u/grahsam

I mean this post in good faith and I hope people take a moment to read it.

While it is sad that our parents didn't teach us much about personal finance, and most of the tools we have today didn't exist for them, that doesn't mean we should have remained ignorant this whole time.

401Ks are free money if your company has any kind of match. If you are a private contractor I don't know how exactly that works. If you don't have a 401k you should start an IRA that you can write off contributions to. This is LONG TERM planning so even if you can only put $50 a month into it, that will grow over the course of 20-30 years.

After that, if you have any play money, open a brokerage account with anyone that offers stock services. Either start putting money into a target date mutual fund, or a broad market ETF that covers everything. Again, if you can only put $50 in there a month that is better than nothing. If you have a 401k you can still start a IRA that you can't write off, and you avoid taxes on earnings\dividends\interest as long as you don't take anything out of it before retirement.

I'm not a financial wiz and I came from a pretty broke ass family. The internet can teach you this stuff. Or look at old school Personal Finance for Dummies books.

Remember Gen X, no one is going to save us. We have to figure this shit out on our own. It is NEVER too late to start learning and saving. Better late than never.

My first computer game was Wizardry on an Apple IIc. I didn't understand it too well since I was like 10, but when I got my hands on Ultima IV was hooked.

For the better part of 40 years PC Gaming was my thing. I never thought of myself as a "gamer" as people think of it now, mostly because it wasn't cool then, but next to playing bass it was the thing I spent the most time doing.

For the last 5-6 years I've been having a lot of trouble finding new games to play and that I enjoy. I feel like they have become too complicated, too console twitch\button mashing oriented, and too involved. It's natural for games to evolve to keep up with the demands of newer audiences who want more intense experiences, but I feel like I have been left behind.

Time is an issue. I don't have hours to put into playing a game any more. I get maybe an hour to myself on a weekday night. On weekends 2-3 hours a day. Games are so deep and full of mechanics that its easy to forget what what I was doing, or what build I was working on, or why I stopped at that decision tree.

Then some games just are too much. I'm all about RPGs. I LOVED the SSI gold box games, and the Ultima series, Might and Magic, and The Elder Scrolls. I tried playing Baldur's Gate 3 and I hated it. It was more dating sim and trying to manage your stupid party of needy babies than killing monsters for phat lootz. There were so many things to miss, and the game is so ridiculously long, that i can't see how people replay it.

I miss gaming. I miss the immersion. I miss the feeling of accomplishment. And, of course, I miss that connection to my lost youth. The world has turned the page on this old man...

EDIT: Another pet peeve is multiplayer. Whether its grouping or PVP, I don't want it. Gaming is my time to get away from people. I don't like having tons of cool content unavailable to me because I don't want to group or raid, and I don't want a campaign that is just a tutorial for a PVP experience.