What are some adulting life hacks that you think others could benefit by learning about them?
What are some adulting life hacks that you think others could benefit by learning about them?
147 comments
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You can say no: to volunteer work, to events you don't want to go to, to doing favors to people. The power of no is amazing
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Avoid subscription services. You may pay more short term, but you won't have to remember to cancel anything
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Build up a routine of scheduled exercise. It's amazing when you get deep into a job how little time you have, and it's easy to put exercise to the wayside. Make it part of your schedule when it's flexible, and then hold it when it becomes difficult. Exercise has massive outside benefits to overall health mood etc
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Yes! I got a stationary bike and set it up with a view of the TV. Now instead of just sitting on the couch watching TV I at least get exercise doing it.
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Use a virtual credit card when signing up for subscription services. Set the recurring amount at just enough to cover the trial amount, and then once the subscription fee goes up it'll notify you if you wish to continue paying for it. You can increase the limit if you want to keep the service, or just let the card decline until the service is cancelled. Most credit cards have virtual cards as an option, but I also use app.paywithextend.com
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THANK you! Wish I had known this app two weeks ago. Neither of my banks have virtual credit cards. The one CSR even said "That's a great idea! I'll pass that along." 🙄
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Be careful with the declining part. I believe some companies, notably gym memberships, have ways to make your life difficult if your payment doesn't go through
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cook for yourself at least once a week. Not only is it a good skill to keep polished, you get great control over what you're actually eating. Keeps you grounded to society, the cost of primary prices, and you can compare kitchen costs versus restaurant cost easily. It keeps you involved in society.
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Nice to hear it not framed around health only, for once. From most advice it is seemingly impossible to live a healthy life if you dont cook yourself six days a week. Which seems ridicilous. Particularly for one who doesnt enjoy cooking (even though I do know how to cook decent meals).
Wish there was restaurants around here that was more like mess halls, priced at a level everyone could afford to eat at every day, made from healthy local ingredients, shared tables, no attempt at "mood" or theme, no waiters, you get whats served today and no alternatives except for those with particual dietary needs. I ate at the local poor-house once and it was almost what I would have wanted if they just got rid of the preacher and added a payment terminal. I heard those kinda eateries were common back around the early 1900. Why we at some point decided that everyone should mostly cook their own meals, or buy over-salted pre-made meals, and that restaurants should either be a luxury and involve a lot of waiting for a table and a waiter and the meal and the oversized bill and the waiter again to pay, or be fastfood so unbalanced that nobody should really eat it daily.
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A helpful "rule" I set for myself to encourage myself to cook more was to allow myself to indulge if it was a proper, homecooked meal. Stuff like splurging on fancied ingredients (I'm fond of salmon), or having an extra cheesy lasagne. It was a useful carrot to dangle in front of myself, and a useful stepping stone to better habits. I also would sometimes cook for friends, like informal dinner parties (I always found it easier to cook for 4 than for 1)
On the cost side of things, even my fancier meals were still cheaper than takeout. Plus it's easier to eat healthier if you're already cooking for yourself often (and I even broke that down into smaller chunks too — I first focussed on adding more veg and general nutrition, then I reduced the proportion of healthy stuff)
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Exactly what I needed to read today. Thank you 👍
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Except for special cases, you don't actually have to do a task fully. You can pick at it as you go.
For example, i almost never do all the dishes at once. I just do 1-2 when i pass by the kitchen and i have a minute or two to spare. Without even realizing it or barely feel the energy or the time used, the task is either done or it is much smaller and more manageable.
This can apply to most adulting tasks by my experience.
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If you can optimise those by doing small task while waiting, e.g. when the microwave/oven is running, while you're watching TV etc. then you can effectively do chores without losing time as well
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Plus it makes it feel like a game, kinda. I hate doing the dishes, but can I finish before the pot boils over? I load folding laundry but can I do it before my show is over? Etc
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I found this out when i had cancer and taking care of the kids. No time for making extra time for tasks; so combining was a necessity. waking up, bring the laundry basket down the hall to the kitchen, make breakfast for kids, when going to the garage to take the kids to school bring basket on the way to laundry room. Getting home toss laundry in. when heading out to pick kids up switch them to the dryer. come back bring basket off dried stuff back in to room. Other stuff like fold towels while sitting on toilet.
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This is a good one!
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A recent one I found: If you get a pain in your back that returns whenever you walk.. Take a trip to the wildest wilderness you can reach without needing to walk there, then start walking on uneven terrain. It is a huge difference on the muscles the body need. And just a forest path with a few roots isnt enough. Get off the path. Take the harder route. And be careful to not hurt yourself, of course.
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Is that just to work out your core muscles? Because these easier ways to work them out.
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Yeah, basically that's what they're suggesting. Work on strengthening your stabilization muscles.
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Im no physician, I dont know.
My chiropractor made a small suggestion that a walk in the forest could help, and I discarded it because I was already "walking in the forest" a lot. Except I kept to the well-trodden paths. And I walked on asphalt to get to the forest. And it didnt really help. And the exercises he told me to do at home didnt really do much.
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Core strengthening can help with back pain, but in this case it's different. Walking on soft or variable surfaces causes less impact pain to sensitive nerves. People with poor flexibility or damaged discs in their back feel more pain from walking on hard, flat surfaces. The quality of shoe support / insoles can help with this too. If you have back pain when you walk, you start to compensate for it with an uneven gait, turning your pelvis inward or outward or tightening your hips. Over time this will cause tight muscles that will pull your spine out of alignment and exacerbate pain. Uneven terrain will force a break in these habits and encourage mobility and stretching in tight hips, hams and back muscles. This can be improved off a trail by doing mobility exercises like 3d lunge matrix, kinetic hip flexor and hamstring stretches. I would add that while you can prevent most back pain by doing core strengthening, wearing supportive footwear and doing these kinds of flexibility/mobility practices, it is always better for your body to have variability in how it exerts itself, than doing the same exercises over and over. Hiking is great for this because the terrain and the way you tackle it changes a lot each time you hike.
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Mise en place really helps my adhd brain with cooking. Prepping while managing the stovetop stresses me out unless it’s during a long simmer.
Get a vpn and torrent to your hearts content. The subscription services are too fractured. I’ve got Jellyfin, audiobookshelf, and mealie self hosted
If you want a rower go with the concept2. It’s the gold standard for indoor rower and they hold their value. I prefer going moderate effort long distance because then that time can be doubled up as audiobook/tv time
Edit: Besides exercise, which would ideally be a mix of cardio and strength work, make stretching a part of your routine. At least a few times a week. I mainly target the hamstrings and hip flexors
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I mainly target the hamstrings and hip flexors
Hip mobility is a bigger issue as you leave East Asia and go to America. It's like on a scale from America to Asia, check your flexibility -- and you want 'Asia'-class flexibility. America is not only fat, but also we can't bend to actually save our lives.
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If you can't find the motivation to start doing a lengthy task (like cleaning the house, gardening, or working on a project), force yourself to do it only for 30 minutes. It's not an unreasonably long time. By the end, you'll either have gained enough momentum to keep going and finish it, or if not, you've still made 30 minutes of progress.
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I like how you're accepting longer tasks as well. What I've read typically is like "if a long task is dumb, get into the grind spirit by working a tiny task first and using that momentum".
Your suggestion is to just 'dip your toe into' the longer task as a taste test. I like that. And I have so many longer tasks to do.
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Organizing tasks in pomodoros (which is really close to your method), is a great way to do things.
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I've heard this called the 'dirty 30'. It works. Whatever needs cleaning up or tidying, 30 minutes is just short enough to not feel like you're using all your free time on chores, but long enough to make a real dent. Especially if your partner either helps with the same task or does a different one. Setting a timer can help and you start to almost frantically see how much you can get done. I like that competitive element even against myself.
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As someone with ADHD, I'm all about the 5 minute timer.
If I spend 0 minutes cleaning my kitchen, I will clean 0% of my kitchen. But if I set a 5 minute timer, I'll almost always completely finish whatever cleaning I needed to do.
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Manage your email. Unsubscribe from everything that hits your inbox you don't want. Mark emails as read even if you don't read them. Automate tagging. Write rules to move things automatically out of your inbox to a different folder. Put time sensitive emails on your calendar. And above all else, use the archive and trash. Keep your inbox clean!
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Unsubscribe is your friend.
FOMO is a marketing strategy.
We want to stay in your inbox so we can temp you on big marketing days.
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Alternatively, don't spend any time out effort on that, except flagging/deleting spam, and take advantage of search functionality to immediately find anything you need later on.
Agreed on the calendar use though.
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Also I don't mean do any of that manually. Set a rule for tagging your boss's emails as 'boss'. You know you are looking for an email about tps reports. It was either your friend or lumberg. There are also other people who are emailing about tps reports. You can find it faster if you use the boss tag and it was actually him
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How immediate is immediately? Tags help you narrow that search. Tags make immediately more immediate 🙂
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I have one personal email (posteo, 1 euro per month) that I use for personal correspondences, and one shitty personal email I signed up for in high school that I use for anything where there's any chance it might make it to some corporate mailing list. I have the posteo address set up alongside work email to notify me when new mails come in, and the junk address I'll login through firefox like every few days (unless I'm expecting something specific) to skim and mark the most recent mail as read so I know where to start skimming next time.
For work, anything I actually need to deal with I'll mark as unread until I get around to it, because it's annoying seeing the icon show I have unread messages. Sometimes "getting around to it" does just mean putting it in a calendar or some other way of making sure I don't lose track.
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I prefer to only use the inbox for anything that is unread that I haven't read.
At work, we have to use outlook, which has a handy macro feature. I wrote wrote one to flag an email, mark it as unread, and move it out of my inbox into a different folder. That way it is out of my inbox, has a number indicating how many items I have left to complete, and is given priority over other emails. Use cases and email systems vary, but maybe something like that could help you
Bonus. If you are forced to use outlook against your will, you can benefit from the todo app. Any email you flag will be automatically put as a todo along with a link to the email.
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Use the vibrator around the thighs and top of the pelvis. Tease it
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Similar; caress all around the boob, getting close to the nipple on occasion but not actually touching it. Tease it.
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If you want something, ask for it. A raise? A date ? Help? Advice? Wanna do something else in your company? Need a sport buddy?
90% of times the reason one doesn't get what they want is because they don't ask.
I asked and got all the above... Well the date not on first try 😅
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As a person who manages people, I cannot fight for your raise if YOU don't fight for your raise.
I cannot tell you how many times where something like this happens. I tell my higher ups, "Sarah should get promoted and increase her salary" and then my bosses go up to Sarah and she responds all limpdick like, "I like my job and I'm happy."
God damn it Sarah! Flex a little. Talk about how you see a opening you want. Stop being a keyboard warrior on Work Reform and actually SAY IT OUT LOUD. Share your wins! Brag about your value to the company. Demand your worth to MY BOSSES TOO.
It's not a single person who makes these decisions. It's multiple people.
Nobody is going to hand you shit if you're timid about it.
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For every service you sign up to .... phone company, subscription, gas company, water service, electricity, whatever ....
... always ask if you can get a discount or a better price.
Don't be embarrassed to ask. No one cares. We just build a culture around the hope that no one will ever ask for a better price and negotiate. The rep your talking to doesn't care about you and doesn't care about the company .... they might be having a bad day and won't care about helping you .. or they might be having a good day and they know an inside method or option to save you something ... or they might be facing losing their job so they figure out a way to save you a ton of money.
I got a banking service a few weeks ago and they gave me a price for a subscription .... I knew it was a sham but it was a service I needed ... I asked for a discount from the Filipino rep who spoke bag English ... she went off for five minutes and came back with a 60% discount.
Sometimes these businesses set their prices high and just hope that no one will ask for a different price .... because most people never ask.
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I've been calling SiriusXM satellite radio every 6 months for their discount. Here's their regular prices:
If you speak to the rep ask them about the 6 months car+app deal for $30, after taxes and fees it's like $34 for 6 months. They put you on full price auto pay at the end of 6 months but set a reminder to cancel, wait a few days, then call and ask for the 6 month deal again. It's worked the last 6 years.
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I have a theory that every company/service/corporation has dozens of loopholes like this everywhere that people could take advantage of. But no one ever does because most people are too honest and proud to ever ask for a discount or to take advantage of an opportunity like this. Most people are too nice and gullible.
Corporations bet on people being too nice all the time.
People are too embarrassed or self conscious to go after a deal or even to ask for one .... when in reality corporations are complete greedy removed and will sell your grandmother if it meant they could save a penny.
No one should ever feel embarrassed or shy to ask for a discount or go after saving themselves a few dollars. Corporations do it all the time and they never shy away from skimming off a few pennies from you if they can.
BTW - beautiful work on getting that regular discount for yourself
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Never leave without an appointment. When doing routine things like the dentist or yearly car inspection make the next appointment on your way out. If booking your next dentist visit 6 months out you get your choice of any time you like. Just stick it in your calendar and move on.
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The only time that voice doesn't work is if the people you're making an appointment with only schedule out a certain time in advance and you need to go out longer. The cardiologist office I go to only ever lets you schedule 6 months in advance and I gotta go yearly, so I don't have that luxury.
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The career you chose out of high school doesn't have to be the one you do until you retire and you can also very easily go back to school if you are ever unsatisfied with your path.
Sometimes it just takes a bit of time and experience for you to find your passion and with it your skills to really blossom.
I, for instance started with veterinary nursing, but ended up in mech/elec. engineering and will be taking classes on the side for it.
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Very true, more people should follow their dreams.
I know a guy who was kind of forced into an IT university. His parents thought it would be a good fit, as he likes computers and videogames.
He one day decided to quit and took some time off and started working in some fancy hotel kitchen as a temp job, while spending some time away from the family. Fast forward a couple years, he is now in culinary school and wants to become a chef. Needless to say he is happier and visibly has a better mental health as before.
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Hey, similar to me! I was a veterinarian receptionist for years, then went back to school and got my associates in cad and now I'm a substation designer.
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It not too late to learn a new skill or pick up a new hobby. If you hear of something that sounds fun, dive in!
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Toilet roll under if you have a cat or pet who likes to rip off bits of them.
Toilet roll over for everything else.
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Or just install a door on your bathroom and hang the toilet roll over.
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My cats: TOILET ROLL UNDER CANNOT STOP ME
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Listen, don't interrupt a conversation with stuff about you. Take the time to listen to them and ask questions, it goes a long way.
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I've started to have such a massive problem around this one lately. I'm a good, maybe even great listener, and when I'm with another good listener, some real nice and deep conversations emerge, which I really treasure.
The problem is that the amount of other good listeners around me has shrunk to nearly no one, and I feel myself completely squeezed out of every conversation I engage in. Even a one-on-one dialogue can turn into a monologue where I'm not able to fit in more than a syllable here and there.It's really deteriorating my self esteem and level of happiness. Really feels like not even my closest friends and family give a shit about any part of my life or my person.
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Just the same used to happen to me. Then I started to take charge of my life.
I learn to say no. I throw away people making only noises. I cut all the craps from my life. Alone and contented, I am much better than my past. And when i do find good listeners, there is some significant talk.
You also need to make some short witty satirical comments in between, to shake them, like Mark Twain's.
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I have a lot of trouble with this, I guess issues with egocentrism. For me, listening is trying to understand their perspective, and picturing how I would see things from where they are standing very often wraps around to finding an experience that I've had, or things that I understand, that are analogous. Those things help me get a better grip on what this person is saying. I haven't really found a way around this, when I really try to not inject my own anecdotes I end up not really contributing much substance and often not following as well, and I feel like a much worse listener because of that.
As I've grown older I've realized that I've always had some trouble with auditory processing in general, so interjecting is a way I can slow down the conversation before I get lost and make sure I'm still on track.
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If you have to deal frequently with toilets with flush sensors at your office (or really any public restroom), you've probably been grossed out by them flushing (and spraying water at you) before you're ready.
As an adult, I learned that handle-adjacent sensors can be dealt with by hanging TP over them, and won't flush until you remove it as you're leaving the stall. Wall sensors (like one infamous office toilet I deal with) can be handled with a post it note placed over the sensor; I keep some at the office just for this purpose. In an emergency, sometimes spit-dabbing a piece of TP can stick it to the wall over the sensor, but this isn't as reliable.
Just get into these habits when you use sensor toilets, and you'll never have to worry about disgusting flush spray from prematurely flushing public toilets ever again.
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Genius! Thanks
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Take magnesium to combat the slow and steady buildup of muscle tension that’s ruining your mental health.
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I like the sound of that, but is it based in science?
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I'm confident it's not.
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I can’t cite studies off the top of my head, but I would wager each step of this is supported:
- muscle tension release -> improved mental health ** or if not then at least massage therapy -> improved mental health
- magnesium -> reduced muscle tension
Of those two steps, which do you doubt more?
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Magnesium Glycinate is the best before sleep!
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Be rich. Makes everything so much easier.
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Solves being poor 100% of the time!
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Budget. Don’t need to be fancy. But build a view on the things that you’ll need to pay for over the year (Christmas, birthdays, holidays, car service, boiler service etc) and actually put money aside every month to pay for those things. Nothing beats the adult feeling of “yes, I’ll just pay for this thing here from this envelope and done”.
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And if you're uncertain about the exact numbers always overestimate costs and underestimate income.
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Try to think of something for which you are grateful every day. I have a reminder on all my devices for this daily and I think of three things.
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Do you have any gratitudes that are in heavy rotation? My husband and me moving back to my beloved Pacific Northwest are two of my favs.
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- I got to see Reign of Fire in cinemas.
- Climate change means you can wear pyjamas or scuba gear to walk down the street an no one will bat an eye.
- Eggnog still exists
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Dunno if that will work in every country, but in Brazil, an easy way to get a discount for your home internet is calling and asking to cancel your line. They will offer a deal. I've heard, but have not tried myself, that if you refuse this first offer, they will later attempt a second, better offer.
Learn internet pirating skills. Nowadays it's mostly about knowing which sites can be trusted and having patience. Or just download telegram and look for channels and groups, I suspect it's a lower risk of being caught even in the USA without a VPN, though that may change soon.
Do some 10-15 second stretches often, every 2-4 hours or so. Can help with localized pains and in keeping them away. Physiotherapy and all that.
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On the discount thing...my dad tried it once. "I'd like to cancel my subscription, too expensive.", my dad said. The guy told him to hold a second and then came with the date the cable guy come to take it all out. It wasn't Internet, though
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Once you’ve lathered up in the shower, throw some of that lather on the chrome in the shower then rinse it off just before you get out. Clean chrome, every day, without doing much.
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Get a financial advisor. Unless finances is your job, hobby, or desire, just use someone else for this. I use Edward Jones but I would imagine there are lots of good options. They can help you figure out how much you need to save for retirement and give you realistic goals and expectations. You might be better off than you think, or it might not be hard to get to where you need to be when you have someone who can help you figure this stuff out. At the very least, looking to Roth IRAs
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All financial advisors I've talked to always tried to sell their mutual funds or some bank product to me. One of them even said the s&p 500 is the worst etf to invest into.
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I would recommend against using those then. The one I'm using from Edward Jones is buying funds from a number of different companies, not just specific to Edward Jones. It's important to ask a potential financial investor how they get paid and that can help you understand whether they're going to be working in your best interest or not.
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I'm getting a lot more downvotes for this than I thought I would. If you disagree, let's have a discussion. Maybe I'm wrong? But getting a financial advisor made it very easy for me to see what I need to do to retire.
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Save & invest 50% of your paycheck for 10 years, and you could technically retire (as long as your cost base does not go up).
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50%??💀
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It's easy, just stop paying rent and eating.
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i like these threads; it shows how disconnected from reality some of us are.
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Save & invest 50% of your paycheck
So, we eat cake, then? Tell us again how to isolate that 50% when so many people are food-insecure at 0% saved.
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Doesn't have to be 50%, that's merely an example to illustrate the power of compounding & resisting lifestyle creep. If you take anything away, it's to try to save & invest what you can, as young as you can, and to resist the urge to "keep up with the Joneses". That will put you in a much healthier financial position. I don't know your situation, and you don't know mine.
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You can, if you can. I think most people can't do that though.
The better lesson would be to teach compound interest. Somebody that invests $2k every year for 10 years and then stops will have more money than somebody who starts in year 11 and does so for the rest of their life.
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Check yo privilege
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Just 50%?
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