#unless i know it'll help pay my monthly bills :')

[astrologysvt]

what about opening a yt channel? you could do so much content!!

ahhhh i did think of that! my thing is idk how much i'd have it in me to make consistent content if that makes sense? with the community concept I can work one-on-one and actually get into detail in ways I just can't do with general readings. and tbh doing general readings for sun/moon/rising is so common, and i fear that they're a little toxic (cuz learning discernment for those things is super hard!) so I kinda worry more about the misinterpretation/misuse of my readings than having a large audience if that makes sense. plus the human connection aspect is another factor, I think having that small group of people would be nice and in a perfect world it'll be super supportive and constructive. again idk how many people would be interested, i think even just a silly group of 5 people would be nice! plus i think if you're someone who is struggling with just the sheer saturation of astrology/tarot content on the internet, and know it's not healthy, but still want it in your life -- this would be a safe place to explore that! i dunno, just thoughts! if anyone has any ideas for tiers or perks, lemme know!

[theglamorousferal]

Tony keeps in touch with Harley post IM3.

Tony hacks into Harley's school to see what his grades are and it not clocking that he could literally just ask about it.

Tony keeping up with the Keener’s via twice monthly phone calls that turn into weekly ones that turn into Tony and Mrs. Keener texting back and forth.

Tony invites the kid to visit during a school break where they both just tinker with things. Harley is nervous at first until they meet up again and they start snarking back and forth.

At least one minor fire or explosion happens. If asked, neither know what started it. (Tony was wiring a gauntlet and Harley jokingly called him Dad when Tony told him he had to do his homework.)

The Keener’s visit for a week in the summertime, Tony has bought the lake house earlier to have a place away from people. Mrs. Keener and Pepper get along pretty well and both the kids like Pepper, so Tony counts it as a win.

Tony offers to pay for Harley and his sister's education and Mrs. Keener took him up on it because there was no way she’d be able to afford to send both her kids to college unless one of them got a free ride and Tony shows he cares by spending money and making sure those he cares about are safe and comfortable.

Harley spends the summer before his freshman year of high school with Tony. Tony finds a used classic car and they spend the summer rebuilding it and upgrading the engine to run clean.

Tony finds Spider-Man and finds out he’s a year older than Harley. Tony panics because here’s another kid genius but this one's in way over his head and will stay in over his head regardless of if he has support or proper equipment. Tony decides that no one else is gonna help this kid and give him as much protection as he could if he built him a suit, so he does just that.

Tony finds out about Midtown through Peter and approaches Mrs. Keener with an opportunity for Harley. (It's a genius school and it's practically a feeder to MIT, it'll be great.) Harley moves into the tower that Tony has kept here because he has reason to stay in the city.

Tony is a lot better at dealing with a kid because he's been hanging out with Harley so long, so he invites Peter over to meet Harley and have lab time. 

Harley just quips “so you’re my replacement?” to Peter and Peter immediately panicking and stuttering over himself while Harley howls with laughter.

Harley helps Peter learn to be more comfortable around Tony by roasting Tony for twenty straight minutes and after a month of lab days enlists Peter's help in making a program for FRIDAY to blast Barbie Girl when Tony has spent 24 hours or more in the lab.

Peter asks Harley to hang out with Ned outside of lab days. The three of them end up building a LEGO Deathstar and have drawn up the plans to be able to make it hover the next lab day.

Peter and Harley become thick as thieves and get to the point of that weird twin telepathy especially when it comes to being sassy.

One school break the three of them didn't go outside for the first four days, just spending most of the time in the lab so Pepper comes in and orders them to go outside for once my god Tony. Take them to your favorite burger place, I don't care, just be outside.

This leads to the three of them getting Pap'd. ("Yeah, I was out to lunch with my two interns, what's the matter with that?" is the quote above a picture of him laughing as the two boys pretend their straw wrappers are mustaches.)

This leads Tony to realize that he hadn't actually gotten the boys registered as his interns and remedies this immediately. (with backpay into a trust for each of them(Harley already gets an allowance, Tony has no idea how much is the proper amount to give to a 14 year old, and so usually gives him a few of whatever bills are in his wallet.))

Tony decides that now that they're officially employees of SI, that means they get to check out the place and so brings them down to R&D where everybody is immediately charmed by Peter and amused by Harley. The boys end up talking to the interns on the floor while Tony discusses the latest StarkPad.

One lab day both Harley and Peter look exhausted but Peter still showed up for lab time so they make their way there. Tony takes one look at them and asks FRIDAY to scan them, they both have fevers and he herds them into his living room.

Tony orders all the cold remedies he can think of to be brought up to the penthouse. Tony instructs the boys to pick a movie while he gathers blankets and dumps them on the boys.

Tony frantically texting Harley's mom and May asking them what he should do I've never taken care of a sick kid before, there are two of them, what do I do??

May asks Tony if Peter can stay the night because she's working a double that she can't get out of. He says yes if she can tell him what to do for sick kids because Harley's mom hasn't been able to respond.

Tony ends up joining the boys on the couch after forcing each of them to take cold medicine and thrusting a bowl of chicken noodle soup into each of their hands. Tony's in between the boys.

Over the course of WALL-E each boy begins to sag eventually trapping Tony on the couch. He's got one drooling in his shoulder and another drooling on his thigh. He asks FRIDAY to take several pictures before going back to his work on his StarkPad.

This starts Peter staying over whenever May is working night shifts. Then staying over every other weekend. Then Tony invites May and Peter to go on vacation to the lake house for a few days in the summer.

The Keener family is also present and May, Pepper and Mrs. Keener get on like a house on fire. Peter loves playing with Abbie with Harley. Three group chats are made that day. The adults in a co-parenting chat, the ladies in an exasperated with our geniuses chat and the kids in a sass and meme chat.

Just, Tony becomes a dad to two brilliant boys (and maybe one of the boy's baby sisters too depending how you want to write her).

[wistelligence]

okay so i know that home ownership is a pipe dream for a lot of us with how things are right now, but if you ever end up with one via buying or inheriting, please allow my formerly-morgage-customer-service ass help you, my US friends, with something:

for the love of fuck, if you're setting up mortgage autopay, try to do it through your mortgage company, NOT your bank. i am dead fucking serious.

your mortgage payment is made of four parts: Payment, Interest, Taxes, and Insurance (or PITI for short). Payment and Interest are static from the inception of your mortgage unless you refi, but TAXES AND INSURANCE CAN CHANGE. every year, your state evaluates how much in property taxes you should be paying. ('when' varies by state, you can find tables online for which month your state does the eval). this typically means that your monthly mortgage payment changes by, like, a few bucks, typically. but this creates a problem.

say you pay $100 a month for your house (somehow). you have autopay set up through your bank, not your mortgage lender. one day, your state's eval says your payment is now $101. your bank autopays $100. the Big Mortgage Computer sees that your payment is only partially paid and considers it incomplete. you are now one month delinquent, because your bank's static autopay was unaware of the payment change. you are now open to getting hit with a late fee, and your credit score can be affected after 30 days. this shit *sucks*.

i cannot tell you how many calls i got from people who were upset that their bills were constantly saying unpaid (iirc it'll try to complete your payment for the prior month in full before paying for the current month), and i had to explain that 1. payments are technically due on the 1st but there's a legal grace window until the 15th (that's a whole other thing), but 2. their autopay just didn't keep up with a TI change, and that i could help them resolve the issue over the phone and they could adjust their autopay or, even better, do autopay through us so we can auto-adjust it. and hell, if a payment failed because of a system error on *our* side, it would automatically be forgiven, which can't always be assured if the bank fucked up.

bonus tip: if you do ever talk to mortgage personnel on the phone and you keep polite (and god, i know it can be hard when shit is stressful, but we're people too and we did not cause your issue), try asking if late fees can be waived. i can't remember my former company's rules, but i actually had the ability to send it up to my supervisor to request at least one late fee be removed, and 99% of the time it was because of issues like this.

anyway my memory for my previous jobs is kinda hazy, but if anyone has basic questions about mortgages or cruises, i can try to help, lmao. stay safe out there babes

[6-of-november]

Object number two of move-in worries, money. The reason for most failed relationships, in particular highschool sweethearts, & man do we have different spending & cleaning habits. When I made diddly I would save every penny, odd jobs, only using free entertainment, pawning anything worth more in money than sentiment to me. When I set a plan in motion however, I will spend every spare penny (down to the safety margin, not past) & then stop. As an adult, I'm too busy for games & I have no greater desire than to get off work, have a cocktail or two, & get back to work on one of my many projects. I'm such a spend thrift that unless my project is going to make money my expenditures amount to monthly: $80 gas for non-work reasons, 140$ taking gf out to eat, 80$ mid/top shelf liquors/liqueurs, & 0-100$ on materials or tools & frankly, if I wasn't driving hours every week to see my GF & hours more to take her everywhere (she still doesn't really drive herself ( it's less than once a month)) I'd have even fewer bills.

While she does at least save,she's a whirlwind of expenses, regular door dash & pizza delivery, jewelry, makeup, skin care (& I don't mean regular maintenance, I mean disposable fad stuff & impulse buys), cute things, & impulse buys that while she does make 25% more than me on average, can amount to 1-4 weeks worth of my pay.

We talked about joint accounts when we were younger, but when we were younger we assumed one of us would breadmake & the other homemake (however was more profitable), but here it's 2024 & it'll take 50% of our combined income to make rent anywhere that doesn't have flood damage or roaches. While I think she could pull her habits in check to keep up her end of rent, I'm studiously monitoring the stock market to maintain a constant growth portfolio to supplement my wages, I'd damn near have a panic attack if I was this aggressively saving/earning & she was just chaotically spending out of the same account(s). Rn, I lean towards us opening a joint account where we pool a planned amount monthly for rent & expenses but we otherwise keep our finances separate for now.

What I think baffles me most about her spending is how it clashes with her cleaning. 50$ a month on dubious "fun" face masks & under eye patches but she neglects using her prescription acne wash or even bathing for 5-7 days more often than not, same for teeth brushing. She'll throw money at something pretty to look at, but won't clean her toilet, which, until my recent involvement, was the foulest I have encountered in the United States, only slightly winning out over the one that exploded sewage in Cambodia. I know her diagnosis, I know to give her grace, but it feels like her patterns aren't improving & they're ever more costly & I'm afraid trying to help her &/or reign in the budget or just preliminary talking about budgeting will cause this to be a huge blow up.

[librarychair]

Here are a few things I've learned about being a low income adult, that I think new adults should know: finances edition

Unless you have a specific and compelling reason to use a bank, never ever use a bank when you can use a credit union. Banks are for profit and they will pinch fees out of you for being poor as well as everything else. Many credit unions will give you a national branded debit card connected to your checking account, and using that as a credit card can help build credit out of nothing.

See about applying for government assistance. You'd be surprised what you qualify for. Google "[state name] food assistance calculator" to check. If the damn government thinks you qualify, don't second guess them!

If you can't afford loan payments, call your creditor and tell them so. Describe your financial situation briefly and ask if there are any programs you can enroll in. Many lenders would much rather reduce your monthly payment than let you default on your loan.

Every couple of months, go through your income and expenses and see how things shake out. Write it all down on a paper or a document and be honest. Use actual numbers from bills, account balances, pay stubs and transaction histories. You don't have to make a stringent plan from this, but laying it out will help you see what your situation is more clearly so you can make informed decisions instead of just guessing. Many times doing this has brought my and my partner's mood from hopeless to cautiously optimistic. Even if the news isn't great it'll give you a clearer picture and a feeling of being a little more in control of your life.