Submission statement: This is a short collapse story written by my good friend who died in 2019. He gave me a USB stick that contained some of his unfinished and completed work before he passed. As far as I know he only self published one novel on smashwords.com. He was not interested in fame or fortune but I know he would have wanted more people to read his work. I know nothing about publishing so I will submit this to collapse readers for your consideration. He wrote his novel under the pseudonym Gregory Truman and I will use that name as the author.
Oil on Mars
By: Gregory Truman
The shocking news was sent back to Earth by the lander Seeker relayed from its Martian atmospheric drone Revealer. The drone was sent specifically to check out the water seepage from the sides of the cliffs bordering the vast Valles Marineris canyon near the Martian equator. The seepage had been discovered from photographs taken on previous missions. The drone took samples hovering over several seeps and did an onboard analysis of the liquid’s content. The result was conclusive. It was a mixture of water and crude oil, equivalent to West Texas Intermediate.
This was unbelievable news. We had all been told that Mars was a dead world; completely lifeless. And that may be true recently, but scientists hurriedly hypothesized that over a billion years ago when Mars was temperate with oceans and rain, the land could have been covered with some kind of primitive plant life. There may even have been a Carboniferous like epoch that could have lasted for several hundred million years.
Just by looking at the highly eroded mountains of Mars and the ancient dry river beds and flood plains one can plainly see evidence of rain and floods and from the multiple times the water ice caps had melted that would have buried almost everything that once lived upon the surface. The combination of heat and pressure and time had done the same thing on Mars as it had done to deeply buried organic material here on Earth; it was transformed it into crude oil. The world was astounded. The debate started immediately; how to take advantage of this discovery?
Conditions on Earth had worsened since the beginning of the 21st century. There was still some oil in the ground, but it was costly to drill for it. The market for oil had been drying up for years, with very few planes still flying. The oil that was left was needed to generate electrical power. It was expensive and beyond the reach of most people who were still switching to bicycles to get around. The cities and suburbs and country side were mostly depopulated and littered with the hulks of rusting automobiles. Plagues, pestilence, bad weather and crop failure had more than decimated world populations. People had become resigned to a harsh world. Few had any hope for a better future. Governments and the ruling classes were more vicious in their attempts to hold on to their power and privileges. Every endeavor had been corrupted. Every attempted reform and revolution was ruthlessly crushed. Things were getting worse for the wealthy also. They were finding it difficult to buy wine, hire servants, and to eat fancy foods.
The economy everywhere had been propped up by cheap credit for decades. Profits and taxes had been strip-mined from every enterprise that used credit to survive and were soon bankrupted when credit was denied. There were not enough jobs, not enough customers, and not enough profits left to pay their debts. The world economy had not only stopped growing, it was continuing to contract.
The central banks of the world had tried flooding their markets with monetary liquidity, but they could not create more jobs. They reluctantly had to give free money to their citizens to increase spending and revive growth. In the U.S., to avoid another inflationary spiral the monthly stipend was only a little more than for subsistence, just enough to prevent more rioting. It wasn’t enough money to get people spending again the way they did before the crisis. Economists believed that growth could only begin again after a fresh start. But what could a government do to contrive a fresh start? Someone in a think tank convinced powerful people that what was needed was a new reason to grow the economy, some goal to revive the animal spirits of a dejected populace. This news from Mars seemed to provide the perfect prescription. Headlines and news channels around the world soon screamed out the idea: WE ARE GOING TO MARS!
Almost everyone knew it would be too expensive to ship oil from Mars to Earth, so the plan was to go to Mars and burn the oil there, to generate power for the first pioneering colonists. All the other products derived from petroleum would soon be available to those colonists from Earth. The public were told not to think too much about the details, those would be worked out by experts. The point to keep in mind was we were finally going to Mars! And that thought did arouse some animal spirits in a population that seemed to have lost all enthusiasm.
People wanted to know exactly who and how many were actually going. They were told that after careful screening, the number of colonists would be decided according to technical and practical considerations. Hopefully the minimum number would be around a dozen people for the initial launch and many more on subsequent launches. Everyone was encouraged to apply if they were interested in going, but they must be prepared for hard work to acquire the skills that would be needed for survival on Mars. The selection process would be long and arduous. The whole world would be contributing to this grand adventure; the expansion of mankind to a new world. Old rivalries would be forgotten as we forged a new commitment to the future of the human race. This optimism inspired more than a few to hope for a brighter tomorrow.
Many wealthy people had been preparing to retreat into their underground bunkers for years, when conditions became severe enough. They were hoping their precautions would allow them to ride out the projected mass extinction for a little while longer. Most had accepted that it was inevitable by then with the mounting evidence all around them. Some millionaires had become billionaires over the years buying out the means of production and the supply chains for the bare necessities of life the impoverished masses depended upon. The average person had no chance for any upward mobility.
Most of the public realized by then that the root of the problem had something to do with wealth inequality; the growing gap between the vast wealth accumulated by a few families and the poverty of the majority of people struggling just to survive. Whether this was the cause or a result of the decline, or if it was the fault of capitalism itself was hotly debated. The great grandchildren of the baby boomers had all grown up wondering how their elders could have been so complacent; satisfied with bread and circuses instead of addressing or even acknowledging the growing crisis. Older people often defended themselves with standard responses: We didn’t know; we were preoccupied with personal problems; we had no real power to change anything; and life is short, we did not evolve traits to cope with long range problems. These and other excuses were unacceptable to the young. Many were becoming increasingly angry by the fact that billionaires could exist in this world while millions of people, mostly children, starve to death every year. To them, this was proof enough of a great crime against humanity. And this was an ongoing crime, because when wealthy people died their great fortunes lived on and continued to grow as they were passed down within the family to the next generation of trust fund babies, who would acquire that wealth only by an accident of birth.
This process of wealth accumulation and inheritance appeared to be a hold- over from at least the feudal times of lords and kings in the middle ages. The lords would take a percentage of the peasant’s crop. More recently they take a share of income. But there are still no taxes on wealth. There have been some improvements in human affairs over the centuries but the rules of wealth and inheritance remain unreformed most likely by the power of the wealthy themselves who have institutionalized and benefitted from the status quo. Those people who cared enough about this problem could not see a way to remedy the inequity. To do so would require major changes to the political and economic system, but none of them could even conceive of a way to accomplish the drastic reforms necessary to make those changes. And even if there was a way to do it, they knew the vested interests of big money would never allow those changes to happen. The situation appeared hopeless. A growing percentage of the world’s population were angry, believing that one way or another; the rich still ruled the world and were ultimately responsible for most of the suffering in it.
Very wealthy people were often vilified for their avarice and sometimes physically attacked in their homes and fortified compounds. In spite of their precautions, they were increasingly anxious about the locations of their bunkers becoming known. They could no longer feel safe anywhere. They were becoming so afraid of their less fortunate neighbors that several billionaires petitioned the government to grant them passage to Mars, and they were willing to pay their own way to get there. They hoped they could maintain their lifestyle in a more secure place, and possibly even escape the progressing mass extinction here on Earth.
Because of the lost tax revenue from the financial collapse, the U.S. government always needed more money that it didn’t have to barrow or create for itself. It had become accustomed to accommodating the well to do and making promises it could not keep. So it just made sense to take some wealthy families to Mars if they would be willing to pay the exorbitant ticket price of 500 million dollars per person. A few in the top tenth of the one percent were eager to pay that amount for each family member if it meant a continuation of their privileged life on another world they believed would be safer from the risk and the squalor on this one. For their financial help they demanded and were promised their own small city of rich people where they would not be troubled by rubbing shoulders with the technical rabble that would be needed to maintain the colonies. The cost of the Mars project was estimated to approach half a year of the United States’ gross domestic product. The public were told this infusion of funds from the world’s wealthiest families would help to mitigate that cost by many billions of dollars. Even though they would contribute nothing else to the project, their money made it worthwhile to take them along.
Needless to say, there was a huge amount of skepticism about this plan. The Russians and the Chinese were the first to pour cold water on the scheme. They would not participate in what they called a desperate boondoggle by a degenerating empire to swindle the last remaining wealth from its people. The scientific community was divided. Most reputable scientists scoffed at the idea, calling it impractical to impossible. Others, especially from the aero-space and mining industries and those receiving grants from the government, supported the plan. Economists believed it would revive the economy with large construction contracts and increase employment. It didn’t seem to matter to them if the project succeeded or not. Most of the public who were never going to Mars were against the idea. Even those who were uninformed about all the technical problems involved laughed about it. Rational objections were raised about every aspect of the plan and responses to them were supplied by the president and his supporters. Here are some of those objections:
Q. There is no oxygen on Mars. What will people breathe? And how can you burn the oil without oxygen?
A. “We will take enough oxygen to Mars to get us started. Scientists from the mining industry are working on extracting oxygen from Martian mineral deposits.”
Q. There is no energy source on Mars. Where will you get the power to do anything?
A. “A small nuclear plant will be set up on Mars initially. It will be cooled by melted water ice dug out of the sub-soil of Mars. Eventually there will be oil fired power plants. Adding more carbon dioxide to the Martian atmosphere will actually help to warm the planet in the long run.”
Q. How will you get the oil out of the ground? From the seepage on the canyon walls the oil deposits are believed to be more than six miles deep.
A. “We will drill laterally from the seeps in the canyon walls.”
Q. There is no real soil on Mars. How will you grow any food?
A. “Most food will be grown hydroponically. We will take some soil with us and create more using Martian dirt. We will only have to take food with us in the beginning.”
Q. Almost everything you need must be taken with you to Mars. How much material by weight must you take to support one person for one year?
A. “At first supplies per person will be quite substantial. Heavy lift robot transport rockets will be built to move supplies to Mars before humans are sent there.”
Q. There are harmful cosmic rays, solar radiation and small meteors reaching the surface of Mars. How will your habitats be protected?
A. “Habitats will be constructed mostly underground. Boring machines will be sent to Mars before people arrive, with enough fuel and oxygen to run them when they do.”
Q. The amount of sunlight reaching Mars will not allow you to grow crops the way we do here on Earth. How do you plan to solve that problem?
A. “We will use grow lights and solar collecting and distribution mirrors.”
Q. How long will it take for humans to become self-sufficient on Mars?
A. “Current estimates are in about ten years.”
Q. That seems overly optimistic. Most scientists say it will take at least twenty years. How did you derive your estimate? And we don’t have twenty years left.
A. “The President has determined that all these challenges will be overcome. Idle speculation of this sort does not help us accomplish our goals. We should all be grateful for the jobs and opportunities this great endeavor has provided for us, and we should all get back to work.”
Despite other objections from many quarters the program was rushed through congress and approved. The European Union soon backed out of the deal, with one French wag declaring the Americans had discovered a new way to dig holes and fill them in again. Contracts were let to major defense contractors and smaller companies also got onto the gravy train. Finally even the Japanese and the British dropped out and the Americans, as the self-proclaimed leader of the free world, had to soldier on alone.
Only a few people would be going to Mars and the rest would have to stay on this world that was rapidly winding down to ruin. It was difficult for most of them to get excited about this grand enterprise. They respected the brave and well trained Martian colonists with whom they would vicariously share the great adventure. But they had developed a loathing for the wealthy people they viewed as parasites attaching themselves to the best of humanity and escaping from a world they had already wrecked with their greed. The common belief was those billionaires would end up ruining Mars too.
Within two years the first of the robot freight hauling ships was launched towards Mars. No more would be launched before the first one touched down successfully after a seven month journey. It was on a one way trip; there was no fuel to send it back. Some of its parts were designed for duel use by the colonists when they arrived. They would dismantle the ship and use many of its parts for other construction. The first of the colonists would be a skeleton crew of technicians to prepare quarters for the next group to arrive.
During the next three years fourteen more robot transport ships landed on Mars, four more than originally planned. The project was now a year behind schedule. Three trillion dollars had already been spent. Project designers refining the plan discovered unexpected expenses and huge cost over runs in every department. The cost in fuel alone to lift miles of insulated steel pipe into orbit far exceeded the original allocation for the task. Another nuclear power plant had to be constructed and shipped to Mars just to heat enough water pumped into those pipes plus the chemicals needed to make the oil eventually flow. More containers of compressed Earth atmosphere and oxygen were needed to supply the growing list of the world’s billionaire families who were buying tickets to escape from the depredations in their lifestyle here on Earth. Many complained about having to live like the peasants around them. Their luxuries were becoming almost impossible to find.
The government early on had classified the whole project. Cost over runs and promises never meant to be kept were a routine method of government operations. They accepted any prospective migrant willing to pay for a ticket. The government would not give up that revenue stream. Even pets were accepted; 300 million for a dog, 200 million for a cat, 100 million for a bird. They drew the line at hamsters or rats. They knew the project was over-extended but as with the F35 fighter jet, the usual solution for government failure is to throw more money at the problem.
Public relation firms were hired to give periodic optimistic progress reports about the project. Commercial artists were employed to render beautiful Martian landscapes featuring futuristic looking colonial buildings and enterprises that were displayed on television and over the internet. By then most of the world’s billionaires had decided that the option of living on Mars was their best choice to insure the safety and the future for themselves and their heirs. There were now more billionaires going to Mars than the trained specialists needed to maintain the colony.
Within the nexus of the classified program were the intelligence agencies with access to all the data. They could see the project for what it truly was; an out of control boondoggle just as their presumed enemies had described it. The wealthy and well-connected had swindled the American public once again. Some of the perpetrators who became billionaires embezzling government funds had themselves bought tickets, unaware that the project had become a complete scam. There was not going to be enough money to build a city for the wealthy people. There was not enough equipment or supplies for half the people signed up to go or enough rockets to carry them all to Mars.
Those intelligence agencies considered it their duty to cover up government ineptitude and to extricate politicians from policies and situations that would make them look like complete fools to the rest of the world. It had always been a tough and nasty job and they were not known for their scruples while doing it. The U.S. government had no intention of refunding billions of dollars to billionaires. To accomplish the government’s objective the agencies came up with a plan that also included, as an incidental bonus, a remedy for the wealth inequality dilemma.
Revisions to the project’s schedule were forcefully suggested. Notice was given to the ticket holders that they would all be leaving on the last rocket to Mars after the elaborate preparations for their arrival were completed. They would embark on the journey in a completely refurbished freighter with all the amenities they were accustomed to. Some passengers demanded to leave sooner, conditions on Earth were getting just too insufferable to stay any longer they complained. They were mollified with illustrations of the luxurious state rooms, the fine dining opportunities and the grand ballroom aboard the ship.
Seven years after the first appropriations from congress, and two and a half years behind schedule, the first of the highly trained colonists were launched into space for the historic trip with great fanfare. Social interactions among the twelve crew members were avidly followed by the world’s citizens during that long journey to Mars. Some of the live coverage was real and some was scripted to enhance the drama. Four more ship loads of astronauts, engineers, scientists and technicians eventually touched down on the red planet. For the foreseeable future, those sixty pioneers would be the full complement of humans on Mars.
They managed to get the small nuclear plant at the base camp working well enough, but the one designed to pump hot water to liquefy the oil had broken off the cliff edge during assembly and tumbled down the boulder strewn slope to the bottom of the Valles Marineris Canyon. The technicians never did get the hydroponics going, but there would be enough food and oxygen to last for several years if the wealthy families were not coming. On the advice of the intelligence agencies, and after spending more than eight trillion dollars, the politicians and those in charge had secretly decided to cut their losses and pulled the remaining funding from the project.
As the last great ship filled with over seven hundred wealthy colonists on their way to the fabulous new city on Mars, they were relieved of their cellular devices as they entered. They were informed their use could interfere with the ship’s operations, and they would not work at all on Mars. Accommodations inside the ship were nothing like those they had seen advertised. There were no crew members on board. Not a single acceleration couch could be found, just empty decks and compartments stripped bare of equipment and supplies. It was too late to complain about them. They lifted off automatically at the appointed hour but failed to reach orbit and burned up in the atmosphere over the Atlantic Ocean. A technical error was blamed for the mishap. The intelligence agencies and most of the people on Earth cried only crocodile tears for those who had been lost, believing both Mars and this old world would stand a better chance without them.

The other day someone posted here in /austin a nice video of the granite blocks that remain from train derailments that occurred back in the 1880s when the Capitol was under construction and trains would bring granite from quarries near Burnet. Apparently they left most of the blocks where they stood. There has been much discussion about the blocks here before, but I wanted to share with y'all some newspaper clippings of when this happened. Unfortunately I couldn't find any!
But one thing I ended up finding when searching for news of the granite block derailments were advertisements for Watters Park, and for excursion trains on the Austin and North Western Railroad, the railroad that was built for the purpose of bringing the blocks into Austin. The route the train followed back then is the same one the MetroRail Redline uses today. It went as far as Marble Falls. But Watters Park was the first stop outside of Austin and after the capitol was completed, the train route was used most often to ferry excursionists to and from this place. Today Watters Park is little more than a street name exit off of N. Mopac and an entry on TSHA site. But back in the 1890s it was a recreational destination like we think of Zilker Park today. It wasn't a water park with slides, but more of a natural area with a train station, a bandstand and dancing area, a few shops, a few permanent resident farmers and lots of livestock.
There are no photos of these old trains or of Watters Park that I know of. So I thought I would copypaste for y'all a few articles describing the beauty of the place and what kinds of events took place there, and of the excursion trains that would go out to the hill country northwest of here.
But first let's get the small bit I could find about the granite blocks out of the way. This old KXAN article that was submitted here a little over a year ago explains them for those who don't already know:

Why capitol builders abandoned these granite blocks in Austin in the 1880s
The Texas capitol turns 131 years old Thursday, but you don’t have to visit the building to see the history surrounding its construction.
Massive granite blocks are scattered along rail lines throughout Austin, dotting the landscape visible from Capital Metro’s MetroRail routes between Leander and downtown. The blocks — at least 50 of them in all — are accidental monuments to the effort that went into building the statehouse in the 1880s.
“They would have been in the capitol if they’d gotten there,” Mike Cox, a longtime Austin writer and amateur historian, told KXAN.
Cox’s latest book, “Legends and Lore of the Texas Capitol,” published in 2017, tells stories about the iconic pink dome, including how the massive blocks of almost-capitol arrived at their new homes along Austin’s rail lines.
He first started hearing the tale as a kid. “My grandfather’s father…was actually among the laborers who helped build the capitol,” he said, so when he was young, his grandfather would point out the granite along Airport Boulevard and explain a piece of Texas history.
Back in the 1880s, when construction began, a quarry in Marble Falls agreed to donate all the “Sunset Red” granite needed to build the 302-foot-tall capitol. Contractors originally planned to use limestone but realized it became discolored when exposed to the elements due to iron in the rock.
In exchange for the granite, workers built a rail line to haul stone from the quarry up to Burnet, where it was shaped by masons from Scotland, and then down into Austin.
Some 4,000 train-loads stacked with nearly 190,000 cubic feet of granite rolled into the capital city during the six years of construction leading up to the building’s dedication on May 16, 1888. But not all of it made the entire trek.
Hauled on flatcars riding a small-gauge rail, some of the blocks simply fell off the train; since the state was getting them for free, it made more sense just to haul in more instead of spending the effort and money to pick them back up.
Most of them are still where they fell more than 130 years ago. “Not likely to be going anywhere at 168 pounds per cubic foot,” Cox said.
MetroRail commuter trains now follow the same route as the granite-haulers; though the tracks have been modernized, the blocks have stayed put.
A large collection sits along the track at Waters Park Road, near Mopac and Parmer Lane. Less than a mile south, several more blocks are visible at the crossing on Gracy Farms Lane, and a smaller chunk is hidden in the brush where the tracks cross 38th 1/2 Street in east Austin.
In at least one instance, train cars derailed completely while crossing a bridge over Brushy Creek in northwest Austin, sending about three dozen blocks into the creek bed below. The Brushy Creek Greenbelt grew up around them, and visitors can see and explore the piles of almost-capitol granite. The state installed a historical marker near the site in 2008.
Cox also found a solitary block in Bertram. There are likely more along the miles of track between Burnet and Austin, he said, but they’re either hard to access or covered up by brush.
One place he can’t find them, though, is the spot that spawned his interest in the story and in history more generally.
“The only ones that I know that have been reclaimed were the ones that I used to see on Airport Boulevard,” he said. In all his research, he’s never come across a reference to the stones being removed, and can only speculate as to what happened to them.
“I’d sure like to know if somebody does know where they went,” he said. “It’s not the kind of thing you can just go over there and pick up and put in the trunk of your car.”
That’s why many of the blocks haven’t moved in the last 130 years. They’ve withstood the test of time, each one a memorial to the work that went into the capitol all those years ago; each one a piece of almost-capitol.

Back in 1962 a Statesman history writer named Hamilton Wright wrote an article on the history of Watters Park. Quoting some of it:

Waiters Park Excursions Popular And Real Bargain in Good Old Day
Sights and Incidents you would have seen in the 1890s in the Austin country: A "dummy-line" railway engine standing at the west side of Congress Avenue at Fourth Street. It was in the early 1890s,...
THE LITTLE "pleasure resort" of Watters Park, 10 miles north of Austin on the narrow gauge Austin and Northwestern Railroad. A regular summer Sunday excursion train "toted" you to and from that pleasure retreat for the insignificant sum of two bits--25 cents. Watters Park had a beer saloon where big, white collared mugs were pushed over the well lined bar. Also a cotton gin, a store and a section house for gandy dancers of the railroad. Just south was the bayou-like Walnut Creek whose origin was a bubbling, fern-fringed fountain. Watters in the 1890s was on the popular wagon route called "The Georgetown Road." Two miles west of Watters Park was Duval, a rail station before Austin welcomed the I&GN, now the Missouri Pacific. It contained bare stone walls just below the Walnut Creek which legend said had been a water driven grist mill when Austin was in its swaddling clothes. Some of the ruins remain to this day.
FIND REPORTED
Near Watters Park in the late 1890s natural asphalt was reported found seeping out of Walnut Creek banks. The report created a sensation in Austin and The Statesman related a company might be formed to develop the find. Doubtless the asphalt still seeps from the deposit there.

The same Statesman history reporter made an even better article in 1963 about Watters Park and some of the other nearby places that are long gone:

Austin has come a "fur piece" since 1890.
As a boy I used to sit on the gatepost of our county home 10 miles north ol Austin, on the old Round Rock-Georgetown Thoroughfare, and watch long strings of Longhorn cattle slowly driven northward, monopolizing the narrow lane and making buggy-travel perilous. And farmers still drove yokes of oxen big animals, slow but obedient. And we used to ride in a straw-covered wagon to church at Merriltown, three miles away.
The man and his wife sat on the seat and the children and I was one of them dangled our feet out the endgate and other adults sat in rickety rawhide-bottom chairs. The conversation to the church was anticipation and that on the way back comments on the contents of the long-drawn-out sermon. Usually we children had not survived the long passage but fallen asleep and, like stovewood, fondly laid to rest and slumber in the hay in the wagon. Them was the the good days nonetheless!
There was a little frame school house at Summitt where we lived. It had 20 or 30 nondescript boy and girl pupils. It ran only a few months in the year. I was too young to "matriculate." All about were cotton and com fields. Corn really made a good yield in those days. In the spring, roasting ears were a delicacy for a time. And mustang grapes matted almost every stunted tree and produced great clusters of grapes. The green ones saturated with brown sugar made excellent cobblers. And some of the "anti" men of the community had developed a very pronounced taste for the ropy, language-provoking wine they made. Sometimes tramps caught between towns after dusk stole into fields of corn, got a handful of ears, and buried them with shucks on, into the hot ashes. After a long stay they were taken out and eaten. Nothing better!
Before my departure from the Summit community the highway through there was macadamized. County prisoners and convicts with chain and ball about each one's feet did the arduous job of making big lumps of limestone into little ones. The road through there was a long time under construction. But it effectively lifted the farmers and sheepmen of the Duval-Watters-Summitt communities out of black mud which after slow rains clogged wheels and completely disrupted transportation and communication. Running about a quarter mile back of our farm house was the Austin and Northwestern Railroad, built a narrow-gauge to handle huge blocks of granite from Granite Mountain to the site of the present State Capitol.
Many a time I waved at the engineer on the dinky, smoke-spitting and grumbling locomotive. And sometimes the train made a contribution of free blocks of granite when they tumbled off the flat cars on which they had been perched, they were never picked up.
About a mile farther on the way to Austin was a small board designating the "station" an empty place on the line where a chance passenger waved his hand with a "washout signal" to get the train to stop and pick him up. And about half a mile west of our house the International and Great Northern Railroad (now the Missouri Pacific) ran through big corn-held. A little shed 6 by 3 feet, covered, bore the name Amboy, where passenger trains stopped on flag. Originally the station was Mount Juliet and boasted a store and a postoffice.
Duval, 2 miles farther north, was an important station back in the 1880's and 1890's. It once had a depot, sectionhouse and a large mercantile establishment, once visited by Sam Bass and his gang. Duval was noted for its gushing spring, the source of Walnut Creek. The spring once furnished enough water for a grist mill, probably long before the Civil War. Copperhead and rattlesnakes were numerous.
Now Duval, Amboy, Watters, Mount Juliet do not rate a station whistle from speedy freight and passenger trains. No longer does one see a yoke of oxen, and the once-modern macadam road is now paved. And the boy who sat on the Summitt gate-post and watched the long string of Long-horns go by and longed for the long tarrying buggy of his dad to return from Austin 8 miles away then but now inside Austin and the sack of mixed candy he was bringing to his tot sits in a rocker trying to understand the riddle of life a man of nearly 79, still full of wonderment.

I've always wanted to know more about what kinds of festivities took place in Watters Park so I went looking further in the old Weekly Statesman editions from the 1890s and very early 1900s in the UNT archive. There was a lot to find! Mostly farming reports and news from the police blotter. But some of the reports were advertisements for the park. Quoting one from 1897:

THE GLORIES OF WATTERS
An Ideal Place for Romancers and Picnickers.
Every observing traveler over the Austin and Northwestern Railway has been struck with the variety and beauty of the adjoining landscape the solid and well kept roadbed and the substantial and picturesque depots at stopping points which prove that the road is under the management of a man of fine taste and good judgment. One of the most noticeable stations is at Watters fourteen miles by rail and ten by road from Austin on the headwaters of Walnut creek. Watters is a pretty little village which threatens by its popularity as a holiday resort to soon develop into a town it not a city Not only is the village itself interesting but it is surrounded by a country so varied in character and favored by nature is rarely met with in Texas. Before the advent of the railroad the village was known as Sumnerville after one of the old settlers but the railway builders gave it is present name as one of the natives explained because tho waters of the two branches of Walnut creek met there but of this deponent is not in a position to speak. It has always been a favorite camping place for the lovers of Outdoor religious meetings.- and under the spreading branches of the giant pecans that now shade the new bandstand and dancing platform. Many a sinners has been shaken up and steadied down to a new order of life.
There is nothing narrow or intolerant about Watters and its community. The festive pleasure seeker and the devout worshiper are alike welcomed and made to feel at home. This was noticeable twice during a recent week, when a protracted meeting was in full swing at the campground about 100 yards east of Watters while the coloired folks enjoyed' themselves in Pecan park 100 yards west without any conflict of interests or enjoyment
We are a cosmopolitan people
Visitors to Watters can always join heartily in singing "I have been there and still would go" as it supplies unexpected sensations and revelation to the "cribbed cabined and confined" denizens of the city and the residents of less God-favored sections of the country.
A brief description of the more interesting scenes near Watters are now in order. The first place of interest to the holiday maker is Pecan park, which adjoins the depot and covers about ten acres. It looks as if specially designed for picnic purposes being studed with noble pecan trees many of which would be in full bearing when Columbus said to the king of Spain: ''I will go and discover America."
Under the umbrageous limbs of one of these patriarchs, Capt. Leitnaker erected a neat, sensational and commodious bandstand and platform which will be found equally well adapted for' social political and religious festivals. Benches and tables are supplied free, 'pro bono pulblico'.
Within the park is a spring of never-failing water of the purest brand. If Watters had nothing beyond' the park as an attraction for pleasure seekers, it would have a solid and sufficient excuse for inviting strangers out; but with an aggregation of natural beauties and scenes made famous (locally) in pre-state and antebellum times she should become the Mecca of pleasure seeking pilgrims.
Within a mile of the park can be found bits" of scenery and historical spots that may some day inspire a latter-dav Cooper and Sir Walter Scott. Old settlers have thrilling tales to tell of adventures in combats with Indians who had their headquarters at a spring which forms the head of Walnut creek at Duval, and they point out spots where settlers were scalped and red men dispatched to the happy hunting ground. Innumerable mounds adorn or disfigure the landscape below which the warriors' mortal remains together with those of their faithful ponies and other personal belongings still lie.
Leaving Watters and following the course of Walnut creek in a westerly direction the traveler with an eye for the beautiful and a slightly impressionable imagination will find scenes that will serve as a good substitute for the fabled beauties of more fashionable resorts in other parts of the world. The views are inspiring and suggestive rather than over-awing. Here you get hints of mighty canyons and dizzy peaks as you look upon the towering lichen-covered bluffs that rise above the dark and gloomy caves. Over one of these bluffs you will be told that a Comanche chief hard pressed by a party of settlers whose homes had been raided leapt for life and falling about 150 feet found a hard rock bottom and death.
Close by the spot is a cavern known as the "Robbers' cave" which is believed to be connected with the Sam Bass cave at McNeil three miles distant. Its extent and interior arrangements still remain a mystery in spite of the enterprise of many adventurous spirits who have Sinbad tales to tell of what they saw or imagined they saw. In the course of their explorations. A little further on in the bottom of the creek is a large boulder surrounded by dry sand and pebbly shingle except in times of flood known as the "popping rock." As tradition says that one of our old governors there "popped tho question" to his loved one while they sat there enjoying the beauties of nature and each others' society. As the popper was perfectly satisfied with the reply, many lovesick swains have by one subterfuge and another lured their loved ones to the same spot and the result has never been known to be unfavorable. In fact a well known geologist has declared that the popping rock of Walnut is almost identical in character with the Blarney stone of Kilarney.
A few yards further west the course of the creek is barred with an utmost perpendicular wall of rock which in flood times forms a miniature Niagara and causes an atmospheric disturbance that can be heard at a great distance. When the creek is in flood many people come to see the falls of Walnut and seeing them feel repaid.
These are but a few of the interesting places in the district but there is practically no limit to them. Not only will those tired with the confinement of the city enjoy the freedom of country life but the student the artist the naturalist and the scientist will each find gratification and reward for a day's outing in this favored district. It is the fashion of the day for people to travel great distances at great cost and inconvenience to "do" scenes rendered famous in song and story while they remain utterly oblivious of greater natural treasures close at home. --AN OBSERVER.

So there you have a good description of what the place was like. Now what kinds of events took place there? Well from about 1897 to about 1902 there was an annual Labor Day event that attracted thousands. This is a page of the Statesman from 1902 that is too long to copypaste but describes 10000 people filling the park for the festivities. After a parade downtown they took the train to Watters Park, and got rained out later in the evening, having to wait for the train in the mud. Similar events took place in 1901 the year before.
However, around 1902 or 1903 everything changed for Watters Park. Asphalt was found seeping into the creek and that led to much speculation that there might be undiscovered oil deposits underground. There was a land rush as this 1903 article talks about, including interest from Standard Oil. By the end of 1903 the bandstand and pavillion had been taken down and there was barely an acre that hadn't been leased to oil drillers. This activity apparently went on well into the 1920s as this 1925 article tells us. But as we all know from the lack of oil wells in the area today, apparently they found nothing worthwhile.
As the TSHA article linked earlier says, the end was nigh for Watters Park:

During and following World War I the tourist industry diminished, and the park was mostly used by residents. During the Great Depression many of these moved to other communities, such as Dessau, Austin, and Pflugerville. The school closed after the war, and children were sent to Summit School, a mile south of the community. Additional depopulation took place during and after World War II. Most of the structures were abandoned and eventually collapsed. Some families remained on the land until death or hard times caused their departure. By 1980 only one family descended from original residents occupied the townsite. During the 1970s commercial structures were built in the townsite. More recently, the construction of a north extension of Loop 1 from U.S. Highway 183 to Burnet Road caused the remaining family to depart and destroyed a large part of the buried remains of the town. Archeological and archival investigations of the community were conducted by the Texas Department of Highways in advance of construction. Housing developments have eaten away at the edges of the original site. Little remains today except Waters Park Road, the dam over the creek, and portions of the baseball field (that's mostly gone now too).

That's all for today. I don't have any photos for Bonus Pics so I'll link a few Bonus Articles.
Bonus Article #1 - What a Statesman reporter saw on an excursion train trip to Marble Falls on the Austin & North Western Railroad - September 12, 1889
Bonus Article #2 - Advertisement in Swedish for a concert in Watters Park from a Swedish-language newspaper called The Texas Posten - August 9, 1900
Bonus Article #3 - "One Killed in Centex Car Violence" (Collision with Granite Flatcar) - January 15, 1955
Bonus Article #4 - Ad for "Grand Labor Day Celebration" (in Watters Park) - September 3, 1900
Bonus Article #5 - "Oil Boom Promised for Watters Park" - June 4, 1903

​
Whamoo Casino Review & Free Bonus
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About Whamoo Casino [Full Review]

Whamoo is a brand new, fun-loving online casino that has recently opened its premises for gamblers from many countries around the world. It does however promise to be more than just an online casino, as Whamoo describes itself as a lifestyle and feeling.
The rush you feel when the reels spin. The sound you make when that spin turns into a huge win. That’s Whamoo. Yet Whamoo is so much more than that. This online casino promises all you would expect from a reputable online casino – but then improved further. A massive game library? Check. Live casino? Check. Full mobile compatibility? Check. An entire VIP bonus programme for loyal customers? Check. Whamoo is a casino which comes with the entire package which players have come to expect of a casino provider.
On paper Whamoo sounds like a great online casino. But being a newcomer on the scene, there are of course always some open questions. How reliable is Whamoo? What can you expect from this brand new casino when it comes to the available games? How cooperative is their online help desk? What kind of welcome bonuses are there for new players who wish to open an online account?
In our extensive Whamoo review, we will try to answer all of the above questions and guide you through this brand new casino. So do read on and let’s explore this exciting new addition to the world of online gambling!
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A fully licenced online casino

Whamoo is a fully licenced online casino and a safe place for gamblers to put down their wagers. The website of whamoo.com is operated by DialMedia Ltd, a company registered by the Malta Business Registry with number C86642, on the registered address of Depiro Point, Block A2, Triq Mons G. Depiro, Sliema, Malta.
As gambling operator, DialMedia Ltd. fully licensed and regulated by the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) under licence number MGA/B2C/542/2018 issued on 10/04/2019.
What does this say about the reliability of Whamoo?
The MGA licence is one of the better ones you can find in the online casino world as Malta is the major European nation when it comes to online gambling. It is home not only to most of the world’s top online casinos, but also to many software providers and other businesses providing auxiliary services in the gambling industry.
A Malta Gaming Authority licence is not handed out with ease, as a company needs to fulfil many criteria before being granted one. The national gambling authorities of this Mediterranean island and EU member state check for example if all games which are made available are indeed fair and honest. They also check whether a company has enough cash reserves to pay out lucky winners of casino games and hold regular audits to ensure that there are no irregularities.
If an online casino has a MGA licence, it means that all the important criteria when it comes to safety, honesty and reliability are fulfilled and that it is a safe place to gamble. For us, the online casino licence is always a first thing we check before we even would consider playing somewhere. With this crucial criteria being fulfilled, we can thus move forward in our Whamoo review and look at all the other things this casino has to offer. And to be honest, the whole Whamoo package looks quite promising! Three of the main selling points of the Whamoo online casino are:

• Compile your own welcome bonus package and decide between free spins or a deposit bonus – or a combination of both.
• Hundreds of games from top casino software developers, including an exciting live casino platform.
• Recurring reload bonuses every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Whamoo clearly sounds like a promising casino when looking at the selling points, but do these points hold up when we test out the casino in real? Let’s continue our review of Whamoo with one of the most important aspects of every online casino: its game library. Which casino games can we find back in the Whamoo game collection? How honest and fair are these games? These are all legit questions which must be looked into before you can decide whether or not an online casino is suitable or not.
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Games from top software developers

When checking the list of Whamoo’s software providers you can only feel relieved as this brand new online casino only has games from the world’s top casino games developers. Especially for a newly opened online casino it is important to show to the public that you are talking serious – and you can only do that by adding the most popular games from the top software providers to your game library.
It’s not only about fun. Sure, these top software developers are known for making some of the most fantastic video slots, stellar table games. They have the most exhilarating and professional live casino tables to which you can connect in just a few clicks. But it’s more than just playing fun, graphics and game design.
By only having games from the top software companies, you are giving your players a clear message that you are only satisfied with the best quality games. Perhaps the most important aspect is game reliability, honesty and fairness. All games from the top software companies are fully tested and accredited by regulatory bodies. These gaming authorities check whether games indeed turn out completely random results and give gamblers a honest shot at winning. This is perhaps even more important than just a fantastically designed game, as in the end what matters most is reliability and honesty inside a casino.

RNG

The games which can be played at Whamoo Casino all have a piece of code called a Random Number Generator (RNG). With a random number generator, the outcome of every game is completely random and independent from previous results. It means that every card being dealt on the table, all dice which are thrown during a game, and every ball spinning around in the roulette wheel is never predetermined. Let’s put it this way: if you throw a single dice with the numbers 1 to 6 on it, you have indeed an exact 1 out of 6 chance that it will land on your predicted number.
A random number generator is absolutely crucial when it comes to delivering fair game results and giving gamblers a honest chance at winning. By having games from the top software providers, Whamoo makes sure that you can trust the fairness of every casino game you play. The good thing is that not only are the game results subject to occasional audits by regulatory authorities, but that these software providers also pro-actively test their own games to ensure they fulfil the highest industry standards. They hire independent testing agencies such as eCOGRA to check their games, both in virtual simulations and real-time results.
Let’s take a look at the software providers whose games have already been added to the Whamoo game library. As these are some of the best known software developers in the world, chances are that you have heard about some of these names before!
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NETENT GAMES

Also known by its full name of Net Entertainment, NetEnt is one of the largest casino game developers in the world. NetEnt is a Swedish company which was founded in 1996, which makes it one of the oldest companies in the relatively young world of online casino gaming. It is so big, that the company is even listed on the local NASDAQ stock exchange in Stockholm, Sweden!
NetEnt is best known for its vast video slot portfolio, of which many games are also playable at Whamoo. Having NetEnt games in your casino game library is almost a must for every online casino, as besides Whamoo some 300 or so more online casinos have NetEnt games available, which tells you something about the popularity of this company. Just like Whamoo itself, NetEnt has a full gambling licence in the EU member state of Malta, which means that all games are subject to regulatory oversight and can be trusted for their fairness. NetEnt also works closely together with independent testing labs to ensure that their games meet the highest standards.
Some popular NetEnt games which you can play at Whamoo are Jack and the Beanstalk, BerryBurst, Twin Spin, The Vikings, Wings of Riches, Aloha!, Fruit Shop, Jacks or Better, Gonzo’s Quest, Dazzle Me, Wild Bazaar and of course the eternal favourite of Starburst.

PRAGMATIC PLAY GAMES

Pragmatic Play is another major company in the online gaming world. The casino games of Pragmatic Play are always popular with the players, so it is no surprise that Whamoo has chosen to add quite a few Pragmatic Play games to its online collection. Pragmatic Play focuses mostly on online video slots, although they also make some exciting live casino games which are hosted in their own studios.
Being only founded in 2015, Pragmatic Play is a relative newcomer within the game developing industry. Yet in those few years time, the company already managed to reach to top heights with Pragmatic Play being considered to rank among the top game providers. Quality and safety are of immense importance for Pragmatic Play. Therefore, all games are documented and tested by independent auditors and testing labs such as QUINEL, BMM and Gaming Labs.
Popular Pragmatic Play games which can be played at Whamoo are John Hunter and the Aztec Treasure, Great Rhino Megaways, Leprechaun Song, Lucky Dragons, Mustang Gold, The Champions, Vegas Nights, Aztec Gems, Buffalo King, Starz Megaways, Triple Jokers, Magic Crystals, Sugar Rush, Beowulf and many more exciting video slots.
Of course, many baccarat, blackjack and roulette variants are available in Whamoo’s Live Casino which is powered by Pragmatic Play software. You are connected by high resolution video feed to professional dealers and croupiers in one of the Pragmatic Play casino studios where you can experience the thrills of a real life casino behind your computer or mobile phone. It’s almost like you are standing in Vegas!

STAKELOGIC GAMES

Stakelogic is another popular software developer which has added its games to the Whamoo game library. As one of the best-known developers in the software industry, it is always a good sign that Stakelogic games are available to play given that this company has made some exciting video slots.
Using HTML5, Stakelogic games are of course fully mobile compatible, which means you can play them on your smartphone as well. The company has also made some exciting new 3D slots which are not only gorgeous to look at but also wild fun to play. As an off-shoot company from gaming giants Novomatic, Stakelogic certainly is a reputable software developer which can be trusted when it comes to fairness and reliability.
Popular Stakelogic games are Epic Slam, Wild Stallion, Magic Wheel, Super Wild Arcade, Fruit Spinner, Lucky Gems Deluxe, Hot Fruits, Grand Slam Deluxe, Runner Runner, Turbo 4 Player Jackpot, Dragons and Magic, Big 5 Jungle Jackpot, Mariachi and The Big Cash Game.
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High limit gaming options

Whamoo is an online casino which is not only suitable for gamblers on a tight budget, but also for the true high rollers. You can place bets as low as a few cents, or as high as several thousands of euros or dollars at this online casino. Depending on your game of choice, whether its a jackpot video slot or classic table game, there are countless of options to bet big for maximum excitement and chances of winning top prizes. Further down in this Whamoo review, we will discuss some of the high limit games which are available.
Highrollers should also note that Whamoo comes with its own VIP programme in which you can quickly work yourself to the top category if you bet big. You can get instant access to your own dedicated casino manager and will get invites to high stakes tournaments. There are special weekly cashback bonuses as well for the true high roller gamblers at Whamoo. We will discuss the VIP program more in depth a bit further down this Whamoo review.
For now, let’s take a look at all the high roller games which are available at Whamoo Online Casino!

Endless rows of jackpot video slots

If you are a real lover of video slots you will be glad to hear that Whamoo has several hundreds of online video slots available. Although some of these slots are more suitable for beginning players or those on a tight budget, there are plenty of slots available where you can bet up to 100 euro/dollar per spin. This makes for some exhilarating and thrilling slot game action which will please any high stakes gambler out there!
Of course, Whamoo also has its share of jackpot slots where you have a shot at winning the progressive jackpot which can run well above a million euro or dollar! These premium slots, such as those using the famous Megaways system, offer countless of opportunities to place maximum bets at your video slot of choice.
Check the Whamoo game library whether or not your favourite slot is available as well, or try one of the many exciting new game additions! It is easy to browse through the Whamoo website. You can sort slots by software provider, or use the search function to check for your beloved title.

Join for some high stakes blackjack action

Blackjack has always been one of the most popular games among high rollers and the reasons why are quite clear. You can often bet high amounts of money on a single play and you can as a player slightly influence the outcome of a game as you need to decide whether you want to stand or hit another card.
At Whamoo, there is plenty of high stakes blackjack action. There are both normal blackjack games such as American Blackjack and multihand Blackjack, as well as blackjack tables in the live casino. In the live casino, which is powered by Pragmatic Play software, you can play several blackjack variants. Bets of up to several hundreds of euros or dollars, or even higher for the real VIPs, are possible.
Beat the hand of the dealer and hit that score of 21. Maybe it will be your lucky day playing blackjack at Whamoo Online Casino!

Grab a seat at the roulette table

There is plenty of roulette action at Whamoo as well. You can choose between virtual roulette versions, or opt for a seat at a roulette table in the live casino, where you are connected to a real-time croupier by video feed. Especially in the live casino high bets of up to a thousand dollar or more are possible, making roulette a big favourite among the real high stake gamblers.
Of course, Whamoo Casino has all of the the standard roulette versions of American Roulette, French Roulette and European Roulette. Most of these games are developed by software giants NetEnt.
In the live casino, there is also Roulette Macao Live, where you will be connected to a gaming environment which makes you feel like you are playing in the famous casinos of this Chinese gambling mecca. Live Speed Roulette, Live Roulette Auto and Roulette Azure are popular Pragmatic Play live casino versions of roulette which are available to Whamoo players.
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Whamoo's unique bonus package

One area in which Whamoo stands out as online casino is its great bonus package. Of course, there is a great welcome bonus for newly registered users. But the fun doesn’t stop there! At Whamoo casino, it is bonus day almost every single day of the week. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays the casino has recurring bonus offers if you reload you bankroll on one of those days. This makes Whamoo not only an attractive casino at the moment you sign up, but also at all those moments when you come back to play again.
300 free spins or a €200 deposit bonus

The Whamoo welcome bonus

We start of discussing the Whamoo welcome bonus which is called the “Welcombo” bonus by the casino. On a picture the Welcombo might not look too appealing as its packed in a carton takeaway box you might get at a certain fast food restaurant, but trust us on this: its contents are truly fantastic.
The Welcombo box contains a combination of goodies you get with your very first deposit at Whamoo. And what is best of all? You can decide what combo you want to receive! If you sign up at Whamoo for a free online casino account, you can determine your own bonus by adjusting the slide until you have found a combination which matches your idea of a perfect bonus.
This is a great option as it allows people to choose the bonus which best suits them. You can choose between free spins and a deposit bonus – or a combination of both. If you are an avid video slot gamer and do not care much about table games, you may want to slide all the way to the maximum free spins bonus. In that case, you will receive 300 free spins, but your deposit bonus will be 0%. The free spins in the Welcombo package are valid on the popular Amatic Industries slot Book of Fortune.
On the other hand, if you only care about table games and are not really interested in free spins and playing video slots, you want to adjust the slide to the maximum deposit bonus. This is a 100% deposit bonus of up to 200 euro. This means that if you deposit 200 euro of your own money to your newly created online casino account, Whamoo will top this up by another 200 euro from the house! If you select the full 100% deposit bonus, you will however not receive any free spins at all.
Of course, you can also opt for a mix between free spins and a deposit bonus. If you leave the slider in the middle, you will get 150 free spins and a 50% deposit bonus, for example. You can tweak this in any direction you want, for example to a 70% deposit bonus and 90 free spins. The higher your deposit bonus, the less free spins you receive. Want more free spins? Then your deposit bonus will decrease.

Welcombo bonus terms and conditions

Only one bonus is allowed per household and/or per player account. Do note that Whamoo’s bonuses remain valid until seven days after the required deposit has been made. Once this period ends, the bonus is automatically flagged as expired by the system and can no longer be released. The expired bonus funds are then automatically removed from the player’s account.
Of course, there is a wagering requirement which must be met in order to withdraw your bonus money and any winnings which may derive from it. Real money balance is used prior to bonus balance. The bonus balance will only be used when there is no real money available in your account. Only real money funds and released bonus funds can contribute towards the wagering requirement of the bonus. The wagering requirement for the Welcombo deposit bonus and free spins is thirty times (30x) the deposit + bonus.
Do note that players that deposit money using Paysafecard, Skrill or Neteller are not eligible for the Welcombo. To assure fair gaming and prevent fraud, Whamoo has placed a maximum cap on bonus money wagers, which are limited to a maximum per round/bet of €5 or its equivalent in other currencies. You should also be aware that certain games cannot be played using bonus money. There is a full overview of these games on the Whamoo bonus page.
Bets placed in certain games might not contribute fully to the wagering requirements.

• Bets placed on video slots count for 100%
• Bets placed on scratch cards count for 100%
• Bets placed on blackjack count for 10%
• Bets placed on video poker count for 10%
• Bets placed on poker count for 10%
• Bets placed on roulette, baccarat, sic-bo and craps do not count
• Bets placed on live casino games do not count

Recurring bonuses at Whamoo

The bonus fun does not stop at the welcome bonus when you play at Whamoo! You can count on a constant stream of promotional campaigns and bonus offers. The casino has recurring promo offers every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. If you deposit some extra money to your online casino bankroll on one of those days, you are eligible for a bonus. It therefore pays off to wait for these days before you decide to reload your online funds.
On Monday it is Pick ‘n’ Play day to start off the week with some good vibes. On this day, the casino basically tops up your deposited money You can:

• Turn your €20 into €25 with the code 100024;
• turn your €50 into €65 with the code 100025, and/or
• turn your €100 into €135 with the code 100026.

It is even possible to combine these bonuses if you want to deposit a larger sum! Alternatively, you can use the bonus codes of WHPICK5, WHPICK15 and WHPICK35 by putting these into the promo code field on the cashier page every Monday.

Whoa Wednesday

Wednesday is for many a difficult day in the week, it being right in the middle of another long week of work. To spice up things, Whamoo has come with an unusual bonus which it calls “Whoa Wednesday”.
Every Wednesday you get to uncover your secret gift – for free, no strings attached. The casino will add this gift to your next deposit. This can be a bonus, a set of free spins, or even both. You’ll get all the details once you’ve pulled off the cover and logged into your account. You will receive the bonus details and promotional code, which you can use in the promo field at the payment page to receive your hard-earned Wednesday bonus.

Freeday bonus

Friday is the favourite day of the week for many people – and the reason why is quite obvious. It marks the end of another working week and the start of some well-deserved weekend R&R! For many people this involves paying a visit to a land-based or online casino to get their kicks at their favourite game, whether it is a card game, roulette or video slot.
Whamoo knows that many people cannot wait for the days off work to start and therefore has come up with a special Friday bonus to welcome in the weekend! This bonus day is called ‘Freeday’ by Whamoo. The casino basically hands you a bunch of free spins if you are a regular customer. For every weekday from the previous week (Friday through Thursday) that you’ve deposited 30 euro or more, you get 10 free spins. For every weekend day you even get 20 Free Spins! That means up to 90 Free Spins are yours to play with. That’s a great start to a weekend full of partying and fun!

Wagering requirements

Do note that wagering requirements do apply to all daily promo offers. These are more or less the same as we outlined above in the description of the welcome package, but do take a look at the bonus terms and conditions page on the Whamoo website to know precisely what you can expect! As always, it is important to read the small print in order not to face any surprises later on.
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A fully mobile compatible casino

As a brand new online casino, Whamoo knows that already a majority of gamblers nowadays play on their mobile phones rather than on computers. Because of this, the Whamoo casino is fully compatible with mobile devices and tablets. If you load the Whamoo website on your smartphone, it looks just as good as on your laptop of computer. It’s equally accessible and orderly too! The mobile website is a breeze to browse through and you can easily access all the important pages such as the game library and payment page.
The same counts for the actual games themselves. Whamoo only works with software providers which are known to offer full mobile gaming support. These games are made in code such as HTML5, which means that the games can simply be played in your (mobile) internet browser. There is no download or special app required to play these games. Whether you are playing on your computer, tablet or smartphone, you simply surf to Whamoo.com and select your favourite game from the library. This game will then open in your internet browser – and you can play instantly. It does not matter whether your phone runs on Android or is an iPhone, nor does it matter whether you have Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari or any other internet browser. Whamoo will function just fine!
This is absolutely great as you can now play at Whamoo wherever you are, whenever you want. Want to put down some wagers on the roulette table while you are sitting in public transport on your way to work? That’s easily doable! Just take out your smartphone on the train or bus, and surf to Whamoo.com to play at your favourite roulette table. Are you sitting on your couch at home and want to play a few hands of blackjack before going to sleep? Just take out your laptop, tablet or phone and within seconds you can have some of the most exhilarating blackjack fun on your screen.

The Whamoo Live Casino

Whamoo’s live casino is powered by Pragmatic Play and NetEnt software – which are two of the biggest, most reputable software providers in the world. This is great news for the players, as you can access high quality tables in just a few clicks.
In the live casino, you are connected with a live video feed to a real-time casino table in one of the casino studios of these software providers. You can play games like baccarat, blackjack and roulette like you are standing in a real land-based casino in Vegas or Monaco! Thanks to the high definition video stream, you have a great overview of all the action which unfolds on and around the table.
All table games are led by experienced, professional croupiers and dealers who are not only well-trained, but entertaining as well. By all means, feel free to open your microphone or the chat window to have a talk with them, or even with other players from around the world. This is what makes the live casino such a great invention. Even though you might be sitting at home in front of your laptop or computer, it does almost feel like you are standing in a casino for real!
Especially for high rollers the live casino is a worthwhile addition as table limits are often much higher than in regular games. Of course, if you are on a tight budget there will definitely be live casino tables where low minimum bets are allowed too – no worries there. But it is the experienced, high stakes gambler who probably feels most at home in the live casino.
There are multiple baccarat, blackjack and roulette variants which you can play. For roulette, there is American Roulette, European Roulette, French Roulette, Speed Roulette, Live Roulette Auto and Roulette Macao Live. If you prefer the casino classic of blackjack, you will find plenty of different tables all with slightly different betting limits. Baccarat is perhaps the game with the highest betting limit. Besides the regular version, there are also Speed Baccarat tables. A fourth casino game which can be played live at the Whamoo Live Casino is Sic Bo. Just browse through the list of live casino games, or use the search function to find your favourite table!
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As standard – apologies for the length! I’ve found it quite a cathartic experience, and I seem to have managed to merge elements of the reddit, US and UK R29 templates so please feel free to skip over any boring sections!
Background:
I’m British, working for a British Company in the US on a three-year posting (one year in). My salary is actually £33,000 but due to the increased cost of living here, I get an additional £10,000 allowance for living costs, and my rent/utilities are paid directly by my company. This puts my equivalent salary at $93,000.
I’m aware this is an incredibly fortunate position to be in, especially with COVID, however when I return to the UK, I will be paid my UK salary only, so this is a short-term benefit.
The company can split my pay between my UK and US accounts, and currently 95%ish of it is going to my UK account. This % split was only set up after lockdown as we are currently spending much less on travel/socialising here so are taking the opportunity to focus on building our UK savings. My husband, J, was fortunate enough to get local employment when he arrived in country. He earns an additional $46,000 net which we live on.
For ease/consistency, I have converted all costs at 1.3 as this is roughly the average conversion since I’ve lived here – I will write UK next to any cost/savings that are based in the UK.
Section One: Assets and Debt
J and I (now) combine all our finances, so except for my pension pot, and a small F* Off Fund (FoF - we have one each), everything else is split 50/50. This will likely change when we go back to the UK as we’ll have better access to our own bank accounts.
My personal Net Worth is $72,400
Retirement Balance
UK $104,000
I’ve contributed to work pension schemes since I started working full time age 18. This has been set at around 5% since I joined my current employer 7 years ago, and they contribute around 27%. I’m actually guaranteed £4,000 per year once I retire for as long as I live so have multiplied this by 20 on the assumption the retirement age actually stays at 68 and I make it to my late 80’s. This amount will increase over the years with inflation and as I contribute further to it. I can choose to retire earlier, plus take up to a 25% tax free lump sum on retirement, but that will affect the annual pay-out amount.
Equity
UK $52,000 equity, $157,300 left on the mortgage
J and I bought ($197,600) with just over a 10% ($20,000) deposit 3 years ago aged 24 and contributed half each. I managed to save this as I was living at home until we bought, and J got a help to buy loan through his previous workplace. He’s since cleared this.
Savings account balance
$29,700 made up of:
US $6,700 for fun money here (currently planned for another car – we’ll sell our existing one)
UK $6,500 in premium bonds as my FoF, $13,800 in our joint savings account to upsize when we get back to the UK, $2,600 in one of my side saving accounts as a potential future maternity pot. This is joint but kept in a separate account from the house savings.
Around $22,000 of this has been saved since the beginning of lockdown
Checking account balance
US $120 (+ $1,190 in checking, -$1,070 on AMEX). All our savings accounts are easy access, so we try to keep the balance as low as possible and tend to spend the full amount each month. [We end the week with this back up to $1,559]
UK $660
Credit card debt (and how you accumulated it)
0 – we use our AMEX for our everyday spending, so I’ve included it in our checking account as we usually pay it off each week and use it in place of our checking account. J had CC/loan debt in the UK from the house deposit and wedding which he cleared down before we moved out here.
Student loan debt (for what degree)
0 - neither of us went to University
Anything else that's applicable to you
We paid outright for a second-hand car that is worth around $6,000
Section Two: Income & Further Background
Income Progression:
I started at my current company 7 years ago working as a personal assistant and started on $24,000. I stayed in this role for 2.5 years before promoting into a finance role and onto $31,000. After a year I was temporarily promoted (with pay rise) within my team to a higher finance role and after a further 6 months was permanently promoted into the role and onto $35,750. There’s usually an annual pay rise of around 2%, which I’ve received between each promotion, but as this last promotion pay rise wasn’t as high as usual, my last few annual pay rises have been higher to bring me to my now salary of $43,290. I’ve spent the last three years at the same level, but have changed teams to gain more experience which will be needed for the next promotion which I’ll hopefully be able to get when I return to the UK – this will take me over the $50,000 mark.
Main Job Monthly Take Home:
UK – I get paid once a month, receiving $3,783 after tax, national insurance and pension contributions. This also includes the extra living allowance. $3,510 is paid into my UK account, $273 is paid into the US
US – J gets paid fortnightly, and earns a net salary of $3,546 per month (assuming 2 pay periods per month)
Any Other Monthly Income Here
UK - We receive around $598 per month from tenants in our house in the UK. The letting agents take all management and admin fees directly from the rent before we get paid. This amount can be less if any work needs doing on the property, but again the letting agent will pay directly and just transfer us a reduced amount. We also have to pay tax on any rent received and still need to pay last year’s bill, but we haven’t calculated it yet.
Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?:
Not from family. My parents don’t have degrees, and whilst they supported my siblings going, it was our own personal choice. If we didn’t go, we were expected to work full time.
My school did expect me to go. I was in the last school year before UK University tuition went up, so the only advise they could give was to go now as you won’t be able to afford it in the future. I had a place to study events management but turned it down a week before the deadline. Bar sometimes feeling like I missed out on the University life experience (aka. freshers week), I have zero regrets not going.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
My siblings and I were always encouraged to save including contributing to pensions when we started working, and prioritise this and bills over spending our money, but conversations didn’t go much further than that.
What was your first job and why did you get it?:
Weekly paper round from age 12 to 16 which gave me $10 a week to pay for my phone credit and to build savings. I started working part-time in a supermarket from age 16 earning around $250 a month, but this was mainly spent shopping and in the pub!
Did you worry about money growing up?:
No – my parents operated on a “what we do for one, we do for all”, so with a house of five kids, we certainly weren’t living the life of luxury, but we never went without, and it encouraged me to earn some of my own money from an early age.
Do you worry about money now?:
No, J and I are in a really good position and try to make sensible decisions so that we can still cope if our circumstances change.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?:
Fully when I bought the house and moved out age 24, although I obviously gained the support from J. I’ve always had to use my own money for wants and non-essentials (phone bill, own laptop, “fun” clothes). I was given a few years grace on rent as my parents helped my siblings at Uni, but this stopped when I turned 21. I’ve always bought my own cars/insurance and would contribute to the household, including buying some food and replacing furniture in my room.
Our parents continue to support us anyway they can, which included letting J and I move back in rent free last year whilst we were replacing our kitchen.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income?:
My dad saved around $1,200 from when I was a child which I received aged 18 – this went into savings and then towards my first car and laser eye surgery.
My brothers and I also received $1,950 each from a great aunt when she died, which was a complete surprise (the will was contested so this was several years later). Our much younger half-brother didn’t receive anything, so we split this equally with him. The money left went towards mine and J’s wedding and we also received around $5000 additional from various family members towards our wedding and honeymoon. This was also not expected, and we budgeted not to receive anything, but this was a bonus and it relieved some of the pressure on us to save.
Section Three: Expenses
UK – I auto-transfer $1,170 across various accounts to pay for our UK bills. J & I both kept some bills in our own names to try to maintain our individual UK credit scores as well as our joint one. J’s parents are also looking after our two cats whilst we’re in the US, so we transfer them some money. We’ve discovered our UK entertainment subscriptions work over here so we haven’t cancelled them and pay them from the UK accounts, which is a benefit as they’re usually cheaper.
$910 to our joint account to cover – Mortgage ($986 – includes $130 monthly overpayment), Landlord Insurance ($32), Pet Insurance ($45), our life insurance ($22 – it pains me that the cats cost twice as much as we do. Obviously, they don’t have the NHS covering their medical costs, but they also don’t have a mortgage to pay off….), J’s UK phone bill ($35) – he’s still tied into his contract. The rent income comes into this account so that covers any delta and builds a pot to pay the tax bill. It works out at around $388 per month saved for this. We also pay around ($150) annually to cover IT costs including Microsoft office, McAfee Security and Dropbox storage.
$143 to my bills account to cover – my UK phone bill ($23), a second UK phone bill that I need to cancel as they wouldn’t transfer my existing number to them ($6), Trade Union membership ($19), Netflix ($12), Annual magazine subscription ($19). Any money left over for is for UK online orders and so we have money available when we visit home.
$65 to J’s account to cover – Amazon Prime ($10), Spotify ($20), Audible ($15) and annual Xbox Live ($50)
$52 to J’s parents for the cats.
UK Savings – we have $2,340 to split across the savings. The split varies each month, but as I’ve hit my FoF goal the focus will be on getting J’s to the goal amount and then joint savings.
US – TV, WiFi and Hulu ($131), Phone Bills ($167), Car Insurance ($110), Naked Wines ($40), HelloFresh ($523), Annual Renters Insurance ($152). We currently get Disney+ free with our phones, but this will end soon, and I expect we’ll start paying for it as well.
US Savings – I usually transfer between $500-$1,000 into savings when J gets paid but will vary this based on how much we have left in the checking account from his last pay and what bills are due. We’ll also raid this as needed for big purchases or if we’re running low in on cash in the checking account.
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Day 1 – Saturday
0900 – I’ve been waking up on and off for a few hours, but the alarm has gone off, so I drag myself out of bed. J and I are booked into a second-hand book sale from between 11 and 12 so we need to actually get out of the house this morning. I tidy up a bit, have a shower and miss a call from my mum whilst I’m in there. I check J is up before calling her back and have a good catch up with her and my Nan.
1115 – We’re a little later than planned, but we make it to the sale. I picked the second slot so that there would still be a good selection of books available and am pleasantly surprised by the amount and overall COVID set up. We spend almost an hour browsing and come away with 15 books between us. $60.01
1210 – We left the apartment without eating breakfast, but there’s a restaurant open next to the sale that we haven’t tried before so we pop in and have a burger each. Discover there’s a cocktail bar underneath and make note to head back and try that soon. $41.92
1600 – J has spent the afternoon building Ikea furniture we bought last week and hiding in the bedroom watching YouTube videos whilst I clean, watch The Haunting of Hill House and drink copious amounts of tea. We bought our car in a bit of a rush when we arrived and to replace his Rightmove house obsession, J spends a lot of his time looking at cars available here. Last week he found an American muscle car that looks in good shape and isn’t extortionate, so in his argument to “buy American, eat American, drive American” whilst we’re here, he’s arranged a visit check it out and test drive it. We’re meant to be there at half past, but we had the wrong address and there’s been an accident so it’s actually an hour’s drive, and we don’t get there until 1715 - Oops. I do not want to like the car, but I’m honestly sold – I knew our current car wasn’t the best, and planned to cope with it for the three years, but this is such an improvement and feels like a fun car to drive on road trips. We arrange to come back next week to buy the car and head back home. Thankfully, the traffic has cleared so it only takes 40mins. We while away the journey by listening to an episode of My Dad Wrote a Porno.
1830 – We stop by Giant to pick up some essentials (loo roll, seltzer, beer, milk) and food for the rest of the weekend. $103.25. I cook pork chops, roast potatoes, asparagus and gravy for dinner, and we spend the evening chilling in front of Netflix with wine before heading to bed at midnight.
Daily total: $205.18
Day 2 – Sunday
0830 – I wake up and sneak out of bed without disturbing J, make myself a cup of tea and settle down to finish off The Haunting of Hill House. J hates scary shows/films, so I try to watch things before he’s up, but he still needs to be in the house otherwise my imagination will go wild. The show finishes and I hear no sign of movement, so I make another cup of tea and discover The Princess Diaries 2 is on freeform so obviously I watch this.
1100 – J gets up and makes us scrambled eggs and smoked salmon for brunch. There was meant to be a bread roll with this, but according to J it had gone off. Silently complain that I didn’t pick up some bagels whilst we were shopping last night. We stick The Office on in the background and binge far too much of it whilst I multitask and convert our savings/bills spreadsheet into $ for the intro to this.
1630 – I had grand plans to spend the day cleaning and assumed J’s mum would do her weekly skype call with us at 3, neither of which has happened, and I only realise this now. I suggest we message some friends to see if they fancy an afternoon pick-me-up, but they are hanging from last night, and I remember I’m doing interviews in the morning so probably not the smartest move. I have a shower, wash and sort my hair out to save time in the morning.
1800 – I get an email reminding me that I have items in my basket on an online order and that they’ve given me 15% off. Seems rude not complete it – J has a quick browse to see if there’s anything he likes but nothing takes his fancy. So it’s just non-wired bras for me and a very cute bee print quilt set. It’s a UK based store so I pay using my UK bank account. $123
1900 – J cooks dinner tonight, a HelloFresh recipe for firecracker meatballs with rice. We stick The Office on in the background, finish the rest of last nights wine and the entire series, getting to bed at half 11.
Daily total: $123
Day 3 – Monday
0630 – Alarm goes off. Ugh. It disturbs J, so I apologise for waking him, hit snooze and repeat 5 minutes later. Rather than getting straight up, I waste half an hour browsing Facebook before washing and getting ready. As an attempt to look semi presentable, I put actual work clothes on, straighten my hair and put on some mascara and powder.
0755 – I make it onto the laptop and do some prep before the interviews. Checking my emails, I spot that I’ve been paid my US pay today. The annual pay rise has come through and there’s a small backdate from last months pay, so I have an additional $127 this month. I clear a few more emails and make a cup of tea before starting the interviews.
1215 – Interviews are done, and as a panel we have discussed and come to a decision. We all need to type up our outcomes for HR, but I take a lunch break before my brain melts. J heats up leftover meatballs and rice from last night and we watch an episode of The Good Place whilst we eat. J’s heading into the office this afternoon so I tidy up, stick the dishwasher on and faff about on reddit before getting back to work at 1. Go straight back into a call with my Line Manager to touch base before he goes on leave – he lets me know he put me forward (and I have been approved) for a bonus for my efforts since joining last year, and the added COVID response. I’m touched and proceed to spend a while mentally spending it. I’m debating between a pair of Louboutin’s and a spin bike…. Slightly different ends of the spectrum I know. Keen to hear any inspiration! It should be around $1000 after tax so reasonably substantial.
1630 – J comes home and attempts to get in, but I appear to have locked him out. I get up, open the door and see that he comes baring this week’s HelloFresh box, which is a relief as I hadn’t seen any delivery emails (we had a few go missing in our apartment block when we started). I have a small break to see how his afternoon has been and reply to some messages with friends about possible Halloween costumes for a small gathering we’re going to. We jokingly consider a group The Office effort, which results in numerous gifs being shared. In a moment of inspiration, J passes me his shirt, tie and blazer to put on… turns out I’m a pretty convincing Sexy Toby. I get changed back into my own clothes and head back to work for a bit.
1930 – J finished work earlier so cooked again. Tonight’s is a HF spicy shrimp pasta. It’s a bit disappointing even with him adding extras from the cupboard. We eat and watch the Umbrella Academy before heading to bed at 11.
Daily total: $0
Day 4 – Tuesday
0730 – alarm goes off, get up, washed, dressed. No interviews today so back to COVID home working uniform of no make-up and trackies. Make a cup of tea and am at my desk for 0830 – in and out of meetings until 10 and spend the rest of the morning trying to catch up on my inbox. J’s headed into the office, so I take the opportunity to listen to the Hamilton soundtrack as I work. Get through the first track before admitting defeat that despite my amazing multitasking skills, I can’t actually sing along and type coherent emails. Settle for the LOTR soundtrack instead.
1215 – make it to lunch and reheat last night’s leftovers (we order HelloFresh for four people for the leftovers, as before we were just ordering in lunch every day). Realise I haven’t physically left the flat for longer than I care to admit, so take my lunch onto the balcony and eat it whilst reading through a money diary on reddit. Remember I have a meeting at 1, so sign back in ten mins before and read through the emails in a vague attempt to sound prepared.
J buys himself and his boss lunch in the office, but his boss will pay him back so $12.17
1900 – long afternoon, managed to start nothing on my actual to-do-list, so feel like I haven’t achieved anything. Yay. J got home half an hour ago (I didn’t lock him out today!) and switched the oven on as he walked past, so I take the opportunity to get up and cook once it’s done preheating. Pork tenderloin with coleslaw and mash tonight. It comes with a cherry jam sauce which I’m not the biggest fan of, so I make it into a fruity gravy. It takes longer to cook than I planned, and I can feel myself getting more and more annoyed with everything from a general mix of feeling stressed and hangry. J sticks toy story 4 on as we eat which doesn’t help my mood (as let’s face it, it’s the worst one). Our friends message asking if we’re watching the debates – J had planned to but had forgotten so quickly changes over to watch it. I have no words.
We make plans to watch the next debate in a group with alcohol, debate bingo and the next day booked off work to recover.
Head to bed at 1120 – still waste time on Facebook despite being shattered.
Daily total: $12.17
Day 5 – Wednesday
0830 – Alarm goes off. I didn’t get to sleep up until 12.30 and J disturbed me at 1.30 when he came to bed so extra sleep was needed. I check my phone, message my stepsister a happy birthday and stick on my dressing gown to make sure I’m online for my 9am meeting. Thankfully, no one has an update, so the meeting is cancelled, and I have time to shower and put clothes on before I properly start work.
1230 – Lunchtime. I have the remaining shrimp pasta and J makes a BBQ chicken sandwich with other leftovers in the fridge and we stick on another episode of The Good Place whilst we eat. We finish up, work for an hour and then drive into the office. J needs to stay in for a while, but I’m only in to sign a cheque so I take the opportunity to walk back home. It’s a glorious sunny day, but with a nice breeze so it’s an enjoyable walk until I’m almost back at the flat and have to walk up a hill and then 5 flights of stairs. It’s a fast reminder of just how unfit I am, and I have to have a quick lie down to recovecool down before getting back to work.
1730 – J and I have plans to meet up with our friends K and J(.2) tonight. In an act of attempting to keep some form of sanity, J and J.2 are heading out to a bar for a “Gentleman’s Club” and I’m heading round to K & J.2’s flat for wine and chick flicks. J gets home from work, kisses me hi and bye and heads straight back out. K’s getting her hair cut, so I continue working until half 6 before walking up to her apartment. I make a pit stop on route to pick up a bottle of white wine as she’s running low. The card machines are down so it’s cash only – I have a mild panic, but thankfully I find some notes in my purse - although I’m pretty sure I withdrew them pre-lockdown! $17
0200 – After a night of homemade mac’n’cheese, wine, films and putting the world to rights, I get ready to head home just as J.2 stumbles back into the flat. It’s lovely to see him, but the state he’s in makes me a bit concerned about what J is going to be like when I get home. Thankfully, when I make it back and he’s already curled up on his own side of the bed, passed out and lightly snoring away. I take off my makeup, do my teeth, get into bed and fall straight asleep.
*I’ve checked the banking app and J spent $50.50 on food and drink. The “club” made their way to our apartment around 9pm and worked their way through our booze which explains the low spend but high drunkenness.
Daily total: $67.50
Day 6 – Thursday
0700 – J’s alarm goes off. He rarely sets alarms and has an amazing ability to sleep though them, so I kick him awake to switch it off. He hits snooze rather than switching it off, so I wake up again 5mins later. Ugh. He actually manages to switch it off the second time.
0830 – My alarm goes off. I’m tired and thirsty, but other than that feeling pretty ok. J is not and I leave him snoozing in bed as I start work. It’s a slow morning (thankfully) and I periodically check on J to see if he’s feeling any better. General consensus is no. The leftovers in the house are not hangover friendly so we put in an order with Panera Bread. $32.25. J has a choose two, but I brought home some mac’n’cheese from last night so just order some crisps and a smoothie to go with it. It takes longer than expected to arrive, but it means a 1230 lunch in front of The Good Place. We finish and go back to work, J heads into the office again.
1400 – I’ve struggled to get back into the swing of things, and as there haven’t been too many emails coming in I take the opportunity to have a break and lie down on the bed (I work flexi hours and have a very high balance so this is done guilt-free). This lie down turns into an hour-long nap and I wake up feeling better, but still while away some time on reddit before deciding to make it back to work at 4.
1920 – J messaged to say he’s on his way back and I’ve already heated the oven, so I finish for the night and start making dinner. Tonight’s HF menu is a creamy lemon butter chicken with courgette and giant couscous. It’s reasonably simple to make, but one of our favourites. I multitask and clean down the kitchen as I go.
2000 – Dinner is eaten, J has made us a cup of tea and we’re settled back into The Good Place. Yesterday was payday into my UK account so I log into the internet banking and transfer to the savings accounts (the bill transfers are set up to auto-transfer on the 1st). $1,170 to J’s savings so he’s now at his FoF goal, $650 to the maternity pot, and $780 to the joint savings. The annual renter’s insurance has also come out of our US checking account today, but that’s counted in the expenses. We both head to bed at 11.
Daily total: $32.25
Day 7 – Friday
0730 – J’s alarm goes off, he’s heading back into the office this morning so it’s valid today and we both actually wake up for it. We both chill on our phones until my alarm goes off at 0830. Up, washed, dressed and on the laptop in time for my 9am meeting. I’m closing off last months accounts and updating forecasts so get stuck into multiple spreadsheets.
1440 – I’d gotten into a good rhythm with the updates, and without J here, I hadn’t realised the time, so I only stop now for lunch. It’s last nights leftovers so couscous and chicken, plus an apple left over from J’s Panera order yesterday. J didn’t take anything in so has stopped by Safeway $14.13 and the work café $9.48. I get the figures from the banking app and realise J has been paid – win. I have an hour break and head back online.
2020 – I’ve been in the swing of things today. It’s a long winded, but simple task so I’ve had Greys Anatomy on in the background as I work. I’d normally have left some of it until Monday, but I have a few urgent requests in today that need the updated figures so it made sense to get it all cleared – it’s also quite therapeutic so feels like a nice way to end the week . J and I have plans to see friends tomorrow, so I don’t feel too bad about not having plans for a Friday night and working for most of it instead. Still, we make the most of it being payday and order in some Steak Frites for dinner and I treat myself to a chocolate cake slice as well. $80.25. We spend the rest of the evening relaxing, finish watching The Good Place (a very emotional finale) and make it into bed for half 11.
Daily total: $103.86
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Total Expenditure: $543.96
Food & Drink: $257.70
Groceries: $103.25
Clothes/Home: $123.00
Other: $60.01
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Lastly, reflect on your diary!
This is a pretty average week for us during COVID. We usually go out drinking over every other weekend, but that extra spending would balance out with the home/other expenditure as I try to make sure we spread our spending out. The AMEX balance is a bit higher than the usual weekly amount as J and I both ordered a trunk club a few weeks and kept a few of the clothes but the system errored which delayed us processing our returns (and them billing us). As we’ll looking to buy the car soon, it also feels like a better decision to leave the balance on the card and keep more cash available – I’m not concerned as we’re only just into the new credit statement period and J’s will get an extra pay period this month which will clear it.
Pre-COVID, this is actually lower than our weekly spend, as we also had most of my salary coming into the US account as well and were spending most of it socialising, travelling and just enjoying living in a city. If we had to, we could cut our costs and save a lot more, but we’re here to enjoy ourselves and so long as we can eat and pay the mortgage, we’re happy. We’ve also already reached our total savings goal for our time out here, so anything extra is a bonus.

Background: I'm a 28 y/o girl living in a pretty expensive part of Los Angeles living with two apartment mates. I graduated from my public health masters program a couple of years back and I've been working in the field (epidemiology) since. I'm currently in a bit of a quarter life crisis where I am deciding whether I want to move up in my current job, take on a new role at another company, or jump ship and do a career switch to UI/UX design. I am also trying to move in with my boyfriend sometime, but my job soul-searching dilemma complicates when/where that will be.
Assets & Debt | Total Net Worth = $9,700

Account	Amount
Checking	$5,700
Savings	$19,000
Retirement - Roth 401(k)	$11,500
Personal Investments	$3000 between robo-investment and brokerage accounts
Student Loans	$29,500 - undergrad $14k (3-5% interest), graduate MPH program $15.5k (5.25% interest)
Other loans (e.g., car, credit card)	$0

Some details on my assets and debt
I make around $58,000. I receive $1,400 biweekly after a $250 contribution to my Roth 401k. Checking account is high because I move ~$2000 to my savings account at the end of each month, excluding my student loans described below. My short-term savings goal is to buy a car (at least half in cash) sometime next year and move to a new apartment, long-term... I guess a house downpayment and a wedding, though I definitely am YEARS away from both. I'm a very casual and noob investor, but I do try to throw in money on (profitable) companies with goals that align with mine - usually stuff relating to sustainability, biotech, etc. I had to take out loans and work multiple jobs to support myself throughout undergrad and graduate school unfortunately, but the debt is somewhat manageable.
Monthly Expenses | Grand Total = $2,380

• Fixed Cost, $1,885
  • Rent = $1000 for my own room with all utilities included. The apartment is very big/nice, so I would say the price is good for the Santa Monica/West LA/Culver City area
  • Loan payments = $700. I'm doing the avalanche method where I try to pay off the highest interest (my graduate loan) first. All of my loans are also under forbearance due to COVID so I am holding the money in my HYSA until the payment deadline (9/30).
  • Online subscriptions = $22. Includes VPN, Apple cloud storage (do I even need this lol), Crunchyroll
  • Car insurance = $67
  • Credit card fee = $46. I set aside money to pay for the annual CSR fee
  • Phone = $50
• Varied and Misc. Expenses, $495
  • Groceries = $120
  • Gas = $50
  • Dining/entertainment = $150
  • Extra things = $175

Money Diary

Day 1, Saturday = $51.86

• 11:00am: I start my morning routine - scroll through my phone for 10-15 minutes to catch up on emails and social media, brush my teeth, and apply my skincare stuff. I pan fry some dumplings and hash browns to eat with my boyfriend Nate. We’re in ultimate mega super full potato mode and spend the whole day doing our own thing - he’s playing Team Fight Tactics (TFT), I’m playing Animal Crossing and working on finishing my UX course assignment.
• 5:00pm: I freak out that I basically wasted a whole day. At this point, I’m trying to figure out if we should cook food, order takeout, or drive home to my parent’s house for dinner. We decide to make chicken wraps and Lebanese braised green beans with the leftover veggies I have in the fridge. We head over to Trader Joe’s to buy some groceries - Romaine lettuce, frozen clam linguine (I had it years ago and can’t remember if I liked it or not), dark chocolate peanut butter cups, dark chocolate espresso beans, lavash bread, and hummus ($23.83). I want the garlic spread (toum) to go with dinner, too bad it’s sold out at TJs. We finish our grocery shopping at Ralphs ($28.03) - eggs, rotisserie chicken (too lazy to cook), lemons, potatoes, garlic. I guess I'm making my own toum!
• 7:30pm: I prep and braise the green beans first because they take the longest. While they’re on the stove, I’m making toum. It came out pretty good! The green beans came out ok.. it probably needed some more seasoning. I’m not that used to tart veggies. We watch 3 episodes of Brooklyn 99 while we ate.
• 10:15pm: We throw everything in the dishwasher because we’re too lazy to hand wash them. We spend the rest of the night rewatching Avatar the Last Airbender while doing our own thing - he’s on TFT while I work on my embroidery project.
• 12:50am: Nate and I shower and head off to bed. He immediately knocks out, but my brain is still awake - I read random stuff about different tech careers (software engineering, programming, UX), news articles, and whatnot until 3:05am and knock out.

Day 2, Sunday = $0

• 11:30am: Wake up and do my morning routine. My mom asks me when I’m going home, I respond that I’m getting ready now, but that’s a lie..
• 1:30pm: I lag a bit to pack up, but done! I drop off Nate at his car a block away and drive home. I do some work on my laptop and play games for a few hours.
• 5:00pm: Mom made some fish and tomato noodle soup (bun ca) for dinner. I work on my embroidery and play with my dog. She’s been so itchy during the summer, I feel so bad for her :(
• 1:00am: After embroidering, reading stuff online, and learning I finally go to sleep.

Day 3, Monday = $112

• 9:30: I ended up staying at home so I will be working a full day at my home (not my apartment). I make myself a bowl of leftover bun ca and use the new instant coffee my grandparents bought a week ago. I pour two bags of it in a mug, add in 2-3 cm of water, and use a handheld frother to fluff up the coffee. Finish it off with lots of ice. I enjoy making my own coffee (e.g., cappuccinos, real Vietnamese iced coffee, dalgona, cold brew), but there’s just SOMETHING about instant Vietnamese coffee. It’s addicting. Just don’t look at the ingredients list. I do some patient chart reviews and write some project documents.
• 3:30pm: My friends (Nancy, Roger) text in our group chat and decide on take-out Thai food for dinner. I read the menu for a while and choose chicken green curry. Nancy is going back to medical school this weekend and we want one last hangout before she leaves.
• 4:45pm: Grandparents come home from the food bank and bring back boxes of stuff for us. Bags of rice, canned fruit, etc. The food bank also gave them a HUGE box of plain donut holes.. I swear it was enough to fill up a 10 gallon bucket and then some.
• 5:30pm: Wrap up my workday and look at the clock - time to get ready for dinner! I go to the freezer and air fry ~30 donuts. It did not make a dent in the giant freezer stash at all. I eat some glazed donuts my sister made, not bad. I roll the air fried donut holes in cinnamon and sugar and place them in the biggest Tupperware in the kitchen. I’m glad they fit.
• 6:30pm: I arrive at my friend’s house and we catch up and eat family style Thai food. We talk about our career aspirations, gossip, and current news. I’m so proud of my friends. They’re amazing! They give me a couple of recommendations - a book called Bad Blood (exposé of a biotech CEO) and Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich (documentary on Netflix). Nancy gives me a couple of cute face masks her mom sewed. She Venmo requests me $12 for dinner, I'm sure dinner is actually more, but she's too nice.
• 8:30pm: I arrive back home, pack up, say bye to my family, and drive up to my apartment in LA. My apartment mate Steph and I catch up on our weekend. I spend the rest of my night unpacking, showering, and looking up stocks on Robinhood. My portfolio is very bare and I’m not a super trader or anything. I just like to throw in extra money to support companies I believe in. When I have the time I’ll look into shorting/putting and strategize how to make more money on individual stocks, but no rush. I deposit $100 to my account and set limit orders to a couple of stocks. I knock out at 2:10am…

Day 4, Tuesday = $0

• 8:30am: I finish preparing for my mid-year evaluation - I skim through my calendar to make sure I captured any relevant events, update my goals list and accomplishments. The evaluation goes surprisingly very well. For some reason, I’m able to really hype myself up and emphasize the importance of my role throughout multiple studies this morning. I’m usually not so confident. My manager goes through my stakeholder reviews and I receive a lot of great feedback. I was in such a slump since WFH and now my motivation has rekindled! I hope I get a nice bonus too... I attend a Toastmasters meeting. It’s such a safe space for those who want to improve on public speaking skills. There’s another (optional) meeting after Toastmasters, but the invite link doesn’t work. I give up and eat lunch instead.
• 1:20pm: I heat up leftover chicken pad thai from yesterday’s dinner and eat that while watching Graham Stephan’s money review on a guy making $47k in Denver. I’m done with meetings for the day and spend the rest of my work hours reviewing COVID patient charts and preparing to roll out our new study.
• 6:00pm: I leftover chicken wraps and green beans from Saturday’s dinner. I do my laundry while watching the Epstein documentary on Netflix. No one deserves that much power!!! Also boys are icky. I do some UX work and knock out around 3am.

Day 5, Wednesday = $68.36

• 9:30am: Wake up and do my morning routine. Have a couple of meetings. This is the last meeting for one of my projects. It's a bittersweet ending, but I’m ready for new opportunities. I make myself a breakfast - yerba mate and overnight oats. I like it with cinnamon, chia seeds, maple syrup, and a mashed banana!
• 12:45pm: I pack two tupperwares of donut holes and drive over to work. My gas light flashes and I head over to the gas station near work. I pay a 35 cent fee for using my debit card because: 1) I don’t want to use cash and 2) too lazy to walk over to the cashier. The total for gas is $47.90. I regret paying the debit fee.
• 1:20pm: My work has a very thorough protocol to enter the office during these COVIDdy times. Because my remote work is extended AT LEAST til the end of the year, I pick up some stuff from the office (e.g., snacks, knicknacks, monitors) and do a bit of work at my desk. Two coworkers stop by (at separate times) at my desk and we spend a good amount of time catching up. I really miss my coworkers, we were such a tight-knit group! We reminisce about old times and give updates on our lives. I surprise them with the “Hey I’m interviewing at other places by the way! Also I’m considering changing careers!” They’re very supportive and I give them encouragement in their career goals as well. I give each of them a box of donuts and drive back.
• 7:30pm: I find out that my iPad pro arrived at my boyfriend’s house! I finish drafting a few study documents and end my work day around 6pm. My friend Kevin stops by my apartment to pick up boxes of stuff that he left here. He brings a looooottttt of Taiwanese food, sake, and makgeolli (Korean rice beer). The dinner’s his treat, so kind! We catch up (I’m catching up with so many people lately lol this isn’t normal by the way). We talk about his new job, Steph’s work drama, and we just have gr8 night chatting. They assure me that I’m NOT TOO OLD to change careers and if I put my mind to it, I can be a very successful UX designer. I hope so? I make a batch of donuts, glazed this time.
• 10:00pm: I guess I’m buzzed, but I play games, finish work, and somehow spend almost three hours on TikTok and Youtube. I’m so annoyed and disappointed in myself. My plan was to finish my UX assignment and watch Procreate tutorials, but that will have to wait until tomorrow I guess.. I buy a matte iPad screen protector on Amazon for $20.46. I skip the shower because it’s too late, do a shortened night routine, and fall asleep around 3:15am.

Day 6, Thursday = $0

• 9:45am: Wake up and do my morning routine. Have a couple of meetings today.
• 1:30pm: I heat up leftover Taiwanese noodles and chicken. Still good, but after I microwave them, there’s a big puddle of grease on the bottom of the bowl.. Not the healthiest kind of food. I go back to work after eating.
• 7:30pm: I finish work and realize that my wrist is extremely sore. My first thought is carpal tunnel - I watch some wrist stretching videos and freak out. I complain to Steph for a very long time about my potential ailment. After complaining, I heat up leftover bun ca from Sunday’s dinner. My mom used tuna for this dish, and it is fishhhyyyy. I brush my teeth after eating this.
• 12:00am: I watch some educational videos, learn about different careers, along with other random Youtube videos. I end up sleeping at an ungodly hour.

Day 7, Friday = $9.99

• 9:30am: Wake up, do my morning routine. Work is usually super chill on Fridays if I plan my week correctly.
• 2:00pm: I skip lunch, but eat some random snacks like a banana, etc. I ask my boyfriend Nate if I can go over to his house over the weekend, he says sure. While I’m working, I start packing my things to drive over.
• 5:00pm: I arrive at his house. I set up my new iPad Pro. The screen protector is super annoying to install, but eventually I got it. I download Procreate for $9.99.
• 7:00pm His family plans on going to the beach to do a bonfire, but they note that the pits are probably all taken by now. His parents and cousin drive to the beach to scout - Nate is playing TFT, I’m still setting up my iPad. I watch some Procreate tutorials and download all the important apps I need including Spotify, Reddit, banking apps, etc. I eat one fried chicken drumstick for dinner that my boyfriend left on the table.
• 10:30pm: His parents come home and tell us they were able to get a pit very late (30 mins before closing), but they had some bomb food such as shrimp skewers. I think Nate just forgot to drive over to the beach. He did seem very engrossed in his game. I end up drawing and playing around with the new iPad until bedtime (2am?).

Reflection

Expenses Overview | Total = $242.21

• Groceries: $51.86
• Dining: $12.00
• Gas: $47.90
• Other: $130.45

I spent quite a lot this week, but everything I bought had a purpose (I think). Though I try to save a lot, I still want to buy things that would make me happy. I'm always sad so anything helps lol.
In terms of finances, I’m trying to build a growth mindset. With YNAB and budgeting I am able to save and make do with what I got, but at this age my goal is to build my wealth (aka earning more). I’m not pleased with my income and student debt, but I am proud of how much I’ve grown financially throughout the years. For someone living up in a very low-income household without any financial guidance, I consider that a huge accomplishment.
Also looking back at my money diary, I realized how wonderful my support system is. Over the past few months I have been feeling alone and lost, but I don't’ know.. I guess I didn’t see that there’s a whole village behind me - my family, Nate and his family, my coworkers, and all of my friends. They’ve cheered me on throughout the years, even now. I’m in such a weird stage of life right now where I’m wondering if I should be comfortable/successful in my current job, work in the same field but different company, or take a huge risk by switching to a new career that could potentially be a better fit. I wish I could know which path is right for me, but as my boyfriend Nate keeps telling me - I CONTROL MY DESTINY! I kind of agree with that. I'm excited to see where I'll end up next year!

You can read this post and see the (few) pictures of clerics on Dump Stat
Every time we look into a character class, we swear we will never do another. It's a labor of love, as they are always very long, and there are often strange rules that don't make much sense until you read the rest of the core rulebook. It's an exhausting process, and when it's complete, we promise never to take up such an endeavor again. This time we were tricked into taking a look at the Cleric, a class known for its ability to heal with one hand and strike down their enemies with the other hand, sometimes at the same time.

OD&D

• HP Die: d6
• Only humans are allowed to be Clerics
• Gains Turn Undead
• Two subclasses: Monk & Druid
• Only class with healing spells

The Cleric is introduced in the Dungeons & Dragons Box Set - Book 1: Men & Magic (1973) as one of the three original character classes, along with fighting men and magic-users. A Cleric was a combination of the fighting-men and magic-users skills, having the best abilities of both classes at its disposal, though that means it’s not that great when compared directly to them. As with most descriptions in this book, it was rather short, both in words and in detail. Clerics could use magic armor and are forbidden from using edged weapons that could stab or slice, including arrows, which means a Cleric could only bludgeon you to death. We suppose they didn't want to get too much blood on their robes, but your smashed brains are fine. The remainder of the text focuses on what our Cleric can do when they reach the 10th level, receiving the title Patriarch, 10th Level. Patriarchs can build their very own stronghold for just a mere 100,000 in gold pieces, and if you wanted to make it a literal fortress, you could do so for an additional 100,000 gp. Unlike the fighting-men, the Cleric's followers do not require payment as they are men of faith, pledging themselves to the righteous cause in the name of their god.
Speaking of Cleric followers who show up at a fortress, you might think it would just be the soft men of the cloth who will burn some incense and sing hymns about their favorite god, but not so. All those who come to the fortress are armed to the teeth and are “… 10–60 heavy cavalry, 10–60 horsed crossbowmen (“Turcopole”-type), and 30–180 heavy foot.” Every Cleric apparently needs a military force to back them up.
Clerics also have the fastest level progression of any of the other two classes, though only at the lowest levels. Once you get to 7th level, the magic-user starts outpacing the Cleric, which isn’t fair at all! Clerics already get fewer spells to cast, and don’t even get a spell until they reach 2nd level! Even when they do get spells, they get less of them and they are unable to learn 6th-level spells, and they even have less available spells! Magic-users get 70 spells to eventually master while the Cleric only get 26 spells, it's starting to feel like the gods don’t like their Clerics.
The Greyhawk Supplement (1975) gives us further information for the Cleric and boosts them up just a little bit. We now know that the Clerics' primary attribute is Wisdom, which describes it as a 'booster' for their experience points. Unlike the magic-user, a higher Wisdom does not provide any assistance in learning or knowing any additional spells as all spells are given 'divinely' to the Cleric via their god. It's the first mention of the divine ability through which Clerics have been granted their spells, and is just one more example of a trait that has lasted throughout the years. The Cleric receives some new spells such as word of recall, symbol, and restoration, furthermore Clerics can now gain access to 6th and 7th level spells starting at 12th level. Unfortunately, this supplement also grants magic-users spells up to 9th level, so just another snub in the face and makes you wonder if the gods are even powerful enough to give their Clerics access to the more powerful magic.
In Blackmoor (1975), the Cleric gets its first subclass, the Monk. While at first glance, it may seem like a logical choice to be a Cleric’s subclass, what with the monasteries and writing religious books, it comes with some very strong negatives. The monk is a combination of fighting-men and thieves' skills with nary a Cleric power to use, and to even qualify to be a Monk you need at least a 15 in Wisdom, 12 in Strength and a 15 in Dexterity. The Monk has increased fighting techniques, and while its weapon choices are limited and they cannot wear armor, some of the abilities they get in return are insane. One such example is when the Monk hits you with its fists and lands a blow that is 5 points higher than is needed, there is a 75% chance you will be stunned for 3d4 rounds and a 25% chance that you get punched so hard you immediately die. Sometimes, life isn't fair.
The Monk gains a variety of thief abilities which include lock picking, removing traps, and moving silently, to name just a few. Monks have no spellcasting of any sort and cannot Turn Undead. So why are they a Cleric subclass? Based on the description and the types of skills the monk has in this edition, we honestly have no idea except you need a really good Wisdom… for some reason?
The last thing to mention about Monks is that their level progression is a bit… weird. The weird part is that once you reach level 6 and become a “Grand Master” you are stuck at that level until you get enough experience points to level up, but you can’t level up until you find a level 7 Monk who is known as the “Grand Master of Dragon” and then proceed to beat them up. You see, there can only be one 7th level monk, apparently in the world, and it continues from there. There can only be one 8th level monk, or 9th level monk, and so on. Each time you wish to level up, you have to go find the Grand Master of that level, beat the snot out of them and take their place, we assume you get a colorful belt for doing so. The loser of the battle immediately loses all experience to the minimum of the level below them and must retrain to challenge for that position again.
With the release of Eldritch Wizardry (1976), the Cleric has the opportunity to gain the much-maligned powers of psionics and gains a new subclass, the Druid. If Clerics wish to be given the chance to melt someone's brain, it comes at a high cost. For every psionic ability that a Cleric takes, they lose a number of spell levels equal to the cumulative number of psionic abilities they have, and their Turn Undead ability is treated as if they are a level lower for each psionic ability. This means that if a Cleric is level 10 and has three psionic abilities, they’d have lost access to six spell levels and they would be treated as a 7th level Cleric for their Turn Undead. Those six spell levels could be six 1st-level spells they can never learn, three 2nd-level spells, or another combination of spell levels that will restrict their spells… it’s all very confusing but once you get into psionics, it only gets worse.
Jumping over to their newest subclass, the Druid, who was originally a monster in the Greyhawk Supplement, our nature-loving Cleric no longer serves a deity but instead serves nature, and in exchange, they get access to spells at their first level. They also get a few pointy edged weapons and can only wear leather armor and wooden shields. While they lose the ability to turn the undead, they do get powers at various levels that are specific to their bond with the outdoors. They can identify most things found in the great outdoors such as plants and animals, and even walk through a dense patch of overgrown briars. They can change shape into an animal, like a raven or a bear, and speak a stupid amount of languages of things found in the forest. Druids won't kill an animal if they don't have to, making one wonder why they wear leather armor. They also won't destroy any form of nature no matter what, even if it is an evil bush trying to scratch them to death with its tiny branches. In short, they are the Lorax, and they speak for the trees.
Druids are also similar to Monks in that they have to go around and start beating up other Druids if they hope to get higher than 9th level. Once you gain enough experience points to reach 11th level, you have to find one of the four Druids in the world, beat one up with your spells, and steal their position from them. If you want to get to 12th level, you need to find one of the two Archdruids, and beat them up. If you hope to reach the 13th level, the highest level for Druids, you need to find the only Great Druid in the world, give them a wedgie and steal their antler crown. This entire procedure means that only the strong will rule, which is probably befitting of nature.

Basic D&D

• HP Die: d6
• Wisdom 13 and over provides bonus experience
• Must use a Holy Symbol to cast spells
• Gain Destroy Undead

Our divine warrior is looking a lot like the OD&D Cleric but has a few new restrictions placed on them. They must pledge themselves to a divine being, always wear their holy symbol, and still go through first level, survive it, and then get spells at 2nd level. It’s like their god wants them to die before they get to taste some of that sweet divine power. On the other hand, maybe the Cleric's god wants to test their new follower's worthiness. Who knows.
Once the Cleric does get spells, they will understand why they need to learn to fight, as a vast majority of their spells are buffs and heals, with very few damage spells. Clerics are given the ability to reverse their spells, like turning a cure light wounds into a cause light wounds, but it comes at the risk of upsetting their god, and you don't want a supreme being mad at you. If your deity is mad at you, they can be quite unforgiving and take your spells away from you. Reversing spells is just one way to piss off a god, though chaotic gods don’t actually care that much and chaotic Clerics are almost always required to reverse their spells unless they are helping out their allies.
Bashing the skulls with non-edged weapons and being able to cast spells is still what the Cleric can do when they encounter any living creature, woe to any undead they happen across though. This edition gives the Cleric the ability to not only turn an undead zombie, but at higher levels, they can begin simply destroying the undead. This begins at 4th level against skeletons, 5th level for zombies, and more until they get to level 14 where they can destroy a vampire!
Money plays an important role when playing a Cleric and by donating and tithing you can ensure that your god is always on your side. Tithing is especially important for Clerics who are thinking about building their fortress of divinity at 9th level, and, if they have been a very good Cleric, get to build their 100,000 gp stronghold for only 50,000 gp thanks to their deity. Once established, the pious will arrive, consisting of up to three hundred 2nd level soldiers that will follow your orders and protect your temple fortress.
Basic also provides information for a Cleric that reaches such astronomical levels as 36, and they still don’t get access to 9th level spells! Instead, they end up with 9 spell slots for 1st- through 7th-level by 36th level and their Turn Undead can eventually get strong enough to destroy nightshades, but sadly still not powerful enough to immediately destroy a lich, only turn them. For those who aren’t aware, nightshades are powerful evil creatures created to go about the lands and spoiling it with foulness and evil. Nightshades can spoil food, holy water, and even summon undead to help their ultimate goal of death and destruction, in later editions these creatures can be found in the Plane of Shadow and one of the mid-tier nightshades even shows up in 5th edition as the CR 20 nightwalker.

1st edition

• HP Die: d8
• Gain spells at 1st level
• One subclass: Druid
• Castles must be a place of worship

Our Cleric can rejoice for they get a d8 for their hit points and they get access to spells at 1st level! Of course, they only get 1 spell slot per day, but they also get Turn Undead, so it kind of evens out? On a small side note, this isn’t the first edition to give Clerics a d8 for their hit dice as there is a variant rule in OD&D that provides different hit die for each class, magic-users had a d4, Clerics a d8 and fighting-men had a d10.
Once a Cleric reaches the all-important 8th level, they can then find a building that is not less than 2,000 square feet so there is enough room for an altar, shrine, and more, they can conduct their sermons there. The culmination of months and years of game time, slaughtering monsters, and facing death a countless number of times, you finally are given the go-ahead from your deity that you can set up an altar for them in an empty building… gee, thanks. Once you get to 9th level, your deity will now allow you to build a fortification though you better make sure it is at least 2,500 square feet and there is a place of worship in there or else you aren’t going to be on speaking turns with your deity… these gods are starting to sound a bit needy.
Before we get into subclasses, let’s go over a few things to know before you create your brand new Cleric to fight the horrors and get your just rewards of only 7th level spells but still forced to build a temple to a deity who may refuse to talk to you if you break just one of their laws. Wisdom is still the attribute the Cleric needs the most, while Strength and Constitution are the other two stats that are also recommended. If you want to be a Cleric, make sure you are a human as only half-elves, half-orcs, and humans are apparently allowed to worship and spread the god’s name to the masses. Of course, even then only humans can advance to the high levels as half-elves stop at 5th level and half-orcs at 4th level.
A big change for the Cleric is that the monk is no longer a subclass, but we still keep the Druid! The Druid is similar to a Cleric in… some ways? They can’t do Turn Undead, but they get additional spell slots to cast their unique spell list and they follow nature. Nature doesn’t expect the Druid to build a fortification in its honor, and in fact, they don’t have any buildings they must make, instead, they just get a few people to follow them around, presumably save some animals, stop a forest fire, and have fun dancing through a prairie singing songs about mountains or something. Of course, that all ends as soon as a Druid is ready to become a 12th level Druid and they have to start bashing in some skulls and breaking kneecaps so that they can become a more powerful Druid. If they fail to bring down a 12th level Druid, they don't level up to 12th level and lose their experience so that they start at the bottom of 11th level and must work their way back up. Eventually, the Druid will get strong enough to challenge the Great Druid for their antler crown and be the most powerful Druid in the world, of course now you have to worry about those young upstart Druids with their free love trying to take you down.
We also find out that the Cleric is similar to several religious orders of knighthood from our Medieval period, with the Templar knights and Teutonic knights being the most well known of such orders. There was some confusion between the Cleric and the paladin, which is a subclass of the fighter. The primary difference between the two character classes is that a Cleric must serve a god of their choice while a paladin is under no such obligation. Most people assume that since the paladin has some of the same spells and the ability to heal that they must get these powers from a deity of some sort, but their description makes no mention of having to serve a god. Paladins must only be of lawful good alignment, and if they commit an evil act, they are immediately demoted to a fighter.
While the Cleric has always been a defensive-minded spellcaster, this is even more apparent when you look at the spell list available to them now. Up until 5th level, the Cleric only has two spells that deal damage, spiritual hammer and sticks to snakes. Their spells provide a variety of benefits to the party, including the ever-important ability to heal, but they can also cure diseases, remove curses, and slow poison, just to name a few. In combat, the Cleric is usually a round or two behind in joining the front line next to the fighter, as they would use those first few rounds to buff their fellow adventurers, and then start smashing skulls.
Outside of the Player’s Handbook, there are several articles in Dragon Magazine that provide new options for Clerics like spells, roleplaying a Cleric, and even a new NPC subclass. In Dragon Magazine #58 (February 1982), Gygax admits that the Cleric spells are lacking and recruits Lenard Lakofka to come up with some new spells to add some punch to the Cleric. In his column Leomund's Tiny Hut, new spells are created, including magic stone, which still exists today, even though the Cleric doesn't get it anymore, which… alright. His follow up in Dragon Magazine #68 (December 1982), Lakofka introduced the cloistered Cleric, an NPC who is physically weak but a formidable force when it comes to spellcasting and knowledge. Referred to as a friar, these Clerics often live in an abbey or library, their heads buried in books.
Dragon Magazine #85 (May 1984), features the Cleric, with some articles dedicated to the voice of the gods. There's a couple of exciting tidbits we glean from the materials. In Here's to Your Health, author Kim Mohan talks about how damage is life energy, and it is deposited into a repository just waiting for the Cleric to make a withdrawal via their healing spells. Roger E. Moore expands on Gygax's series of earliest articles, describing how Clerics can be granted special powers, along with some restrictions, by deities of various mythos including the Egyptian, Norse, and Orcish belief systems. In the final article, Fraser Sherman writes an interesting piece on roleplaying your Cleric based on the deity that you worship. Roleplaying was just becoming an integral part of the game, they wanted players to start thinking WWTD, What Would Thor Do.
The last bit of love for the Cleric continues in Dragon Magazine #92 (December 1984) with another series of articles titled Spotlight on the Cleric. There is a helpful little article by Gary Gygax, which talks about Clerics walking the walk and talking the talk when it comes to following their faith. He talks about limiting access to spells and abilities based on the Cleric's deity, but in return, allowing them to gain access to spells from a different class that would fit its background and beliefs.

2nd edition

• HP Die: d8
• All races can be a Cleric
• Cleric falls under Priest
• Three Subclasses: Cleric, Mythos Priest, Druid

Moving into the 2nd edition, the Cleric undergoes some exciting changes. First, every class gets reorganized and there are now four primary class categories: the warrior, wizard, Priest, and rogue. Each class has its subclasses to further refine your choice with the Priest including three such subclasses: the Cleric, Mythos Priest, and the Druid. To understand the Cleric, one must first understand the Priest.
The Priest is a true believer, one who travels the world and spreads the word of their god, sharing blessings and mimicking the ideals of their god. A Priest can be a force on the battlefield, whether by mace, or by the divine power bestowed upon them by their deity. While the majority of their spells can aid someone in battle instead of dealing damage, the few that do damage rain down the fury of their higher power.
Speaking of spells, the Priest spell list gets a bit more complicated in 2e. Spells from the holy powers split into 16 spheres of influence, similar to the different schools magic that wizards have, though these are based on what a deity oversees. The 16 spheres are All, Animal, Astral, Charm, Combat, Creation, Divination, Elemental, Guardian, Healing, Necromantic, Plant, Protection, Summoning, Sun, and Weather. To make it even more confusing, you can have major or minor access to these spheres, determining what level spells from the sphere you will be able to use. If you have major access, you can use all the spells from the sphere, while minor access gets you 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-level spells from the sphere. You don't get access to every sphere, though Clerics are far less limited than the Mythos Priest or the Druid.
The Cleric class itself sees no big surprises. The hit die is still a d8, a Cleric is the bane of undead, and they still build a castle or place of worship, with devoted followers rushing to their side upon reaching the 8th level. The base Cleric still has limitations on what weapons it may use, being only able to wield blunt ones to prevent the shedding of blood. It's their spells that give a Cleric their real power, as they are looked upon to strengthen and fortify their comrades, heal the wounded, and provide divine retribution when all else fails. All in all, it's not a bad gig if you can get it, still gotta wonder why every cleric is so obsessed with building their own fortification and that a god forces them to wait until 9th level to do it.
Clerics get major access to every sphere except for Plant, Animal, Weather, and Elemental spheres, though they do gain minor access to the Elemental spheres. But, let’s say you want to be more than just a normal, boring Cleric and instead want to take on a greater position with your god and follow them with greater gusto, you can choose to take on the Mythos Priest subclass and further restrict your spheres of magic for more power.
When creating your Mythos Priest, you’d work closely with your DM to determine additional weapons allowed, spells allowed, including what spheres are major vs minor, additional divine powers that the gods bless down on you, an ethos to follow and guide you, as well as getting a new priest title like Friar, Imam or Yogi. The most interesting part of building a Mythos Priest are the powers you could earn, which might range from radiating an aura of fear, going into a berserker’s rage, or more based on your deity and what your DM decides should be your power. See, a Mythos Priest has no set power that they get but rather must work with the DM to determine what their power and progression will look like.
The last option for a Priest is becoming a Druid, and not much has changed from the previous editions. Gotta go beat up stronger Druids to take their place, you can speak the language of druids, you get to change shape into an animal, you like nature and it provides its power to you. For all the goodies of being a Druid, they are restricted in their spells and only have major access to All, Animal, Elemental, Healing, Plant, and Weather while having minor access to Divination spells.
If you think that the Player's Handbook had a ton of information, the 2nd edition will make your head spin with new options and more customizations for your Priest. The Beginners Guide to the Priest (1994), inside of the Player’s Pack - Priest, is a short piece that helps out the newbie who wants to play a Priest, with all the power and glory that comes with playing this role. It’s a detailed look at abilities along with how to appropriately roleplay such an important character and their pivotal position in any party. The Druid is also touched on, presented as a viable option for new players to play, as well as tips for how to paint your very own Priest miniature! What's great about this guide is it even goes over the character sheet, breaking down in language that is easy to understand, and provides information on the best practices of mapping.
The Complete Priest's Handbook (1990) is 128 pages of information about the Priest and contains a ton of information that a DM can use and add to their game, this has several useful resources that a DM in 5e could use. There are rules and guidelines on how to create a deity, how to model their faith and religion, and even ways of roleplaying certain types of priests. Priests of such newly created faiths assign duties to the members of the priesthood, and the restrictions placed upon them. A Cleric’s life can be very hard as their deity demands a great deal from them, but with great responsibility comes the chance to wield great power.
A long list of suggested types of priesthood are provided along with kits that contain background lore and what the deity's roles and requirements are for a priest that follows them. Alignment, race, armor, and weapon restrictions are detailed, along with minimum stat requirements. Since this is in 2nd edition, spheres of influence are given, so if you want access to combat spells, you'll know not to become a priest of fertility. Some are quite common, such as healing, strength, and death, but if you want to play something outside the box, there are several options. These kits and equipment options help our priest arm themselves with the necessary items they will need based on the type of role they are playing or even where they are from in the world, like the rain forests, barbarian encampments, and other locales or backgrounds.
The last book to look at for 2nd edition is The Tome of Magic (1995) which provides the Cleric with a ton of new spells and provides the DM some information about magic and introducing these new spells into their world. The most interesting spells are the Quest Spells, which are some of the most potent spells a Priest can receive. These are not your run of the mill spells, but rather are often very powerful spells that a Priest is bestowed upon under exceptional circumstances. Priests have to meet all sorts of requirements to receive Quest Spells, ranging from minimum stat and level requirements to having performed his or her duties throughout the campaign. A DM must be very careful when giving out a Quest Spell, as they can be game-breakers.
The book also provides eight additional spheres that a Cleric could start learning which include: Chaos, Law, Numbers, Thought, Time, Travelers, War, and Wards. Looking at a few of these, as some are a bit weird, let’s first talk about the Number sphere. This sphere is for those math geek Priests that think equations can solve all the world’s problem, on the other end of the spectrum is the Thought sphere which is focused on philosophy and it solving the world’s problems. Travelers’ sphere is all about going for a nice long journey and ensuring you arrive safely, while the Wards sphere is about keeping sneaky rogues from pilfering all your stuff.
Most of the spells in this book never see the light again, but a couple still exists today such as zone of truth and the… oh, hmm. Apparently zone of truth was the only spell worth keeping… awkward.

3/3.5 Edition

• HP Die: d8
• Spontaneous casting for cure or inflict spells
• Domain spells granted by a god

Perpetuating the stereotype that the role of a Cleric is to only be a healer, this edition does little to help the Cleric feel like a badass. It states that Clerics aren’t that great of a fighter and should cower in the back with the wizard… Alright, it might not say that exactly, but it’s implied. We’d like to see them say that to the face of a Cleric wearing plate armor and a wielding a massive mace, we’ll wait.
Getting to the real parts of this class, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. By that, we mean the shape-changed druid who is no longer part of the Cleric. We can finally kick that deadweight out of this class! The next thing we can kick out are the 20+ spell spheres from 2e, and we now have domains but those don’t restrict what spells you have access too. You can, as a Cleric, cast any spell of your choice on the Cleric spells list, get a free domain spell to cast, and you even get access to 0-level spells known as orisons or cantrips. This is a much better situation, magic-wise, for our Cleric when compared to the earlier editions where the gods expected them to run around without spells for their first level, and even at second level they only had one per day!
Clerics are also given access to spontaneous spellcasting which allows them to change any of their prepared spells into either cure spells or inflict spells based on your alignment. Good aligned Clerics can change a prepared 1st-level spell into a cure wounds due to their connection to the Positive Energy Plane, just as Evil aligned Clerics can change a prepared 1st-level spell into a inflict wounds spell as they are connected to the Negative Energy Plane. Lastly, neutral Clerics get to choose which type they get, cure or inflict. Once they make their decision, they are locked in and can’t change.
Speaking of casting spells, guess who now has access to 9th-level spells? It took their gods a few editions to finally get enough umph to help out their favorite worshipers, but now the Clerics are playing in the big leagues and can unload such crippling and horrible spells like implosion or true resurrection. Speaking of the older editions, the Cleric is no longer expected to build a castle for their god, which probably makes the Medieval real estate agents angry.
When you create a Cleric in 3e, much like in previous games, you must think about your character and their background in the world. This can help you decide on a deity to follow, and each deity, whether the ones provided in the Player’s Handbook (2000/2003) or ones that your DM has created in their world, provides access to different domains of influence. Those domains are: Air, Animal, Chaos, Death, Destruction, Earth, Evil, Fire, Good, Healing, Knowledge, Law, Luck, Magic, Plant, Protection, Strength, Sun, Travel, Trickery, War, and Water.
Alright, maybe we lied about not having 20+ spheres of magic, but these domains don’t restrict what spells you can ask your god for. Rather, these domains grant you additional spells to cast plus new abilities for your cleric. If you worship a deity, you get to pick two of their domains that they are linked too, and then you get access to both of those domain spells as well as some special abilities. Taking the air domain for an example, you get access to the 1st-level spell obscuring mist as well as the new power to Turn Earth Elementals, which is the same as turning undead except you can now target earth elementals! Other domains grant different powers, like destruction giving you a smite ability and the luck domain granting you a reroll once per day.
Because most deities have access to three to six domains, Clerics that follow the same deity may have vastly different powers. Of course, beyond a few special powers, Clerics are going to start looking a bit samey at higher levels when those special powers might not come into play very often. Instead, you can check out the Player’s Handbook II (2006) which provides different themes to help roleplay your Cleric a bit more. If you want something a bit crunchier than thematic fluff, you could check out a book like the Planar Handbook (2004) that provides new mechanics for a Cleric like being able to dismiss summoned creatures, though your effectiveness in turning undead is reduced.
The last bit of Cleric news doesn’t have to deal with the Cleric themselves, but can be found in the Complete Divine (2004) and it is a variety of different Cleric-like classes that a character can be. From the Favored Soul to the Shugenja to the Spirit Shaman, each of these provide a different way of playing a divine spellcaster that is somewhat related to being a Cleric. The Favored Soul gets less spells but greater abilities in melee combat. The Shugenja is a charisma based Cleric focused on the power of the elements and its relationship to the divine blessings they are bestowed with. The final class, the Spirit Shaman, can interact with the spirits and souls of the dead, using them in combat to smite their enemies and heal their allies.

4th edition

• Hit Points at 1st Level: 12 + Constitution score [5 per level after]
• Key Abilities: Wisdom, Strength, Charisma
• Gain access to Channel Divinity & Ritual Casting

While the terminology changes in 4e, at it’s core the Cleric remains the same. Right away, the Cleric is shown proper respect as it is described as battle leaders who are chock full of divine power. Healing, leading, buffing, and channeling the divine wrath of their deity are the traits of a Cleric who leads their party to victory. They are a shining beacon, embodying the beliefs and serving in their name. You are a part of the community of Clerics who have divine power, and your power comes from your connection to the divine, not because the gods touch your forehead every day and you learn some spells.
The first thing you'll need to figure out is what style of Cleric you'll want to be and there are a few suggestions, the major three options are the Battle Cleric and the Devoted Cleric from the Player’s Handbook (2008), and the Shielding Cleric which shows up in* Divine Power (2009)*. The Battle Cleric loves to hit something and is focused on running into melee and laying down their divine wrath. Up next is the Devoted Cleric, who is focused on supporting their fellows with healing and buffs to empower their allies. The Shielding Cleric is responsible for controlling the battlefield by pushing its allies forward and the enemies back. These are only presented as inspirations for how to build your Cleric and offer suggestions on powers and abilities to take, none of these options restrict a Cleric from taking one power over the other.
An important class feature a Cleric gets is something that most players of 5e would be familiar with, Channel Divinity. This ability allows a cleric, once per encounter, to use their powerful Turn Undead ability or, since one can assume that a Cleric is fighting more than just undead, they aren’t given a useless ability but simply can use it for something else like giving themselves a small blessing on their attack or saving throws. Apart from the Channel Divinity, Clerics are given powers every few levels to pick and choose from, just as if they were preparing spells, and are given a wide variety of options from healing to buffing, to striking down their enemies with a fearsome vengeance.
We'd be remiss if we didn’t mention the paragon paths that Clerics can take once they reach 11th level. These paragon paths allow a Cleric to specialize a bit more on how they function, granting abilities and powers unique to them, they operate similar to how subclasses operate except aren’t the core of what the class is. The Player’s Handbook offers the following paths; the Angelic Avenger, the Divine Oracle, the Radiant Servant, and the Warpriest. The Angelic Avenger gets you in touch with your angelic side and you gain astral wings and powers to help you spread the word of your deity. A Divine Oracle sees omens and visions of possible futures, which you speak in the booming voice of your deity. The Radiant Servant a shining divine light of radiant energy, unleashing your wrath on those who stand before you. Finally, for those clerics that have a great deal of pent up rage, anger, and need to bash things, we have the Warpriest. Your god wants you in battle, upfront, and carrying out its will and philosophy by killing anything that gets in your way.

5th edition

• HP Die: d8
• Gain access to Divine Domains
• Unique Powers and spells

Heavily inspired by 3e, our Cleric has many of its traits intact across the editions with making one significant change to a staple rule for the class. Spells are back in this edition, so that’s not it. Channel Divinity is kept from 4th edition, which is where you can find the Cleric’s Turn Undead feature and additional powers to help make a Cleric feel unique. You are still an agent of your deity’s tenets and philosophy, who granted you your unique powers thanks to their divine will. Wisdom is still super important for you as a Cleric, as it dictates your spells and how hard you are to resist. All of those are the same, but the big change is… Divine Intervention. Now, you can call on your god, asking for them to intervene on your behalf and prove to all those jerks who kept saying your god wasn’t real. Let’s see them start running their mouths when your god literally hurls flaming meteors from the sky, crushing them beneath your burning rage… or maybe, your deity is a kinder deity and simply heals everyone from a hard-fought battle… you know, whatever type of intervention you need.
Once a Cleric reaches a certain level, they can ask for their deity to intervene on their behalf and there is a chance their god will listen. If the Cleric is successful, which the odds of being successful are about the same as a cat that will listen to you when you call its name, it’s a big moment when the deity does answer and provides its power to the Cleric based off of any spell in the Cleric’s spell list which, well, we guess the deity can’t hurl those flaming meteors as those are only for sorcerers and wizards.
Luckily for our Cleric, they have so many options when it comes to 9th-level spells they can ask their deity to help them out with, so many options… OK, 4 options for 9th-level spells! That’s ridiculous, we suppose the gods were too busy doing their nails to give their most powerful Clerics any more options. Let’s talk about the other exciting things that have to do with a Cleric.
There are several subclasses for a Cleric and they all provide the real flavor and powers of a Cleric. Not only do they grant bonus spells, but they also grant additional ways of using your Channel Divinity than only being able to use Turn Undead, with more powers to further refine your Cleric. The different domains, in the Player’s Handbook (2014), are the Knowledge, Life, Light, Nature, Tempest, Trickery, and War domains, each providing their own powers and ways to play a Cleric than just as a healer.
Each domain provides a unique feature to them using a Cleric’s Channel Divinity, like the life domain provides powerful healing to their allies or the war domain ensures that their allies strike true. Domains can also provide a lot of flavor for the Cleric, like the nature domain providing proficiency in nature-based skills and granting a druid cantrip. After that, every Cleric gains the ability to strike their opponents with divine energy, blasting them with radiant, fire, or even the power of lightning.
Looking outside of the Cleric's Divine Domain, there isn't much else to the Cleric. Much like 3rd edition where a Cleric gets like two things and then has to rely on their spells to pull them through from level 1 to level 20, the Cleric class offers few things for a divine follower. Clerics can Turn Undead, they can Destroy Undead, and they can wield fearsome weapons and armor to protect them from their enemies. At least there is no restriction forbidding them from grabbing a sword and spilling some blood, all in the name of their god of course.
The Cleric in 5th edition is a culmination of every edition before it, maintaining it’s classic feel through each edition while still feeling new and exciting to play as. There are several abilities one might wish for the Cleric, like the AD&D Cleric could, instead of Turn Undead, Turn Devils & Demons, or that the 3e Cleric could choose two different domains to gain powers from. Of course, there are also things we are glad changed and never came back in 5th edition, like having a Monk subclass or not having any spells at 1st level.