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evilpicard posted:Baking With Mealworms The goddamn milling your own flour man. I bought 25 lbs of bread Flour at Costco for $6.79. It's clean and I don't have to mill it, and two bags to equal his 50lbs is like $3 more?
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Feb 23, 2021 16:32
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StormDrain posted:The goddamn milling your own flour man. I bought 25 lbs of bread Flour at Costco for $6.79. It's clean and I don't have to mill it, and two bags to equal his 50lbs is like $3 more? look at richie rich over here, lighting $3 on fire like he couldn't buy 15 more pounds of flour AND get mealworms with it. 
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Feb 23, 2021 16:41
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StormDrain posted:The goddamn milling your own flour man. I bought 25 lbs of bread Flour at Costco for $6.79. It's clean and I don't have to mill it, and two bags to equal his 50lbs is like $3 more?
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Feb 23, 2021 16:45
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StormDrain posted:The goddamn milling your own flour man. I bought 25 lbs of bread Flour at Costco for $6.79. It's clean and I don't have to mill it, and two bags to equal his 50lbs is like $3 more? You're losing all the mealworm proteins like that
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Feb 23, 2021 17:46
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The "lean preppers" are actually kind of sad. If they weren't financially and (likely) personally terrible people, I'd feel bad about posting them. The concept of a community for people who are already poor or in debt to discuss the best way to buy $3,000 worth of MREs and cow feed is like an Onion article.
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Feb 23, 2021 17:49
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Unfortunately a lot of it ends up being irrational and counterproductive hoarding behaviour and performative frugality even if they're genuinely trying.
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Feb 23, 2021 17:54
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gvibes posted:My costco has four different varieties of all purpose flour but never any breadflour. Pisses me off. Not a good value if you are buying it specifically to make bread, but if you want to have both all purpose and bread flour you can substituting all purpose and spoonful of vital wheat gluten for bread flour works well.
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Feb 23, 2021 18:06
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Yoinked this one from r/relationships but hilariously BWMSerephina posted:Less trash-fire than it is furniture-fire, but today there was an update from a 3 years old throwaway:
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Feb 23, 2021 18:15
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Lurker who loves BWM. I was caught in the Texas ice nightmare last week and lost power and heat. As I watched the thermostat needle plummet in my poorly-insulated house I couldn't stop thinking about that stupid Mr. Money Mustache thread where they were comparing how low they could turn their heat down while keeping their kids alive.
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Feb 23, 2021 22:17
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Ghost Leviathan posted:irrational and counterproductive hoarding behaviour and performative frugality even if they're genuinely trying. See also reddit.com/r/frugal quote:I printed my dissertation on the blank side of my ex's artwork
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Feb 23, 2021 22:20
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Motronic posted:Yeah, if you have a required full building suppression upfit like sprinklers it's hardly worth doing on a lease for a restaurant. Hell, the kitchen is hardly worth doing - it takes the first idiot with deep pockets to get that ball rolling. Even worse when you consider FOG abatement. Local code here requires at minimum a 1000 gallon exterior buried vault grease interceptor, scaling up rapidly based on peak meals per hour and hours of operation. That is a brutally huge expense for a new buildout, as in an existing building you're talking tearing up the parking lot and replumbing the space to put it in at minimum. So restaurant spaces stay restaurant spaces. ( Edit: woah, week old tab.)
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Feb 24, 2021 02:51
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This company Sezzle has started showing up in some places I visit with ads that unsubtly suggest you buy things you can't afford and pay it off over installments. Apparently they let you pay 25% on a purchase and pay an additional 25% every two weeks, no interest or fees if it goes down exactly like that. No, fees! You can "reschedule" your repayment one time but if you reschedule more than once for a given purchase you get clipped for $5 each time, and since you're paying these guys via a credit card (tee hee), debit card, or ACH you could always get a payment declined and eat $10 from Sezzle plus whatever your bank throws at you for NSF. They pull a credit check when you sign up and claim that they do some FICO-like evaluation before approving a given purchase. Overall seems like another great way to get nibbled to death by fees.
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Feb 24, 2021 03:38
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QVC payment plans for millennials.
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Feb 24, 2021 04:05
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eddiewalker posted:QVC payment plans for millennials. it's so they can get their fancy socks and avacado toasts (maybe avacado toast socks) on payment plans, these kids these days don't make enough and need to bootstraps.
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Feb 24, 2021 12:52
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Lady Homunculus posted:Lurker who loves BWM. I was caught in the Texas ice nightmare last week and lost power and heat. As I watched the thermostat needle plummet in my poorly-insulated house I couldn't stop thinking about that stupid Mr. Money Mustache thread where they were comparing how low they could turn their heat down while keeping their kids alive. look on the bright side: you didnt die and youre not stuck with a Texas sized power bill!
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Feb 24, 2021 12:58
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Midjack posted:This company Sezzle has started showing up in some places I visit with ads that unsubtly suggest you buy things you can't afford and pay it off over installments. Apparently they let you pay 25% on a purchase and pay an additional 25% every two weeks, no interest or fees if it goes down exactly like that. No, fees! You can "reschedule" your repayment one time but if you reschedule more than once for a given purchase you get clipped for $5 each time, and since you're paying these guys via a credit card (tee hee), debit card, or ACH you could always get a payment declined and eat $10 from Sezzle plus whatever your bank throws at you for NSF. They pull a credit check when you sign up and claim that they do some FICO-like evaluation before approving a given purchase. Overall seems like another great way to get nibbled to death by fees. There’s one getting popular in the UK called Klarna. Also, PayPal have just started doing ‘pay in 3’ to jump on the bandwagon. I just talked to a young colleague who is constantly complaining about his low salary and his rent and costs but then had to break off as someone was at his door delivering a pair of £140 trainers. He must have seen my face because he said ‘paying on Klarna’.
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Feb 24, 2021 13:47
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Alan Smithee posted:look on the bright side: you didnt die and youre not stuck with a Texas sized power bill! On the one hand, $10k power bills for single family houses shouldn't exist, and traps like this one shouldn't exist. On the other hand, I'd be a bit steamed if I'd been paying $100 more per month for a balanced power bill rate for a decade and then having my tax dollars used to bail out the people who had been paying the lower rate all along.
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Feb 24, 2021 13:48
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My understanding is that the traditional system worked similar to insurance and these people essentially opted out. So they saved money by not paying for the “insurance” but then were exposed to the real rates when they spiked 100x. Whether people knew what they were signing up for besides “save 10% on your AC bill” is debatable of course.
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Feb 24, 2021 14:01
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Dik Hz posted:Dumb question, but how much money did the people now stuck with those massive power bills save over the lifetime of the billing plan as compared to the more traditional billing plans? Did everyone on the flex plan get a $10k bill, or just the idiots in McMansions who cranked the heat to max the second power was restored? They were playing with the spot price market, whether they realized that or not, and no it didn't take a McMansion. "Normal" rates are like $0.10/kWh, things went to $9 (legally mandated maximum) for DAYS. In a place with basically uninsulated houses and sub freezing temperatures. Note how in absolutely none of the articles hand wringing over who's going to foot these bills for the individuals as well as intermediate power companies and cities that buy their own like Denton is it ever mention that perhaps the power generators who were gouging based on low demand should be told they're taking a haircut and getting normal rates. Couldn't do that, because the people who own the power generation are the wealthy people with the real power, and they need their windfall. Motronic fucked around with this message at 14:17 on Feb 24, 2021 |
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Feb 24, 2021 14:14
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Motronic posted:They were playing with the spot price market, whether they realized that or not, and no it didn't take a McMansion. "Normal" rates are like $0.10/kWh, things went to $9 (legally mandated maximum) for DAYS. In a place with basically uninsulated houses and sub freezing temperatures. The particulars of how to design an equitable power gird are probably outside the scope of this thread.
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Feb 24, 2021 14:53
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The socially optimal distribution of energy price risk probably has retail consumers paying a fixed price and progressively larger entities with capital deciding if they want to hedge or not. At the same time, you are going to have someone looking at the retail price versus the wholesale price and thinking the middleman is ripping them off. Thinking about the people who do FSBO to try and save the brokerage fee and end up with fewer and lower bids.
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Feb 24, 2021 14:59
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Motronic posted:They were playing with the spot price market, whether they realized that or not, and no it didn't take a McMansion. "Normal" rates are like $0.10/kWh, things went to $9 (legally mandated maximum) for DAYS. In a place with basically uninsulated houses and sub freezing temperatures. 
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Feb 24, 2021 15:00
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Dik Hz posted:I guess what I'm trying to understand is how much of those $10k bills is attributable to 'hoarding' style behavior? The natural response is to max your thermostat the second power comes back on because it might go out again. But that just makes everything worse for everyone. The bigger problem was distributors deliberately holding back on supplying energy to keep the price pegged at the maximum, rather than the behaviors of individual consumers
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Feb 24, 2021 15:08
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Keep in mind this isn't the first time people were stuck paying high prices for their electric bills due to using index pricing. Something similar happened during the summer of 2019 when demand shot up forcing some people to pay $100-$200 per day. This index pricing (at the very least) should be illegal as it keeps burning people time and time again because people focus on the $/kWh rate and not the fact they are buying power directly on the market.
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Feb 24, 2021 15:28
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The Chairman posted:The bigger problem was distributors deliberately holding back on supplying energy to keep the price pegged at the maximum, rather than the behaviors of individual consumers Weren't nobody holding back on nuthin'. The generating capacity simply wasn't available - the cold knocked out lots of power plants at the same time it sent demand soaring.
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Feb 24, 2021 15:30
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The Chairman posted:The bigger problem was distributors deliberately holding back on supplying energy to keep the price pegged at the maximum, rather than the behaviors of individual consumers Isn't this what Enron did in California like 20 years ago?
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Feb 24, 2021 15:43
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SlapActionJackson posted:Weren't nobody holding back on nuthin'. The generating capacity simply wasn't available - the cold knocked out lots of power plants at the same time it sent demand soaring. It's been reported some plants turned their power off due to rising prices for nat gas, this way they wouldn't lose money you see. There are HEROES out there man. tater_salad fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Feb 24, 2021 |
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Feb 24, 2021 15:46
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If there was collusion in selling power, that would be interesting, because the incentives for each individual power company are going to be to sell as much as possible as their marginal supply on its own isn’t going to move the price. Enron in California was a treasure trove of emails and chat messages detailing how they abused California’s power market, but Enron was in a huge proportion of the power transactions at the time so they were way more able to move prices.
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Feb 24, 2021 15:48
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tater_salad posted:It's been reported some plants turned their power off due to rising prices for nat gas, this way they wouldn't lose money you see. There are HEROES out there man. NYMEX Natural gas spot market looks to have spiked 10x, but ERCOT electricity spiked 100x. Maybe transmission/local supply issues further goosed the gas price in TX, but there's still a huge profit margin in the cost of your inputs vs value of your outputs there.
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Feb 24, 2021 15:59
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SlapActionJackson posted:NYMEX Natural gas spot market looks to have spiked 10x, but ERCOT electricity spiked 100x. Maybe transmission/local supply issues further goosed the gas price in TX, but there's still a huge profit margin in the cost of your inputs vs value of your outputs there. The PUC order the price of power generation to be raised by ERCOT to the cap in order to bring more power online because plants were not operating. There was a small window of time in which power generation via natural gas was operating at a loss. They also claimed it was to bring curtailment of industrial customers, but that's a seperate gently caress up. Statement from the PUC PUC Comission Report posted:ERCOT informed the Commission that a computer glitch was preventing that maximum price
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Feb 24, 2021 16:06
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John Kelly posted:Keep in mind this isn't the first time people were stuck paying high prices for their electric bills due to using index pricing. Something similar happened during the summer of 2019 when demand shot up forcing some people to pay $100-$200 per day. This index pricing (at the very least) should be illegal as it keeps burning people time and time again because people focus on the $/kWh rate and not the fact they are buying power directly on the market. Why are variable price electrical contracts for consumers even necessary in the first place? If a consumer really wants to dip their toe into that water, couldn't they just get a fixed price utility bill and buy options on power spot markets?
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Feb 24, 2021 16:31
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Why are variable price electrical contracts for consumers even necessary in the first place? If a consumer really wants to dip their toe into that water, couldn't they just get a fixed price utility bill and buy options on power spot markets? everything must be financialized at all times e: https://twitter.com/AlexCKaufman/status/1364578167231565825 brugroffil fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Feb 24, 2021 |
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Feb 24, 2021 16:37
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Why are variable price electrical contracts for consumers even necessary in the first place? If a consumer really wants to dip their toe into that water, couldn't they just get a fixed price utility bill and buy options on power spot markets? If you're a accredited investor yes, but these spot price plans are mostly through hip energy startups that prey on people walking into the front doors of home depot and offer things like "green energy only" plans. Your upside is measured in 10's of dollars and your downside is measured in thousands of dollars, but most people don't understand what they are actually jumping into and the street canvassing sellers aren't gonna bring it up.
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Feb 24, 2021 16:41
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Why are variable price electrical contracts for consumers even necessary in the first place? If a consumer really wants to dip their toe into that water, couldn't they just get a fixed price utility bill and buy options on power spot markets?
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Feb 24, 2021 16:44
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Everyone knows you're supposed to fly to Cancun when your power prices go up to $9/kWh during a blizzard
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Feb 24, 2021 16:55
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Why are variable price electrical contracts for consumers even necessary in the first place? If a consumer really wants to dip their toe into that water, couldn't they just get a fixed price utility bill and buy options on power spot markets? Because Texas. If you loved cell phone contracts then you'll love buying electricity plans here. Case in point, many of my plans over the years had a fee for not using enough electricity in a given month (typically 1000 kWh per month).
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Feb 24, 2021 16:59
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SpartanIvy posted:Everyone knows you're supposed to fly to Cancun when your power prices go up to $9/kWh during a blizzard Stop using electricity in Texas and start using electricity in Cancun is a perfectly fine way to save money when prices go up to $9/kWh.
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Feb 24, 2021 17:04
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brugroffil posted:everything must be financialized at all times  This doesn't include the unlimited downside risk of being stuck with a five or six figure bill to keep your heat on for four days so your family doesn't die.
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Feb 24, 2021 18:36
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God bless deregulated for-profit markets for essential services  One of these days it'll be me with my boot on the necks of the poor, and when that day comes people like me better watch out!!
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Feb 24, 2021 18:52
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Dik Hz posted:In theory, you want customers to use less power when it's scarce. Yeah, variable plans seem fine with a bit of regulation to cap the risk for consumers. That actually seems to have happened here but at $9 instead of like $0.9 for some reason?
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Feb 24, 2021 18:53
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