Its very sad how Finance never really transitioned from the FattWallet
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Huh? I actually missed FWF. I donāt even know what some peopleās old FW alias was, hard to keep continuity. There were some real fruity case there, well, so is here 
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I dunnoā¦ it seems like most FWF people ended up here, while the deals people ended up on the other āphatā forum that opened up.
I like the smaller, passionate audience here, even if some of them are a little crazy. I donāt always agree with folks but most are well educated in the finer points of managing personal finances and I enjoy getting a variety of perspectives on these issues.
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I came over from FWF. But I donāt check this forum or post much for a few reasons:
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privacy, I donāt want some of my shenanigans available publicly in case people are reading who can tie them to my real identity. Iām talking grey-level stuff thatās legalā¦ish
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a lot of good deals and tricks only work if not super public
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the forum is pretty dead so itās not worth me checking daily or even weekly. Thereās a network effect whereby having lots of people post encourages more people to post
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I used to use FWF to vet ideas and Iām older and have figured shit out pretty much
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most of the things I donāt know are because no one knows them. For example, I would like to know if the CARES act lets me split taxes for early withdrawal retirement funds into portions of my own choosing over three years, or if my options are 33/33/33 or 0/50/50 or 0/0/100 because the law says I can pay taxes ratably (which I had to look up but as far as I can tell it just means equally) over 3 years unless I choose not to pay in any of those years. Well, I could start a post, and I guess I just did, but until IRS guidance comes out in a few months, no one has an answer. Most of the ideas and things I struggle with now are like this, where no one knows.
I think thereās some private forums where people share the good stuff and itās not scraped by the google so I would share quasi-grey-level things there. But no one invited me. Feelsbadman
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Thatās a fair sentiment. But itās also a product of āthe FatWallet effectā. Is it useful to share knowledge, when that knowledge quickly becomes obsolete due to having shared it? Itās the whole damned if you do, damned if you dont conundrum.
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Most of us are still here. Start a thread if you need something finance-related.
But just like Flyertalk, youāre not going to see regular posts about anything timely and valuable. That ship has sailed about a decade ago. Itās all gone to bloggers or private forums.
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The issue is a lot of ships sailed early because of so-called FW effect. App-o-rama, bonus churning, MSing, etc ā¦ Things like that stay under the radar much longer when not 100k people do it.
People who are good at finding/creating those schemes have few choices: 1) share it and watch it die in days/weeks rather than years; 2) milk it for longer and at most only share to private forums; or 3) monetize it in some way (blogs for example). Since most are doing these schemes for optimal personal profit, itās not hard to see why option (1) is not popular.
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And before, there were no or very few professional bloggers who would immediately pick it up and rebroadcast it to a gigantic mainstream audienceā¦
Itās not all bad though. FWF was the introduction and launching point for a lot of people to later team up on stuff privately.
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IMO, the decline in quality in FWF began with the departure of Tim and the sale to ebates. It became more of a deals/click-thru site - or at least, that became the main focus, imo. I come here occasionally, but I agree that it doesnāt have the inventiveness (or the activity) of the old forum - but then again, it was a different time, a different economy, a different financial landscape back then too, so ā¦
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Our gathering here is much smaller than FW was. Perhaps we can be less cautious of sharing some of those fragile but not too fragile deals here now.
Though the truth is while deals still do exist, I think banks and card companies have caught on to many of those deals in the last 10 years as technology has mainstreamed and they have also become smarter and learned some of their lessons in offerings.
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I appreciate every person who participates on this forum. It is still quite valuable. Keep up the great work and over time I believe it will it will grow.
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Just checking, like the rest of you all, in these crazy times.
I miss the Black Friday T-Shirts though I didnāt try for the later ones.There were some interesting threads on FWF such as iBanky and others. Come here to read my Unread on some topics and review New (at the title level). Most New are not what Iām looking for at this time.
The split with phatwalletforums is more deal oriented but not anywhere near FW quality or quantity.
Iāve moved on to other open forums.
As for private forums, invite me if you know Iām not already on that particular one based on what I used to do on FWF.
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He no banky ā he be janky.
Such as? /r/personalfinance aināt bad for noobs and PF wiki, but itās not the same and reddit is not made for keeping track of interesting things like best accounts. Nor is it that good for discussing complicated things, IMO.
I do sort of miss randoms showing up with their epic white trash boundary line disputes, landlord-tenant, etc.
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I agree. I havenāt found anything thatās as mature as this place, yet also is interested in getting the very best possible deal on financial-related transactions. Bogleheads is mature, but more into preaching about their way of life and less about the deals, while places like Reddit are full of millennials who have never had money in a bear market and are now freaking out that their 401ks are down by 30%.
FWIW, I wouldnāt be against making this forum private to allow folks to share more āsecretiveā deals. I canāt imagine we get many new members around here very often since the implosion of FatWallet.
(I also miss the white trash threads, too )
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I just want to know what happened with those kinship proceedings gone wrong.
And the guy who was all on on physical precious metals a few QEās ago and whose backup plan was to hide the gold and declare BK.
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We are the āboomersā of internet finance. I doubt many (any?) of us are interacting with the meme filled, finance focused Discords and Instagram accounts of 2020. That seems to be where the new and pioneering discussions are happening now.
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I heard that reddit got some good discussion at times but their formatting is hard to get used to.
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I especially appreciate this thread because I completely agree. This forum needs a steroid injection, and Iāmi fully supportive of any efforts to revive or reinvent it.
But really? Instagram and Discord servers are the next best thing? Which ones?