All this talk, just booked a flight to Mexico city next week.

Canceled a cabin trip I was gonna take a girl next month, can't wait with all the war stuff going on.

too real, I think the loud exhausts fucked up my hearing, I have hearing loss plus sometimes a ring when it's quiet.

I make sure to earplugs for concerts and loud events too

Just curious, where is that money going? Is this all just the commercial lease and liability insurance? It's just coffee, I can't imagine the capex being a whole lot!

Coffee prices have skyrocketed due to recent supply issues.

Plus cost of labour.

Oh I'd just pass that cost right to my customers then! Cost of materials going up is going to affect my competitors just the same, so in the long run it's not like I'm going to be losing customers to them.

Cost of labor would be free because I'd be the only one working. Having customers lined up out the door, can only look good for the business :D.

noclue's RS Career & Retirement Thread due to our aging demographic, Thread
 

Done! :D

Cartel zone. you should go to Cancun

Nah Mexico City is safe, I rode the subway and public bus no problem.
Some great history and food there!

Mostly lease
- $6-10K/month for anything small but in a good area
- $10-20K/month for anything 1,000+ sqft in a good area / busy street
- base + op costs, commercial covers strata + pptax + repairs, so you get destroyed

2-3 employees at min wage FT is around $10K/month after employer CPP/EI, OT, training, 4% vacation.

Commercial insurance is another $500-1K/month, mandatory on loan / lease

Utilities / Garbage - $500/month

can't live a toothless life

That dog hot pot restaurant in Richmond closed after 2 months

Excuse me, but what in the world is a dog hot pot restaurant? :confused:
This can be misinterpreted in so many ways.

Dreams, Dreams of dog hotpot :concentrate:

I thought about doing a cafe, had a friend who was doing a cake boutique and asked if I wanted to do a cafe beside/inside their store, and then after calculating it I went nah :heckno:

Whats stopping her? Family / friends and the fear of a new life?


Ive had tinnitus since i was like 16, i havent heard silence in a long time.
With that said, my hearing is better than 75% of people at work when we get our annual hearing tests done. Younger and older

Pretty sure it started when i got dragged off a table play fighting and then my head hitting the floor HARD lol
(Also maybe why my iq is so low)

For those of you with tinnitus, have you tried these before?

https://www.flareaudio.com/en-ca/col...se-sensitivity

A few years ago I had oddly developed some ear ringing, and it was annoying / aggrevating as heck. And then I came across an early version of this Flare Audio product, and I thought there was nothing I can lose for $20 - $30. Much to my surprise, the pair of Calmer ear thingy worked pretty well, and they somehow cut out / dial down a lot of the harshness in the sounds I heard, including the ear ringing. The only downside for me was -- they had a tendency to not stay in my ears for too long, as in, they migth come lose after I wore them for 30+ min. And then they may fall out.

They have fancier versions now, and I have no idea how well those well, and I'm too cheap to pay more anyway.

I dunno how those could work, the source of the ringing isn't external?

My trick is to just distract from the ringing. I always have some sort of background noise happening... TV on, play some music, etc...

I'm still convinced that it may be an earwax issue because I was watching TV one day and it just came on. I thought it would go away quickly with the flow of ear wax like it has many times before but it never did... just stuck around... doctor says my ears are clean... who knows... It could also be how I keep my jaw clenched... there is the odd morning I wake up and it's gone

Have you tried hearing aids? They can be programmed to help nullify tinnitus - it can work really well. Bad tinnitus can cause a lot of mental health problems over time.

It could be a jaw issue - worth talking to an ENT about it.

My right ear is really fragile (beyond my moderate-severe hearing loss) - it can cut out in the middle of a conversation, when higher pitched sounds get too loud it turns to static and my ear physically hurts (like someone is stabbing it with a needle), and it often will feel clogged - I can hear sounds but they are all muffled.

My ENT said all 3 of those symptoms were actually jaw issues - your jaw is connected to your ear via tendons and muscles. When the jaw is tired or inflamed it will "clench" my ear causing my problems. The fixes were to wear a mouthguard at night to reduce grinding, to chew less on my right side, improve my sleep, and cut out crunchy foods and stuff like chewing gum.

All of these have helped (maybe a 20-30% improvement) and when I don't wear my mouthguard for a couple nights or have a bad night of sleep I can noticeably feel the difference.

Not to be an Apple shill, but Airpods Pro (starting from version 2) have built-in hearing aid function in case someone's reading this but not quite ready to jump to full-on hearing aids.

They're not as good as actual hearing aids. But based on experience with my dad, it's at least a half-step there.

It lets you create and/or just load an audiogram for a starting point, and customize the frequency response from there as you need. I tried them on and could suddenly follow conversations through the windows of a restaurant lol.

I have some time so here's my thoughts, I think this time it's the great reset as some people call it. I don't think the lifestyle we grew up with really will exist anymore. This is due to government policy, putting woke, dei, acknowledgment as first priority over actual performance. Think of the Olympics but instead of best performance you get participation medals.

Due to government policies, it's no longer financially possible to run a small business let alone a big one. As others pointed out before the cost of just having the space to start a huge financial cost. What can a small business sell that you can't get from Amazon the next day, maybe food, but just look at how many restaurants closed so far this year, maybe health care but then even higher upstart costs. Then you have labour costs, crime. Look at how many businesses close due to crime, all the Pokemon cards stolen. So why would you invest the money to even start a business.

Next big thing is I think Canada real estate, which is a huge part of our gdp and economy is done. The final nail in the coffin is the land title shit that they are doing now. No one will invest in real estate again. First the numbers no longer work, even if rates drop, it won't drop significantly unless something crazy happens. Even if rates are cheap, inflation, land cost and wages will keep prices up. Second who the hell is buying the houses, we have no population growth cuz it's too expensive to have kids, it's not like we have no land in Canada. And the quality of people we bring in can't afford houses. Lastly is the land title issue, no one will buy if there is no trust, or your house value will drop 50% overnight just for government funzies. I think we will slowly turn into Japan, population decline, aging population that I don't know how we're gonna feed, houses will slowly drop in value or at least no longer climb much.

Next is government policies, I don't think the first world we know it will survive, I think our world status will continue to decline, we have the resources but due to unwillingness to develop, sell resources we shot ourselves in the foot. Besides this I can't think of a way that we can finance our aging population without just raising taxes and print money, just like the US. But with the land title thing no business will spend billions to build a factory or pipeline, mine just to give to the natives.

Lastly is ai, you are just a number to your company, the moment they can replace you with an app or robot they will. Look at all the white collar jobs that can be replaced with ai, accounting, programming, lawyers, even doctors, ai doctor/ lawyer can just pull the world's knowledge, case studies and have live updates. You can't tell me a computer, won't be more accurate with taxes since all your tax slips are all digital now a days anyways. Even things like factory workers, security guards, Burger flippers, once they can put a robot in you're gone. No breaks, holidays needed, can work 24/7 like China car factories. If they can build the car, I'm sure they can put it together so a robot can fix also. Think of all the value for stake holders.

So my conclusion is grab all the cash, assets you can now, get out of fiat cuz cash is trash, the gov can only continue to print and devalue cash. Now that re is uninvestable, I guess your options with be gold, not silver or copper lol, stocks, or crypto, art and cars are kinda hard to unload and take with you if you have to flee. Good day to buy some smci stock.

How many of you here are active volunteers in your community? More than just one-offs... I'm thinking of board work, coaching a team, etc. It can be anything as long as it's recurring and has some rules and the inevitable politics that can often come with these types of commitments.

I'll start - I've been on our strata council for several years and I've been an exec on my kids' school PAC for several years.

im not active because i became too busy but i used to do volunteer search and rescue for a few years. if i had semi retired hours i would gladly do it again.
the average volunteer does around 200-300 hours a year, so it's a decent commitment. and many do 500+.

Have not, probably wownt until it gets worse

Also have not, my tinnitus is like a 1/10. When its quiet around me, i can hear it non stop. Otherwise the majority of the day i dont hear it as other sounds are louder (or i have gotten useto it).
This will also be a "once it gets worse" solution

doggystyle?

:pokerface::awwyeah:

i used to do soup kitchen, then it pivoted over to the less fortunate cooking themselves/ serving so it's diff.

Aside from church stuff, i used to teach as well. Many ways to give back to community.