matter2003

If you took that $450 a month and put it into investments you'd have a lot more than that after 14 years... Fungibility of money states that earning x amount of dollars more is the same as paying x amount of dollars less. You should do whatever is more in your favor. In almost all circumstances investing money to make more $ is in your favor over reducing a payment. If you invested $450 a month into investments at even a below average 8% return you'd have $141K after 14 years due to compounding interest. If you received an average 12% return you'd have $195K. Pretty sure you aren't saving anywhere close to that in interest by paying it off early.

Owned my house for the last 13 years in the Buffalo area and ironically when we purchased it in 2005 our real estate agent said we probbaly slightly "overpaid" for it but that if we stayed a few more years it would likely catch up. We didnt care because it was in a great area and on a quiet street to raise a family and the other houses we looked at were actually more expensive in other areas and we didn't like them as much. As it turned out it was a great move as real estate prices in the WNY have skyrocketed since(well skyrocketed for this area lol) and its now worth approximately 55K more than what we paid for it based on Zillow estimates. Over the years we have had to do some repair work, but we qualified for a weatherization grant that we ended up waiting on a list for 3 years but when they came in they replaced the furnace and hot water heater since they were both 15-20 years old and did a bunch of other minor things. Got a metal roof put on by a buddy in the roofing business and love it other than when it snows we get an avalanche off the one side of the roof by the door. But that roof will be around longer than we will. So thats the only roof replacement we will need to do. Just put in a new sump pump with a backup...that cost about $350. Replaced a lighting fixture and replaced 2 sections of fence in the backyard and need to replace 3 more sections this year as those 4 or 5 wind storms over a month period we had really did a number on it. Getting ready to spend some money for landscaping in the front yard this year. Overall I'm pretty happy with everything, especially that we refinanced when the mortgage rates were down to a 3.875% interest rate at 20 years, cutting 5 years and 2.5% off our old rate. Also some of the WORST advice people give is to pay off the mortgage early...DO NOT DO THIS!! Its a fools errand...on average the market returns 8% a year. If you take this extra money you could be investing and use it to pay down the mortgage you are giving up the difference between 8% and your mortgage rate AND the compound interest you would be earning on top of it. Your goal with money should be to maximize your long term worth and you will NEVER do this by paying off low interest things early at the expense of investing that money into higher earning interest things.

Wow...first time in NHL history the top seeds from each conference both lost in the first round...and they did it emphatically with one getting swept and the other losing 4 games to 1. Even worse except for small pockets of time in the games the 8th seeded teams simply looked much better.

From what i understand hockey players are the most giving in general with their time for these things out of all athletes...

The 10 game winning streak and us leading the NHL in points at the end of November... Then a long stretch of some of the worst hockey I've ever seen(including the tank years). Realizing that Housley was clueless in the process.

Lightning get broomed and were blown out twice in 4 games. Utter embarrassment...they got their ***** handed to them after the first period of game 1. Tortorella may not be the most liked coach but damn if he isn't a phenomenal strategist. I know people say this stuff happens every year but let's be real. It doesn't. No team in the history of the NHL won the President's Trophy and then got swept in the first round.

I'd argue there are far more good golfers now than when Jack played, which is why so few of them have multiple majors...a corollary to that is you have to be a much better golfer now to win that many majors than you did back in Jack's time.

Didn't look too bad this weekend...

I swear if I see that SloMo commercial and hear that guy say "You cant get a worse..." One more time I am going to through something through the TV...so annoying.

Cannot believeTampa Bay choked away a 3-0 lead to lose 4-3 to a team they had outscored 17-3 in their meetings this year...

If McClellan has a preference to be on the West Coast because he and his family live there already then that probably played a large role in it... I'm sure plenty of coaches will salivate at being able to coach a young Eichel and Dahlin...if they can harness their greatness they will have a long and successful tenure here. What coach wouldnt want 2 young studs to build around?

We already have that in Dahlin

He isnt the next Braden Point at pick 7...Point was a third rounder...

A player who ends up turning into another Girgensons while some team in the mid teens or early 20s finds a 30 goal, 75 point player.

Maybe, but perhaps they just have a "Feel" for this type of stuff...not saying this is or isn't the case with McClellan, but I think some coaches definitely have a better feel for this type of stuff naturally and seeing things that might be "hidden" than others do.

Is it possible a coach can naturally "see" the same things analytics would tell him so that it doesn't make a difference whether he uses them or not because he's come to the same conclusion?

Maybe but i doubt they would produce the record Housley has over the past 2 years.

I'm OK with it as well...the dude has gotren near 60% of points available over his career including a few down years in Edmonton...

Its obviously been in the works for quite some time if they already knew who they wanted...

Certainly makes you wonder why Thompson was up so long and Olafsson in was in the minors most of the year...but i guess they could argue he was able to play the eay he did precisely because of all that time in the minors...

Ended at 19.5%...not great but certainly not terrible...think they scored 4 or 5 PP goals in the last 3 games tho if I am not mistaken which definitely inflated its season long performance

Expected goals takes those things into account, and the Sabres still should have scored 12 more goals than they did. In addition, the goalies should have saved 9 more goals than they did taking all factors into account. Net swing is 21 goals...that likely equals at least 10 points in the standings.

He reminds me of Winston Churchill

GM C (I think we had enough good players to be closer to 85-90 points than 76---unlike many posters I don't necessarily think Botts did a great job, I just think he has a methodology of how he wants to build this thing and we aren't there yet, and he wasn't willing to risk giving up a lot for vets. I liked the Skinner and Montour trades, juy is still out on the O'Reilly trade but Tage is pretty inconsistent tho young...need to see what the 1st round pick turns into) Coaching F- (what more needs to be said...has any team since the merger in 1970 ever been in 1st place in late November then finished bottom 5 at the end of the year?? It's near impossible to do that.) Goaltending D(combined, advanced metrics show they should have saved 9 more goals than they did) Forwards C-(advanced metrics showed this team scored 12 fewer goals than expected, most of these would be from forwards) Defense D(the team didn't seem to figure out how to not leave people wide open at the back post the entire year and made the same mistakes in game 1 as they did in game 82. They also routinely turned pucks over in their own end as if they intended to give the puck to the other team) Penalty Kill B (mostly pretty good throughout the year in the top 5, tailed off a little towards the end and finished 12th) Power Play C (wasn't that great for much of the year hanging out around upper teens to low 20's ranking among teams, but ended up 16th due to a strong last few games)

Sabres finished 14th in the NHL in Corsi, at 50.24%(all strengths), the first time they have been over 50% in this stat since 2009-2010(granted 2010-2011 they were at 49.99%, but still). This is a good sign and a move in the right direction from last year where they finished 21st in the NHL, and in fact the highest they have finished since the stat began being tracked in 2007-2008 where they finished 50.21%. Even better is the young players on the team are the Relative Corsi leaders(meaning we get more chances than we give up when they are on the ice). Relative Corsi leaders: Olafsson 7.5 Nylander 5.0 Monour 4.9 Dahlin 4.5 Skinner 3.7 Eichel 2.9 Reinhart 2.9 Pilut 2.5 Nelson 2.3 Rodrigues 2.0 In addition, the advanced metrics showed the Sabres had a -12 expected goal differential, meaning based on league averages, they should have scored 12 more goals than what they did. Combine this with the advanced metrics showing the goaltenders saved a combined 9 goals fewer than expected and this is a 21 goal swing which could have gone a long way to getting us into the mid 80's point wise if not closer to 90. The law of averages tends to say this should balance out season to season, meaning that while we certainly didn't play up to our capabilities, some of this might be attributable to bad luck too.