Background info: 26F in TN, wrecked my old car in December of 22 and had to quickly buy a replacement car. I stupidly went alone to a dealership after finding a car on autotrader I wanted to take a look at. A 2021 Hyundai Elantra with 8600 miles.
I was talked into getting it that night. The car wasn't starting that night which the salesman assured me was due to the lights being left on. I bought it that night anyway. Yes I know I am stupid. I know in the future to get an inspection on a used vehicle before buying.
I took a loaner home that night. The salesman was texting me the next day saying that there were some "fuse" issues that needed to get looked at with Hyundai and they would schedule it but I could take it home in the meantime. I went and picked it up. Yes I know I am stupid.
I noticed the blind spot wasn't working and the reverse sensor wasn't either. These were the "fuse" issues. I scheduled an appt with Hyundai the soonest available in March. When I finally got it checked out by Hyundai (4 months after buying) they told me the car had been in a wreck (not on the CarFax) and there was no blind spot module and the bumper had bondo in it. Hyundai recommended replacing the bumper. That plus a new blind spot would cost $4,000.
I called the original dealership and spoke to them and they told me to take it to them to check it out. I brought it in and they had it for 3 weeks and they did replace the blind spot but that is it. I asked them to take back the car for what I paid for it (nicely) and he (nicely) said that they would not because it had been so many months. (This was because of scheduling issues with Hyundai)
I was okay(ish) with all that (except feeling stupid about the damaged bumper). Until I was cleaning out my trunk today and lifted the trunk liner and there was about two inches of standing water around the spare. I had noticed my stuff in the trunk kept getting moist but I assumed that I spilled something or a drink can had burst at some point. So there must be a leak somewhere, possibly in the damaged bumper?
Anyway, I don't feel like I should go back to the dealership because I feel like they are washing their hands of me and they won't fix it. (because they don't have to because it is an as is sale).
Here's the details of the sale: Purchase price: $25,500 Downpayment: $3,000 Taxes: $2,800 ish warranty: $2,500 (later refunded) Gap: $1,000 (refunded due to refinance) Insurance paid out on my totaled car: $8,000 Total financed in the beginning: $29,000 ish After the refunds and insurance money I now owe: $16,500 ish My monthly payment: $338.02
I don't want to keep the car any longer because of the sour taste in my mouth on the whole deal. I am wanting to downgrade cars and get something around $15k-$20k.
I want some advice on whether I should just keep my car or trade it in on something cheaper.
KBB says it is worth around 21,000. If I trade it in now, am I losing the original sales price (25,500) minus the current value (21,000) so 4,500? Or should I include the taxes as a loss too? Is this a lot to be out? My new monthly payment would be around $200, so would save $138 a month.
What are some other things to think about?

This has been bugging me for a while, I don't have friends to vent so I created this account to get this off my chest(hehe) . This is my first time using reddit so please bear with me.
I am 17 years old, and I'm about to graduate this july, yesterday my dad came home with a watch. The seller told him that the watch was a gift from his son that was on dubai, and he was selling it because he lost on gambling (sabong) (first redflag) He told my dad that the watch was originally 900 riyal which is around 13k php and he's selling it to him for the low low price of 1.5k (2nd redflag) My dad blinded by the too good to be true sale bought it by impulse. This morning, they talked about the watch being the gift for my graduation, they were so happy getting an expensive watch, I thought it was really suspicious so I searched it up, I found this watch G-STEEL GST-B400 Series GSTB400GB1A9, which costs 390usd(around 21k php) , i thought we got something more expensive than we originally thought, but observing it closely only the face was the same, all the other parts was different, searching around more, I found something very similar on shopee, it was a gshock redifice 2133ak, It was getting sold for around 700php so I got more and more nervous and suspicious, digging around more, I found out that It was indeed a fake, a modus with fake receipt to deceive the potential buyer that the watch is indeed real and expensive.
Here's the link if anyone wanted: https://www.philippinewatchclub.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=60155
Getting back, I tried telling them about it but they told me off saying stuff like "it can't be fake because of the receipt, there's even a shop name and 1 year warranty"
Because of this purchase, we're on the red again, they just gave me 100php which is my school money for two days (my school is pretty far so the fare was 40php each day back to back) now I only have 10php to buy food. It was the same for my two siblings, we're all high school students (middle school)
Just for additional context, I never asked for a watch, I'm not even expecting to get anything for my graduation, I'm just not a materialistic person. Just bringing me to McDonald's to get fries and float would've been enough. After all I know that we're poor.
And to be honest, I don't think they even planned to give me gifts this graduation, I feel like they're just trying to justify their impulse buying by saying that it's a gift for me. Might be wrong about it though. The gift was just too out of place for me, I can't even remember when was the last time they gave me a gift, or celebrated my birthday for that matter. So yeah I know that I should be grateful for the gift but, knowing that the whole family has to suffer for it doesn't make me happy at all.
Update: So my dad went to the watchmakers to remove some of the chains because the watch was too big for me, he also asked if the watch was original(thank god he listened to my advice). It wasn't. It was a class B watch, he said the value was around 1500 too, his buying price, I don't know if I should believe him though since I saw the same exact watch on shopee and it's only around 600php, it also looks like he has no plans on getting a refund since some of the chains were removed already, and the person who sold it to dad was his friend's friend or something.

TL;DR this started as analysis, but also has a way out that could work and be better for Reddit

Third party apps are inconsequential

It may be shortsighted, but basically Reddit's API change decision makers don't actually care about third party apps. They don't want the apps gone, the apps aren't a factor for them at all. Reddit's decision makers are looking at the (sweet sweet VC backed) money, not at the visibility of what's impacted by their decisions.
Think about that anonymized chart of API usage, per backchannel mentioned elsewhere it seems that Apollo as (one of?) the largest third-party browser apps doesn't even make the top 10 of API usage, and that's with a huge dropoff from #1 to #10 on that list. Pricing was based on the usage and deep pockets of Microsoft, Google, and AI ventures backed by those companies or others being quieter about it (maybe Facebook as well, but it has its own user-generated content to mine). When you're dealing with large corporation and VC-backed research efforts, payments of millions of dollars a month are much more viable.
It's important to understand that the highest possible API use by Apollo is less than 1.4 percent of total API usage, based on Reddit's own numbers - and that's only if Apollo's usage was 11,204% of the official allowed levels [1]. In reality it sounds like Apollo's usage is well below that level, which probably means that all of the third-party Reddit browsers are likely less than 5% of API usage unless they have code problems that are inflating that usage.
So, decisions about API changes and pricing were made based on the resources and finances of the companies responsible for 95+% of API usage. The highly-visible third party apps preferred by many of their power users were just acceptable losses/unintended civilian casualties/Phan Thi Kim Phuc.

Third party apps probably can't adapt in time

Reddit set their pricing to get recurring revenue from corporations, but most of the apps out there don't even receive recurring revenue. RIF is a one-time purchase, Baconreader appears to be a one-time purchase, Narwhal is a one-time purchase, not sure about others. Apollo appears to be an outlier in having subscriptions for Apollo Ultra.
That means that for most of the third party apps, they have less than 30 days to change their business model from one-time sales to subscriptions while adding subscription support to their apps (and test it, and get it through app approval processes). But hey, developer time is free and everyone can spin up a business ready to handle tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per month of cash flow while still holding down their day jobs, right?
And even if the coding can happen, get tested, get through code review and get distributed, let's look at those business issues for a minute, even just for Apollo which already has the subscription model in place and could adapt fastest. Assuming iamthatis is personally earning enough to be competitive with a corporate job for a skilled iOS app developer, is paying his server developer something comparable, and assuming that the server hosting costs are similar in scope, all of that combined is an annual revenue stream that's still probably well under $1 million per year - and that comes with some big assumptions. What kind of business changes would need to happen for that small company to suddenly handle ten times that revenue (not profits, revenue, most would immediately go back out). There are accounting requirements, tax implications, banking concerns (what would happen if he'd been using Silicon Valley Bank and deposits hadn't been fully backed as they were?) all sorts of issues that companies normally grow into. (I used ten times revenue because who knows what percentage of people would stay?)
Heck, that assumes that Google and Apple wouldn't have an issue with apps that were previously pretty insignificant money-wise suddenly having a lot of money moving through them - and I didn't even talk about app store cuts either.

Malicious, Indifferent, or Incompetent, does it matter?

Basically as far as the third party apps like Apollo, RIF, etc. are concerned Reddit has done the bare minimum needed to be able to say "see, we gave options! We didn't kill the apps!" while doing it in a way that makes the demise of all or almost all third party apps almost inevitable.
Did someone want the apps dead? Maybe, at least in a "will nobody rid me of this troublesome app" kind of way possibly coming from the team responsible for the official app. After all, if you get rid of all the third party apps maybe people will stop complaining about the one you're responsible for. All the benefits of killing a competitor off, without the internal political backblast of sabotaging another internal team!
Did they just not care, because the third party apps just don't matter if you only look at the raw API numbers? That seems more likely.
Or finally, did nobody realize that the people most likely to be using third-party apps are also the most likely to be both longer-term users and power users, some of them in positions where they give a lot more to Reddit than Reddit has ever given them (*waves* hi unpaid moderators!)?

Can Reddit fix it?

Almost certainly yes and pretty easily, but it would require a change of approach. It'd probably also make them noticeably more money. It really comes down to which is more important - saving face and having someone's authoritah respected on the one side getting more revenue and not killing all third party apps (with attendant community reaction) on the other.
The truly simple option would be to require users of third party apps to have a paid account - probably not full Reddit Premium but a cheaper option at $1-3/month or $15-20/year. Reddit already has everything needed for this and it'd likely require pretty minimal changes on the backend since most or all of the API already accepts user account information. If they wanted to incentivize people to get full Premium (or even a possible future higher tier, maybe "Reddit Family?"), have Premium and higher allow one or more additional user IDs associated and possibly have higher API usage limits. Precise numbers would need to be ironed out (e.g. does the bottom tier allow multiple accounts with a smaller shared API pool, etc), but that would address a lot of the users who have multiple accounts for different uses.
Having Reddit handle the subscriptions would get the money to them directly, provide ways for them to increase the revenue per user (e.g. by upsells to better plans differentiated by users, limits, coins, etc) and still provide a pretty easy way to monetize the API. It might even let them actually increase the API cost for heavy users without impacting non-scrapers. In addition, that money would be going to Reddit, without having a large chunk taken by the app stores (someone at Reddit knows about the app store surcharges, because their app store prices for Premium are $10-12/year higher than on the site). In addition, $2/month to Reddit with them getting all of it is more than $3+/month to an app (minus 30% for the app store, minus overhead of having another company involved, and minus the app developer having to account for the risk of heavy users driving up API costs) of which maybe Reddit gets half.
But what about the free users and people not logged in?
For this, they really don't count. Maybe Reddit could make a small set of features/subreddits available at no cost, or maybe app developers with backend servers could cache some things and make them available to read by free users, but since this is all about Reddit monetizing usage the answer for free users is probably going to end up as "Use the Reddit app or website."
Notes:
[1] Sum the percentages given on the chart, then use 11,204 for Apollo's theoretical percentage since the lowest in the top 10 is 11,205. Divide appropriately.

Welcome to /Charity!

Got a charitable cause you'd like to share! This is the place!

Requirements

For 501c(3) non-profits (US) or a Non-Governmental Organization (aka NGO outside the US)

• For a registered 501c(3) or other certified charity (such as NGO's in other non-US countries), the charity must be listed in a governmental web site for verification.
• A fundraiser that is being handled directly by that charity, such as the American Heart Association's Heartwalk or JDRF's charity walk, where you supply a link on their site for your team/yourself.
• A crowdfunding site that shows it is directly benefiting a certified charity.

Please modmail us so that we can flair your post as a registered certified non-profit!

For Everyone Else

You must have both

• Account age of 30 days or older AND
• Comment karma of 250 or greater.

NOTE: We are specifically looking for COMMENT karma. The karma value you are probably looking at is a COMBINED value, consisting of both Link/Post karma plus Comment karma.

To view your karma breakdown:

• Mouse-hover over your username on desktop. This works for both the old and redesigned web site.
• On the official Reddit app for iOS, view your profile, then tap the karma value shown.
• On the official Reddit app for Android, you can't. Complain on /redditmobile.
• On the unofficial Reddit App for Android, RIF (Formerly known as Reddit is Fun), your breakdown is listed on your profile screen.

The following circumventions will result in a ban:

• Using a karma farming subreddit, such as Karma4You, or asking focomplaining about karma in a general sub.
• Unsolicited private messaging to push your campaign.
• Posting your campaign on someone else's post.

Comment Karma is directly correlated to how many comments you leave plus/minus any points as people upvote a popular comment or downvote an unpopular comment.

Credibility, Community, and You

AKA, Why Do We Have Account Requirements for Individuals?
In an effort to make your crowdfunding efforts more successful here on Reddit, some background first:
In many of the gifting and fundraising subs, you'll notice that without a certain amount "karma" and an account that's old enough, you'll garner down votes or worse, your posts and comments get automatically removed.
Why?
To many Redditors, this place is a community built on activity. The "coin" of the land here is your account, and how much you've contributed to the Reddit community at large reflected in post and comment karma.
As a general rule, Redditors dislike the creation of accounts specifically to fund raise or to make requests. It makes it seem like these people simply treat Reddit as some sort of magical internet wallet, and that doesn't win many friends.
The other reason why new accounts are so disliked is that they're often alternate accounts of established users, in order to hide their activity from people they know. While we do sympathize with those of you who have valid reasons, this privilege is often abused by those who create disposable accounts to scam people for a quick buck.
This trust issue doesn't exist in the same way with certified non-profit groups, as you can look them up online for verification, and at least in the case of 501c(3)s, their spending is transparent due to their required tax filings which are public information.
So if you're new to Reddit, welcome! Spend some time and look around for something that catches your interest and chat it up with others and become part of the community!
However if you're here for the sole reason of making requests in a hurry, please be aware your pleas for help will likely be ignored.
REMEMBER, CREDIBILITY AND COMMUNITY IS EVERYTHING!
For this reason, the mods will not post anything on behalf of any user that does not meet account requirements.

Rules

1. Posts must be more than just a link to your campaign. Be descriptive! Show evidence . This includes:
   1. If this is for your pet, photos of your pet in question, with your username on a handwritten note in the picture.
   2. School documentation showing enrollment if you are asking for assistance for school.
   3. Redacted bills showing your situation.
   4. Or other relevant documentation that can help establish credibility.
   5. At minimum, please attach an unobstructed selfie photo of yourself(the submitter) with a handwritten note of your username.
   6. Low effort posts that simply say to the effect of, "everything is listed in the GoFundMe" will be removed.
2. Please Flair your posts, once created. If you don't know how, just let the mods know and we'll do it for you.
3. Only 1 campaign per user. We want you have some personal connection to the campaign, and not submit multiples simply because they were in the news.
4. Reposts are allowed once a week. If a repost comes up too early, the newest one(s) will be removed.
5. Acceptable transfer methods for individuals are for crowdfunding sites only, such as GoFundme, YouCaring, etc. Individuals should avoid using Paypal, crypto, or direct banking aps (like Chase). 501c(3) and NGOs may use whatever method they wish.
6. Don't PM people to make requests. If you receive an unsolicited private message, please let us know!
7. Do not post politically-related campaigns. They're just too divisive.
8. Trolling will not be tolerated and offending users will be banned.
9. Don't bug the mods for an exception to the account requirements. None will be given. If you attempt to circumvent the requirement by karma farming or by commenting on someone else's post, your account will be banned.
10. No posting for other Redditors. No Alts. This is viewed as a circumvention of requirements and both accounts will be banned.
11. Selling is only allowed by 1st parties directly. We do not allow selling by 3rd parties to benefit another organization, as there's no transparency to verify that the announced percentage of sales actually goes to the beneficiary. Only direct sales by the non-profit organization are allowed.

Supporting Information Requested for Non-501c(3) and Non-NGO campaigns.

We aren't the government. We aren't a court of law. We definitely don't want you to give out information that could lead to identity theft. However, some campaigns are more successful when they have additional documentation.
This includes:

• Pet related requests: Photos of your pet in question, with your username on a handwritten note in the picture. This helps show you actually own the pet in question.
• Education related requests: Documentation showing enrollment or acceptance if you are asking for assistance for school.
• Redacted bills showing your situation. In some cases, a donor may prefer to pay a creditor directly on your behalf, so be prepared and find out if that is available to you.
• If you are sharing a campaign for a registered certified non-profit organization (such as a 501c3 or NGO), you should say so in the post, and it should list that status on the campaign page/web site.
• Or other relevant documentation that can help establish credibility.

Low effort posts that simply say to the effect of, "everything is listed in the GoFundMe" (or less!) will be removed.

How to Include a Photo or Other Supporting Info Document In Your Post

Because Reddit wasn't initially designed to handle photos when it was created, it has limitations in the implementation of photo support which don't work well for us. So instead we suggest the following:

1. Upload your photo to Imgur.com or other photo hosting site.
2. Copy the URL for the photo.
3. Create a new post or Edit your existing one to include the URL to the photo.

Please make sure to include this, as it is the primary reason why posts that are otherwise fine get removed.

Advice On Making Your Campaign Go Further

Not all crowdfunding campaigns are the same, but here are some suggestions.

• Make sure your campaign has been shared among your Facebook friends! You might think it's embarrassing, however your friends and family are more likely to care than internet strangers.
• Show that you've exhausted all the other possibilities. A lot of potential donors don't like to give money when it seems like the requester's first and only solution is to simply throw someone else's money at the problem. Nobody is going to take your word when you literally only say, "but I've done everything!", when the actual reality is probably closer to "I've done everything I can think of", which arguably is NOT everything.
• Show that there's a plan to use the money wisely. Often people have campaigns for their business ideas, but it doesn't really seem like they thought it all the way through. Tell people what steps you've taken so far, and what you're going to do next.
• Be open to critics. If there's something that people ask about, you should not be dismissive. Provide more detail. There's a possibility that they know something you don't, or they have something different about their own experience that might be useful to you. If you simply brush off your critics, it shows objectively that you're not doing everything possible.
• Review your own campaign with the mindset of a potential donor. Ask yourself, "Would I give money to this?" Or get a friend to review it for you.

Questions?

Please don't hesitate to ask the mods!
... Unless you're trying to ask for an exception to the account requirements.

So I'm planning to buy a house in the UK, say for 300k. The thing is, I'm not FTB since I own a property abroad (Bulgaria). Now, the problem is that there's a SDLT surcharge I don't want to pay, and I find confusing information on the internet since the circumstances are a little bit tricky. The flat abroad was gifted to me by my dad, but it's kind of usufruct, thus it says in the gift contract that he has the right to live there until his dead basically. As I understand, that may help avoid the surcharge.
I have a few options:

1. Don't declare it, keep quiet (that's what my mortgage broker advised, he deals with foreigners all the time, so apparently that works). I kind of smells fraud so I don't really want to do it, but for 10k, maybe? I don't think HMRC has the power or resources to find it. And worst case what could happen?
2. Try the usufruct thing, but since there's no such thing under English law I believe it would be very hard to do.
3. The price of the flat. Now, I pay tax on the flat yearly based on its price. The thing is, government very much undervalues them, so the tax is small. (So I pay tax based on the value of the property about 15k EUR). Really, on the open market I could sell the flat for about 50k EUR. Question, can I use the government evaluation to trick the HMRC about the true cost of the flat? I don't see a reason why they won't trust it + I don't think they monitor foreign property sales. Alternatively, I can do a private evaluation and bribe someone so it costs less than 45k?

Thanks

So I'm planning to buy a house in the UK, say for 300k. The thing is, I'm not FTB since I own a property abroad (Bulgaria). Now, the problem is that there's a SDLT surcharge I don't want to pay, and I find confusing information on the internet since the circumstances are a little bit tricky. The flat abroad was gifted to me by my dad, but it's kind of usufruct, thus it says in the gift contract that he has the right to live there until his dead basically. As I understand, that may help avoid the surcharge.
I have a few options:

1. Don't declare it, keep quiet (that's what my mortgage broker advised, he deals with foreigners all the time, so apparently that works). I kind of smells fraud so I don't really want to do it, but for 10k, maybe? I don't think HMRC has the power or resources to find it. And worst case what could happen?
2. Try the usufruct thing, but since there's no such thing under English law I believe it would be very hard to do.
3. The price of the flat. Now, I pay tax on the flat yearly based on its price. The thing is, government very much undervalues them, so the tax is small. (So I pay tax based on the value of the property about 15k EUR). Really, on the open market I could sell the flat for about 50k EUR. Question, can I use the government evaluation to trick the HMRC about the true cost of the flat? I don't see a reason why they won't trust it + I don't think they monitor foreign property sales. Alternatively, I can do a private evaluation and bribe someone so it costs less than 45k?

Thanks

I'm new here so I'd just like to say I appreciate any insights you can give.
In 2019, my partner's mum was struggling with mortgage payments, and it was looking likely that she would soon need to be moved into care due to long term health issues, as well as moving closer to her two daughters (Lisa, my partner and her sister Alice). As such, Alice took over the mortgage and had the house moved into her name. My Lisa and I were not in a financial situation to help with this at the time, but her sister was totally fine with this and went ahead with the takeover. The house was subsequently sold relatively soon after, and part of the money from that sale was used to fund her care until her sad passing around a year later in 2020.
Following this, some money remained following the house sale. Alice always intended to give Lisa her share of the house money (after any legal fees and costs had been accounted for) as part of inheritance, should they find themselves in the position they were now in. This money was simply kept in a saving account that Alice had, and remained virtually untouched afterwards. Lisa and I have been house hunting, and asked Alice to simply hold on to the money until the time came that we would need it to help with deposit and such. The value remaining was approximately £20,000.
We are now in a position to make a move on a house of our own, but are unsure if Alice is OK to simply move the money into our account without incurring fees and such. We are thinking that in the eyes of the law, this won't be seen as a simple inheritance as Alice was technically owner of the house, but would rather be seen as a gift. I'm sure there would have been better ways we could have handled the whole situation, but when we were back then, with their mum struggling health wise, and following her death, you aren't really thinking about the money and things like that in the most sensible way I guess. I should make it clear that the two sisters have a really good relationship, and both just want to sort this out in the best way.
I'm asking what you think the best course of action would be in this matter. Are we worrying over nothing? Will this all get eaten up in some sort of tax? Are we at risk of being accused of anything. We're not very good with financial things, and are worried about screwing up or missing out on a better way of dealing with this situation, so any advice is appreciated. We're not trying to cheat any system, so if we have to pay any sort of tax, or fee, so be it. Merely trying to understand what options are available or if we're being over the top. It simply means a lot to make the most of this, as I know that's what their mum would like done with what she worked so hard for.
Thank you for any information or advice you can give. If you need more information, please let me know and I will update here.

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If you're reading this, perhaps you're like me. You have most things you want in GTA Online. You've "done it all". And now you're bored.
But... have you *really* done it all? Turns out, most of us haven't. There's so much to do in this game, and it's easy to get stuck in old habits that prevent us from discovering everything there is to do in Los Santos!
So I began writing down all my ideas for having fun in the game, and basically use these suggestions as guidelines to always find something new to do. It has completely reinvigorated my joy for the game, and I hope it can help you do the same!
If you're having trouble with motivation or inspiration, then I suggest picking something at random from the list and just doing it! You might discover that you love it, just like I did!
And if you have anything more to add, please share your comments so that we can all help build this list together. :)
​
Let's go!
​

• Break Your Habits: Most people have a routine that they repeat over and over again until they get burned out and bored with the game! Your number one goal for having fun must be to break your old habits!
• Grind Less: If you've played for a long time, there's absolutely zero reason to grind big piles of useless money. People often develop bad habits where they finally grind so much that they forget to have fun. The "wonder" of the world completely vanishes when everything becomes about optimal times and optimal routes and optimal mission rotations. Relax! Start exploring everything that the game has to offer instead! Dare to do the "less optimal" routes, and have the courage to stop stressing about the "time efficiency" when you do the game's content. Sure, perhaps you can do a mission in 2 minutes with an Oppressor Mk2, but why not relax, put on a podcast, and do a relaxing 5 minute drive instead? Relax and have fun!
• Switch Off the Business Mindset: Why grind at all? Why do businesses at all? What do you really need the money for, whatsoever? If it feels like grinding, do something else that's more fun for you! Stop thinking about the money and start thinking about the real-world fun you're having! Start actually enjoying all the things you've previously grinded for! Perhaps you might enjoy treating GTA as a racing simulator where you mostly do challenges/race maps instead? There's so much more to do that isn't purely related to earning money!
• Accept All Invites: When you see invites to races, challenges, missions, etc, accept them! You will broaden your horizons about what you can do in the game, and you will often make the newbies very happy! Of course, if it turns out they're a hopelessly stupid newbie who keeps dying and never improves, then sure, I'd suggest leaving the heist to save your time and sanity. But most of the time, the other players will be smart enough to learn quickly. You can easily make great, new friends this way!
• Protect the Newbies: If you see someone doing a sales mission in a public lobby, why not fly over there in a powerful airborne vehicle (or heck, a missile-equipped Toreador car), and then follow them as their bodyguard against any griefers that may appear!
• Join People's CEO/MC: You can list yourself as "looking for work" via the interaction menu, which will alert other people that there's someone looking for work in the session. You can then join them and help people out with their missions, which is often a fun and relaxing activity for a while!
• Get a Crew: Look around for a crew of like-minded people. They exist. There are crews that specialize in heisting with competent players. There are crews that focus on racing. There are crews for Arena War. There are crews that only do LS Car Meet challenges/races. There's even crews specialized in doing sales missions together, by helping each other with business sales, if that's your thing! Finding a group of people with a compatible mindset and interests really pays off in the end!
• Switch Sessions: You can jump between multiple public sessions until you find one that matches your mood. Perhaps a nice, quiet sessions without griefers, perfect for doing sales missions? Or maybe one where there's a group of people that are actively doing something fun, which you can join in on? Don't just settle for your session. Explore what's out there!
• Do the Stupid Things: Grab your friends or some randoms, and challenge each other to do the most stupid and random things you can think of. The game is a sandbox. So start acting like it! For example, why not challenge each other with things like "everyone starts at the beach without any vehicles, your goal is to get to the Senora Desert convenience store, and you're only allowed to use stolen vehicles, the first person to reach the desert wins", or how about "everyone jumps from the Maze Bank Tower and your goal is to ride your parachute all the way to the ferris wheel". Is that even possible? Who knows! Let's find out!
• Become a Map Creator: If you've had fun making random challenges in freeroam, why not make them into more formal challenges, by creating actual maps? The map creator is very advanced. You can modify the world, add checkpoints anywhere you want, you could make a bicycle race, add pedestrians, enable weapon wheel usage, add parachute jumps, stunt jumps, survival modes, etc. Go wild!
• River Racing: The game has two epic rivers that start at the "Alamo Sea" (desert lake) and head west out to the ocean. Why not do a race with some friends? Get the Blazer Aqua amphibious quad bike and start at the desert, then race through one of the rivers, which is full of fun jumps. Next, decide on a destination (such as the Del Perro Pier) and do the rest of the drive on roads to see who gets there first.
• Stop Flying: Whenever a game lets you fly, you end up skipping huge amounts of content and world design and just flying directly above it all. That's nice if you want to get somewhere efficiently, but it really breaks the game's immersion. Try driving everywhere instead!
• Learn to Fly: Many players are awful at flying (especially the helicopters). Why not practice your flying skills? Perhaps try landing your helicopter at very tight spots, on rooftops, and other fun locations!
• Use Motorcycles: They're more thrilling than cars, because crashing actually has consequences. They're also very fast and agile, which feels awesome while driving through the city!
• Oppressor MK1: Fly around the map, trying to create your own challenges such as flying over the water or climbing Mount Chiliad.
• Climb the Mountain: Find various fun vehicles and attempt to climb Mount Chiliad in them. There's lots of fun to be had with motorcycles at the mountain!
• BMX Tricks: There are so many skate parks and BMX bicycle stunt locations in the city. Why not look at some BMX stunt videos for inspiration?
• Throw Away the GPS: Stop staring at the minimap while driving! This is super fun. Let's say that you need to get to Simeon's shop. Instead of opening up the world map and setting a map marker and following the GPS line like a lemming, try to train yourself to navigate the city! Drive the streets, look at the surroundings and actually navigate! It's so much fun and you'll feel way more relaxed. The city will also feel way more immersive. You can even modify the minimap via "Settings: Display: Radar = Blips", which hides the map so that you can't see the shape of the streets by glancing at the minimap anymore. You can even disable it completely, but unfortunately it also hides the healthbar if you do that.
• Use First Person: You can change the game's camera mode to first person, which is a really unique and immersive way to play the game. Steal some cars and go cruising! It will feel like an entirely different game when you get used to it!
• Take Selfies: Find beautiful locations and attempt to take great screenshots, with perfect framing and composition! You can use the game's built-in snapmatic camera, or you can use your regular screenshot key instead! Collecting photos of your adventures is a nice way to remember where you've been!
• Businesses: There are so many businesses in the game, and it's easy to forget about them after a while. Look at your businesses and begin doing their sourcing and sales missons again! Most of us quit them because they're very grindy, but after a long time away from them, they'll feel fresh again. And they'll feel much more relaxing if you vary between your different businesses and you only do one or two missions at a time, to never get bored.
• Nightclub: Do the promotion/popularity missions, which involve going around town and promoting the nightclub, or helping to remove unwanted or drunk guests from the club. All of that improves your popularity, which improves the passive income you're earning from the club!
• Get the DJs: The nightclub has multiple DJs. Why not unlock them all? Their missions are very fun, and you'll earn new music for your club.
• Bunker: Why not do some manual supply missions, just to relax and have fun? Sure, the optimal way to make money with the bunker is to buy the supplies and do "better" things with your time instead of sourcing supplies, but why does everything have to be about ultimate efficiency all the time? If you're a long-time player, you already have lots of money and you need new things to do!
• Contact Missions: So many people don't even know that you can get missions by calling NPCs on the phone. It's named "contact missions" and they can be very fun. I recommend calling Dax and doing "Request Work" from him, because his missions are very varied and after you've done enough you get various important rewards, such as upgrades for your Acid Lab business.
• CEO/VIP Work: When you're a CEO, you can start SecuroServ missions via the interaction menu. There's lots of fun ones! For example, why not get your favorite car, relax and do the Sightseer mission, seeing where the map markers will take you while you enjoy the relaxing drive? The mission gives you 15 minutes, which is plenty of time to take the scenic route.
• Terrorbyte Missions: Another forgotten relic! The terrorbyte has lots of fun missions which are very good for variation. They used to be the best "active" way to earn money in GTA. Most players who grinded those missions have only done the "optimal rotation", but how about actually doing all of the available missions for fun?
• Rockstar Jobs: There are so many high-quality maps, races and challenge modes in the game. Explore the official list of RockstaCurated jobs in the game's pause menu. There's a ton of them!
• Community Jobs: There's a ton of cool community maps in the game. Remember to favorite the ones you liked so that you can easily start the same again!
• Auto Shop: Do the customer car customization and delivery jobs, and do the heists! They can be done solo.
• MC Club: Do the customer motorcycle customization and delivery jobs.
• Vehicle Warehouse: Do the Import/Export car theft and sales missions. Be sure to use the trick that ensures you only get high-end cars (permanently fill the warehouse with every worthless sourced car in the game, then you will only get high-end cars after that).
• Acid Lab: The best passive income business in the game. Spend some time doing Dax's contact missions to fully upgrade your lab's efficiency and it will become very profitable. Then mix up your gameplay between both sourcing Acid supplies or buying them. And do the sales missions.
• Franklin's Agency: Do the Dr. Dre story missions, then do 201x Security Contract missions until you've unlocked the highest amount of passive daily income (it goes up by $100 every time you do a mission, capped at $20,000 after having done 201 contracts).
• Payphone Hits: They're unlocked after doing at least 3 Security Contract missions. After that, you're able to call Franklin every 20 minutes to request a "payphone hit", which are short 3-5 minute missions with optional challenges that grant you a whopping $85,000 per job. They're very profitable.
• Weekly Time Trials: Do the camotorcycle time trial and the RC car time trial every week, they're a good way to learn how to drive and they give a nice bit of money! Remember that you can hold a key to respawn at the start of the race before the time has ended, if you're sure that you won't make it in time.
• Daily Objectives: In your interaction menu, look at the Objectives and complete them. They're a good way to be inspired to do things you might not do otherwise.
• Daily Collectible Hunts: G's Cache (hunt for the hidden street cache), Kosatka submarine treasure hunt, Street dealer (find it and sell to it every day), Cayo Perico's Buried Stashes, etc.
• Get a Fresh Look: Create a new character outfit (clothes, hairstyle, tattoos, mask).
• Use Different Weapons: Challenge yourself to use different weapons than the same old, boring weapon you always use. For example, how about only using the Heavy Revolver? Make those shots count!
• Modify Your Weapons: Change their styles and attachments.
• Tune Your Precious Car: You might have a "perfectly tuned" car that you've been driving for years and that you're always using. Why not modify it a bit? Put a different livery on it, and some different colors at least? What felt "fresh" two years ago would just be contributing to a feeling of "staleness" today. Freshen things up!
• Ride of the Day: Most long-time players have around a hundred vehicles, but most of them collect dust. Why not set fun "challenge" rules for yourself, such as randomly selecting a vehicle and using only that vehicle on that real-life day?
• Outfit of the Day: Why not make it your goal to create a new character "outfit of the day" (or week) whenever you log in? It's a great way to get a fresh feeling every time you play!
• Remember the Special Outfits: You can visit the front desk of any clothes store to browse various outfits for inspiration. But did you know that you can also visit the "changing room" or wardrobe in the stores or at your apartment, to browse various outfits that you've unlocked via special mission rewards? For example, you can be a Yacht Captain or a GoPostal mailman if you've done the associated missions! Most of them are in the "Outfits: Special" category.
• Character Replica Outfits: Think of a recognizable character, and attempt to replicate the look in GTA as closely as possible. For example, Mr. Bean or Super Mario!
• Minigames: How about some Golf, Tennis, Darts or Arm Wrestling?
• Gang Attacks: Find a gang and eliminate them!
• Stash Houses: Find the stash houses and raid them for resources for your businesses.
• Parachute: Go somewhere high up and do a parachute dive! Better yet, look for the Junk Energy Skydives challenges on the map, or do Dom's parachute challenge (which is a special skydive at a random location).
• San Andreas Flight School: Do the flight school challenges! They're at the Los Santos Airport, at the airplane icon!
• Gun Range Challenges: Complete the Bunker's and Ammo-Nation Gun Range shooting challenges!
• Gun Range with Friends: Challenge a friend to the gun range mini-games, where you compete to see who is the most accurate!
• MC Club Missions: Form a MC club with at least one friend, then ride in formation and start MC missions via the interaction menu.
• MC Businesses: Yes, they're the most hated businesses in the game, but why not do them a little bit? You could do a little bit of supplying and a few small sales missions, to ensure that you have small sales. Or, team up with friends and take turns helping each other do larger sales.
• Racing: Do Open Wheel, Stunt Races, Transform Races, and Regular Races. There are so many different kinds of races in the game! The transform races are the newest feature, and are very cool, since you might drive a supercar down the street to the airport, then transform into a plane and fly through the sky, and other epic things, all in the same race map!
• LS Car Meet: Do the challenges, races and rank up your LS Car Meet rank. Try to win the Prize Ride!
• Lobby Car Meets: You can try arranging car meets with other people in the lobby, to check out each other's cars! Just beware of griefers. You may want to do it in the LS Car Meet building to avoid the griefer explosions, or just switch to a lobby with cooler people.
• Arcade: Play the arcade games and try to beat them! Some of them have hidden rewards for completing the game or completing certain challenges.
• Achievements: Look at the pause menu's Stats - Awards section, and pick some award that you'll try to complete! There are so many fun challenges in there, such as attempting to parachute for more than 3 minutes, or robbing every store on the map (you can see the checkmarks on the map to know if you've robbed those stores).
• Stunt Jumps: There are 50 stunt jump locations on the map, which unlock a few rewards and are also really fun to complete!
• Unlock Vehicle Colors: You may have noticed that certain colors are locked behind challenges, such as winning a certain amount of races. Why not finally unlock those colors you've always wanted but were always "too lazy" to unlock? You'll get to enjoy some flashy, new vehicle colors!
• Arena War: Very fun, but unfortunately hard to get a group going for it. But if you can get a group, Arena War is super fun.
• Freemode Battles: Join a large lobby and just do whatever you want while you're waiting for freemode battles, which start every 20 minutes and will alternate between Business Battles and Freemode Challenges. Then attempt to win those battles! Events will only trigger when there are at least 4 players outdoors, and they cannot be in the same CEO/MC.
• Ride with Strangers: Pick your nicest car and then drive around and invite strangers to either ride with you or do impromptu street race 1v1 challenges.
• Freemode Map Markers: Look at the map. There are icons and glowing markers everywhere on the map/streets. Visit whichever icon is nearest your current location and see what's there! Remember that you can go "On Call" (queue) for public races/missions while you're waiting for them to fill up, which lets you stay in Freemode while you're waiting.
• Weekly Bonuses: Look at the Rockstar Newswire to see what the weekly bonus money is, and focus on doing that business/event for a while, to earn some money!
• Max Your Stats: Get all your stats to maximum! Most people haven't finished Strength, which can be gradually maxed for fun by simply punching every civilian you see.
• Invade the Military: Invade the military base at Fort Zancudo with some friends, and make it your mission to steal a Lazer jet plane.
• Heists: Do some heist preps or full heists for fun! Many of them can be casually setup while solo, which is very relaxing! Most of the newer heists can even be completed while solo!
• Change Your Heist Routes: You don't have to always do the same approach over and over again. Most heists have a lot of different approaches. For example, have you ever successfully completed the "Silent and Sneaky" approach at the Casino? Start exploring the different possibilities out there!
• Yellow Mission Markers: The yellow letters/markers on the map show the location of significant storyline missions (such as ULP, Agency, Acid Lab, etc). Visit those locations and start completing the stories that GTA Online has to offer!
• Do the Jobs: Go to "Online - Jobs" in the pause menu, and explore the available options!
• Answer the Calls: There are so many fun missions for English Dave, the various DJs at the Music Locker, the Casino staff, etc. In most cases, you'll also get some kind of reward if you finish them all! You might even get them to stop calling you when you've finished everything, which is a nice reward in itself!
• Check Your Texts/Emails: There's a lot of "mini missions" that arrive via emails/text messages. For example, Simeon asks you to steal certain cars every day. There's also an early game treasure hunt which starts through an email.
• Use Quick Join: There's an app on your phone named "Quick Join". It queues you for a rapid, random job. It's a great way to explore new content, meet new people and to help them with the queues for their own missions.
• Browse the Internet: There are a ton of funny parody websites in GTA Online's internet browser. Explore what's out there!
• Watch TV/Movies: Have you seen all the TV shows and cinema movies yet? If not, relax and have some fun! :)
• Customize Your Phone: You can change the theme, background, ringtone and other settings for your in-game phone. Why not change things a bit?
• Don't Be Annoyed: The phone calls and missions may seem annoying, but try actually relaxing and doing them. Listen to the phone calls. Call the NPCs. Do their missions! They are pretty nice and chill activities which gives you something to do in the game and some challenges.
• Use a Gamepad: If you're a PC player, you'll know that most of the game is too easy, since the aiming and enemy difficulty was balanced for console (gamepad) players. Try using a gamepad on PC! Not only will your driving and flying be massively improved, you'll also have a much more fun time when fighting enemies, since you can't just "360 No Scope" everything with your superior pointing device anymore. You'll even get immersive rumble that lets you feel the engine of your cars! How cool is that?! The game's options lets you finetune the sensitivity and aiming mode, and true professionals will use "Free Aim" which completely disables the auto-aiming.
• Meet Different People: If you're mostly a heist person, look for someone who loves cars and start hanging out with them to absorb some of their passion for another aspect of the game. You might learn to love car tuning too!
• Trade Prices: Many vehicles in the game have trade prices which give you a massive discount on the vehicle if you complete the challenge first. So set your eyes on a nice vehicle and do its challenges for fun! The discount you're earning will be like earning a huge sum of money that you put towards that specific vehicle. For example, a 2 million dollar discount on a vehicle you wanted is the same as if you had just earned 2 million dollars that you decided to spend on that vehicle! So don't sleep on the trade price discounts! They're a fun challenge with a very high monetary value!
• Bunker Research: If you have a bunker, try doing the research! You can unlock a ton of cool and super useful vehicle and weapon modifications! The explosive and incendiary ammo are must-haves.
• Mobile Operations Missions: The Mobile Operations Center is a forgotten business. It exists in your bunker, but you can request it via your Interaction Menu. Enter the truck's trailer, and then start missions from the computer in the command room!
• Avenger: Take your Avenger out for a drive! It's an extremely powerful, heavily armored aircraft and can be customized with various fun additions.
• Relaxing Yacht: Why not purchase or upgrade your yacht, and chill on it for a while with some friends? It even has lots of fun water vehicles parked in the water at the yacht, and helicopter pads for easy travel.
• Yacht Missions: You can start the fun "A Superyacht Life" mission series from the captain on your yacht. You'll even get a fun Yacht Captain outfit if you complete them all as host.
• Special Vehicle Work: The Vehicle Warehouse provides various epic missions whose "main" purpose is to unlock trade prices on various weaponized vehicles, but the missions themselves are fun too. Most players only do the specific missions for the vehicles they wanted to buy. Why not complete them all at least once, or play them again for fun?
• Collectibles: The map is full of collectible items, such as USB music sticks, playing cards, action figures, signal jammers (to unlock the best hacker for the Casino heist), etc. Why not relax and do them all for fun? They all unlock something fun or useful!
• Dream Vehicle: Relax, do some research about vehicles are available in the game, and set your eyes on a new "dream vehicle". Then work towards earning it and pimping it just the way you want it! Having a goal is fun!
• Test Drives: Check out the weekly test drives at the "Luxury Autos" shop, at Simeon's "Premium Deluxe Motorsport", and at the "LS Car Meet". You might find your new dream vehicle!
• Collect Vehicle Sets: You might have fun building specific collections, such as all Benny's vehicles in the game, etc. Setting goals for yourself about specific vehicle collections gives you something to strive for, and means that there's a lot of new things you'll need to buy and tune, which will keep you busy for a while!
• Sell Vehicles: Let's be honest, there are a lot of stinkers in your collection. Why not sell them? Just beware of the game's daily sell limit. The limit will be hit somewhere around 30-40 cars sold in 24 real-life hours. I'd suggest only selling 1-5 cars per real life day, which ensures that you'll never face the anger of Rockstar, and you'll have more time to make deliberate choices about which vehicles to get rid of. You'll also be getting roughly 50% of your previously spent money back for each sold vehicle! I'd recommend forcing yourself to drive a vehicle for a while before selling it, and looking at its customizations to see if you'd like it if you changed its style a bit, so that you're absolutely sure that you don't want it.
• Organize Your Vehicles: A lot of people have a complete mess in their garages. Why not begin sorting your cars, such as placing all your best cars at the premium display spots in your office garage? Perhaps organizing the floors by vehicle type? You can have lots of fun and you'll get a much better overview of your available vehicles.
• Relocate Yourself: If you've been staring at the same, old, boring spot for years, it could be fun to move! Most players choose the ugly, industrial, "optimal" locations. Why not relax and move to the beautiful beach instead? The Lombank office, the Insert Coin arcade, the Vespucci Beach MC clubhouse, the Del Perro Nightclub, the Strawberry auto shop, and the Vespucci Canals agency are all very beautiful locations with amazing interior and exterior design and great views! They're also very well placed for all of their business purposes!
• Browse in Person: When you're looking at real estate on the internet, things look very boring and impersonal. Why not take a drive around the city and look at the "real estate for sale" map markers in person? Perhaps you'll find a great new location for your home! However, if it's a multi-apartment house, I recommend checking YouTube for the various room views, to find the room with the best view before you buy it.
• Upgrade Your Properties/Businesses: If you haven't yet upgraded all of the equipment for a business, it's a great idea to upgrade it to improve its efficiency and safety. Or how about changing the interior design for fun, to replace the "same old daily view" with a fresh new look?
• Buy Every Arcade Machine: There are so many fun minigame machines for your arcade. Why not buy them all and pimp that place out? It's a nice place to relax, and even get some rewards for completing the games.
• Get All Passive Businesses: Why not work towards getting and fully upgrading all of the passive incomes in the game? Such as the Nightclub (which automatically generates money in the safe based on popularity, and generates MC business products to sell from its basement), the Acid Lab (which can be restocked with a simple phone call to Mutt, and has easy sales missions), the Arcade (which generates $5000 per in-game day when you've filled all of its interior slots with arcade machines, which can all be the same machine if you want), the Agency (which generates up to $20000 per in-game day based on how many Security Contracts you've completed), Street Dealers (finding the daily street dealer is much faster than regular sales missions, and they pay more than regular missions), Bunker (you can resupply it via one click with the Master Control Terminal in your Arcade, and then simply sell the product when it's still less than 25% full, thus guaranteeing a single sales vehicle every time). An added bonus of having passive businesses is the fact that they let you do other things in the game, such as doing racing and other fun challenges, while your businesses passively produce for you!
• Start Fresh: Did you know that your online account has two character slots? You can actually start fresh by simply withdrawing all of your banked money to your primary character, so that there's $0 in the bank. Then create a new character, which will begin at $0. Then relax and enjoy the ride of building a new empire. I suggest doing things differently this time. For example, if your primary character owns every business, why not just focus on a specific business this time, such as the CEO businesses (cargo crates), or just the vehicle warehouse, etc? Take this opportunity to simplify and avoid grinding, while still building a new playstyle to keep things fresh! Why not skip the Kosatka, so that you don't have the "easy Cayo Perico money" either? This slower, more deliberate, old-school way of making money will ensure that you have lots of fun, and you can set your own goals for what vehicles you want to save up money for on your new character! If you get tired of the grind, just switch back to your primary character again and enjoy the wealth. You can even delete your secondary character again to start fresh as many times as you want to.
• Spend Your Money: Having $100 million unused in the bank is just a completely pointless number, and is basically worth the same as having $0 in the bank if you aren't even using it. Unless your goal is to collect a specific amount of money for fun, I'd instead suggest that you actually start spending absolutely all of your money! Because if you can succeed in being perpetually slightly low on cash, you'll have much more reason to care about doing your businesses when you do want to buy something, which in turn drives your motivation to play again! Having a huge stash of money is bad for your motivation to play! Having a huge stash of money is like having an endless "Rich Daddy's Credit Card" in your wallet. Get rid of that credit card, buy a bunch of fun stuff, and enjoy the game more as a result!
• Play the Story: The vast majority of GTA Online players have barely touched the offline story. Why not relax with the story from time to time, gradually making your way through the epic offline story that started it all?
• Take a Break: If you're truly not finding any fun anymore, then take a break, perhaps a few weeks or a month is all you need to enjoy the game again! They also release content updates roughly twice per year, so you'll always have something new to return to in the future! :)

If you're reading this, perhaps you're like me. You have most things you want in GTA Online. You've "done it all". And now you're bored.
But... have you *really* done it all? Turns out, most of us haven't. There's so much to do in this game, and it's easy to get stuck in old habits that prevent us from discovering everything there is to do in Los Santos!
So I began writing down all my ideas for having fun in the game, and basically use these suggestions as guidelines to always find something new to do. It has completely reinvigorated my joy for the game, and I hope it can help you do the same!
If you're having trouble with motivation or inspiration, then I suggest picking something at random from the list and just doing it! You might discover that you love it, just like I did!
And if you have anything more to add, please share your comments so that we can all help build this list together. :)
​
Let's go!
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• Break Your Habits: Most people have a routine that they repeat over and over again until they get burned out and bored with the game! Your number one goal for having fun must be to break your old habits!
• Grind Less: If you've played for a long time, there's absolutely zero reason to grind big piles of useless money. People often develop bad habits where they finally grind so much that they forget to have fun. The "wonder" of the world completely vanishes when everything becomes about optimal times and optimal routes and optimal mission rotations. Relax! Start exploring everything that the game has to offer instead! Dare to do the "less optimal" routes, and have the courage to stop stressing about the "time efficiency" when you do the game's content. Sure, perhaps you can do a mission in 2 minutes with an Oppressor Mk2, but why not relax, put on a podcast, and do a relaxing 5 minute drive instead? Relax and have fun!
• Switch Off the Business Mindset: Why grind at all? Why do businesses at all? What do you really need the money for, whatsoever? If it feels like grinding, do something else that's more fun for you! Stop thinking about the money and start thinking about the real-world fun you're having! Start actually enjoying all the things you've previously grinded for! Perhaps you might enjoy treating GTA as a racing simulator where you mostly do challenges/race maps instead? There's so much more to do that isn't purely related to earning money!
• Accept All Invites: When you see invites to races, challenges, missions, etc, accept them! You will broaden your horizons about what you can do in the game, and you will often make the newbies very happy! Of course, if it turns out they're a hopelessly stupid newbie who keeps dying and never improves, then sure, I'd suggest leaving the heist to save your time and sanity. But most of the time, the other players will be smart enough to learn quickly. You can easily make great, new friends this way!
• Protect the Newbies: If you see someone doing a sales mission in a public lobby, why not fly over there in a powerful airborne vehicle (or heck, a missile-equipped Toreador car), and then follow them as their bodyguard against any griefers that may appear!
• Join People's CEO/MC: You can list yourself as "looking for work" via the interaction menu, which will alert other people that there's someone looking for work in the session. You can then join them and help people out with their missions, which is often a fun and relaxing activity for a while!
• Get a Crew: Look around for a crew of like-minded people. They exist. There are crews that specialize in heisting with competent players. There are crews that focus on racing. There are crews for Arena War. There are crews that only do LS Car Meet challenges/races. There's even crews specialized in doing sales missions together, by helping each other with business sales, if that's your thing! Finding a group of people with a compatible mindset and interests really pays off in the end!
• Switch Sessions: You can jump between multiple public sessions until you find one that matches your mood. Perhaps a nice, quiet sessions without griefers, perfect for doing sales missions? Or maybe one where there's a group of people that are actively doing something fun, which you can join in on? Don't just settle for your session. Explore what's out there!
• Do the Stupid Things: Grab your friends or some randoms, and challenge each other to do the most stupid and random things you can think of. The game is a sandbox. So start acting like it! For example, why not challenge each other with things like "everyone starts at the beach without any vehicles, your goal is to get to the Senora Desert convenience store, and you're only allowed to use stolen vehicles, the first person to reach the desert wins", or how about "everyone jumps from the Maze Bank Tower and your goal is to ride your parachute all the way to the ferris wheel". Is that even possible? Who knows! Let's find out!
• Become a Map Creator: If you've had fun making random challenges in freeroam, why not make them into more formal challenges, by creating actual maps? The map creator is very advanced. You can modify the world, add checkpoints anywhere you want, you could make a bicycle race, add pedestrians, enable weapon wheel usage, add parachute jumps, stunt jumps, survival modes, etc. Go wild!
• River Racing: The game has two epic rivers that start at the "Alamo Sea" (desert lake) and head west out to the ocean. Why not do a race with some friends? Get the Blazer Aqua amphibious quad bike and start at the desert, then race through one of the rivers, which is full of fun jumps. Next, decide on a destination (such as the Del Perro Pier) and do the rest of the drive on roads to see who gets there first.
• Stop Flying: Whenever a game lets you fly, you end up skipping huge amounts of content and world design and just flying directly above it all. That's nice if you want to get somewhere efficiently, but it really breaks the game's immersion. Try driving everywhere instead!
• Learn to Fly: Many players are awful at flying (especially the helicopters). Why not practice your flying skills? Perhaps try landing your helicopter at very tight spots, on rooftops, and other fun locations!
• Use Motorcycles: They're more thrilling than cars, because crashing actually has consequences. They're also very fast and agile, which feels awesome while driving through the city!
• Oppressor MK1: Fly around the map, trying to create your own challenges such as flying over the water or climbing Mount Chiliad.
• Climb the Mountain: Find various fun vehicles and attempt to climb Mount Chiliad in them. There's lots of fun to be had with motorcycles at the mountain!
• BMX Tricks: There are so many skate parks and BMX bicycle stunt locations in the city. Why not look at some BMX stunt videos for inspiration?
• Throw Away the GPS: Stop staring at the minimap while driving! This is super fun. Let's say that you need to get to Simeon's shop. Instead of opening up the world map and setting a map marker and following the GPS line like a lemming, try to train yourself to navigate the city! Drive the streets, look at the surroundings and actually navigate! It's so much fun and you'll feel way more relaxed. The city will also feel way more immersive. You can even modify the minimap via "Settings: Display: Radar = Blips", which hides the map so that you can't see the shape of the streets by glancing at the minimap anymore. You can even disable it completely, but unfortunately it also hides the healthbar if you do that.
• Use First Person: You can change the game's camera mode to first person, which is a really unique and immersive way to play the game. Steal some cars and go cruising! It will feel like an entirely different game when you get used to it!
• Take Selfies: Find beautiful locations and attempt to take great screenshots, with perfect framing and composition! You can use the game's built-in snapmatic camera, or you can use your regular screenshot key instead! Collecting photos of your adventures is a nice way to remember where you've been!
• Businesses: There are so many businesses in the game, and it's easy to forget about them after a while. Look at your businesses and begin doing their sourcing and sales missons again! Most of us quit them because they're very grindy, but after a long time away from them, they'll feel fresh again. And they'll feel much more relaxing if you vary between your different businesses and you only do one or two missions at a time, to never get bored.
• Nightclub: Do the promotion/popularity missions, which involve going around town and promoting the nightclub, or helping to remove unwanted or drunk guests from the club. All of that improves your popularity, which improves the passive income you're earning from the club!
• Get the DJs: The nightclub has multiple DJs. Why not unlock them all? Their missions are very fun, and you'll earn new music for your club.
• Bunker: Why not do some manual supply missions, just to relax and have fun? Sure, the optimal way to make money with the bunker is to buy the supplies and do "better" things with your time instead of sourcing supplies, but why does everything have to be about ultimate efficiency all the time? If you're a long-time player, you already have lots of money and you need new things to do!
• Contact Missions: So many people don't even know that you can get missions by calling NPCs on the phone. It's named "contact missions" and they can be very fun. I recommend calling Dax and doing "Request Work" from him, because his missions are very varied and after you've done enough you get various important rewards, such as upgrades for your Acid Lab business.
• CEO/VIP Work: When you're a CEO, you can start SecuroServ missions via the interaction menu. There's lots of fun ones! For example, why not get your favorite car, relax and do the Sightseer mission, seeing where the map markers will take you while you enjoy the relaxing drive? The mission gives you 15 minutes, which is plenty of time to take the scenic route.
• Terrorbyte Missions: Another forgotten relic! The terrorbyte has lots of fun missions which are very good for variation. They used to be the best "active" way to earn money in GTA. Most players who grinded those missions have only done the "optimal rotation", but how about actually doing all of the available missions for fun?
• Rockstar Jobs: There are so many high-quality maps, races and challenge modes in the game. Explore the official list of RockstaCurated jobs in the game's pause menu. There's a ton of them!
• Community Jobs: There's a ton of cool community maps in the game. Remember to favorite the ones you liked so that you can easily start the same again!
• Auto Shop: Do the customer car customization and delivery jobs, and do the heists! They can be done solo.
• MC Club: Do the customer motorcycle customization and delivery jobs.
• Vehicle Warehouse: Do the Import/Export car theft and sales missions. Be sure to use the trick that ensures you only get high-end cars (permanently fill the warehouse with every worthless sourced car in the game, then you will only get high-end cars after that).
• Acid Lab: The best passive income business in the game. Spend some time doing Dax's contact missions to fully upgrade your lab's efficiency and it will become very profitable. Then mix up your gameplay between both sourcing Acid supplies or buying them. And do the sales missions.
• Franklin's Agency: Do the Dr. Dre story missions, then do 201x Security Contract missions until you've unlocked the highest amount of passive daily income (it goes up by $100 every time you do a mission, capped at $20,000 after having done 201 contracts).
• Payphone Hits: They're unlocked after doing at least 3 Security Contract missions. After that, you're able to call Franklin every 20 minutes to request a "payphone hit", which are short 3-5 minute missions with optional challenges that grant you a whopping $85,000 per job. They're very profitable.
• Weekly Time Trials: Do the camotorcycle time trial and the RC car time trial every week, they're a good way to learn how to drive and they give a nice bit of money! Remember that you can hold a key to respawn at the start of the race before the time has ended, if you're sure that you won't make it in time.
• Daily Objectives: In your interaction menu, look at the Objectives and complete them. They're a good way to be inspired to do things you might not do otherwise.
• Daily Collectible Hunts: G's Cache (hunt for the hidden street cache), Kosatka submarine treasure hunt, Street dealer (find it and sell to it every day), Cayo Perico's Buried Stashes, etc.
• Get a Fresh Look: Create a new character outfit (clothes, hairstyle, tattoos, mask).
• Use Different Weapons: Challenge yourself to use different weapons than the same old, boring weapon you always use. For example, how about only using the Heavy Revolver? Make those shots count!
• Modify Your Weapons: Change their styles and attachments.
• Tune Your Precious Car: You might have a "perfectly tuned" car that you've been driving for years and that you're always using. Why not modify it a bit? Put a different livery on it, and some different colors at least? What felt "fresh" two years ago would just be contributing to a feeling of "staleness" today. Freshen things up!
• Ride of the Day: Most long-time players have around a hundred vehicles, but most of them collect dust. Why not set fun "challenge" rules for yourself, such as randomly selecting a vehicle and using only that vehicle on that real-life day?
• Outfit of the Day: Why not make it your goal to create a new character "outfit of the day" (or week) whenever you log in? It's a great way to get a fresh feeling every time you play!
• Remember the Special Outfits: You can visit the front desk of any clothes store to browse various outfits for inspiration. But did you know that you can also visit the "changing room" or wardrobe in the stores or at your apartment, to browse various outfits that you've unlocked via special mission rewards? For example, you can be a Yacht Captain or a GoPostal mailman if you've done the associated missions! Most of them are in the "Outfits: Special" category.
• Character Replica Outfits: Think of a recognizable character, and attempt to replicate the look in GTA as closely as possible. For example, Mr. Bean or Super Mario!
• Minigames: How about some Golf, Tennis, Darts or Arm Wrestling?
• Gang Attacks: Find a gang and eliminate them!
• Stash Houses: Find the stash houses and raid them for resources for your businesses.
• Parachute: Go somewhere high up and do a parachute dive! Better yet, look for the Junk Energy Skydives challenges on the map, or do Dom's parachute challenge (which is a special skydive at a random location).
• San Andreas Flight School: Do the flight school challenges! They're at the Los Santos Airport, at the airplane icon!
• Gun Range Challenges: Complete the Bunker's and Ammo-Nation Gun Range shooting challenges!
• Gun Range with Friends: Challenge a friend to the gun range mini-games, where you compete to see who is the most accurate!
• MC Club Missions: Form a MC club with at least one friend, then ride in formation and start MC missions via the interaction menu.
• MC Businesses: Yes, they're the most hated businesses in the game, but why not do them a little bit? You could do a little bit of supplying and a few small sales missions, to ensure that you have small sales. Or, team up with friends and take turns helping each other do larger sales.
• Racing: Do Open Wheel, Stunt Races, Transform Races, and Regular Races. There are so many different kinds of races in the game! The transform races are the newest feature, and are very cool, since you might drive a supercar down the street to the airport, then transform into a plane and fly through the sky, and other epic things, all in the same race map!
• LS Car Meet: Do the challenges, races and rank up your LS Car Meet rank. Try to win the Prize Ride!
• Lobby Car Meets: You can try arranging car meets with other people in the lobby, to check out each other's cars! Just beware of griefers. You may want to do it in the LS Car Meet building to avoid the griefer explosions, or just switch to a lobby with cooler people.
• Arcade: Play the arcade games and try to beat them! Some of them have hidden rewards for completing the game or completing certain challenges.
• Achievements: Look at the pause menu's Stats - Awards section, and pick some award that you'll try to complete! There are so many fun challenges in there, such as attempting to parachute for more than 3 minutes, or robbing every store on the map (you can see the checkmarks on the map to know if you've robbed those stores).
• Stunt Jumps: There are 50 stunt jump locations on the map, which unlock a few rewards and are also really fun to complete!
• Unlock Vehicle Colors: You may have noticed that certain colors are locked behind challenges, such as winning a certain amount of races. Why not finally unlock those colors you've always wanted but were always "too lazy" to unlock? You'll get to enjoy some flashy, new vehicle colors!
• Arena War: Very fun, but unfortunately hard to get a group going for it. But if you can get a group, Arena War is super fun.
• Freemode Battles: Join a large lobby and just do whatever you want while you're waiting for freemode battles, which start every 20 minutes and will alternate between Business Battles and Freemode Challenges. Then attempt to win those battles! Events will only trigger when there are at least 4 players outdoors, and they cannot be in the same CEO/MC.
• Ride with Strangers: Pick your nicest car and then drive around and invite strangers to either ride with you or do impromptu street race 1v1 challenges.
• Freemode Map Markers: Look at the map. There are icons and glowing markers everywhere on the map/streets. Visit whichever icon is nearest your current location and see what's there! Remember that you can go "On Call" (queue) for public races/missions while you're waiting for them to fill up, which lets you stay in Freemode while you're waiting.
• Weekly Bonuses: Look at the Rockstar Newswire to see what the weekly bonus money is, and focus on doing that business/event for a while, to earn some money!
• Max Your Stats: Get all your stats to maximum! Most people haven't finished Strength, which can be gradually maxed for fun by simply punching every civilian you see.
• Invade the Military: Invade the military base at Fort Zancudo with some friends, and make it your mission to steal a Lazer jet plane.
• Heists: Do some heist preps or full heists for fun! Many of them can be casually setup while solo, which is very relaxing! Most of the newer heists can even be completed while solo!
• Change Your Heist Routes: You don't have to always do the same approach over and over again. Most heists have a lot of different approaches. For example, have you ever successfully completed the "Silent and Sneaky" approach at the Casino? Start exploring the different possibilities out there!
• Yellow Mission Markers: The yellow letters/markers on the map show the location of significant storyline missions (such as ULP, Agency, Acid Lab, etc). Visit those locations and start completing the stories that GTA Online has to offer!
• Do the Jobs: Go to "Online - Jobs" in the pause menu, and explore the available options!
• Answer the Calls: There are so many fun missions for English Dave, the various DJs at the Music Locker, the Casino staff, etc. In most cases, you'll also get some kind of reward if you finish them all! You might even get them to stop calling you when you've finished everything, which is a nice reward in itself!
• Check Your Texts/Emails: There's a lot of "mini missions" that arrive via emails/text messages. For example, Simeon asks you to steal certain cars every day. There's also an early game treasure hunt which starts through an email.
• Use Quick Join: There's an app on your phone named "Quick Join". It queues you for a rapid, random job. It's a great way to explore new content, meet new people and to help them with the queues for their own missions.
• Browse the Internet: There are a ton of funny parody websites in GTA Online's internet browser. Explore what's out there!
• Watch TV/Movies: Have you seen all the TV shows and cinema movies yet? If not, relax and have some fun! :)
• Customize Your Phone: You can change the theme, background, ringtone and other settings for your in-game phone. Why not change things a bit?
• Don't Be Annoyed: The phone calls and missions may seem annoying, but try actually relaxing and doing them. Listen to the phone calls. Call the NPCs. Do their missions! They are pretty nice and chill activities which gives you something to do in the game and some challenges.
• Use a Gamepad: If you're a PC player, you'll know that most of the game is too easy, since the aiming and enemy difficulty was balanced for console (gamepad) players. Try using a gamepad on PC! Not only will your driving and flying be massively improved, you'll also have a much more fun time when fighting enemies, since you can't just "360 No Scope" everything with your superior pointing device anymore. You'll even get immersive rumble that lets you feel the engine of your cars! How cool is that?! The game's options lets you finetune the sensitivity and aiming mode, and true professionals will use "Free Aim" which completely disables the auto-aiming.
• Meet Different People: If you're mostly a heist person, look for someone who loves cars and start hanging out with them to absorb some of their passion for another aspect of the game. You might learn to love car tuning too!
• Trade Prices: Many vehicles in the game have trade prices which give you a massive discount on the vehicle if you complete the challenge first. So set your eyes on a nice vehicle and do its challenges for fun! The discount you're earning will be like earning a huge sum of money that you put towards that specific vehicle. For example, a 2 million dollar discount on a vehicle you wanted is the same as if you had just earned 2 million dollars that you decided to spend on that vehicle! So don't sleep on the trade price discounts! They're a fun challenge with a very high monetary value!
• Bunker Research: If you have a bunker, try doing the research! You can unlock a ton of cool and super useful vehicle and weapon modifications! The explosive and incendiary ammo are must-haves.
• Mobile Operations Missions: The Mobile Operations Center is a forgotten business. It exists in your bunker, but you can request it via your Interaction Menu. Enter the truck's trailer, and then start missions from the computer in the command room!
• Avenger: Take your Avenger out for a drive! It's an extremely powerful, heavily armored aircraft and can be customized with various fun additions.
• Relaxing Yacht: Why not purchase or upgrade your yacht, and chill on it for a while with some friends? It even has lots of fun water vehicles parked in the water at the yacht, and helicopter pads for easy travel.
• Yacht Missions: You can start the fun "A Superyacht Life" mission series from the captain on your yacht. You'll even get a fun Yacht Captain outfit if you complete them all as host.
• Special Vehicle Work: The Vehicle Warehouse provides various epic missions whose "main" purpose is to unlock trade prices on various weaponized vehicles, but the missions themselves are fun too. Most players only do the specific missions for the vehicles they wanted to buy. Why not complete them all at least once, or play them again for fun?
• Collectibles: The map is full of collectible items, such as USB music sticks, playing cards, action figures, signal jammers (to unlock the best hacker for the Casino heist), etc. Why not relax and do them all for fun? They all unlock something fun or useful!
• Dream Vehicle: Relax, do some research about vehicles are available in the game, and set your eyes on a new "dream vehicle". Then work towards earning it and pimping it just the way you want it! Having a goal is fun!
• Test Drives: Check out the weekly test drives at the "Luxury Autos" shop, at Simeon's "Premium Deluxe Motorsport", and at the "LS Car Meet". You might find your new dream vehicle!
• Collect Vehicle Sets: You might have fun building specific collections, such as all Benny's vehicles in the game, etc. Setting goals for yourself about specific vehicle collections gives you something to strive for, and means that there's a lot of new things you'll need to buy and tune, which will keep you busy for a while!
• Sell Vehicles: Let's be honest, there are a lot of stinkers in your collection. Why not sell them? Just beware of the game's daily sell limit. The limit will be hit somewhere around 30-40 cars sold in 24 real-life hours. I'd suggest only selling 1-5 cars per real life day, which ensures that you'll never face the anger of Rockstar, and you'll have more time to make deliberate choices about which vehicles to get rid of. You'll also be getting roughly 50% of your previously spent money back for each sold vehicle! I'd recommend forcing yourself to drive a vehicle for a while before selling it, and looking at its customizations to see if you'd like it if you changed its style a bit, so that you're absolutely sure that you don't want it.
• Organize Your Vehicles: A lot of people have a complete mess in their garages. Why not begin sorting your cars, such as placing all your best cars at the premium display spots in your office garage? Perhaps organizing the floors by vehicle type? You can have lots of fun and you'll get a much better overview of your available vehicles.
• Relocate Yourself: If you've been staring at the same, old, boring spot for years, it could be fun to move! Most players choose the ugly, industrial, "optimal" locations. Why not relax and move to the beautiful beach instead? The Lombank office, the Insert Coin arcade, the Vespucci Beach MC clubhouse, the Del Perro Nightclub, the Strawberry auto shop, and the Vespucci Canals agency are all very beautiful locations with amazing interior and exterior design and great views! They're also very well placed for all of their business purposes!
• Browse in Person: When you're looking at real estate on the internet, things look very boring and impersonal. Why not take a drive around the city and look at the "real estate for sale" map markers in person? Perhaps you'll find a great new location for your home! However, if it's a multi-apartment house, I recommend checking YouTube for the various room views, to find the room with the best view before you buy it.
• Upgrade Your Properties/Businesses: If you haven't yet upgraded all of the equipment for a business, it's a great idea to upgrade it to improve its efficiency and safety. Or how about changing the interior design for fun, to replace the "same old daily view" with a fresh new look?
• Buy Every Arcade Machine: There are so many fun minigame machines for your arcade. Why not buy them all and pimp that place out? It's a nice place to relax, and even get some rewards for completing the games.
• Get All Passive Businesses: Why not work towards getting and fully upgrading all of the passive incomes in the game? Such as the Nightclub (which automatically generates money in the safe based on popularity, and generates MC business products to sell from its basement), the Acid Lab (which can be restocked with a simple phone call to Mutt, and has easy sales missions), the Arcade (which generates $5000 per in-game day when you've filled all of its interior slots with arcade machines, which can all be the same machine if you want), the Agency (which generates up to $20000 per in-game day based on how many Security Contracts you've completed), Street Dealers (finding the daily street dealer is much faster than regular sales missions, and they pay more than regular missions), Bunker (you can resupply it via one click with the Master Control Terminal in your Arcade, and then simply sell the product when it's still less than 25% full, thus guaranteeing a single sales vehicle every time). An added bonus of having passive businesses is the fact that they let you do other things in the game, such as doing racing and other fun challenges, while your businesses passively produce for you!
• Start Fresh: Did you know that your online account has two character slots? You can actually start fresh by simply withdrawing all of your banked money to your primary character, so that there's $0 in the bank. Then create a new character, which will begin at $0. Then relax and enjoy the ride of building a new empire. I suggest doing things differently this time. For example, if your primary character owns every business, why not just focus on a specific business this time, such as the CEO businesses (cargo crates), or just the vehicle warehouse, etc? Take this opportunity to simplify and avoid grinding, while still building a new playstyle to keep things fresh! Why not skip the Kosatka, so that you don't have the "easy Cayo Perico money" either? This slower, more deliberate, old-school way of making money will ensure that you have lots of fun, and you can set your own goals for what vehicles you want to save up money for on your new character! If you get tired of the grind, just switch back to your primary character again and enjoy the wealth. You can even delete your secondary character again to start fresh as many times as you want to.
• Spend Your Money: Having $100 million unused in the bank is just a completely pointless number, and is basically worth the same as having $0 in the bank if you aren't even using it. Unless your goal is to collect a specific amount of money for fun, I'd instead suggest that you actually start spending absolutely all of your money! Because if you can succeed in being perpetually slightly low on cash, you'll have much more reason to care about doing your businesses when you do want to buy something, which in turn drives your motivation to play again! Having a huge stash of money is bad for your motivation to play! Having a huge stash of money is like having an endless "Rich Daddy's Credit Card" in your wallet. Get rid of that credit card, buy a bunch of fun stuff, and enjoy the game more as a result!
• Play the Story: The vast majority of GTA Online players have barely touched the offline story. Why not relax with the story from time to time, gradually making your way through the epic offline story that started it all?
• Take a Break: If you're truly not finding any fun anymore, then take a break, perhaps a few weeks or a month is all you need to enjoy the game again! They also release content updates roughly twice per year, so you'll always have something new to return to in the future! :)

Catch the full episode: https://www.wealthformula.com/podcast/371-ask-buck-june-2023/
Buck: Welcome back to the show, everyone. And today it's just me. Like old times. And we're going to take questions from the audience. There's actually no audience here in my room, in my office here. But I'm going to take questions from you. And we'll start with the question from Mike. Mike, here you go. Hello, Buckets. Mike Kaye from Melbourne Beach, Florida.
Mike: I was wondering if you were looking at any opportunities out there in regards to investing in distressed assets. I've noticed that rates have gone up in a lot of operators like Western wealth aren't cash flowing and are actually looking for more capital because they've got themselves into trouble. And if rates stay higher than expected, there could be some some pretty good deals as far as bailing folks out.
Buck: So I wanted to get your thoughts on if you were looking for anything out there as far as funds or whatever it may maybe create some opportunity here. Thanks, Mike. Thanks for the question, Mike. The answer well, let's start with this. Obviously, there's a lot of distress in the system right now. Interest rates have gone up a the steepest slope in American history.
And as you might expect, that has not been good for operators, particularly those who relied heavily on floating debt. You know, and this is important, I think, to understand what's going on a little bit, because you might be wondering why in the world would you use floating debt anyway? Well, if it's a long term hold, it never would really make sense to do that kind of short term debt.
However, and with these larger assets, the problem is fixing debt. If your plan is to, you know, ultimately sell. And, you know, 18 to 24 months, you are going to end up with an extremely high prepayment penalty. And so in those situations, the extremely short hold are the shorter hold models, you know, generally ran on floating rate. So if you're again, your business model is to get in and out in 18 months, it doesn't make sense to lock in the rates.
So obviously now they would be better off if we had. But everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. Right. That is from Mike Tyson, not from me. But that's that's kind of what's happening across the board here, especially for floating rates. And as for looking into creating this fund, which, you know, maybe you got a rescue fund or something like that, that the answer was whether I, I think that that's potentially something to do is, well, yeah, it's certainly something to consider.
And I have thought about it. These are essentially these sort of preferred equity positions, essentially become the lender. So there's not like any tax benefits or anything like that. But so, you know, I have thought about this, but but before doing anything like that, I want to make sure, you know, the economics makes sense for everyone against, again, perhaps one of the most appealing parts of this fund might actually to be getting into some second positions and maybe be first in line if the property fails and you know it or is distressed, it needs to be taken over.
But I really need to think about it because I also want everyone to have as much dry powder as possible. And because, again, it is no fun to be in this environment and those people who are going to make money are going to be the ones that have like nerves of steel that, you know, are okay to feel like, okay, I'm losing some money on one hand, but there's an opportunity to buy distressed assets on the other side.
And that's where real money is made. And again, it's a psychological thing that happens in every cycle. And the key is to try to keep your wits about you and learn, you know, learn whatever lessons you have to learn and move on and deploy. I certainly am not one who is not learned from this experience. Myself, I absolutely have, and I think it'll make me a better investor going forward.
Unfortunately, we're still in the midst of this mess right now. But anyway, bottom line is the answer is yes, potentially. I've thought about it. And I think like those kinds of preferred equity, essentially debt being in the second position behind the main lender, that is that's potentially appealing. And certainly as an investor, I think it's appealing because essentially you're you're in a lending position. You're not you know, you're not in an equity position, so you're superior to the equity position. Hopefully that helps. All right. Let's go on to the next question here. So it's from John.
John: Hi, this is John Valentino. I listened to your excellent podcast every Sunday morning on my run, walk and find them uniquely interesting and helpful amongst a sea of podcasts that aren't.
Buck: Yesterday you mentioned Terry Loughlin and your late in life swimming experience. I'm 68 now and at 55 I decided to learn to swim. I researched all of Terry's stuff and ended up using a local swimming coach here in Fresno, California, who knew Terry and who had a lot of experience. He had me swimming, breathing and flipped, turning very quickly.
Four years ago when we visited Maui, I did a two mile ocean swim with some master swimmers. I now swam about a mile and a half every Sunday with which the swim coach they taught me. And I do that. I listen to your podcast. I'm sure we could get you swimming and breathing properly very quickly. He Fresno's not too far from Montecito. Good luck with your swimming and let me know if you'd like me to hook you up with Rich. The swim coach.
Buck: Well, John, thanks for that. That makes for a lighter moment in this sea of despair. Ha ha ha. That's funny, kid at sea of despair. He's swimming. Anyway, for those of you who don't know what John is referring to, I'll just take a minute because, you know, taking questions from all kinds.
All types of questions here is back in 2016, I think it was 16, I listened to Tim Ferriss podcast about how he spent his whole life trying to swim and unsuccessfully, I'd say, met up a guy, met up with a guy named Terry Loughlin, who taught his total immersion technique or tie. So I decided, well, gosh, you know, basically Tim Ferriss was talking about my story, like he spent his entire, like, you know, didn't learn to swim as a little kid and then all this and trying to catch up and no one could teach him.
And that was kind of where I was. I do like him numerous, like tries added back in my twenties and thirties, and then I kind of had given up. Then I contacted Terry. He was in New York, upstate New York. So he actually flew out there. I was in Chicago at the time and he taught me to swim in about 2 to 3 hours and it was really unbelievable to me.
And the only thing I didn't learn how to do during that visit was to breathe. And unfortunately, that was so that was like I was there for like a day and a half. And that was the part I didn't get to. So now I can swim, but only as long as I can hold my breath because I can't seem to, you know, I can't breathe and swim at the same time.
Unfortunately, Terry had, end stage cancer. When I saw him and I believe I was his last student before he died a couple of months later, and he'd actually stopped teaching for a while, you know, before I got to be the lucky one that he decided he had enough strength to go back for. So lucky for me. So but yeah, I would love to, you know, John, shoot me an email, you know, where I am and I get well for Malcolm Connect me to your guy.
And I think Fresno might be a little far, but if he's as good as Terry, maybe I could. Maybe I could learn to breathe in a day, too. So, hey, anyway, thanks. Thanks for that. Let's go on to the next question here. All right. This one's from I think it's Garima.
Garima: I am looking to become a real professional on studies. We've been doing real estate for a little bit but wanted to do this. I really need help. If you can guide me well and see.
Buck: Well, I don't know. I can do my best about that, Garima. And first of all, I have to preface this as I always do, that what I'm about to say is not legal or any kind of tax advice. I'm not a tax professional. My degree is in medicine. I'm a former board certified surgeon, but that doesn't qualify me for much. And this in this arena, it's just my understanding of the tax law, which, you know, I spent a fair amount of time thinking about. So it's not like what I'm saying should not be listened to, I think.
But on the other hand, the liability issues, I have to make very clear consult with your own tax professional before anything anyway. So again, probably the best thing I can do in terms of guiding is tell you what I know about the qualification as real estate professionals status. And by the way, I should also point out that the benefits that I'm going to talk about, there's a lot of this similar benefits without having the status in short term rentals.
And that episode, I believe, is 354. So go back and listen to that one. It's I thought that was a pretty interesting episode. But why is agreement talking about this RFP short for a real estate professional So everyone is on the same page? What is the real estate professional designation? Why is it useful? Well, a real estate professional is not the same thing, is in a real estate agent or a real estate broker, which are basically involved with real estate transactions.
They're involved as like the middleman. Right. That's not really the business of real estate. The real estate professional is someone who is who is materially involved with the business of owning and operating business. And the reason that this is important, we'll get to in a minute, but I'm going to go into the qualification parts of this. And again, I'm not giving you advice and basically telling you what I can gather from the IRS website And basically the material participation is one of the first things.
So you can't you can't be a limited partner in a bunch of real estate and call yourself a real estate professional. You have to have some activities that are truly owning and, you know, operating real estate. I mean, you have to be involved in the management operations of your rental properties, right? So the level of involvement is different than obviously if, you know, even if you have a propertyif you have a property manager or whatever, it's still going to be more active than if you're just a limited partner.
But another one of the things that you have to qualify for is you have to spend more than 50% of your total working hours in real estate activities. So in other words, if you know, if you've got a full-time job, you can't really qualify as a real estate professional. There has to be more hours than any other profession. Right? Your participation in real estate activities has to exceed anything else that you're doing in terms of business and employment. There's also something called the 750-hour test, which you must spend at least 750 hours per year on real estate activities. And some of these things that you can do include property management or rent collection or maintenance or advertising, other related issues, acquisitions, underwriting, etc.
I mean, there's a lot of things that, you know, once you own real estate, you can be an active owner, right? So anywhere that's... So why would you want this designation? Because it sounds onerous to go and try to make sure you've got all these things if you're not already doing it. Well, as you may know, the real estate income itself, that real estate income itself is considered passive income.
Right. And similarly, the losses from real estate in the form of depreciation are considered passive losses for most people. Those passive losses cannot be applied to any active income, right? So if you have an income of $500,000 and you happen to have $500,000 of depreciation or paper losses, you couldn't use those losses to offset your personal active income.
The reason is that one is active and one is passive. So you can't do that. And unfortunately, unless maybe you or your spouse, rather, with whom you file jointly is a real estate professional. So in this case, what would happen is those passive losses from real estate would become activated, in other words, their active losses. And you can, you know, you can offset anything with active losses, right.
And even W-2 income. So that's the idea. So, again, theoretically, check with your legal, you know, and tax people and hopefully they know what they're talking about. But see, if you're a C, if you're a doctor, you're making, again, $500,000. And let's say your spouse, who's a real estate professional, generated maybe $50,000 in income, but $300,000 of paper losses, you can deduct that $300,000 from the salary, that is earned income on the doctor's side.
So basically, that is what the huge, big deal is about this real estate professional status. And again, I'm not a tax professional, but this is something that a lot of people in our group do, and it is, you know, following the tax code, that's the key. So Garima, bottom line is I don't know how else I can guide you other than to give you information.
But, you know, I guess what I would do if I were you is, you know, try to figure out how you can actually, you know, get yourself qualified as a real estate professional and make sure that, you know, you fit those criteria and talk to your tax person about it. Okay. Next question is from Mark Hammons. Mark's question deals with tax law, and I'm not sure it's appropriate for this forum.
Feel free to pass on if you feel like addressing it. Well, it's another question. Well, you know how I feel about that. I'll tell you what I think. But
don't take it as tax advice in any sort of way. But okay, so here's the question Mark says. He says, I'm a partner in an LLC that was formed for residential development.
Our project is nearing completion, and this year it will take business income to be taxed at a 20% LLC rate. I will receive income from the sale of raw land and taxed as long-term capital gains. I'm a full-time physician and not actively involved in the business of land development. Can I offset any of this income with accumulated passive losses and leases?
Thanks, Mark, for all you do. Thank you, Mark. And well, as you may have gathered from the previous question and the answer that I gave Garima, you are a full-time physician, my friend, and therefore you do not qualify as a real estate professional, and therefore you cannot use those passive losses against your active income as a physician, and you are stuck in that stratification of income hell, which is that you've got these great-looking losses on the passive side and this great income on the active side, and you cannot do anything about it.
So now, if your wife was doing this real estate stuff and qualified as a real estate professional based on the criteria I mentioned earlier, then you would theoretically be able to apply those passive losses to active income, and boom, all of a sudden, you would have what it is you are hoping for. And anyway, but I do have people in our group who are literally, you know, with that spouse set up.
Well, that's why I brought it up, right, where they literally had a spouse quit their job so that they can switch to real estate professional status. And although their cash flow may constitute a theoretical pay cut from their job, the generated losses, paper losses, are being applied to the larger active income stack. There, in many cases, justifies that because they may make a total gross amount of income that's less.
But because of those passive losses, they actually get to keep more. So that's a complicated answer to a simple question. In my non-professional opinion, Mark, you are kind of screwed. Can't do that anyway. All right. So the next series of questions is from Terry. And let's see, let's start with the first one. Is this one. My understanding is there are U.S. dollars held overseas in the United States.
What would be the impact to the value of the dollar if the overseas cash had to be converted to CBDCs, which is central bank decentralized coins? Well, I'm no expert on this, but from what I know, I'm not sure it would have a material effect on anything overseas because as I understand, CBDCs is a little more than using distributed ledgers instead of central ledgers for digital money, right?
Because the thing is, you have to remember that 90% of the U.S. dollars are digital-only already. They do not exist in the physical world already. So what difference does it make if it's on a single ledger or if it's on a distributed ledger? I'm not sure that it does. As I understand it, the idea would be essentially to make it into like a software update almost, right, where the new digital currencies would be CBDCs.
But of course, I could be wrong, and my understanding of the plan that the U.S. has there is it could be wrong. I'm sure there's a larger plan eventually to use this as a way of maximizing tax revenues and tracking people's spending and that kind of thing. But in the short term, I don't really see how it has repercussions for money overseas.
But if somebody knows of something that would cause that, certainly email me. But I don't know that. Okay. This question is also from Terry. He says, "Rising interest rates have had an impact on existing multifamily operators, and it seems like part of the multifamily model relies on interest rate value being lower than cap rates." That's correct. "Combined with the multiplier effect of low cap rates for value-add projects, do you see cap rates going up until interest rates come down?"
How high can cap rates go before the value-add model is no longer viable? Are rents still rising fast enough to offset interest hikes? Okay. So yes, I do see cap rates going up. Remember, in order for debt to make sense, the interest rates must be lower than the cap rate. So if your borrowing rate is 5%, then your cap rate needs to be above that in order to have positive cash flow.
Otherwise, you're amplifying your losses. That said, often, you know, you may have seen in some cases operators buying things and they'll consider buying things like that. If there's an obvious thing that's going to drive up net operating income pretty quickly. But right now we are seeing rising cap rates. Now, as for the value-add model being viable, I would say that yes, the value-add model is viable in all interest rate environments and with all cap rates because remember, folks, real estate was not people didn't just start making money on value-add.
This has been around for some time, right? There are plenty of people who got rich off of value-add real estate in the eighties despite double-digit interest rates in double-digit cap rates. So what has created so much distress in this system is not the absolute interest rates. It's the pace at which the interest rates went up.
They're the moving goalposts. You see, every time you underwrite a property, you have to model in interest rates and reversion cap rates. And if rates are not stable, it's very difficult to underwrite. And that's why these real estate markets right now have been so illiquid. There really are no stable variables to underwrite with. Rightly, you got to have the goalposts, you got to know where the goalposts are so you can play the game right.
Once you have that stability, though, you can underwrite again, and in value-add real estate, the money isn't made based on interest rates being high or low, but it is made by ultimately creating a positive delta in the net operating income. And that can happen in all interest rate and cap rate environments. So I don't see it being an end to value-add real estate at all.
In fact, one could argue that if you're, say, you're buying real estate, which hopefully we are in the fall, and you're getting great deals on it, you know, the rates are high, but the numbers are making sense. You do your normal net operating income, you do your normal value-add program, you try to increase NOI, and you get lucky.
And by the time you're ready to sell, interest rates have actually come down. Well, in that case, you're going to actually probably get, you know, more for your property than you would otherwise if rates were stable. So I actually don't see this as something that is ending anything. In fact, I think those who, again, take advantage of a higher-rate environment and buy into assets that make sense at high interest rates could seriously make money in the next, you know, several years.
So let's see, the last question from Terry is, "What are your thoughts on portfolio allocation between real estate stocks, cash value insurance, gold, crypto, and cash?" Well, I might not be the best person to ask about portfolio allocation because I think my portfolio would make most money managers think, right? I'm about 75% real estate, maybe 5-7% crypto, mostly Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the remaining investments are things that I believe are uncorrelated.
The most stable thing is, you know, I'm a big fan of cash value life insurance in part because, I mean, it is so stable. I mean, seriously, it is incredibly stable. If you look at the environment that we're in right now, it makes you, again, think you should be buying more cash value life insurance. It's extremely stable.
And this is why it was such a big deal during the Great Depression. People lived through the Depression and had no faith in anything except for cash value life insurance, which is what they were buying. But anyway, I think, in particular, I'm talking about these strategies that we're calling, well, formula banking or various leverage dials, wealth accelerators, things like that.
So there's that. I'm also obviously into other things that we have in our group. We're involved with like ATMs, which, you know, don't seem to have much correlation with the economy per se because people who use that still needed it. Good times or bad and did well even through COVID. You know, there's also things that we're doing, like I'm invested in things like, you know, cargo ships that are delivering essential oil and gas to the country, things like that, where again, it's not something that is significantly correlated with the rest of the markets.
And I think that's one of the things to really make sure that you're not... I mean, listen, I guess in my case, being 75% real estate, I mean, it's not a good time to be 75% real estate right now. Right. I probably... I mean, if I did the numbers, I'm probably less than 75% real estate now because I probably lost quite a bit of value in the real estate.
But I'm not even going to look at that right now for this purpose. But ultimately, though, you know, listen, personal finance should be personal. I don't own stocks, although I'm not against stocks. I'm just, you know, not a guy who really owns stocks except for some big, really, you know, asymmetric plays in the energy space, you know, through Mercatus and things like that.
I don't own any physical gold, although again, I've talked about possibly wanting to do that. I don't really want to right now, but I'm hoarding cash right now because I think there are going to be tremendous buying opportunities in real estate with distressed assets, and I think that's going to be the name of the game in Q4. So but again, I do not think it's a good idea to listen to me about portfolios.
I think I think it's if you want those kinds of things, you probably should, you know, talk to others, talk to, talk to, you know, our RIA's, things like that. But to me, again, personal finance is really personal. And for me, I'm, you know, I'm pretty aggressive on some of the things that I have a lot of belief in.
So, okay. Well, I guess that's my last question. Before I go, I want to remind you that there's another actually, there's actually another podcast that I do now, which is, you know, it's kind of just taking something that I was spending a lot of time learning about and and and trying to process myself and turning it into another show so that I could share with you.
The show is called CPO, CPO. You can find it on pretty much all of the ways that you find this show and
hopefully on YouTube soon too. We haven't quite gotten to YouTube, I think, but the show is, I think, very interesting because, you know, we talk about wealth on the show, but I mean, you know, what do what is more what's more coveted than, you know, actually having health because then your wealth is actually useful.
So a lot of Sabio is really about various types of longevity and wellness type stuff on the science that we know out there. Really interesting stuff to me and would love for you to check it out again at Sabio with Buck Joffrey. Check it out and let me know if you like it. Give me a positive review. That's it for me.
This week on Wealth Formula podcast, this is Buck Joffrey signing off.

Thank you to everybody who responded to my previous query. I have decided that currencies still exist and can still be conjured. Their value is determined by demand. Whenever someone conjures a currency, they must either concentrate on it, or use enchantments that allow the "concentration" to be held by an arcane power source. Most governments have such power sources and thus have an easier time producing currencies. But anybody with the skill and desire can produce their own currency and attempt to permeate the economy. The value of these coins will vary in different regions. If Eldineth the Merchant creates a currency, his magical signature will be on the currency. If people choose to use his currency, it will gain value. Should anyone attempt to replicate or disenchant one of his coins, Eldineth will be aware of it if he has ways of tracking his enchantments. Currencies can be monitored via their signatures.
On the topic of creating goods for sale, using power sources to maintain their permanence is an incredibly costly endeavor and is not viable. Since power sources are specific materials such as a special crystal or stone, and they are rare and highly valuable (and not able to be conjured due to their high natural magic), these sources are generally best used for other enchantments such as maintaining the edge on a blade for a soldier, or protecting a home from fire.

In a few days it will be time for my insurance company to pay out my stolen truck. What can I use to make the number more favorable to me since they are in the business of paying as little as possible? Especially with the still inflated used car market. It's by no means a holy grail unicorn but it was a fully optioned special vehicle. The KBB values seems to be understating the cost when looking at autotrader or carmax and there are no comps on local craigslist.
Additionally registering a new car carries like an 8% sales tax where I live, can I demand that the payout is adjusted for that as well?
​
Appreciate any ideas or past experiences you might have.

Need some backstory, so will try to give the Cliff Notes version. I'm originally from rural Western NY. My beloved maternal Grandparents lived at 6 "X" Street. X Street dead-ends at the driveway of the house across the street, 5 X Street. (Don't ask me to explain why the street was never extended, or the house numbering.)
Mom raised me alone, and was renting. The vacant lot next to the Grandfolks came up for sale. Mom bought it with the Grandfolks' help around 1975, put a nice used mobile home on it, and this became 4 X street. There is also a vacant lot at what would be 3 X street.
When I was an adult living at home by choice in 1990 or so, that vacant lot at 3 X street came up for sale for a super low price. The State was planning to put a new prison in my hometown, so I snapped that lot up as an investment. Aaaaand the State promptly cancelled the prison project. Real estate Tycoon I ain't. I was also considering building what would be considered a Tiny House on that lot, before I moved across the state and got married in '92.
So, going counter-clockwise around the dead end, we have the Grandfolks' old place at 6 X Street, Mom's old place at 4 X Street, my vacant lot at the incipient 3 X Street, and the neighbors at 5 X Street. (Wonderful folks, with the exception of having bought the last house on a dead-end street and getting upset if anybody turns around in their driveway.)
In the mid 2000s, the Grandfolks passed away after very long, healthy and happy lives. My Aunt "Jane" (late surprise for the Grandfolks, more like my big sister) and her husband "Dick" had come into some money, so they bought the Grandfolks' place lock, stock and barrel from the Estate, and still live there.
Mom passed on in 2014. The trailer and land were pretty much her whole Estate. I ended up selling Mom's place (with her newer upgraded trailer that replaced the one I grew up in) to another single Mom just starting out. "Sue" was wonderful. I had offered her my lot for a pittance, but the taxes on just Mom's place (this is New York State) were going to be enough of a burden. So all was right with the world, except I'm still paying taxes on that white elephant of a vacant lot. When she became more financially secure, Sue wanted to buy my lot. But life happens, I live 300 miles away and was working full time, so we never did get together with a lawyer to make the sale happen.
Fast forward to late 2022. Sue has wisely moved out of state (like I said, New York State.) Like any reasonable person, she sold the property to the first interested party who met her price and put the cash in her hand. Sue is totally blameless here. My Aunt's new neighbors, as stated in the title, are entitled buttholes (hence to be referred to as the EBs.) But not your garden variety EBs. These are the extremely nasty and possibly violent type of EBs.
The trouble started on moving day. One of them parked in my Aunt's driveway. And refused to move when she arrived home and asked politely to park in her own driveway. This person also used a certain term in Spanish which refers to the world's oldest profession. My Aunt had to find out from Google Translate that she'd been mortally insulted. Strike One.
Next, there are beautiful trees of various types all along the boundary between the Grandfolks' old place and Mom's old place. You might think these trees have sentimental value to the family, and you would be right. Just one example: A beautiful young Burr Oak that grew from an acorn Granddad and I found at a State Park when I was just a little guy. EBs proceeded to saw off every inch of limb that encroached on their property, "because it's their right." Techincally true, but still a major d**k move. If any of those trees die, my Aunt and I will cry. Strike Two.
Next, the EBs started trespassing on my vacant lot. When my Aunt let them know that it wasn't their land, they told her that it belonged to them, and that "they have papers." (Reddit fans can already see where this is going.) And again the same word directed at my elderly Aunt. Strike Three.
Cut to May 2023. EBs have now started clearing brush and removing trees from my property. (Yeah, Tree Law. Got my fingers crossed on that one.) My Aunt wandered over there to see what they were up to. EB promptly threatened to commit an act of armed violence on her person if she ever set foot on "his" land again. (Again, MY land, that she has permission to occupy.) And that he is building a house there for his brother.
Oh HELL na! Dem folks done effed up. Fornication be upon them, and upon their House, and upon the steeds which bore them hence. Luckily I just retired, and have the free time to deal with this nonsense. The money to do so? Not so much. Dang, I hate it when personal honor, family honor, and principle get in an argument with my bank account.
Of course Aunt Jane, Uncle Dick and I have called the local PD's non-emergency line to report the trespassing, harassment and threats. I am very pleased to say we did NOT hear "It's a civil matter." My Lady Wife and I are headed out there Monday to try to deal with all this. Yeah, we're looking for a real estate attorney out there.
While I would prefer to deal with the matter myself peacefully and legally, this is New York State, where such is frowned upon. So I will need a police standby when I go to speak with the EBs. And again when I start putting up POSTED-NO TRESPASSING signs. EBs ain't gonna like that one bit. IDGAF. Funny part is, before this last incident, I would have sold the EBs that lot just to get out from under the taxes. Now, they ain't getting their hands on that land at any price they could possibly afford. I do have my price- that price is now ten times the current assessed valuation.
Right now I am knocking the dust (okay, rust, and lots of it) off my Spanish, as the EBs reportedly have the annoying tendency to pretend not to understand English if you tell them something they don't want to hear. Looking forward to looking the EBs in the eye, and telling them in clear, properly accented Spanish to get off my property if they don't want lots more trouble. And that they have a huge problem with me already.
In the unlikely event I lose my temper (I normally get like ice when extremely angry) and decide to start hurling insults, I will do so in German, because turnabout is fair play. (Grandma was born in Germany, and immigrated legaly in 1911.) Heck, even "I love you" sounds intimidating if you shout it in German.
I have considered inviting my old friends from "out home", and their friends' friends, over for a fun day of target shooting (this can be done legally and safely), country music, and grilling on my property. That would peacefully and legally send the EBs the appropriate message. But yet again, New York State, and as the EBs are a "protected class" I'm sure NY Attorney General Leticia James would be all over us like stink on you know what, and would sue us all into bankruptcy.
Will update this as events develop. Wish us luck.

TL;DR at the bottom, but may be worth a read
I just found a token with a genuinely unique take on a gambling contract that has had all ownership revoked by its dev, minus his 10% share and now its over to everyone. This is something actually fun. I spent my whole day researching this token and wanted to share with you what I found out about it.
Some facts about 0xGamble (ticker: 1UCK)

• max supply: 123456789 • no minting, no backdoors, burn included on every TX • launched 4 days ago • code checks out 

As the name implies, 0xGamble is a gambling) token. Here’s how it works:

• 1% tax on every TX - 50% burned, 50% goes into the ‚pot‘ • every TX generates a random number internally • if the generated number is divisible by 69, the ‚house‘ (aka dev) wins the ‚pot‘ • if the number is divisible by 420, the guy making the transaction wins the ‚pot‘ (congrats!) • if the number is divisible by 1337, the ‚pot‘ is burned forever 

To put it simple:

• buy/sell/transfer - chance to win the pot • hold - tokens get burned, price go up • provide liquidity - liquidity rewards + tokens get burned, price go up 

Nobody knows if and when anyone (the ‚house‘ included) will win the pot. Or if it will get burned and we have to wait for a new pot. And that’s alright. We all win.
There is no official website, marketing, telegram, etc. No official nothing. Dev kept 10% of the supply as payment and added the rest as liquidity on PancakeSwap. No other tokens exist, or will ever exist. There’s no pre-sale, so there’s no whales to dump. Everyone can make his own 1UCK.
Investing in crypto is basically a gamble anyways. Everyone hopes his favorite coin is gonna make it. So an actual, honest gambling token boiling down crypto to what it actually is seems to really fit here!
I did some further digging:
Let’s look back at those facts:

1. if number is divisible by 420: Transaction address wins 2. if number generated is divisible by 69: The house wins 3. If number is divisible by 1337: pot is burned 

When doing the math, the odds of

1. Winning the pot are ~0.23 % 2. The pot going to the house are ~1.4 % 3. The pot getting burned are ~0.07 % 

To put that into perspective: Typical slot machines have a 1/5000 to a 1/34 million chance of winning the jackpot. So, the odds of winning with a 1UCK Transaction are 10 - 10000000x higher than winning the pot of a slot machine.
That’s not all, I dug deeper. Is it really like that? I did cross check of and found out the following: Out of 434 transactions (at that time), the total of burned tokens was at 2,247,721 (at that time)
The function „PotTransferredToHouse“ was emitted 4 times during those 434 transactions, adding up to 1,068,881 Tokens
One lucky Guy out of those 434 transactions won the rest of the pot, which was about 1,178,840 Tokens.
So the math adds up with the calculated odds: Number of transactions: 434 House wins: 4 -> odds: 0.92 % User wins: 1 -> odds: 0.23 %
*What does it mean? * In my opinion, this is one of the most honest tokens I have ever seen. No Rug, no BS, no big marketing talks about use cases and innovations. Just a simple gambling coin with solid code (seriously, check for yourselves). Its simplicity is also its beauty. Genius move: Turning the coin into the casino itself removes counterparty risk associated with third party gambling sites. This could actually become something big.
Where is this coin listed? You can get it on PancakeSwap. This is the contract address: 0x30016A1764C93EEdCCbEE5E1b3835F191c6f4050
TL;DR: No-Bullshit gambling token playing a numbers game every transaction. Better chances than regular slots. Code checks out, math checks out. This could be big. You’re still early for this one.

Hello all,
Just completed 4 days of in-person visits in New York City (Manhattan NYC) shopping for an engagement ring and thought I'd share my experience (as many of your posts helped me). Please know I am not an expert so just sharing my personal experience.
I met with 6 companies and learned a lot. In addition I also shopped at numerous online retailers. All the companies showed me eye-clean sparkly looking mined diamonds. However, I learned the industry does not provide enough information for us to truly make an informed decision to compare and contrast the diamonds and to ensure we're getting good value for the diamond we end up purchasing. The reality is, most consumers don't seem to care. They buy based on carat size, setting type, price, and sparkle. For those that care more, internet research discusses the 4 C's (usually described in a report from a grading company like GIA or similar). But sadly, this report does not provide all the information required to identify a sparkly mined diamond.
They allow you to compare and contrast in a controlled setting (in-store with fancy lighting), against a few other diamonds (also controlled). If you have a favorite diamond from one store and want to contrast it against another (or against one online), you are unable to do so. Only seeing diamonds side by side, without the controlled lighting, would we be able to truly see the possible difference in color tint and sparkle.
However, there are add'l reports and tools that allow you to ascertain how sparkly your diamond will perform - but almost none of the stores provide these reports. Some of the online retailers do - but they only provide some, not all, of these reports.
Finally, because consumers only care about carat size, setting type, price, and sparkle the cutters (who cut the raw diamonds) are incentivized not to create perfect sparkly cuts without inclusions, but to keep as much of the raw material as possible, which results in many of these diamonds have inclusions, clouds, and angles that do not optimize the sparkle of the diamond (but do leave them a higher carat size) which is what consumers (and retailers want). Retailers want this because they know 2 things... they can charge more for larger stones, and they can sell stones that aren't perfect to consumers since they don't provide us with enough info to make an informed decision. The result is what I found when shopping. Almost every retailer trots out diamonds that appear sparkly and pretty - but have significant flaws (which are not generally noticeable to the naked eye - but do reduce the shine nonetheless and would be more apparent if shown side by side in natural light).
At a bare minimum, the reports one should look at are GIA Report, Holloway Cut Report, and the Gemex Light Performance Report. Most retailers do not provide these reports unless asked. One must ask, if the diamonds they are showing rank as good on these reports, why would they withhold this information? It seems obvious to me they withhold it because the diamonds we are shown do not rank well on the reports. And without data, one is left to choose a diamond solely based on their "eye" and budget, which will not get you the highest quality diamond at the price you can afford.
When in store, optimally, you also want to do 3 things.
1- Look at the diamond through an (Idealscope) hearts and arrows viewer to make sure the hearts and arrows are clean and present (one can be purchased for ~$15 if you want to bring your own). But, imo, any retailer who doesn't have one sitting there for you to use, is obviously showing you diamonds that will not pass this visual inspection.
2- Use an ASET Scope or other light scope viewer to identify how much "bleed" the diamond has. That is, how much light is refracted back to the eye - vs how much light passes through the diamond (and not back to the eye). This will help you ascertain the brilliance/sparkle of the diamond. You can buy/bring your own, but again, any retailer not offering this knows the diamonds they are showing you won't allow their diamond to grade high.
3- Look at the diamonds side by side, over something white, in natural light (put your hand over the bright lights the store has). See from the top if the sparkle differs and see from the side if you can see a yellow looking tint. This may prove difficult if you cannot sufficiently block their bright light and use natural light (which is how you'll be looking at the diamond through your life when it's on your finger).
If you use all the tools above you'll be more equipped to make an informed decision. Now, sadly, after doing all the above, I'm still not 100% confident I received the best diamond at the best price. I am however, more confident I received an excellent cut, sparkly diamond, in the largest size for my budget. In fact of the 24+ diamonds I saw, only 3 passed the tests above - and odds are I would've ended up with one of those rather than the one I bought. So at the very least I ended up with one of the 3 and put the odds in my favor that I wasn't as ripped off as I would've been.
Another thing to consider is your setting. Setting prices (for the exact same setting) were all over the place (from a low of $850 to a high of $3,600). Again, these were for near identical settings. This is another trick... a store may appear to be giving you a deal on a diamond - but once you include the setting price - you end up not saving at all (or vice versa).
On to the reviews. Budget was $20k all in, incl setting, taxes, and shipping/insurance. Round brilliant natural mined diamond. Setting 14k yellow gold 4 prong pave, and thus my color grade to optimize size was ~I (for a round brilliant cut excellent stone any of the near colorless options (G-J) will look white next to yellow gold so figured no need to pay more for a colorless grade). Based on my budget, stones I was shown were in the 1.8-2.2 carat range.
Lauren B Jewelry:
(i) Showed 4 eye clean diamonds within my budget. Did not provide any reports alongside the diamonds. However, upon request, did provide the GIA reports. Did not offer any add'l reports and did not provide me with a hearts/arrows ideal-scope or ASET viewer in store.
(ii) Setting price was $2,100 (14k)
My take: Excellent friendly in-store service. Diamonds shown were the lowest quality of any I saw during my visit (as it appears to stay within my budget and size request they had to drop down to SI level) GIA reports and loupe confirmed a variety of inclusions and clouds. Settings were some of the most beautiful however and were priced on the lower end of the setting prices I received.
Jangmi Jewelry:
(i) Showed me 3 eye clean diamonds with GIA reports provided without asking. Showed me stones through hearts and arrows viewer without asking. Provided Holloway Cut reports after meeting upon request. Claimed Gemex reports are redundant and not required once someone has seen the HCA Cut report.
(ii) Setting price quoted at $2,800 (14k, but quote includes adding pave to prongs which may have increased price slightly).
My take: Friendly service, although English was 2nd language. Diamonds were priced competitively however GIA and Holloway showed only average stones (with the better GIA report having a worse Holloway score and the worse GIA report having a better Holloway score). They had a hearts and arrows viewer in-store and the stones did have them (to my untrained eye). However. without a Gemex and ASET viewer it was impossible for me to truly identify the sparkle/brilliance of their stones. It is ultimately possible the stones are above average, however, I was not provided the tools to corroborate this.
Soho Gem:
(i) Showed me 5 eye clean diamonds with GIA reports alongside (without asking). Would not provide Holloway Cut or Gemex reports but did offer to have me come back to the store to view the diamonds through their ASET viewer as well as through an Ideal-Scope. This was not offered to me while I was in-store.
(ii) Setting quoted at $3,400 (18k). 18k increased setting price slightly as well as pave around basket.
My take: Friendly in-store service. The specs of the diamond I liked the most were similar to the stone I ultimately chose. It is possible had I been willing to trek back to the store to see the stones through the ASET viewer and Ideal-Scope the stone may have proved excellent in terms of light leakage and hearts and arrows. But without the add'l HCA and Gemex reports, I'd have lacked the information to truly make an informed decision. Further their diamond was $1,300 higher - so it seemed a waste to go through the effort only to see a diamond that matched the specs of the diamond I bought. Plus their setting was significantly more expensive (even when taking 18k into consideration) and they required a 50% deposit to begin.
Ring Concierge:
(i) Showed me 3 eye clean diamonds. Included GIA reports but would not offer add'l reports calling them "unnecessary as GIA certified diamonds with a cut grade of triple excellent... will have maximum brilliance". She claimed any add'l reports function as a "sales/marketing technique".
(ii) Setting quoted at $3,600 (14k). They do however offer the thinnest band at 1.5mm which no other retailer would build (thinnest anyone else would go was 1.8mm).
My take: Friendly in-store service. However, setting prices were the highest of any retailer and when a customer asks for reports on physics/facts only to be told these are sales/marketing techniques, my antenna go way up. She knows (or should know) that not all of GIA's excellent cut diamonds are optimal in terms of brilliance/fire/scintillation and light leakage. Alongside their high setting prices this store was a hard pass. But ahhh, those beautiful settings.
Frank Darling:
(i) created a 4 diamond flight for me to see in store.
My take: Prior to the meeting I called to ask if they would provide any of the reports described herein and they said they do not provide any of the reports, or ASET or hearts/diamond viewers, so I cancelled the meeting. No point in wasting everyone's time if I will not be provided with enough data to make an informed decision.
I.D. Jewelers (Yekutiel Davidov):
(i) showed me 1 stone in-store (and had another queued up for the following day). Provided GIA report alongside the stone and walked me through minimum specs of the GIA report (i.e., showed me how to weed out certain stones immediately, such as what depth % is optimal, what fluorescence is acceptable, etc). Provided Holloway Cut Report and Gemex report via request.
(ii) Setting quoted at $850-$1,100 depending on 14k or 18k gold preference.
My take: Super friendly and knowledgeable service. The diamond graded very well on all 3 reports but the diamond price was on the higher side. However, with the lowest setting price of all the retailers, the total net price was the same as almost all the others and within budget. Only required $1k down. Ultimately was my 2nd favorite diamond. Would've been great to see the diamond through an ASET or Light Scope Viewer but decided not to as I found another slightly larger diamond that passed all the tests.
David S Diamonds:
(i) showed me 2 in-store diamonds. Provided all the reports and viewers described herein. Also provided training as to why I needed all the reports and viewers (full disclosure - this is the store that explained why I needed all the reports and viewers described herein). So obviously he'd provide everything.
(ii) Setting quoted at $950 (14k).
My take: Very friendly and patient in-store service generous with their time. Provided training on how to buy a diamond and implored me to go back out and to the retailers and shop with my new knowledge (before buying). Showed me a diamond I ultimately bought (2.03 carat, J, VVS2, GIA certified, excellent Gemex scores, excellent under light scope, clean hearts and arrows). Saved me ~$2,200-$3,500 vs the other stores with excellent confidence that the stone I bought is as good as it can get within my budget and specs.
James Allen:
Also shopped online at James Allen and even looked at the "competitor" diamonds that the Holloway Report showed once I ran that report. James Allen's True Hearts competitive diamond (with similar specs and grades) was over $5,000 more than the diamond I purchased. And this from the "low cost" online retailer without a storefront.
Other retailers: Kamni, R&R Jewelry and NYC Wholesale Diamonds could not accommodate in-person meetings the week I was in town so I couldn't asses them.
To sum up, if someone wanted me to recommend them a place to start, I'd start with David S Diamonds to get the learning he provides. Then once you have a diamond and price you like from him - go to Yekutiel at I.D. Jewelers and see if he can source something similar at a similar (or better) price. This way you'll have a few options to choose from. You can also double check either of the diamonds you found vs James Allen (or Blue Nile) once you pull the Holloway Cut Report (or have David So or Yekutiel Davidov provide you the Rapport pricing for the diamonds they are showing). This may give you some confidence that you're getting a decent value/price.
If I had to start this process over again, I would not visit any of the diamond stores that have storefronts and significant overhead - I discovered many of them are Instagram stores - selling much lower quality diamonds for the same price because they are popular among the IG crowd . Further, from my limited experience, their settings are way overpriced in comparison and their deposit policies (generally 50% down) are absurd. After all they haven't given you the diamond yet... all you should be required to pay for is the setting.
Finally, please know I am not a diamond expert, and am just a noob who is sharing their learnings over a very small period and very small sample size. I'm simply sharing what I learned and if it helps someone, great. If not - feel free to ignore.

Bought a used car that looked good but wasn’t able to test drive it as I wasn’t insured but dealer said I have warranty so if anything’s wrong you give it back. The dealer offered 12month extended warranty through warranty first which I bought.
Car was delivered, I taxed & insured the vehicle & as soon as I drove it, driving in lower gears didn’t sound right, it was loud & sounded like metal was scrapping across the floor. The sound disappeared in higher gears & when I put the clutch down.
Took car back to dealer & he said it’s not covered in warranty due to wear & tear, & an after sales issue. He said i must of forced the car into the gears & oil has gotten into the gearbox so you need to replace it. I didn’t force anything into gear, maybe this is why I couldn’t test drive it.
He said the car was AA inspected but we can’t give you the report. However when my dad called he forwarded a BCA report. Dodgy.
There’s more, I’m yet to receive my receipt of purchase & any information about the warranty. If I have a problem with the car I have to call the dealer & he’ll sort it. With warranty shouldn’t I be able to choose what garage to take it to?
I know I’m being ripped off & I do feel like I’m being taken advantage of because I’m a woman too. However my dad said to just fix it so I’ve already paid for the repairs, which he said will take days to fix.
I don’t trust the dealer or the mechanic doing the work but too late now. Once fixed I will take it to trusted garage & get them to check it properly.
What would you do in this situation?