a lot about people and trust and families.
From the information that we have Ted’s mom seems to have been right about something, Ted not being actively present in his brothers life is what brought on this madness. I guess with the pandemic and us keeping our distance it’s what started his decline. He’ll have to work through that with however methods of coping they provide him because Ted has cut off about half of his family, hopefully this time forever since I really don’t see either of us getting over this anytime soon.
Ash’s cat unfortunately didn’t make it, that’s something that I will forever feel guilty about. At some point in the last year she developed some type of kidney problem that went untreated and while she was being abused and neglected it became too late to help her. The vet said that after everything he was hearing (because they were calling the police on b#4 for animal abuse and he had to kinda explain some of the situation) she was not going to make it without suffering and he decided to put her down.
Apparently the thing with b#1s daughter was about his severe bullying when they were younger, he never actually had much contact with her, it was about getting back at #1 in the way he knew best, his daughter is going to be attending therapy just in case. I don’t know what or how much they told her but I assume they had to ask her questions about her contact with Ash and eventually they would’ve had to explain why they were asking.
I guess that’s about it, I’m not leaving my husband, I’m not peeing on anybody’s property, I’m going to therapy and I made it very clear to absolutely everyone that I will never have any of them living with us for any reason. I don’t care if they pope is with them I just feel like I lost that part of me that cared. And I guess all in all I still did not receive that apology but tbh I don’t want it either, perhaps my therapist will convince me otherwise or perhaps it’s for the best but for now I guess I’ll just idk deal with it as I can.
Update part II:
The sequel submitted by Planetsahead to u/Planetsahead [link] [comments]
My Options Overview / Guide (V2)
Greeting Theta Gang boys and girls,
I hope you're well and not bankrupt after last week. I'm just now recovering mentally myself. I saw a few WSB converts and some newbies asking for tips, so here you go. V2 of my Options guide. I hope it helps.
I spent a huge amount of time learning about options and tried to distill my knowledge down into a helpful guide. This should especially be useful for newbies and growing options traders.
While I feel I’m a successful trader, I'm not a guru and my advice is not meant to be gospel, but this will hopefully be a good starting point, teach you a lot, and make you a better trader. I plan to keep typing up more info from my notebook, expanding this guide, and posting it every couple months.
Any feedback or additions are appreciated
Per requests, I added details of good and bad trades I made. Some painful lessons learned are now included. I also tried to organize this better as it got longer. Here's what I tell options beginners: I would strongly recommend buying a beginner's options book and read it cover to cover. That helped me a lot.
I like this beginner book:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GWSXX8U/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_OxNDFb2GK9YW7 Helpful websites: Don't trade until you understand: - You can lose your entire contract value when buying.
- You can lose a lot of money when selling "naked", theoretically unlimited.
- How option expiration works.
- Theta (decay) and how it works. This is imperative since it's attrition when buying and a payout when selling. https://www.optionseducation.org/advancedconcepts/theta
- DTE: Days till expiration/expiry
- Options positions with respect to price:
- ITM: In the money; strike is below stock value. Signif
- ATM: At the money; strike is just at or above the stock value, often very highly traded. Can be very effective with moderate - long term expiry.
- NTM: Near the money; strike is above the stock value, but fairly close. Slightly unofficial term.
- OTM: Out of the money; price is at least a few strikes from the current stock price. I would say 10-30% over stock price.
- Very OTM: Not a real definition, this is essentially a lottery ticket. Cheap, but almost certain to expire worthless unless there is explosive movement.
- Understand delta in general and how delta changes with ITM and OTM options.
- Understand all the greeks at a high level, as you get better understand them well. The greeks: https://www.optionsplaybook.com/options-introduction/option-greeks/
- IV, IV crush, and how IV affects pricing. In general, you want to sell when IV is high and buy when the IV is low. Increasing IV is good for held calls/puts. IV drop or crush is generally good for sellers.
- Selling options can be quite beneficial. Once you have a good general understanding, lookup thetagang . Kamikaze Cash has good youtube videos on most theta strategies (linked above). I personally believe selling options (especially cash secured) is much safer and can consistently make you profits. Θ Gang 4 life.
- FOMO and how to avoid chasing a dangerous trend. DO NOT CHASE FROM FOMO!
- What intrinsic and extrinsic value are. Know how they are affected by being exercised/assigned and how theta affects them.
- Understand that some of WSB recommendations are straight up high-risk gambling and factor in the information accordingly. Be careful with Meme stocks and the survivorship bias on YOLO plays. However, I love the sub and think it’s hilarious. It has a lot of valuable information / DD if you are comfortable with the “colorful” language. It’s also great if you like rocket ship emojis.
Basics / Mechanics - Understand the 4 "main" option types. Buying or selling a call and buying or selling a put. Spreads and more complex multi-legged option strategies are based off these in some way (see below)
- You can sell calls with 100 shares of stock or if you own an underlying longer term option; see LEAPS and PMCCs later. Selling calls naked is incredibly risky and often requires Level 4 (very advanced) permissions and usually a lot of capital. I will literally never sell calls naked since I don't want to ruin my life and end up living in a dumpster eating saltine crackers.
- Puts can be sold/written cash covered (cash secured), which means you have the cash in your account to buy 100 shares. Your broker will put this money on hold until the trade is closed. Puts can be sold "naked" using Margin and Level 3 (with most brokers). Your broker will hold a percentage of cost of 100 shares (often 30-40%, 100% on meme stocks) allowing you to sell more puts. This increases your available capital/power as well as increasing risk.
General Tips and Ideas: - Don't EVER leave (short) spreads open on expiration day, close them. (more details below)
- Start off trading very small. Slowly build up over weeks / months. You need to get accustomed to a fifty dollar swing a day, then a few hundred, then a few thousand. You need to ensure you don't get emotional (see below). I started trading options with 5k, then 25k, 50k, and later over 100k. I added my own funds over time and used my gains to build my account. Don’t go all in immediately, that’s dangerous and unwise.
- Especially as you build up the amount of money you have invested, keep it diversified among several stocks.
- Don't go all in on one thing, ever. Be able to take a hit from one stock and not mortally wound your portfolio.
- A company may be doing great, then there's a major product issue out of nowhere. If you are overexposed in one stock this can really hurt you.
- I had to roll options I sold that were about to expire completely worthless because FDX's CEO changed and the stock took a hard dip.
- Don't trade emotionally. If you realize you are emotionally trading for vengeance, you should probably exit the trade and cool off for several days with that stock. Same if you get caught up in a wave of hysteria.
- Have a plan for every trade, ideally with entries / exits that are specific values, ranges, or a set condition. This helps remove emotions. This is super important for strong movements and high volatility (see later).
- Use an options profit calculator from your broker or an online one before entering a "new" trade, especially a complex multi legged trade: https://www.optionsprofitcalculator.com/
- “Rolling” an option: Closing your existing option and opening a similar one at different strike and/or expiration.
- Rolling a call “Up” would be selling a call you own and buying a cheaper call at a higher strike.
- Rolling a put “Down and out” closes your original one and buying or selling one at a lower strike at a longer expiry.
- Better broker interfaces have a literal “Roll” button. I know E-trade does. You can manually do it by selecting relevant contract legs.
- If you have a losing trade, re-evaluate it. If your initial assumption is definitely incorrect, close it. Don't stay in losing trades forever and lose the entire value of the option over stubbornness. If you re-evaluate and you think your assumption was right, hold, potentially consider adding another cheaper option (or buy another call / put). Rolling out sold options can help here.
- Don't try to day trade, especially with options. It's statistically unlikely to be profitable. Day-trading with options introduces extra liquidity risks and is dangerous, especially with spreads.
- Try not to over-trade, you'll likely mis-time the market over time. When I get emotional I over trade, then lose additional money on wash sales. If you scale your entries into positions it should help alleviate your desire to exit positions when they turn badly against you. Whenever I buy calls I do it at larger increments after W almost made me loss my hair; luckily it eventually came back.
- NEVER enter a position on a stock you have no idea about, especially when you read about it online or heard about it from some rando.
- At market open options contracts are often volatile and inflated. Buying during this time can be more expensive. Options are usually cheaper mid-day, I read somewhere 2-3PM is cheapest. I’ve had success around 12-1PM EST after prices settle.
- Try wheeling on cheaper stocks once you get all fundamentals down.
- When selling puts if you are very bullish consider "doubling down"; note this is higher risk. Use the credit from your put sale to buy shares or a cheap call. This can be roughly inversed with puts, except I wouldn't ever recommend shorting shares.
- Learn from your mistakes. You can’t go back in time and beating yourself up (to a point) is useless. Make a physical &/or mental note of it so you don’t do it again. If you don’t learn from it, then beat yourself up so you won’t do it again.
- If you have friends that like to trade, I find it helpful to discuss strategies and planned plays. I talk openly with my close friends about my current holdings and planned trades, it helps keep me accountable. If I get a wide-eyed look, I might be doing something excessively risky or stupid. I’ve over-leveraged myself in calls twice and I knew I shouldn’t have done it both times. When I tell my friends what I did and I’m embarrassed, it exemplifies the face that I shouldn’t have done it in the first place. You will also get ideas for new strategies or plays from them. It’s good to stay versatile and use multiple strategies when appropriate. Beware of group think/echo chambers.
- I recommend NEVER telling someone what to buy/sell and when. I’ll tell people MY plays or what I like and why, but I will not encourage them to emulate what I do. Depending on the audience, I’ll tell them my exact positions along with my exit and entrance strategy. With closer friends I’ll offer my thoughts on their trades (if asked). If my friend is doing something really risky (one of my friends does some scary stuff) I may ask them if they want my advice, and provide it, especially if they overlooked a risk/event. I will not encourage someone to execute/enter a trade since it has a high potential for hurt feelings or animosity all around.
- Don’t fall in love with a stock. Just because something made you money before and you have high confidence in it doesn’t mean it will keep performing. I joke that FDX betrayed me when it started dipping and losing me money. I was over-confident of its bounce-back and sold too many puts too quickly. I’m in several losing trades because of it. However, I will keep good stocks in my rostetracking list or try different strategies or re-enter trades when they change their behavior.
- As you start to both buy and sell options and get more experience in general, you'll start seeing the two sides to every trade. You will likely start adjusting your strategies or trying new trades out because of this. Things will likely click one day. Most/all the greeks and options concepts will become almost second nature. For me this was when I could build an Iron Condor from scratch, which was a watershed moment involving a good understanding of many strategies.
- Understand Liquidity and volume.
- Trading in low volume, low open interest contracts results in wide bid/ask spreads and difficulty having your contracts filled. Look at all the data for a contract, not just the strike and price.
- Monthly Expiration dates typically have better liquidity.
- Multi-legged trades (Common examples are 2-legged vertical spreads or 4-legged iron condors) have more difficulty being filled, especially on bad brokers like Robin Hood. Having very liquid options for all legs is extremely helpful in obtaining timely and well-priced fills, which maximize your potential profits.
- Time in market vs timing the market:
- It is extremely difficult to time the market perfectly. If you wait for the perfect opportunity forever, history has proven you will miss out on gains. Keeping all your money out of the market has proven to be ineffective. Now if there is something serious happening with a stock/the market (like say a new pandemic), don’t go all in. I recommend entering incrementally at dips. If the stock has huge upside potential it may never go down, so it might make sense to partially enter at the current price.
- IMIO selling puts is a great strategy to get into a stock you like, or at least make money off it. I think buying stock in lots of 100 is usually for suckers. Selling an ATM or ITM put (assuming the math works out) on a stock you were going to buy and hold is ALMOST free money.
- I recommend keeping some cash available regardless. If you have a very large account or expect a downturn, hedging with indexes like QQQ, SPY, or VIX or calls/puts may be wise.
- Every trade can't be a winner. You will take some losses, you must get used to it. I don’t like having a realized loss of 1K or more on any trade. However, this will happen, especially with larger accounts.
- As long as you win more often and beat the S&P that year I consider it okay. I’m kind of aggressive, so I consider 20%+ annually good. 30%+ annually is great. 40%+ and I’m dancing. After trading options I am almost baffled by my old belief that 5% annual returns (mostly from dividend ETFs) was “good”. That’s nothing to me now since I’m willing to take risks. Note: While lots of people danced in 2020, realize that’s an insane Bull Run year and is atypical.
- Adhere to your own risk tolerance and never over-extend yourself, especially with margin use. Don’t make huge gambles leaving you uncomfortable. Only gamble with money you are willing to lose.
- My personal strategy is to make safer gains for the year and then enter slightly riskier strategies using those gains. I can be slightly-moderately more aggressive and compound my gains. For me I often sell puts to make money, then when I see a big opportunity I’ll sell a put and buy an OTM or moderately ITM call.
- Understand it’s not safe to try and get rich overnight. However, once you hit big “steps” things may start to snowball. You can enter more positions and take more risks if you choose to.
- For me this when I hit 50k, then 100k. I was able to balance low and moderate risk positions to more significantly grow my account. I’ll even do a high risk thing now and again because my gains can absorb it (assuming I have them).
- I can’t wait to get to 250K, then 500K. I know it’ll take quite a long time, but I am confident I’ll eventually be able to have 500K and (hopefully) 1M in my non-401k trading account with gains and additions from my job. I can only imagine how “dangerous” I will be with that kind of capital.
- If you missed "the next big thing" like AAPL, TSLA, or the time machine I’m building in my basement. Don't get upset, learn from it. Adapt and become a better trader for next time.
- Figure out why a company was so promising, before they mooned. Determine how you would have traded differently in hindsight. Apply those lessons to the next company you believe has long term growth prospects.
- For me that's putting in 1-2.5k towards shares and/or buying LEAPS on it. Depending on my bullishness I may buy “cheap”, fairly far OTM calls. The far OTM options are sort of lottery tickets. If I'm right the (relatively) low cost will have explosive profits; if I'm wrong, they didn't cost that much so it's a calculated loss I’m willing to accept. For more serious bets I’ll buy ITM LEAPS to run PMCCs on. I also like to buy 1-2K in my 401k for very long-term plays.
- The stock market hates uncertainty, it seems to crave the status quo. A shakeup can potential tank a stock, even if it's nothing. With shares you can wait it out, but this can be problematic for options. If you see volatile/uncertain times ahead (politics, disease, manufacturing, earnings, etc.), you might want to reduce your overall portfolio risks or hedge.
Profit Retention / Loss Mitigation - If selling options, it is a viable strategy to close early after a large gain with many DTE left until expiry. See TT videos / strategies on this.
- Don't hold options through earnings unless you literally want to gamble. I like playing on earnings run ups, but that can be risky.
- If you hold options through earnings, IV crush will happen immediately afterwards, devaluing the option. However, if the option is profitable enough, IV crush won’t matter, which will still make money for a call buyer. A sold put sufficiently far OTM will benefit from IV crush, even if the stock dips after slightly bad or lukewarm earnings.
- Don't throw good money after bad. Don't gamble on a recovery if your assumption appears to be wrong or the market is flat out tanking. If you are wrong and still believe in the company, wait twice as long as your original plan (wait for your 2nd entry point vs 1st) before adding to your position.
- Consider using stop losses to lock-in profits on rides up or sometimes use them to prevent losses. Note, stops can be easily triggered in volatile options. Now when I'm up a lot on calls (especially around earnings or large momentum run-ups) I always set stop losses. I have been burned too many times. In December 2020 I didn't set a SL on several thousand dollars of FDX calls I was already up on and I "lost" ~$5K of unrealized gains. If you're up big, don't get too greedy.
- A possible strategy if a stock is on a tear and you have multiple options open: Close some positions (I prefer to do this incrementally if the stock has momentum), but leave 1+ open in case the stock goes into outer space/the floor. Next, set a stop loss with a little buffer below its current movement / range so it doesn't get hit unless the stock falls hard. Finally, watch the stock closely and if it keeps rising, keep moving the stop loss up in little bits incrementally. This will let you keep more profits on a hot streak, but give some protection and secure more gains. It will also help eliminate FOMO if a stock exceeds your expectations.
- Have rules when to roll out, down & out, or up & out. I like TT’s roll at break even or at 1x loss and to always roll for a credit (or for me a very minor cost). Obviously these rules need some monitoring. Know your stocks, the news, and technicals so you don’t jump the gun.
- If you roll early for a credit and you’re right, it’s not the end of the world. You’ll just need to hold longer, which will obviously tie up capital. Sometimes it’s better to tie up some money (especially if you aren’t paying interest) than eating a huge loss.
- Rolling too late can be worse though. I currently have a very underwater FDX put I sold that is over 2x loss, rolling it does almost nothing unless you want to pay a debit or extend it extremely far out.
- On huge options gains, I strongly you recommend taking profits by rolling up/down or incrementally sell your contracts at several different prices (this is why having multiple contracts is nice).
- Rolling up involves selling your initial call, then using a fraction of your proceeds to buy a cheaper, further OTM call with the same expiry; puts are inverse this. When rolling up I like to ensure the new option’s cost is 15-40% of my realized gains. I’ll buy a more or less expensive new optoin based on my convication to the stock and predicted movements. You can also roll up and out to get a further expiry and strike.
- This is monumentally important if you are playing with incredibly high rising stocks or during a short squeeze.
- Sad story time: I completely screwed up when I forgot to roll up, twice, during the GME gamma/short squeeze. I didn’t take my own advice; I didn’t have a real exit or transition plan and I got emotional. It all happened so fast and I was at work; the insanity of the run up and subsequent gamma squeeze caught me off guard. I should’ve clocked out and thought through the situation for 15-30 minutes to form an impromptu plan, then executed trade(s). My moderate risk tolerance coupled with my desire to take profits took over. When the stock partially cratered after a run up, I sold to retain gains. In the heat of the moment I thought the squeeze was squoze and it was going to plummet into the ground and I wasn’t being rational.
- On 1x 4K call I would’ve made an additional 15-25K if I rolled up to a cheaper contract with some of my profits.
- I know I missed out on significantly more with a 2nd call I had. Depending when I rolled it, it would likely have been an additional 25-50k in profits.
- I talked about learning from your mistakes above. This mistake is branded into my brain due to the massive gains I missed out on by not rolling up. I’m furious with myself as I write this 1 week after the GME gamma squeeze, I’m a planner and I didn’t plan. If anything I own is significantly up ever again, I’m rolling up (or at least setting a stop loss). If necessary, I’ll roll up a trade multiple times to keep extracting profits.
- Learn from my mistake so you don’t miss out on gains too. I strongly recommend rolling up when you are up big on a call / roll down when you are up big on a put. This enables you to take profits, stay in the game, and keep extracting more gains.
- If you trade a lot of options, talk to your broker about a discount. I was getting the standard $.50/contract with E-Trade, but I traded over 300 contracts a quarter and was able to get the fee reduced by over $.10 by just asking. I am now doing more spreads and condors, so once my volume gets very high, I’ll ask again.
- If you have a broker that isn’t great and you want to switch, leverage your current trading fees to the new broker. Tell them you’ll move over $### thousand if they beat your current options trading fee per contract.
Trade Planning & Position Management Tips - As you gain experience, start monitoring what kind of Delta, OTM, DTE, etc. you are most profitable with. Use it in your future trades. You'll often see the tasty trade 30-45DTE .3 Delta strategy for selling.
- Before entering a trade, look at rough technicals like resistances and supports to consider your relevant strikes as well as entry/exit points. Look at upcoming earnings & dividend dates as well as stock/market news.
- Consider staggering strikes and expirations for safety and diversity; it’s nice to avoid assignment on 3 puts at once because you used the same strike for all 3.
- Incrementally enter positions on large rises/falls. One of my favor strategies is to buy dips after over reactions. By doing this slowly in large price "steps" it helps combat FOMO and helps you avoid getting slaughtered.
- This will also help you avoid "chasing a falling knife". It also ties into having a plan.
- I set alerts at several predetermined prices and I REALLY try not to enter new trades unless I hit my preset points. It makes me less emotional and usually more effective.
- Don't buy far expiration options with poor liquidity for shorter term plays. I bought 1x GME 1-year+ LEAPS call before the 2021 short squeeze. That was stupid, I should've bought 2-3x 60-120 day calls to have better liquidity. I also paper-handed it and missed out on my lambo.
- If selling options, consider rolling (for a credit) to avoid assignment when it makes sense / meets your plan. Rolling closer to expiration can be a valid strategy to get theta on your side. On the flip side, if the stock moons or plummets it could've been better to roll before it got crazy deep ITM. See rolling “rules” above.
- Covered Calls:
- If a stock has a large movement range, I think it can be worthwhile to wait to open a CC after the last one is closed/expires. I have been more successful waiting for another opportunity vs. opening one immediately on the Monday after the second the last one expires.
- Consider selling covered calls at all time highs/peaks. If you sell a CC and the stock dips significantly, and you think it’s temporary, you can buy to close your CC for a quick profit, then reopen it later.
- If you own Meme stocks, selling covered calls runs the risk of missing out on large gains. On these stocks I typically only sell them further OTM than I normally would or not at all. If I do sell CC on a Meme stock I try to ensure I have 25-100 other shares that won’t be called away.
-Advanced Beginner- Spreads - Spreads (with 2 legs) are neat because they manipulate how delta and theta act. It caps your gains and losses, but you can profit with less stock movement. Try several spreads on a P/L calculator to see for yourself.
- Spreads usually require margin trading.
- Spreads allow you to define max losses (assuming you close before expiration day) and use less capital.
- Experienced traders will open many spreads at identical/similar strikes to heavily profit off movement. Spreads can make you/lose you a lot of money if you are right.
- For example. I could make a $200 premium off a $500 risk trade, max loss would be $300. This is much more effective capital utilization than a naked or cash secured put, however it does not have the same downside protection or “wheel” potential as a sold put. Higher risk, higher reward.
- Vertical Debit spreads: I think of these like mini calls/puts. I personally don’t use them unless calls are outrageously expensive or the break even is absurdly high, but there’s nothing wrong with them. A call debit spread will lower your breakeven and overall cost vs just a call. You can do clever things like making a positive theta call spread if you’re creative. I like doing this since I hate losing money to theta.
- Vertical Credit spreads:
- Very good theta strategy to define downside/upside risks.
- A put credit spread is bullish and allows you to bet on upward movement with less capital and defined losses.
- A call credit spread is a bearish strategy that allows you to bet on downward movement. These are very cool since they allow you to sell calls without selling naked calls, which can ruin you financially. I see selling these as better than buying puts since it’s so much easier to be profitable; to be redundant, Θ rocks.
- https://www.schwab.com/resource-centeinsights/content/reducing-risk-with-credit-spread-options-strategy-0
- I repeat this on purpose: Don't EVER leave short spreads open on expiration day, close them. If you don't close, they better be VERY far from the strike on a non-volatile stock. In after hours a stock can jump/dip below your strike and be exercised without the other leg to protect you. This can lead to massive, life ruining losses. This is not an exaggeration, google this and be scared. It happened to a fair number of people with TSLA. Video explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtVFj9nRRDo&t=315s
- Short Straddle:
Trading Mechanics, Taxes, Market Manipulation - Learn about wash sale rules. They suck and are very easy to activate with options. This will eliminate your ability to write off losses. Over trading can easily cause wash sales. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/washsalerule.asp
- Short attacks:
- Learn to recognize these sketchy attacks by hedges/firms. They manipulate the market, it’s been documented countless times. A common one is rapid short selling, which pushes the price down.
- Short Ladder attacks:
- If you plan well enough and the market doesn’t give up on the stock you may be able to use it as a great opportunity to buy the dip.
- Cramer explains how he intentionally manipulated the market when he ran a hedge fund years ago. Multiple links to the video are below since this video gets pulled often, Cramer / The street never wanted this to go public.
- Plan for taxes if you are up big. You may need to over withhold or contribute to taxes quarterly depending on your situation. https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc306
-Intermediate / Advanced Strategies (work in progress)- You’ll notice many of these strategies inverse one another. Options Strategy Finder This website is great for learning about new strategies, you’ll see many links to it below.
https://www.theoptionsguide.com/option-trading-strategies.aspx Short Strangle / Straddle - Both of these strategies profit from little price movement. I recommend using a P/L calculator to determine BE, profit, etc.
- A straddle sells (or buys) two options at the same expiry and strike.
- A strangle sells (or buys) two options at same expiry with different strikes.
- Both these strategies involved selling a Call and a Put for a credit. Straddle uses ATM legs, strangle uses OTM legs.
- Limited max profits and unlimited risk. Due to the unlimited risk, I am not a fan. However, many people like these a lot.
- https://www.theoptionsguide.com/short-strangle.aspx
- https://www.theoptionsguide.com/short-straddle.aspx
Iron Condor and Iron Butterflies - These strategies profit from neutral or mostly neutral stock movement. They receive a credit to open and benefit from theta decay. If your stock is range bound, these may be a good choice.
- These are both 4 "legged" trades, so you will have 4 trading fees to enter or exit the trade. A lower cost or zero cost broker shines here. However, “bad” free brokers will give you poor fills, which may not be worth the discount.
- Condors and butterflies have "wings" which are your purchased puts and calls. The wider the wing the higher the max profit/risk. The condor body can be riskier and skinny with a narrow high profit range or wider for a much greater chance of success with lower payout.
- An iron condor is built by combining a put credit spread and a call credit spread with the same expiry.
- An iron condor can be thought of as a modified short strangle with limited risk, and therefore a bit less profit. I prefer defined limited risk.
- The butterfly is similar except instead of a plateau it has a sharp peak. My personal mental note is that a condor looks more like a strangle with wings, while a butterfly looks like a straddle with wings.
- Pay attention to earnings dates when you open these, I have forgotten to check before and it led to bad trades.
- https://www.theoptionsguide.com/iron-condor.aspx
- https://www.theoptionsguide.com/iron-butterfly.aspx
Long Condor (Debit Call Condor) - The debit version of an Iron Condor. You expect the price to stay inside your defined range. This strategy profits from neutral or mostly neutral stock movement. I’ve never tried this, Iron Condors make more sense to me.
- Limited risk / limited reward.
- https://www.theoptionsguide.com/condor.aspx
Short Condor (Credit Call Condor) - Inverse of an Iron Condor. You expect the price to go OUTSIDE your defined range. These are useful when you expect significant price movement. Credit to open.
- Limited risk / limited reward.
- Can be harder to set up. I want to try these, haven’t yet.
- https://www.theoptionsguide.com/short-condor.aspx
Reverse Iron Condor LEAPs - LEAP Options are options that are long term with many DTE, often over a year until expiration. LEAP calls are great for long term growth plays (downtrends with LEAP puts) or simply when you really like a company and can't afford 100 shares. LEAPs (or any "longer term" option) enables you to sell a PMCC or PMCP (below)
PMCC / PMCP - PMCC or PMCP are poor man's covered call (or poor man's covered puts). They are diagonal options often used with purchased LEAPs. You sell a shorter DTE call/put with a further OTM strike than your purchased call/put. For PMCC/PMCPs it is often recommended to recoup your extrinsic value as soon as possible, some recommend with your first call CC or put sale, to ensure you are positive if the option is assigned early. These have a lot of moving parts and strategies. If you buy a barely ITM call/put and sell a nearby strike call/put you run the risk of the purchased option getting "blown by" on large stock movement and ending up with a very negative losing trade. Keeping your purchased LEAP deeper ITM should protect you. Check your initial PMCC using an options calculation to make sure you don't screw up.
- I'm currently tinkering with these myself. So far I like .7-.9 delta call LEAPS with 30-45 DTE calls on my CC. The goal is to hold the LEAP long term, potentially until expiration, and constantly sell calls/puts on it that expire worthless. Typically the call/put is rolled up and out or down and out if it's going to be assigned, unless you don't want your LEAP anymore.
- Some people look at these many sold CC or puts as profits, I look at them as lowering my cost basis until it's zero (or even negative). I have a page in my notebook I write each CC on my NIO LEAP (I Meme stock sometimes). I find it satisfying to slowly see the cost of the original option disappear. When I originally wrote this I had ~2 years left on it and it's 9-10% paid for; that doesn't even count the actual gains the LEAP has.
- TT states this is considered an IV play, which I partially agree with. You want to buy these during low IV times since an IV drop will hurt your LEAP value. I look at them more as a way to sell calls/puts on a high IV company with a lot of price movement and potential upside/downside.
Advanced Orders - Guide to several order types: https://us.etrade.com/knowledge/events/webinars/order-types-from-basic-to-advanced-07162019
- One Triggers Other (OTO):
- Good brokers will allow you to set these up, some will require a desktop to do it. This lets you link one action to another. In programming think of it like an if-then. You’ll tie a buy/sell to another buy/sell
- Setting trailing stops on options is very chaotic since their price movement can be drastic due to volatility. I prefer to set my trailing stop to a stock.
- What I like to do is set a trailing stop on a stock (or just link it to a stock price drop) and have it sell 1 share I own. Then it immediately executes a market order to sell my call. I’ve had good luck doing this with incredibly volatile plays were stop losses aren’t effective. I’ll often have an order saved and ready saved for when a strong run up starts. When my price alerts start blowing up my phone, I’ll immediately hit execute to turn it on.
Disclaimer:
I’m not a financial adviser, I'm actually an engineer. I’m not telling you to invest in a specific stock/option or even use a specific strategy. I’ve outlined and more extensively elaborated on what I personally like. You should test several strategies and find what works best for you.
I'm just a guy who trades (mainly options) part-time for financial gain and fun. I don't claim to be some investing savant.
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top 10 best phone company in world video
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