Why are you paying per year? You can get lifetime adguard licenses for cheap from stack social.

I will give infuse a go and see how it is

One minor correction, interest rates have been raised to fight inflation. Concerns of a recession came because when you raise rates people spend less and the economy slows. But, Americans being Americans, they haven’t really slowed down their spending so recession concerns haven’t been a huge issue.

Discord is the best place for help for actual budget, it is very active

Or better yet, why the hell do people keep buying their cars?

That lightning lariat you have selected probably doesn’t have the long range battery. You need the long range package to make it comparable to the gas F150 lariat feature wise, at least in the US. Who the hell wants an electric truck with only 200 mile range anyway?

I think people overstate maintenance on an ICE vehicle. My last car I sold at 120k miles and only ever did brake pads twice and oil changes every 7500 miles for about $25 a change. I probably should have changed spark plugs around 80k and done the transmission fluid but I didn’t. Those things are also really cheap to do.

When it comes to unplanned maintenance I agree it can get costly but that’s much more rare and will only affect some people and probably shouldn’t be factored in. Unplanned maintenance on an electric vehicle is also very costly. Probably negligible when compare the both types across the board.

Like I said, I’m all for electric and I will own one someday but for many it just doesn’t make sense because the insane markup or manufacturing costs, whatever it may be.

Unfortunately people don’t want small vehicles and are willing to pay huge markups on their SUV’s/trucks so prices and size aren’t coming down anytime soon.

I ended up with a Toyota tundra for 62k that had more features than the 86k lightning lariat I was looking at. I’m guessing your gas truck was much more decked out for only a 10k difference because and even equipped gas F150 I looked at was only about 3k more than my platinum tundra.

But how much more does a lightning cost vs a gas truck? I bought a truck last year and badly wanted the lightning but it would have taken roughly 140000 miles before I broke even and the electric was saving me money. That was also using $5 a gallon for gas as a comparison which I only ever paid to at much for once. I’m all for electric and if you have the money and want one go for it but financially speaking it doesn’t make much sense right now unless you want a bolt or a leaf which are actually comparable in cost to a gas car. Everything else is so widely overpriced.

Reolink is a Chinese company with probably the same policy as Anker. I have a Reolink camera but it is blocked from accessing the internet and records locally. I would never recommend them for a system set up like you want, only if you are going to manage your own recordings. Amcrest also makes better cameras in my opinion if you want random Chinese stuff.

Cameras and privacy don’t really go hand in hand. The only commercial product/service I trust is HomeKit secure video. It is all end to end encrypted and you can hook the available cameras directly up to it. But it comes as a cost of about $10 a month and pricey cameras with only motion recording.

The ultimate setup is something like surveillance station or blue iris. Cameras are cheap because you can use the random Chinese stuff, you just block them from accessing the internet to phone home. But this leaves you only being able to access your cameras/recordings when you are on your LAN so you have to setup a VPN to view them while you’re away.

I always wanted one of these back in the day. I never did get one but I have a Miata now instead.

I agree. I only need a screen that is capable of CarPlay and lots of physical buttons, which Mazda has. Then I want the rest of the car to be a blast to drive, which Mazda is known for and definitely delivers on. I’m a Mazda fanboy and will keep buying them unless they decide to move away from the driver experience.

Mazda has the best system for infotainment systems. I own 2 Mazdas and a Toyota. Every time I get in the Toyota I hate that I have to touch the screen for everything.

And don’t forget in those industries you see a lot of workers who may not be legal so they have to put up with the companies bullshit. It’s not like they can get the law involved even if they wanted to. Companies know this and abuse their workforce heavily because of it.

Yup, HomeKit can 100% work without internet. It’s a requirement of being HomeKit certified. I block internet access to all my HomeKit devices and they work just fine.