Month: November 2025

Categories
401k and Personal Finance

Regular 401k vs regular IRA

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Last Updated on December 1, 2025 by stlplace

我有个老的 401k plan, 要换 plan administrator (custodian), 我离开这家公司有13.5 年了，至少已经换过一次administrator – 昨天 (11/27/2025) 我干脆把它 roll over to IRA 了。*Update 12-01-2025, the money is already in my IRA account. I think partially because it’s inside the same administrator, the speed of moving is quite fast (one or two business days). I initiated on the Thanksgiving day, and the money arrived on Cyber Monday.

An old 401k account notified me recently they are going to change the plan administrator (again), and this is at least the second time they are making a change, and this time around I decided to roll over to my regular IRA instead of following/sticking with them.

Below is the Google search results comparing rollover to IRA or to new employer’s 401k plan. I copied the AI Overview below.

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Rolling over an old 401(k) to an IRA generally provides more investment choices and potentially lower fees, while rolling it into a new employer’s 401(k) is often simpler and consolidates accounts. The best option depends on your priorities, such as investment control versus administrative convenience, so compare the investment options and fees of both your new 401(k) plan and potential IRAs before deciding.

Roll over to an IRA

  • Pros:
    • Greater investment options: IRAs offer a much wider variety of investments, including stocks, bonds, ETFs, and REITs.
    • Potentially lower fees: You can often find an IRA with lower fees by choosing a low-cost brokerage.
    • Flexibility: You can manage your retirement savings separately from your current job.
  • Cons:
    • Potential for more complex management: Managing separate accounts can be more complicated.
    • Fewer creditor protections: IRA protections against creditors can vary by state and may be less robust than those for 401(k)s.
    • No loan options: You cannot take out a loan from an IRA, unlike a 401(k). 

Roll over to a new employer’s 401(k) 

  • Pros:
    • Simplicity: Consolidating your retirement funds into one account is often the easiest administrative option.
  • Cons:
    • Limited investment options: Your new employer’s plan may have a limited selection of investments.
    • Potentially higher fees: The new plan’s fees may be higher than those of an IRA.
    • Less control: Your new employer has control over the plan, including its features and fees. 

Other options 

  • Leave the money in the old plan: You can keep the money in your former employer’s 401(k) as long as the balance is over a certain threshold (typically $5,000). This is a good option if you are happy with the old plan’s performance and fees. (My comments: this is not an option sometimes. Larger employers usually allow this, but smaller employers usually don’t)
  • Cash out: While technically an option, cashing out your 401(k) is generally not recommended as it will result in immediate taxes and potential penalties, and you will lose tax-advantaged growth. 

How to decide

  • Compare your new 401(k) plan with potential IRAs. Look at the investment options, fees, and performance history of each.
  • Consider your retirement goals. If you want a wide range of investment options and control, an IRA may be better. If you prefer simplicity and easy administration, a new 401(k) might be suitable.
  • Consult a financial advisor. For personalized advice based on your specific financial situation, consult a financial advisor. 

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Again, IRA offers more investment choices (stocks, could be a double edge sword 🗡️), and consolidation of the accounts.

Talking about double edge sword。大概也是2011年到2014年之间，我把两个我做contractor (合同工）时候的小401k都roll over 到我的IRA里去了。当时里面总共大概有三万块钱：结果我炒股，把它变成了一万五还是一万二 :-(。大概到2019年我才回本：考虑通胀和机会成本，实际上还是亏的。所以说这是双刃剑 🙂

IRA 跟 401k 还有两个细微的区别：401k 是可以跟它借钱的，比如买房的时候；另外还有一个55岁时没有early withdrawal penalty 取钱的一种选择 (rule of 55)。IRA 没有这些选择。

Also, refer to my earlier posts on this topic, if you are interested. I changed quite a few employers in last 15 years or so, thus I have this problem.

Last but not least, Thoughts on retirement and retirement accounts

Categories
Life

Thanksgiving 2025 – quick random thoughts

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Last Updated on November 28, 2025 by stlplace

I have many thanksgiving holidays in the USA. Let me count from 1997 to 2025, with the exception of 2019 I spent all the Thanksgiving holidays here in those years.

In 2019 I took a trip to China to see my parents, and my big brother and his family back home: United Airlines STL/PVG roundtrip via ORD, leave on Wed, Nov 27, 2019 and return on Sat, Dec 07, 2019. Back then there were 2 nonstops flights between ORD and PVG daily, those flights were suspended since 2020 pandemic, and hasn’t resumed so far. 2020 pandemic quickly happened (January 2020) and impacted travel, shortly after I returned to the US.

I spent total 28 Thanksgiving holidays here – calculation goes like this:

2025 – 1997 = 28; 28 + 1 (this will make sure we include 1997) – 1 (2019) = 28

Early years 1997 to 1999

In the early years, when I was a graduate student in Rolla (Missouri S&T, 1997 to 1999/2000), I had a host family, the Stoltz family in Rolla, and they had a tradition going to Jefferson City, because their friend and relative Mel Carnahan was the governor of Missouri. And they brought us along 🙂 It was quite eye opening for me, as I was new to the states. I went to there twice, at least, with the Stoltz family. Yes we went to the Governor’s Mansion. A few summers ago, we went to the Jefferson city for a tour, and I can barely remember some of the places there, including the Governor’s Mansion as well as the state capitol.

After Rolla

Black Friday was a thing then, I also attended quite a few friends gathering here in STL, or friendsGiving (Wikipedia) in today’s term.

Re: black Friday, I saw people (friends) bought the newspaper, and looked at the deals in the inlets (ads), some will literrally camped outside the Best Buy or Walmart stores overnight. And in extreme cases, people stamped into each other when the store door opened, and there were casualties. I know it’s crazy but I am trying to just tell it like a journalist would do.

Another year (2005) I actually spent Thanksgiving on the road, I took a flight from STL to the St. Francisco bay area, to spend holiday with my brother and his family. There were only 3 passengers on the plane that has capacity of more than 100. It was probably a McDonell Douglas MD-95 plane rebranded as a Boeing 717 later on. And the airplane was quite cold – both because of lack of passengers inside, as well as the cabin temperature was not set high.

Work

One year I actually worked on Thanksgiving day, I believe it was 2006, when I was single. I don’t have any complaints, because I didn’t have anything better to do then. But let me emphasize, try to do the work only if absolutely necessary, or if you are bored if like I was in Thanksgiving 2006.

Because one year (2017 or 2018 when I was working for MC) I fought with my wife, again you may realized it’s mostly my fault, and for trivial stuff. But one factor I was upset was because I worked for 2 out of 4 days break in that thanksgiving holiday (it was expected at my job then at MC, refer to “非养老公司” section).

Recent years

Turkey trot: I run quite a few Turkey Trot at Olivette, since year 2018 (need to look up my races history and my blog post).

Kids will make dinner today

Just like last year. This year our 11 year old our younger daughter is taking the charge, I believe last year it was our old daughter who was leading. They both cooked American traditional style Thanksgiving dinner 🙂

Categories
advice and tips Life Tips

Protected: Insomnia

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Last Updated on January 8, 2026 by stlplace

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Categories
Fun Music

国粤双语

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Last Updated on November 27, 2025 by stlplace

国粤双语歌曲的例子

我是比较后知后觉的人。但是英文里有一个说法：better late than never. 我大概最早是今年上半年看到的Ayen何璟昕在2022年在中央台三套(CCTV3)表演的《追梦人》《天若有情》。你可以注意到她先是以国语的追梦人开始，中间插一段粤语的天若有情，最后又回到国语的追梦人。

后来发现Ayen在各主流视频平台上有不少国粤双语的歌。于是我最近 created 一个YT Playlist – Ayen何璟昕-国粤双语。An example 另外一个例子: also 人生何处不相逢 + 最真的梦 ｜国粤双语 Acoustic Cover (link is from YT Shorts). A longer version from Ayen via Bilibili is here. 人生何处不相逢原唱是陈慧娴(Bilibili 链接)；最真的梦的原唱是周华健。

国语版和粤语版

Btw, 我是最近才知道不少歌是同时有国语版和粤语版的。A面&B面——国粤双语歌曲三十五首全纪录 – 日记 – 豆瓣.

再比如说“你是明日意义”这首歌是“漂洋过海来看你”的粤语版。这篇博文的密码是tomorrow, btw。Another example is this relatively new song 故事的最终粤语版：Cantonese lyricist is 心之洛 and the singer with acoustic guitar cover is Ayen何璟昕 (both links are YT). The mandarin version is sung by Zhang Bichen, 【新歌首發】張碧晨《在故事的最終》溫情上線（電影【哪吒之魔童鬧海】片尾曲）| CC字幕. I like both versions, but I liked the Cantonese versions’ words and singing slightly more 🙂

Actually, yesterday I noticed Ayen is not the only singer does this 国粤双语, Alan Tam 谭咏麟, one of the most famous singers from HK, sung this one at Hunan TV a few years ago – the original songs 突然想愛你 (mandarin) 留低鎖匙(Cantonese) were both originally sung by Valen Hsu or Xu Ru’yun 許茹芸. She is recently performing in the mainland, btw.

Also 执迷不悔 (Live) sung by the singer Sara Liu Xijun whom I also like quite a bit.

When I realized this, I tend to believe they are not the only 3 singers do 国粤双语. This way of singing probably existed before 2021 and 2022.

Categories
kids

Some kids not that interested in learning to drive nowadays

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Last Updated on November 24, 2025 by stlplace

I learned this from my own kid – our older daughter. She got the permit a few months ago, but she was not that motivated or interested in learning to drive. She is not the only kid in her peer group that are not that interested in learning to drive.

I know 2 boys who are a bit older than our older daughter. They are 19 and 16 respectively. They are not interested in to learn to drive either.

Case 1: another friend whose son is a college freshman at SLU (Saint Louis university), and the boy recently had 19th birthday. But he was not that interested in learning to drive until very recently – my friend (his mom) cannot drive him every day due to health issues. So, they have to resort to Ubers. This is actually something I noticed when I drove for Uber too – at least one rider, a young adult (girl) told me she is not that interested to drive on her own. I recall she mentioned once she had a car accident.

Case 2: the boy is a junior in the high school. I offered to his mom that I would teach him to drive if they are interested. But so far, my phone has not rung yet 🙂

Personally, we are okay with S8 our older daughter not learning to drive now. Because also recently, a new friend (a Ph.D. and also assistance professor at Wash U med school), told me that teen’s brains are not fully developed to handle the stress of driving, that’s one reason there are more accidents when teens drive and sometimes the accidents could be serious. Obviously, I don’t what any of that. In other words, as long as I can drive and have free time, I will continue to shuttle my older daughter around although technically she can start to learn, and age-wise she can receive a full fledge driver license as soon as she is 16 – which is a few months away.

But I would probably more stressed out when she actually hits the road – something similar to the feeling I had when she went to the Cub Creek Science Camp, a sleepaway camp in Rolla, Missouri for a week 🙂 I cannot stop checking emails for 3 days until Wednesday evening she sent us the email.

Categories
Fun kids Life

Random thoughts on the holiday season

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Last Updated on November 23, 2025 by stlplace

One thing I liked about the holiday here is they sell See’s candies in stores. At normal time we can only buy them online or at Kansas City (more below). Macy’s at West County mall has them: the West County mall also has a popup store in the hallway of 1st floor – at the best spot in terms of foot traffic. I remember a few years ago we visited Kansas City during thanksgiving holiday and we stopped by the Nebraska Furniture Mart which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway (so is See’s Candies). I bought a few boxes of See’s candies there including the peanut brittle. We all liked it a lot. Personally I don’t buy much else on holidays – so does my wife. Kids like to buy a bit more than us – which I fully understand and support. The Christmas 🎅 here is equivalent to the lunar new year 🧧 when my wife and I grew up – we always get new clothes and 压岁钱🧧. It seems yesterday when our older daughter was crying (scared by the Santa) at a place like 图三。It was probably only 2 years ago when she asked me: dad, can we stop pretending all these Santa Clauses and elf all these nonsense for our younger daughter S6 (her little sis), because it’s getting harder and harder to make the 4th grader to believe? I said sure 👍. Just on the record, our older daughter S8 figured out herself that we are the real Santa when she was a 2nd grader [捂脸]. I guess my wife and I didn’t try harder enough and S8 is also very smart。

光阴似箭，我查了一下：陈慧娴原唱的港乐经典千千阕歌是我高中毕业去上大学那一年首发的；江珊原唱的梦里水乡是我大学毕业🎓的第二年发行的。今年陈慧娴60岁了- 可以退休了，陈姐，把机会尽量留给年轻人吧 – 当然如果你来北美巡演，说不定我就来给你捧场。江珊到年底就58岁了。我自己有时也在考虑我啥时候退休呢：我现在估计到60岁左右肯定是要退的[捂脸][呲牙]

Categories
Life

Happy Thanksgiving – Minjie’s 2025 thanksgiving letter to family and friends

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Last Updated on February 22, 2026 by stlplace

It’s that time of the year again. The holiday season usually starts with Thanksgiving holiday here in the USA (the 4th Thursday in November, I just did a google search on that btw). And ends in the New Year. Many years ago, to be precise it’s when our older daughter attended the Hope Montessori Academy in Creve Coeur between 2013 and 2014, the directress (the boss) there Susie Shelton-Dodge always liked to say this during holiday season: hug your kids more, because it’s also usually the most stressful time of the year for everyone. This is because of the extra work related to holidays for the grownups: holiday decorations, buying gifts for everybody and so on. And I agree.

I also looked at my blog recently and found I have written a few short ones between 2006 and 2009. I decided to go back to this old habit and also, I am doing this after seeing the great Warren Buffett wrote at least 3 thanksgiving letters in recent years (2025, 2024 and 2023). Btw, I talked a bit more about his letters here. Back to the topic.

Thanking my family

Keep in mind in September 2006, I was very fortunate to meet “my future better half” in Shanghai, and my life has forever changed since then – for better obviously. Anyone wants to know how I met my wife – let me save that for next year’s letter, or you can ask her now 🙂

Hint: I highly recommend the girls from Zhejiang province, especially the girls from Jinhua 金华 (in the middle of Zhejiang Province, more about Jinhua wikipedia, britannica here 🙂 I will talk a bit more my impression on the girls and guys from Jinhua . Yes, guys from that area too – in case you are a girl and are looking for a guy 🙂

My wife

On that note, I want to publicly express my thanks and gratitude to my wife. Similar to Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger used to say from time to time: one wants to marry up in terms of one’s moral standards. I believe they both publicly said their wives have higher moral standards than themselves. And I am 100% sure my wife has much higher moral standards than me too. Or if I could use an example, she is a person who likes to help others but doesn’t want any public attention or acknowledgement. Some of our friends can attest to that. Or in other words she is a very generous person. Reflecting back I think that’s the first quality I noticed back in 2006 and 2007 and decided she is someone I want to 漂洋过海去看她。

More about the song here – note the password is all lower case “tomorrow” 漂洋过海来看你, and I mentioned one of the adventurous trip I had in March 2007, STL to PVG to see my then GF/now my wife.

My parents and extended families

I know I probably put the order a bit backwards in the traditional Chinese terms. Because the traditional Chinese society is family oriented and they go by 辈份，I know I know. I definitely want to thank my extended family for everything I have today: they including my maternal grandma and my paternal grandma, my parents and my brothers, my uncles, aunties, cousins, nieces and all of my wife’s family especially my father-in-law. Sometimes I wish he is my dad, please don’t tell this to my dad 🙂 I was joking. I love my dad a lot too – I remember my dad and I walked on the hot Shanghai streets in summer 1989, on my way from Ningbo to Wuhan for my college HUST. Those are “my dad and I” moments.

And I am both grateful and thankful to my wife’s mom who I never met: she passed away before I met my wife. I think from my wife, I can see how generous a person my mother-in-law was. And also the special bonding moments my two daughters and their grandma may have missed because she passed away so early. But that’s life. We win some and lose some. Sometimes the loss or the pain from the loss seems impossible for us to bear or overcome. While I am not a very religious or spiritual person, I think as long as we remember the loved ones we lost, they are in heaven now without all the suffering on the earth, and they also live in our heart. Now I recall learning about the passing of my wife’s mom is probably one of the first few questions I asked her, during our 1st blind date in September 2006. Please note this is not unusual in first dates, if people are serious. Family demography is a quite common conversation topic. Another thing I noticed is she (my wife) never looked at phone when we talked.

You can see the old picture (1975?) of my paternal grandma, my dad, my bothers and yours truly here. And that article has a 1961 photo for my big uncle (my mom’s big brother) too. I will find a picture of my mom when she is young in my next CHN trip hopefully. Both my parents are alive and in early 80s, but their health is not great now. Btw, if you want to the article that have my family photos, you will find a funny story happened during my 1989 Gao’kao.

My daughters

Last but not my least, my daughters, 也就是我的两个前世情人– I didn’t realize this has some controversy per google and a movie, I can see the downside of using this term. So from now on I will just say my daughters. I talked about my daughters quite a bit here in my blog but I masked their names in quite a few (not all, due to my laziness) places to protect their privacy.

I am exhausted, but I will soldier on

It’s a pleasure to be your cool dad

How to communicate with adolescent or teenagers

Dad daughter moments

Yes they definitely made me a better person as I learn from them everyday. Just like I learn something from my wife everyday.

One of my life’s highlights so far, is not going to Panera Bread, or Starbucks or library and read books there with my daughters, as I imagined before I married and when I was single. They quickly outgrew that. Hanging out with dad is no longer fashionable. But I still enjoy taking them to the Target store, or other crafts or grocery stores, when they are shopping for something in the brick and mortar store. I guess I can still hang out with my wife at least 🙂 Recently I also realized the praises their school teachers put on them are usually genuine, not just 客套话，during the parent teacher conferences. Some of the comments made me very very proud. That’s why I go to those conferences. Another reason is my wife is too either shy or too busy to go. I know my daughters are very sweet, very much down to earth, and quite intelligent and hardworking kids. Again most of those attributes are inherited from their mom. And some are cultivated or shaped by their school teachers over many years.

I know I am a bit blunt from time to time, and I talked too much sometimes, a few other times I looked at my phone too much instead of listening 🙂

Dad Jokes

Sometimes I joked with them. And they would truly be embarrassed if I joked with them before their friends or friends’ parents. And they would warn me: dad, you joked (talked) too much and your jokes are not even funny. I know I know. But that’s the whole purpose of dad jokes: they are not funny and they are intended to embarrass their daughters 🙂

Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

Wikipedia

Recently I received a friendly reminder on this topic from a relatively new friend who is 12 years younger than me, and he is also from Jinhua area. He said: guys and girls sometimes have different perspective, guys may be more logical, girls may be more emotional or intuitive (good intuition 良好的直觉)。I guess this is similar to the book Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex 🙂

Thanking my friends

Both old and new. I will likely miss some friends here. But I hope you won’t mind.

And one friend I only got to meet (or see) once – she is the girl I met in the train from Ningbo to Wuhan when I was in college. I talked about the story here and here and let me quote a bit: 有一次在南昌转车，好像是南昌到北京的车（经过武汉）。不光没位置，而且连站的地方都没有。火车还在株洲还是武昌附近弄了很长时间的临时停车。记得当时一个武大还是华工科英的88级的女生给削了一个苹果，印象很深。在火车上基本上不想吃东西，也不怎么喝水。Yes this girl is from Jinhua.

And another friend who already passed away a while ago 😭: she is a friend in my SHUFE days, technically she is my 师姐，but l later learned she is actually a classmate of my wife’s sister in high school. She paid the $30 application fee for me in 1997 when I came to Rolla (now Missouri S&T).

My old high school 高中 friends who picked me up and greeted/treated me in my June CHN trip. Later we had tea together in Beilun. We haven’t seen each other since 1989, but we 想见如故。For me it felt just like yesterday. We may have more gray hair but we are still the friends 36 years ago. We can argue about things but we won’t get into a fight 🙂

My old middle school 初中 friends I met in Ningbo in this June.

I am glad to meet my HUST friend in Ningbo, who I haven’t seen since 2016.

My old friends I met in Shanghai this June: yes, including my SHUFE friends and the couple who helped connected me with my better half back in 2006. And my old alma mater HUST friends who I haven’t seen since 1993 or 1997 or 2016. I understand I cannot see all my friends in one trip. But I do fondly remember my Beijing trip 20 years ago and I met my old HUST friends. And the HUST friends I met in Shanghai in 2016. I am happy to meet all of you.

My music teachers. I want to live a life with music. There are also couple other reasons too: to be able to play in public and show off, and also to counter or slow down the aging of my brain and hands.

Besides that my two daughters are doing music too: percussion and violin respectively. They are better musicians than me right now. My wife also has more music talent than me too, so far at least – I am trying to catch up though. She is likely the source where my girls got their music gene from.

My friends I only met on social media (WeChat, XHS etc.) but we do talk in good terms. Someday our roads will cross each other and we will see each other in person 🙂

And all my teachers, classmates, colleagues and friends over the years!

Last but not least, want to share a song with you all:

YT 油管:【纯享】叶蒨文深情演绎金曲《祝福》感动全场！Sally姐高音太稳了！《声生不息》 Infinity and Beyond EP1丨MangoTV

国内的朋友，可以看看 – 哔哩哔哩：美女粤语歌手何璟昕，央视现场倾情演绎吉他弹唱《祝福》。

当然你也可以在国内各大平台上找叶倩文在湖南芒果台“声生不息”第一季或她早期的演唱 – 祝福。因为最近开始学粤语，我也很钟意（喜欢）这首歌的歌词（kkbox)。我把歌词贴在下面：

========

作詞：潘偉源 作曲：梁弘志

祝福

徘徊叢林迎著雨 染濕風中的發端
低訴細雨路遙若睏倦 靜靠灣灣小草倚清泉
悠悠流泉隨路轉 偶於山中轉數圈
一片軟軟漸黃落葉 蕩向清溪之中早飄遠
啊～～過去 過去多少次心亂
今天 今天隨著雲煙漸遠
聽聽鳥語 靜望雨絲飄斷 悄悄的風贈我衷心祝福一串

徘徊叢林迎著雨 染濕風中的發端
低訴細雨路遙若睏倦 靜靠灣灣小草倚清泉
悠悠流泉隨路轉 偶於山中轉數圈
一片軟軟漸黃落葉 蕩向清溪之中早飄遠
啊～～送你 送你祝福永不斷
輕輕地飄 尋覓無邊路遠 借那鳥語路上細添溫暖
拜託清風 奉上衷心 祝福千串
啊～～送你 送你祝福永不斷
輕輕地飄 尋覓無邊路遠 借那鳥語路上細添溫暖
叮囑清風 奉上衷心 祝福千串
拜託清風 奉上衷心 祝福千串

========

欣赏到中文（粤语）的美了没？我猜测其他语言包括英文是有可能写出类似的意静的歌词的：但是我现在是肯定写不出来的。英语和总体文学水平都有待提高。

Categories
advice and tips DIY Life Tips

When should we stop doing yard work?

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Last Updated on November 17, 2025 by stlplace

I think it should be now.

Joking 🙂 I was thinking doing it until 60. But the other day, my piano teacher, who is probably 20 years older than me, told me he is still doing yard work. I am 54 btw. My younger daughter’s violin teacher who is 13 years senior than me, does yard work too. So music makes one younger – that’s one motivation factor that I am leaning music now 🙂

This morning (Saturday 2025-11-15) I cleaned up about half of the leaves 🍁 in the backyard. My joke of the day is: 前人种树，后人捡树枝和树叶🍂。

Btw, I do mow my own lawn since August 2019. I guess I will do the yard work until I feel not physically able to do as I age, or I really hate it. Hopefully I can do it for a while, at least. Right now, it’s still not too bad.

Cost associated with trees

Btw, over the years I realized there are potentially two risks involved with trees near the house.

One is the tree could fall, and it could hit the house or people. In fact, this happened to me (my house) twice. Once, a few years ago, in a summer, neighbor’s tree fell on our fence, in the process it broke the electricity wires, and knock off the power. Another time, a branch fell on our roof – for that one, I was sort of expecting it, but I was not proactive enough, to remove the dangling tree branch on the big, sweet gum tree in the backyard. One day, my neighbor emailed me and said you have a tree branch sticking into your roof. I immediately realized what happened. Btw, it’s the same neighbor – the first and the second incidents.

I consider the safety of human beings the top priority. That brings another point or cost associated with tree maintenance – removal of the dead tree. That’s not cheap either, especially when the tree is big. I had experience on this too: a few years ago, I had to call tree company to remove a dead oak tree, that tree is probably almost 60 years old, and was infected with some sort of galls – caused by gall wasps or more specifically Andricus kollari. The bill was about $2,200 (in summer 2022, to put things in perspective).

Categories
advice and tips

Toyota Sienna 2012

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Last Updated on February 10, 2026 by stlplace

I owned it since summer 2013 and wrote my Toyota Sienna quite a bit over the years. I commented it on a YT video too.

我的2012年丰田Sienna：是2013年夏天买的旧车27,000 miles，一直开到现在。昨天开到了150,000 miles。

I debated a bit between Toyota Sienna and Honda Odyssey at the time, decided to go with Sienna because it appears Odyssey may have transmission issues as it ages.

Overall I am quite happy with my purchase.

Main repair costs

The rodents (squirrel): the main reason was I didn’t have a garage between summer 2013 and summer 2019. And I had to park outside: I usually parked at the same place, and on some work from home days, I didn’t move the car. It took me a while to figure out the rodents don’t like the orange smell of the “Bounce” dryer sheet, and I was able to use that to keep them away. I also moved the car around as needed.

The tires: which is not unusual. Because it’s a bit heavy. But proper tire rotation and balance, and wheel alignment will help too. It seems I usually got about 40 k miles from a set of tires.

Reference

YT: 2万美元二手日系8座MINIVAN厢型车——丰田塞纳/本田奥德赛/美国二手车/美国车价/汽车市场/车评/通病/体验。

Categories
401k and Personal Finance Music Stocks

Looking at Visa stock $V

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Last Updated on May 19, 2026 by stlplace

(Update 2026-05-18) It seems I didn’t trade $MA as good as $V. I have small positions for both at this time. It’s not a huge deal but I just want to improve my trading as time goes. I made about $95 from $MA: while I made about a bit over $1,000 from $V after its earning beat (04/29). My lesson here is to be patient. Btw, I just looked at the two stocks 6 month comparison chart, $V is up 5%, while $MA is down 5%

(Original 2025-11-15) It seems I should have hold on to my $AXP American Express stocks in last few years, as I just look at the 3 main credit card companies in the US, note Visa and Mastercard are pure credit card networks, while American Express is essentially two companies: one is a bank, another one is also a credit card network (and it’s much smaller than Visa and Mastercard in that aspect). Here is their 5 year stock price comparison chart.

Warren Buffett Talks Visa and Mastercard (2018)

Peter Lynch

Also, I need to review this at 6 minutes mark more often: Peter Lynch: Why 1% Investors Don’t Fail. The Charlie Rose interview was done in 1993, I believe. Because they talked about Bill Clinton a lot, and some other clues.

I agree with Peter Lynch re: the 2 points that he raised.

ONE – Grass is greener on neighbor’s yard. In a recent blog post, I talked about a mechanical engineer chasing hot dot com or telecom stocks in 1999 here. I am guilty of this too.

TWO – Applicable to me very well: patience, $AXP is a good example of the stocks I owned but I traded it away too quickly. There are many similar examples. In the old days we have to pay transaction fees, and basically, it’s harder to make money with all the fees. Now, even without fees, we miss the upside of a stock if we don’t have patience (or faith, or confidence) on a stock. I agree with Peter this “quick trading” is similar to gambling 🎰. Update 11-14-2025: USA Today – There’s a reason you’re so hooked on soda. It’s not entirely your fault. While I usually don’t buy into the conspiracy theories, I do believe some of the promotional tactics that’s being used in the business (including Coca Cola and Pepsi) went a bit too far. Yeah, Robinhood App is included too.

Reference: Peter Lynch Wikipedia

Sell the winner and keep the losers

Something I realized that I was doing a lot recently. The initial reason or one common reason I don’t sell stocks was my long position is under water. But as I think more, I sold the winner instead – although I usually made a little bit of money. This strategy if amplified, would be really bad if the losers keep losing, e.g., $LULU, $WSC and previously $LEG and so on. I really need to re-examine my strategy here. It’s not about the monetary loss, but more about the opportunity cost as well as over-diworsify. I think ideally, I want to own 10 or fewer stocks and have time do research on them. Otherwise, it’s just like gambling: which I want to stay away from, and which is also the one reason I am trying to use less Robinhood App.

The reason I was talking about or reflecting here is because over the time I realized that #discipline is the key to investing success. And I need more of that.

More on discipline: I think it probably means I should reduce the number of stocks I own at one time, as well as the screen time on the stock trading apps.

(Update 11-12-2025) This tweet caught my attention.

If you put 2% of your portfolio into something and it became a 10 bagger, I’m not impressed. But if you put 20% in and it became a 10 bagger, that’s real skill. The difference isn’t just in return, it’s in conviction. How much you allocate before the outcome is known says far more about your investment acumen than the result ever will.

Warren Buffett’s 2 approaches to diversification:

“Very few people have gotten rich on their seventh best idea, but a lot of people have gotten rich on their best idea…”

Deleting the trading apps on my phone?

I actually did it a few times. Last few days I happened to listen to this song – 烟 (许佳豪) – 删了吧『要不你还是把我删了吧，我咬紧牙关命令我发出这句话。』【動態歌詞】 || 何璟昕 (Ayen) – 刪了吧（粵語版）『終於你決定把我刪了吧，如此不上心竟開始應復都無暇，無心的我道出一聲晚安吧 你滿足嗎。』【動態歌詞MV】

Different topic, but same idea. I recall the pre mobile phone days, the life is much simpler, and we don’t have to deal with deleting someone from our WeChat contacts, or text messages and so on. Similar for stock trading too – we only have access to the computer at the brokerage firm, and a lot of people have to share that computer. Unless you really have a lot of money and you will have access to the VIP room at the brokerage firm.

(Update 2026-05-19) I actually managed to delete YouTube and Think or Swim app from my phone recently.

Strategy shift over the years

(Update 11-13-2015) I believe that’s how Warren Buffett did over the years. For example, he did “cigar butt” style of investing, and eventually switched over to Coca Cola, Gillette and American Express “blue chip” types of companies. The recent example is Apple.

I think I need to similar switches for some of my accounts, e.g. the original Robinhood App account.

Plan of attack: I have 27 shares of $V now, and my initial plan is to hold both meaningful number of shares of $V (30?) and $MA (20?), for longer term. That means I will sell some smaller stock positions.

K shaped stock market

I talked about K shaped economy here. Also refer to CNBC – AI stock boom leaves many behind, economist says: ‘It really widens the wealth and income gap’

It seems to me the stock market is also K shaped, in the sense that big tech and AI/semiconductors companies were doing very well in last few years, while the rest of the market, including the rest of the S&P 500 companies were just doing so-so. Per Google AI Overview “how much stock market gain is due to ai”:

Artificial intelligence (AI)-related stocks have been a highly concentrated force in the recent stock market rally, accounting for approximately 75% of the S&P 500’s total returns since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022. (Source: Fortune; moneycontrol)