IMALlama

I hope you get a decent answer. When we last visited 10 years ago a similar idea passed our minds.

I did some poking around at the time out of curiosity. From what I recall, a decent amount of manufacturing moved there in the 70s to claim made in America, take advantage of cheaper labor, and take advantage of some tax incentives. The incentives were phased out and manufacturing started leaving. Wikipedia .

I am not sure what their economy is like these days, but as with all moves a chunk of it is going to come down to the work you can/want to do and the jobs available, but with remote work living somewhere like Puerto Rico does seem appealing.

I suspect you're going to have the usual island pain points (hurricanes, expensive imports, limited economy, a large swath of the economy tied to tourism) and benefits (consistent weather year round, natural beauty which PR has a ton of, beaches, interesting culture).

Again, I really hope someone with first hand experience chimes in - even if the moved in the other direction from the island to the mainland.

Keeping a woodworking hobby from devolving into tool collecting can be a trick.

This can be true of most hobbies, lol. Amusingly, three others of yours fall into that pattern.

Electronics? If only I had a bigger power supply, higher speed/more channel scope, hot air station, logic analyzer, etc. Guitars? I have friends and coworkers who play. No one only owns one guitar, pedal, amp combo. Gardening? I have quite the setup in my basement to get seeds going, but I live in zone 6 and need to compensate some for the short growing season. Cooking can also be it's own equipment rabbit hole.

Beyond that: Cameras? Choosing which brand of body to use, sensor size, lens collection, tripods/flash/accessories. If you play a tabletop game do you really play a tabletop game or are you looking for an excuse to make and paint minis? 3D printers can be just as much about messing with the printer as actually printing things.

I think it's important to recognize the pattern so you can consciously decide if you want to fall into it or avoid it. For some people, the collecting around the hobby is even better than doing the hobby.

Nice framing! I would have maybe walked a touch closer and/or cropped to avoid the highlight on the right, but I really like the infinite mirror effect.

Ha, this is true as does amortizing things like the coffee maker that needs replacing every 5 years, white vinegar for monthly descaling, the Stanley thermos I bought 4 years ago to bring coffee to work, etc.

Let's say that it takes 15 minutes to brew the pot of coffee at 1,500 watts. That's 0.375 watt hours. At $0.20/kwh that's $0.075/pot. Yay for dumping it into a thermos once it's brewed.

All in, even if you added an extra $0.50/day brewing at home is still way cheaper.

Stay away from espresso and super "high end" artisan beans and you can have a very solid coffee hobby for not a whole lot of $$. We do a mix of drip, French press, and cold brew. The cost per cup is basically the same for each and the equipment was not very expensive.

You got me curious, so I did the math for us.

I am a drip coffee person, drink far too much coffee (40 oz) throughout the day, and work on a fairly large corporate campus so I have easy access to hot/fresh coffee that I can purchase. Even though there are multiple branded places to get coffee from on campus, they have similar pricing.

• Small (12 oz): 4x @ $2.65/pop = $10.60/day
• Medium (16 oz): 3x @ $2.95/pop = $8.85/day
• Large (20 oz): 2x @ $3.25/pop = $6.50/day. This is obviously the cheapest choice, but will result in a cold bottom half of the cup due to drinking my coffee slowly vs pounding it

My wife and I split a pot of coffee. It takes us 3 oz of coffee beans to brew it. I can buy a 20 oz bag of the coffee beans we use for $15.29, which works out to $2.30/pot. We often stock up on the beans when they go on sale, but I don't know what we paid for them the last time around.

So.. since my wife also drinks coffee let's say that the price spread between purchased already brewed coffee vs brewed at home coffee is between $6.50-$10.60/day. Splitting the difference = $8.85. Doing that 365 days/year = $3,120 saved.

The fact that I have coworkers who drink a similar quantity of espresso based (more $$) drinks at work is insane.

Do this over a 25 year career, invest the money monthly ($260), plan for a conservative 5% rete of return and you'll have $162,577 - only half of which is principal.

Apply this pattern of thinking over a number of different spending categories and you'll be way better off financially. That said, the stats on the billionaire class are eye watering and no amount of frugality will catch any of us up to them.

Factories will win this hands down, especially when you're building large/complex items. It looks like the distinction might be "single building" vs "complex or buildings", but VW's Wolfsburg plant is 70 million square feet. The largest plant I've been to isn't on that list, but it's still over a half mile wide - all under a single roof.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/g2904/7-of-the-worlds-largest-manufacturing-plants/

Digitally? Unless that's off limits in this situation. I'm sure there are analog paths you could take too, I just don't know what they would be

+1 The stickers are not fool (bird?) proof, but they do help a lot.

Snow tires are way more beneficial than 4WD/AWD. As already said, 4WD/AWD will help you avoid getting stuck, but it can't help you with stopping or turning.

Just take it easy the first snow. Brake early, corner slowly, don't go too fast. It seems like everyone forgets how to drive on snow the first time it snows, which results in more of a mess.

Disclaimer up front: I have very little background in any of this.

Why not do three exposures on three different prices of paper with a color filter in front of each? Green pigment gets the green filter, etc.

Good luck. The company I work at has the exact same problem. Since each system tends to be owned by a different org, and the systems all meet the owning org's needs, you're going to be in for struggle.