__________ is/are overrated.

[snowc]

Long drive thru lines. 

[Max Rockatansky]

Easily bypassed in my circumstances by going into the restaurant.  Especially effective at getting your food faster at In-n-Out Burger.

[kphoger]

Home ownership is overrated. The expenses of repairs, maintenance, insurance, taxes, etc., can be burdensome. If the water heater goes out, you don't have to replace it. Your landlord does.

But you don't gain wealth if rent. The amount of equity I've earned on my house over the last five years could buy me a whole shit ton of water heaters.

You also don't have to beg your landlord to replace the water heater, and you don't have to worry about your rent going up as a result of replacing the water heater.  Oh, and the new water heater will make your house worth slightly more.

You also have to deal with it yourself if there's any problem with any work done on your house.  If you rent, then that's between your landlord and whoever is responsible for the issue.  Like the time our front porch decorative pillar was damaged by a roofer who decided to save time and just climb it monkey-style instead of getting the ladder (and not realizing that I understand Spanish and heard through the window the conversation between him and his boss).  Or the time the water heater hose that was installed just a year or two earlier was deteriorating and needed to be replaced with a hard line.  Or the time our landlords had to figure out who was paying for a replacement property line fence.  Or the time they had to hash it out with the city about tearing up our back yard.  Etc, etc, etc.

We rent, always have.  We've had the water heater replaced.  Just gave the landlords a call, and they sent out their handyman to check it out.  We didn't have to find a plumber, we didn't have to find a water heater.  Just had to be home when he showed up.  Homeownership is overrated.

[kphoger]

Long drive thru lines.

Easily bypassed in my circumstances by going into the restaurant.

Agreed on both counts.  The drive-through is overrated.  Just park and go inside.

[oscar]

Funerals are overrated. I know that they are more for the survivors than the deceased, but my preference would be to just be put in the ground ASAP and let people get on with their lives without feeling a need to come to the visitation or the funeral service. When my dad died, I didn't really even want a service of any kind. I just wanted to turn his remains over to the funeral home and let them bury him. But my brother wanted to do something because my dad had siblings and that generation expects some kind of memorial service. So we just had a simple graveside service.

My family is all over the map on funerals/cremation. My branch is pro-cremation. Others insist on funerals and burials soon after death. For such a widely scattered family, it's hard to gather family members from both coasts, on short notice, at a funeral in a hard-to-reach Midwestern location (especially in mid-winter). My mother's cremation, followed by a memorial service several weeks later, let me and one of my sisters return to our east coast homes right away, then fly back to the west coast for the memorial service.

Long drive thru lines.

Easily bypassed in my circumstances by going into the restaurant.

Not so easy, if the restaurant is like Carl's Jr./Hardee's, giving such strong priority to drive-thru customers that going inside usually means a much longer wait than in the drive-thru line (but the drive-thru lines can still be long). 

[J N Winkler]

I heard that there was some flak when it was added to Kellogg on the east side of Wichita.

https://goo.gl/maps/MNQA4BWqiK3Cgp8c9

https://goo.gl/maps/hk2dAnhD57n1Cwpj6

The "Journey is the Reward" reliefs did attract some media attention and comment when the Oliver interchange opened, but the big controversy with Kellogg artwork actually occurred with the downtown flyover, for which limestone blade-of-wheat statues were originally proposed that many likened to twin artichokes.  The city ultimately picked a landform sculpture:

Main Street gateway

I'm definitely on board with being cremated.  There's just so much cool stuff they can do with the remains these days, like getting a tattoo with the remains in the ink.

I think it was in 2017 that cremation overtook burial as the most popular form of disposition of a body after death in the US.  A large part of the reason is that it is significantly cheaper.

Funerals are overrated. I know that they are more for the survivors than the deceased, but my preference would be to just be put in the ground ASAP and let people get on with their lives without feeling a need to come to the visitation or the funeral service. When my dad died, I didn't really even want a service of any kind. I just wanted to turn his remains over to the funeral home and let them bury him. But my brother wanted to do something because my dad had siblings and that generation expects some kind of memorial service. So we just had a simple graveside service.

I have known people who chose not to have funerals, memorial services, cemetery burials or inurnments, or obituaries published for their dead.  It is the last-listed that does not sit well with me--it creates a stumbling block for genealogists, especially in states where death records are closed to public access.

In the mid-2010's, there was a fashion for photo exhibits, slideshows, and even artifact displays at funerals.  Those seem to have become less popular--the last funeral I attended in person did not have them--and, frankly, I think that is a good thing, because organizing such things places far too much pressure on the survivors immediately following a death.

Home ownership is overrated. The expenses of repairs, maintenance, insurance, taxes, etc., can be burdensome. If the water heater goes out, you don't have to replace it. Your landlord does.

To my mind, the biggest advantage of homeownership is guaranteed tenure in one's dwelling.  The listed expenses can be equally or more burdensome when rolled into a rent payment, and there is the risk of having to move on short notice if the lease isn't renewed or antisocial neighbors move into a different part of the same property.  Landlords can also be adept at evading their responsibilities, especially when dealing with low-income renters.

[kphoger]

We live in rented house, not an apartment.  Our landlords are fantastic, and we never have to worry that they won't have something fixed appropriately.  They've refused to raise our rent the whole 12 years we've lived in the house.  Several years ago, they began to get out of the rental house business and moved to Utah, but they refuse to sell their last two houses (ours included) as long as the current tenants (us) are still living there.  They've specifically told us that our rent check pays the mortgage on their house in Utah, so they have no real financial motivation to sell our from under us anyway.

[snowc]

We live in rented house, not an apartment.  Our landlords are fantastic, and we never have to worry that they won't have something fixed appropriately.  They've refused to raise our rent the whole 12 years we've lived in the house.  Several years ago, they began to get out of the rental house business and moved to Utah, but they refuse to sell their last two houses (ours included) as long as the current tenants (us) are still living there.  They've specifically told us that our rent check pays the mortgage on their house in Utah, so they have no real financial motivation to sell our from under us anyway.

Same here, renting for 23 years. Our landlord changed twice in 2018. Went up from $425 to $800! Now its up to $900!
The last landlord we were renting under was from South Dakota! 

[JayhawkCO]

I would love my mortgage to be $900. 

[Max Rockatansky]

I would love my mortgage to be $900. 

$1,100 for us, split between me and my wife.  That $1,100 I was paying in rent the first year I moved back to California was a kick in the junk every month.

[snowc]

I would love my mortgage to be $900. 

As Alps would say

you don't understand because you aren't in his shoes of his neighborhood

Beggars can't be choosers. Landlords are landlords. They can charge the amount they want, such as a house next door to us is now up for rent (poss. for sale). It is $1600 a month.

[JayhawkCO]

It is $1600 a month.

Shoot, I'd love my mortgage to be $1600 a month.

[abefroman329]

Home ownership is overrated. The expenses of repairs, maintenance, insurance, taxes, etc., can be burdensome. If the water heater goes out, you don't have to replace it. Your landlord does.

But you don't gain wealth if rent. The amount of equity I've earned on my house over the last five years could buy me a whole shit ton of water heaters.

You also don't have to beg your landlord to replace the water heater, and you don't have to worry about your rent going up as a result of replacing the water heater.  Oh, and the new water heater will make your house worth slightly more.

You also have to deal with it yourself if there's any problem with any work done on your house.  If you rent, then that's between your landlord and whoever is responsible for the issue.  Like the time our front porch decorative pillar was damaged by a roofer who decided to save time and just climb it monkey-style instead of getting the ladder (and not realizing that I understand Spanish and heard through the window the conversation between him and his boss).  Or the time the water heater hose that was installed just a year or two earlier was deteriorating and needed to be replaced with a hard line.  Or the time our landlords had to figure out who was paying for a replacement property line fence.  Or the time they had to hash it out with the city about tearing up our back yard.  Etc, etc, etc.

We rent, always have.  We've had the water heater replaced.  Just gave the landlords a call, and they sent out their handyman to check it out.  We didn't have to find a plumber, we didn't have to find a water heater.  Just had to be home when he showed up.  Homeownership is overrated.

With the exception of literally one landlord, that has not been my experience with renting.  It has always been like pulling teeth to get things fixed, and on two separate occasions, I've had landlords refuse to renew the lease because the people I was living with at the time and I complained about various things not working properly one too many times.

Oh, and recently, we had some repairs done as a result of a roof leak, and the guy who came out to remove the dehumidifiers and fans damaged our staircase wall while bringing them out.  Getting the company to come out and fix it required one phone call and texting some photos of the damage.

[7/8]

As Alps would say

you don't understand because you aren't in his shoes of his neighborhood

Thank you for bringing back one of my favourite forum quotes.

[snowc]

As Alps would say

you don't understand because you aren't in his shoes of his neighborhood

Thank you for bringing back one of my favourite forum quotes.

Your welcome!

[Scott5114]

I own a house simply because at some point I want the payments to end. I don't want to keep throwing money down the hole until the day I die.

That, and when you buy, you're more or less locked in at that price for the long term. My mortgage payment is $1033, while the recent spike in housing prices has the rent for a house this size in this neighborhood in the $1200-$1300 range. And it is the nature of rents to usually keep going up, not down.

[kphoger]

With the exception of literally one landlord, that has not been my experience with renting.  It has always been like pulling teeth to get things fixed, and on two separate occasions, I've had landlords refuse to renew the lease because the people I was living with at the time and I complained about various things not working properly one too many times.

I suppose now would be a good time to mention that the reason we moved into this house is that our former landlord was terrible and actually went bankrupt.  At that house, the oven (came with the house) had its heating element go out, and he stopped returning our calls requesting a new oven.  We even went so far as to submit our request in writing via certified mail so that, when he still didn't respond, we could legally stop paying rent due to negligence on his part–which we also notified him of via certified mail.  Shortly thereafter, the neighbor across the street told us while chatting in the street that our landlord had filed for bankruptcy.  So we started looking for a new house.  By the time the bank called me, telling me to start sending our rent checks to them instead, I was able to confidently tell them that we were no longer paying rent at all anyway (that took the bank agent by surprise!).  He was already a farmer and a handyman, and he had taken on renting out houses in the city to make some additional income.  I get the impression that he had stretched himself too thin, and caring about the houses he was renting would only cost him more money than he had in the bank.

It was hard to find a landlord that (a) was OK with my wife operating a home daycare out of the house and (b) didn't require references ahead of time.  Heck, that's why we were in that house to begin with:  the landlord had said "I don't care what you do in the house, so long as you pay your rent on time".  (We're pretty sure it had a been a crack house when the former tenant lived there, and the landlord later told us she had never paid a single month's rent at all.  And we cleaned up the insanely terrible mess inside in lieu of our first month's rent.)

But then we found our current house.  The landlords are very family-oriented Mormons, and they're perfectly fine with the whole home daycare thing.  When we saw the house that first time, we all sat on the empty living room floor chatting for like two hours.  They treat us right.

[Rothman]

Funerals are overrated. I know that they are more for the survivors than the deceased, but my preference would be to just be put in the ground ASAP and let people get on with their lives without feeling a need to come to the visitation or the funeral service. When my dad died, I didn't really even want a service of any kind. I just wanted to turn his remains over to the funeral home and let them bury him. But my brother wanted to do something because my dad had siblings and that generation expects some kind of memorial service. So we just had a simple graveside service.

Home ownership is overrated. The expenses of repairs, maintenance, insurance, taxes, etc., can be burdensome. If the water heater goes out, you don't have to replace it. Your landlord does.

Oh, the stories my mother has from Appalachian funerals.  Food everywhere, people sitting around for hours and hours...

My grandfather used to just grumble, "We have to go over there and sit with that body."

It'd be easier to list the cultures that DON'T have funerals that include food everywhere and people sitting around for hours.

In a house?  With the corpse?

24/7 for longer than you'd think?

[Rothman]

With the exception of literally one landlord, that has not been my experience with renting.  It has always been like pulling teeth to get things fixed, and on two separate occasions, I've had landlords refuse to renew the lease because the people I was living with at the time and I complained about various things not working properly one too many times.

I suppose now would be a good time to mention that the reason we moved into this house is that our former landlord was terrible and actually went bankrupt.  At that house, the oven (came with the house) had its heating element go out, and he stopped returning our calls requesting a new oven.  We even went so far as to submit our request in writing via certified mail so that, when he still didn't respond, we could legally stop paying rent due to negligence on his part–which we also notified him of via certified mail.  Shortly thereafter, the neighbor across the street told us while chatting in the street that our landlord had filed for bankruptcy.  So we started looking for a new house.  By the time the bank called me, telling me to start sending our rent checks to them instead, I was able to confidently tell them that we were no longer paying rent at all anyway (that took the bank agent by surprise!).  He was already a farmer and a handyman, and he had taken on renting out houses in the city to make some additional income.  I get the impression that he had stretched himself too thin, and caring about the houses he was renting would only cost him more money than he had in the bank.

It was hard to find a landlord that (a) was OK with my wife operating a home daycare out of the house and (b) didn't require references ahead of time.  Heck, that's why we were in that house to begin with:  the landlord had said "I don't care what you do in the house, so long as you pay your rent on time".  (We're pretty sure it had a been a crack house when the former tenant lived there, and the landlord later told us she had never paid a single month's rent at all.  And we cleaned up the insanely terrible mess inside in lieu of our first month's rent.)

But then we found our current house.  The landlords are very family-oriented Mormons, and they're perfectly fine with the whole home daycare thing.  When we saw the house that first time, we all sat on the empty living room floor chatting for like two hours.  They treat us right.

Makes me wonder about liability and zoning in that situation.

[kphoger]

Makes me wonder about liability and zoning in that situation.

1.  Zoning?  Home daycares are, by very definition, operated in residential areas.

2.  The daycare is licensed with the state.  No issues with that.

3.  Liability wouldn't be our issue, would it?  It would be the landlords'.

[kphoger]

I own a house simply because at some point I want the payments to end. I don't want to keep throwing money down the hole until the day I die.

And see, if we could just manage to not have any major car repairs for a couple of years in a row, we could probably pay off the last of my wife's student loan debt–and have zero debt.  We would then have no car payment, no house payment, no nothing.  I wouldn't want to then have take out a huge home loan and live under that.

But that's just us, I guess.

[Rothman]

Makes me wonder about liability and zoning in that situation.

1.  Zoning?  Home daycares are, by very definition, operated in residential areas.

2.  The daycare is licensed with the state.  No issues with that.

3.  Liability wouldn't be our issue, would it?  It would be the landlords'.

1) You'd be surprised how finely tuned zoning regs can be when it comes to residential zoning and commercial restrictions.  I used to be on a Zoning Board of Appeals.

2) Ok.

3) What is the landlord's problem eventually becomes the tenant's problem.

[JoePCool14]

I'm definitely on board with being cremated.  There's just so much cool stuff they can do with the remains these days, like getting a tattoo with the remains in the ink.

That sounds like an awful idea. I would never want that. 

[abefroman329]

I'm definitely on board with being cremated.  There's just so much cool stuff they can do with the remains these days, like getting a tattoo with the remains in the ink.

That sounds like an awful idea. I would never want that. 

OK, but what about the other 39 ideas on this list?

https://www.joincake.com/blog/what-to-do-with-cremation-ashes/

[abefroman329]

Anyway, the one reason I don't want to be buried is the fact that cemeteries are a tremendous space of land.  And apparently my mom's mom didn't want to be interred in a mausoleum because she thought it would be like spending eternity in a filing cabinet, and I can't argue with that.