Mustachian People Problems (just for fun)

[NorthernIkigai]

I suggest pointedly working from home as much as possible as a way of protesting this stupid rule, for the benefit of his remaining co-workers. (Yeah, I know it won’t move the needle at all, but it would make me feel a tiny bit better.)

[ChpBstrd]

DH just got a pretty nice bonus and a stock grant amounting to about an extra year's salary, vesting over three years. We're FI and then some already, and not RE mainly because it's tough to leave with the fire hose still gushing, and his employer just cranked it up. Time to top up the DAF, I guess.

I posted more details on this one somewhere else here (FU money stories, maybe) and I don't feel like hunting for them, so here's a recap. DH's company declared at the end of February/beginning of March that they all needed to take off a week before the end of March to get some of those pesky liabilities off the books before the next quarterly report. Astute observers will note that this approach is the fiscal equivalent of cleaning your room by cramming the mess in the closet before company comes.

DH did the math, found this edict left him short for our planned vacation in May/June, and, knowing we don't need more money, pushed back on the policy to be able to either save a day or borrow it later.

Employer correctly interpreted DH's objections as restlessness and figured out how to give him an the day the wanted in June, and also followed on with this raise and bonus in an (unnecessary and ineffective) effort to retain him. Astute observers will note that promising to pay people more is a poor strategy for reducing liabilities. (We're FI but not yet RE.)

Cut to the present day. Employer is closing the local office entirely in a few months. DH could apply for a job at headquarters, out of state, but we have no plans to move. No part of the stock grant will have vested by the time he departs. It's an awfully nice thing not to need the money. He's already on my insurance, so nothing to do there, either.

At this point, the MPPs will be pretending to be disappointed when commiserating with co-workers and fending off the recruiters who would love for him to start Monday. (One recruiter contacted him just now, as I was writing this. I guess it's good to be in demand.) He's a little disappointed that all the time and trouble he's put in there will mostly be discarded, so the first part won't be tough.

Mainly, he'd like a little more time off between this job and the next one. I've suggested, for opportunities that are relevant, "Sure, this sounds great. I'll be available next June." Better suggestions are welcome.

My MPP will be deciding whether to hang on a little longer or try to take some extended time off with him.

FIRE drill time, I guess.

Update on this one, too. DH's employer has decreed that there is to be absolutely no more working from home, without special dispensation from headquarters and HR. He was only working from home occasionally for particular appointments and stuff anyway, because his job is often hands-on, but what exactly are they going to do about it if he doesn't comply? Fire him two months sooner?

Wow, it sounds like management are idiots. Raises and bonuses for retention, because they forced employees to burn PTO and they're unhappy about it, followed by arbitrarily not allowing WFH which will harm retention, and shockingly they're having to close the office in a time of 3 - 3.5% GDP growth and soaring consumer spending. Sounds like an ideal stock to short.

If there is less than a year until stock vesting and this is worth a significant amount, maybe it would make sense for DH to apply for a headquarters job. If he gets it he will be the last person to turn out the lights at the existing office, which could extend his gig out another 6 months or more. Then just don't show up for the new job and it'll take another month or two for them to fire you. File a whistleblower report and that will extend the suspension by another couple of months. By doing this the termination date could be many months into the future.

[midweststache]

DH just got a pretty nice bonus and a stock grant amounting to about an extra year's salary, vesting over three years. We're FI and then some already, and not RE mainly because it's tough to leave with the fire hose still gushing, and his employer just cranked it up. Time to top up the DAF, I guess.

I posted more details on this one somewhere else here (FU money stories, maybe) and I don't feel like hunting for them, so here's a recap. DH's company declared at the end of February/beginning of March that they all needed to take off a week before the end of March to get some of those pesky liabilities off the books before the next quarterly report. Astute observers will note that this approach is the fiscal equivalent of cleaning your room by cramming the mess in the closet before company comes.

DH did the math, found this edict left him short for our planned vacation in May/June, and, knowing we don't need more money, pushed back on the policy to be able to either save a day or borrow it later.

Employer correctly interpreted DH's objections as restlessness and figured out how to give him an the day the wanted in June, and also followed on with this raise and bonus in an (unnecessary and ineffective) effort to retain him. Astute observers will note that promising to pay people more is a poor strategy for reducing liabilities. (We're FI but not yet RE.)

Cut to the present day. Employer is closing the local office entirely in a few months. DH could apply for a job at headquarters, out of state, but we have no plans to move. No part of the stock grant will have vested by the time he departs. It's an awfully nice thing not to need the money. He's already on my insurance, so nothing to do there, either.

At this point, the MPPs will be pretending to be disappointed when commiserating with co-workers and fending off the recruiters who would love for him to start Monday. (One recruiter contacted him just now, as I was writing this. I guess it's good to be in demand.) He's a little disappointed that all the time and trouble he's put in there will mostly be discarded, so the first part won't be tough.

Mainly, he'd like a little more time off between this job and the next one. I've suggested, for opportunities that are relevant, "Sure, this sounds great. I'll be available next June." Better suggestions are welcome.

My MPP will be deciding whether to hang on a little longer or try to take some extended time off with him.

FIRE drill time, I guess.

Update on this one, too. DH's employer has decreed that there is to be absolutely no more working from home, without special dispensation from headquarters and HR. He was only working from home occasionally for particular appointments and stuff anyway, because his job is often hands-on, but what exactly are they going to do about it if he doesn't comply? Fire him two months sooner?

Yeah, this has "somewhere up the chain we're fiscally screwed and really hoping that being jerks to our employees gets people to voluntarily quit because the other steps - shifting vacation to get liabilities off the books (wth that means), closing an office, etc. - aren't doing enough to right our shareholders' ship" all over it.

Sounds like your DH is better off elsewhere, tbh. Good luck with trial FIRE!

[crocheted_stache]

Wow, you all are much more spiteful than DH. He's mildly annoyed by all this, but the additional stock grant was not why he stayed back in spring, and I'm not convinced he'd have any kind of legal case. He's okay with sticking around a couple months for a clean exit and some severance pay. I don't think he's going to hesitate to negotiate/demand the occasional work from home day when there's an appointment or some other need for it, but he was working mostly from the office already. If he managed to hang around another few months, it would result in 1/3 or 1/4 of a stock grant issued last spring. That's money we don't urgently need, representing an additional sliver of a company we're not too impressed with.

The business model by headquarters seems to be to buy up somewhere with a relevant-to-them technology, operate it as a subsidiary for a few years,  then close it down, keeping the intellectual property but not the intellects. It's not a great strategy to declare that a technology is "done" and likely to stay that way, but that'll be HQ's problem very soon.

I will encourage him to set his post-employment contracting rate at a good, high number that will make it worth their while to find a way not to have to call him and make it worth his while to advise if they really do need it.

[ChpBstrd]

Wow, you all are much more spiteful than DH. He's mildly annoyed by all this...

The business model by headquarters seems to be to buy up somewhere with a relevant-to-them technology, operate it as a subsidiary for a few years,  then close it down, keeping the intellectual property but not the intellects.

LOL. It's probably something about our universally shared life experiences watching the people who are paid multiples of our salaries to make the decisions, because they're supposed to be best at making decisions, go on to inevitably make foolish decisions.

Then as investors we get to watch them do value-destructive things to our stocks such as you described: paying peak prices for tech while discarding the teams and their structures which can produce, update, or support such tech. Somehow the team was worth spending millions of dollars to build by the company that was acquired, but not by the company doing the acquiring?

[crocheted_stache]

Maybe you could connect the people down the street with the people leaving the notes on your car and kill two problems at once.

I suppose the chaotic way to go about it would be to move the note to the neighbor's car and hope they were at least guilted into doing whatever they think they should do about it, but we tossed the note already. For all I know, they got the same note. It's all of maybe three doors over, so the person who left the note almost certainly saw that car, too.

Today, there's an orange tag on a car down the street, but it's somehow not that car. I'm not sure why they tagged the one they did (still operable and in occasional use, or at least I thought so) and missed the filthy one with sagging tires and expired registration. I think the one that is tagged belongs to the brother of the other one's owner, so maybe they'll both be reminded to do something about it.

I'm still not getting involved, just watching from afar. If I see him outside, I might ask the brother who lives here if he knows whose the tagged car is, just in case they haven't noticed the car is tagged.

Yesterday: asked the neighbor who lives here if he knew whose truck that was. He said he'd seen it, but he wasn't sure. Maybe he thought I meant some other truck. 'I mentioned the orange tag. Neighbor had no idea what that meant, so I told him. He was puzzled, but I think I got his attention.

Today: neighbor's brother was around and truck had been moved a couple doors over. I'm pretty sure it's brother's truck. Whatever.

[crocheted_stache]

Eager financial services salesperson who recently cold-called me: ...and are you working with any financial advisors at the moment?
Me: (Decides not to even try to explain all this.) My money is generally doing what I want, so I don't feel the need.

[Dollar Slice]

Eager financial services salesperson who recently cold-called me: ...and are you working with any financial advisors at the moment?
Me: (Decides not to even try to explain all this.) My money is generally doing what I want, so I don't feel the need.

Me: My retirement account is up over 20% YTD after fees, so I'm definitely not looking to jump ship. (Translation: I kept my money in VTSAX again this year.)

[ATtiny85]

End of month (first of month?) paycheck hit the account on time. I stared at the amount, scrolled back to Oct 15th, hmmm this math is hurting my brain early in the morning. I knew I would hit the 401k max this pay period and thought I was only about $25 short. So should have had a few hundred more than showing.

Finally remembered a bit ago to get into the system and see my paystub. Ah-ha! Forgot the 401k limit went up $500 for 2024. So when I was looking at my 401k account and seeing $29,976 YTD contributions, I was still living in 2023. When did my life get so difficult?

[TimCFJ40]

End of month (first of month?) paycheck hit the account on time. I stared at the amount, scrolled back to Oct 15th, hmmm this math is hurting my brain early in the morning. I knew I would hit the 401k max this pay period and thought I was only about $25 short. So should have had a few hundred more than showing.

Finally remembered a bit ago to get into the system and see my paystub. Ah-ha! Forgot the 401k limit went up $500 for 2024. So when I was looking at my 401k account and seeing $29,976 YTD contributions, I was still living in 2023. When did my life get so difficult?

My company switches to after tax 401k contributions when you hit the  yearly max.  This isn't ideal so I try to avoid it, but I usually have a few hundred each year end up there.  It is nice near the end of the year when I hit the Social Security Max and those extra dollars come home. 

[fuzzy math]

Its that time of year where I'm trying to project 401k contributions to max out at the last paycheck. My issues are that my next paycheck is less than normal, my annual inflation adjustment raise hit, and I need to contribute at least 6% every paycheck or I'll miss out on my matching. I cant currently tell with high confidence if I'll have 6% left of room for that last paycheck, but changing it too soon messes things up further. So the assessment is to get the partial paycheck Nov 15, then adjust from there. I've been wrong in the past and missed out on room! I think it would be worse though to miss out on matching. There's nothing in the plan description about an end of the year true up.

[Taran Wanderer]

Its that time of year where I'm trying to project 401k contributions to max out at the last paycheck. My issues are that my next paycheck is less than normal, my annual inflation adjustment raise hit, and I need to contribute at least 6% every paycheck or I'll miss out on my matching. I cant currently tell with high confidence if I'll have 6% left of room for that last paycheck, but changing it too soon messes things up further. So the assessment is to get the partial paycheck Nov 15, then adjust from there. I've been wrong in the past and missed out on room! I think it would be worse though to miss out on matching. There's nothing in the plan description about an end of the year true up.

Do you have to set your contributions up as a percentage, or can you have equal dollar amounts taken out of each paycheck?

[fuzzy math]

Its that time of year where I'm trying to project 401k contributions to max out at the last paycheck. My issues are that my next paycheck is less than normal, my annual inflation adjustment raise hit, and I need to contribute at least 6% every paycheck or I'll miss out on my matching. I cant currently tell with high confidence if I'll have 6% left of room for that last paycheck, but changing it too soon messes things up further. So the assessment is to get the partial paycheck Nov 15, then adjust from there. I've been wrong in the past and missed out on room! I think it would be worse though to miss out on matching. There's nothing in the plan description about an end of the year true up.

Do you have to set your contributions up as a percentage, or can you have equal dollar amounts taken out of each paycheck?

Percentages only. I've never seen dollar amounts listed, boy would that simplify things!

[ChpBstrd]

My 13 year old Toyota has finally fallen apart! Utterly dead.

The heat shield over the exhaust has come loose and rattles around when driving. At the same time, my driver's side window has popped out of its track.

Serious work! I'll probably use self-tapping screws to reattach the heat shield and have to pop the door panel off to adjust the window tracks.

What a piece of junk! To all those people whose engines blow at 5 years old, I'm with you.

[GuitarStv]

My 13 year old Toyota has finally fallen apart! Utterly dead.

The heat shield over the exhaust has come loose and rattles around when driving. At the same time, my driver's side window has popped out of its track.

Serious work! I'll probably use self-tapping screws to reattach the heat shield and have to pop the door panel off to adjust the window tracks.

What a piece of junk! To all those people whose engines blow at 5 years old, I'm with you.

Yeah, they're total crap.

My 10 year old son yanked one of the rear door levers on my 19 year old Corolla right off and broke it.  Took about three hours and a lot of rewatching a youtube video to take the door apart and replace the 40$ part.

[Tasse]

My Toyota is 23 years old and the driver's side window doesn't work, but I haven't bothered to fix it. (Luckily it got stuck in the up position.) Good reminder not to use the drive-thru.

[Metalcat]

I think I'm the only person in the world who had had a Corolla lemon. Mine was only around 5 years old when I gave up on trying to fix it.

Such bullshit.

[zolotiyeruki]

My 13 year old Toyota has finally fallen apart! Utterly dead.

The heat shield over the exhaust has come loose and rattles around when driving. At the same time, my driver's side window has popped out of its track.

Serious work! I'll probably use self-tapping screws to reattach the heat shield and have to pop the door panel off to adjust the window tracks.

What a piece of junk! To all those people whose engines blow at 5 years old, I'm with you.

Yeah, they're total crap.

My 10 year old son yanked one of the rear door levers on my 19 year old Corolla right off and broke it.  Took about three hours and a lot of rewatching a youtube video to take the door apart and replace the 40$ part.

The mid-90's Corollas had interior door handles that broke so often that Autozone carried replacements in-store.  Seriously.

The weakness boiled down to a plastic pivot on the handle.  I drilled a hole in mine, heated up a nail, and melted it through the axis of that pivot, and the handle never broke :D

[techwiz]

The weakness boiled down to a plastic pivot on the handle.  I drilled a hole in mine, heated up a nail, and melted it through the axis of that pivot, and the handle never broke :D

[fuzzy math]

Shhhh guys! My 11 yr old Camry can hear you.

My elderly mom's 7 yr old Ford engine blew up and it cost her $11k to fix. There's a class action lawsuit that has yet to be approved over it.

[ChpBstrd]

My 13 year old Toyota has finally fallen apart! Utterly dead.

The heat shield over the exhaust has come loose and rattles around when driving. At the same time, my driver's side window has popped out of its track.

Serious work! I'll probably use self-tapping screws to reattach the heat shield and have to pop the door panel off to adjust the window tracks.

What a piece of junk! To all those people whose engines blow at 5 years old, I'm with you.

Yeah, they're total crap.

My 10 year old son yanked one of the rear door levers on my 19 year old Corolla right off and broke it.  Took about three hours and a lot of rewatching a youtube video to take the door apart and replace the 40$ part.

The mid-90's Corollas had interior door handles that broke so often that Autozone carried replacements in-store.  Seriously.

The weakness boiled down to a plastic pivot on the handle.  I drilled a hole in mine, heated up a nail, and melted it through the axis of that pivot, and the handle never broke :D

Ughhh... the quality problems!

This is at least as bad as the coal-rolling turbo diesel trucks whose engines often explode at 100k miles, and cost fifteen grand to fix. I just need to get an Audi and be done with it all. /s

[crocheted_stache]

Today I needed something modified, so I dropped it off at a shop. The object is smaller and lighter than the pretty ordinary-sized hardcover library book beside me and fit comfortably in my bike bag.

The person I handed it off to was absolutely appalled that I'd bicycled there. "I'm so sorry you had to bike here. If I'd known, I'd have come by to pick it up."

It did not matter how many times I assured him that I biked because I wanted to. I chose to bike. I love biking. I prefer biking. It's a beautiful day. I bike more than I drive. I bike thousands of miles every year, and this trip was maybe four miles if I round up. I said I would drop it off, and I did. What difference does it make how I got it there, and why is it remotely his problem? He just kept apologizing for "making" me bike all that way.

In a proper case of staircase wit, it occurred to me on the ride back that I should have replied, "I'm so sorry you have to drive so much, when biking is so much more fun." Maybe I'll try telling him that if he lets me go pick it up when it's done.

(https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/staircase_wit)

[BussoV6]

My elderly mom's 7 yr old Ford engine blew up and it cost her $11k to fix. There's a class action lawsuit that has yet to be approved over it.

Which Ford engine is that?  We've seen a lot of failures on the Ford eco boost engines here. They have a "wet" belt running in oil. Hard to believe experienced engineers signed off on this design.

[hdatontodo]

My elderly mom's 7 yr old Ford engine blew up and it cost her $11k to fix. There's a class action lawsuit that has yet to be approved over it.

Which Ford engine is that?  We've seen a lot of failures on the Ford eco boost engines here. They have a "wet" belt running in oil. Hard to believe experienced engineers signed off on this design.

I heard the 1.5 and 2.0 Ecoboost engines in Ford Escapes built around 2017 have a design flaw, which ends up dumping coolant into cyl #3 and trashing the engine.

A family member sent me this:
 https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2022/MC-10214126-0001.pdf

Sent from my SM-G991U1 using Tapatalk

[sonofsven]

I do bank account churning, and I made over $1300 in '23 with moomoo (stock and crypto app).
One of the bonuses was free stocks, one of the free stocks was Palantir (I think I had four or five shares).
I held the stocks for the term required for the bonus then quickly sold them.
The stock price was around $6 then, approaching $60 now!

[fuzzy math]

My elderly mom's 7 yr old Ford engine blew up and it cost her $11k to fix. There's a class action lawsuit that has yet to be approved over it.

Which Ford engine is that?  We've seen a lot of failures on the Ford eco boost engines here. They have a "wet" belt running in oil. Hard to believe experienced engineers signed off on this design.

I heard the 1.5 and 2.0 Ecoboost engines in Ford Escapes built around 2017 have a design flaw, which ends up dumping coolant into cyl #3 and trashing the engine.

A family member sent me this:
 https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2022/MC-10214126-0001.pdf

Sent from my SM-G991U1 using Tapatalk

Yes this was her vehicle and her 3rd cylinder spark plug blew off

[Alternatepriorities]

I've been adding onto our house and doing much of the work myself. I put all the materials onto a CC to maximize a bonus, more money than I'd normally spend in a year on said card in a single month. Aside from the miles, I also received another MVP status on Alaska Airlines which I would not have made otherwise thanks to the toddler (the irony is the free upgrades are even nicer when you have a toddler). Of course I paid the card off well within the grace period, but not before the posting date because I was waiting for a credit on materials returned...

Two MPPs:
1) My credit score dropped more than 50 points! It's still "excellent", but that was a surprise even if it has no impact on my life.
2) I've been inundated with debt relief ads.

[sonofsven]

I've been adding onto our house and doing much of the work myself. I put all the materials onto a CC to maximize a bonus, more money than I'd normally spend in a year on said card in a single month. Aside from the miles, I also received another MVP status on Alaska Airlines which I would not have made otherwise thanks to the toddler (the irony is the free upgrades are even nicer when you have a toddler). Of course I paid the card off well within the grace period, but not before the posting date because I was waiting for a credit on materials returned...

Two MPPs:
1) My credit score dropped more than 50 points! It's still "excellent", but that was a surprise even if it has no impact on my life.
2) I've been inundated with debt relief ads.

Good job! What's the card/bonus?

[markbike528CBX]

Two MPPs:
1) My credit score dropped more than 50 points! It's still "excellent", but that was a surprise even if it has no impact on my life.
2) I've been inundated with debt relief ads.

Un-MPP
Young friend has 550 score.  For him, yep 50 points would be bad (sort of, how to go lower). 
For me, a fifty point drop would be a drop from WTF to Well OK then.
I would have to deign to peruse my accounts if I had such a thing happen.
my MPP. How to communicate this without a braggy tone?

[jeroly]

I've been adding onto our house and doing much of the work myself. I put all the materials onto a CC to maximize a bonus, more money than I'd normally spend in a year on said card in a single month. Aside from the miles, I also received another MVP status on Alaska Airlines which I would not have made otherwise thanks to the toddler (the irony is the free upgrades are even nicer when you have a toddler). Of course I paid the card off well within the grace period, but not before the posting date because I was waiting for a credit on materials returned...

Two MPPs:
1) My credit score dropped more than 50 points! It's still "excellent", but that was a surprise even if it has no impact on my life.
2) I've been inundated with debt relief ads.

It’ll probably go back up by 55 points in a couple of months.

[LennStar]

Two MPPs:
1) My credit score dropped more than 50 points! It's still "excellent", but that was a surprise even if it has no impact on my life.
2) I've been inundated with debt relief ads.

Un-MPP
Young friend has 550 score.  For him, yep 50 points would be bad (sort of, how to go lower). 
For me, a fifty point drop would be a drop from WTF to Well OK then.
I would have to deign to peruse my accounts if I had such a thing happen.
my MPP. How to communicate this without a braggy tone?

I can't resist here... even though it's half a year ago. My MPP is that my bank - because some rule changed - wanted the OK to get a credit score. I used that opportunity to look myself.
Turns out I am down to F - which is pretty bad, I think it was 89-91% repayment probability.
The reason for this is I have taken a loan at the Covid drop and a smaller loan at the Ukraine invasion drop and bought ETFs.
So I have more "money" in the bank that gave me the loans and wanted that credit score then the loans are. I don't know if they realized that or not, but I still got a swath of paper for continuing my stock loan credit line.
Which I didn't use anymore, only for half a year, also during covid.

My MPP out of all this that I nearly laughed my ass off because of that rating (I could bay pack the loans today if I wanted) and that I was too cheap to sign the paper and put a post stamp on it so I lost my stock loan agreement.
And probably that I am not interested in anything where that credit score might matter.

[ChpBstrd]

Two MPPs:
1) My credit score dropped more than 50 points! It's still "excellent", but that was a surprise even if it has no impact on my life.
2) I've been inundated with debt relief ads.

Un-MPP
Young friend has 550 score.  For him, yep 50 points would be bad (sort of, how to go lower). 
For me, a fifty point drop would be a drop from WTF to Well OK then.
I would have to deign to peruse my accounts if I had such a thing happen.
my MPP. How to communicate this without a braggy tone?

I can't resist here... even though it's half a year ago. My MPP is that my bank - because some rule changed - wanted the OK to get a credit score. I used that opportunity to look myself.
Turns out I am down to F - which is pretty bad, I think it was 89-91% repayment probability.
The reason for this is I have taken a loan at the Covid drop and a smaller loan at the Ukraine invasion drop and bought ETFs.
So I have more "money" in the bank that gave me the loans and wanted that credit score then the loans are. I don't know if they realized that or not, but I still got a swath of paper for continuing my stock loan credit line.
Which I didn't use anymore, only for half a year, also during covid.

My MPP out of all this that I nearly laughed my ass off because of that rating (I could bay pack the loans today if I wanted) and that I was too cheap to sign the paper and put a post stamp on it so I lost my stock loan agreement.
And probably that I am not interested in anything where that credit score might matter.

That's hilarious! What was the source of your loans? Regular banks?
I don't think brokerages report margin to US credit agencies, but I also wouldn't know.

[Alternatepriorities]

I've been adding onto our house and doing much of the work myself. I put all the materials onto a CC to maximize a bonus, more money than I'd normally spend in a year on said card in a single month. Aside from the miles, I also received another MVP status on Alaska Airlines which I would not have made otherwise thanks to the toddler (the irony is the free upgrades are even nicer when you have a toddler). Of course I paid the card off well within the grace period, but not before the posting date because I was waiting for a credit on materials returned...

Two MPPs:
1) My credit score dropped more than 50 points! It's still "excellent", but that was a surprise even if it has no impact on my life.
2) I've been inundated with debt relief ads.

It’ll probably go back up by 55 points in a couple of months.

That'd nice. I've wanted to see an 850 for years!...

[Alternatepriorities]

Two MPPs:
1) My credit score dropped more than 50 points! It's still "excellent", but that was a surprise even if it has no impact on my life.
2) I've been inundated with debt relief ads.

Un-MPP
Young friend has 550 score.  For him, yep 50 points would be bad (sort of, how to go lower). 
For me, a fifty point drop would be a drop from WTF to Well OK then.
I would have to deign to peruse my accounts if I had such a thing happen.
my MPP. How to communicate this without a braggy tone?

If your friend is interested I've had good success sitting down with friends and just walking through how the score is calculated and why it matters. A lot of the time people think it's impossibly complicated and just haven't tried to understand it. Maybe the exact calculations are, but the basics to improve his can be understood by most.

[Catbert]

I've been adding onto our house and doing much of the work myself. I put all the materials onto a CC to maximize a bonus, more money than I'd normally spend in a year on said card in a single month. Aside from the miles, I also received another MVP status on Alaska Airlines which I would not have made otherwise thanks to the toddler (the irony is the free upgrades are even nicer when you have a toddler). Of course I paid the card off well within the grace period, but not before the posting date because I was waiting for a credit on materials returned...

Two MPPs:
1) My credit score dropped more than 50 points! It's still "excellent", but that was a surprise even if it has no impact on my life.
2) I've been inundated with debt relief ads.

It’ll probably go back up by 55 points in a couple of months.

It will jump back up as soon as the high balance is paid (next cycle).  I got a Fidelity card with 18 months of 0% interest.  I promptly charged a new expensive roof to it which I'll pay off around month 17.  FICO dropped 20 points and not-FICO dropped 50.

[LennStar]

Two MPPs:
1) My credit score dropped more than 50 points! It's still "excellent", but that was a surprise even if it has no impact on my life.
2) I've been inundated with debt relief ads.

Un-MPP
Young friend has 550 score.  For him, yep 50 points would be bad (sort of, how to go lower). 
For me, a fifty point drop would be a drop from WTF to Well OK then.
I would have to deign to peruse my accounts if I had such a thing happen.
my MPP. How to communicate this without a braggy tone?

I can't resist here... even though it's half a year ago. My MPP is that my bank - because some rule changed - wanted the OK to get a credit score. I used that opportunity to look myself.
Turns out I am down to F - which is pretty bad, I think it was 89-91% repayment probability.
The reason for this is I have taken a loan at the Covid drop and a smaller loan at the Ukraine invasion drop and bought ETFs.
So I have more "money" in the bank that gave me the loans and wanted that credit score then the loans are. I don't know if they realized that or not, but I still got a swath of paper for continuing my stock loan credit line.
Which I didn't use anymore, only for half a year, also during covid.

My MPP out of all this that I nearly laughed my ass off because of that rating (I could bay pack the loans today if I wanted) and that I was too cheap to sign the paper and put a post stamp on it so I lost my stock loan agreement.
And probably that I am not interested in anything where that credit score might matter.

That's hilarious! What was the source of your loans? Regular banks?
I don't think brokerages report margin to US credit agencies, but I also wouldn't know.

Just the bank which also has my giro account, where the salary comes in every month. Good conditions on the loans. (And don't forget I am German, not US.)

[crocheted_stache]

DH just got a pretty nice bonus and a stock grant amounting to about an extra year's salary, vesting over three years. We're FI and then some already, and not RE mainly because it's tough to leave with the fire hose still gushing, and his employer just cranked it up. Time to top up the DAF, I guess.

I posted more details on this one somewhere else here (FU money stories, maybe) and I don't feel like hunting for them, so here's a recap. DH's company declared at the end of February/beginning of March that they all needed to take off a week before the end of March to get some of those pesky liabilities off the books before the next quarterly report. Astute observers will note that this approach is the fiscal equivalent of cleaning your room by cramming the mess in the closet before company comes.

DH did the math, found this edict left him short for our planned vacation in May/June, and, knowing we don't need more money, pushed back on the policy to be able to either save a day or borrow it later.

Employer correctly interpreted DH's objections as restlessness and figured out how to give him an the day the wanted in June, and also followed on with this raise and bonus in an (unnecessary and ineffective) effort to retain him. Astute observers will note that promising to pay people more is a poor strategy for reducing liabilities. (We're FI but not yet RE.)

Cut to the present day. Employer is closing the local office entirely in a few months. DH could apply for a job at headquarters, out of state, but we have no plans to move. No part of the stock grant will have vested by the time he departs. It's an awfully nice thing not to need the money. He's already on my insurance, so nothing to do there, either.

At this point, the MPPs will be pretending to be disappointed when commiserating with co-workers and fending off the recruiters who would love for him to start Monday. (One recruiter contacted him just now, as I was writing this. I guess it's good to be in demand.) He's a little disappointed that all the time and trouble he's put in there will mostly be discarded, so the first part won't be tough.

Mainly, he'd like a little more time off between this job and the next one. I've suggested, for opportunities that are relevant, "Sure, this sounds great. I'll be available next June." Better suggestions are welcome.

My MPP will be deciding whether to hang on a little longer or try to take some extended time off with him.

FIRE drill time, I guess.

Update on this one, too. DH's employer has decreed that there is to be absolutely no more working from home, without special dispensation from headquarters and HR. He was only working from home occasionally for particular appointments and stuff anyway, because his job is often hands-on, but what exactly are they going to do about it if he doesn't comply? Fire him two months sooner?

Some of this should probably go in FU money stories instead, but the backstory is already here. DH's outpost has collectively decided not to bother with HQ's edict to return to office full time. He's there most days, anyway, with the occasional exceptions being logistical (appointments, etc.) and focus time.

He'll also be declining a recruiter who just contacted him. The commute would put him a bit outside a comfortable bike ride, and the job description declares that the Chief Engineer has designed the whole thing and "lacks the bandwidth to document it." The Chief Engineer has "committed to" answering questions, but we suspect that this makes it the underling's job to hold the Chief Engineer still for long enough to answer these questions, and/or not make him* feel as though someone is horning in on his territory or calling him out the first time there's a discrepancy between what in his head and how things might in practice go together and actually work. That's before someone in management makes a guess that it's going to take so much less time to do something that's already designed.

DH plans to stay well away from this one. At least beyond biking distance.

*Between the title and the apparent politics, I'm giving this a 90% chance of being a man.

[crocheted_stache]

Oh no! My next library hold request (which I'd already forgotten I'd placed) is ready for pickup, and I haven't finished reading the last book yet.

I guess I have something to do indoors this rainy weekend.

[Raenia]

I just got a call from my library that the book I placed an inter-library loan request for is not available anywhere in the system. The librarian helpfully mentioned that it was available on Amazon for about $17. I reluctantly went on Amazon to check, and found that it is not available at all - the one she was looking at has a very similar title, but different author.

This is the final book in a series, and I can't find it anywhere! The first two were available on Open Library, the third by ILL, but the fourth appears to have been self-published after the author got dropped from their publisher (or something like that?) and must have had a very limited print run.

[NorthernIkigai]

Oh no! My next library hold request (which I'd already forgotten I'd placed) is ready for pickup, and I haven't finished reading the last book yet.

I guess I have something to do indoors this rainy weekend.

Just one at a time?! In addition to placing library books I want to read on a “save for later” list, I constantly request books and then pick them up when I can. I can renew loans up to five times before I have to return it (and even then, depending on the branch, I can just borrow it again and start another round of five). Of course someone else requesting it would mean I wouldn’t be able to renew the loan, but I read obscure books, so…

[La Bibliotecaria Feroz]

Oh no! My next library hold request (which I'd already forgotten I'd placed) is ready for pickup, and I haven't finished reading the last book yet.

I guess I have something to do indoors this rainy weekend.

Just one at a time?! In addition to placing library books I want to read on a “save for later” list, I constantly request books and then pick them up when I can. I can renew loans up to five times before I have to return it (and even then, depending on the branch, I can just borrow it again and start another round of five). Of course someone else requesting it would mean I wouldn’t be able to renew the loan, but I read obscure books, so…

My favorite thing about Libby is that it asks if you are ready for the book now.

I will put several books on my Kindle and then put it in airplane mode until I have finished them. Then I turn the wi fi back on and begin another 21 day book loading period, repeat cycle.