Sorry to hear about your mom and grandmother, as well as the issues surrounding your grandmother's estate. Funny how certain people's true colors and their vulturistic nature emerge in these sorts of situations.
Sounds like you're justifying the legal fees from a financial risk/return on investment perspective (which is perfectly valid). Even if the odds were lower, I would tell to you fight your aunt and uncle, solely on the basis of the principle alone. The conflict of interest, with your aunt/uncle serving as trustees and having full discretion over the estate's distribution, is disturbing.
Good luck with your case.
akratic's ERE journal
Very sorry to hear about your situation, akratic. These family legal disputes can be both grueling and dispiriting.
I went through something similar, where my uncle tried to take advantage of myself and my mother, after my grandfather passed. In that case, he was also executor. Thankfully, the will was not rewritten in my case.
I don't understand why anyone would put the executor on the will as a beneficiary - too much conflict of interest. Better to make a lawyer executor and give them 10k.
I went through something similar, where my uncle tried to take advantage of myself and my mother, after my grandfather passed. In that case, he was also executor. Thankfully, the will was not rewritten in my case.
I don't understand why anyone would put the executor on the will as a beneficiary - too much conflict of interest. Better to make a lawyer executor and give them 10k.
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secretwealth
- Posts: 1948
- Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2011 3:31 am
Sorry to hear what you're going through, akratic. I hope it all works out, but I definitely do think you're doing the right thing in investing in a lawyer. That money is yours and you should fight for it--not just for the cash, but for the principle of the matter.
If you win, can you sue your uncle to pay for your legal fees? I certainly would try--again, it's the principle of the matter.
If you win, can you sue your uncle to pay for your legal fees? I certainly would try--again, it's the principle of the matter.
@all, thanks for the sympathy and kind words
@JasonR, yeah I was a bit worried about that, but I didn't post anything that both parties aren't already aware of at this point.
@secretwealth, yeah, actually in some cases I can even lose the case, but still have my legal fees paid. Provided my case has "probable cause" and is brought with "good faith", the judge can rule that my the legal fees come from the estate whether I win or lose.
@JasonR, yeah I was a bit worried about that, but I didn't post anything that both parties aren't already aware of at this point.
@secretwealth, yeah, actually in some cases I can even lose the case, but still have my legal fees paid. Provided my case has "probable cause" and is brought with "good faith", the judge can rule that my the legal fees come from the estate whether I win or lose.
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jennypenny
- Posts: 6858
- Joined: Sun Jul 03, 2011 2:20 pm
Sorry akratic, family nonsense can really get under your skin. It can't be healthy being forced to think about your mom and her death so much either.
My advice is to pay a law firm to handle this for you, and see it through. You might lose money in the end, but you'll sleep better at night. This kind of stuff happens from time to time and I've learned two things: a good lawyer is worth their fee win or lose; and you never regret trying to do the right thing.
My advice is to pay a law firm to handle this for you, and see it through. You might lose money in the end, but you'll sleep better at night. This kind of stuff happens from time to time and I've learned two things: a good lawyer is worth their fee win or lose; and you never regret trying to do the right thing.
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secretwealth
- Posts: 1948
- Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2011 3:31 am
(the expenses in the left column are based on all of 2012, and the 3% SWR in the right column is based on current net worth)
I made this chart to show that I am, in fact, FI . I'm not sure what charts to make anymore. Maybe this'll be my last chart for a while.
Unusual expenses:
- $226 to spend Christmas in NYC with my girlfriend's family
- just $31 on Christmas gifts
- $24 to go to the dentist + doctor
I managed to finally kill my family Christmas gift exchange this year. Normally everyone in my family spends $50-100 on everyone else. This year I argued that only my one year old nephew should get gifts, and everyone agreed! Hallelujah.
For my girlfriend's gift, I made it from scratch at a cost of $0 and about 40 hours (oof). She got me a fleece, a bathing suit, socks, and underwear, making this the first Christmas in my lifetime where I actually wanted everything I got.
I also finally killed my side business this month, shutting down the website and everything. The only remaining stuff is paperwork like closing down my merchant accounts, etc.
I'm the lightest weight I've been in a while (173 lbs) but I've been eating badly and not exercising much in the last two weeks, so I'm guessing most of the weight loss is muscle.
I hadn't been to the dentist or doctor in a few years, but I went to both this month. I was surprised to find that it only cost $24 total. I guess the insurance I have through work is pretty great. I should probably have taken more advantage of it these last few years. I have zero health problems, and I had one cavity. I need to floss more.
TODO:
- buy my 2013 allowance of I Bonds and EE bonds on treasury direct
- rebalance my PP
- business killing paperwork
- keep on top of the whole suing my uncle over my grandmother's estate thing (no meaningful updates this month)
- floss
- choose a new obsession now that I can't be obsessed with FI anymore
Oh, there are always more charts to make 
I'd love to see, for someone who is FI, your spending vs your actual investment returns (An even more concrete way of showing FI/success). I understand this wouldn't work well using monthly returns though. Yearly would probably start to get accurate.
As for obsessions, I think the rich normally obsess over protecting their riches and over becoming filthy rich. Are you still going to build the vacation house? That's a lot to figure out.
I'd love to see, for someone who is FI, your spending vs your actual investment returns (An even more concrete way of showing FI/success). I understand this wouldn't work well using monthly returns though. Yearly would probably start to get accurate.
As for obsessions, I think the rich normally obsess over protecting their riches and over becoming filthy rich
. Are you still going to build the vacation house? That's a lot to figure out.@mds, yeah the plan was to stick the job out for a couple more years, ideally remotely, but it turns out I'm better at predicting numerical stuff than other people's behavior...
So things are blowing up more rapidly than expected.
My girlfriend is intent on moving to South America in February. I figured I could do my programming job fairly well from South America, and even offer to take a pay cut to make things work if necessary, etc. I asked my boss about this yesterday, and he refused to negotiate a remote arrangement. As a result I had to decide between going to South America with my girlfriend, or staying in Chicago for the job... and so I quit. I'll be working through the rest of the month to help transition my projects.
We're not really sure exactly where we'll end up, but the rough plan is to fly to Ecuador in early February and then maybe move on to Colombia or Costa Rica as our tourists visas expire.
the bad:
- There were some projects at work that I wanted to see through to the end, and now I won't be able to
- I was hoping for a more gradual transition into the void/full-freedom, such as working remotely for a while first
- I find my boss's decision to refuse to try to work something out just plain incoherent and irrational
- I lose income -- that I didn't really need -- but that I wanted to use to build up more of a safety margin before taking a plunge like this (a 3% SWR isnt' bad, but I'm not 100% sure we'll see returns like that in the future, and I could see my expenses rising as well later in life)
- I built up a pretty good social network in Chicago that I'll be losing
the good:
- Right now it's 82 degrees and sunny in Ecuador, and 28 degrees and overcast in Chicago
- I'm looking forward to going surfing and hiking and spending more time outside. I also think learning Spanish will be fun
- Decked out beachfront apartments are like $300/mo in the town we're looking at, so my expenses should go way down
- I think I made the right decision prioritizing my girlfriend over my career, and I'm thankful for FI helping me make the right decision.
- There are some major projects that I've wanted to work on for a while -- such as making a video game -- and now I should have the time and energy to do them
- Perhaps having my hand forced is a blessing in disguise, as most people seem to hang on too long before making major life changes, and indeed I do already have enough.
So things are blowing up more rapidly than expected.
My girlfriend is intent on moving to South America in February. I figured I could do my programming job fairly well from South America, and even offer to take a pay cut to make things work if necessary, etc. I asked my boss about this yesterday, and he refused to negotiate a remote arrangement. As a result I had to decide between going to South America with my girlfriend, or staying in Chicago for the job... and so I quit. I'll be working through the rest of the month to help transition my projects.
We're not really sure exactly where we'll end up, but the rough plan is to fly to Ecuador in early February and then maybe move on to Colombia or Costa Rica as our tourists visas expire.
the bad:
- There were some projects at work that I wanted to see through to the end, and now I won't be able to
- I was hoping for a more gradual transition into the void/full-freedom, such as working remotely for a while first
- I find my boss's decision to refuse to try to work something out just plain incoherent and irrational
- I lose income -- that I didn't really need -- but that I wanted to use to build up more of a safety margin before taking a plunge like this (a 3% SWR isnt' bad, but I'm not 100% sure we'll see returns like that in the future, and I could see my expenses rising as well later in life)
- I built up a pretty good social network in Chicago that I'll be losing
the good:
- Right now it's 82 degrees and sunny in Ecuador, and 28 degrees and overcast in Chicago
- I'm looking forward to going surfing and hiking and spending more time outside. I also think learning Spanish will be fun
- Decked out beachfront apartments are like $300/mo in the town we're looking at, so my expenses should go way down
- I think I made the right decision prioritizing my girlfriend over my career, and I'm thankful for FI helping me make the right decision.
- There are some major projects that I've wanted to work on for a while -- such as making a video game -- and now I should have the time and energy to do them
- Perhaps having my hand forced is a blessing in disguise, as most people seem to hang on too long before making major life changes, and indeed I do already have enough.
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LiquidSapphire
- Posts: 510
- Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2011 6:40 pm
Thanks for the support, guys.
@JasonR,
I want to make a free-to-play multiplayer flash game.
I like the technology behind this game: http://www.realmofthemadgod.com/ (seamless interaction with many players in flash)
I like the business model behind this game: League of Legends (the in game things you can buy don't help you win, they just make you look cooler or alleviate impatience)
And I like the visual style and polish of these games: http://www.kongregate.com/games/JuicyBe ... on-revenge http://www.kongregate.com/games/Ironhid ... ngdom-rush (polish and looking good seem to be really important to the success of flash games)
Making the game polished and look good will be the hard part for me, I think.
And the actual idea for my game you'll have to wait to see for the alpha release, because I'm not sure anyone's done this idea right before.
@JasonR,
I want to make a free-to-play multiplayer flash game.
I like the technology behind this game: http://www.realmofthemadgod.com/ (seamless interaction with many players in flash)
I like the business model behind this game: League of Legends (the in game things you can buy don't help you win, they just make you look cooler or alleviate impatience)
And I like the visual style and polish of these games: http://www.kongregate.com/games/JuicyBe ... on-revenge http://www.kongregate.com/games/Ironhid ... ngdom-rush (polish and looking good seem to be really important to the success of flash games)
Making the game polished and look good will be the hard part for me, I think.
And the actual idea for my game you'll have to wait to see for the alpha release, because I'm not sure anyone's done this idea right before.
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George the original one
- Posts: 5406
- Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2010 3:28 am
- Location: Wettest corner of Orygun
Excellent decision to choose following your love! Jump in, the water's fine!
> I find my boss's decision to refuse to try to work
> something out just plain incoherent and irrational
Remember that thread where many people mentioned that they won't give time to their employer without direct compensation? This is a prime example of why. Loyalty to an employer means diddly-squat far too often.
> I find my boss's decision to refuse to try to work
> something out just plain incoherent and irrational
Remember that thread where many people mentioned that they won't give time to their employer without direct compensation? This is a prime example of why. Loyalty to an employer means diddly-squat far too often.
(Warning: nerd alert, skip this post if you're not a nerd.)
Well, I haven't done much AS3, but I do like the idea of my game having ridiculous reach, so I'm tempted to learn and do flash first (maybe via unity, maybe not).
Over the past summer I started teaching myself a little AS3 when I had a vacation from work. I was shocked to find that you can take a .swf from a published game, run it through a program that costs less than $100, and get the complete source code for the game (in a somewhat hard to read, machine oriented format). I took one popular game apart and rewrote the source in an understandable way, which I think was a pretty efficient way to learn AS3 (especially considering the documentation on AS3 game development best practices that I could find online was quite bad). Maybe doing that was a little sketchy, but I'm not planning to use the code for anything. I just learned how they did everything, but I'll write my game from scratch.
I dunno whether I'd use AS3 for sure though, or Unity, or iOS, or whatever. I can learn/do just about anything technical, if given some time, so it'll mostly be a business decision. I think the best possible thing would be flash + iOS + android + non-flash-browser (javascript), with players from all platforms being able to interact within the game. I'm pretty sure the 80/20 thing to start with is just flash though (*maybe* iOS).
I've never tried to monetize a game, or even publish one. Some of my peers from MIT have done pretty well in the indie game business though. Things like top of the iOS charts, top of the Kongregate charts, games with in-game purchases averaging thousands of dollars a day, acquisitions that were probably six or seven figures reading between the lines (that I couldn't figure out for sure) etc. I'm surprised that the Kingdom Rush acquisition would only be $60k. Is that right?
Basically my networks for engineering and game design and the business side of f2p games are incredibly strong. My art network sucks though, and that seems like possibly the most important part (other than having a fun game that gets finished, etc.). Some of the games that succeed seem to me to have almost nothing besides good art and polish.
Perhaps this path also has a higher monetary expected value than the finance track, which is kinda funny. I did already miss the gravy train of early iOS development, but I do think the f2p game industry has a long ways to go to maturity.
It's pretty great that it doesn't even matter if my game succeeds though, that I have enough money either way. So I can just focus on making something fun that lots of people want to play.
PS: I have a history of starting many projects, but only seeing through to the end the ones that I get obsessed with (like ERE) so we'll see if I get hooked on this game idea or not. It just seems like the best obsession today.
PPS: There's this video game expression "flavor of the month" FOTM for a character or playstyle that happens to seem all consuming at the moment. Maybe my life has something like an OOTY (obsession of the year) or OOT3Y (obsession of the three year chunk of my life).
Well, I haven't done much AS3, but I do like the idea of my game having ridiculous reach, so I'm tempted to learn and do flash first (maybe via unity, maybe not).
Over the past summer I started teaching myself a little AS3 when I had a vacation from work. I was shocked to find that you can take a .swf from a published game, run it through a program that costs less than $100, and get the complete source code for the game (in a somewhat hard to read, machine oriented format). I took one popular game apart and rewrote the source in an understandable way, which I think was a pretty efficient way to learn AS3 (especially considering the documentation on AS3 game development best practices that I could find online was quite bad). Maybe doing that was a little sketchy, but I'm not planning to use the code for anything. I just learned how they did everything, but I'll write my game from scratch.
I dunno whether I'd use AS3 for sure though, or Unity, or iOS, or whatever. I can learn/do just about anything technical, if given some time, so it'll mostly be a business decision. I think the best possible thing would be flash + iOS + android + non-flash-browser (javascript), with players from all platforms being able to interact within the game. I'm pretty sure the 80/20 thing to start with is just flash though (*maybe* iOS).
I've never tried to monetize a game, or even publish one. Some of my peers from MIT have done pretty well in the indie game business though. Things like top of the iOS charts, top of the Kongregate charts, games with in-game purchases averaging thousands of dollars a day, acquisitions that were probably six or seven figures reading between the lines (that I couldn't figure out for sure) etc. I'm surprised that the Kingdom Rush acquisition would only be $60k. Is that right?
Basically my networks for engineering and game design and the business side of f2p games are incredibly strong. My art network sucks though, and that seems like possibly the most important part (other than having a fun game that gets finished, etc.). Some of the games that succeed seem to me to have almost nothing besides good art and polish.
Perhaps this path also has a higher monetary expected value than the finance track, which is kinda funny. I did already miss the gravy train of early iOS development, but I do think the f2p game industry has a long ways to go to maturity.
It's pretty great that it doesn't even matter if my game succeeds though, that I have enough money either way. So I can just focus on making something fun that lots of people want to play.
PS: I have a history of starting many projects, but only seeing through to the end the ones that I get obsessed with (like ERE) so we'll see if I get hooked on this game idea or not. It just seems like the best obsession today.
PPS: There's this video game expression "flavor of the month" FOTM for a character or playstyle that happens to seem all consuming at the moment. Maybe my life has something like an OOTY (obsession of the year) or OOT3Y (obsession of the three year chunk of my life).
Congratulations again! Now you're rich AND retired!
It will be great to hear about your South American adventures. Good luck with the game development. Something tells me you'll be plenty successful at making more money or making good games or whatever becomes important to you. Success appears to be a trend for you
It will be great to hear about your South American adventures. Good luck with the game development. Something tells me you'll be plenty successful at making more money or making good games or whatever becomes important to you. Success appears to be a trend for you