Gambling Winnings and Income Taxes for 2020. Taxable.

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.

Hi,
Throwaway account so not linked to my main account.
I've been making a full time living from sports betting for the past 4 years.
I'm aware I won't be able to get a mortgage as I don't have a taxable income (you don't pay tax on gambling winnings even if you do it full time).
I'm looking at purchasing my first house with my partner this year and am wondering what my options are.
I have enough for a 50% house deposit - would it be possible to put 50% in and my partner gets the other 50% mortgage based on her income?
If so, will 50% of the house legally be mine, or will it all be hers because she is getting the full mortgage.
If I can go down this route, would both me and my partner both still be eligible to use a Lifetime ISA? We've been maxing this for the past couple of years.
I do plan on contacting a solicitomortgage advisor soon but wanted to see what my options might be first.
Thanks

Hi.
Just want to start and say I've already looked in the stickied crypto wiki and did not find my answer(https://www.reddit.com/PersonalFinanceCanada/wiki/cryptocurrencyandtaxes?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf).
This is my situation/question in a nutshell.
Let's assume I bought 5 BTC when they were $10,000 CAD for simplicity's sake. This cost me $50,000.
I moved this BTC to a crypto gambling site.
I gambled with them on this site. I bet 1BTC, lost the bet. I did this three more times and am now left with 1BTC.
I gamble this last 1BTC and turn it into 20BTC out of sheer luck. I move these 20BTC off of the gambling site. Let's assume you then sold them and the price had moved to $11,000 in that time.
Gambling winnings, so long as they're not your primary source of income, are not taxable in Canada.
How does it work when crypto is what you're gambling?
I see a few weird situations, but none of them make total sense:
You bought 5BTC at $10,000 each for $50,000 total. You sold 20 at $11,000 each for $220,000 total.

Your 5BTC realised $5,000 total capital gains. Your other 15 BTC you won when they were worth $10,000. Since they gained value of $1,000 each since you attained them, even though the crypto winnings themselves aren't taxable, you realised $15,000 taxable. All in all you pay tax on a $20,000 gain and the rest is yours.
You lost 4BTC. You now have a theoretical loss of $40,000. You win 19BTC. You sell similarly to above. You pay tax on $19,000 for the $1,000 value increase since you won the coins. You... claim a loss of $39,000 for the rest? You claim a gain of $1,000 instead of the $39,000 loss?
Gambling winning and loss exemption doesn't count for crypto. You straight up have a gain of $170,000 and need to claim it.

Other possibilities?
I'm so confused about this situation.
Help? :)

Previous editions:
(All strawpoll results counted as of the next post made)
Part 1, Adams v Jefferson in 1796 - Adams wins with 68% of the vote
Part 2, Adams v Jefferson in 1800 - Jefferson wins with 58% of the vote
Part 3, Jefferson v Pinckney in 1804 - Jefferson wins with 57% of the vote
Part 4, Madison v Pinckney (with George Clinton protest) in 1808 - Pinckney wins with 45% of the vote
Part 5, Madison v (DeWitt) Clinton in 1812 - Clinton wins with 80% of the vote
Part 6, Monroe v King in 1816 - Monroe wins with 51% of the vote
Part 7, Monroe and an Era of Meta Feelings in 1820 - Monroe wins with 100% of the vote
Part 8, Democratic-Republican Thunderdome in 1824 - Adams wins with 55% of the vote
Part 9, Adams v Jackson in 1828 - Adams wins with 94% of the vote
Part 10, Jackson v Clay (v Wirt) in 1832 - Clay wins with 53% of the vote
Part 11, Van Buren v The Whigs in 1836 - Whigs win with 87% of the vote, Webster elected
Part 12, Van Buren v Harrison in 1840 - Harrison wins with 90% of the vote
Part 13, Polk v Clay in 1844 - Polk wins with 59% of the vote
Part 14, Taylor v Cass in 1848 - Taylor wins with 44% of the vote (see special rules)
Part 15, Pierce v Scott in 1852 - Scott wins with 78% of the vote
Part 16, Buchanan v Frémont v Fillmore in 1856 - Frémont wins with 95% of the vote
Part 17, Peculiar Thunderdome in 1860 - Lincoln wins with 90% of the vote.
Part 18, Lincoln v McClellan in 1864 - Lincoln wins with 97% of the vote.
Part 19, Grant v Seymour in 1868 - Grant wins with 97% of the vote.
Part 20, Grant v Greeley in 1872 - Grant wins with 96% of the vote.
Part 21, Hayes v Tilden in 1876 - Hayes wins with 87% of the vote.
Part 22, Garfield v Hancock in 1880 - Garfield wins with 67% of the vote.
Part 23, Cleveland v Blaine in 1884 - Cleveland wins with 53% of the vote.
Part 24, Cleveland v Harrison in 1888 - Harrison wins with 64% of the vote.
Part 25, Cleveland v Harrison v Weaver in 1892 - Harrison wins with 57% of the vote
Part 26, McKinley v Bryan in 1896 - McKinley wins with 71% of the vote
Part 27, McKinley v Bryan in 1900 - Bryan wins with 55% of the vote
Part 28, Roosevelt v Parker in 1904 - Roosevelt wins with 71% of the vote
Part 29, Taft v Bryan in 1908 - Taft wins with 64% of the vote
Part 30, Taft v Wilson v Roosevelt in 1912 - Roosevelt wins with 81% of the vote
Part 31, Wilson v Hughes in 1916 - Hughes wins with 62% of the vote
Part 32, Harding v Cox in 1920 - Cox wins with 68% of the vote
Part 33, Coolidge v Davis v La Follette in 1924 - Davis wins with 47% of the vote
Part 34, Hoover v Smith in 1928 - Hoover wins with 50.2% of the vote
Part 35, Hoover v Roosevelt in 1932 - Roosevelt wins with 85% of the vote
Part 36, Landon v Roosevelt in 1936 - Roosevelt wins with 75% of the vote
Part 37, Willkie v Roosevelt in 1940 - Roosevelt wins with 56% of the vote
Part 38, Dewey v Roosevelt in 1944 - Dewey wins with 50.2% of the vote
Part 39, Dewey v Truman in 1948 - Truman wins with 65% of the vote
Part 40, Eisenhower v Stevenson in 1952 - Eisenhower wins with 69% of the vote
Part 41, Eisenhower v Stevenson in 1956 - Eisenhower wins with 60% of the vote
Part 42, Kennedy v Nixon in 1960 - Kennedy wins with 63% of the vote
Part 43, Johnson v Goldwater in 1964 - Johnson wins with 87% of the vote
Part 44, Nixon v Humphrey in 1968 - Humphrey wins with 60% of the vote
Part 45, Nixon v McGovern in 1972 - Nixon wins with 56% of the vote
Part 46, Carter v Ford in 1976 - Carter wins with 71% of the vote
Part 47 - Carter v Reagan v Anderson in 1980 - Carter wins with 44% of the vote
Welcome back to the forty-eighth edition of /neoliberal elects the American presidents!
This will be a fairly consistent weekly thing - every week, a new election, until we run out.
I highly encourage you - at least in terms of the vote you cast - to try to think from the perspective of the year the election was held, without knowing the future or how the next administration would go. I'm not going to be trying to enforce that, but feel free to remind fellow commenters of this distinction.
If you're really feeling hardcore, feel free to even speak in the present tense as if the election is truly upcoming!
Whether third and fourth candidates are considered "major" enough to include in the strawpoll will be largely at my discretion and depend on things like whether they were actually intending to run for President, and whether they wound up actually pulling in a meaningful amount of the popular vote and even electoral votes. I may also invoke special rules in how the results will be interpreted in certain elections to better approximate historical reality.
While I will always give some brief background info to spur the discussion, please don't hesitate to bring your own research and knowledge into the mix! There's no way I'll cover everything!
Ronald Reagan v Walter Mondale, 1984
Profiles

Ronald Reagan is the 73-year-old Republican candidate and the current President. His running mate is current Vice President George Bush.
Walter Mondale is the 56-year-old Democratic candidate and the previous Vice President. His running mate is US Representative from New York Geraldine Ferraro.

Issues and Background

Within a year of taking office, President Reagan signed comprehensive tax reform legislation that exemplified his economic philosophy. The top marginal income rate was cut from 70% to 50%, and the rate on the lowest taxable bracket was reduced from 14% to 11%. The capital gains tax was reduced from 28% of 20%. Legislation in 1982, prompted by increases in the deficit, prevented the full tax cut aspirations of the 1981 legislation from going into effect. Reagan and his supporters credit his economic policies with the strong economic recovery since the beginning of 1983.
The last couple years have seen very large federal budget deficits, with the 1983 peak at a level unseen since immediately following World War II, even relative to GDP. Mondale has chosen to make this arguably his biggest domestic campaign issue. Mondale has argued that the "question of the deficit and getting interest rates down is the most important domestic problem of our time - nothing else compares with it." He has spoken in stark terms about the alleged stakes, saying:

The President's point that growth will cure the deficit is obviously not the case. The deficit will get worse even with growth. Thus it is a very severe problem that threatens our future, saddles our kids with a with a trillion dollars worth of debt, is making us into a debtor nation, is destroying our position in international commerce, driving up interest rates, and is making the budget increasingly unmanageable.

Further, Mondale has gone further in his gambit on making the deficit an election issue by pledging to raise taxes. In his nomination acceptance speech, Mondale said:

Whoever is inaugurated in January, the American people will have to pay Mr. Reagan's bills. The budget will be squeezed. Taxes will go up. And anyone who says they won't is not telling the truth to the American people.
I mean business. By the end of my first term, I will reduce the Reagan budget deficit by two-thirds.
Let's tell the truth. That must be done - it must be done. Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did.
- Specifically, the Mondale deficit reduction plan calls for $85 billion in new tax revenues and $105 billion in cuts in projected spending. The entirety of the new tax revenue is to be earmarked for a special fund to reduce the deficit. Any further new spending will be "pay as you go," requiring new revenue to cover the spending. The planned spending cuts are mostly decreases in the planned growth of spending, including for the military and Medicare, rather than outright cuts.
- According to Mondale campaign advisers, a typical family of four with a gross annual income of $25,000 (OOC: ~$62,000 in 2020 dollars, same format for further parentheticals) will not see their taxes go up. However, by 1989, families making $25,000 to $35,000 (~$62,000 to $86,000) will see a tax increase of about $95 (~$200) families making up to $45,000 (~$111,000) will pay roughly $200 (~$500) more and families making $100,000 (~$250,000) will pay about $2,600 (~$6,400) more.
- Republicans have of course criticized the Mondale plan sharply. Vice President Bush called it a "program for failure" that would stall the recovery. Reagan insists that deficit reduction must come through economic growth and reductions in wasteful government spending. Reagan describes a tax increase as a "last resort."
Religion and issues of morality have come up several times during this campaign. President Reagan favors a Constitutional amendment that would permit organized prayers in public schools that students can opt-out of. Mondale opposes the amendment. President Reagan also supports a Constitutional amendment banning abortions except when the life of the mother is at risk. Mondale is personally opposed to abortion but believes it should be a woman's individual choice. Mondale's running mate Geraldine Ferraro has received pushback for her statement that, "the President goes around calling himself a good Christian; I don't for a minute believe it," criticizing Reagan's policies as "unfair" and "discriminatory."
In fall 1983, following an internal power struggle in the country and pleas from other Caribbean nations, the United States invaded Grenada alongside several Caribbean nations. The invasion was successful, resulting in the establishment of a new interim government. Elections are intended to take place in the coming months. The Reagan Administration justified the intervention on the basis of protecting US medical students on the island. The UN General Assembly voted 108 to 9 to call the intervention a "flagrant violation of international law." Mondale raised questions about the invasion early on, but in the past couple months has spoken favorably of it.
The United States along with three European nations introduced a peacekeeping force into Lebanon in 1982, in the broader context of the Lebanese Civil War. US diplomatic and military forces have been the victim of a number of suicide bombings, in particular the 1983 bombings of Beirut barracks, killing 241 US military personnel. Mondale has been sharply critical of Reagan with respect to these bombings, arguing that there was plenty of warning to prevent them. Mondale has further argued that overall US policy in Lebanon has been marked by "unbelievable disorganization." In January, Mondale called for the withdrawal of US marines from Lebanon. Reagan argues that the US presence in Lebanon helped facilitate the withdrawal of Palestinian guerrilla fighters.
At no point in his first term thus far has President Reagan met with his Soviet counterpart, Konstantin Chernenko. Mondale has frequently criticized Reagan for this, and has promised he would hold annual summit meetings with Soviet leaders. Reagan has said that he would like a summit, but needs to feel sure it will produce results before it happens. More broadly, Reagan has described the necessary policy towards the Soviet Union as one of "credible deterrence and peaceful competition," though he has also not held back in his criticism of the Soviet Union, calling it just last year an "evil empire."
In 1979, the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicaragua overthrew the Somoza dictatorship and established a new government. Since then, counterrevolutionary forces including former pro-Somoza forces as well as disillusioned former Sandinistas, have engaged in armed conflict against the Sandinista government. Reagan cancelled economic aid to Nicaragua upon taking office, but has since said that there have been attempts to get along with the new government. However, Reagan has been sharply critical of Nicaragua's accused military buildup and "meddling" in El Salvador.
- Mondale has criticized Reagan's "failed policies" in Central America and has promised that if elected, he would end all US military exercises in Central America, withdraw combat forces from Honduras, and "end the covert activities directed toward Nicaragua."
- A CIA booklet became public this October which has raised questions about the nature of US covert activities in Nicaragua. As reported by the New York Times:
  
  A Central Intelligence Agency document that became public this week tells Nicaraguan rebels how to win popular support and gives advice on political assassination, blackmail and mob violence.
  The 44-page booklet, titled ''Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare,'' is a primer on insurgency. Most activity of this sort in Nicaragua has been paid for by the United States through the C.I.A.
  The primer explains how to kidnap and kill officials, blow up public buildings and blackmail ordinary citizens.
Ferraro and her husband have come under intense media scrutiny over their financial history, with accusations ranging from tax avoidance to connections to organized crime, pornography, and gambling. In response, the couple has relented in releasing several years of tax returns, and Ferraro has allowed the media hours of her time to ask questions related to her and her husband's finances. Most accusations against them have proven to be exaggerated, though there are still lingering questions regarding certain accounting errors that were made. For more technical details, see coverage by the New York Times or Washington Post.
Particularly following what some considered to be a sub-par first debate performance, some Democrats are openly raising the question of whether Reagan, 73, is too old to continue serving as President. Asked at a White House event whether age should be considered a legitimate issue, Reagan said jokingly of Mondale, "I'll challenge him to an arm-wrestle any time." Reagan's more vigorous second debate performance has led to a diminishing of the age discussion.
In June 1981, the Associated Press and Los Angeles Times reported on a rare lung infection in 5 young previously healthy gay men in Los Angeles. Since then, over 6,000 cases of "acquired immune deficiency syndrome" (AIDS) have been reported to public health officials. In April of this year, the cause of the disease was discovered, a retrovirus known as HTLV-III. According to the CDC, "most cases have been reported among homosexual men with multiple sexual partners, abusers of intravenous drugs, and Haitians, especially those who have entered the country within the past few years." The case fatality rate is extremely high. Scientists say the virus is mainly spread through sexual contact. There were two major developments just recently in October. First, the New York Times reported that saliva may be a possible source of transmission, though it remains unlikely that it is a "key mode of spread." Second, under pressure from Mayor Dianne Feinstein, San Francisco public health officials ordered a number of bathhouses and sex clubs geared towards homosexual men closed. Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services argue that this disease has become a top research priority for them, and that they expect to spend many millions of dollars on research grants and other efforts. However, some groups like the National Gay Task Force have criticized the government sharply and say that not nearly enough is being done. Many criticisms of the government and other institutions and groups of people are covered in the essay from last year famous in the gay community, "1,112 and Counting" by Larry Kramer, published in the New York Native. Neither Reagan nor Mondale have spoken of this disease on the campaign trail.
OOC Note: There is no indication that AIDS was an issue in the presidential election. Even gay newspapers from this time did not relate the crisis much if at all to the presidential election. To the extent that government policy was discussed, it was often local policy. Why mention it then? Well, it's a similar situation to Japanese internment and the 1944 election. I know some of you will bring this up no matter what, understandably, and so I'd like to at the very least calibrate the discussion to the year of the election with proper context and background.

Platforms (Important note if this is influencing your vote: These are just excerpts, not everything is included and inclusion of a point in one set of excerpts does NOT mean the other party took the opposing stance or didn't mention it; also, especially in the modern era, a Presidential candidate may disagree with the party platform)
Read the full 1984 Republican platform here. 10 Excerpts:

"We reaffirm our conviction that State and local governments closest to the people are the best and most efficient"
"The Republican Party pledges to continue our efforts to lower tax rates, change and modernize the tax system, and eliminate the incentive-destroying effects of graduated tax rates ... We therefore support tax reform that will lead to a fair and simple tax system and believe a modified flat tax—with specific exemptions for such items as mortgage interest—is a most promising approach"
"The President is denied proper control over the federal budget ... To remedy this, we support enhanced authority to prevent wasteful spending, including a line-item veto"
"We need coordination between fiscal and monetary policy, timely information about Fed decisions, and an end to the uncertainties people face in obtaining money and credit ... The Gold Standard may be a useful mechanism for realizing the Federal Reserve's determination to adopt monetary policies needed to sustain price stability"
"The greatest danger today to our international trade is a growing protectionist sentiment"
"The Republican Party has deep concern about gratuitous sex and violence in the entertainment media, both of which contribute to the problem of crime against children and women"
"We Republicans emphasize that there is a profound moral difference between the actions and ideals of Marxist-Leninist regimes and those of democratic governments, and we reject the notions of guilt and apology which animate so much of the foreign policy of the Democratic Party"
"Stable and peaceful relations with the Soviet Union are possible and desirable, but they depend upon the credibility of American strength and determination"
"We ... reaffirm our support for a human life amendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children"
"We affirm our country's absolute fight to control its borders ... Those desiring to enter must comply with our immigration laws ... Failure to do so not only is an offense to the American people but is fundamentally unjust to those in foreign lands patiently waiting for legal entry ... We will preserve the principle of family reunification"

Read the full 1984 Democratic platform here. 10 Excerpts:

"Instead of runaway deficits, a Democratic Administration will pursue overall economic policies that sharply reduce deficits, down interest rates, free savings for private investment, prevent another explosion of inflation and put the dollar on a competitive footing"
"We will pursue international negotiations to open markets and eliminate trade restrictions, recognizing that the growth and stability of the Third World depends on its ability to sell its products in international markets"
"The Environmental Protection Agency should receive a budget that exceeds in real dollars the agency's purchasing power when President Reagan took office, since the agency's workload has almost doubled in recent years"
"After four years in which the roll of dishonor in the Administration has grown weekly and monthly—from Richard Allen to Rita Lavelle, from Thomas Reed to James Watt—it is time for an end to the embarrassment of Republican cronyism and malfeasance"
"Violent acts of bigotry, hatred and extremism aimed at women, racial, ethnic and religious minorities, and gay men and lesbians have become an alarmingly common phenomenon ... A Democratic Administration will work vigorously to address, document, and end all such violence"
"In the year made famous by George Orwell, we can see the realization of many of his grimmest prophecies in the totalitarian Soviet state, which has amassed an arsenal of weapons far beyond its defensive needs"
"Sadly, Mr. Reagan has opted for the all too frequent American response to the unrest that has characterized Central America-military assistance ... Over the past 100 years, Panama. Nicaragua, and Honduras have all been occupied by U.S. forces in an effort to suppress indigenous revolutionary movements"
"A Democratic President will pursue a foreign policy that advances basic civil and political rights—freedom of speech, association, thought and religion, the right to leave, freedom of the integrity of the person, and the prohibition of torture, arbitrary detention and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment—and that seeks as well to attain basic, economic, social, and cultural rights"
"We support tough restraints on the manufacture, transportation, and sale of snub-nosed handguns, which have no legitimate sporting use and are used in a high proportion of violent crimes"
"...the Reagan Administration has acted as if deficits do not count ... The deficits are huge and are expected to get larger—and they are a major negative factor in everything from high interest rates to the third world debt crisis"

Video Clips
Debates
First Presidential Debate

Vice Presidential Debate

Second Presidential Debate

Speeches
Mondale nomination acceptance speech
Reagan nomination acceptance speech
Advertisements
Reagan "Morning in America" ad
Reagan White House ad
Reagan peace ad
Reagan train ad
Mondale nuclear devastation ad
Mondale "in real America" ad
Mondale trade ad
Mondale "killer weapons" in space ad
Strawpoll
>>>VOTE HERE<<<

Hey guys I wanted to get feedback from people who are smarter than me. I'd like to have the option to retire by 55 however I doubt I will because I'm a doer. Here are my details and then I'll go into my plan:
Stats:
I'm 38. Married. 2 kids. Aged 5 and 2.
I have a full time job that last year did just shy of 6 figures and this year will be roughly 122k. Prior to this I was employed by a not so great human who under paid and overworked everyone. My situation has changed and I'm now focused on the future of myself and my family. I expect to maintain a low 6 figure income as long as I remain in this industry/with this employer.
My wife is a teacher and does roughly 50k and we get all of our health insurance through her employer since its a better deal than mine.
My employer does provide disability insurance for free so that's great. I believe the plan pays 75% for up to 2 years in the case of an incident. Seems like a solid safety net.
I also have a side thing that should net me roughly 60k this year and hopefully closer to 90k next year. This doesn't eat up a ton of time so I'm thankful I have been able to create this opportunity. It also allows for some good tax advantages such as writing off some of my expenses.
I also am a 30% partner in a start up that so far hasn't made any money but if done well could do great or might end up being a short term expense.
I have roughly 40k in emergency savings liquid. The idea there is to be able to make it 6+ months if everything went wrong.
Two years ago we upgraded homes and kept our previous home as a rental. We cash flow about $750 a month on that and have roughly 275k in equity in it. I did a cash out refi to get what I originally put as a down payment out so it feels like a zero risk investment. I was also able to get my rate at about 3% too so it was a win win.
My primary has a pretty high balance at just under 450k but the payment is totally manageable. We plan to be here forever. We have done most of the work ourselves to make it even better and the only large upcoming expense is a possible detected garage but I'm willing to wait until I have the cash to do that without sacrificing savings or other parts of the plan.
Just this year is the first time I've had access to a 401k as my employer just added this as a benefit. I will max it this year along with a modest company match. We also just recently got my wife set up to max her 401k too. We plan to do that as long as possible. My 401k balance is roughly 26k and my wifes is about 18k.
I have a TD account with roughly 100k in it with a focus on ETFs and a small amount I "gamble" on individual stocks.
We also contribute about 4k a year to each of our kids 529 plans for college. We'd also like to keep that up until the baby birds leave the nest. I expect to have about 100k for each kid when its time to pony up for college. There are also some modest tax benefits for this contribution in my state.
We have no debt aside from the two properties we own.
The plan:
We plan to continue to max our 401Ks until we are no longer able to. For my wife that could be as long as she is working. For me that's as long as I have a day job. If possible I will continue to contribute with with self employment but I don't know what that looks like at this point. Ideally I will be totally self employed within the next two years but who knows where life will go.
I also plan to add 1k a week minimum to my TD account to DCA mostly in ETFs with a lofty goal of 2k+ a week when/if possible. My rough math says that if I can do that for the next 17 years I would have roughly 1.2m to 2.7 depending on how well I'm able to max that and how good the returns are.
Once our rental apricates to the point I could sell it and pay off my primary after capital gains I would like to do that. My thought here is living mortgage free would allow me to take a little more professional risk without the stress. Sure the money could do more working for me but I think I could do more without the debt. I expect this to take 5 to 10 years. Hopefully closer to 5.
We are very aware of lifestyle creep and do not plan to spend more. We are waiting till we drop our daycare expenses to upgrade my wife's car. We'll get something reasonable like a Rav4 for well under a 3rd of the monthly cost of daycare. I plan to drive my car for the next 8+ years. Hopefully more. At some point I would like to pick up a weekend car but it will most certainly be used and I would sacrifice spending in other areas to do so.
If I did commit to stopping working at 55 (unlikely as I like to be busy) I would live off the gains from my taxable investment accounts until I hit maturity on my 401k then spend that as needed. If I am able to max my 401k until retirement I would expect to have roughly 1.5m there. My wife is a few years younger than I and she loves teaching so she said she wants to go the distance to max her pension. Her 401k would like be a bit healthier than mine simply due to time and she's 6 years younger than I.
What am I missing?
Life insurance? Other things I'm not thinking of? Assuming my goals are attainable are my numbers good? We are not spenders but we are travelers, mostly by car as we love the outdoors and live in a part of the western US that is just amazing. I know life is good right now but things could change at any time as it does from time to time. That said I am confident in my skill set and ability to provide.
I will also likely be asking for a raise this year for the small company I work for. I have had a large part in nearly doubling our book of business in the last two year so I plan to be a bit aggressive in my compensation requests. Would it be reasonable to request a 10k base pay bump along with a 2m life insurance policy and moving the 401k match from 4% to 10%?
Long read but I value feedback from others who are more experienced and smarter than I. Pardon the spelling and other errors, I'm just not that smart.

We all love to read stories about big wins and imagine ourselves in the shoes of those winners. But, have you ever thought about what happens at that very moment after successfully beating the slot machine? Usually, the slot machine locks up and, in most cases, you hear the music and see the flashing lights on top of the machine. But one of the first questions every player asks is whether they have to pay taxes on casino winnings? Well, you’re about to find out!

Taxes on Slot Machine Winnings in USA

In the USA, when a lucky player hits a jackpot, there’s the option of receiving the winnings in cash or check. In case it’s a large sum, it’s usually paid by check. However, the IRS only obliges the casinos to report winnings that are larger than $1,200.
Of course, all winners are obliged to show a proper identification— a valid ID or passport. When the casino checks for your identification they also look at your age to make sure you are officially and legally old enough to play. As the minimum legal age for gambling varies from state to state, be sure to check it out before you decide to play.

Do I Have to Report All Winnings?

All gambling winnings received from slot machines are subject to federal taxes, and both cash and non-cash winnings (like a car or a vacation) are fully taxable. Apart from slot machines, the same applies to winnings from lottery, bingo, keno, poker or other games of chance. So, if the amount won on a slot machine is higher than $1200, the casino is required to report it. In other words, all your gambling winnings have to be reported on your tax return as "other income" on Schedule 1 (Form 1040), line 8.

Slot Machine Winnings in W-2G Form

In case it happens to you and you snag that big win (which we hope one day you will), it’s useful to know that casino or other payer must give you a W-2G Form, listing your name, address and Social Security number. So, if the winnings are reported through a W-2G Form, federal taxes will be withheld at a rate of 25%.
If, however, you didn’t provide your Social Security number (or your Tax Identification Number), in that case the withholding will be 28%. Either way, a copy of your Form W-2G should be issued, showing the amount you won alongside the amount of tax withheld. One copy needs to go to the IRS, as well.
Aside from slot winnings, Form W-2G is issued to winners of the following types of gambling activities like:

bingo (for players who win $1,200 or more),
keno (for at least $1,500 worth wins)
poker tournament players (for the $5,000 win or more).
a horse track (if the winnings are 300x your bet)

However, not all gambling winnings are subject to IRS Form W2-G. For instance, W2-G forms are not required for winnings from table games like blackjack, baccarat, and roulette, whatever the amount. You’d still have to report your winnings to the IRS, it’s just you won’t need to do it through W-2G Form.

Are My Slot Losses Deductible?

The good news is that you can deduct your slot losses (line 28 of Schedule A, Form 1040), while the bad news is gambling losses are deductible only up to the amount of your wins. In other words, you can use your losses to compensate for your winnings. So, let’s say you won $200 on one bet, but you lost $400 on one or a few others, you can only deduct the first $200 of losses. Meaning if you didn’t win anything for a year, you won’t be able to deduct any of your gambling losses.
In order to prove your losses, you need to keep good records and have suitable documents. So, whenever you lose, keep those losing tickets, cancelled checks and credit slips. Your documentation must include the amount you won or lost, a date and time, type of wager, type of your gambling activity, name of each casino/address of each casino you visited and the location of their gambling business. You may as well list the people who were with you.

Do State and Local Taxes Apply Separately?

Yes, you are required to pay your state or local taxes on your gambling winnings. In case you travel to another state, and snag some huge winning combo there, that other state would want to tax your winnings too. But don’t worry, you won't be taxed twice, as the state where you reside needs to give you a tax credit for the taxes you pay to that other state.
Keep in mind though that some states like Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Ohio don't allow gambling losses.

Online Slot Taxes

Whether you usually spin the reels of your favourite casino games in land-based casinos in the US, overseas casinos, or online casinos, all income for the citizens of the US is taxable. As a US citizen, you are required to send Form W2G for all winnings from a slot machine (not reduced by the wager) that equals to or is more than $1,200.

Taxes on Slot Machine Winnings in UK

As a resident of the United Kingdom, your gambling winnings won’t be taxed. Unlike the USA mentioned above, you’ll be allowed to keep whatever it is that you have won and earned in Britain, even in case you are a poker pro. Then again, you won’t be able to deduct any losses you might collect.
It doesn’t really matter if you win £5 or £5 million playing online slots, your winnings will be tax-free as long as you reside anywhere in the UK, be that in England, Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland.

Taxes on Slot Machine Winnings in Canada

If you are a recreational player who lives in Canada, we have good news for you. When it comes to gambling, you don't have to pay taxes as your winnings are totally tax free. According to laws in Canada, gambling activities don’t fall under the category of constant source of income, therefore your winnings will not be taxed.
Canadians don't even pay taxes on their lottery winnings. The only exception here are professional gamblers who make a living from betting and are, therefore, obliged to pay taxes. Keep in mind though, this is the current situation - laws in Canada change frequently, which may also include tax laws.

Taxes on Slot Machine Winnings in Australia

In case you reside in Australia and like to visit casinos from time to time, you’ll be happy to find out that your winnings in Australia will not taxed and here are 3 core reasons for that:

Gambling is not treated a profession (it's treated as a hobby)
The government doesn’t see profits from gambling activities as income, but as a result of good luck
The Australian government taxes casino operators and lottery organisers instead.

Of course, taxation varies from state to state.

Taxes on Slot Machine Winnings in New Zealand

Unlike in Australia, where even professional players can claim they are recreational, in New Zealand slot machine winnings (and any other winnings from casino games) are considered taxable income, in case the player has little income from other resources.
But, apart from professional gambling, it is very unusual for winnings to be taxed in New Zealand. Most often, gambling is considered recreational and not income, so players can enjoy their gameplay as they do not have to pay taxes on their winnings.

I'm admittedly still very new to FIRE, so please forgive any ignorance I may have!
I started becoming increasingly interested after learning about leanfire. I don't earn a mega tech salary, but I do save a majority of my income and do not spend lavishly so leanfire seems like an option. Whenever I look up the basics, I usually come across the 4% rule and going with $40,000/year after reaching $1,000,000. Going off of a very rough projection of my expected expenses, that would be a very comfortable lifestyle for me, even in a MCOL area (SoCal).
I'm only 23 right now, so I haven't had many years of living on my own. I would doubt that my current expenses would be the same as what I would need in the next few years - let alone in 20+ years when I (hopefully) do retire.
(Please see below for an edit with my current income/expenses/investments).
With that said, I do keep a meticulously spreadsheet of my expenses, but I still have no idea how I can reasonably estimate what my FIRE number would be. Sure, there will be an immense amount of planning and research that awaits me, but I feel like there will always be some small items I'll leave out or some items for which I wouldn't be able to estimate the cost accurately.
Things I can control are obviously what I spend on entertainment, food, travel, and discretionary items. However, it's these two items that worry me most:

Housing - This will be on me to do research and make a decision on where I want to retire, but how do you all reasonably estimate this monthly expense? I do have a soft goal of owning a home, but the astronomical housing prices in my area would definitely throw a wrench in my FIRE plan. Do most of you stay renters forever, or do most of you already have a paid off mortgage by the time you retire? I'm sure you also take into account inflating rent prices, rising property taxes/home insurance?
Health Insurance - I'm currently covered by my employer, so I'm not sure what the costs would be when I do retire. I feel like health insurance would also not remain a static price in the next decades, so how do you decide on what you think you will need for this?

Would love to know what you all spend in retirement (or plan to)! Would also be curious to know if anyone's budget has shifted once they have finally retired! Any general insight would be appreciated as well.
----
EDIT: Really wasn't expecting so many people to reply and share their insight - thank you so much! I figured I should piggyback off this post and share my current income/expenses/investments. Please critique what I have so far and any advice would be very much so appreciated!

I'm 23 living in SoCal, making roughly $80,000 as an accountant with a rough net worth of $80,000.
My goal is to retire before I hit 40 (ideally 35, but I wouldn't mind a few extra years) with $1,000,000 ($40,000/year). I currently live on less than $15,000/year, but I will probably bump up to $20,000-30,000/year eventually. In my field, my income should increase stably each year (5-7% each year, with 10-25% in promo years that are relatively set).
The $40,000/year (4% of $1,000,000) seems very doable for my area and lifestyle.

COL of my suburb isn't high, but housing prices are pretty high for what you get ($600,000 for modest 3 bed/2 baths). May consider purchasing a home with my family, but also depends on plans with my SO.
Currently living with my parents in a very cheap rent-controlled apartment (luckily!). It helps that we are able to share the burden of rent (win-win for all of us). I cover my own groceries and all of our utilities, which admittedly aren't significant costs. However, I plan to move out within the next year or so (will be an additional $400-600/month of expenses).
$1,000 - $1,200 per month in total expenses.
$4,000 per month contributed to retirement/investments (see below)

Account	Amount Invested	Details
401K	$10,000	9% in Traditional (+4% match), 3% in Roth. Invested in VTTSX (Vanguard 2060 Target Date)
Vanguard Roth IRA	$15,000	Maxed for 2019/2020. Invested in VFIAX & VIGAX.
Vanguard Brokerage	$15,000	Invested in 60% VOO, 30% VGT/VYM, 10% VXUS.
Robinhood Brokerage	$20,000	Holding Facebook, Disney, Microsoft, Boeing, & Carnival.
Ally HYSA @ 1.10%	$20,000	Emergency fund that I'm considering investing a chunk of!

To be completely honest, I'm saw the market at a "discount" and hopped right in without a good amount of research and due diligence. I'm now trying to reevaluate my plan and create a more diversified portfolio. I have heard of the three-fund portfolio, but probably won't be investing a huge amount into bonds anytime soon (I'm still young and not risk averse right now).
I'm hesitant to invest in international funds because the historic returns look abysmal compared to S&P 500. I know that historic performance does NOT predict future performance, but I haven't been able to convince myself that investing in international funds is right. I guess the US won't stay on top forever, so it helps to diversify and get in on emerging markets? (Any insight on this would be appreciated).
I realize that my portfolio has barely any diversification as a majority of the funds hold the same few stocks (Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet), and I also individually hold a few of these too. My initial Robinhood choices were honestly a gamble (that luckily paid off very well), but I realize that was a poor decision and I sold off anything I don't believe in LT.
Should I really just dump all my money into Vanguard US (VTSAX/VFIAX/VTI/VOO) + International (VTIAX/VXUS) and call it a day?
Should I max out my 401k before investing in taxable accounts? I've heard of Roth conversions, so would I be able to still use these funds before I hit traditional retirement age?

I'm 34, making 73k salaried in my main job, and 18k (so far) this year from a gig job (Shipt). However, I've struggled with gambling addiction for over a decade and have a poor credit score and maxed out credit limits across the board. Despite having a Ch 13 Bankruptcy in my past (discharged 3 years ago), and multiple "fresh starts", I have repeated the same behavior over and over, and I still continue to struggle with gambling. I realize the solution is heavily dependent on stopping my addiction from taking over, and I'm currently working with a therapist to address the issue and understand how to manage my compulsive behavior. Stopping Gambling is the answer... no need to lecture on that.
HOWEVER, I am looking for some advice on how to proceed with my current financial mess. I can't really afford an advisor at the moment so I thought I would see if Reddit might have some insight. My main concern is the tribal loan debt I have accrued over the past few months. In order to cover my recent heavy losses, I have resorted to taking out money from the only source that will give it to me - tribal lenders. At this moment I have over $19,344 owed to 7 different tribal lenders. I fully realize how insane that is, and I'm afraid my situation is a bit hopeless. I decided making just min payments on all these loans (which is all I can afford) is pretty futile, so I revoked auto pay authorization last week and for the first time today I missed my payment on all but 2 of the loans (which are due a little later next month).
I'm trying to figure out how to move forward. I've called most of the lenders already, but they don't seem to want to cut any deals except for re-arranging payments that just extend the life of the loan and don't address the issue (which is interest rates ranging from 98% to 164%). Granted, some seemed to imply that I might have better luck negotiating with their collections departments once I go past due. I plan on staying on top of this and not severing contact with them (address the issue, don't ignore it).
It's hard to find good information online about these types of loans, specifically how people have negotiated with them. Debt management companies do not work with tribal lenders, so I've had no luck finding advice or help from the traditional debt non-profits. I did find some reddit threads about people having success negotiating a lower interest rate and a realistic payment plan, but nothing too detailed. I fully intend to pay back what I borrowed, but I need the interest rates to be humane in order to do so.
My fear is they may never agree to a lower interest rate, and the internet seems to suggest they would attempt to sue me, garnish wages, and all sorts of nasty business. Does anyone know what the actual "typical" outcome of not paying a tribal loan is? My hunch is they just sell the debt to a collector, but I have nothing to back that up. Also, NONE of these accounts report normal payments to my credit report... so would they suddenly appear as an account on my credit report once I'm late? I assume if it goes to collections it would appear on my reports, but I am not sure if the tribal lenders will suddenly start reporting *only* the negative information to the credit bureaus once you go past due (before it is sent to collections). And is there any recourse to get those negative marks removed from my credit report since the loans have astronomically illegal interest rates in both the state of Michigan and USA as a whole?
There are so many questions involved in this, and I don't know if anyone is going to really have a response for me. But if you have any experience or advice, I'd love to hear it.
More info for curious minds:
I owe $12,354.29 to credit cards (all of which are maxed out) - Min monthly payment total is $478.99
I owe $19,344.19 to tribal loans - Min monthly payment total is $2,102.17
I owe $8,245.68 to student loans/family member (about $4100 owed to each) - Student loans are currently on covid deferment, and I'm paying $500 a month to the family member.
I have $1607.70 in overdrawn checking account balances that will be taken care of within 2 weeks from now.
Monthly take-home income from salary is $4,108 - gig income take home average is about $1,200 a month.
I also owe $2450 in 2019 federal taxes, which has an extended due date moved back to November. I also owe close to $5000 in estimated taxes for my 2020 gig income earnings that I have *not* paid yet. I also have $11,005 in 2020 in taxable gambling jacking winnings that I did *not* withhold any state or federal taxes on. I will certainly be able to claim losses against 100% of that amount, but my overall tax liability will increase due to these winnings nonetheless.
Monthly expenses outside of credit cards/loans:
Rent- $500 (I rent a room in a friends house)
Cell phone - $75
Pet supplies - $50
Car Insurance - $79
Food - $350
Gas - $80-$100 (I drive for the gig job so it's a little higher than normal)
Misc - $100
(no car payment, no internet or utilities (included in rent), no health insurance premium, therapy sessions are covered by health insurance and HSA money)
To do the math for you - Monthly required payments/expenses total $4235, against my monthly income of $5000-5300 on average. The surplus has historically gone to gambling as I often find myself with less than $100 in my checking account.
I have $0 in savings or emergency funds. $36,000 in 401k (employer does NOT allow loans or early withdrawals on my plan, so that is *not* an option expect for an emergency distribution which requires a qualifying event).
My immediate goals are to pay off the negative checking account balances (I'm currently using a separate checking account that is not overdrawn to receive direct deposit and pay bills), and to establish a basic savings. My BF has also agreed to hold on to $500 in emergency funds that I won't have access to, and hopefully I'll have that ready for him within a month or so.
I am expecting nobody to have suggestions for me, so surprise me if you've read this far!

Hello all,
I received an account opening bonus of more than $10, yet the bank did not issue me a 1099-INT. I went down to the branch and they gave me in writing that this is classified as miscellaneous income, and that they are only under obligation to report amounts over $600 to the IRS. I thought that this was rather odd, as I have received account bonuses before that I'm almost certain I've seen appear on my 1099-INT. Would this income be considered taxable (I take this information for informational purposes only and hold responsibility for filing my own taxes), and should I just report it as I normally would with my other 1099 interest?
This was at a bank branch and I received a printout with the exact wording on the matter that I may need to call customer service to get clarification on, but it seems very odd to me that income reporting in this way (which seems almost like gambling winnings where small amounts generally go unreported and over a certain amount nets you a 1099-MISC). Does anyone have any insight into whether or not what the bank is doing is legal, and what's my best course of action in terms of filing this as income in 2019?

A criminal case is launched against Masis hospital's former director for embezzlement of large sums, after he registered 4 people as employees who never came to work, stole fuel funds, broke laws while making unauthorized purchases worth dozens of millions, stole the money received through property rent http://armtimes.com/hy/article/149439
The NSS and prosecutors have uncovered criminal actions by the former mayor of Aygedzor. He is accused of abuse of power and theft of large quantities of construction materials https://armenpress.am/arm/news/956340.html
While criticizing the previous Armenian leaders, PM Pashinyan says Robert Kocharyan's sons served in the army in Yerevan. One of them was given a job of a driver while the other served in a military building in Yerevan. Kocharyan's son denies, publishes his photo from the frontlines, admits that he received a favorable treatment from the military administration. http://armtimes.com/hy/article/149448 ---- http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/149513
... during a rally in Gegharquniq, Pashinyan criticized the most popular restaurant in Armenia for not printing sales receipts, thus hiding the real income from the government. Pashinyan called for all businesses to pay their dues.
... Says the government is too big and slow, and some workers will be laid off after the administration helps them to find new jobs. http://armtimes.com/hy/article/149459
Ejmiatsin's new mayor says 174,290.6 m² land in Ejmiatsin, illegally obtained by Manvel Tushonka Grigoryan, will be returned to the city https://factor.am/103637.html
The government grants a multi-year tax waiver to Artiki Inc. so it can invest AMD 6bln on a textile factory in Shirak province. 112 jobs with avg AMD 180k salary will be created. The factory will produce AMD 1.6bln products annually, most of which will be consumed domestically, while some will be exported to EEU https://armenpress.am/arm/news/956300.html
...Dunder Mifflin has a new competitor. The government waves the taxes for Edgar Partners paper processing company so it can invest additional AMD 450mln. The company will produce products worth AMD 950mln annually https://armenpress.am/arm/news/956295.html
... Another company will invest AMD 8bln to produce gas canisters in Armenia. 120 jobs with 150k salary to be opened. 50bln annual production, most of which will be exported to EEU and other countries. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/956294.html
... Multi Solar company has received a tax waiver to invest AMD 967mln for a construction of a solar farm, which will employ 97 workers with avg 192k salary in Abovyan city. http://www.panarmenian.net/arm/news/262883/
... AMD 3mln aid to 7 villagers near the border who were unable to collect the harvest due to a recent arson attack by the Azeri soldiers who set the field on fire http://www.panarmenian.net/arm/news/262872/
... First Deputy PM Ararat Mirzoyan says the minimum aid for elderly and disabled will increase my 56% beginning January 1st of 2019. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/956274.html
... the farmers who lost over 50% of the harvest due to hail on 2018 will receive a AMD 487mln aid package https://hetq.am/hy/article/98605
...5 more provinces have received a AMD 187mln aid to repair the infrastructure, parks and various buildings https://armenpress.am/arm/news/956299.html
Health Minister Torosyan says an Iranian medical company and its subsidiary in Armenia have invested in radiation treatment equipment. Armenia will have the lowest prices in the whole region. The company will treat 60 patient for free annually. The Health Ministry will also spend AMD 100mln from the budget to provide a free care for 200 patients annually, made possible by the increase in health expenditure in the 2019 budget http://armtimes.com/hy/article/149462
What do political parties think about taxes?
ARF: Favors progressive brackets (current system) for income tax and also progressive land/property tax. Disagrees that flat taxation can solve income inequality.
QP: Removal of higher tax brackets. Flat 23% tax until 2023, then 20%. Conclusion was made after calculating that the higher brackets encourage the grey economy, which causes more harm then good. The decision was supported by previous PM Karen Karapetyan, who had plans to revert his progressive brackets but was unable to do so due to revolution. QP supports the expansion of Luxury Tax to include more items and payees. Wants to reduce double-taxation. More favorable taxation in provinces to encourage business growth. Small businesses with less than AMD 24mln will be exempt from taxation.
Sasna Tsrer: exempt the tech sector from taxation. Small and medium businesses to get a 2-year tax waiver.
Bright Armenia (some of Yelp Alliance folks): increase taxes on large businesses. Businesses with less than AMD 60mln income in the past 3 years to be exempt from taxation for 3 years. Luxury Tax. Reduction of taxable items. Possibility of excluding entire business fields from taxation.
BHK: 5-year tax waiver for businesses making Menq alliance (other Yelp folks): no taxes from 100 jobs. No import taxes for agricultural, industrial and medical products. Tech sector pays less taxes.
OEK: no taxes from https://www.civilnet.am/news/2018/11/29/Հարկեր․-ինչ-են-առաջարկում-քաղաքական-ուժերը/349478
A HHK member says Serj Sargsyan didn't hold any meeting before his resignation. The party found out about it from the news. Serj apparently later told them he did so to prevent the MPs from trying to convince him to stay http://www.panarmenian.net/arm/news/262895/
The Swedish Parliament hosts a gallery about the Armenian Genocide. Today is the 70th anniversary of UN declaration condemning genocides. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/956312.html
Charles Aznavour's son Nikola Aznavour is learning Armenian so he can spend more time in the country, and possibly move there http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/149514
Georgian elections.
Salome Zurabishvili wins Georgian presidential elections with almost a 20% margin. Her opponent Vashadze, who promised to grant a pardon to Michael Saakashvili, has failed to receive the necessary votes from the 3rd-place candidate's base who was eliminated after the first round of elections. The Armenian leadership has congratulated Zurabishvili.
...Vashadze has rejected the election results, citing alleged violations and state resources being used to support his opponent, and called for peaceful demonstrations. The winning party chief's charity foundation had earlier promised to spend $560mln for 600k voters to pay off their loans, which was seen as a bribery. OSCE says "the elections met the standards, although the media was dis-proportionally in favor of the winning candidate". ISFD monitors have spotted supporters of the winning candidate outside of some of the polling locations with lists in their hands, possibly checking to see if certain individuals were showing up to vote. Vashadze claims these voters were bribed.
... Zurabishvili was viewed more favorably by the ethnic Armenian voters of Georgia, while the Azeri community favored Vashadze. Zurabishvili had earlier met the Armenian voters and complained that Mikael Saakashvili unfairly preferred Azeris over Armenians while issuing citizenship papers to minorities, a move that was criticized by the Saakashvili and Azeris.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-georgia-election/ruling-party-candidate-wins-georgia-presidential-runoff-idUSKCN1NW2O9 --- https://www.rferl.org/a/georgian-presidential-runoff-pits-rivals-two-main-factions-/29625165.html ---- https://eurasianet.org/opposition-challenges-results-in-georgias-presidential-election --- https://www.civilnet.am/news/2018/11/29/Georgian-Presidential-Election-Deemed-%E2%80%98A-Big-Step-Backwards%E2%80%99-Compared-with-2012/349496
All the accused are innocent until proven guilty in the court of law.

This is the sixth version of the NYAN risks document (based on v5 (v4 (v3 , v2 and original)). These are obsoleted periodically as the old ones get archived to allow for comments again via a new post, to re-examine the risks in light of changes, and for greater visibility.
The purpose of these documents is to provide a best-effort discussion of major risk factors in gambling on NYAN, modeled on the risks disclosure in a 10k (annual report) which is mandated for publicly traded companies in the United States. This document is provided with no guarantee that major risk factors have not been missed, and it is important to recognize my (coinaday) personal bias from holding about one-third of the total supply of NYAN.
Please comment on any risks which are not mentioned here or additional aspects of risks here you think should be further emphasized or any other possible disclosure you think would be helpful to a person considering gambling on NYAN.
Executive summary
Nyancoins have no exchange, no core developer at the moment, uncertain demand, have had inconsistent blocks, are very vulnerable to 51% attacks, have the potential for serious bugs, an uncertain legal situation, concentrated ownership, low liquidity, depend upon the Internet, may be addictive, and could make you wealthy, which has been alleged to lead to more problems.
Introduction: This is my best attempt to collect every major risk factor from buying Nyancoins, although I can offer no warranty of fitness for this information for any purposes. I believe in honesty and forthrightness. Having this available and obvious is a simple matter of basic decency. Much, hopefully all, of this information has been discussed previously in /nyancoins, but this document in particular is about being up-to-date and central. This page will be updated clearly as appropriate if situations change on a best-effort basis (which may mean updates do not happen for months at times, unfortunately; please ping for faster updates).
If you believe that I am missing something, please note any other major risks you see in the comments.
Exchanges:
Nyancoins are not currently traded on any exchange. It may be listed on one minor exchange but have no volume there. Obviously an unlisted cryptocurrency is in a bad situation. I hope to see us gain a listing on an exchange which supports low volume coins in 2020 but I have no current prospect of this and it should be considered a longshot at best.
Previously we traded on Trade Satoshi and prior to that on Cryptopia and prior to that on Cryptsy. All three exchanges failed us (Trade Satoshi delisted without allowing withdrawal; Cryptopia delisted and failed to provide withdrawal and then went bankrupt; Cryptsy went bankrupt). This is a further reminder that exchanges are a major risk and one should be extremely careful to not keep more coins on there than one can comfortably afford to lose.
In theory, there are decentralized exchange technologies, notably CATE; however, I think we currently lack some needed APIs for this. I'm not certain but we haven't demonstrated the capability yet. On-Reddit exchanges are also possible with tipbots, but require trust as they are not atomic. It should be possible to build an "exchangebot" similarly, although I'm not currently aware of one, but my concept would still have the bot as a trusted central party.
Atomic cross-chain transactions seem to me like a very promising core technology ultimately for building exchanges which can be more proveably secure. They could also allow exchanges to share a common listing protocol as well without having to trust the other exchanges (at least, beyond the core protocol development and maintenance; tanstaafl). This is not yet accomplished though and in the meantime we remain vulnerable to periodic exchange failures.
Core developer: Although we have good general tech support in this community and have put up supporting infrastructure, there is not anyone officially currently working on core client code. This is a significant problem for the long-term, although we are not in any immediate known need of changes.
ImASharkRawwwr has returned to the community and may do future client updates, but I'm leaving the lack of core developer risk unchanged until there is an update released. This is not intended as a slight in any way but merely being cautious in the risks document and recognizing that we aren't certain when or if there will be a next release.
Demand: NYAN was introduced in 2014 and during the second half of that year had so little demand that it almost died out. In January 2015 I got involved in the coin and for most of 2015 and 2016 I was the majority of the buying pressure. I base these statements on my recollection of the trading history so far and the fact that I have acquired more than 120 million coins, somewhere around 41% of the coins (latest hodling report, June 2017), as well as my observations that I had usually had the leading major bid, and usually the leading bid regardless of size.
In 2017, I have generally not been a major factor in the demand, as I haven’t had money to spare to gamble on NYAN. In June 2017, we have had a spike in buying from an unknown source.
It is unknown whether significant demand for NYAN will continue. Because its value is purely speculative, it is entirely possible that demand for NYAN could simply end. This is a fundamental risk in gambling on NYAN; it is entirely possible that its value will go to zero and not recover.
By the end of 2019, we lost exchange listing. I know of no current demand for NYAN. I hope to see us listed and demand exist in the future but should not be relied upon. NYAN last traded around 9 satoshi according to coinmarketcap but it may well not even trade that high even if relisted someday - there could be a flood of selling and no buyers.
Inconsistent blocks:
Although NYAN is designed to produce a block every minute, there have been times where there has been more than 24 hours between blocks. This results because of an imperfect difficulty function and low base hashing, along with price fluctuations, which can combine to have a low difficulty making the coin attractive for a flood of hashing power which can lead the difficulty function to overcompensate, leaving it stuck with a high difficulty no longer profitable to mine.
I haven’t observed this lately, that is, I don’t recall incidents of this in 2017, but I’ve been paying far less attention to it as well. It is entirely possible for this to recur, as the difficulty function is not fixed (it would require a hard fork to fix it). We seem to have more baseline hashing which helps to avoid this, but it is possible for us to lose that.
A workaround is to use large transaction fees (I've set my client to 337 NYAN) which is enough to cause pools to generally solve a block even if the chain were otherwise stuck. It may be possible to include a better difficulty function in a hard fork client, but it is unknown when if ever this would be done and it's not yet clear what design improvement if any would fix this.
51% attack: Because of the generally quite low hashing power on NYAN, it is highly vulnerable to a 51% attack. Either a leading pool or a new one could choose to do a denial-of-service attack, whether for extortion, lulz, or some other reason (like coinaday being annoying). Such an attack is capable of preventing any transaction processing for as long as it is sustained. I consider this a relatively low risk since I expect we would simply wait it out (and potentially not even notice such an attack for quite a while given the low volume of transactions currently), but it is definitely a potential vulnerability.
Bugs: It is possible that there are bugs in the underlying code. I have never read through all of the bitcoin or nyancoin code, of any version, nor even studied the original bitcoin whitepaper in depth (by the way, we oughta make up a nyancoin whitepaper or ten someday), meaning I have no professional or technical knowledge about whether or not the system is fundamentally sound. I've been going based on "it seems to be working, so it's probably fine", which is, shall we say, more of an engineering than scientific approach.
I have heard reference to a "time warp" bug vulnerability in the KGW difficulty function which Nyancoins has. I do not know details and my understanding is a fix to this would require a fork to change the difficulty function, so I do not anticipate a fix before NYAN3, the term for an eventual hard fork, but it is unknown when if ever this would be done. I consider this vulnerability to be likely to be related to the fundamental weakness to difficulty spikes after large amounts of hashing jumps on the network. Hostile (or simply passing interest with large capacity) hashing does degrade the performance of the network. As a workaround, this class of attack can be mitigated with a transaction to 'unstick' the chain after, since the difficulty function will adjust in the next block after enough wall-time has passed since the last block (so only need one high difficulty solve which can be triggered by a transaction fee).
Legal: Bitcoin faces uncertain legal situations in almost every country. Nyancoin is even more uncertain, as people tend to consider bitcoin and not address impacts on altcoins. Between the potential tax implications and banking regulations and currency laws, there are a wide variety of ways a person could make a felony-level mistake. This can be somewhat mitigated by merely buying and holding, as you won't be responsible for KYC/AML presumably (although an argument could be made in your purchase), and presumably unrealized capital gains wouldn't be taxable (but I am neither a lawyer nor accountant nor any sort of expert on the relevant accounting laws in any country).
Somehow getting legal opinions for Nyancoins in every country would be very useful in my opinion. If Bitcoin and altcoins are well-studied in a given country it should be relatively easy to adapt those opinions and research to Nyancoins, but it would still require some pro bono work in any case. So...hopefully we'll get some lawyer Nekonauts someday who are willing to semi-officially give us an opinion. In the meantime...hope that common sense can save you. If you sell Nyancoins directly, you're going to need to comply with the KYC/AML types of laws of your country. If you're going to do banking operations...may the central bank have mercy on your soul.
I think the best advantage we have is the same bitcoin had for its first years: we're too small for anyone to care. But since we plan to grow significantly, we need to be aware of our legal issues upon scale. Which is to say, whether or not you're allowed to sell 10,000 NYAN to your friend probably has a lot to do with whether your friend legally acquired whatever is being offered in exchange, and whether the value of what you get in return is above a certain level or not. I'm not going to try guessing that level precisely because I know I'll be wrong. $1 is probably fine. $10,000 is probably illegal without some significant licensing. I would suggest either not touching fiat or else deliberately capping it without verification after getting an independent local expert legal opinion.
concentration: The fact that I hold about 41%(? not sure the exact percentage as of Dec 2017 ; need to do updated survey to check; 41% sounds slightly high to me but I'll see...I'll try to update by the end of the year or shortly after) of the currently outstanding NYAN could be a major risk factor, particularly if I do not act in the best long-term interests of the strength of Nyancoins. For instance, I could pull my bids, sell only a small part of my holdings, crash the market, and potentially buy a lot of volume for a lower price. While I cannot foresee any circumstance under which I would do this, it is certainly conceivable that I could be financially, legally, or morally obligated to do so if I were to become insolvent.
Liquidity: There is very little trading activity in NYAN. Therefore, large purchases will drive the price up and large sales will drive the price down. This means that entering and exiting a position is likely to result in "slippage", so even if the price has increased slightly overall since the time before one entered a position to the time before one exits it, it is quite possible that the overall trade will be neutral or negative as a result of the pressure on the market. For an extreme example, my own position would be essentially impossible to exit from the market without crashing the price, and even so it would likely be difficult to find buyers even at a satoshi, based on that I currently am the majority of the bids on the market. This is closely tied to the concentration risk but if I were to exit NYAN for any reason or simply fail to continue to renew bids the liquidity would dry up even further.
At the end of 2019, having no exchange, there is functionally zero liquidity. In theory peer to peer trading could still be done but I’m unaware of any.
Internet outage: if the Internet goes down, we hit a very nasty scenario. We can't process transactions, and all the miners go into a race to make 'useless' blocks on their own. If the Internet were never to come back up, Nyancoins would be dead. If there is a daylong internet outage, the longest blockchain discovered after, presumably representing the most hashing power dedicated to empty blocks during that outage, will win. So I suppose the block rewards in that case are for having the faith in Nyancoins to keep hashing and storing the blockchain during the day without the Internet.
addictive: This was a curiosity to me when I started. Now it's an obsession for me. I'm constantly thinking about how I can help to smooth the path for Nyancoins to grow stronger and better and more valuable. You may find that once you start to realize the impact you can have upon Nyancoins, and that Nyancoins can have upon you, that you start to become addicted as well. It is possible to substitute another addiction in its place, such as dogecoins or pcp, but it is not recommended.
Nyancoin addictions are considered 'mostly harmless'. The exception is if you go 'full coinaday' and start to accumulate more than 10% of your assets in Nyancoins. In this, this is essentially a variety of gambling addiction. I would argue that it beats roulette because you can tilt the odds in your favor, but then, I would argue that, wouldn't I?
mo' nyan mo' problems: Some people have claimed that more money leads to more problems. Since nyan is money, it follows as a consequence of the conjecture. Should this be the case, your increasing nyan could potentially lead to such problems in the future as: enhanced attention from revenue collection services of all kinds (governmental and private), swarms of fake friends and gold-diggers, excessive risk-taking as a result of feelings of invincibility, an increase in certain varieties of targeted marketing, possible disqualification for asset-based welfare for you (or even your children, for instance college financial assistance), an inability to remember how many houses you own, or other serious problems.
Conclusion
The lack of any exchange trading Nyancoins is a major risk factor in its future survival. If it is listed, the lack of development is likely the next most serious. The coin currently survives but whether it will continue to do so in the future is far from certain. If those of us who have found or come back to NYAN choose to keep it alive, I believe it still has a chance at surviving into a stronger future.
This self-certified infallible message has been brought to you as a Public Service Announcement of the NYAN Public Relations Council, a transparent front organization of notoriously lovable philanthropist and major NYAN hodler coinaday.

This is the fifth version of the NYAN risks document (based on v4 (v3 , v2 and original). These are obsoleted periodically as the old ones get archived to allow for comments again via a new post, to re-examine the risks in light of changes, and for greater visibility.
The purpose of these documents is to provide a best-effort discussion of major risk factors in gambling on NYAN, modeled on the risks disclosure in a 10k (annual report) which is mandated for publicly traded companies in the United States. This document is provided with no guarantee that major risk factors have not been missed, and it is important to recognize my (coinaday) personal bias from holding about one-third of the total supply of NYAN.
Please comment on any risks which are not mentioned here or additional aspects of risks here you think should be further emphasized or any other possible disclosure you think would be helpful to a person considering gambling on NYAN.
Executive summary
Nyancoins have no core developer at the moment, uncertain demand, are traded actively on only one exchange, have had inconsistent blocks, are very vulnerable to 51% attacks, have the potential for serious bugs, an uncertain legal situation, concentrated ownership, low liquidity, depend upon the Internet, may be addictive, and could make you wealthy, which has been alleged to lead to more problems.
Introduction: This is my best attempt to collect every major risk factor from buying Nyancoins, although I can offer no warranty of fitness for this information for any purposes. I believe in honesty and forthrightness. Having this available and obvious is a simple matter of basic decency. Much, hopefully all, of this information has been discussed previously in /nyancoins, but this document in particular is about being up-to-date and central. This page will be updated clearly as appropriate if situations change on a best-effort basis (which may mean updates do not happen for months at times, unfortunately; please ping for faster updates).
If you believe that I am missing something, please note any other major risks you see in the comments.
Core developer: Although we have good general tech support in this community and have put up supporting infrastructure, there is not anyone officially currently working on core client code. This is a significant problem for the long-term, although we are not in any immediate known need of changes.
ImASharkRawwwr has returned to the community and may do future client updates, but I'm leaving the lack of core developer risk unchanged until there is an update released. This is not intended as a slight in any way but merely being cautious in the risks document and recognizing that we aren't certain when or if there will be a next release.
Demand: NYAN was introduced in 2014 and during the second half of that year had so little demand that it almost died out. In January 2015 I got involved in the coin and for most of 2015 and 2016 I was the majority of the buying pressure. I base these statements on my recollection of the trading history so far and the fact that I have acquired more than 120 million coins, somewhere around 41% of the coins (latest hodling report, June 2017), as well as my observations that I had usually had the leading major bid, and usually the leading bid regardless of size.
In 2017, I have generally not been a major factor in the demand, as I haven’t had money to spare to gamble on NYAN. In June 2017, we have had a spike in buying from an unknown source.
It is unknown whether significant demand for NYAN will continue. Because its value is purely speculative, it is entirely possible that demand for NYAN could simply end. This is a fundamental risk in gambling on NYAN; it is entirely possible that its value will go to zero and not recover.
Exchanges:
Trade Satoshi is currently the only exchange for Nyancoins with significant volume. If Trade Satoshi were to fail somehow, it is likely that this would have significant consequences for Nyancoins.
Previously we traded on Cryptopia and prior to that on Cryptsy. Both exchanges failed. This is a further reminder that exchanges are a major risk and one should be extremely careful to not keep more coins on there than one can comfortably afford to lose.
In theory, there are decentralized exchange technologies, notably CATE; however, I think we currently lack some needed APIs for this. I'm not certain but we haven't demonstrated the capability yet. On-Reddit exchanges are also possible with tipbots, but require trust as they are not atomic. It should be possible to build an "exchangebot" similarly, although I'm not currently aware of one, but my concept would still have the bot as a trusted central party.
Atomic cross-chain transactions seem to me like a very promising core technology ultimately for building exchanges which can be more proveably secure. They could also allow exchanges to share a common listing protocol as well without having to trust the other exchanges (at least, beyond the core protocol development and maintenance; tanstaafl). This is not yet accomplished though and in the meantime we remain vulnerable to periodic exchange failures.
Inconsistent blocks:
Although NYAN is designed to produce a block every minute, there have been times where there has been more than 24 hours between blocks. This results because of an imperfect difficulty function and low base hashing, along with price fluctuations, which can combine to have a low difficulty making the coin attractive for a flood of hashing power which can lead the difficulty function to overcompensate, leaving it stuck with a high difficulty no longer profitable to mine.
I haven’t observed this lately, that is, I don’t recall incidents of this in 2017, but I’ve been paying far less attention to it as well. It is entirely possible for this to recur, as the difficulty function is not fixed (it would require a hard fork to fix it). We seem to have more baseline hashing which helps to avoid this, but it is possible for us to lose that.
A workaround is to use large transaction fees (I've set my client to 337 NYAN) which is enough to cause pools to generally solve a block even if the chain were otherwise stuck. It may be possible to include a better difficulty function in a hard fork client, but it is unknown when if ever this would be done and it's not yet clear what design improvement if any would fix this.
51% attack: Because of the generally quite low hashing power on NYAN, it is highly vulnerable to a 51% attack. Either a leading pool or a new one could choose to do a denial-of-service attack, whether for extortion, lulz, or some other reason (like coinaday being annoying). Such an attack is capable of preventing any transaction processing for as long as it is sustained. I consider this a relatively low risk since I expect we would simply wait it out (and potentially not even notice such an attack for quite a while given the low volume of transactions currently), but it is definitely a potential vulnerability.
Bugs: It is possible that there are bugs in the underlying code. I have never read through all of the bitcoin or nyancoin code, of any version, nor even studied the original bitcoin whitepaper in depth (by the way, we oughta make up a nyancoin whitepaper or ten someday), meaning I have no professional or technical knowledge about whether or not the system is fundamentally sound. I've been going based on "it seems to be working, so it's probably fine", which is, shall we say, more of an engineering than scientific approach.
I have heard reference to a "time warp" bug vulnerability in the KGW difficulty function which Nyancoins has. I do not know details and my understanding is a fix to this would require a fork to change the difficulty function, so I do not anticipate a fix before NYAN3, the term for an eventual hard fork, but it is unknown when if ever this would be done. I consider this vulnerability to be likely to be related to the fundamental weakness to difficulty spikes after large amounts of hashing jumps on the network. Hostile (or simply passing interest with large capacity) hashing does degrade the performance of the network. As a workaround, this class of attack can be mitigated with a transaction to 'unstick' the chain after, since the difficulty function will adjust in the next block after enough wall-time has passed since the last block (so only need one high difficulty solve which can be triggered by a transaction fee).
Legal: Bitcoin faces uncertain legal situations in almost every country. Nyancoin is even more uncertain, as people tend to consider bitcoin and not address impacts on altcoins. Between the potential tax implications and banking regulations and currency laws, there are a wide variety of ways a person could make a felony-level mistake. This can be somewhat mitigated by merely buying and holding, as you won't be responsible for KYC/AML presumably (although an argument could be made in your purchase), and presumably unrealized capital gains wouldn't be taxable (but I am neither a lawyer nor accountant nor any sort of expert on the relevant accounting laws in any country).
Somehow getting legal opinions for Nyancoins in every country would be very useful in my opinion. If Bitcoin and altcoins are well-studied in a given country it should be relatively easy to adapt those opinions and research to Nyancoins, but it would still require some pro bono work in any case. So...hopefully we'll get some lawyer Nekonauts someday who are willing to semi-officially give us an opinion. In the meantime...hope that common sense can save you. If you sell Nyancoins directly, you're going to need to comply with the KYC/AML types of laws of your country. If you're going to do banking operations...may the central bank have mercy on your soul.
I think the best advantage we have is the same bitcoin had for its first years: we're too small for anyone to care. But since we plan to grow significantly, we need to be aware of our legal issues upon scale. Which is to say, whether or not you're allowed to sell 10,000 NYAN to your friend probably has a lot to do with whether your friend legally acquired whatever is being offered in exchange, and whether the value of what you get in return is above a certain level or not. I'm not going to try guessing that level precisely because I know I'll be wrong. $1 is probably fine. $10,000 is probably illegal without some significant licensing. I would suggest either not touching fiat or else deliberately capping it without verification after getting an independent local expert legal opinion.
concentration: The fact that I hold about 41%(? not sure the exact percentage as of Dec 2017 ; need to do updated survey to check; 41% sounds slightly high to me but I'll see...I'll try to update by the end of the year or shortly after) of the currently outstanding NYAN could be a major risk factor, particularly if I do not act in the best long-term interests of the strength of Nyancoins. For instance, I could pull my bids, sell only a small part of my holdings, crash the market, and potentially buy a lot of volume for a lower price. While I cannot foresee any circumstance under which I would do this, it is certainly conceivable that I could be financially, legally, or morally obligated to do so if I were to become insolvent.
Liquidity: There is very little trading activity in NYAN. Therefore, large purchases will drive the price up and large sales will drive the price down. This means that entering and exiting a position is likely to result in "slippage", so even if the price has increased slightly overall since the time before one entered a position to the time before one exits it, it is quite possible that the overall trade will be neutral or negative as a result of the pressure on the market. For an extreme example, my own position would be essentially impossible to exit from the market without crashing the price, and even so it would likely be difficult to find buyers even at a satoshi, based on that I currently am the majority of the bids on the market. This is closely tied to the concentration risk but if I were to exit NYAN for any reason or simply fail to continue to renew bids the liquidity would dry up even further.
Internet outage: if the Internet goes down, we hit a very nasty scenario. We can't process transactions, and all the miners go into a race to make 'useless' blocks on their own. If the Internet were never to come back up, Nyancoins would be dead. If there is a daylong internet outage, the longest blockchain discovered after, presumably representing the most hashing power dedicated to empty blocks during that outage, will win. So I suppose the block rewards in that case are for having the faith in Nyancoins to keep hashing and storing the blockchain during the day without the Internet.
addictive: This was a curiosity to me when I started. Now it's an obsession for me. I'm constantly thinking about how I can help to smooth the path for Nyancoins to grow stronger and better and more valuable. You may find that once you start to realize the impact you can have upon Nyancoins, and that Nyancoins can have upon you, that you start to become addicted as well. It is possible to substitute another addiction in its place, such as dogecoins or pcp, but it is not recommended.
Nyancoin addictions are considered 'mostly harmless'. The exception is if you go 'full coinaday' and start to accumulate more than 10% of your assets in Nyancoins. In this, this is essentially a variety of gambling addiction. I would argue that it beats roulette because you can tilt the odds in your favor, but then, I would argue that, wouldn't I?
mo' nyan mo' problems: Some people have claimed that more money leads to more problems. Since nyan is money, it follows as a consequence of the conjecture. Should this be the case, your increasing nyan could potentially lead to such problems in the future as: enhanced attention from revenue collection services of all kinds (governmental and private), swarms of fake friends and gold-diggers, excessive risk-taking as a result of feelings of invincibility, an increase in certain varieties of targeted marketing, possible disqualification for asset-based welfare for you (or even your children, for instance college financial assistance), an inability to remember how many houses you own, or other serious problems.
Conclusion
There are a variety of different risks in buying Nyancoins. I believe the most serious one is the developer issue. If those of us who have found or come back to NYAN abandon it, it could die. Otherwise, I consider the risks generally manageable, but exchange failure or a currently unknown bug could do serious damage to the ecosystem as well.
This self-certified infallible message has been brought to you as a Public Service Announcement of the NYAN Public Relations Council, a transparent front organization of notoriously lovable philanthropist and major NYAN hodler coinaday.

This is the fourth version of the NYAN risks document (based on v3 (v2 and original). These are obsoleted periodically as the old ones get archived to allow for comments again via a new post, to re-examine the risks in light of changes, and for greater visibility.
The purpose of these documents is to provide a best-effort discussion of major risk factors in gambling on NYAN, modeled on the risks disclosure in a 10k (annual report) which is mandated for publicly traded companies in the United States. This document is provided with no guarantee that major risk factors have not been missed, and it is important to recognize my (coinaday) personal bias from holding about one-third of the total supply of NYAN.
Please comment on any risks which are not mentioned here or additional aspects of risks here you think should be further emphasized or any other possible disclosure you think would be helpful to a person considering gambling on NYAN.
Executive summary
Nyancoins have no core developer at the moment, uncertain demand, are traded actively on only one exchange, have had inconsistent blocks, are very vulnerable to 51% attacks, have the potential for serious bugs, an uncertain legal situation, concentrated ownership, depend upon the Internet, may be addictive, and could make you wealthy, which has been alleged to lead to more problems.
Introduction: This is my best attempt to collect every major risk factor from buying Nyancoins, although I can offer no warranty of fitness for this information for any purposes. I believe in honesty and forthrightness. Having this available and obvious is a simple matter of basic decency. Much, hopefully all, of this information has been discussed previously in /nyancoins, but this document in particular is about being up-to-date and central. This page will be updated clearly as appropriate if situations change on a best-effort basis (which may mean updates do not happen for months at times, unfortunately; please ping for faster updates).
If you believe that I am missing something, please note any other major risks you see in the comments.
Core developer: Although we have good general tech support in this community and have put up supporting infrastructure, there is not anyone officially currently working on core client code. This is a significant problem for the long-term, although we are not in any immediate known need of changes.
Demand: NYAN was introduced in 2014 and during the second half of that year had so little demand that it almost died out. In January 2015 I got involved in the coin and for most of 2015 and 2016 I was the majority of the buying pressure. I base these statements on my recollection of the trading history so far and the fact that I have acquired more than 120 million coins, somewhere around 41% of the coins (latest hodling report, June 2017), as well as my observations that I had usually had the leading major bid, and usually the leading bid regardless of size.
In 2017, I have generally not been a major factor in the demand, as I haven’t had money to spare to gamble on NYAN. In June 2017, we have had a spike in buying from an unknown source.
It is unknown whether significant demand for NYAN will continue. Because its value is purely speculative, it is entirely possible that demand for NYAN could simply end. This is a fundamental risk in gambling on NYAN; it is entirely possible that its value will go to zero and not recover.
Exchanges:
Cryptopia is currently the only exchange for Nyancoins with significant volume. If Cryptopia were to fail somehow, it is likely that this would have significant consequences for Nyancoins.
However, there are decentralized exchange technologies, notably CATE, which NYAN2 (my term for the current release, otherwise known as v1.3) should be able to support. On-Reddit exchanges are also possible with tipbots, but require trust as they are not atomic. It should be possible to build an "exchangebot" similarly, although I'm not currently aware of one, but my concept would still have the bot as a trusted central party.
Atomic cross-chain transactions seem to me like a very promising core technology ultimately for building exchanges which can be more proveably secure. They could also allow exchanges to share a common listing protocol as well without having to trust the other exchanges (at least, beyond the core protocol development and maintenance; tanstaafl).
Inconsistent blocks:
Although NYAN is designed to produce a block every minute, there have been times where there has been more than 24 hours between blocks. This results because of an imperfect difficulty function and low base hashing, along with price fluctuations, which can combine to have a low difficulty making the coin attractive for a flood of hashing power which can lead the difficulty function to overcompensate, leaving it stuck with a high difficulty no longer profitable to mine.
I haven’t observed this lately, that is, I don’t recall incidents of this in 2017, but I’ve been paying far less attention to it as well. It is entirely possible for this to recur, as the difficulty function is not fixed (it would require a hard fork to fix it). We seem to have more baseline hashing which helps to avoid this, but it is possible for us to lose that.
A workaround is to use large transaction fees (I've set my client to 337 NYAN) which is enough to cause pools to generally solve a block even if the chain were otherwise stuck. A solution should be included in a hard fork client, but it is unknown when if ever this would be done.
51% attack: Because of the generally quite low hashing power on NYAN, it is highly vulnerable to a 51% attack. Either a leading pool or a new one could choose to do a denial-of-service attack, whether for extortion, lulz, or some other reason (like coinaday being annoying). Such an attack is capable of preventing any transaction processing for as long as it is sustained. I consider this a relatively low risk since I expect we would simply wait it out (and potentially not even notice such an attack for quite a while given the low volume of transactions currently), but it is definitely a potential vulnerability.
Bugs: It is possible that there are bugs in the underlying code. I have never read through all of the bitcoin or nyancoin code, of any version, nor even studied the original bitcoin whitepaper in depth (by the way, we oughta make up a nyancoin whitepaper or ten someday), meaning I have no professional or technical knowledge about whether or not the system is fundamentally sound. I've been going based on "it seems to be working, so it's probably fine", which is, shall we say, more of an engineering than scientific approach.
I have heard reference to a "time warp" bug vulnerability in the KGW difficulty function which Nyancoins has. I do not know details and my understanding is a fix to this would require a fork to change the difficulty function, so I do not anticipate a fix before NYAN3, the term for an eventual hard fork, but it is unknown when if ever this would be done. I consider this vulnerability to be likely to be related to the fundamental weakness to difficulty spikes after large amounts of hashing jumps on the network. Hostile (or simply passing interest with large capacity) hashing does degrade the performance of the network. As a workaround, this class of attack can be mitigated with a transaction to 'unstick' the chain after, since the difficulty function will adjust in the next block after enough wall-time has passed since the last block (so only need one high difficulty solve which can be triggered by a transaction fee).
Legal: Bitcoin faces uncertain legal situations in almost every country. Nyancoin is even more uncertain, as people tend to consider bitcoin and not address impacts on altcoins. Between the potential tax implications and banking regulations and currency laws, there are a wide variety of ways a person could make a felony-level mistake. This can be somewhat mitigated by merely buying and holding, as you won't be responsible for KYC/AML presumably (although arguably an argument could be made in your purchase), and presumably unrealized capital gains wouldn't be taxable (but I am neither a lawyer nor accountant nor any sort of expert on the relevant accounting laws in any country).
Somehow getting legal opinions for Nyancoins in every country would be very useful in my opinion. If Bitcoin and altcoins are well-studied in a given country it should be relatively easy to adapt those opinions and research to Nyancoins, but it would still require some pro bono work in any case. So...hopefully we'll get some lawyer Nekonauts someday who are willing to semi-officially give us an opinion. In the meantime...hope that common sense can save you. If you sell Nyancoins directly, you're going to need to comply with the KYC/AML types of laws of your country. If you're going to do banking operations...may the central bank have mercy on your soul.
I think the best advantage we have is the same bitcoin had for its first years: we're too small for anyone to care. But since we plan to grow significantly, we need to be aware of our legal issues upon scale. Which is to say, whether or not you're allowed to sell 10,000 NYAN to your friend probably has a lot to do with whether your friend legally acquired whatever is being offered in exchange, and whether the value of what you get in return is above a certain level or not. I'm not going to try guessing that level precisely because I know I'll be wrong. $1 is probably fine. $10,000 is probably illegal without some significant licensing. I would suggest either not touching fiat or else deliberately capping it without verification after getting an independent local expert legal opinion.
concentration: The fact that I hold about 41%(? not sure the exact percentage as of Dec 2017 ; need to do updated survey to check; 41% sounds slightly high to me but I'll see...I'll try to update by the end of the year or shortly after) of the currently outstanding NYAN could be a major risk factor, particularly if I do not act in the best long-term interests of the strength of Nyancoins. For instance, I could pull my bids, sell only a small part of my holdings, crash the market, and potentially buy a lot of volume for a lower price. While I cannot foresee any circumstance under which I would do this, it is certainly conceivable that I could be financially, legally, or morally obligated to do so if I were to become insolvent.
Internet outage: if the Internet goes down, we hit a very nasty scenario. We can't process transactions, and all the miners go into a race to make 'useless' blocks on their own. If the Internet were never to come back up, Nyancoins would be dead. If there is a daylong internet outage, the longest blockchain discovered after, presumably representing the most hashing power dedicated to empty blocks during that outage, will win. So I suppose the block rewards in that case are for having the faith in Nyancoins to keep hashing and storing the blockchain during the day without the Internet.
addictive: This was a curiosity to me when I started. Now it's an obsession for me. I'm constantly thinking about how I can help to smooth the path for Nyancoins to grow stronger and better and more valuable. You may find that once you start to realize the impact you can have upon Nyancoins, and that Nyancoins can have upon you, that you start to become addicted as well. It is possible to substitute another addiction in its place, such as dogecoins or pcp, but it is not recommended.
Nyancoin addictions are considered 'mostly harmless'. The exception is if you go 'full coinaday' and start to accumulate more than 10% of your assets in Nyancoins. In this, this is essentially a variety of gambling addiction. I would argue that it beats roulette because you can tilt the odds in your favor, but then, I would argue that, wouldn't I?
mo' nyan mo' problems: Some people have claimed that more money leads to more problems. Since nyan is money, it follows as a consequence of the conjecture. Should this be the case, your increasing nyan could potentially lead to such problems in the future as: enhanced attention from revenue collection services of all kinds (governmental and private), swarms of fake friends and gold-diggers, excessive risk-taking as a result of feelings of invincibility, an increase in certain varieties of targeted marketing, possible disqualification for asset-based welfare for you (or even your children, for instance college financial assistance), an inability to remember how many houses you own, or other serious problems.
Conclusion
There are a variety of different risks in buying Nyancoins. I believe the most serious one is the developer issue. If those of us who have found or come back to NYAN abandon it, it could die. Otherwise, I consider the risks generally manageable, but exchange failure or a currently unknown bug could do serious damage to the ecosystem as well.
This self-certified infallible message has been brought to you as a Public Service Announcement of the NYAN Public Relations Council, a transparent front organization of notoriously lovable philanthropist and major NYAN hodler coinaday.

Gambling Winnings and Income Taxes for 2020. Taxable.

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Received no 1099 for a Savings Account opening bonus, bank seems provide evidence that it is not taxable

Anti-Corruption Nov/29/2018: Hospital director charged with embezzlement; another mayor down; pro-Saakashvili candidate loses in Georgia elections; billions of AMD to be invested after tax waivers; (more below)

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