In what aspect of life are you best a cheapskate (aka summoning your inner Dave Ramsey thread)?

BearsWiin said:

Our airbnb was right up the little street in that gap between the buildings center right, directly across from the Duomo baptistery

After a little forensic research, I'm almost certain we stayed at the Hotel Villa Elda, just up the hill from St. Catherine's. Was like $120 per night, breakfast was gigantic and amazing, house wines were great, and it had a rooftop terrace with great views. The best part was then when we got there, the receptionist said, "When we saw you were American, we gave you the garden house because it has the best air conditioning." Apparently we?'re notoriously bitchy people, so we've got that going for us. Anyway, this room was its own building right on the ground floor garden, so we had a ton of privacy and space. Huge bang/$.

1to392831weretaken said:

Palio is like the running of the bulls only in Siena, and it's a horse race. One of those things that only happens in one place. Apparently Siena is a competitive place, and the 17 city districts used to settle who was tuffest once per year with a brawl in town square. Then it was bullfights. When bullfighting was outlawed, it turned to horse races. First modern Palio was in 1633, and they've been doing it twice per year (sometimes three on special occasions) ever since.

If you ever go to Siena, you want to be there during Palio, as every district has its own colors and banner, and EVERYONE is flying their colors. The streets toward the city center are all narrow, and it's awesome walking through the sea of colors:



Through some preliminary competitions that I'm not sure about, the 17 competing districts are whittled down to 10 that will compete in the race. Piazza del Campo, the central town square, is cleared out, covered in a thick layer of dirt, and mattresses and whatnot are put up around the outside to protect jockeys who fly off their horses (happens all the time, apparently). The race is bareback, three laps around the square, lasts about 90 seconds, and the jockey (being your district's jockey is a huge honor) who wins has to fight his way through an army of vagina for the rest of his life. It's tough.

Anyway, with the horses running around the outside of the square, the crowd actually packs into the middle. Or pays BIG dollars to sit in the balcony of one of the pubs or restaurants or whatnot around the square:



Upper right corner of that picture, there are three connected buildings. The one in the middle is a bit darker than the other two. In the lower two floors of that building is a pub. The very first thing we did when we got off the train (Rick Steves can suck my dong for recommending the trains, btw...) was walk all the way through town to that pub, sit on that balcony there with a Guinness, watch a whole bunch of construction activity, and wonder what the hell was going on and why there were banners hanging everywhere. We would have needed a to take out a second mortgage to sit in those same seats three days later.

I know the pub. We sat there and drank as well. We missed the Palio I think by a day. The winning district was still parading around town, but I think they do that for a week or so.

Sources said:

creepycoug said:

The main indulgence, however, was college for three kids. We paid for them to go where they got in and wanted to go and didn't insist on an in-state ROI discussions and all that. One kid got into UW honors college and wound up going to the most expensive school of her choices. That has entailed sacrifice. In one case, did it benefit the kid really? No, I don't think so. In another, it was clearly a good investment. And I think in this last one, it will prove to have been, but that story isn't entirely yet written.

I have drawn the line. The oldest came out talking about law school, and I figured she'd profile for one of the NW privates or public OOS, and I don't think her toolkit sets her up to be good lawyer. I told her that while both her sisters were in private college that there wasn't an extra $40k / yr. in the budget for her, so she'd have to borrow, and that I thought it was a risk for her at that time in her life. She needed to live a little off the family tit. She'd be ready for it now, but I think that moment has passed.

The second got into fully funded PhD programs in math and decided beyond the last minute she wanted a masters and will "think about a PhD". Masters are typically not funded. She miraculously found one that is close to fully funded, and we're helping with rent but I made her borrow a small amount for the balance. She's one who gets these opportunities people dream about and tends to take them for granted, so I thought she needed some skin in the game going forward.

The last one wants to get her PhD and be a practicing clinician. We shall see where that goes. Talking about a PhD is fun. Getting one is another matter.

Friendly reminder to your daughter that quants make at least 10x more than teachers.

She actually wants to go to industry ... the question is whether it will help her to have the PhD or if it's overkill. She has a nice internship in Cambridge this summer, which will be her first real work experience outside of academic research. If I had to guess, she'll move on to the PhD. IDC because those are paid by the school.

Sources said:

creepycoug said:

Sources said:

creepycoug said:

The main indulgence, however, was college for three kids. We paid for them to go where they got in and wanted to go and didn't insist on an in-state ROI discussions and all that. One kid got into UW honors college and wound up going to the most expensive school of her choices. That has entailed sacrifice. In one case, did it benefit the kid really? No, I don't think so. In another, it was clearly a good investment. And I think in this last one, it will prove to have been, but that story isn't entirely yet written.

I have drawn the line. The oldest came out talking about law school, and I figured she'd profile for one of the NW privates or public OOS, and I don't think her toolkit sets her up to be good lawyer. I told her that while both her sisters were in private college that there wasn't an extra $40k / yr. in the budget for her, so she'd have to borrow, and that I thought it was a risk for her at that time in her life. She needed to live a little off the family tit. She'd be ready for it now, but I think that moment has passed.

The second got into fully funded PhD programs in math and decided beyond the last minute she wanted a masters and will "think about a PhD". Masters are typically not funded. She miraculously found one that is close to fully funded, and we're helping with rent but I made her borrow a small amount for the balance. She's one who gets these opportunities people dream about and tends to take them for granted, so I thought she needed some skin in the game going forward.

The last one wants to get her PhD and be a practicing clinician. We shall see where that goes. Talking about a PhD is fun. Getting one is another matter.

Friendly reminder to your daughter that quants make at least 10x more than teachers.

She actually wants to go to industry ... the question is whether it will help her to have the PhD or if it's overkill. She has a nice internship in Cambridge this summer, which will be her first real work experience outside of academic research. If I had to guess, she'll move on to the PhD. IDC because those are paid by the school.

Interesting. What do math students (sans PhD) do these days besides teach? Big data/ information systems?

Not sure if it's still the case, but there used to be huge money in compression algorithms. My former process control engineer recently retired. Before that, he once told me about his older brother. This guy is top-three smartest people I've ever known, and he said he feels like a simpleton next to his brother. Said he's an eccentric mathematician type. Worked for a company that developed a video compression algorithm (I'm guessing h.265). The part that piqued my interest the most was when he said, "Yeah, if he ever fell off his wallet, he'd probably hurt himself."