I’m starting dental school soon. I’m expecting to take out $350k in federal student loans at an interest rate that will average out to 7%. My monthly payment on the standard 10-year repayment plan would be close to $5k monthly. By the time I’m done with school, I’ll be 25 and starting out making $150k. This brings my monthly net income to $9k. I will probably average $200k annual gross income throughout the course of my career.
There is a dental school subreddit, and most there seem to think it’s a worthwhile investment. I’ve invested a lot of time and money trying to get accepted to dental school, so I’m trying not to have that cloud my financial decision making. I knew going in that it’s very expensive, but always thought it was worth it because I enjoy this profession and the salary seems good. The more I look at the numbers though, the more doubts I have.

I got my ring a week ago and love it so far.
My background: I live in South West of England and I wanted it to look into my sleep and stress levels in more detail than I did before (didn't look after myself at all) I am a mechanical/electrictrical design engineer and obviously love me some tech as well as a bargain compared to the monthly Oura ring fee...
Set-up The set up of the ring was very smooth and no issues at all, charging was dandy as well took me about 1h to charge form 60% with it arrived so I think just over 2h to charge from 0%.
Battery They claim a battery lift of 4-6 days and I got 3.5 days out of it twice now, they say it varys with temperature etc which I know impacts battery drain but it's England and it's been between 16-22°C this week so normal temps for operation. Don't know how anyone would get close to 6 days, maybe it's better optimised for iPhones?
App I have a Samsung galaxy S23 Ultra and the phone app hasn't been spectacular, the app is riddled with lag and stuttering and tells me the ring isn't connected almost every time I open the app. I normally have to close the app fully then open it again for the data to sync.
Data The data gathered from the ring is pretty accurate, it's +/- 5% of what my partners Apple Watch was reading. Obviously this is way cooler and on a much smaller scale. The data presented in the app is okay, you can't see the raw data files and are presented with the processed results. I understand the app is for your average consumer but I personally would like to dig a little bit deeper into the data gathered.
Hope this helps anyone looking at getting involved 😁

to preface, let me make it clear that i'm blown away by the creativity and talent on display. everyone aware of the scene kinda knows we're in a "boomer shooter" renaissance right now, and imo boltgun stands tall right alongside titans like doom eternal, dusk, ultrakill, etc. this game has awoken something in me that i haven't felt since the release of doom eternal and i can't get it outta my mind. for the last few days ive felt compelled to write a massive fucking wall of text to show my love for this game, so here we are. i want to give my thoughts on the gameplay loop, including strengths and criticisms, in a somewhat random order. this will be about my personal preferences so i'm sure others will disagree with some of what i say. i beat the game on exerminatus on my second day of gameplay on june 1st (i kinda blitzed thru due to time constraints), and i've been casually playing through a couple stages a day when i have time since.
MOVEMENT
i am obsessed, and i mean OBSESSED with the movement system in context with the combat loop. you're ridiculously fast in the BEST WAY, you can jump higher and faster than other arcade shooters, and you have extremely fine control over your movement. it's overpowered, SERIOUSLY overpowered, but i haven't seen a game give us this level of mobility and control that manages to engage me in the same way boltgun has. you become disgustingly powerful when you learn how to consistently dodge every enemy attack pattern and climb like a cat. it's extremely satisfying. i've seen some people say to turn on autorun, but i think this is a serious mistake. you can very consistently dodge enemy fire even at close range by changing your speed midair after jumping and adjusting your movements with precision and speed. you can also make some outlandishly stylish plays that are impossible in any other game in the genre in recent memory. it's so much fun to me, and i find it so satisfying to drop into a random stage after a long day and parkour around while mowing through arenas. i don't feel this way about other games in the genre.
SECRETS
there was a big missed opportunity with the secrets. i'm aware that this is a point that has been hammered into the ground by other players, so i'll keep this brief. i feel that the dev's outstanding level of competency and attention to detail when designing the movement system further exposes how glaringly boring the secrets are. it was especially striking how many "off-limits" places i could somehow parkour my way into that were totally empty. it really makes me wonder what the level designers were doing. maybe they added the secrets at the last minute? that's a fair excuse imo. to me, secrets are more of a minor point, but it's probably the most obvious flaw in my eyes.
LEVEL DESIGN
moving on, let's talk level design. i've seen plenty of users complain about the lack of a map system that's common in other arcade shooters, but i had little trouble navigating most levels without a map. there were a few "wait, where was that locked door again?" moments, but for the most part the level design was quite intuitive. to me, most of the stages in all three chapters were diverse, vibrant, unique, and really fun to explore and navigate around. some stages kinda blend together, but i've not played a game that avoids this yet.
i'm not someone who follows 40k lore, but i can tell the devs did the 40k universe justice by some of the setpieces and architecture on display. the use of matching colored lightning to illuminate keys/doors was very helpful to me, and there's not too much backtracking if you follow the signposting. however, i understand that other players may have had a more difficult time identifying signposting and navigating some of the stages, especially the more mazey ones. i don't think much would be lost by giving users a map. (side note, i actually quite enjoyed the portals puzzle in sanctum manufactorum, though that's possibly because i had fun parkouring to unintended routes lol)
DIFFICULTY CURVE
next, let's get into the difficulty curve. as others have pointed out, this game starts easy, pretends to be easy for a minute, and then comes out of fucking nowhere to pound you into the fucking ground. i LOVED it. even as a veteran of the genre, i died probably 5 to 10 times on the first plague frog arena. this was definitely the most difficult part of the game for me, as you don't have many tools at that point and you haven't had much time to understand how the enemy ai and attack patterns work. on the second playthrough, i cruised through it without a second thought. this is primarily because the game does a really great job of teaching you to spot key pickups and use secrets/powerups wisely. it practically BEGS you to abuse them in certain arenas, and i found every major "boss" (lord of change, etc.) to be a breeze because of vortex grenades and intelligent resource management.
i found the difficulty of the hardest arenas basically on par with nightmare in doom eternal. doom eternal is my personal bar for difficulty, as i've completely UN runs of the main campaign and first DLC. honestly, the difficulty of this game when it gets going feels equivalent to hardest difficulties in other arcade shooters that have emerged in the current renaissance. i've seen people say that this game is "too easy" on exterminatus, but i think they nailed the difficulty for the most part. there's some clear inconsistencies, but the large arenas can be challenging and are fun without fail. i definitely would like to see this game get an "ultra nightmare" mode ( one save, if you die progress resets to c1m1) and something akin to doom eternal's master levels. tbh at this point i will fucking devour anything else the devs can drip feed me.
ARSENAL
let's talk guns. i think the arsenal variety is almost perfect and the balance is quite good. the meltagun is possibly overtuned, but also the bosses in this game are pretty bullet spongey on exterminatus, so i'm very grateful for it. i use all guns pretty evenly, to be honest. depending on how i want to play a stage i'll pick a different gun for the machine spirit, though i find myself almost exclusively picking the volkite caviler by chapter 3 because of the amount of mid and hightier enemies. i think each gun is viable for the machine spirit on the majority of stages, and my choice here simply reflects my playstyle, not necessarily the gun power. here's a brief overview of my use cases:

• boltgun for non-armored gunwielders at mid/long range, sometimes mid+hightiers when conserving other ammo (spend)
  
• shotgun for weaker adds and cornering (spend)
  
• heavy bolter for most midtier enemies like flamers/chaos marines/etc., also very good for exalted flamers (moderate conserve)
  
• plasma gun for fast deleting midtiers, chunking hightiers, and wiping out tightly clustered packs of all tiers (mostly spend)
  
• vengeance launcher for corner peaking and clearing big clusters of low and midtier enemies (spend)
  
• volkite caliver for deleting mid/hightier enemies, ESPECIALLY the armored ones (conserve)
  
• meltagun is a boss-delete weapon i only to be used in very specific situations (CONSERVE)
  
• grav cannon is rarely used because the meltagun serves its purpose better lol. i generally waste the ammo asap on any high-midtier enemies (spend unless near big arena, then save for boss after meltagun)
  
• vortex grenades are unquestionably the best item in the game. they trivialize every single boss encounter. i always make sure to keep one on me before the end of every stage (CONSERVE CONSERVE CONSERVE)
  
• krak/frag grenades serve mostly the same use cases for me, which is deletion of terminators and other hightier enemies (spend/conserve varies)
  
• chainsword is rarely used and mostly for vertical movement not immediately reachable by jumping
  
• charge is rarely used except for longjumping and evasion/mowing down lowtiers while thinking/strategizing and repositioning
  

ammo for certain weapons is definitely way too common, but i wasn't too bothered with this. i see it as the level designers telling you to "just have fun and go crazy" with certain weapons. it definitely makes the game easier, but my instincts from other arcade shooters make me naturally conserve way more than necessary regardless. they could probably halve the ammo pickups and i wouldn't notice lol. it takes concerted effort for me to ammo dump and not weapon swap.
edit 1: i read that many people felt that there wasn't enough feedback for hitting/killing an enemy. i personally don't have this issue, as the sounds and blood effects are audible and visible from even across the map. i guess i'm also kinda used to memorizing the shots to kill for every gun on every enemy, so all i need to hear is the CRUNCH sound
ENEMIES, BOSSES
enemy diversity is average to sometimes a bit lacking. many small tier enemies are the same, just with varying healthpools. i'm kinda okay with this, as the core combat loop is still pretty tight. enemy placement is great and i was surprised by ambushes plenty of times (ig this goes in level design, oops), requiring me to think on my toes and distracting me from how boring some of the enemies are. the enemy diversity isn't much different than other similar arcade shooters so i'm not disappointed or anything, i just think the combat system they have in place gives them a lot of room to expand. i really enjoy that the projectile patterns/tracking patterns from certain enemies is both predictable but also a little random, meaning you can get very far on movement skill alone but bad placement or poor number sense will always screw you over.
bosses are fine if not boring or with obtuse mechanics. bosses and hightier enemies are much spongier than necessary, requiring powerups/vortex grenades/meltagun if you don't want to be there all day. in theory, this is good game design because it pushes players use the resources (powerups) that you give them. in practice, boss fights can be a somewhat frantic slog if you missed a secret or don't explore the arena in the "proper" order. in my opinion, the game would benefit greatly by decreasing boss healthpools and certain hightier healthpools but increasing difficult in other ways like enemy count or projectile count.
FINAL THOUGHTS
this is getting too long. i think the main theme i want to highlight is "potential". that's not to say that the game is bad. i think the game is fantastic in its current state and definitely worth a buy if you're a fan of the genre. however, different parts of the game are on different levels of good. the movement feels ridiculously good with lots of depth, the level design is quite good but the secrets are severely lacking, the enemy variety is decent and it's fun enough to engage with them, the bosses are okay i guess but are definitely too spongey. certain aspects of boltgun definitely shine through to make it a memorable and addictive game to me. HOWEVER, if they keep working with what they have, i think this will be my new favorite arcade shooter. also, i reserve my right to update this post when i read it again in a few hours and realize i left out lots of stuff i wanted to talk about lmao
TLDR
game good. movement PHENOMENAL, guns good, levels good, enemies good, bosses okay. combat loop extremely satisfying. while still challenging, i think the skill ceiling for the systems in place is far higher than what the current max difficulty offers. pls devs keep updating/working on what you have. even if not, it'll still be one of my favorite games.

And before I start, I know this community doesn't understand what an opinion and different point of view is or how to respect it so you can downvote me all you want.
I'm tired of everyone saying every single day for the past month apex is dying cause it's got lost of problems and respawn doesn't care for the community. How would the care if you treat them like shit whenever they want to do anything.
Most of the problems the game is having right now aren't even related to respawn or that they don't care. They're made by the community and respawn solve things that weren't even broken to begin with.
Let's see what some of the problems of the game are right now and discuss shall we?:
•Events- Sure, the last couple of seasons are just shop events with almost nothing more to it, but the community is the one that keeps the fuzz around it. To begin with, you're not forced in any way, shape or form to buy any of the cosmetics in the store. It's a free game and it's just the way of gaining revenue so they can continue making this game and to pay the developers that spend hours making it, cause surprise they want to have a salary for their job like everyone, but they don't force us to buy a cosmetic in every event or else we will be banned forever. The own devs even said to "protest with your wallets" if we think the events are shit so they can see what works and what doesn't. And no one has ever stopped to think that maybe EA force them to implement more ways to gain money, seeing the fame that EA has gain over the years it's not completely crazy.
•XP Bots- this is quite recent and everyone keeps blaming respawn when they have nothing to do. We even solved the problem, bots accounts that are used to level up to sell them and even try to get heirlooms to sell them for a higher price. But there can also be one more option, people that want to Smurf, but if they play themselves they would be put in the lobbies the deserve before reaching even level 5. So what can they do, have bots that get no kills/damage and gain XP only from placement so when they unlock ranked and play the game against low level players still so they can have easier KP.
•Ranked system and ratting- Many seasons complaing that ranked was too hard and that they should overhaul it. Respawn hears the complains and proposes a system that makes ranked play like ALGS but for casual people, promoting end rings with more people and action so the game doesn't end by round 1. And what does the community do? Rat to gain a free master badge to brag to their friends, because they now in last seasons ranked they wouldn't even make it past silver and because their families don't love them. I can assure most of the post of people complaining about ratting are people that are ratting and have to go through more matches than they thoght to get to masters cause everyone rats and they keep dying before top 13.
•AA- Lmao. This subject it's just absurd. No one complains about AA in other cross play games that have it. Why? Because they can understand that having another input means other disadvantages and they care about having fairness. And all of this comes from mnk players that don't touch grass in a 1500$ setup can't cope with the fact that someone in their couch in a 300$ plastic box can be better than them.
This subject wouldn't even had started if people like Hal would've kept their mouth shut. But they have too much ego and want to have the advantage and want the game to give them the win instantly. I remember Fortnite had this argument at the beginning of the game, and it died after a month. We've been over a year of nonstop complaining because people like Hal can't keep their mouth shut and their followers just keep sucking his dick like braindead zombies.
"Oh but it aims for you" haha what a fucking joke. It is an ASSIST to help you track the flying wraith that hasn't touched the floor in the last 30 seconds and went above your head 100 times at mach 5. When I see mnk YouTuber like punch trying controller they say "oh it moved by itself" while looking at someone 200+ meters away. Yeah it's called aim drift and it's a mechanic from the game. I've seen clips of mnk players beaming with a car and a digi from 150+ meters and thats fine, but oh, how can the game be fair and help people with a joystick keep up with me that I used a fucking square kilometer to aim.
Of course, respawn aren't 100% correct all of the time, and if they do something bad we should tell them, but I don't know if people here know what education and treating other people with respect is.
And of course, all this complaining but let's see what they could do to fix all of this:
•Events- Think more in the community and less in money. I'm sure all here would agree that events like September soiree and war games where one of the best in apex history, so why not make 3 events each season, one the heirloom and another the prestige skin like they normally do, and another being a whole month in duration with the heirloom recolor and rotating fan-favourites LTM's like dummies big day, while maybe having shop offers like the one we're having.
But please respawn, if you're gonna keep this trend of doing recolors for 20+$, let the people that have the original skin claim it for free, I don't think it's too difficult to do. You just take the system of the store of "you already own the core item" and make it so instead of blocking the purchase it makes it free.
And if you put the skins in the normal rotating skins, do like the Halloween skins, have both in the same bundle for the price of one, maybe 30$ instead of 20 for both but not much more.
•Bots: Tbf I can't think of anything better of banning the IP of the account, and that maybe would mean banning all the main acc's of the assholes that do it to Smurf. It's a win win. But I'm sure respawn are already working on it, but they need time.
•Ranked: Just revert it to the original variation. I think it was perfect when it was 5kp (maybe 7 at max) limit and only top ten getting placement points. And maybe figuring out a way to make end rings fights more common, as I'm sure many people like them and are high risk high reward. And also keeping demotion, if someone can't stay in a rank maybe it's because they don't have the level woah I know crazy. And going back to only 500 preds.
But make it so you get the rewards of the ranked you finished, not the highest you achieved, what's the point to have rewards for a rank that you couldnt maintain?. Also with this system there would only be 500 pred badges, which would make it more interesting as people would continue to grind ranked to get to pred and maintain it instead of getting to pred and just forgetting about it cause they'll get the badge anyways. Apart from better rewards, I think this would make ranked much more enjoyable and will get people engaged for longer.
I just play a couple of matches each season to get my shine bronze badge cause I don't care about ranked, but if they made something like this I would grind this 100%.
•AA- Just shit up and forget about it. If respawn hasn't done anything maybe it's because they see it fair and balance, remember they have data no one else has and can see how inputs perform. If they haven't done anything most likely it is that they can see that they're both fair and balanced to make an enjoyable yet competitive game.
And people, just stop complaining about it, paly wahtever you're comfortable/best with. No one can force you to play x input because they say so. If your favourite streamer changes input you don't have to, it's all personal choice and you don't have to feel force to change anything.
And thanks for listening to my Ted talk, and I hope people have neurons and can maintain it civil and respectful in the comment (I know the won't)

My boyfriend of not even a year broke up with me about four months ago and it still hurts so much. I dream that he texts me, saying he wants me back and stuff. These dreams feel so, so incredibly real, to the point where I wake up and expect a text from him on my phone. Its so painful not to talk to him. I blocked him which I regret so fucking much. I don't know why I still think that hes gonna come back to me, because he won't. I know I stressed him out a lot bc of my struggles with my mental health. I often spammed him with messages where I vented, without asking for permission first. I know it stressed him a lot, and I regret doing it. What hurts the most is that the day he left he said that it was because he was starting work next week and wouldn't have much time for me. A few weeks prior to that he had said that when he moved to Canada, he'd get a job and save money for a ticket so we could meet. I regret not reminding him about that. Everything feels sort of pointless without him, and I'm scared I'll never get over him and this is all I'll ever be. I still cry over him so much and I look for him everytime I go outside, even though he lives so far away. I miss him more than anything, to the point where my heart physically hurts from it and I just want it to go away. Everything is so tiring, too, and I look down on myself so much. I often have thoughts about attempting, like when I'm sitting in the classroom I wanna jump out of the window. I never do it, though. I think I deal with all of this by excessive money spending. I buy a lot of stuff, most of which I don't need, and my mom is angry at me for it. I've used up most of my money, so I don't have anything left for summer. It's not that we're poor and she can't give me money. Both her and my dad are working, and she gets an average salary of about $2,000 a month, but she did get $3,300 at her old job which she quit because it was fucking shit. I'm embarrassed of how much money I spend, and my friends tease me about it. "You should try saving money" "You just buy stupid shit you don't need" and it makes me feel worse.
Kinda strayed off track here, sorry.

Hi Redditor’s
Today is an absolutely pivotal moment in my gambling addiction. I opened up to my family about my addiction and told them everything, and they have been nothing but supportive.
I’ve had a history of gambling, but it really became an issue last year when I got a new job with a huge salary increase, and I started dabbling in cryptocurrency.
It escalated from a few $1000 a month, to me blowing 80% of my salary on crypto, maxing out credit cards, taking out loans and getting myself into $80 0000 debt within a year. It didn’t help that I got out of a seriously toxic relationship with a narcissist and this fuelled me further by turning to crypto trading as a coping mechanism.
Today I couldn’t take the emotional baggage any longer. I realised how much this addiction snowballed out of control and starting impacting me negatively in every facet of my life.
I stopped going to the gym, eating correctly, leaving the house, seeing friends, lost my passion to do anything, lay awake most nights till 3am staring at the crypto charts, too afraid to take my eyes off the charts in case they plummeted- and they did every time, every day, week, month. I’d wake up with barely any sleep, consume at least 5 cups of coffee a day, started smoking.
Today I made the conscious choice to STOP. I’ll be going to a Gambling anonymous meeting tomorrow. I’ve told my family I need help. My brother in law is in finance (the irony) and has offered to help me budget and get back ok track. Good news is if I don’t relapse and keep to a strict regime I could be debt free in the next 1.5 years. Well today is the first step out of 547 (goal in days to be financially free of debt), and I understand it won’t be easy. It will have its challenges, and I’ll be tested. I’ll be documenting my journey here.I will do some exercise this week. And tonight I’m looking forward to a good sleep in over 9 months.

Got ghosted by him after sleeping with him all night just after just meeting him
I'm 21 male gay. College student. Average or maybe below average looking. He was 28 male bi, in a very good job, intelligent, good salary, successful, nice family background, handsome and sexy.
We met, ate dinner, talked, slept skin on skin, bodyplay n all sorts of intimate stuff. After peeing in the bathroom in the morning his expressions changed totally. I wrote thank you, he reacted ❤️. Three days later I wrote "Hi, remember me?" Been 5 days since then, he hasn't seen it. I feel so low.
I feel so judged. 🥺

I took 3 days of vacation and my employees somehow managed to turn my department into a pigsty. Everything's a fucking mess right now and I'm so fed up with it. I don't have a lead I could count on to help, and my bosses aren't any help at all either. I'm making slightly above the average salary and it's fucking great I'm not flipping burgers or cleaning up tables but in the grand scheme of things I'm still living paycheck to paycheck and I feel stuck and don't know how to break free from this nightmare. I just want to travel and do all the things these mostly jobless "daddy gave me money for this" people on TikTok do, and it's making me wish I had a sugar daddy too despite the fact that I have too much self-respect to even try to get one.

I've already posted in here once, regarding my father's plan for me to pay my employer once I get an apprenticeship. But now, I started thinking about how to survive in case one has a job. Both money-wise and time-wise. As an European, jobs around my location give off a salary of USD 12-18 on the basis of 40 hours of work per week. However, this is far from what living costs. Using the median salary of USD 15 per hour, this makes a monthly salary of 2760 bucks. Taking 40% off the gross salary for the means of taxes and insurance, we're left with 1656 bucks. Taking about 1200 bucks away from that, that's rent for 540sqft - without electricity, water or gas - Buying a house costs millions. Assuming one goes to work with public transport, which only works more or less tolerable because I live in a very large city and is barely existent in smaller cities, one is left with debt already. No food. No furniture. No whatever else you want or need to live. Even if you had that, you work 40 hours a week and don't have time to care for your household. On top of that, there are people like me who live with disabilities and might not be able to work as primarily expected of them by employers. Plenty of us, especially people who have an impaired ability to learn, are systematically locked out of the education system and are taught nothing but to work in special facilities that have a feel of something in between a prison and a concentration camp to it for less than two dollars per hour. Apprenticeships yield 600 - 900 bucks per month on average. Our minimum wage is 12 bucks an hour, but realistically, a living wage would be four times that.
I just really can't explain myself how to survive as an adult.

What would be a competitive compensation package (salary plus bonus, stocks, etc.) for very experienced mechanical engineers at the peak earning stage of their careers in a HCOL area? I'm not talking about managers (only engineers).
I ask because I feel I'm approaching the peak of my career, making $160k (base salary) plus 10% bonus and a 5% 401K match. I'm very happy where I'm at, but I'm just curious if this is the peak or if there is still room to grow my income (beyond inflation).
Let's exclude those extremely high paying companies like Google, Amazon, etc. to give a more realistic view since I don't think I would ever work for a company like that. Most of my career has been spent working for medical device companies.

Idk if I'm speaking clearly and I'm just quickly rambling rn about my experiences.
I just wanna be quick and tell my story. For a short description, I have been suicidal for a long time with barely any accommodations for my undiagnosed Autism, ADHD, and PTSD. I'm also a bisexual man
2 months before January of this year, I had my accounts hacked. My facebook accounts were disabled and every time I tried to make a new one, it was disabled, until I found a way to bypass it. My suicidality went from passive to active as I tried to get my accounts back, sending online letters to American attorneys general. I felt really sick because all my memories, messages, and connections were cut off and my facebook account was the only thing I had to keep me sane and connected to my friends and favorite groups. I hated it so much because my routine was so disrupted. I cannot read any previous messages, continue where I left off with my friends, etc.
Fast forward to January, I got my facebook accounts back and felt not only refreshed, but freed from all my burdens. I felt practically so happy especially because the day after, XG released their two songs "Shooting Star" and "Left Right", and those songs were a sign of hope. I learned about how my efforts were not wasted.
However, things started getting muddy a month later. My A51 Samsung phone started malfunctioning because there was a problem with the hardware. I ended up feeling sick when my phone was eventually broken to the point that the board had to be replaced. As a replacement, my dad gave me back my A50 phone, which made me happy. He has an Iphone 11 IIRC, but he kept the A50 phone when we traded phones because my account was disabled. In March, I also decided that it would be great to work with my family 500 pesos a day in their project management firm. Right now, all my salary has would have amounted to 10,000 pesos. I'll get back to that.
Eventually, things took a sharp turn for me. My A50's screen turned purple until every pixel died. I have to admit, I was clumsy with my phone too. I hate that I lost both my phones because they were my best coping mechanism. I know some people may view me as being shallow, but having a decent, updated phone is actually crucial for my comfort. I can use apps in their most updated form and what I wanna do from watching to chatting with my friends is streamlined most efficiently. All I could settle with is an Iphone 6 from my oldest brother that'll be rendered obsolete for this year.
Besides that, all the work I've done has resulted with no pay. I cannot pin the blame on my family either and I understand. My dad and his client for a certain project had differences, so the project with the client was eventually discontinued. I have not received my 10,000 pesos yet. Not only that, but my whole family's experiencing many financial issues with only my 2nd older brother being our primary source of income, my oldest brother getting a sales agent job (or working towards it) recently, and soon to be paid. Later this Monday, I just hope my dad wins the bidding so he can have another project.
I know I should just look for a job, especially during my waiting mode before I attempt to get back in college, but as a transferee to my dream college. However, it's hard because I can't get my other job requirements. It costs money to get my other documents too. I also couldn't function until I get my college application processes done either and just feel hopeless.
I don't even feel like I have any true friend groups anymore and can ever be my truest self to my current friend group and even my previous friend groups anymore either. I've grown emotionally apart from them in some way and I've not told them yet. I struggle to make new friends too because I can't go out and I don't really have any way to meet new people online because I'm with a lackluster phone that I have no password to the apple ID to get new apps, especially bumble to meet new people and have new friends. I also barely have any allowance money to go out and meet new people either because again, my family's in a dire situation.
As much as I'm glad that I've not been actively suicidal, I'm still passively suicidal. It's always been like this. I know that I can do everything to minimize the harm my suicidality does to me and I also hate the idea of people "saving" me. I like being the person saving myself as a suicidal person, but it still means a lot when other people do hold my hand as long as they're not patronizing or whatever. Then again, I don't think I'll ever be cured of my suicidality because I've been really traumatized by my upbringing and keep losing many great things.
I wish I could be reborn into a world where my needs are accommodated for, be supported, and be a magical, amazing human being that I always wanted. But I fear this reality I'm in is not the reality where it'll be realized.

I chose Agnes as my investigator, playing true solo on easy. I fear I may have rushed through building my deck because I later realized I didn't take any neutral cards, i.e. staple skill cards. But I figured I had enough other useful cards to help shore up Agnes's weaknesses. For combat, I had Shrivelling and Dragon Pole, and some spells and survivor cards to help with finding clues.
Lost Moorings: I don't remember too much about this one other than it wasn't too difficult even though I didn't get quite everything at the end. I really liked the concept of the creature that grabs you and tries to drag you back into the water. It actually saved me a move action at one point so I couldn't complain. I do remember being pretty confused after I came across the first non-Euclidean location. I understood what the key word was saying but couldn't quite figure out why it was making me put clues on the card from the token pool just to read an interlude entry. I think this location needs to be reworked or better worded to explain what's going on. If it's just to introduce players to the non-Euclidean mechanic, I think there's better ways to go about it.
Going Twice: This is where I started having problems. I chose to find another way inside and managed to get a couple of the auction items fairly easily. However I wasn't paying attention to the act deck and advanced it well after acquiring all the clues I needed. This cost me at least a couple of rounds. I got swarmed by enemies after acquiring the maguffin and ended with a point of physical trauma. What little experience I earned I spent on 2 each of Divination and Earthly Serenity to make me slightly better at finding clues and dealing with damage.
Private Lives: This one went okay? I got a slow start without any means to reliably find clues. I spent most of the time wacking enemies which seemed to spawn almost every round. I accidentally spawned the wrong Tick Tock Men after the agenda advanced, but after reviewing both of them I don't think it would have made much of a difference. I dealt with them in a single round and moved on. Doom kept building up on the agenda and I managed to find three out of the five objectives before resigning at the entrance.
Crumbling Masonry: Got a good start on this one, with Divination in my starting hand. I snatched up the clue and got Luther on my side and proceeded to snatch up several more clues pretty quick. I took out two of the three traitors pretty quick, but got bogged down towards the end and was forced to resign or risk dooming out. Luther survived so there's that.
Across Dreadful Waters: This one came down to the wire in a couple of spots, but I ended up walking away with a fair amount of experience and a good resolution. The Cult Ambushers were particularly difficult because I waited 'til the last minute to go into their location and it took some careful move planning to take them out. Contrarily, for the next stop/act I just sat and waited for the Deep One Mob to show up at my location and burned a round bludgeoning them to death with my Dragon Pole. An upgraded Peter Sylvester made the last location less harrowing, letting him heal a horror every round. Still, by the end there was barely 1 move to spare and I didn't exactly waste a lot of time putting clues on the act. If I was playing an investigator that couldn't readily handle both combat and investigating, this scenario would probably end in failure at the very end. Regardless, I'll take whatever wins I can get.
At this point I feel like I'm just barely doing bad enough to stay under the enemy radar. I'm not earning quite enough experience/notice to add any countermeasures into the scenarios, which I guess means I'm doing well? I guess we'll see.
Blood From Stones: Got a slow start. The first agenda advanced before I had gotten many clues on the story cards. I killed the Barrier Architect easily enough, then the pace started slowly picking up. Shortly after the second agenda advanced, I managed to seal two tablets with a single action. The third was surprisingly easy to get with some of the location effects. I may have had time to get another victory point on a location card, but I didn't want to risk it. Overall I'd say this scenario is desceptively easy. It sets you up at the beginning with what seem like complicated tasks, and then as you explore you find easier ways to deal with them.
I don't want to single Cyclopean Foundations out for this (because this is a reoccurring issue when it comes to true-solo) but there just doesn't seem to be enough actions in any given scenario to reliably comlete your objectives. Wasting even a single round on dealing with a test can lead to failing the scenario or missing out on a significant amount of experience. CF has sort of shined a spotlight on this issue, so it inspired me to make a houserule for true-solo. I won't go into too much detail here because it's a little complex, but on average it gives me an extra round per agenda.
Pyroclastic Flow: Everything here went pretty smooth right up 'til the end. For the first part I had the right cards at the right time to deal with every test. The second part was a little more complicated, but I was still making regular progress getting one clue per round. It wasn't until the Spawn of Cthulhu... um... spawned that I had trouble. One of the traitors was still alive so I had to deal with him as well. This distracted me from getting clues and I didn't realize the ability on the central location until it was too late. Even with the new houserule, I didn't have enough time to complete the final objective. But I chalk this up to my own inexperience and will probably have an easier time when next I play this.
Still, I got a decent amount of experience and 1 mental trauma for Agnes isn't a big deal. I'm spending it all on upgrading both Divinations. I haven't seen really any locations with more than two clues on them, but having extra resources on Divination to deal with more locations will probably help with getting through the last scenario. This is where the campaign throws me a curve ball and says I can't use assets to gather clues or something.
Tomb of Dead Dreams: Well I guess I can sum this up as a glorious convoluted mess of a scenario. It will definitely warp your mind trying to make sense and keep track of all of the mechanics in play.
I got a pretty slow start to begin with. I didn't draw any of my clue finding tools at the start and burned a couple of rounds fruitlessly trying to draw for them. Eventually I was forced to make do with what little I had, which consisted of a single Look What I Found! I spent it getting the first clue to at least open up a couple of locations, which I came to find had the same shroud value as the first. Having to use my 2 investigate on multiple 3 shroud locations was not my idea of a good time.
Finally I drew a Divination and thing soon got back on track. With enemies spawning and being dispatched seemingly every round and granting me a clue each time, I soon revealed enough locations to advance the act. Cthulhu was already breaking through reality at this point, but I was testing with a willpower of 9+ each round to evade him, so he wasn't too much trouble.
What was giving me trouble were the weaknesses I drew. Dark Memory sat in my hand throughout the rest of the scenario, and I was having to find creative spots to dump horror on. Peter Sylvestre helped out here quite a bit.
When I managed to reach the pillars, level 4 Divination made short work of them. Turns out I chose wisely when upgrading those. Even with enemies spawning every round and having to constantly evade Cthulhu, I somehow managed to take each of them out relatively quickly, netting me a win for both the scenario and the campaign.
Wrapping up the epilogue, I earned a total of 11 notice. Not once did this ever get high enough for me to see the countermeasure mechanic. And somehow, even after botching at least two of the scenarios and barely breaking even in several others, I managed to get what appears to be the best ending.
Final thoughts: Any critiques I have are minor and mostly revolve around the limitations of true-solo so I'll try to avoid mentioning those. Things that stuck out to me, most of the enemies I encountered were either hunters or enemies that were too much of a threat to leave on the board. While thematically appropriate, this makes me wonder if investigators that rely on avoiding enemies would be able to last for very long.
I also don't recall there being very many locations with more than 1 clue on them. With many of my cards geared towards finding multiple clues at once, this slowed things down a bit.
Out of Murkey Darkness is a treachery that popped up quite often, but it never actually had any effect. All of the deep one and hybrid enemies spawned right on top of me and evading them was never really much of an option so I just took them out then and there. So multiple times I just let this (sometimes two of them) sit in my threat area since it wasn't really doing anything.
Overall, this is a fantastic campaign, at least on par with the official ones. I plan on going through it again and probably make this one of my regular go-tos. Next time I want to try to see how a seeker manages. I'm thinking either Daisy or Norman.

Hi everyone, new to personalfinance as well as FIRE. Been looking into my financials more recently, by no means a pro. Besides that, here is the scenario that has been brought up by my parents to myself(32yrs) and my wife(32yrs).
My parents reside on a 3.5 acre plot with a 2800sqft home near our current house. As they near retirement they are thinking about how they will continue to afford to live there and have made a proposal to us.
Here are the financials on my parents, regarding fixed expenses.
Expenses/debt

• House: $180,000 @ 2.9% + $8200 taxes + Home insurance = $2160/mo
• HELOC: $50,000 @ Variable rate, unsure current rate
• Solar Panels: $10,000 @ 3.9% = $190/mo
• Water bill is minimal, and electric bills averages from $0-100/ month becuase of solar offsetting usage however $190/month payment on panels still exists.

Parents Retirement

• Mom(58yrs) 401k - $150k. Still working 80k/yr salary
• Dad(62yrs) 401k -$50k. Still working, 50k-80k/yr salary

Now on to their proposal. As they get closer to retirement they are seeing that their retirement income + SS isn't going to make things easy for them to retire by 65 given their expenses. They love their house and don't want to sell as they have a great plot of land and the house is nice(needs some renovations but is not a necessity). They threw the idea out to my wife and I about assuming their mortgage(not HELOC) and they want to build in-law quarters on the current house to live long term while we would live in main portion of house.
Now on to our financials: Myself, Wife, + 4 kids under 6, with 1 on the way in November.
Debt:

• House: $113,000 remaining @ 3.9%
• HELOC: $39,000 variable rate, paying $240 in interest/mo and contributing $300 towards it every month. No other debts

Income:

• Me: Full time nurse @ $40/hr = roughly $3400/mo take home
• Wife: Part time nurse @ $44/hr = roughly $800/mo take home

Expenses:

• Average about $3500/month(mortgage, insurance, utilities, food, misc expenses). Generally we are good about living within our means.
• $700/mo private school for 2 older kids starting in August

Retirement:

• Me 401k with 4% emp match and 12% contributions @ $20,000 balance at the moment + Roth @ balance $20,000 balance(not actively contributing).
  
• Wife 401k no emp match, 10% contribution @ $85,000 balance
  

Now on to the scenario. Let me preface by saying that we have a VERY good relationship with my parents. They would never try to pull one over on us or take advantage, they also understand that their home would eventually be ours anyway when they die.
I think we could pull about $315k for our house in the current market, would likely try to do for sale by owner to avoid realtor fees which would give us a big chunk of cash going into my parents house. The house addition would be my parents financial burden so I don't see their endgame from a financal perspective, but I guess it allows them to stay on the property, we would likely help them with payments as the house would be entirely ours once they pass(hopefully many years from now), and they have built in care when they get older as we are both nurses and would be living right next to them.
The home as whole would be a great place to raise our growing family given the acreage and pool on site. The question utimately is it a viable financial decision for my wife and I? I'm having a tough time seeing where this works out, but it seems like a good plan. I can't quite put my finger on it. I can always work more, but my wife and I are rather comfortable in our current working situation and we have already worked out that I will need to pick up some overtime to cover private school costs. Another thing I didn't mention is that our current neighbors are less than desireable and that has motivated us to move away on multiple occasions despite having a home that we have put a ton of sweat equity into and enjoy. Thank you for any advice, if you need other financials please ask.

I’m not a native english speaker so sorry in advance if this post contains any grammatical errors. I’m neither a doctoresearcher or a science guy so I’ll try to alway provide some reference but be aware that the information that follows may be misinterpreted or simply not correct.
The aim of this post is to understand what is the consensus and the consolidated evidence on PE, and what information we should expect from a clinician/doctor (so you probably won’t find any new therapy you have never heard of). I’m curious and wanted to know a little bit more about this topic since I think there is a lot of misinformation and common beliefs that are rooted but are not backed up by any scientific evidence and even doctors/clinician sometimes are not educated enough on the topic to provide any actual help.Don’t expect anything super well summarised, this is going to be more of a copy and paste work.
Following the Hierarchy of Evidence in medical research meta-analysis, systematic reviews and practice guidelines provide the highest quality of evidence, I focused on the guidelines because I think that are more practical and have more reach to doctors/clinician that are not expert in the field. I found the ISSM’s (International Society of Sexual Medicine) guidelines to be the most complete guidelines on the topic. The International Society for Sexual Medicine (ISSM) is a medical society devoted to the study of the medicine of human sexuality. It publishes two journals, The Journal of Sexual Medicine (where the guidelines were published, IF for 2022-2023 is 3.9), and the open-access Sexual Medicine Reviews. The last update of the guidelines I found is from 2013/2014, American Urology Association has its own guidelines updated in 2020, they are not specifically focused on just PE but on Disorders of Ejaculation, mainly PE and DE (Delayed Ejaculation). The AUA’s guidelines focus mainly on the management of the patient and the pharmacotherapy and don’t give many indications about the main theories on PE’s causes.

Definition from ISSM

The panel proposed a unified definition of LPE (Long Term PE) and APE (Acquired PE):
It “is a male sexual dysfunction characterized by:

• ejaculation that always or nearly always occurs prior to or within about 1 minute of vaginal penetration from the first sexual experience (LPE), OR a clinically significant reduction in latency time, often to about 3 minutes or less (acquired premature ejaculation);
• the inability to delay ejaculation on all or nearly all vaginal penetrations; and
• negative personal consequences, such as distress, bother, frustration, and/or the avoidance of sexual intimacy.”

It also identify additional subtypes: VPE (Variable PE) that occurs irregularly and inconsistently and SPE (Subjective PE) a subjective perception of PE but with the IELT in the “normal range” (so a IELT >= 3 mins, the median IELTs from 2 studies is 5.4 minutes and 6 minutes respectively).
The estimated prevalence of APE and LPE is around 5%, the prevalence of VPE and SPE is higher but these definitions are relatively new so there isn’t a lot of data.

Etiology (form ISSM’s guidelines)

I start by saying that of all the biological factors that have been proposed to explain PE, none has been confirmed in large scale studies, nonetheless some studies are really interesting.
Hypersensitivity of the Glans -> in a small study was found that patient with PE have hypersensitivity and hyperexcitability of the glans via performing somatosensory evoked potentials (brain responses to sensory stimuli). A similar study not cited in ISSM’s Guidelines is Zhang 2009 that found in a small cohort that patients with PE have on average a higher number of dorsal penile nerve branches. Disturbances in central serotonergic neurotransmission -> We know that Serotonin is the main neurotransmitter involved in the control of ejaculation, but in humans specific subtypes of 5-HT (serotonin) receptors involved in PE have not yet been identified. SSRIs work but SSRIs treatment activates many different postsynaptic subtype receptors so we don’t know specifically how it works. In the spinal cord, specific neurons have been found to be essential to ejaculatory reflex in rats and there is also preliminary evidence that such a neural organisation also exists in humans. Genetics of PE -> Some studies have investigated gene polymorphism of receptors of serotonin and oxytocin. Results of the studies are mixed, men with some genetic variants may be predisposed to develop PE but more studies are needed. Hormones imbalances -> Hyperthyroidism has no role in LPE and has been found to be associated with APW in extremely few patients. Recent studies on large population indicate that the endocrine system is involved in the control of ejaculatory function: prolactin in the lowest quartile levels is associated with APE and anxiety symptoms and higher testosterone levels aìcorrelate with PE, while lower androgenization is related to delayed ejaculation. Anyway the guidelines state that both low PRL and relatively high testosterone levels cannot be considered etiologies of PE. Prostatitis -> Prostatic inflammation and chronic bacterial prostatitis have been reported as common findings in men with APE. For the guidelines though there is insufficient evidence to support routine screening of men with PE for this condition. Erectile dysfunction -> For the guidelines ED is unlikely as a comorbidity or etiological factor for LPE, there is data to support that APE is associated with PE. Psychological factors -> there has been limited research on causality; most studies can only report association. It is plausible that psychological factors may lead to PE or vice versa, it is likely that for many men the relationship is reciprocal with either PE or the other factor causing exacerbation of the other.

Psychological/Behavioral interventions

There is not much to say on this topic, well designed studies on behavioural interventions are scarce, apart from the squeeze/start-stop technique other interventions are correct breathing and relaxation of the muscles to control excitement (discussed a lot in this community).

Pharmacological Treatment (from ISSM guidelines)

Dapoxetine: it is a rapid acting and short half-life SSRI with a pharmacokinetic profile supporting a role as an on demand treatment for PE. In randomised controlled trials, dapoxetine 30mg or 60mg taken 1-2 hours before intercourse is more effective than placebo from the first dose resulting in a 2.5 and 3.0 fold increase in IELT. Treatment-related side effects were uncommon, dose dependent and included nausea, diarrhoea, headache and dizziness: they were responsible for study discontinuation in 4% (30mg) and 10% (60mg) of subjects.
Off-Label SSRIs and TCAs: Daily treatment with off-label paroxetine 10-40 mg, clomipramine 12.5-50 mg, sertraline 50-200 mg, fluoxetine 20.40 mg and citalopram 20.40 mg is usually effective in delaying ejaculation. A meta-analysis of published data suggests that paroxetine exerts the strongest ejaculation delay, increasing IELT approximately 8.8-fold over baseline. SSRIs should be avoided in men with a history of bipolar depression.
Topical Local Anesthetics: lidocaine and/or prilocaine as a cream, gel, or spray is well established and is moderately effective in delaying ejaculation, data suggest that diminishing the glans sensitivity may inhibit the spinal reflex that are responsible for ejaculation. PSD502 (Fortacin in Europe) , a lidocaine-prilocaine spray applied 5 minutes before intercourse is associated with a 6.3-fold increase in IELT. There were minimal reports of penile hypoanesthesia and transfer to the partner due to the unique formulation of the compound.
PDE5i: SIldenafil, Tadalafil, Vardenafil, are effective treatments for ED, there is some evidence to support the efficacy and safety of off-label on demand or daily dosing of PDE5i in the treatment of LPE in men with normal erectile function but further evidence based research is encouraged to understand conflicting data.

Other pharmacological treatments

Tramadol: Tramadol has been investigated as a potential off.label therapy for PE, with several studies demonstrating efficacy, the mechanism of action is not completely understood. It may be considered when other therapies have failed because of the risk of addiction and side effects.
Oxytocin: Intraventricular administration of oxytocin antagonist inhibits sexual behaviour in animal studies, however in one human study, an oxytocin antagonist failed to clinically or statistically improve IELT, further human studies are necessary.
Alpha1-adrenoceptor antagonists: not mentioned in ISSM’s guidelines but in the AUA’s. There are not good quality studies on these drugs, Silodosin seems the most effective one. From AUA

Other treatments

Cryoablation and Neuromodulation of the Dorsal Penile Nerve: invasive and irreversible procedure, which is associated with an increase in the IELT. However, safety of this treatment modality needs to be determined before this procedure can be recommended for treating patients.
Intracavernosal Injection for PE: There is limited evidence regarding the efficacy of intracavernosal vasoactive drug injection for the treatment of PE.
Injections with hyaluronic acid in the glans: a study cited by AUA found a 2.6 fold increase vs 1.1 placebo in ELT, AUA recommends that surgical intervention for PE only to be considered in the context of ethical board approved trial for patients who have failed or cannot tolerate alternative management strategies for PE.

Preclinical studies for PE

Several agents have been studied in animal models for treating PE: a potent SSRI (DA-8031) significantly inhibited ejaculation in rat models. There are some human studies after 2013 (so after the publication of the guidelines) but I can’t understand in which phase the drug is and if the possible therapy with this SSRI is on-demand or not and the drug is not mentioned in AUA’s guidelines and I don’t understand why.
Modafinil, used in the treatment of narcolepsy, produced significant delay in ejaculation in rat models. Can’t find a lot of studies after 2013, in the AUA’s guidelines form 2020 it’s reported that in an uncontrolled pilot study of on-demand modafinil it’s reported a modest but significant two-fold increase in IELT.
Injection of botulinum toxin in the bulbospongiosus muscle, from AUA’s guidelines: the toxin that blocks neural transmission when injected into the muscle. But studies for PE were discontinued due to lack of efficacy in interim analysis.
Oxytocin antagonists (from AUA’s guidelines): Cligosoban is a oxytocin receptor antagonist that in a RCT double blind trial showed statistically significant effect of LPE men (3.6 fold increase in ELT vs 1.8 for placebo).

Further study and potentially development of agents with different distribution is required to determine if these therapies will have a role in PE management in the future.

This is based on the CBA, MOU, and various CapFriendly FAQs.
If you have any questions, feel free to comment, or message me.
Note: Various games played thresholds for may be pro-rated due to the shortened 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons. Consult CapFriendly or message me if you have any questions.
All dates below are tentative. Check the schedule for more up-to-date information.

Salary Cap

The upper limit is $83.5M (projected), and the lower limit is $61.0M (projected). Though you are allowed to exceed the upper limit by 10% in the offseason, we will require you to have a plan for how to get back under the cap by the end of the sim.
Resources:

• What is the value of cap space?

Contracts

For the sake of simplifying contracts, all contract negotiations and signings will be done using average annual value (AAV). Salary structure and signing bonuses will not be considered, with the exceptions of complying with minimum salaries ($775k for the 2023-24 season and beyond) and maximum salaries (an AAV equal to 20% of the current salary cap upper limit).

Basic Definitions

• Standard player contract (SPC) - the sole form of employment contract used for all player signings
• Entry-level contract (ELC) - most players’ first contract, carries certain restrictions
• Unrestricted free agent (UFA) - can sign with any team
• Restricted free agent (RFA) - if they sign with another team, the original team has the right to match the contract or receive draft pick compensation
• Group 1 Player - players under an ELC
• Group 2 Player or RFA - most RFAs fit under this category
• Group 3 Player or UFA - players with 7 accrued seasons or 27 years old
• Group 4 RFA - defected players
• Group 5 UFA (currently irrelevant) - players with 10 accrued seasons who made less than the average league salary in the prior season
• Group 6 UFA - players 25 or older who played few enough NHL games to become a UFA
• 10.2(c) - players without the professional years required to become a Group 2 RFA and receive a qualifying offer. Can only negotiate with the team holding the player's rights.

Contract & Roster Limits

During the regular season (before the day of the Trade Deadline) each team may have a maximum of 23 players on their Active Roster, and a minimum of 18 skaters and 2 goalies.
Each club may have a maximum of 50 SPCs, and must have a minimum of 24 players and 3 goalkeepers. In this sim, we will also require each team to have at least 40 SPCs by the end. Players who meet the following conditions do not count towards this contract limit:

1. Are 18 or 19 years old
2. Are in a junior league
3. Have not played 11 NHL games in one season

Note: the roster sheets currently assume every player eligible for this exemption is assigned to Juniors. If you wish to have that player(s) on your opening day roster, please ask me to correct this (as it will affect the number of contract slots you have available).
A club's reserve list (signed players, unsigned draft picks, and defected players) may not exceed 90 players.
Resources:

• CapFriendly Reserve List FAQ

Buried Contracts

For one-way NHL contracts of players reassigned to the AHL, the players' salary cap hit, minus the sum of the minimum NHL salary (for the respective season) and $375k, still counts towards the team’s salary cap total. This implies up to $1.15M can be buried this season per contract.
If a player signs a multi-year contract at 35 years or older (as of June 30 prior to the effective contract), the player's individual cap hit counts against the teams cap hit regardless of whether, or where, the player is active. However, a team will receive a $100k relief off of the team's salary cap hit, if a 35+ contract player is playing in the minor leagues after the first year of their contract.

Entry-Level Contracts

Players younger than 25 as of September 15 of the year of their first NHL contract must sign an ELC, all of which are two-way contracts with a maximum AAV of $950k (players drafted in 2022) or $925k (players drafted prior to 2022). The length of an ELC depends on the player's age:

• 18-21 years old: 3 years
• 22-23 years old: 2 years
• 24 years old: 1 year

European players (players drafted from a team outside North America or undrafted players) ages 25-27 must sign a one-year ELC.
If a player signed to an ELC is 18 or 19 years old, and does not play in a minimum of 10 NHL games (including both regular season and playoffs), their contract is considered to "slide", or extend, by one year. Signing bonuses do not slide, which can change the AAV of the player's contract.
Resources:

• The benefits of an Entry Level Slide

Contract Length

Clubs may sign a player to an SPC with a term of up to 8 years only if that player was on such club's Reserve List as of and since the most recent Trade Deadline. For UFAs, this right expires when the player hits free agency (i.e., on Sun. June 25th, 11:59pm ET). Otherwise, the term limit for SPCs is 7 years.

No-Trade Clauses

A No-Move Clause (NMC), No-Trade Clause (NTC), or Modified No-Trade Clause (M-NTC) can be added to a player's contract in the years after they are eligible as a Group 3 player (7 accrued seasons or 27 years old). These clauses restrict the player from being traded without his consent. An NMC also restricts a player from being placed on waivers and being assigned to minors without his consent. These clauses do not exempt a player from a buyout or contract termination.

Performance Bonuses

Clubs may pay players that meet one of the following criteria a performance bonus:

1. The player is on an ELC.
2. The player has signed a one-year contract and is over 35 years old.
3. The player has signed a one-year contract after returning from a long-term injury (has played 400 or more games, and spent 100 or more days on the Injured Reserve in the last year of their most recent contract).

Performance bonuses count against the cap, however a team can only exceed the upper limit by a maximum of 7.5% (the overage of which counts towards the next season's cap hit).
Resources:

• How potential Performance Bonuses might hinder the Leafs next season (from 2017)

Group 6 Unrestricted Free Agents

A player whose contract is expiring and meets all of the following conditions shall become a Group 6 UFA:

1. The player is 25 years or older (as of June 30th).
2. The player has completed 3 or more professional seasons - qualified by 11 or more professional games (for an 18/19 year old player), or 1 or more professional games (for a player 20 or older) while under an SPC.
3. The player has played fewer than 80 NHL games for a skater, or 28 NHL games of 30 minutes or greater for a goaltender.

Restricted Free Agents

Qualifying Offers

A qualifying offer (QO) is an official one-year SPC offer. Clubs have until Sun. June 25th, 5pm ET to submit their QOs. Submitting a QO gives the club the right of first refusal to match any offer sheet submitted, or receive draft pick compensation. If the player rejects the qualifying offer, they remain a RFA and their rights are retained by the club. If a player does not receive a qualifying offer, he becomes a UFA.
A minimum QO is calculated from the player's base salary (excluding all bonuses) as follows:

• 105% of the base salary if the base salary is less than $1,000,000. However, the minimum QO shall not exceed $1,000,000.
• 100% of the base salary if the base salary is equal to or greater than $1,000,000.
• For contracts signed after the 2020 Memorandum of Understanding, if the minimum qualifying offer would otherwise be greater than 120% of the AAV of the contract, the minimum qualifying offer will instead be 120% of the AAV.

The QO must be a one-way offer if the following three requirements are met (a goaltender is considered to have played a game if they are on the bench as a backup):

1. The player played in 180 NHL games in the previous three seasons.
2. The player played in 60 NHL games in the previous season.
3. The player did not clear waivers in the previous season.

Qualifying offers expire on Wed. July 12th, 5pm ET.
Note: If an RFA has signed a contract in another league, the NHL club may extend a QO to retain that player's rights. These players are marked on the roster sheets as signed in another league.
Resources:

• CapFriendly Qualifying Offer Calculator

Offer Sheet Compensation

Only Group 2 and 4 RFAs may be signed to an offer sheet. However, clubs only receive draft pick compensation for Group 2 RFAs.

Compensation must be entirely in the next draft (for this sim: 2024), unless multiple of the same round of pick are required (e.g. two first rounders). In that case, you may skip one year (e.g. two 1sts could be 2023 and 2024 OR 2023 and 2025 OR 2024 and 2025).

Compensation is determined by the AAV outlined in the offer made by submitting club. The AAV for an offer sheet, which determines the compensation required, is derived by dividing the total contract value amount by the lesser of: number of years offered, or 5 years. The AAV thresholds are readjusted each season, and is based on the average league salary for that season.
Compensation for the 2022 offseason is as follows:

AAV (1-5 years)	AAV (6 years)	AAV (7 years)	Compensation
$1,386,490 or less	$1,155,408 or less	$990,350 or less	No compensation
$1,386,491 - $2,100,742	$1,155,409 - $1,750,618	$990,351 - $1,500,530	One 3rd Round Pick
$2,100,743 - $4,201,488	$1,750,619 - $3,501,240	$1,500,531 - $3,001,063	One 2nd Round Pick
$4,201,489 - $6,302,230	$3,501,241 - $5,251,858	$3,001,064 - $4,501,593	One 1st Round Pick, One 3rd Round Pick
$6,302,231 - $8,402,975	$5,251,859 - $7,002,479	$4,501,594 - $6,002,125	One 1st Round Pick, One 2nd Round Pick, One 3rd Round Pick
$8,402,976 - $10,503,720	$7,002,480 - $8,753,100	$6,002,126 - $7,502,657	Two 1st Round Picks, One 2nd Round Pick, One 3rd Round Pick
$10,503,721 or more	$8,753,101 or more	$7,502,658 or more	Four 1st Round Picks

The club that receives an Offer Sheet has 7 days to match the offer or accept the draft pick compensation. If the receiving club matches the Offer Sheet, they are bound to the contract details outlined in the offer, must respect all aspects of the contract (such as any NTCs), and cannot trade that player for 1 year from the date of the contract signing.
Resources:

• CapFriendly Offer Sheet Calculator
• CapFriendly Offer Sheet FAQ

Buyouts

Teams are permitted to buyout a player's contract to obtain a reduced salary cap hit over a period of twice the remaining length of the contract. The buyout amount is a function of the players age at the time of the buyout, and are as follows:

• 1/3 of the remaining contract value, if the player is younger than 26 at the time of the buyout
• 2/3 of the remaining contract value, if the player is 26 or older at the time of the buyout

The team still takes a cap hit, and the cap hit by year is calculated as follows:

1. Multiply the remaining salary (excluding signing bonuses) by the buyout amount (as determined by age) to obtain the total buyout cost
2. Spread the total buyout cost evenly over twice the remaining contract years
3. Determine the savings by subtracting the annual buyout cost from Step 2. by the player's salary (excluding signing bonuses)
4. Determine the remaining cap hit by subtracting the savings from Step 3. by the player's AAV (including signing bonuses)

A player can only be bought out after clearing unconditional waivers. A waiver-claim by another team pre-empts the buyout process. If a player has a no-movement clause, the player can reject the option of waivers and proceed directly to the buyout process.
A 35+ contract that is bought out receives no salary cap relief. An injured player (who was injured as a result of his job) is entitled his remaining salary, so long as such injury continues, and therefore cannot be bought out.
Resources:

• CapFriendly Buyout Calculator
• CapFriendly Buyout FAQ

Waivers

When a player is reassigned from the NHL to another league, they must pass through waivers (unless they are exempt).
Waivers requests are processed each day at 2pm ET, and are subject to a 24 hour claim period, expiring at 2pm ET the following day.
The sim will have two waivers windows: unconditional waivers (for a buyouts) runs from Mon. June 19th until Sun. June 25th and the normal waiver window will run from Thu. August 3rd until Sat. August 12th.
Waivers priority is determined by the lowest percentage of possible standings points at the time of the waivers request (or when outside the regular season or through October 31st by the standings of the previous season). Tie breakers: lowest ROW percentage, fewest number of points in head-to-head games (excluding "odd games"), lowest goal differential per game. Therefore, waivers priority throughout the sim is as follows:

Order	Team	Order	Team	Order	Team
1	ANA	12	OTT	22	MIN
2	CBJ	13	BUF	23	LAK
3	CHI	14	PIT	24	NYR
4	SJS	15	NSH	25	DAL
5	MTL	16	FLA	26	COL
6	ARI	17	CGY	27	EDM
7	PHI	18	NYI	28	VGK
8	WSH	19	WPG	29	TOR
9	DET	20	TBL	30	NJD
10	STL	21	SEA	31	CAR
11	VAN			32	BOS

Resources:

• CapFriendly Waivers FAQ

Waiver Exemptions

Age is defined as follows:

• If a player turns 18 between January 1 and September 15 in the entry-draft calendar year preceding the first season of the player's ELC, they are considered 18
• Otherwise, if a player turns 19 (or older) before December 31 in the entry-draft calendar year preceding the first season of the player's ELC, they are considered 19 (or older)

For players 20 years or older, the year in which they play their first professional game under NHL contract is their first year towards the waiver exemption.
Whichever comes first in this table indicates when a player is no longer exempt:

Age	Years from Signing (Skaters)	NHL Games Played (Skaters)	Years from Signing (Goalies)	NHL Games Played (Goalies)
18	5	160	6	80
19	4	160	5	80
20	3	160	4	80
21	3	80	4	60
22	3	70	4	60
23	3	60	3	60
24	2	60	2	60
25+	1		1

There is an exception (to the above) for 18 and 19 year olds: if a skater plays 11 NHL games or more, the year exemption will reduce to 3, and the following two season will count against this regardless of games played. For goalies, the year exemption will reduce to 4, and the following three season will count against this regardless of games played.
Otherwise:

1. A player does not need to pass through waivers if he has not been on the NHL active roster for a cumulative 30 days since last clearing waivers, and has not played in 10 or more NHL games.
2. Any player who has consented to a Conditioning Loan can be loaned to a minor league club for a maximum of 14 days without passing through waivers.
3. A player who was previously on long-term injured reserve (LTIR), may be loaned to a minor league club for a maximum of 6 days or 3 games for the purpose of determining if the player is fit to play. This player does not need to pass through waivers

Examples of players that do or do not require waivers.
Resources:

• CapFriendly Waivers Calculator

Long Term Injured Reserve

There are two approaches to use LTIR for cap relief:

1. Put the player on LTIR before the season starts. You can be over at the start of the season, but only get relief for how much the contract is over at the time he is placed on LTIR. Note: offseason cap accounting applies.
2. Put the player on LTIR after the start of the season. You need to be under the cap at the beginning of the season, but get full relief.

The LTIR salary relief cannot be used to pay bonuses. Any excess relief does not accumulate.
At this point, the following players are eligible for LTIR: Ryan Ellis (PHI), Gabriel Landeskog (COL), Bryan Little (ARI), Carey Price (MTL), Brent Seabrook (TBL), and Shea Weber (ARI). GMs can petition the commissioners to add players to this list, including relevant information such as the player, injury, and timeline for return.
Resources:

• Clearing up some misconceptions about LTIR
• CapFriendly LTIR FAQ

Retained Salary Transactions

When a team trades a player, they have the option to retain a part of his salary (and cap hit). The team who retains the salary pays the retained percentage of the salary, and retains the percentage of the cap hit (until the contract expires). The following requirements must be met:

1. The percentage retained cannot exceed 50% of the player’s salary (including all bonuses) and cap hit.
2. The same percentage must be retained for both the player’s salary and cap hit, and cannot be modified year-to-year. As a result, the same amount must be retained through the remainder of the contract.
3. All teams are limited to a maximum of 3 retained salary contracts per season.
4. Teams cannot retain an aggregate amount of more than 15% of the Salary Cap Upper Limit.
5. Players’ contracts are limited to 2 retained salary transactions per contract.

Once a retained salary transaction occurs, there are various limitations:

• A team cannot re-acquire a player whom they have retained salary from for a minimum of one year after the date of the transaction (unless the player's contract expires or is terminated prior to the one-year date).
• All teams involved in a retained salary transaction will have cap implications if the contract is bought out or terminated.
• Teams who retain salary on a players contract, will have the full value of the cap hit act against the teams salary cap total, regardless of whether the player is reassigned to the minors by their current team.

Such transactions will require a compelling explanation.

Salary Arbitration

We are not doing salary arbitration as part of this sim. If you feel that a GM and/or agent is negotiating for an RFA in bad faith, contact a commissioner.

Miscellaneous

Performance bonuses count against the cap, however a team can only exceed the upper limit by a maximum of 7.5% (the overage of which counts towards the next season's cap hit).
Teams may not commit more salary to next season than 110% the current salary cap (i.e. exceed their tagging space).
Players claimed off waivers cannot be traded to another club (until the termination of Playoffs of the season in which he was acquired) unless he is first offered on the same terms to the club(s) that previously issued a claim (and the offer has been refused).
If you have any questions, feel free to comment below or DM sandman730. If we need to clarify some things, we will do so.

Had this really strange vivid dream I was hanging out with Elon musk he gave me a job with a 100k yearly salary doing I don’t even know what!?? I remember seeing him a lot but I can’t remember anything he said but i remember him being a real different than the average person I guess he had a different way of thinking and speaking like he was very careful with his words. After this I kept seeing a crazy huge blue rocket take off but it wasn’t a normal rocket it had a huge blue streak behind that kept getting bigger and bigger I believe they have a rocket like this in real life and I must have saw a video because it sounds so familiar but who knows. So strange LOL

The job I'm interviewing for is for a LTC dietitian for a 64 bed facility, I believe they have 59 patients right now. I was told to expect 40-50 hours per week, and that I can flex the hours if I have appointments/kids school doings, etc. I won't be needing health insurance since I'm covered through my husband's job. It's a salaried position. Do I come up with a number based on 50 hours/week or should I average it at 45? Can I expect anything more because I'm declining health insurance? I'll also add that they have no other applicants right now, and I'm in a rural area that lacks dietitians, so I probably have some leverage due to that.