My buddy Dave learned that one the hard way in Mexico City. He booked this Airbnb that had a backup generator and dual internet lines, but day three the entire neighborhood flooded from a busted water main. No power, no internet, no way to get a taxi because the street was a river for like 36 hours. He ended up working out of a Starbucks three blocks away wearing borrowed flip-flops and typing on his phone.

That 40 point drop for a $2 mistake is brutal. Did you try filing a goodwill letter or a CFPB complaint to push for the credit removal, or did they just shut you down on the phone?

@willow732 that cheap meter was powered by hope and bad calibration apparently. Two volts off is wild - my Fluke and that thing are basically in different zip codes. I was just too stubborn to admit spending $18 was a mistake, so I kept using it like a fool. Now it lives in my junk drawer as a reminder that sometimes you get exactly what you pay for.

Yeah the sagging drove me nuts too until I finally just went with welded wire.

Used to think that was overkill. I was more of a "whats wrong and how I fixed it" kind of note writer. Then I spent three hours trying to figure out why a router kept dropping connection, and the user casually mentioned "oh yeah we plugged a space heater into that same outlet last week." That was the moment. Now I always start with the timeline like @dianab68 mentioned. It sounds slow but it really does cut down on the headscratching later. Frank's rule is basically the same thing. It forces you to ask the right question first instead of jumping straight to the fix.