Topic No. 419 Gambling Income and Losses | Internal
- Topic No. 419 Gambling Income and Losses | Internal
- US Gambling Taxes Guide 2020- Know what tax is applicable
- Paying state taxes on gambling winnings in another state
- Lottery Tax Calculator - How Lottery Winnings Are Taxed
- Gambling Winnings Tax (How Much You Will Pay For Winning
- Taxation of Gambling Activities | Kopsa Otte
- South Korean Businessman Wins IRS Gambling Tax Case
- Do you have to pay taxes on offshore gambling winnings
- The Highest And Lowest Gambling Taxes - Casino.org Blog
- Gambling Winnings Tax | H&R Block
are gambling winnings taxed differently
are gambling winnings taxed differently - win
Is Short-Term Crypto Taxed on Gross or Net?
Is short-term crypto one of those things where you can pay tax even if your net gains are zero?
Example:
Event 1: Sell BTC for profit of $50,000
Event 2: Sell BTC for loss of $100,000
Event 3: Sell BTC for profit of $50,000
Do you pay taxes on $0? or on $100,000?
Does it matter if you are professional or casual trader?
I ask because I know with gambling winnings, it does depend whether you are a professional gambler or amatuer. For example, if you are an amatuer, you can have a net gambling winnings of zero and still owe a tax bill because it's taxed differently. I was wondering if trading is the same?
submitted by Grand-Profession-228 to tax [link] [comments]
Sports Betting Tax Advice from my CPA
Yes, this is another tax thread. These are the direct answers I received from my CPA who has 25+ years of experience filing for gamblers, both professional and not. Don't shoot the messenger.
Do I report winnings gross or net? Surely net, right? Right!??
Winnings are reported on a gross amount. If you open an app and it shows a ledger of $30,000 winnings, $28,000 bets wagered, Win/Loss $2000, the IRS needs the $30,000 number. The $28,000 gets reported on a Schedule A under gambling losses, and only factors into your net tax liability if you itemize.
But isn't sports betting on an app just one long session? I don't pay taxes on every hand of blackjack I win.
No. Unfortunately this matter relies on case law, for which the precedent for online gambling is an "every bet is a session" accounting.
So if I don't itemize and I have huge gross winnings, that means I could owe thousands in taxes?
Yes. If you have thousands in gross winnings and didn't plan to itemize, you will essentially owe taxes on the difference between your standard deduction and your pre-gambling itemized tax amount when switching to an itemized gambling loss deduction.
If I report net winnings instead of doing it by the book, what are the odds I get audited?
Almost zero. Obviously my CPA didn't advise me to do this, but of the thousands of filings she had done in her career, she has only had 3 audits, and all of them were due to inconsistencies on a Schedule C filed only by professional gamblers. She also said that due to COVID delays, the odds of getting audited are even smaller.
Are there any other hidden downsides to having an inflated Adjusted Gross Income when I have gross winnings of tens of thousands of dollars?
Yes. Student loan interest deductions and child tax credits go away at certain AGI.
On the state tax side, she said certain states don't allow ANY deduction for gambling losses on state taxes. I.e. if you live in IL, you probably just shouldn't ever gamble. Every bet you win comes with a 4.95% tax on gross winnings. If your state doesn't allow gambling loss offsets, there is no limit to what you could owe regardless of your year-end profitability.
submitted by Actuarial to sportsbook [link] [comments]
I wrote a long reply on why gambling, and loot boxes in particular, are bad...
So, inside some
other post, I was asked why gambling is bad... My reply ended up being really detailed, so I'll promote it to a post of its own (just copy-pasting it here; no new words)... [Note: list of 3 points about loot boxes at the end...]
(I work at a company that sells gambling services... I see how the sausage is made...)
By the way, I love PoE and GGG. Still, loot boxes are bad.
I personally get to see the statistics side of oddsmaking. It's always about suckering you out of your money, because by definition all you are doing is paying more money as the price of getting less money (on average), but you also need to feel like you have a chance at getting the upper hand, even though in the long run you don't.
For example, sometimes, if you're really "good" at betting, you just end up working for the oddsmaker on a bad deal. It's really hard for them sometimes to get the odds perfectly right (although the profit margin still takes care of 99.9% of punters). So, if you're a professional gambler making a regular profit, what's basically happening is that you are investing an enormous amount of time and expertise to try and make tiny profits at the margins, and the bookmaker monitors your activity and learns about the market from you, at what ends up being a lower cost than if they hired experts to give them the same info on a salary. Plus you constantly run high risks! Which is why my company is full of ex-gamblers who were able to make a profit for a while, and intelligent enough to realise that they were still getting a bad deal, and come to the company and offer their services directly. (For another way gambling companies guarantee their own profits by passing on the risk to gamblers, research "balancing the books": yes, a professional gambler could make some profits this way, but if you're possibly making profits by taking on a risk that a large gambling corporation wants to get rid of, do you really think you're getting a good deal, especially considering how much time and expertise you sink into the activity? EDIT:
more info)
The only way I know of to make a consistent and considerable profit off gambling is when a pro gambler is allowed to make a profit off other gamblers, in a move that a company makes to increase total amounts played. So, for one person to profit, many others are being seriously scammed, and the company is safely skimming its percentages off the top.
There are many different ways a gambling company presents bad deals to you, hoping that your intuition misfires about one of them and you decide to throw away your money. Examples... There are single bets, of course. But then there are also combinations, and these screw with your intuition--you can convince yourself based on a narrative (e.g. team 1 wins first half, team 2 comes back in second half), where in fact the actual hard cold odds are against you. There is "cash out" where you take a fraction of a likely-seeming win early (but at a loss), which of course simply taxes you for your risk aversion. There are "systems", creating more and more complex bets, until you convince yourself you've set up the perfect deal, and yet the company's profit margin keeps growing the more complex you make it.
Anyway, those are the parts I work on as a software guy. (By the way, this isn't the worst thing in the world, it's not as bad, as, say, the military industry or the military itself, or say religions or banks, because at some level gambling is voluntary. And making gambling illegal is a terrible idea-we should fight it through education, not prohibition. Still, I only work there because I'm currently a completely non-creative software grunt (and currently satisfied with that). If I get to the point of pursuing higher-level jobs, I'll look elsewhere.)
But the most nefarious part of all is the psychological work they pull on you. That's not my area of expertise, so if you want it explained you need to look elsewhere (recommended book: Thinking Fast and Slow--it's not about gambling, it's about psychology). They are constantly doing things to 1) give you false hope and 2) artificially trigger some pleasure response in you.
E.g. most people are naturally risk averse and loss averse, e.g. losing $10 brings more pain than winning $10 brings pleasure. In reality, a gamble is about paying, say, $10 to win an average of, say, $9, so that's a terrible and painful deal. In addition to all the advertising and bright colours and encouraging sounds and making you read success stories and all the other psychological manipulations, they can also straight up befuddle you with numbers. So, losing $10 brings more pain than winning $10 brings pleasure, but what if you pay $10 but you're not really at a risk of losing that much, because on average you win $9 back, so you're only really risking a single $, and yet if you get lucky you won't win a mere $10 but millions? Suddenly that sounds good, right? Risk $1 to win $10000000? Of course not: you're still risking $10 and taking $1 losses on average each time you play, and the high rewards are vanishingly rare and built into that average.
That's it about gambling for money. On loot boxes I'm no expert, but, beyond the basic problems (encouraging addiction, exploiting minors who beg money from parents and don't understand how they're throwing it away, generating gambling "pleasure" while giving you "bits" instead of any real value, etc), I can point out a couple of extra scummy aspects:
- They can say "the box costs 30 points but all the possible rewards are worth at least 50, the average reward is worth 70 and the best is worth 400"... really??? Those prices are completely arbitrary... Who says the footprints are "worth" 50 or some random hideout decoration is "worth" 200? Talking about average microtransaction point values in a loot box is completely misleading.
- Either you (a) lose on the statistics of getting complete sets or you lose on (b) being psychologically manipulated into buying extra stuff you didn't actually want so much (or (c) you just lose by getting useless stuff). Let's say you decide to pick up a couple of boxes and see what you get before buying more stuff. You might just get useless stuff, of course (case c). But what if you get the body armour or wings? Now you might say "I'll get more boxes to complete the set". But the chances of getting any one part of a set are not anywhere near as bad as your chances of completing a set (like map lab trials, but much worse because loot boxes contain many more items), so you are getting totally fleeced (case a). Alternatively you could go "oh look, I got x in the box, I'll buy matching items y and z from the shop later" so you think you got x cheap and y and z at normal prices. But you are being manipulated into buying y and z. Would you really have bought x and y and z from the shop if there had been no loot box? Only rarely. The rest of the time you are overspending (case b).
- Loot box gifts are another scummy behaviour, considering people don't have good intuitions about statistics. Most of us get bad results from the gifted boxes, but some will get lucky. Those of us who are already gambling on loot boxes won't be affected by the outcome of a few extra boxes. Those who wouldn't ever buy them normally, and get bad results, who cares. But those who wouldn't normally buy them but get lucky a few times in a row might decide it's a good deal after all. So, it's manipulating us psychologically in a way that is statistically designed to fail at no cost most times and succeed sometimes, which makes money. (While also giving everybody holiday presents or race prizes, making the company appear generous.)
submitted by sesquipedalias to pathofexile [link] [comments]
My Options Overview / Guide (V2)
Greeting Theta Gang boys and girls,
I hope you're well and not bankrupt after last week. I'm just now recovering mentally myself. I saw a few WSB converts and some newbies asking for tips, so here you go. V2 of my Options guide. I hope it helps.
I spent a huge amount of time learning about options and tried to distill my knowledge down into a helpful guide. This should especially be useful for newbies and growing options traders.
While I feel I’m a successful trader, I'm not a guru and my advice is not meant to be gospel, but this will hopefully be a good starting point, teach you a lot, and make you a better trader. I plan to keep typing up more info from my notebook, expanding this guide, and posting it every couple months.
Any feedback or additions are appreciated
Per requests, I added details of good and bad trades I made. Some painful lessons learned are now included. I also tried to organize this better as it got longer. Here's what I tell options beginners: I would strongly recommend buying a beginner's options book and read it cover to cover. That helped me a lot.
I like this beginner book:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GWSXX8U/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_OxNDFb2GK9YW7 Helpful websites: Don't trade until you understand: - You can lose your entire contract value when buying.
- You can lose a lot of money when selling "naked", theoretically unlimited.
- How option expiration works.
- Theta (decay) and how it works. This is imperative since it's attrition when buying and a payout when selling. https://www.optionseducation.org/advancedconcepts/theta
- DTE: Days till expiration/expiry
- Options positions with respect to price:
- ITM: In the money; strike is below stock value. Signif
- ATM: At the money; strike is just at or above the stock value, often very highly traded. Can be very effective with moderate - long term expiry.
- NTM: Near the money; strike is above the stock value, but fairly close. Slightly unofficial term.
- OTM: Out of the money; price is at least a few strikes from the current stock price. I would say 10-30% over stock price.
- Very OTM: Not a real definition, this is essentially a lottery ticket. Cheap, but almost certain to expire worthless unless there is explosive movement.
- Understand delta in general and how delta changes with ITM and OTM options.
- Understand all the greeks at a high level, as you get better understand them well. The greeks: https://www.optionsplaybook.com/options-introduction/option-greeks/
- IV, IV crush, and how IV affects pricing. In general, you want to sell when IV is high and buy when the IV is low. Increasing IV is good for held calls/puts. IV drop or crush is generally good for sellers.
- Selling options can be quite beneficial. Once you have a good general understanding, lookup thetagang . Kamikaze Cash has good youtube videos on most theta strategies (linked above). I personally believe selling options (especially cash secured) is much safer and can consistently make you profits. Θ Gang 4 life.
- FOMO and how to avoid chasing a dangerous trend. DO NOT CHASE FROM FOMO!
- What intrinsic and extrinsic value are. Know how they are affected by being exercised/assigned and how theta affects them.
- Understand that some of WSB recommendations are straight up high-risk gambling and factor in the information accordingly. Be careful with Meme stocks and the survivorship bias on YOLO plays. However, I love the sub and think it’s hilarious. It has a lot of valuable information / DD if you are comfortable with the “colorful” language. It’s also great if you like rocket ship emojis.
Basics / Mechanics - Understand the 4 "main" option types. Buying or selling a call and buying or selling a put. Spreads and more complex multi-legged option strategies are based off these in some way (see below)
- You can sell calls with 100 shares of stock or if you own an underlying longer term option; see LEAPS and PMCCs later. Selling calls naked is incredibly risky and often requires Level 4 (very advanced) permissions and usually a lot of capital. I will literally never sell calls naked since I don't want to ruin my life and end up living in a dumpster eating saltine crackers.
- Puts can be sold/written cash covered (cash secured), which means you have the cash in your account to buy 100 shares. Your broker will put this money on hold until the trade is closed. Puts can be sold "naked" using Margin and Level 3 (with most brokers). Your broker will hold a percentage of cost of 100 shares (often 30-40%, 100% on meme stocks) allowing you to sell more puts. This increases your available capital/power as well as increasing risk.
General Tips and Ideas: - Don't EVER leave (short) spreads open on expiration day, close them. (more details below)
- Start off trading very small. Slowly build up over weeks / months. You need to get accustomed to a fifty dollar swing a day, then a few hundred, then a few thousand. You need to ensure you don't get emotional (see below). I started trading options with 5k, then 25k, 50k, and later over 100k. I added my own funds over time and used my gains to build my account. Don’t go all in immediately, that’s dangerous and unwise.
- Especially as you build up the amount of money you have invested, keep it diversified among several stocks.
- Don't go all in on one thing, ever. Be able to take a hit from one stock and not mortally wound your portfolio.
- A company may be doing great, then there's a major product issue out of nowhere. If you are overexposed in one stock this can really hurt you.
- I had to roll options I sold that were about to expire completely worthless because FDX's CEO changed and the stock took a hard dip.
- Don't trade emotionally. If you realize you are emotionally trading for vengeance, you should probably exit the trade and cool off for several days with that stock. Same if you get caught up in a wave of hysteria.
- Have a plan for every trade, ideally with entries / exits that are specific values, ranges, or a set condition. This helps remove emotions. This is super important for strong movements and high volatility (see later).
- Use an options profit calculator from your broker or an online one before entering a "new" trade, especially a complex multi legged trade: https://www.optionsprofitcalculator.com/
- “Rolling” an option: Closing your existing option and opening a similar one at different strike and/or expiration.
- Rolling a call “Up” would be selling a call you own and buying a cheaper call at a higher strike.
- Rolling a put “Down and out” closes your original one and buying or selling one at a lower strike at a longer expiry.
- Better broker interfaces have a literal “Roll” button. I know E-trade does. You can manually do it by selecting relevant contract legs.
- If you have a losing trade, re-evaluate it. If your initial assumption is definitely incorrect, close it. Don't stay in losing trades forever and lose the entire value of the option over stubbornness. If you re-evaluate and you think your assumption was right, hold, potentially consider adding another cheaper option (or buy another call / put). Rolling out sold options can help here.
- Don't try to day trade, especially with options. It's statistically unlikely to be profitable. Day-trading with options introduces extra liquidity risks and is dangerous, especially with spreads.
- Try not to over-trade, you'll likely mis-time the market over time. When I get emotional I over trade, then lose additional money on wash sales. If you scale your entries into positions it should help alleviate your desire to exit positions when they turn badly against you. Whenever I buy calls I do it at larger increments after W almost made me loss my hair; luckily it eventually came back.
- NEVER enter a position on a stock you have no idea about, especially when you read about it online or heard about it from some rando.
- At market open options contracts are often volatile and inflated. Buying during this time can be more expensive. Options are usually cheaper mid-day, I read somewhere 2-3PM is cheapest. I’ve had success around 12-1PM EST after prices settle.
- Try wheeling on cheaper stocks once you get all fundamentals down.
- When selling puts if you are very bullish consider "doubling down"; note this is higher risk. Use the credit from your put sale to buy shares or a cheap call. This can be roughly inversed with puts, except I wouldn't ever recommend shorting shares.
- Learn from your mistakes. You can’t go back in time and beating yourself up (to a point) is useless. Make a physical &/or mental note of it so you don’t do it again. If you don’t learn from it, then beat yourself up so you won’t do it again.
- If you have friends that like to trade, I find it helpful to discuss strategies and planned plays. I talk openly with my close friends about my current holdings and planned trades, it helps keep me accountable. If I get a wide-eyed look, I might be doing something excessively risky or stupid. I’ve over-leveraged myself in calls twice and I knew I shouldn’t have done it both times. When I tell my friends what I did and I’m embarrassed, it exemplifies the face that I shouldn’t have done it in the first place. You will also get ideas for new strategies or plays from them. It’s good to stay versatile and use multiple strategies when appropriate. Beware of group think/echo chambers.
- I recommend NEVER telling someone what to buy/sell and when. I’ll tell people MY plays or what I like and why, but I will not encourage them to emulate what I do. Depending on the audience, I’ll tell them my exact positions along with my exit and entrance strategy. With closer friends I’ll offer my thoughts on their trades (if asked). If my friend is doing something really risky (one of my friends does some scary stuff) I may ask them if they want my advice, and provide it, especially if they overlooked a risk/event. I will not encourage someone to execute/enter a trade since it has a high potential for hurt feelings or animosity all around.
- Don’t fall in love with a stock. Just because something made you money before and you have high confidence in it doesn’t mean it will keep performing. I joke that FDX betrayed me when it started dipping and losing me money. I was over-confident of its bounce-back and sold too many puts too quickly. I’m in several losing trades because of it. However, I will keep good stocks in my rostetracking list or try different strategies or re-enter trades when they change their behavior.
- As you start to both buy and sell options and get more experience in general, you'll start seeing the two sides to every trade. You will likely start adjusting your strategies or trying new trades out because of this. Things will likely click one day. Most/all the greeks and options concepts will become almost second nature. For me this was when I could build an Iron Condor from scratch, which was a watershed moment involving a good understanding of many strategies.
- Understand Liquidity and volume.
- Trading in low volume, low open interest contracts results in wide bid/ask spreads and difficulty having your contracts filled. Look at all the data for a contract, not just the strike and price.
- Monthly Expiration dates typically have better liquidity.
- Multi-legged trades (Common examples are 2-legged vertical spreads or 4-legged iron condors) have more difficulty being filled, especially on bad brokers like Robin Hood. Having very liquid options for all legs is extremely helpful in obtaining timely and well-priced fills, which maximize your potential profits.
- Time in market vs timing the market:
- It is extremely difficult to time the market perfectly. If you wait for the perfect opportunity forever, history has proven you will miss out on gains. Keeping all your money out of the market has proven to be ineffective. Now if there is something serious happening with a stock/the market (like say a new pandemic), don’t go all in. I recommend entering incrementally at dips. If the stock has huge upside potential it may never go down, so it might make sense to partially enter at the current price.
- IMIO selling puts is a great strategy to get into a stock you like, or at least make money off it. I think buying stock in lots of 100 is usually for suckers. Selling an ATM or ITM put (assuming the math works out) on a stock you were going to buy and hold is ALMOST free money.
- I recommend keeping some cash available regardless. If you have a very large account or expect a downturn, hedging with indexes like QQQ, SPY, or VIX or calls/puts may be wise.
- Every trade can't be a winner. You will take some losses, you must get used to it. I don’t like having a realized loss of 1K or more on any trade. However, this will happen, especially with larger accounts.
- As long as you win more often and beat the S&P that year I consider it okay. I’m kind of aggressive, so I consider 20%+ annually good. 30%+ annually is great. 40%+ and I’m dancing. After trading options I am almost baffled by my old belief that 5% annual returns (mostly from dividend ETFs) was “good”. That’s nothing to me now since I’m willing to take risks. Note: While lots of people danced in 2020, realize that’s an insane Bull Run year and is atypical.
- Adhere to your own risk tolerance and never over-extend yourself, especially with margin use. Don’t make huge gambles leaving you uncomfortable. Only gamble with money you are willing to lose.
- My personal strategy is to make safer gains for the year and then enter slightly riskier strategies using those gains. I can be slightly-moderately more aggressive and compound my gains. For me I often sell puts to make money, then when I see a big opportunity I’ll sell a put and buy an OTM or moderately ITM call.
- Understand it’s not safe to try and get rich overnight. However, once you hit big “steps” things may start to snowball. You can enter more positions and take more risks if you choose to.
- For me this when I hit 50k, then 100k. I was able to balance low and moderate risk positions to more significantly grow my account. I’ll even do a high risk thing now and again because my gains can absorb it (assuming I have them).
- I can’t wait to get to 250K, then 500K. I know it’ll take quite a long time, but I am confident I’ll eventually be able to have 500K and (hopefully) 1M in my non-401k trading account with gains and additions from my job. I can only imagine how “dangerous” I will be with that kind of capital.
- If you missed "the next big thing" like AAPL, TSLA, or the time machine I’m building in my basement. Don't get upset, learn from it. Adapt and become a better trader for next time.
- Figure out why a company was so promising, before they mooned. Determine how you would have traded differently in hindsight. Apply those lessons to the next company you believe has long term growth prospects.
- For me that's putting in 1-2.5k towards shares and/or buying LEAPS on it. Depending on my bullishness I may buy “cheap”, fairly far OTM calls. The far OTM options are sort of lottery tickets. If I'm right the (relatively) low cost will have explosive profits; if I'm wrong, they didn't cost that much so it's a calculated loss I’m willing to accept. For more serious bets I’ll buy ITM LEAPS to run PMCCs on. I also like to buy 1-2K in my 401k for very long-term plays.
- The stock market hates uncertainty, it seems to crave the status quo. A shakeup can potential tank a stock, even if it's nothing. With shares you can wait it out, but this can be problematic for options. If you see volatile/uncertain times ahead (politics, disease, manufacturing, earnings, etc.), you might want to reduce your overall portfolio risks or hedge.
Profit Retention / Loss Mitigation - If selling options, it is a viable strategy to close early after a large gain with many DTE left until expiry. See TT videos / strategies on this.
- Don't hold options through earnings unless you literally want to gamble. I like playing on earnings run ups, but that can be risky.
- If you hold options through earnings, IV crush will happen immediately afterwards, devaluing the option. However, if the option is profitable enough, IV crush won’t matter, which will still make money for a call buyer. A sold put sufficiently far OTM will benefit from IV crush, even if the stock dips after slightly bad or lukewarm earnings.
- Don't throw good money after bad. Don't gamble on a recovery if your assumption appears to be wrong or the market is flat out tanking. If you are wrong and still believe in the company, wait twice as long as your original plan (wait for your 2nd entry point vs 1st) before adding to your position.
- Consider using stop losses to lock-in profits on rides up or sometimes use them to prevent losses. Note, stops can be easily triggered in volatile options. Now when I'm up a lot on calls (especially around earnings or large momentum run-ups) I always set stop losses. I have been burned too many times. In December 2020 I didn't set a SL on several thousand dollars of FDX calls I was already up on and I "lost" ~$5K of unrealized gains. If you're up big, don't get too greedy.
- A possible strategy if a stock is on a tear and you have multiple options open: Close some positions (I prefer to do this incrementally if the stock has momentum), but leave 1+ open in case the stock goes into outer space/the floor. Next, set a stop loss with a little buffer below its current movement / range so it doesn't get hit unless the stock falls hard. Finally, watch the stock closely and if it keeps rising, keep moving the stop loss up in little bits incrementally. This will let you keep more profits on a hot streak, but give some protection and secure more gains. It will also help eliminate FOMO if a stock exceeds your expectations.
- Have rules when to roll out, down & out, or up & out. I like TT’s roll at break even or at 1x loss and to always roll for a credit (or for me a very minor cost). Obviously these rules need some monitoring. Know your stocks, the news, and technicals so you don’t jump the gun.
- If you roll early for a credit and you’re right, it’s not the end of the world. You’ll just need to hold longer, which will obviously tie up capital. Sometimes it’s better to tie up some money (especially if you aren’t paying interest) than eating a huge loss.
- Rolling too late can be worse though. I currently have a very underwater FDX put I sold that is over 2x loss, rolling it does almost nothing unless you want to pay a debit or extend it extremely far out.
- On huge options gains, I strongly you recommend taking profits by rolling up/down or incrementally sell your contracts at several different prices (this is why having multiple contracts is nice).
- Rolling up involves selling your initial call, then using a fraction of your proceeds to buy a cheaper, further OTM call with the same expiry; puts are inverse this. When rolling up I like to ensure the new option’s cost is 15-40% of my realized gains. I’ll buy a more or less expensive new optoin based on my convication to the stock and predicted movements. You can also roll up and out to get a further expiry and strike.
- This is monumentally important if you are playing with incredibly high rising stocks or during a short squeeze.
- Sad story time: I completely screwed up when I forgot to roll up, twice, during the GME gamma/short squeeze. I didn’t take my own advice; I didn’t have a real exit or transition plan and I got emotional. It all happened so fast and I was at work; the insanity of the run up and subsequent gamma squeeze caught me off guard. I should’ve clocked out and thought through the situation for 15-30 minutes to form an impromptu plan, then executed trade(s). My moderate risk tolerance coupled with my desire to take profits took over. When the stock partially cratered after a run up, I sold to retain gains. In the heat of the moment I thought the squeeze was squoze and it was going to plummet into the ground and I wasn’t being rational.
- On 1x 4K call I would’ve made an additional 15-25K if I rolled up to a cheaper contract with some of my profits.
- I know I missed out on significantly more with a 2nd call I had. Depending when I rolled it, it would likely have been an additional 25-50k in profits.
- I talked about learning from your mistakes above. This mistake is branded into my brain due to the massive gains I missed out on by not rolling up. I’m furious with myself as I write this 1 week after the GME gamma squeeze, I’m a planner and I didn’t plan. If anything I own is significantly up ever again, I’m rolling up (or at least setting a stop loss). If necessary, I’ll roll up a trade multiple times to keep extracting profits.
- Learn from my mistake so you don’t miss out on gains too. I strongly recommend rolling up when you are up big on a call / roll down when you are up big on a put. This enables you to take profits, stay in the game, and keep extracting more gains.
- If you trade a lot of options, talk to your broker about a discount. I was getting the standard $.50/contract with E-Trade, but I traded over 300 contracts a quarter and was able to get the fee reduced by over $.10 by just asking. I am now doing more spreads and condors, so once my volume gets very high, I’ll ask again.
- If you have a broker that isn’t great and you want to switch, leverage your current trading fees to the new broker. Tell them you’ll move over $### thousand if they beat your current options trading fee per contract.
Trade Planning & Position Management Tips - As you gain experience, start monitoring what kind of Delta, OTM, DTE, etc. you are most profitable with. Use it in your future trades. You'll often see the tasty trade 30-45DTE .3 Delta strategy for selling.
- Before entering a trade, look at rough technicals like resistances and supports to consider your relevant strikes as well as entry/exit points. Look at upcoming earnings & dividend dates as well as stock/market news.
- Consider staggering strikes and expirations for safety and diversity; it’s nice to avoid assignment on 3 puts at once because you used the same strike for all 3.
- Incrementally enter positions on large rises/falls. One of my favor strategies is to buy dips after over reactions. By doing this slowly in large price "steps" it helps combat FOMO and helps you avoid getting slaughtered.
- This will also help you avoid "chasing a falling knife". It also ties into having a plan.
- I set alerts at several predetermined prices and I REALLY try not to enter new trades unless I hit my preset points. It makes me less emotional and usually more effective.
- Don't buy far expiration options with poor liquidity for shorter term plays. I bought 1x GME 1-year+ LEAPS call before the 2021 short squeeze. That was stupid, I should've bought 2-3x 60-120 day calls to have better liquidity. I also paper-handed it and missed out on my lambo.
- If selling options, consider rolling (for a credit) to avoid assignment when it makes sense / meets your plan. Rolling closer to expiration can be a valid strategy to get theta on your side. On the flip side, if the stock moons or plummets it could've been better to roll before it got crazy deep ITM. See rolling “rules” above.
- Covered Calls:
- If a stock has a large movement range, I think it can be worthwhile to wait to open a CC after the last one is closed/expires. I have been more successful waiting for another opportunity vs. opening one immediately on the Monday after the second the last one expires.
- Consider selling covered calls at all time highs/peaks. If you sell a CC and the stock dips significantly, and you think it’s temporary, you can buy to close your CC for a quick profit, then reopen it later.
- If you own Meme stocks, selling covered calls runs the risk of missing out on large gains. On these stocks I typically only sell them further OTM than I normally would or not at all. If I do sell CC on a Meme stock I try to ensure I have 25-100 other shares that won’t be called away.
-Advanced Beginner- Spreads - Spreads (with 2 legs) are neat because they manipulate how delta and theta act. It caps your gains and losses, but you can profit with less stock movement. Try several spreads on a P/L calculator to see for yourself.
- Spreads usually require margin trading.
- Spreads allow you to define max losses (assuming you close before expiration day) and use less capital.
- Experienced traders will open many spreads at identical/similar strikes to heavily profit off movement. Spreads can make you/lose you a lot of money if you are right.
- For example. I could make a $200 premium off a $500 risk trade, max loss would be $300. This is much more effective capital utilization than a naked or cash secured put, however it does not have the same downside protection or “wheel” potential as a sold put. Higher risk, higher reward.
- Vertical Debit spreads: I think of these like mini calls/puts. I personally don’t use them unless calls are outrageously expensive or the break even is absurdly high, but there’s nothing wrong with them. A call debit spread will lower your breakeven and overall cost vs just a call. You can do clever things like making a positive theta call spread if you’re creative. I like doing this since I hate losing money to theta.
- Vertical Credit spreads:
- Very good theta strategy to define downside/upside risks.
- A put credit spread is bullish and allows you to bet on upward movement with less capital and defined losses.
- A call credit spread is a bearish strategy that allows you to bet on downward movement. These are very cool since they allow you to sell calls without selling naked calls, which can ruin you financially. I see selling these as better than buying puts since it’s so much easier to be profitable; to be redundant, Θ rocks.
- https://www.schwab.com/resource-centeinsights/content/reducing-risk-with-credit-spread-options-strategy-0
- I repeat this on purpose: Don't EVER leave short spreads open on expiration day, close them. If you don't close, they better be VERY far from the strike on a non-volatile stock. In after hours a stock can jump/dip below your strike and be exercised without the other leg to protect you. This can lead to massive, life ruining losses. This is not an exaggeration, google this and be scared. It happened to a fair number of people with TSLA. Video explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtVFj9nRRDo&t=315s
- Short Straddle:
Trading Mechanics, Taxes, Market Manipulation - Learn about wash sale rules. They suck and are very easy to activate with options. This will eliminate your ability to write off losses. Over trading can easily cause wash sales. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/washsalerule.asp
- Short attacks:
- Learn to recognize these sketchy attacks by hedges/firms. They manipulate the market, it’s been documented countless times. A common one is rapid short selling, which pushes the price down.
- Short Ladder attacks:
- If you plan well enough and the market doesn’t give up on the stock you may be able to use it as a great opportunity to buy the dip.
- Cramer explains how he intentionally manipulated the market when he ran a hedge fund years ago. Multiple links to the video are below since this video gets pulled often, Cramer / The street never wanted this to go public.
- Plan for taxes if you are up big. You may need to over withhold or contribute to taxes quarterly depending on your situation. https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc306
-Intermediate / Advanced Strategies (work in progress)- You’ll notice many of these strategies inverse one another. Options Strategy Finder This website is great for learning about new strategies, you’ll see many links to it below.
https://www.theoptionsguide.com/option-trading-strategies.aspx Short Strangle / Straddle - Both of these strategies profit from little price movement. I recommend using a P/L calculator to determine BE, profit, etc.
- A straddle sells (or buys) two options at the same expiry and strike.
- A strangle sells (or buys) two options at same expiry with different strikes.
- Both these strategies involved selling a Call and a Put for a credit. Straddle uses ATM legs, strangle uses OTM legs.
- Limited max profits and unlimited risk. Due to the unlimited risk, I am not a fan. However, many people like these a lot.
- https://www.theoptionsguide.com/short-strangle.aspx
- https://www.theoptionsguide.com/short-straddle.aspx
Iron Condor and Iron Butterflies - These strategies profit from neutral or mostly neutral stock movement. They receive a credit to open and benefit from theta decay. If your stock is range bound, these may be a good choice.
- These are both 4 "legged" trades, so you will have 4 trading fees to enter or exit the trade. A lower cost or zero cost broker shines here. However, “bad” free brokers will give you poor fills, which may not be worth the discount.
- Condors and butterflies have "wings" which are your purchased puts and calls. The wider the wing the higher the max profit/risk. The condor body can be riskier and skinny with a narrow high profit range or wider for a much greater chance of success with lower payout.
- An iron condor is built by combining a put credit spread and a call credit spread with the same expiry.
- An iron condor can be thought of as a modified short strangle with limited risk, and therefore a bit less profit. I prefer defined limited risk.
- The butterfly is similar except instead of a plateau it has a sharp peak. My personal mental note is that a condor looks more like a strangle with wings, while a butterfly looks like a straddle with wings.
- Pay attention to earnings dates when you open these, I have forgotten to check before and it led to bad trades.
- https://www.theoptionsguide.com/iron-condor.aspx
- https://www.theoptionsguide.com/iron-butterfly.aspx
Long Condor (Debit Call Condor) - The debit version of an Iron Condor. You expect the price to stay inside your defined range. This strategy profits from neutral or mostly neutral stock movement. I’ve never tried this, Iron Condors make more sense to me.
- Limited risk / limited reward.
- https://www.theoptionsguide.com/condor.aspx
Short Condor (Credit Call Condor) - Inverse of an Iron Condor. You expect the price to go OUTSIDE your defined range. These are useful when you expect significant price movement. Credit to open.
- Limited risk / limited reward.
- Can be harder to set up. I want to try these, haven’t yet.
- https://www.theoptionsguide.com/short-condor.aspx
Reverse Iron Condor LEAPs - LEAP Options are options that are long term with many DTE, often over a year until expiration. LEAP calls are great for long term growth plays (downtrends with LEAP puts) or simply when you really like a company and can't afford 100 shares. LEAPs (or any "longer term" option) enables you to sell a PMCC or PMCP (below)
PMCC / PMCP - PMCC or PMCP are poor man's covered call (or poor man's covered puts). They are diagonal options often used with purchased LEAPs. You sell a shorter DTE call/put with a further OTM strike than your purchased call/put. For PMCC/PMCPs it is often recommended to recoup your extrinsic value as soon as possible, some recommend with your first call CC or put sale, to ensure you are positive if the option is assigned early. These have a lot of moving parts and strategies. If you buy a barely ITM call/put and sell a nearby strike call/put you run the risk of the purchased option getting "blown by" on large stock movement and ending up with a very negative losing trade. Keeping your purchased LEAP deeper ITM should protect you. Check your initial PMCC using an options calculation to make sure you don't screw up.
- I'm currently tinkering with these myself. So far I like .7-.9 delta call LEAPS with 30-45 DTE calls on my CC. The goal is to hold the LEAP long term, potentially until expiration, and constantly sell calls/puts on it that expire worthless. Typically the call/put is rolled up and out or down and out if it's going to be assigned, unless you don't want your LEAP anymore.
- Some people look at these many sold CC or puts as profits, I look at them as lowering my cost basis until it's zero (or even negative). I have a page in my notebook I write each CC on my NIO LEAP (I Meme stock sometimes). I find it satisfying to slowly see the cost of the original option disappear. When I originally wrote this I had ~2 years left on it and it's 9-10% paid for; that doesn't even count the actual gains the LEAP has.
- TT states this is considered an IV play, which I partially agree with. You want to buy these during low IV times since an IV drop will hurt your LEAP value. I look at them more as a way to sell calls/puts on a high IV company with a lot of price movement and potential upside/downside.
Advanced Orders - Guide to several order types: https://us.etrade.com/knowledge/events/webinars/order-types-from-basic-to-advanced-07162019
- One Triggers Other (OTO):
- Good brokers will allow you to set these up, some will require a desktop to do it. This lets you link one action to another. In programming think of it like an if-then. You’ll tie a buy/sell to another buy/sell
- Setting trailing stops on options is very chaotic since their price movement can be drastic due to volatility. I prefer to set my trailing stop to a stock.
- What I like to do is set a trailing stop on a stock (or just link it to a stock price drop) and have it sell 1 share I own. Then it immediately executes a market order to sell my call. I’ve had good luck doing this with incredibly volatile plays were stop losses aren’t effective. I’ll often have an order saved and ready saved for when a strong run up starts. When my price alerts start blowing up my phone, I’ll immediately hit execute to turn it on.
Disclaimer:
I’m not a financial adviser, I'm actually an engineer. I’m not telling you to invest in a specific stock/option or even use a specific strategy. I’ve outlined and more extensively elaborated on what I personally like. You should test several strategies and find what works best for you.
I'm just a guy who trades (mainly options) part-time for financial gain and fun. I don't claim to be some investing savant.
submitted by CompulsionOSU to thetagang [link] [comments]
WHY CANNABIS MARKET FOR 2021
The cannabis market right now is so similar to the start of the green energy market.. its nowhere near done being bullish. Save for some small dips, there will very likely be a huge bullish trend for 2021.
EVEN NASDAQ AGREES. I’ve posted my positions a
few times, and I’ll continue to do so. But this is my reasoning for investing in cannabis stocks in general for 2021.
- I've been a bull on cannabis since the democrats had a strong pro-cannabis platform. But what made me go balls deep into the market was that the UN changed its classification of cannabis. Countries follow the UN closely for guidance on their own classification of controlled substances. Congress has repeatedly cited the UN’s classification as one of the reasons for not changing it. Several countries immediately changed their stance on cannabis in response to this, including Israel, which In November 2020, announced that it was moving forward with a plan to legalize recreational cannabis nationally. “The country is aiming to implement recreational legalization within nine months, and even if there are delays, that means mid-to-late 2021.” (This is my reason for investing in Canadian cannabis companies, because they are already poised to expand internationally since its legal there nationwide)
- THE SENATE IS NOW BLUE! The Georgia runoffs were won by Democrats, and they can now swing the vote left with VP Harris. She promised it as part of her platform, so we know it will be prioritized. CHUCK SHUMER SPONSORED THE MORE ACT. HE WILL BE SENATE MAJORITY LEADER. IT WILL 100% BE PRIORITIZED BETWEEN HIM AND VP HARRIS.
- EVERYONE predicted beforehand that the republicans would win Georgia... everyone talked down decriminalization passing the house because of they believed it would NEVER pass the republican majority senate. But the left spent more than any senate race in history to encourage voters to go out and vote. Only once the race started did it become clear that the left had a chance. Then some gains from the surprise that they won. However the gains from 1/5 onwards definitely hasn’t been priced in for all the future legislation, because some of it will be completely new legislation that wasn’t possible to consider before without a blue senate. THIS HASN'T BEEN PRICED INTO THE MARKET YET.
- The government is broke post-COVID. There is a terrible image of the police. They don’t want to waste more resources on cannabis related crimes that would be fixed under decriminalization. And the tax revenue from decriminalization would be significant. Decriminalization (THE MORE ACT) opens up the borders to interstate-commerce and international import/export. This would all trickle down into Uncle Sam’s empty pockets.
- New York Governor Cuomo announced on Jan 6 his plan to legalize marijuana for adult use (right after New Jersey vote, as I anticipated in my last post) as part of his State of the State agenda. The next step is a ripple out on the North East. NY didn’t want to miss out on tax revenue, neither will any of the other states in the northeast within driving distance of NJ and NY. This is Cuomo’s third attempt in three years to legalize adult-use cannabis in the state; last year, Cuomo included a legalization proposal in his state budget, but the plan was ultimately cut in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Other ongoing state legislature:
- Rhode Island: Regulators have received 45 applications for six new medical cannabis dispensary licenses in the state. If all applicants meet the requirements for a license, six will randomly be selected in a lottery to operate retail locations in different regions across the state. Read more
- Missouri: Rep. Shamed Dogan has filed legislation that would place an adult-use cannabis legalization measure on the state’s 2022 ballot. Meanwhile, Missourians for a New Approach has announced plans for a separate 2022 ballot initiative after an unsuccessful signature campaign to get the issue before voters in 2020. Read more
- Alabama: Sen. Tim Melson plans to reintroduce a medical cannabis legalization bill this year. Medical cannabis legislation passed the Alabama Senate during the 2020 session, but failed to clear the House. Read more
- Illinois: Illinois lawmakers have proposed the creation of 75 new cannabis retail licenses to give disadvantaged and minority applicants a second chance at licensing following the controversial licensing lottery to issue an initial 75 dispensary licenses. A work group made up of lawmakers and members of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration met this week to finalize details of the bill, which will be introduced in a lame-duck session that starts Jan. 8, before new lawmakers are sworn in Jan. 13. Read more
- Minnesota: House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler is again renewing his push to legalize adult-use cannabis in the state, announcing plans to reintroduce a legalization bill this year. Winkler told WCCO that he sees “Senate leadership as being the number one obstacle,” but said that if lawmakers agreed to place an adult-use legalization initiative on Minnesota’s 2022 ballot, “it would pass overwhelmingly.” Read more
- Virginia: Del. Steve Heretick has reintroduced a bill to legalize adult-use cannabis. Heretick has proposed legislation related to decriminalization and legalization in the past, and this year’s bill would legalize the cultivation, sale and consumption of cannabis in the state. Read more
- Connecticut: Gov. Ned Lamont renewed his push for adult-use legalization during his State of the State address Jan. 6, announcing that it is a priority for the new legislative session. Connecticut’s 2021 legislative session opened Jan. 6, and Lamont, a Democrat, kicks off the session with increased majorities in the House and Senate, which could increase his chances of passing an adult-use legalization bill. Read more
Now that you understand why I’m going green, here’s my reasoning for my positions. TLRY (Tilray) - largest cannabis company in the world by revenue post merger. Will run out of Seattle and New York City. New York Legalization on top of senate turning blue is a big catalyst for TLRY.
- Merger hasn’t completed yet, and the merger happened before the senate went blue.. that was the gamble APHA was making, and they won. The sky is the limit now. When they merge, they will reduce expenses and be much more likely to post profitable quarters. (This is why mergers have so much hype; the sum is > than their parts because they can reduce operating expenses while maintaining revenue from the two companies)
- Tilray CEO Brendan Kennedy: “I think medical cannabis will be legal at the federal level, which means medical cannabis can cross state lines and be imported into the U.S., like we export cannabis from Canada and Portugal to about 15 countries now,” Kennedy said. “Anyone who thinks there’s a state-specific medical market is wrong.” As for the recreational market, Kennedy says the state-specific markets, with interstate trade banned, “are not going to last long.” Kennedy believes that cannabis will be distributed like alcohol and tobacco within two years’ time. That would require significant overhaul of US federal drug laws—and would significantly disrupt all US cannabis companies’ existing business models. Brendan Kennedy, the cannabis billionaire will step down as Tilray's chairman and CEO. Irwin D. Simon, Aphria's current chairman and CEO will take Kennedy's place.
- [On December 18, 2020, just three days after the U.S. Senate adopted the Cannabidiol and Marihuana Research Expansion Act (CMREA or the Act) (more on this below), the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA or the Administration) published in the Federal Register a final rule, “Controls To Enhance the Cultivation of Marihuana for Research in the United States” (Rule), which finally paves the way for DEA to issue additional licenses to grow “marihuana” (i.e., cannabis) for research purposes.](https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/on-heels-of-senate-s-adoption-of-36129/)
GNLN (Greenlane Holdings) - One of the largest global sellers of premium cannabis accessories. Pax/JUUL/Volcano products. I’ve had Pax products, and although I prefer Arizer because of the affordability, I can’t deny Pax has quality products and is like the “iPhone” of vaporizers. I like their products, I like their branding. There’s lots of hype and loyalty, especially with their Volcano desktop vaporizer.
- Strong US brands.
- The main reason they did poorly was bad timing. They IPO’d during the year that JUULs started being banned. They’re actually at all those levels again. Theres a ton of upside potential.
- Market cap is ridiculously low for some really renown brands all because of the JUUL flavor pod ban. Everyone knows Pax, Volcano, and JUUL. But no one knows Greenlane because of the bad timing of their IPO and the subsequent JUUL flavor ban. It’s crazy. They’ve already broke all time high for the year. But I’m holding until they break 1B market cap.
- Recently became the exclusive distributor for the world's first gravity powered contactless water hookah.
- Overall i think too many people count it out just because of their IPO and subsequent decline in JUUL sales from the JUUL flavored pods ban. They definitely have the potential because of their strong branding and quality products. I’m betting on them having more high quality products in the future with equally loyal customers.
SNDL (Sundial Growers) - SNDL must close above $1 per share for 10 consecutive sessions by June 26, 2021 or it will be delisted from NASDAQ. People see this as a fear factor, I see this as “they will do anything necessary to reach $1 for a week so they won’t be delisted”.. IMHO reverse splitter probably isn’t on the table since they could have done that in 2020, but instead applied for a 6 month extension after announcing “alternative strategic investments”. We can already see this by their predatory loan SPAC spinoff.
- Rumors of a merger with CGC; SNDL also purchased a SPAC recently and entered an agreement with Zenabis, immediately claiming they defaulted. Turning that SPAC into predatory loan/debt repurchasing company. Imo if they want to complete a merger, it would be easy to sell ownership through that SPAC to the buyer.
- THEY RECENTLY WENT DEBT FREE by selling off unprofitable assets in the business. This means we are much more likely to see earnings in future quarters, and they are much more attractive for mergers.
- Because they are indoor growers, they are more likely to be bought up by a company in the consolidating Canadian cannabis market than fail all together. The amount of space licensed to grow cannabis in Canada is now heavily skewed toward outdoor cultivation instead of indoor for the first time, according to new data from Health Canada. A growing population of licenses for outdoor growers means that there aren’t as many indoor licenses being given out... If a company ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD wants to quickly expand into indoor growing OR into the west, they would have to purchase an existing company that has the license to quickly do so. This is WAY faster, and a guaranteed way to obtain a license rather than applying for one and waiting x amount of months and be rejected for some requirement that wasn’t met.
- From my own experience, outdoor cannabis is subpar quality to indoor grown cannabis. So a growing market for outdoor cannabis doesn’t necessarily mean its better... it is likely just cheaper. I would imagine a high quality “craft cannabis” company would want to purchase SNDL, or an existing outdoor growing company that wants to quickly expand to indoor grown cannabis. With this being a Canadian company, there’s a chance a company in another country like Israel would be interested in purchasing it in the near future.
PLNHF (Planet 13 Holdings) - Biggest tourist trap in Las Vegas if you’re a stoner, casual smoker, or just wanting to try it. From my own experience, I think they will continue to be successful. If I went around the US trying other brands I’d probably be more confident in putting 5-10% of my portfolio into those picks or choosing to not include them lol. Like for example, I used to have Curaleaf. But there's tons of bad feedback on Curaleaf, a friend has tried it said the nug is really subpar quality and if I tried their nug I’d probably confirm that I wouldn’t want to invest in them. With PLNHF, i’ve seen the ambience and tried the product myself. It’s definitely a lot of hype price wise, but still quality. This is my own bias showing, but I still think they’ve got solid fundamentals and excellent location/strong US branding.
I’m well aware of other good stocks like GTBIF, CRLBF, SSPK, TCNNF, GRWG.. but these stocks
haven’t been swinging as hard in response to pro-cannabis news. E.g.
TLRY, SNDL, GNLN swung more than 20% some days from pro-cannabis news...I will likely reduce my current positions shortly after inauguration, after some news about the timeline for cannabis legislation, and diversify my positions more between these other good picks.
2021 is the year of cannabis boys submitted by DerbDsoul to pennystocks [link] [comments]
Lost in the Sauce: Rules finalized to take away LQBTQ rights, cement border wall, sell oil rights
Welcome to
Lost in the Sauce, keeping you caught up on political and legal news that often gets buried in distractions and theater… or a global health crisis.
I am doing a separate post for the insurrection and related events. I think it is important to make sure the news in this post doesn't get overlooked. Housekeeping:
- HOW TO SUPPORT: I know we are all facing unprecedented financial hardships right now. If you are in the position to support my work, I have a patreon, venmo, and a paypal set up. No pressure though, I will keep posting these pieces publicly no matter what - paywalls suck.
- NOTIFICATIONS: You can signup to receive notifications when these posts are done.
Russia
A new report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) found that Trump political appointees politicized intelligence around foreign election interference in 2020, resulting in significant errors. ODNI analytic ombudsman Barry Zulauf delivered the report to Congress on Thursday: “Analysis on foreign election interference was delayed, distorted or obstructed out of concern over policymaker reactions or for political reasons.” The biggest misrepresentation of intel involved diminishing the threat posed by Russia and overstating the risk of interference from China.
“Russia analysts assessed that there was clear and credible evidence of Russian election influence activities. They said IC management slowing down or not wanting to take their analysis to customers, claiming that it was not well received, frustrated them. Analysts saw this as suppression of intelligence, bordering on politicization of intelligence from above.”
- WaPo: Zulauf, a career official, also found an “egregious” example of attempted politicization of the Russian interference issue in March talking points on foreign election threats, prepared “presumably by ODNI staff” and “shaped by” then-Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell.
The Justice Department and the federal judiciary revealed that the Russian Solar Winds hack also compromised their computer systems. 3% of the DOJ’s Microsoft Office 365 were potentially affected; it does not appear that classified material was accessed. The impact on the judiciary seems much more significant, jeopardizing “highly sensitive confidential documents filed with the courts.”
The sealed court files, if indeed breached, could hold information about national security, trade secrets and wiretap transcripts, along with financial data from bankruptcy cases and the names of confidential informants in criminal cases...
Appointees
D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine has accused U.S. Agency for Global Media Director Michael Pack of funneling $4 million in nonprofit funds to his own for-profit company. In a civil lawsuit filed last week, Racine states that for over 12 years, Pack used a nonprofit company he owned to direct money to his private documentary company, enabling “Pack to line his company’s coffers with a stream of tax-exempt dollars without...a competitive bidding process, public scrutiny, or accounting requirements regarding its spending.”
Employees at Voice of America have filed a whistleblower complaint accusing Pack of using the agency “to disseminate political propaganda in the waning days of the Trump administration. The staffers take issue with a planned speech by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to be broadcast from VOA headquarters. The event, to be attended by a live audience, “is a specific danger to public health and safety” in the middle of a pandemic. Finally, the whistleblowers say the event is “ a gross misuse of government resources,” costing at least $4,000 in taxpayer funds to date and using 18 employees who would otherwise be producing VOA content.
Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller has announced his appointees to the panel set to rename confederate military bases and plan the removal of confederate symbols/monuments. Most controversially, Miller named White House liaison Joshua Whitehouse, who oversaw the purge of the Defense Policy Board and the Defense Business Board last month. The other three Miller-appointees are former acting Army general counsel Earl Matthews, acting assistant secretary of Defense Ann Johnston, and White House official Sean McLean. The remaining four members will be appointed by the Senate and House Armed Services Committees.
- The 10 Army posts named in honor of Confederate generals are Camp Beauregard and Fort Polk in Louisiana, Fort Benning and Fort Gordon in Georgia, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort A.P. Hill, Fort Lee and Fort Pickett in Virginia, Fort Rucker in Alabama, and Fort Hood in Texas.
Trump
The Trump Inaugural Committee, a nonprofit, improperly paid a $49,000 hotel bill that should have been picked up by Trump’s for-profit business. D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine revealed the allegation in an existing lawsuit against the committee, which already accuses Trump’s hotel of illegally pocketing about $1 million of donors’ money. “The Trump Organization was liable for the invoiced charges...The [Committee’s] payment of the invoice was unfair, unreasonable and unjustified and ultimately conferred improper private benefit to the Trump Organization.”
The Professional Golfer’s Association voted last night to move the 2022 PGA Championship from Trump’s Bedminster course. Jim Richerson, PGA of America president, said in a statement that “it has become clear that conducting” the championship at Trump’s property would “be detrimental to the PGA of America brand” and put the organization's ability to function "at risk."
Amid speculation that Trump may spend inauguration day at his Scottish golf course, Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon warned him that even presidents can’t break the country’s pandemic restrictions. “We are not allowing people to come into Scotland now without an essential purpose, which would apply to him, just as it applies to everybody else. Coming to play golf is not what I would consider an essential purpose,” she said.
Trump is on a Presidential Medal of Freedom spree, giving out the award to sports figures and Republican allies. Last Monday, Trump awarded the medal to Rep. Devin Nunes for his work undermining the FBI’s investigation of Russia’s election interference. “Devin Nunes’ courageous actions helped thwart a plot to take down a sitting United States president,” the White House press release states. Likewise, Trump gave the medal to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) for his “effort to confront the impeachment witch hunt” and “exposing the fraudulent origins of the Russia collusion lie.”
- The day after Trump supporters rampaged through the Capitol, Trump awarded the medal to retired professional golfers Annika Sorenstam and Gary Player. The president planned on giving New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick the medal on Thursday, but he declined the offer, saying that “the tragic events of last week occurred and the decision has been made not to move forward with the award.”
Courts
Dominion Voting Systems filed suit against pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell for defamation. Powell falsely claimed that Dominion had rigged the election, that Dominion was created in Venezuela to rig elections for Hugo Chávez, and that Dominion bribed Georgia officials for a no-bid contract,” the lawsuit states. Citing millions spent on security for employees, damage control to its reputation, and future losses, Dominion requests damages of more than $1.3 billion.
- Dominion's lawyer told reporters last week the lawsuit against Powell “is just the first in a series of legal steps.” Ari Cohn, a free speech and defamation lawyer, told WaPo: “If I had to guess I would say that [Poulos] wants a very public vindication with a ruling establishing that Sidney Powell defamed them and that her statements were baseless...That's not something you generally get in a settlement agreement.”
- Just last week, Trump again said at a rally that Dominion machines allowed “fraudulent ballots” to be counted during the 2020 election (clip).
The Supreme Court declined to fast track eight Trump-related cases related to the 2020 election, ensuring they won’t be taken up before Biden’s inauguration. The cases include one brought by attorney Lin Wood against Georgia’s Secretary of State, the so-called “Kraken” cases, and three brought by Trump’s campaign. It is possible the lawsuits will be declared moot after Biden is sworn in.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear two cases alleging that the Treasury Dept. incorrectly distributed Coronavirus aid meant for tribal governments. The Lower 48 Tribes argue that Alaska Native Corporations (ANCs) are not eligible for CARES Act funding, while the Trump administration wants to divvy up the money between tribes and ANCs.
Immigration
A federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s final attempt to restrict U.S. asylum laws. District Judge James Donato (Obama appointee) ruled in favor of advocacy groups who argued that acting Homeland Security secretary Chad Wolf lacked authority to impose the new rules, which would have resulted in the denial of most asylum applications.
“The government has recycled exactly the same legal and factual claims made in the prior cases, as if they had not been soundly rejected in well-reasoned opinions by several courts,” Donato wrote. “This is a troubling litigation strategy. In effect, the government keeps crashing the same car into a gate, hoping that someday it might break through.”
On Monday, acting Homeland Security secretary Chad Wolf submitted his resignation, citing the recent court ruling that he is not a valid appointee to the position. His resignation letter does not cite the Capitol riots or Trump’s language inciting the insurrection. FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor will be the new acting secretary.
"Unfortunately, this action is warranted by recent events, including the ongoing and meritless court rulings regarding the validity of my authority as Acting Secretary. These events and concerns increasingly serve to divert attention and resources away from the important work of the Department in this critical time of a transition of power," Wolf added.
A new Immigration and Customs Enforcement policy will make it harder for immigrant minors to obtain asylum in the U.S. The change was made at the end of last month by then-acting agency leader Tony Pham, who served in the position for less than five months.
Beginning Dec. 29, ICE officers were told that they must review whether an immigrant child is still “unaccompanied” each time they encounter the minor… The memo indicates that the evaluation by ICE officers can come at any time, including when an officer is reviewing immigration court records of a child, and if it’s determined that an immigrant is no longer unaccompanied, they will move to change their status.
Such a change could lead to making some children ineligible to have their asylum claims initially heard and processed… “If implemented aggressively, this policy could significantly decrease the number of children who ultimately receive asylum in the United States,” said Sarah Pierce, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “They are really putting the onus on ICE officers to do everything they can as frequently as they can to remove these designations.”
The Trump administration is still awarding border wall contracts, even in areas where private land has not yet been acquired. The move will make it more difficult for Biden to stop construction of the border wall.
Attempts to halt construction completely, as Biden promised, will prove difficult, particularly if contracts continue to be struck -- a challenge [acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark] Morgan acknowledged Tuesday. "They could terminate those contracts if they want to, but that's going to be a very lengthy, messy process," Morgan said.
"We're going to have to go into settlement agreements with each individual contractor," Morgan added, noting, that payments will have to be made for what they've already done, as well as for materials produced. He estimated the process could cost billions.
Trump is set to visit Alamo, Texas, today to celebrate the completion of more than 400 miles of the border wall. You can watch the event on YouTube at 3:00 pm eastern.
Miscellaneous
Stories that didn’t fit in the above categories...
The Trump administration auctioned off leases to drill oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge last week. Only two private companies bid, each winning large tracts of land. Knik Arm Services, from Alaska, paid $1.6 million for a 50,000-acre tract along the Arctic Ocean. A subsidiary of Australian company 88 Energy paid $800,000 to win the smallest tract.
One of the Health and Human Services Department’s final acts under Trump was finalizing the removal of Obama-era regulations barring discrimination among HHS grantees. The change will allow recipients of federal grant money - like adoption and foster agencies - to discriminate against LGBTQ people and those of a different religion.
Human Rights Campaign: “Statistics suggest that an estimated two million LGBTQ adults in the U.S. are interested in adoption… Further, research consistently shows that LGBTQ youth are overrepresented in the foster care system, as many have been rejected by their families of origin because of their LGBTQ status, and are especially vulnerable to discrimination and mistreatment while in foster care. This regulation would only exacerbate these challenges faced by LGBTQ young people.
submitted by rusticgorilla to Keep_Track [link] [comments]
I am 35 years old, make $56,000 ($231k combined), live in Seattle, and work in higher ed administration
Note: I was technically supposed to post this earlier this week, but noticed that no one was signed up for today (plus I was super busy earlier), so I'm posting a bit late, under a throwaway account! Fair warning: I'm VERY verbose, so this will be long!
Section One: Assets and Debt
As I mentioned above, I make $56k per year as an administrator in higher education. My husband (K) just got a raise to making $155k per year. He works as a lawyer, has been in the workforce for about 12 years. I won't get into too many details but he works for a small boutique firm, not Biglaw. He also sometimes gets a yearly bonus of around $10k-20k but it's not guaranteed or anything like that. K and I have totally combined finances, so the below numbers are for both of us. I have a humanities PhD but I decided to leave academia and find an alt-ac job. My current position has good work-life balance (I never work past 5 pm), but pays terribly and my university is very badly run. I'm hoping to leave higher education all together in the future and am currently enrolled in a certificate program to try to make a career transition to instructional design.
The big elephant in the room is that my husband, K, makes a lot more money than me. When we first met, he was paying off massive amounts of student loans and making much less, and I was debt free with a lot of savings, so we both spent about the same amount. Now he makes 3x what I make and we are both debt-free, so the difference is much more noticeable. We do argue about money sometimes (more in the past), but the reality is that I have a humanities PhD and will likely never out earn him, and he knew that when I married him, lol. Because of all the labor I do around the house and in our lives to support him as he works a much more intense job, I was very clear that I believed we should split our finances equally as soon as we got married. We don't have separate accounts and we generally check in with one another whenever we are planning to spend more than $100. This system works for us for now.
I also want to address the question about parental or family support. Although I technically paid all of my own bills since I got my Bachelor's degree, my parents supported me a lot by paying for my flights home to visit at Christmas or in the summer as Xmas presents/birthday presents. My parents also paid for my undergraduate degree (and K's parents paid for his undergraduate degree as well). They also gave us about $15k to pay for our wedding.
Finally, my parents recently gave me $20k as an "early inheritance." They told me they plan to do this every year (depending on the stock market). We put this money into a brokerage. I don't consider my parents rich, as they both worked hourly jobs in health care my entire life (as a nurse and respiratory therapist - both with only associate's degrees). We never owned a new car, when we went on vacation we stayed in hostels , and shopped almost exclusively at Goodwill. But they scrimped and saved and now they have over $1 million in a retirement account. So I want to acknowledge my financial privilege in that I came from this kind of background. K's parents are similar.
Retirement Balance: $186k (combination of 401k, 403b, 457, 2 Roth IRAs, and taxable brokerage account).
Equity: None, we rent.
Savings account balance: Approximately $45k.
Checking account balance: Right now, around 8k.
Credit card debt: Right now, around $3k. But we pay it off each month with our checking account balance.
Student loan debt: $0. We finally paid off my husband’s law school loans (around $130k), last year. I didn’t have any student loans from undergrad (parents paid) and my MA & PhD were fully funded.
Section Two: Income
Income Progression: I’ve been working in my current field for 3 years. I started off making about $53k and got tiny 2% “merit increases” twice. Then in July my payroll title was changed, which triggered a required raise of about $2k. (I am dramatically underpaid).
Before my current position, I was in academia. I worked as a visiting assistant professor for one year at my alma mater (made $50k for 9 months of work) and before that I was a graduate student for 7 years. I was paid $18k-21k in stipends each year and my tuition & benefits were covered. Luckily, I lived in a very low cost of living area and this was enough for me to live on without going into debt. I got my PhD in 2017. Before I was a graduate student, I taught English in Japan for three years and made around $36k per year. In high school and college, I had random jobs that provided grocery/spending money, but I was lucky enough to have parents that paid my tuition and my rent in college.
I’m currently trying to make a career change (as you will see in my diary) and enrolled in a certificate program which runs from Autumn 2020 to Spring 2021 in order to help with that.
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $7,634. This probably seems low relative to our joint income, but we max out our 401k (K) and 403b (me). I work for the state government, which means I’m also eligible for something called a Deferred Compensation Plan (457b). This is basically the same as a 401k but you can withdraw contributions and gains from the account at any age without penalty (of course, you still have to pay taxes). I also max this out, and the limit is the same as a 401k/403b - $19.5k. Also this number is before K’s raise is accounted for. It won’t increase until his end of February paycheck.
Other deductions - I have health insurance taken out (about $80 a month for me, K’s firm covers his premiums) and taxes. WA has no state taxes, so it’s only federal taxes. I used to have to pay $50 / month for a bus pass (K's was free), but I don’t pay any longer because I’m working from home during COVID.
Final note - the sum I mentioned in the headline includes a variable bonus my husband gets. My base pay is $56k and his is $155k (as of February 1). This year he also got a bonus of $20k, which is set up a bit strangely. About $4k of this was structured as a 3% matching contribution to his 401k and the rest was taxable income. In small law firms, it’s unusual to get any 401k match so this was nice.
Side Gig Monthly Take Home: None.
Any Other Monthly Income Here: We get some interest from our savings account… like $25 a month.
Section Three: Expenses
Rent: Rent comes to approximately $2,050 total for a one-bedroom apartment. Rent itself is $1886, then we have pet rent ($25 per month), bicycle parking ($15 a month) and water / sewage / gas, which is usually $120-150 (variable cost).
Renters insurance: $157.76, paid annually. $13 a month.
Retirement contribution: In addition to the 401k, 403b, and 457, which all come out before taxes, we max out our Roth IRAs. That means $500 each per month per person (for a yearly total of $6k each). As I noted up top, we match out our 401k and 403b (19,500 each) and our 457. My employee also offers a 7.5% match. K's employee offers a 3% match but it is included in his yearly bonus so it's not guaranteed (confusing).
Savings contribution: We put $500 per month into our emergency fund. We also put about $860 a month into our “sinking fund,” which covers large and small annual or sporadic purchases such as vacations, gifts, Amazon Prime renewal, car insurance and renters insurance, etc.
Investment contribution: $875 per month into a taxable brokerage at Vanguard.
In total, we save about 47% of our gross income. We can do this because we keep our housing cost low relative to our high income, we don’t have any debt remaining, we don’t have any kids or parents who need financial support, and we’re very privileged in a lot of ways. We are hoping to FIRE within 10 years.
Debt payments: None.
Donations: We budget $100 per month for donations, which includes one-time donations as well as some reoccurring donations. My husband does pro bono work as well. I would like to increase this by quite a bit, but I still have a hard time budgeting for donations because I spent 7 years living on approximately $20k a year. To go from that to making more than 10x that amount within 3-4 years is obviously something that I am very privileged for, but it is still hard for me emotionally to comprehend at times.
Electric: ~$50-100 (billed every other month)
Wifi/Cable/Landline: An extortionate $87.12 for slow internet that only works for Zoom calls about half the time. Do I really live in one of the tech cities of the future?
Cellphone: $170 (This includes both service and paying off two new iPhones. We could have paid them off up front, but it was actually cheaper by like $50 to go on a payment plan.)
Subscriptions: BritBox ($7.70), Spotify ($16.50), HBOMax ($16.50), We Hate Movies Patreon (my favorite podcast - $8.81). My parents pay for Netflix and my sister pays for Hulu, and we all share.
Gym membership: None. K and I both run and do yoga with YouTube videos. Before the pandemic, we went to yoga classes pretty frequently in person. I’d like to do some online synchronous yoga classes but find it hard to make time.
Pet expenses: Varies, but I budget $50 per month and also include an emergency fund for my cat’s vet bills in our sinking fund. She’s 11 years old and probably asthmatic, so I know her vet bills are going to increase over time.
Car payment / insurance: We own our car outright. Insurance billed yearly is $2,097, about $174 per month.
Regular therapy: $0
Paid hobbies: Nothing regular, sporadic language classes and art supplies.
Other expenses: Right now I’m doing a certificate to hopefully help with a career change. The total cost for tuition is about $5k and we already saved it up (included in our 'sinking fund') basically through spending less during the pandemic. I’ve paid two quarters so far, and the last quarter (due in March) will be a bit more - about $2.3k.
__________
Day 1
Morning: I wake up at 5:30 am. Ever since the pandemic, my sleep schedule has been shot. At first, I was so happy not to have to leave the house at 7:15 for my 45 minute bus commute and I slept in a lot. But the stress (and maybe getting old?) has made me an early riser, no matter how much I try to sleep in. I do value my early mornings with just me, my cat, and my coffee, though.
I start work at 8 am and begin by triaging my emails. I have a bunch of deadlines this week, so it’s busier than usual. My job tends to be very seasonal, and sometimes I have a ton of work and sometimes I have none and can work on other longer-term projects. I have a piece of toast for breakfast and place a Whole Foods delivery order for the following day at 10:30 am. We made a meal plan and put everything in the cart the day before ($117.36, including tip).
Afternoon: I have my lunch break from noon to 1 pm. It doesn’t really matter when I take my lunch break, since I’m salaried, but the others in my office are hourly so in the before times we used to always close our office during the same time. I have a piece of leftover delivery pizza and some spinach risotto that I made a few days earlier. I also have half a brownie – the last one from a batch I made a few days ago (K gets the other half). He also has leftovers for lunch.
I should say at this point that both K and I are lucky enough to have been working almost entirely from home since early March. An area near Seattle was one of the first places to get hit by COVID-19, and my state and both of our employers have been taking it very seriously ever since. Working from home hasn’t always been easy since we live in a 600-square foot apartment. Also, there is a three-story townhouse being built directly next door to us and I can hear the pounding in my dreams at this point.
Around 2 pm, I go for a 2-mile run. I feel like some money diarists tend to toss off things like “oh, I went for an easy 7 mile run,” at the drop of a hat, so I want to be clear – running for 2 miles isn’t easy for me; it’s exhausting, annoying, sweaty, and generally gross. Also I am very slow. But it has kept me sane during quarantine.
Meanwhile, my husband goes to our local pet store to get an enzymatic cleaner (our cat peed in one of our suitcases… I think it’s probably a lost cause, but it was basically brand new, so worth a try) and special weight-loss cat food. Our cat is an 11-year-old rescue from the Humane Society and she is a chonky girl. We had to sign a waiver when we adopted her, saying that we understood that she was very overweight, lol. Our vet recommended a special diet food, rather than just restricting her intake as we have been doing, so we will give it a try ($78). My husband also stops buy our local wine store and picks up two bottles. We’ve been doing a dry January, so this will be our first drink for a while ($27.53).
I have a phone interview scheduled for 4 pm – just a preliminary interview with an internal recruiter. It’s the first ‘corporate’ job interview I’ve ever had, since I’ve been in academia my entire life. I’m trying to make a pivot into instructional design / training and development. I’m just excited to get an interview. It seems to go pretty well, but who knows. They tell me they will probably get back to me by the end of this week.
Evening: My husband whips up a random meal of fridge remnants – pesto pasta with sausage and a fridge salad with feta and bell peppers. It’s pretty tasty with a little Sauvignon Blanc. During dinner, we play a card game we call gin rummy, although it bears no resemblance to the actual game. After dinner, I make a chocolate cake with orange buttercream frosting and we watch Cobra Kai.
Daily total: $222.89
Day 2
Morning: Up early again, a piece of toast for breakfast (very exciting). We’re out of eggs until our Whole Foods order arrives. I’m working on creating some tedious but necessary spreadsheets this morning.
Noon: Our Whole Foods order arrives around noon. Excitement! They’ve given us a half-rotten bag of romaine lettuce and substituted pecans for hazelnuts. I should probably just double mask and go to Trader Joe’s myself (our regular spot, only a 5-minute walk from my apartment). I’m just getting anxious about these new variants.
I have leftover meatloaf and spinach risotto again for lunch. Lots of meetings and more organizing spreadsheets in the afternoon. Around 3 pm, I go for my daily ritual - a 20-minute walk around my neighborhood. It’s still raining slightly but I need to get out. Halfway through the walk, I get an email from my apartment manager telling me the apartment will no longer accept debit card payments, direct deposit, or credit card payments for paying rent. In other words, only checks or money orders (?!). Ugh. Our lease is up in 4 months and we will not be renewing our lease. Our last apartment manager was a gambling addict who may have been stealing people’s identities, but by God, he kept things working. Ever since they fired him, this place has been going downhill.
Evening: I check my bank statements to update my budget spreadsheet and realize that I have been billed the wrong amount of rent. They actually charged me less than they should have. I don’t trust my apartment manager not to start charging me a late fee or something for this, so I call them up. They are baffled by how to fix this, which you would think would be the one thing you would want to get right, if you’re renting out apartments.
K cooks dinner – steak with a Roquefort sauce and glazed brussels sprouts. It’s from a French cookbook we recently bought and it is delicious. I work on classwork for my certificate program while he cooks. After dinner, I do the dishes and buy the 13th season of RuPaul’s Drag Race. I watch the first episode – lots of shocking twists and turns! I’m planning to watch the rest of the episodes together with my younger sister, M ($22.01).
Daily total: $22.01
Day 3
Morning: K has an 8 am dentist appointment, so he takes off early. He already paid for the work last month, so there’s no charge. I have a piece of toast for breakfast and get to work checking my emails. It’s 8:20 am and the construction crew building a townhouse next door is blasting mariachi music. I’m glad someone is having fun. At least the sun is coming out.
Someone at work has made a critical error, but it wasn’t me, thank God. I was the one who found out about it, but it’s still going to cause a big old headache for me. I’m ready to be done with this job. K and I go for a run so that I can exhaust myself enough to no longer be furious about said careless error.
Noon: I have leftover spinach risotto and meatloaf again – exciting. I’m busy at work but frankly, not a lot going on other than that. Still no word about fixing my rent payments. I’m not really willing to pursue this any further at this point.
Evening: I start making chili (Turkey Chili from the NY Times) and cornbread (from my new cookbook, Jubilee). K is doing some work on our investments when he announces that, somehow, a transfer was scheduled from our checking account to our savings account of $55k (?!) We obviously don’t have $55k in our checking account, so we start frantically trying to figure out what’s going on. Numerous phone calls later, we still don’t know if that was a hack, if my husband somehow mistakenly scheduled the transfer himself, or if the bank messed it up. Either way, it doesn’t seem like any harm was done since the bank with our checking account just declined the transaction. But it seems really strange and worrisome. We get to work changing the passwords on all of our accounts, just in case it was some kind of hack.
After dinner (and chocolate cake), I have a Zoom happy hour with a local friend. We occasionally see each other outside but it’s nice to have a longer chat from the comfort of our living rooms. We both love murder mysteries, so we signed up for a service where a company sends us letters with clues and we try to solve the mystery together. It’s a fun way to stay connected and look forward to something during the pandemic. The service costs about $15 per month, but I paid for it in lump sum for 3 months, so it’s not included in my budget above. I drink some wine and we vent about work (we work at the same place) before getting started on the puzzle.
Daily total: $0
Day 4
Morning: I sleep in a bit, which is nice. Get up around 7 am. My parents are both getting their 2nd vaccine today – they’re both in their 70s and I am so relieved. I send my mom a “congratulations on being vaccinated!” text and we chat for a bit. I have leftover cornbread with honey and butter for breakfast – soooo good.
Work is not particularly exciting today, but someone sends me a last-minute request for something that does not need to be so urgent. I feel annoyed. Still no word from the interviewers on Monday, and I’m beginning to suspect I wasn’t selected to move forward. Too bad. K pays for a Wordpress website for the year (it’s a work-related website, but sadly his work doesn’t reimburse him). It costs $92.48.
Noon: The mariachi music is particularly loud today. I stand out on my balcony in the sun for a while and watch the workers. It’s been interesting seeing a house go up next door in real time, especially since I’m at home all the time. The workers are balancing on the top of the third story wall without, as far as I can see, anything like a safety line. It seems unsafe, but I presume they know what they’re doing.
We booked a cabin for the upcoming weekend in the Hood Canal region of Washington to do some hiking and birdwatching. I want to be as safe as possible and not go to any grocery stores or risk spreading COVID in any way while I’m there, so I place another grocery order with Whole Foods just for some special treats for the weekend. The cabin has a small kitchen and a grill, so we’re planning to make a fancy steak salad on Saturday. I order chips and hummus, some fancy cheese and meats, Tate’s cookies (I’ve heard a lot of good things about these), a baguette, and the ingredients for the steak salad. I also order a few staples I forgot in our last order, like sweet potatoes, more coffee, and half and half. It comes to $87.41, including tip, but that does include like $30 worth of steak. For some reason, I can’t order a small amount of steak online, so I’m planning to freeze half of it for later. (I include this purchase in our vacation fund budget, rather than under our regular grocery budget).
Around 2 pm, K makes a quick trip to our local wine store to buy an Oregon pinot noir and some port to enjoy at the cabin ($59.45). This store has an outdoor walk-up counter where you can tell the owner what you’re looking for, and he brings you some options (the store is way too small to allow customers to enter during Covid). It’s fun to chat with another human being, even briefly.
Evening: After work, we spend a little time rebalancing our investing and retirement accounts. We decide to put more money into bonds and a little bit into REIT’s as a hedge against a potential crash or recession in the future. Then I start making dinner – Broken Eggs (Huevas Rotas) from the NY Times cooking site. You basically cook the potatoes in a skillet in water, spices, and olive oil, and then sauté them to crisp them up once the water evaporates. Then you add onion, lots of garlic, and finally some eggs. It is delicious. I eat it with leftover cornbread while watching RuPaul’s Drag Race season 13 with my sister – we watch the first two episodes. It’s full of twists and turns. A note about this – we have an elaborate procedure for watching shows together developed during quarantine whereby we start the show at the same with an earbud in one ear, while FaceTiming. I also have chocolate cake, of course.
Later, I get an email that I’ve signed up for HBO on Amazon Prime. I definitely have not. I text my mom, who shares my account, and she tells me she signed up by mistake. I cancel right away and luckily they won’t charge us for it.
Meanwhile, K is doing an online Japanese language class over Zoom. He’s been interested in learning ever since we went to Japan last January. I lived in Japan for 3 years so I was able to take us around to a lot of more obscure places and he really enjoyed the trip – it was a blast.
K starts a YouTube yoga class (from Do Yoga With Me – my favorite channel) and I join him for part of it before bed around 10 pm.
Daily total: $239.34
Day 5
Morning: I get up around 7 am and we go for a run first thing. I prefer running early in the morning because there are fewer people to avoid during COVID. We do a different route today – it’s longer (3 miles) but has fewer hills. It’s a slog, as always, but I feel good when I get back right around 8 am. I jump straight onto my computer to start checking work emails and my husband makes us avocado and egg toast for breakfast - it is absolutely delicious.
We talk about how our bathroom smells distinctly mildewy (yay for being a grown-up because I guess this is what we talk about now) and we buy two big buckets of DampRid on Amazon ($26.60). I’ve found this to be a necessity in Seattle. Mid-morning, I take a break from work and start packing for our trip to the cabin.
Noon: I have leftover potatoes and cornbread for lunch, and my husband has the leftover chili. We finish getting ready to leave and head out right after lunch, taking a half day. The only problem is that I have attend a meeting at 3:30 pm, so we head out hoping to get there in time. Our cabin is near Quilcene in the Hood Canal region of Washington, about a 2 hour drive or a 2 hour ferry ride + drive. We are initially planning to take the ferry both ways, but realize that we mistimed the ferry departure, so we drive the whole way instead. Luckily, there’s little traffic mid-day, and we arrive at our Airbnb around 3:00 pm.
The Airbnb is beautiful! It’s a small cabin handmade by the owner, whose house is next door. It’s very rural, with a beautiful view. It’s tiny, but has a little kitchen and a waterfall-style shower with river rocks on the floor. It’s a great place to get away for a short time. Luckily, it also has good reception and I’m able to sit in on my meeting with no problems. My husband also does a little work, and then at 5 pm we’re free!
In our planning, we decided to get takeout on Friday night, since the little kitchen isn’t designed for any serious cooking. We call ahead to a local restaurant to order burgers (one of only 2 restaurants in the whole town). It’s around 5:30 pm and the place is deserted. It’s a microbrewery, but they tell us they haven’t been making beer since COVID-19 hit. None of the workers are wearing masks when I walk in, but they put them on when they see I’m wearing one. I pick up our order - a few bottled beers and burgers and fries ($49.52 including tip).
Back at our Airbnb, we watch Big Trouble in Little China and enjoy our very messy, but delicious, burgers (it costs $4.39 to rent). The movie is very campy but fun. I love silly action movies, as you will see with my other viewing choices. We wrap up the night in a very exciting fashion, eating chocolate cake and watching old episodes of the original Star Trek.
Daily total: $80.51
Day 6
Morning & noon: When we wake up around 8 am, the weather is looking thankfully clear and even sunny! We were expecting rain, so we’re really glad. We decide to go hiking today, and we head out before even having breakfast, with snacks and lunches packed. Our first destination is a hike called Mt. Zion, but unfortunately, we run into enough snow 2 miles before the trailhead that we decide to turn back. We don’t have any traction for our Subaru and don’t want to risk getting stuck on a very narrow mountain road. Instead, we drive another hour or so to the Lena Lake trailhead, a very popular and less strenuous trail. It’s about 7.5 miles roundtrip with 1200 feet of elevation gain.
By this time, it’s around 11:30, but luckily there is still parking. It’s a great hike up, and we run into relatively few people. We always mask up whenever we pass anyone, as does about 50% of the people we meet. The others… not so much. Around a mile from the lake, we start to run into snow. It’s turned into a beautiful sunny day, and I’m loving seeing all this snow! It’s a bit slippery, but not too bad. We make it to the lake mid-day, and it’s super jammed – there’s only a small viewpoint accessible, so everyone is crowded in there. I feel a bit uneasy with all the unmasked people, but we manage to find a spot away from the crowd and sit down to eat our lunch of apples, chips, and energy bars. There are a ton of robber jays there (Canada Jays) which try to eat our chips. It is fun watching them, but I’m annoyed to see some kids feeding them – it’ll just make them that much more aggressive. Bad trail manners.
On our way back down, we get stuck behind a group of 5 unmasked adults, who refuse to cede the narrow trail to faster hikers. I’m a slow hiker myself, so, to be clear, I’m not angry at slower walkers being on the trail but have some self-awareness and let people pass! especially if you’re going to go hiking in a big group during a pandemic! We finally get back down and head back to our Airbnb.
Evening: Back home, we explore some of the trails our Airbnb host has set up around his extensive property, and then relax on the deck. The sun is breaking through the clouds and it feels wonderful to sit out in nature and feel the sun on my back. We open up a bottle of wine and have a few pre-dinner snacks (more chips and hummus). For this night, we brought ingredients to make a steak salad. Our Airbnb host has kindly set up a charcoal grill for us, so we grilled the steak and toast some bread on the side.
We eat dinner while watching the truly terrible Jean Claude Van Damme movie Bloodsport and finish up the very last of my chocolate cake. It’s amazing that anyone ever let Van Damme act… or should I say ‘act.’ I also have a Tate’s chocolate chip cookie or two, accompanied by a little port. My husband and I are truly very old people at heart, so we finish up the night watching a few episodes of Columbo.
Daily total: $0
Day 7
Morning: Unfortunately, K had insomnia last night, so he sleeps in pretty late. I drink coffee in bed and enjoy looking at the view out our big windows. Once he’s up, we get packed up and write a thank you note for our host. It was a great stay.
One of my big hobbies is birding and K enjoys wildlife photography, so we go out to look for some lifers! (The first time you see a new species of bird). Did I mention we are very old people in (relatively) young bodies? We first go to Dosewallips State Park and see some bald eagles, great blue herons, lots of various ducks, and a flock of Canada Geese, which, strangely, includes a domesticated gray goose. He’s much larger than the Canada Geese and seems to be watching over them. It’s kind of cute. Unfortunately, a lot of the birds are too far from shore to be seen clearly.
Our next stop is Point No Point (I love all the sad & disappointed names that early Westerner explorers gave places in the Washington/Oregon coast), a popular birding spot. We see a ton of birds here, and I can understand why it’s so well-known - Red-Breasted Mergansers, Western Grebes, Common Goldeneyes, Pacific Loons, and a few others I can’t identify yet. Most excitingly though, we see a whole pile of otters! They’re lounging around together on a rock just offshore and a ton of people are watching. We watch as they all slip off the rock and go hunting in the shore. It’s my first otter sighting in the wild, and it’s so cool! We also see some seals and possibly a sea lion. It’s a great spot for wildlife. We eat some snacks (hummus, chips, some sliced meat & cheese) before we head out.
I really want to come back to this area another time and explore further, but K has decided that we need to get back home in time for the Big Game. We take the 3:00 pm ferry back to Seattle ($16.40) and get home around 3:45 pm. I veg out at home while my husband watches football. He’s a Patriots fan but he still loves Tom Brady (??) so he’s happy to see Florida win. I don’t understand sports team loyalties at all, but whatever, I’m glad he’s happy. We order from a new Indian place called Spice Box and get vindaloo, roganjosh, and vegetables pakora – so tasty ($53.96). Happily, there’s enough left over for lunch the next day, since I have no plans for what we will eat yet!
I’m really dreading work the next day, as I know that it will be obnoxious. I want to get out of my job so badly, but it doesn’t look like I’m going on to the next interview stage for the job I interviewed no back on Monday. I’m feeling kind of down about it. I try to stay positive and promise that I’ll apply for at least 2-3 new jobs next week. I bake up some frozen cookie dough I had in the freezer and feel sorry for myself. We end the night by watching another episode of Columbo.
Daily total: 70.36
Food + Drink: $395.23
Fun / Entertainment: $26.40
Home + Health: $26.60
Clothes + Beauty: $0
Transport: $16.40
Other: $170.48
Grand Total: $635.11
I think this week was pretty normal for us. Obviously we spent a bit more than usual due to the weekend cabin trip, but nothing outrageous. Our largest consumer spending category is definitely food and drink – we live in a very busy area of Seattle with tons of restaurants and bars so believe it or not, we actually used to spend even more on eating out. We still try to support our local places by getting takeout or delivery during the pandemic and even occasionally getting a few drinks outside. I spent more than usual on groceries due to stocking up for the weekend away.
submitted by SupermarketWinter203 to MoneyDiariesACTIVE [link] [comments]
Stocks, Options & Taxes - a guide
Ho!
Given the recent stock frenzy, many of you may have made some quick gains on some stock trades. I was in a similar situation, had a hard time finding any exact answers, had to consult a tax attorney in the end. I'll write up what I know, feel free to add to it or correct me if I'm wrong.
The basics
Belgium does not have capitals gains tax (applying to Belgian tax residents only), if the investment is done as a private person, managing his/hethe families assets, within 'normal' limits.
However, some of investments could be considered speculative, potentially triggering a 33% + municipality rate capital gains tax. (Different from the 2016 speculative gains tax on stocks, abolished in 2017).
What counts as speculative and what is 'normal' portfolio management is a gray area and can be strongly debated. I will address it further below.
Speculative taxes, if applied, would be for the realized profits for the calendar year (from January 1 to end of the year). Realized profits/losses are calculated over your closed positions (profit/loss = your sell price - buy price). Open positions (even they are shorts, for which you got premium) do not count towards your realized profits.
There are no deductibles: if you lost money last year, you can't carry it over for this year; you can't deduct any other expenses from these losses either;
'Normal' limits
For what is considered 'normal' portfolio management strategies, you will find plenty of debate/examples of this on this forum, I recommend you read up.
What is known to be safe, is buy&hold type strategies, ETFs, staying away from risky assets (crypto, options, turbos,..), not putting ALL your portfolio on one big gamble, no day-trading, automated trading, frequent daily buys/sells, etc.
But what if you mostly hold ETFs, but buy the occasional long-dated call options? Gray area. Who knows. Debatable. Would you be taxed speculatively for your options winning only, or also for the ETFs part of your profits? Again, no one knows, but probably it could be reasonably argued the former .
How do you pay the taxman?
Luckily, it is not your responsibility to keep track of speculative/not speculative gains, but that of the tax authorities. It is up to them to prove you engaged in speculative investment behavior. When this happens, you will be contacted by the tax authorities asking for further information, account & trading history, etc. You would get a warning of sorts to know something is up and maybe it's time to involve a professional to help you justify your investments.
Be ready that they can/could come knocking on your door several years later. Have your transaction history/backups, just in case. But there are no fines or interest penalties, just a matter of debating with the fiscus how much you owe them.
Enforcement
In a typical Belgian twist, while taxes on speculative gains are harsh, enforcement/followup is lacking. I was told that it is very unlikely that anyone would get audited. People making mid six figures get away unchecked. And if you make that kind of money, be smart, and consider supporting the local tax attorney community, they are people too.
EDIT: By law, it is up to the tax office to prove/seek further proof you are dealing with speculative investments. They might or might not follow up with you. While your brokebank does not share with them for example stocks/options trading history, there are other things that can be red flags for the tax office: suddenly 200.000 shows up in your bank account, you hold foreign bank/brokerage accounts, there's a lot of monthly money transfers back and forth, you suddenly form a low-tax LLC in Cyprus, etc.
The average Joe (or Jan?) is unlikely to be audited (and please no one interpret this as it can't/won't happen either).
Advanced ruling
This is relatively costly (EDIT: free, if you do it yourself) and tedious procedure that helps get a binding decision from the tax authorities regarding a deal you made, a particular transaction, etc. So if you made mad money on a single transaction, it might be worth the effort. If you made a lot of smaller trades, you would need to do this individually - not worth it.
The other downside of an advanced ruling is that it lists a strict set of conditions: if you did A, B and C under circumstances X and Y, then this or that is allowed. Any small change to A, B, C, X or Y can make the advanced ruling unapplicable.
Summary
You made good money? Be happy, keep the potential tax amount around in case they do come for you, and if you don't get audited/asked additional info/transaction statements/etc, you're probably fine. Talk to a tax attorney if you can't sleep at night.
The BEFire community is doing a great job at promoting a fairly safe, low-tax, low-risk investment strategy. But if you do end up taking the more adventurous route, you might as well be informed on what to expect.
submitted by flapflip9 to BEFire [link] [comments]
d100 Adventurer's Guild Promotional Events
The Adventurer's Guild can't rely on people just walking into their offices and signing up, and they absolutely cannot survive without a positive public reputation. To facilitate both of these, the Adventurer's Guild (or your own proxy organisation) holds an event like a Trade Show or Convention, where they show off everything they can do to help career adventurers and the general populous alike.
EDIT: We hit 50+ options! wow!
- High Level Adventurer Fashion Show - In our Arcane Summer Collection, a lovely breezy set of Robes of the Archmagi!
- Meet & Greet with the heroes of another "campaign" from your world (like Not Another D&D Podcast)
- Discussion Panels on how to deal with the edgy rogue/warlock or the religious-book thumping paladin/cleric in your party
- Demonstrations of new creations from the Guild's greatest Artificers - Try the new Arcane Powered Armour for yourself!
- Show off your martial prowess in the safe arena, or just watch the sparks fly!
- Another kind of safe fighting arena, where the PCs step inside a magical mirror to fight eachother or the monsters of their dreams/nightmares. Uses the Mirror Zone magical effects from Tasha's.
- Book signing event for a famous adventurer's autobiography [ u/TheMultiuniverse ]
- Treasure examining event where experts appraise anything you bring in (sorta like antique roadshow) [ u/TheMultiuniverse ]
- Tour of a dungeon that was recently cleared [ u/TheMultiuniverse ]
- "Survival in the wild" a masterclass from a world-renowned adventurer [ u/TheMultiuniverse ]
- Adopt a Familiar-cuddly and oddly intelligent creatures are for sale-most of them newly trained, but some are survivors of their former masters gruesome demise. [ u/lazy_human5040 ]
- Adventurous counseling-clerics and bard's listen to your woes and fears and help you overcome trauma. Sign up, if you want that as a regular service! (also possible to gather blackmail material) [ u/lazy_human5040 ]
- Who's the mage now?- A high level rogue showing off sleight of hand, people can bet whether they witnessed magic or mundane. [ u/lazy_human5040 ]
- Finding your inner magic-for just a few drops of your blood, you can find out whether there were any mythic or magic creatures in your ancestors. Do you maybe have sorcerous powers?! [ u/lazy_human5040 ]
- A Guild-sponsored theater festival, where local playwrights and actors reenact Guild members' glorious adventures [ u/MissMedea ]
- A natural history event, where adventurers show off some of the strange/interesting flora and fauna they've collected on their travels [ u/MissMedea ]
- A Guild-sponsored swordsmanship/archery/sorcery etc. competition - comes with a hefty cash prize and free Guild membership! [ u/MissMedea ]
- Bardic Rap Battle [ u/Starmark_115 ]
- A zoo showing the monstrosities of the wilderness (this may just scare people into not joining the guild) [ u/TheLothor ]
- Orienteering challenge where a trained navigator helps you travel you through a safe patch of wilderness, teching you a little about navigation along the way. [ u/Zawoopdoop ]
- Iron Chef: Dungeon Edition. Compete to create the best dishes using only tools & food available "on the road". For tools this would be small, portable stuff. For food this would be preservable items and/or things that can be harvested from local creatures. [ u/Zawoopdoop ]
- Flyting. Match wits with a poet and get a prize if you can deliver a good enough insult. For higher stakes - the poet is using the Vicious Mockery cantrip. But will try not to kill. [ u/Zawoopdoop ]
- Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion feast. Seating capability may vary depending on your D&D edition. [ u/Zawoopdoop ]
- Draw a picture and watch a talented illusionist make a moving illusion of it. [ u/Zawoopdoop ]
- Two truths and a lie: A well-travelled guild members tells three stories, one of which they made up. Get a prize for correctly guessing the fiction. [ u/Zawoopdoop ]
- A few wizards summoning coffee elementals - the result can be be bought from them [ u/Raven_Witch ]
- A demonstration of more or less useful cooking tools for on the road [ u/Raven_Witch ]
- "Small Heroes" play area for the children [ u/Raven_Witch ]
- A debarked tree one has to climb to reach sausages hanging from the top branches [ u/Raven_Witch ]
- Weight lifting competition [ u/Raven_Witch ]
- Auction for (slightly) used equipment [ u/Raven_Witch ]
- Concerts with well know Bardic bands [ u/Raven_Witch ]
- Food stands with specialties from distant countries [ u/Raven_Witch ]
- Adopt A Highway/Dungeon. An Event Drive where the guild tries to get adventures to clean up dungeons that were recently clearly of all the baddies. Who else is going to clean all the corpses out, or the cobwebs? [ u/ElectricParasite ]
- Magic Ring Toss! Win magic rings with fun aesthetic applying properties! [ u/pineapple_pikachu ]
- Flumph petting zoo, because who doesn't love flumphs? [ u/pineapple_pikachu ]
- Beholder Laser Tag. Chase other contestants in a labyrinth meant to resemble a Beholder's while using harmless beam emitting wands to stun opponents. [ u/pineapple_pikachu ]
- Purple Worm Tunnel ride. Like a tunnel of love, but grosser and more educational. [ u/pineapple_pikachu ]
- A venue of self playing instruments meant to show off the craftsmanship of the guild's artificers [ u/pineapple_pikachu ]
- Mimics and how to spot them: An informational panel involving how to differentiate regular chests and mimics. Live demonstration included. [ u/AlcofMagnus ]
- The Legalities of Adventuring. A booth giving out pamphlets reminding adventurers local rules and regulations on adventuring (Always keep your adventuring license on you, pay your looting taxes to the local government, etc.) [ u/AlcofMagnus ]
- Necromancy and how to say “No!”: A PSA for all magicians, sorcerers, wizards, etc. on how to respond when offered dark powers. (Make sure this is as cheesy as possible, like a 90’s anti-drugs ad). [ u/AlcofMagnus ]
- S'mores and Stories, a ghoulish, fireside evening of storytelling and treats. Actual ghouls discouraged from attending, adventurers participate at their own risk, waivers will be mandatory [ u/loldrums ]
- A winery/brewery tour around the area hosted by an expert in local history. [ u/loldrums ]
- Clean up the river! A nearby goblin den has been cluttering up the river, volunteers wanted to help keep our waterways pristine. In actual fact, the goblins are trying to dam up the river to cause problems for the locals, and aren't pleased to see some adventurers showing up intent on disrupting their plans. [ u/loldrums ]
- Poke3 Dragon Ante/whatever game Night! A night of drinking and gambling with strangers can spawn any number of plot hooks. There could be a fight, or an interesting item - possibly one the party has encountered before, why does this person have it now? - for the taking. [ u/loldrums ]
- Masquerade Ball - what exciting NPCs will attend and what intrigue will they let slip? [ u/loldrums ]
- Dinner theater - a murder mystery (actual murder and/or mystery optional) with player participation. [ u/loldrums ]
- Mystic fortune teller - if it's not a total scam, it could reveal another character in trouble or many possible leads. [ u/loldrums ]
- Ancestry report - which character has unexpected ties to a particular ancient ruin or perhaps a BBEG and what can the party do about it? [ u/loldrums ]
- A Red Wedding - a grandiose event at a gathering hall that just happens to be arranged by a villain with the bright idea of gathering up a large group of would-be heroes in one place and doing terrible things to them. The players could be targeted, but they could also be in on it on the villain's side, or discover the plot in advance and try to break it up. [ u/loldrums ]
- Highland Games/Tournament/Jousting - contests of strength, skill and dexterity, or outright combat prowess. This could attract competitors from a variety of interesting places, with stakes ranging from gold, court position, land holdings, a favor from the royal family... [ u/loldrums ]
- Hear the Word and Be Healed! Are these televangelists charlatans or the real deal with divine backing? Maybe a bit of both. [ u/loldrums ]
- Is it Lit, Fam? An expert
hippie druid explains how to tell the differences between psychedelic foragables and deadly ones. This could be useful for an upcoming journey, or perhaps steered into a poison crafting seminar by a clever rogue. [ u/loldrums ] - Thinking Outside the Spellbook: A panel teaching magic users how to utilize their spells in different and unique ways. [ u/Kami-Kahzy ]
- Basic Healing 101: Teaching mundanes how to patch wounds and help with basic medical issues that anyone might encounter. [ u/Kami-Kahzy ]
- Hunting Beasts: A regular class teaching how best to handle certain monsters, showcasing their strengths and weaknesses. Often features live demonstrations. [ u/Kami-Kahzy ]
- Magical Safety and You: Class that teaches how to respond when presented with anything vaguely magical. Specialty classes available for runes, necromancy, curses and fae protocol. [ u/Kami-Kahzy ]
- Monstrous Potluck: A giant potluck that features monster parts as the primary ingredients. Prizes are available for different categories such as baked goods, stews and barbeque. [ u/Kami-Kahzy ]
- Guild sponsored talent show: anything goes as long as its impressive. [ u/Dapo607 ]
- Monster Banquet made with rare animals like hydra eyes or dragon tongue [ u/Dapo607 ]
- Magic classes: see if u can cast your first cantrip in a weeklong workshop [ u/Dapo607 ]
- Evocation wizard pyromancy demonstration where u can be in a center of an explosion or come of fire but come out unharmed [ u/Dapo607
submitted by oddly-tall-hobbit to d100 [link] [comments]
Warsim 0.8.2.9 (The TJ Bugsmash Update, 330 features)
Hey Everyone,
So this update has come about while I've been planning the combat stuff, I've been given an ungodly amount of bug reports by a diligent Warsim community member known as TJtheSoundBoard and
u/TheSoundBoard on reddit. Getting the bugs sorted is always important so I've been trawling through them and caught/added new things along the way. I hope you guys like it!
TERRAFORMER'S TROVE (4 features) TJ made a suggestion that terraforming should have a chance to reveal loot, now you can get all sorts of stuff.
- Added chance of discovering a chest of loot in the ground when ordering land to be terraformed (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added rare chance of discovering pile of 2-7 bluetrii fruit in the ground when ordering land to be terraformed (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added rare chance of discovering a chest of 20-5000 gold coins in the ground when ordering land to be terraformed (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added rare chance of discovering a chaos orb in the ground when ordering land to be terraformed (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
ENLISTING SONS ENCOUNTER (11 features) There are several variants for the 'Sons for hire' type encounter in the throne room, after ending up here due to a bug report by TJ I ended up expanding the reactions to be unique depending on the variant.
- Added sound effect for boys enlisting or forced enlisting throne room encounter (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed 4 text bugs in boys for enlistment in throne room encounters (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added new reaction for forced enlistment and hiring in 'boys for hire' throne room encounter
- Added new reaction for forced enlistment and hiring in 'unchallenging work lads' throne room encounter
- Added new reaction for forced enlistment and hiring in 'too many sons' throne room encounter
- Added new reaction for forced enlistment and hiring in 'orphan sale' throne room encounter
- Added new reaction for forced enlistment and hiring in 'village elder decree' throne room encounter
- Added new reaction for forced enlistment and hiring in 'no good bastards' throne room encounter
- Added new reaction for forced enlistment and hiring in 'two problems' throne room encounter
- Added new reaction for forced enlistment and hiring in 'militia like deal' throne room encounter
- Added new reaction for forced enlistment and hiring in 'strong lineage man' throne room encounter
MUSHROOM TRIP IMPROVEMENTS (13 features) I've tried to expand these trips a little bit, some extra encounters and some polish on the ones currently there.
- Added trip themes for Mushroom trips (mixed, good, bad)
- Made some trip encounters specifically only appear during good/bad or mixed trips
- Fixed issues with many trip encounter graphics sizes
- Fixed 15 text bugs with trip encounter texts
- Rewrote several trip encounter texts
- Added 'I think I feel happy' trip encounter
- Added 'Where's my hand' trip encounter
- Added 'Floating head' trip encounter
- Added 'Watching eye' trip encounter
- Added 'Loving eye' trip encounter
- Added 'Character revelation' trip encounter
- Added 'Wiggle your face' trip encounter
- Added 'Words...' trip encounter
NAIRO'S PARTY EXPANDED (6 features) Just a few new additions to the best houseparty in Darkdale
- Added second followup reaction to Myck being offered ale twice at a party at Nairos
- Added new nairo event 'hello my good friend'
- Added new nairo event 'if you're thirsty'
- Added new nairo event 'an encore, of course'
- Added new nairo event 'it's got a kick'
- Added new nairo event 'Two words'
BLACKMARKET SLAVERY (6 features) TJ mentioned that when banning slavery in the Blackmarket, the previously enslaved people seemingly evapourate... now they are accounted for, and the system in-general has been expanded.
- Added new screen when banning slavery in the Blackmarket (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added random number of free Blackmarket slaves join slums population (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added remaining freed slaves in Blackmarket become scum for hire in the slums (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added new screen when legalizing slavery in the Blackmarket (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added +3 public opinion gain for banning Blackmarket slavery
- Added -5 public opinion loss when legalizing slavery
THE GAMBLER RETURNS (4 features) A lot of people were asking for more follow up throne room encounters that progress over time, while testing I found a good candidate for this, giving a gambling man a small sum of gold. Now there are several potential things that could happen if the gambler gets lucky!
- Added 1 in 3 chance that man asking for gold to gamble with returns later in the throne room
- Added gambler made something of themselves throne room encounter (gambling gold granted follow up)
- Added small fortune throne room encounter (gambling gold granted follow up)
- Added return what you gave me throne room encounter (gambling gold granted follow up)
ORB SELLER NOW BUYER (5 features) TJ mentioned that the Blackmarket orb seller should be able to also buy orbs, I've given him a little overhaul to fit with this, he sells them for 10k but buys them for 5k.
- Added ability to sell chaos orbs to Blackmarket orb seller (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Rewrote orb buying screen and text to allow for multiple orbs
- Removed useless screen for not having the gold to buy an orb from the orb seller
- Fixed being booted out of menu for orb seller when buying an orb
- Made it so that orb seller has 1 in 15 chance per year of gaining a new orb
DARKDALE TAX CHANGES (2 features) TJ rightfully pointed out that as Darkdales ruler, removing a few of the smaller local businesses should have some effect... so now it does.
- Added closing Kaff's legitimate goods reducing Darkdale tax by 1% (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added closing goblin slap stall reduces Darkdale tax by 0.1% (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
SLEEPY'S STALL (10 features) A homage to a good friend, find this strange new character in Darkdale's market district!
- Added new location 'Sleepy's Stall' to Darkdale Market District
- Added the ability to pay sleepy to pet cats
- Added the ability to pay sleepy to light coloured candles (15 types)
- Added the ability to pay sleepy to drink an ale
- Added special screen for sleepy getting too drunk
- Added ability to talk to sleepy (10 dialogues)
- Added ability to shut down sleepys stall if you run Darkdale
- Added closing sleepy's stall reduces Darkdale tax by 0.2%
- Added ability to find sleepy again in a secret location if he's been removed from Darkdale
- Added ability to talk to sleepy after Darkdale removal (6 dialogues)
A NEW CHEAT (1 features) A hillarious suggestion that I had to put in.
- Added new cheat code '2020' that causes plague (credit Minty and Defender)
NEW NAME PREFIXES (31 features) A heap of new character name suffixes inspired mostly by a member of the Warsim discord with the name Titan of War, now we've got all the titans.
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of War' (+60 battlescore) (Credit Titan of War)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan' (+49 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Speed' (+45 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Strength' (+52 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Mercy' (+30 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Death' (+62 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Love' (+60 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Hate' (+59 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Loss' (+44 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Murder' (+61 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Bones' (+60 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Blood' (+60 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Sleep' (+39 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Swords' (+49 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Steel' (+52 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Shields' (+42 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Skulls' (+61 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Wit' (+39 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Pain' (+59 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Evil' (+60 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Good' (+60 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Gold' (+55 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Iron' (+49 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Sacrifice' (+45 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Day' (+35 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'the Titan of Night' (+40 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'The Meatflesh' (+5 battlescore) (can be further randomly generated)
- Added new name suffix 'The Stocker' (+1 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'The Combatant' (+12 battlescore) (can be further randomly generated)
- Added new name suffix 'The Candle-Lighter' (+1 battlescore)
- Added new name suffix 'The Treejumper' (+10 battlescore)
NEW CHARACTER NAMES (3 features) A handful of new possible names thanks to Warsim Patreon supporter Joe! Thank you a bunch for the support :)
- Added new Dwarf name 'Borek' (Credit Joe Benavides)
- Added new Human name 'Borkrid (Credit Joe Benavides)
- Added new Lich name 'Gal'berik (Credit Joe Benavides)
CAVE GNOME VISITORS (2 features) TJ suggested that the hirable throne room gnome insult entertainers should be different if you've discovered the cave gnomes, it's a good idea and now it's in!
- Added discovering cave gnome village gives alternate insult battle hirable entertainers from throne room who cost 5x less (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added 3 alternate dialogues for cave gnome insult warrior entertainers
THRONE ROOM MUSICIAN CHANGES (3 features) After a suggestion of having the hirable entertainers from the arrange entertainment section of the throne room refuse to come if your relation to the musicians guild is too low, I've decided to expand the idea to include an opposite effect if you have a really high relation.
- Added hireable musicial solo entertainers are free if you have 100+ relation to musicians guild
- Added hireable musicial solo entertainers refuse to visit you if you have -100 relation to musicians guild (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added 2 new descriptions to musicial entertainer category screen depending on relation to musicians guild
GOLD INDICATION (65 features) There are still areas where you spend gold that it isn't clear how much you have, this is another attempt at sorting that out AND MY GOD trawling the throne room encounters was a pain.
- Added missing current gold indicator to champion market in Darkdale
- Added missing currnet gold indicator to history guild if you haven't registered
- Added missing gold indicator to child wants coin throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to unit for hire throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to broken fence complaint throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to favourite chicken killed throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to stolen apple throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to chicken killed throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to stolen coin throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to orc-lover throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to bedded throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to kicked the front door in throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to burned down farm over an apple throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to smelly wheat throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to apple tree chopped down throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to flower trampler throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to burn the village throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to he called me ugly throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to fled from a fight throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to punched my wife throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to chop the tree throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to robbed chamber pot throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to punched my snout throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to stick vs teeth throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to lost bet throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to borrowed and not returned throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to tricked out of a bag of gold throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to kicked in the balls throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to rocks and the kids throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to banner wearer angry man throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to goblin wants coin throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to hungry old man throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to old hag throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to man and sons throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to orphans for hire throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to village elders men of age throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to strong lineage throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to small goblin tribe for hire throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to chaos orb seller throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to stray cat throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to cattleless farmer throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to mother of dead soldier throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to slavers for hire throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to diplomat wants to leave throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to spymaster wants to leave throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to general wants to leave throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to farmer needs patrol throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to visiting bard throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to slum gold collector throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to gambler needs gold throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to warrior sword repair throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to knight wants to join order throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to knights want to join order throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to sick mother throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to coastal explorer trade route cost throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to acrobat throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to juggler throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to slave buyer throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to cursed frog man throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to goblin language trainer throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to anoint the grand champion throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to helmet designer throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to seer's services throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to ogre wants gold throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added missing gold indicator to vampire hunter's dues throne room encounter (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
BUGFIXES (140 features) Well... this is one of the meatiest bugfix sections I've had in recent memory... thanks a lot TJ!
- Fixed personal champions who challenge arena grand champion and win get a new random face (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed issue with monster pit music not stopping if music is disabled (credit Night_Shift_Sleepy)
- Fixed goblin complaint in throne room text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed quit to desktop not working on forced ending (credit Minty)
- Fixed ability to use dots in monster names causing save game invalidation (Credit Night_Shift_Sleepy)
- Fixed 10 text bugs for high wage soldiers showing 'due to your high wages pair of soldiers join' text (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed 5 text bugs with magical explosion encounter 'An and unexplainable magical explosion' text (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed exploration tutorial text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed vassal tutorial text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed diplomacy tutorial typo 'made' instead of 'make' (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed diplomacy tutorial text bugs (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed defensive combat tutorial text bugs (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed gold coin in the well text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed music disabled and reset incorrect music issue (credit TheGamingDictator)
- Fixed 2 text bugs in miner texts (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed throne room tutorial text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed Blackmarket leader who are you text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed mercenary tutorial text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed military tutorial text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed spacing bug in western region tutorial (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed gnome insult text error issue (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed demon worshipper becoming a demon event not correctly showing as positive if you are a demon servant (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed peasants becoming demon worshippers not correctly showing as positive if you are demon servant (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed duplicate report of peasants becoming demon worshippers (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed man and sons throne room encounter incorrectly referring to player as lord regardless of lordly title (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed Phenor defeated screen text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed not able to leave large rocky cavern until cave beast is killed (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed a queen will do as he does text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed 22 text and layout bugs in Cave gnome screens
- Fixed maze gnome reference to you as he regardless of gender (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed Blackmarket trade rejection screen incorrect gender referenced (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed slavery advice piece incorrectly referring to player as king regardless of ruler title (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed 35 text and grammar issues in Northern History lesson texts (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed life of death text bug with vampire hunter (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed text bug in vampire hunter dialogue (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed text bug with frog in throne room encounter (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed sending the tall green man through a trap door instead shows the previous throne room visitor going down (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed all faces are ugly throne room reaction citing incorrect ruler title (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed issue with many encounter reactions in throne room missing lines when showing +1 prisoner notifications (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed double public opinion change outcome from broken throne room reaction (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed wild vampire killed encounter not actually removing 1 wild vampire from the population (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed no option to send slave soldier asking for promotion through a trap door (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed soldier imprisoned fights and is killed still showing +1 prisoner (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed the goblin stone location name bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed Hek Plon note at strange statue encounter text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed 5 text bugs in strange statue generic text (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed painting hung up in throne room not being saved once you load a save (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed I am monster text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed unfinished master hunter text for trade caravans (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed knight giving you 100 gold sound effect issue (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed paying for helmet design in throne room sound effect issue (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed waste of gold text shown with weak goblin ale even if you didn't pay for it (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed 4 text bugs with sleeping with skeletons throne room encounter
- Fixed sleepign with skeletons second layer of throne room encounter missing trap door option
- Fixed 7 text bugs with the Oldest tree in Wildwood (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed text bug in Old Northern carving (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed 5 text bugs with Shadow assassins text (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed 3 text bugs with generic tavern dialogues (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed 3 errors with cartographer's guild name text (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed 2 text bugs with Niklas the Bug Hunter's dialogues (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed issue with Dockrow company owning elf (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed missing word in Doomstone fragment selling screen (Credit Defender)
- Fixed 3 text bugs with Goblin Hall of Heroes text (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed text bug with Abandoned house text (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed issue with Dockrow random dialogue (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed 4 texts bugs with sewer mural screens (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed sewer mutant dialogue bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed Pargo trade arms text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed chaos orb in sewer wall text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed monument of kings text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed Attacking Harlaw mining company not cancelling their tribute to you (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed doomstone worshipper text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed Bookrage text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed text bug in Notes of a formerly angry man (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed 4 Blackmarket locals dialogue typos (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed 3 text bugs with fighters pit intros in Blackmarket (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed text bug with Fighter's Pit patron text (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed animal fight pit upgraded description text bug (credit Arnold18)
- Fixed brawl pit winner shows as both winner and loser when you own pit sometimes (Credit Arnold18)
- Fixed text bug with Gwyn dialogue (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed 3 text bugs with Axe bucket ruins text (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed 4 text bugs with spear centre ruins text (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed 3 text bugs with Sharpest dagger ruins text (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed 2 text bugs in Nezale the nose's dialogues (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed speak to random local in the fighter's district option not working (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed 3 text bugs with Blackmarket tours texts (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed exlixir stall text bugs (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed issue with cheatsellers text (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed text bug in Bookseller's stall (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed freeing slave acussed of killing his master instead kills him (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed issue where entering extremely high bet in Arena breaks the game (credit Worksb64)
- Fixed mushroom stall text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed newspaper stall text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed text bug with abandoned house (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed issue with celebration clock text (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed Blackmarket guard post text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed 3 issues with central district visitors text (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed issues with mystery and wonder screen text (credit TheGamingDictator)
- Fixed issues with long story origin text (credit TheGamingDictator)
- Fixed issues with gambler king intro text (credit TheGamingDictator)
- Fixed issue with demonic king origin text (credit TheGamingDictator)
- Fixed issue with bandit king origin text (credit TheGamingDictator)
- Fixed Baiaa laws screen text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed issue with VoidArmy not staying active in game and jumping between save files (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed brawls still happening in the holy land regardless of special Blackmarket changes (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed Blackmarket owned mercenary recruitment rates shown even when you don't own the market (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed Demon horde uprising happens after your death even if you destroyed the Horde (credit Elfien)
- Fixed demonic citadel text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed issue with knight peasant training text (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed text bug with ex-slave joiner encounter (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed jesters son encounter referencing king regardless of you title (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed wording of goblin god scepre relation changes (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed nomadic knight text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed goblin gift giver encounter text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed throne room blessing reaction text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed 15 questing knight send off text bugs
- Fixed knight not returning text issue
- Fixed 2 text bugs in friend of slave encounters
- Fixed tutorial and intro ceremony demonic staff not having red faces (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed Pikener introduction screen for demon king doesn't have red face (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed diplomat has no red face in independent kingdoms diplomacy (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed diplomat has no red face in minor bandit diplomacy (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed 2 text bugs in grand champion anointing event (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed text bug in crowd celebration of grand champion knighting event (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed reference to king in gold down the stream throne room encounter (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed mannequin text bug (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed Kingdom of Krut victory screen blocked by bug and giving out alternate Krut revivial victory screen (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed 3 chopped gift tree text bugs (credit AlChestBreach)
- Fixed issue with being unable to speak to Rihhm leader at all with no screen or indicator why
- Fixed text bug with smallhaven elder refusal to speak screen
- Fixed pit to arena upgrade text bug (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed Pigsy the champion dialogue text bug (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed Pigsy the champion origin text bug (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed knight quest mercenary liberation text bug (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed slave release screen text bug (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed Beyond insane mode (difficult screen option 16#) had incorrect background difficulty modifier (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed Plains race suffix description text bug (Credit llevus)
- Fixed Darkdale taxes not showing up in kingdom reports (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Fixed Smallhaven trade post text bug
- Fixed 15 text and spacing bugs in secret place dialogues
EVERYTHING ELSE (24 features) Everything I couldn't fit in other sections is now here, quite a few changes, tweaks, and additions!
- Made randomly generated name prefixes twice as common
- Added new option to smash all chaos orbs instead of one by one (Credit felipemiguel051)
- Added new indicator of orb or orbs lost in chaos orb smashing screens
- Added indicator of Blackmarket toll gold being added to the treasury (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added new text for Koova when asked about the Demon gate if it's ruined (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Removed no coins to throw in the well uneeded screen
- Replaced 12 references of King with ruler in advice texts (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added second page of information to throne room introduction explaining steward traits (credit YES YES YES)
- Removed defunct demon hat display system from demon warder throne room encounters (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Rewrote release him outcome for sleeping with skeletons (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added new text blocking options if the player is unable to afford to watch performances in the magic threatre (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Rewrote fighter's district in Blackmarket intro text (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Reworked taxes and subsidies screen options to be clearer (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Rewrote faints to the floor throne room reaction (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Made knight isn't seen or heard from again outcome 25% more rare when sending questing knights
- Removed 5 gold entry fee for watching beast fights (credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added indicator of tribute on main screen of huntsman's rest (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added indicators of trade starting and stopping with huntsman's rest when asked or cancelled (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added 2 new loadtips (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Made smallhaven elder refuse to talk to you if relation is -5 not -1
- Added new indicator of trade deal with Blackmarket (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Made Rihhm and Smallhaven trade and tribute texts exactly the same (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Added a new screen for beating throne room sudden death game master for all his money (Credit TJTheSoundBoard)
- Rewrote several secret place dialogues
SCREENSHOTS WHAT'S NEXT Well, I'm still in the early phases of the combat update planning and have some remnant bug reports to also work through so I'll keep trudging forward. Thank you everyone for the continued support and to those sharing ideas and reporting bugs, it's all helpful.
Cheers
Huw
submitted by Huw2k8 to WarsimRpg [link] [comments]
are gambling winnings taxed differently video
That means your winnings are taxed the same as your wages or salary. And you must report the entire amount you receive each year on your tax return. For example, let’s say you elected to receive your lottery winnings in the form of annuity payments and received $50,000 in 2019. You must report that money as income on your 2019 tax return. Gambling winnings are taxed by both the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) and by many states in US All winnings from all forms of gambling are taxable and must be declared as income on your tax return. All losses from all forms of gambling are deductible as an itemized deduction for recreational players, limited to the amount of winnings declared. The gambling winnings would then be determined by subtracting losses from winnings. Since this is done before the taxable social security and allowable medical determinations, the senior tax payer would not be unfairly taxed. In many nations around the world, gambling winnings aren’t taxed. Others tax winnings only from professional gamblers, or tax gambling winnings at a reduced rate that simply asks for a The following rules apply to casual gamblers who aren't in the trade or business of gambling. Gambling winnings are fully taxable and you must report the income on your tax return. Gambling income includes but isn't limited to winnings from lotteries, raffles, horse races, and casinos. It includes cash winnings and the fair market value of prizes, such as cars and trips. Gambling activities are taxed differently from most other types of income. Taxpayers are often surprised that their gambling winnings are not simply netted with their gambling losses to determine the net amount taxed. To determine your winnings, you should include only the net gain on the wager, but you cannot offset losses on other However, you can only deduct your loss up to the amount you report as gambling winnings. So, you should keep: An accurate diary of your gambling winnings and losses; Documentation of your gambling activity that can be verified; How Winnings Are Reported to the IRS: Form W-2G. The payer must provide you with a Form W-2G if you win: In many countries, gamblers have to pay a small tax on their winnings. While giving some of your hard-earned profits to the government can feel unfair, try being the casino. So in the long run you are being double taxed. my turbo tax Illinois state program did not warn me of this situation and thus I was not hit with taxes but late fees etc. The letter says they do not allow a credit for taxes paid on gambling winnings in another state. I believe the program should let you know this. The gambling isn’t on U.S. servers. The money doesn’t come from U.S. sources. Does that mean you don’t have to pay U.S. taxes? It does not. This is one of the most common misconceptions about online gambling. People think of it differently because it happens on the computer and the companies — and other players — aren’t Americans.
are gambling winnings taxed differently top
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are gambling winnings taxed differently
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