sevan

I just learned about this from another post a month or so ago and since I changed the way I tie my shoes, they have never gotten loose or untied. I can't believe I went my whole life tying my shoes wrong!

I use the JLAB JBuds Air Sport. I've had them for several years, but they are similar to the $70 version. There is also a $30 version and a $100 version, but I haven't used them and don't know what the difference is. I also don't know what has changed in the newer version of the one I have, so my comments might not perfectly match the current offering.

What I love:

• Solid hooks to hang them from your ears. Earbuds without hooks never stay in my ears and I hate the floppy hooks on most sport earbuds that really only act as a safety catch. These are slightly harder to put on, but stay put even when doing strenuous exercise or yard work.

• The earpiece sits loosly in my ear because it doesn't need a tight fit to stay in place. Normal earbuds make my ears sore after a while, at least if I get a tight enough fit to keep them in place.

• They don't put pressure on my ears or head like headphones do. I have some decent Bose headphones (QC 35 II) that are pretty comfortable, but after a few hours the pressure starts to be annoying. I would recommend the Bose headphones, but they aren't cheap (to me) at $300ish

• I think I've had them about 5 years now and still get several hours of playtime between charges. I typically only listen for short periods of time while exercising, but will sometimes wear them for hours while doing work around the house.

What could be better:

• Audio quality is okay, I don't expect much at this price though

• The controls are hard to remember, I only know how to change volume or tracks

• Controls don't work with gloves on, which is mainly only an issue in winter. I've learned to use my wrist instead of my finger to control them during mild weather. When it is really cold I have to take off a glove to use the controls. I imagine with thick gloves, this would be a problem for any earbuds or headphones

• As they are getting older, they don't connect as well in the battery case; I have to clean the terminals frequently to make sure they charge

All that said, they are my second most used audio device. Most of my listening is with $15 Philips wired earbuds with ear hooks (no microphone). These give me decent sound quality, are practically weightless, and never need to be charged, so I can wear them as long as I want. I mainly use them with my laptop, phone, and xbox (connected to the controller).

The JBuds are my choice whenever doing something active. The Bose are my least used, even though they are the best quality. I use them when I want to enjoy better quality sound or if I want really good noise canceling (mainly when flying). Otherwise I prefer comfortable earbuds over quality sound.

Paying off your loans gives a guaranteed tax-free return, which is very hard to beat on a consistent basis. Obviously you can get lucky with market timing, but I prefer the guarantee. It also increases your monthly cash flow, which you can start investing.

If I leave, I potentially free up a great promotion opportunity for someone on my team, which creates another promotion opportunity, and so on. I would consider that a valuable contribution to many people. Alternatively, they might eliminate my position, which reduces the company's cost, which may save a job or two later by reducing the need for layoffs. I will be happy to make that contribution to my team when I am ready to retire.

I started with a program called Italy Made Easy. It seems okay, but my only other experience learning a language is my high school Spanish classes, so I don't have much to compare to. I would much prefer to take live, in person classes, but there isn't much available near me.

What are your thoughts on the courses you mentioned?

No to both at the moment. I'm helping my wife and kids get their Italian citizenship by descent. That will take a few years, but after that we should be able to move there whenever we are ready. I would like to get citizenship by marriage as well once my wife has her citizenship worked out.

I have started learning the language, but there are no classes available locally, so I have to do it all self-paced with digital courses, which is challenging. I'd like to become fluent by the time we are ready to go, but even if I can get some basic skills, I can work on immersion learning once we are there. Our current plan is to avoid putting ourselves in an expat community where we can get away with never learning the language properly.

These are also my choices.

I'd like to be able to maintain my current lifestyle, which is probably somewhere in the middle of the spectrum (or maybe a bit lower). I don't want to work long enough to reach fat fire and I'm not interested in cutting back from where I am now. I do want to move internationally, but going from MCOL USA to (probably) Italy wouldn't really change my lifestyle much (in terms of expenses).

I don't think I ever finished that one. I seem to recall going to a forest, but can't remember anything past that. I suppose I should find it sometime and give it another shot. I'm assuming either physical discs or GOG. I just bought a Steam Deck and need to track down all my old stuff like this to load it up with.

Are you already where you want to be, geographically? One of our limitations is that our kids are old enough that we don't want to relocate until they finish school, so that has us staying where we are for 5+ years. If we had been in the same position 10 years ago, they would have been young enough that we would have been willing to do an international move if we could work out the details. Learning a new language would be rough for them at this point of their education.

Ideally (for me), we would leave as soon as they graduate (or close to it) and they would come with us, then they could take a break to learn the language before going to college.

Good point on selling at a loss and reallocating. I would have been willing to do that if I thought I had a better option in mind, but I actually felt very good about the potential 1-2 year price increase opportunity with my employer's stock, so I just held. At this point I'm neutral on the stock price, so I'm starting to reduce my holdings, but mostly by selling covered calls with the expectation that some will get exercised.

I'm in the same place with stock option grants, the last 2-3 years of grants are all worthless at the moment and probably will be for a long time based on how overpriced the shares were in 2021/2022. The timing was particularly bad because we get our grants in Mar/Apr and our price was sky high at that time in 2022, our stock dropped like a rock through 2022, but got back to almost fair value by Mar 2023, so I didn't get any options at the low prices of late 2023.

Normally I sell all my ESPP stock as quick as possible. Several years ago my company did not have a mandatory holding period, so I always sold it immediately. I had to pay a higher tax rate on the 15% discount, but it was a guaranteed return with no risk.

Now we have a one year required holding period, which is great for lowering taxes, but adds volatility risk. Last year our stock started the year overpriced, then dropped below what I considered a fair price. I stopped selling stock at that point to hold for a fair price. We're just now getting close to a reasonable price, but now I'm holding way too much company stock (I've kept buying my maximum along the way). I'm slowly starting to sell and hope to get back to my old practice of always selling by the end of the year.

On the bright side, I've added a little extra income along the way by selling covered calls against the shares I'm holding. In the last year I've made more from that than dividends on the same shares and have offset the loss on the shares I bought at the peak of the 2022 market. I would still rather sell without a holding period though.