sevan

Did they assault every tire, just in case, or did they have some way to know which ones were a threat?

Maybe you could give them a garden plot where they can plant things they've found and grow their own for the rest of the campaign, but you can't ever buy a potted plant for your garden, you can only get it through foraging. So, it would be rewarding to find a new plant to add to the garden, but not tedious to have to keep resupplying every type of resource.

You could then set some rules around how frequently the plants can be harvested and implement a mix of time between harvests, plant knowledge, and a random component to determine how much they get each time they go back to the garden to resupply.

You might incorporate some random events where they get new items to help improve their garden. Maybe some special fertilizer, a magic sprinkler, extra-sharp garden shears, a magic music box, a singing sunflower

If they invest the time into foraging, they could potentially have a full garden by the end of the campaign that keeps them well stocked. Along the way, maybe they'll run into someone they can hire to help them tend to the garden and sell any extra resources. Maybe a guard dog to protect the garden from thieves or wildlife.

I'm thinking the foraging should be reasonably quick, so they feel worthwhile, while the events for special items might be a little more involved, but have a meaningful impact on their garden. I'm not sure how elaborate your setup is, but it would be really cool to be able to show them their garden growing and improving and maybe even have some cool decorations available for sale in the town(s) they visit (garden gnome, wind chime, scarecrow, etc.).

At this point I'm mainly still on Windows because it is the easiest thing to do - I know how to use it and it is already installed on all my PCs. At least 3 of my PCs are eligible to upgrade to Win11 (2 are not), but I have no plans to ever upgrade. So, when security updates stop, that will be my motivation to give Linux another try.

I didn't know we had thrusters...

My wife just made a favorite of mine: gnocchi soup with spicy turkey sausage.

Musicolet is my preferred music player OurGroceries is what I use to keep shared lists with my family (mainly grocery list, but also things like a travel check list and favorite meals for when we can think of what to have for dinner).

You can get a USB wifi adapter for your PC to connect it to the internet.

One other thing to consider is if you get insurance through your employer, you lose it as soon as you leave. Imagine if one of you has a long-term illness that puts you out of work before dying. All of the premiums paid by that spouse would be lost with no payout.

For myself, I have just enough supplemental insurance through my employer to cover funeral expenses for my wife (who is currently in school) and my kids, no supplemental insurance for myself. I should add a term life plan for me outside work, but have not done so yet.

Also, I think you can stack different durations to account for increased savings over time. For example, you might get a 10 year and a 20 year term life plan for 500K each. If you died in the first 10 years, your family would get 1M total. Hopefully in 10 years your savings has increased enough to live with a smaller insurance payout, but you could always add more coverage then, if needed.

I agree with the MMF approach, I've moved almost everything out of my HYS account and am using my brokerage account for savings now.

I agree. Last year we decided to finally replace our aging HVAC systems and take care of some other long overdue home maintenance. We could have paid for it out of our taxable brokerage account, but instead I took the maximum 401k loan and put the leftover amount into my taxable account.

We decided to go with the loan because the investment options in my 401k suck, so I would rather reduce that balance. If I leave my job, I can pay the loan from my taxable account, then roll it over to my IRA, and still get the benefit of better investment options. The only "cost" is the 5% interest that I'm paying to myself.

The lodgings were on the top floor next to the well-guarded premises of a respectable dealer in stolen property because, as Granny had heard, good fences make good neighbors.

I agree, I was excited to check out my new place, even though I probably was never going to visit again. When I saw it was empty, I assumed it was like in Skyrim where I needed to pay for each room. Then I saw I actually have to build each item.

Even worse, I have to go skill up on outpost building to unlock most of the options. Right now I can only furnish it with bare bones level 1 items that would be completely out of character. So, I left and will probably never return. Someday, when I play it on PC, I will hopefully be able to find a mod to fix this.