An easy way to wear out cloths is to wash them too often. Some rules I follow:
If it’s smelly or visibly dirty, ignore all other rules and wash
Rotate jeans and hang to air out. Cotton will naturally drop smells this way. Wash approx every 4 wears
Sweaters/Jumpers can be worn many times if a shirt is underneath. Hang and rotate to air out
If socks are merino wool, use nikwash and wear until they no longer smell like the wash (or get dirty). Lay out to air out. Any other material, wear only once
Dress shirts, if not wrinkled, 3 times, hang to air (only if you wear t-shirts underneath)
Wash t-shirts and underwear every time unless your backpacking. Basically, anything not wool that comes into constant contact with sweaty bits
Agree with all this except jeans. Store them in the freezer and wash them even less than you’d like to. They’re barely cool when you put them on…
unless it’s a July 17 heatwave and you wore them in 7000% humidity before tossing the salty, sweat-drenched denim into the freezer, in which case they’re like cold tortilla chips. Just wash them if you were swimming down the sidewalk in mid-summer muck.
Anyway. Makes them last at least a couple years longer.
Merino wool is a very different material then “classic” wool. Backpackers like it because it wicks sweat and it’s naturally antimicrobial so the smells dissipate over night. It’s also not itchy due to the finer weave.
My favorite is Darn Tough socks. They’re merino wool, warm when they need to be and cool when not, and if you get them on sale (only way to buy them) they’re worth the price. Lifetime warranty, so if you get holes, you get new ones. Last socks you’ll ever buy.
I’ve started doing this when I noticed the space savings. First, I’ve done it with underwear, then with my undershirts. Now, only those shirts I need to be ironed (and immaculately folded) don’t get rolled.
Depends on whether you’re folding them in neat squares or hanging them from hangers. The rolls are useful for putting them in luggage, they can be compressed better that way
I do squares and if packing a suitcase, lay out dress shirts alternating, trousers alternating, put t-shirts/underwear in the middle (folded) and roll the trousers and then dress shirts around them. Keeps the wrinkles down.
Because T-shirts are somewhat irregularly shaped when folded. If you stack them with the same orientation, one side is higher than the other. You can alternate the way you lay them but that’s also easier with rolls.
Rolls allow you to take advantage of the efficiency of the honeycomb shape, as well.
Not really a “hack” but I don’t know why most people get into phone contracts.
Since college, I have always just bought unlocked phones with cash and then used the carrier’s prepaid plans and set it to auto pay.
I pay so much less than most people I know, I get all the same service, and my phone isn’t tied to a contract or carrier, so I can cancel my plan whenever I want and switch to another carrier by just buying their SIM card for ~$20.
My current phone is an unlocked Pixel 6a that I got on sale new for $300. I have unlimited talk, text, and data for $45 a month. And if I get sick of my current carrier or they bump my cost, I can just switch to anybody else for just the cost of a $20 SIM card.
I have so many friends and family members that complain about their phone bills being super high and their service sucking, but they can’t cancel their contracts without paying off their huge balances plus the interest and usually cancelation fees. Plus, because their phone is tied to the contract/carrier, they can’t even keep transfer the phone to the new carrier and have to get sucked into a “phone trade-in” deal and the cycle continues.
And for the folks saying that most people can’t afford to save up and buy a phone outright, there are a lot of places that offer payment plans for the phone, or you can buy it on credit and pay it off that way, which would likely be less interest over time. Or you could buy unlocked used/refurbished phones for 25-50% off their normal price.
Maybe it makes sense if you get a stipend from your company, or you bundle it with a bunch of other packages like cable TV or internet, but for just a cell phone, I just don’t get locking yourself into a crazy contract.
Google Fi is a god-tier service for traveling abroad. When I went to South America I paid nothing extra vs my friends who had to deal with Verizon’s ridiculous travel plan fees.
Because people want the latest iPhone or Samsung and paying $ per month works better for them than $$$ upfront. The alternate finance method you speak of isn’t very well known, so it’s most simple to contract with a carrier.
Part of the problem is that we’re advertised at constantly, so when the latest, greatest iPhone or Galaxy or Pixel comes along we feel like we need it. Because if we get the £1200 phone the resell value in two years will still be high, right? It actually makes sense.
But the only way to afford that is to borrow the money to pay for it.
I picked up an iPhone 13 mini last year, on a two year contract, for £29 a month. And that’s ok by me. By the end of my contract I’ll go SIM-only and my bill will drop to around £10 a month, which I’ll rock until Apple finally release another mini phone.
So this 13 mini will be the last phone I ever use…
This seems like an American problem. This used to be the case in the Netherlands as well but over the years people have learned that SIM-only subscriptions are so much easier and cheaper that the majority of people now use SIM-only. In fact I know of no one around me that does it differently.
Also $45 per month is still expensive lol. I pay €12 a month. Sure, not unlimited but I never call or SMS so the 100 a month I get for that is way more than enough and I never finish the 10GB of data a month either. I can make either unlimited for really not that much more.
I believe a major factor in this was a ruling by the Hoge Raad that a “free” phone with a contract is unlawful and is actually a loan. Carriers now have to list the price for the phone and for the service separately, so it’s a lot more clear what the costs of the phone are.
Also, a “free” phone is now registered as a loan with monthly recurring costs, which impacts for example the maximum mortgage you can get on a home.
France is a bit similar, but a new phone company decided to cut down the costs by not providing a phone. 20 € a month formore data than you’ll ever need or 50 € a month with the latest iPhone included everyone chooses the first option
Also in the Netherlands and I have recently extended this concept to my home internet. Since 25 Mbps download / 10 Mbps upload is enough for my use, I no longer have an internet subscription and I make use of $25 LycaMobile unlimited data sim cards for home internet using a sim router. The IMEI of the router can be easily modified, which is also a plus.
The IP is dynamic, but for my self-hosted services that require a static IP I make use of a WireGuard tunnel between my raspberry pi and a virtual private server. The VPS has a static IP, so my domains point at the VPS and then the VPS re-routes the packets via the wireguard tunnel. In a wire guard tunnel only the server needs a static IP, so the VPS can route packets to the client even if the client’s ip is dynamic.
Ok is toch iets te gecompliceerd voor me, en aangezien de vrouw graag vaste TV heeft zit ik zowieso nog wel even aan de KPN vast. Maar ik heb je comment opgeslagen, aangezien ik toch wel benieuwd ben en wil kijken of het op termijn. Dank iig!
I was recently comparing some phone plans and found that nowadays, you mostly just pay the actual price of the device, plus the normal subscription costs, no interest or anything.
Got a Pixel 8 Pro from Odido (awful service btw, would not go with them again). The device costs me 30 euros per month, for 2 years, which comes out to 720 euros at the end. That’s actually cheaper than the normal resale price of ~870 (average according to Tweakers).
Actually thinking about it now, I wonder what the catch is. That kinda seems too good to be true.
But who actually does this otherwise? I have seen those kind of contracts advertised, but I never see people actually having them, apart from some 16yo who want the new iPhone by all means and this is the only way they can finance it.
It’s different in the UK. Those who need a new phone but have limited funds usually buy a cheap or refurbished or used one and get a 12 month SIM only contract.
I get 30G data per month, which is more than enough, and unlimited calls and texts which almost all UK contracts have. Some providers offer free EU roaming as well. I pay £10pm.
I use Vodafone but I never buy through them, they are very expensive. I search around but for me Carphone Warehouse are always as cheap as anyone else and their CS is excellent.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding something but here in Australia there’s no benefit to not having a contract.
With our largest telco the contract is really just repayments on the phone. 24x monthly repayments is always the same price the phone is retailing for outright. You could cancel the sim and just keep up the phone repayments if you wanted.
Interesting. Seems like my situation is pretty specific to the US. Lots of folks from other countries that seem to have much cheaper options by default.
If you go prepaid for a year you can get service for even cheaper. I don’t need unlimited data so I buy a year of Mint Mobile’s cheapest plan for about 200 dollars which gives unlimited talk and text and 5gb data for only around 15 dollars a month.
I should clarify that mint mobile also has “unlimited” and “unnecessary” plans for 30 and 40 dollars a month respectfully. (When prepaying for a year)
Quote: Unlimited plan incl. 40GB high-speed data w/10GB hotspot. Unnecessary plan incl. 60GB high-speed data w/20GB hotspot. Video @ 480p. Data speeds reduced after monthly allotment. Taxes & fees extra.
Wrestle the pig first, every day. Whatever is your worst, most unpleasant, annoying task for the entire day, do it before you do anything else. It minimizes your stress and worrying and puts it in the rearview mirror.
There was also that one that was cut from the camping episode.
Rocko is foraging for berries and he grabs one on a bush and the bush recoils and you hear a bear growl. Then a bear jumps out from behind the bush grabbing his crotch and running away in obvious pain.
Yeah, everyone’s neurochemistry is different and should be experimented with.
I didn’t know this for so long, that I needed a few easy wins to set the pace, that I feel like I could have been way more productive throughout my 20s haha
I always heard it as “Swallow a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day”. Same meaning, and I think I like yours better.
I don’t think “waking up early” counts, but it’s definitely the most unpleasant and annoying task of my weekdays, followed closely by actually getting to work.
Human memory is bias towards most recent things in a group set. If your set is a “workout” or a “workday”, doing the fun stuff last will affect positively all the memory items in the same group set. This works even if you know that your memory is doing this.
We don’t live in a “present now”. We live in a mental image constructed from memory of recent past.
Trick is not to do unpleasant stuff first, but to do pleasant stuff last.
I have some paperwork to do that will likely result in $2000. It’s been over a year and i cannot just sit down and do it. I stress over it every day but continue to put it off.
Excellent. I hope you did OK. I got mine done! It wasn’t as bad as I thought. If you haven’t finished yet, don’t give up, pick up the pieces and carry on. Thanks for being my Internet buddy on this.
I’m on vacation until Wednesday so I will finish it on my flight home. Getting started really was the hardest part. Now it’s just putting numbers into boxes and adding them up. By gathering info and starting on it, i find that the expected $2k gain is closer to $10k. That’s some great motivation to get it done!
Just how much cheaper and longer lasting keeping thing like rice, dried beans and flour can be. It’s amazing to me that no matter how empty my cupboards/fridge is I can always make fresh tortillas, refried beans, and rice in like an hour.
My wife’s Italian. Replace your items with always having a bottle of sauce and a packet of pasta in the cupboard, and there’s always a meal to be had no matter how empty the fridge is.
My GF is Italian too. One of the most important things I learned from her is literally this. Also, as long as you have any kind of vegetables in your house, you are always one step away from a pasta sauce.
100% For us, a passata, an onion, and some garlic is the minimum needed.
Probably helps that the FIL delivers us boxes of homemade passata all the time - we never have less than a dozen bottles on our storage shelves in the garage. But even if we were to ever run out, a couple of store-bought bottles in the pantry is our fallback option.
Amen to that. But I can’t do jar/bottled sauce so if I want easy noodles, it’s cook noodles, leave some pasta water after draining, throw in some butter at the end to make it thicc, then serve topped with olive oil/red pepper flakes/salt/pepper/parmigiano Reggiano (all things I make sure I always have in stock always)
I also keep a stack of cans of San Marzano tomatoes to make a red sauce any time I want, but that takes a couple hours instead of 20 minutes.
There are good sauces you can make from canned tomatoes in 20 minutes (depending on your prep speed).
My go tos are Putanesca & Vodka sauce, but there’s a lot more you can do. Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything has a simple recipe and then a big list of variants, most of which can be done in 20 minutes.
I cut in half, and lay the half down flat. Then I cut off just the very end from each side which makes it easier to lift the peel off. Then slice. Usually works, but occasionally there’s difficulty. Isn’t that life?
Using a chef’s knife, cut around core and twist to separate halves. The core will remain stuck on one side.
Holding the side with the core in your off-hand, (gently) chop the knife into the core and twist to remove it from the avocado half. Reaching around the back side of the blade, pinch the core off with your fingers.
Scoop the avocado flesh from the skins using a large spoon, then slice/dice/mash as desired.
That’s how I learned to do it (in a tex-mex chain restaurant), anyway. I think maybe we were supposed to use one of those cut-proof gloves for step #2, but nobody bothered.
Step 2 should be: Put the side with the seed DOWN skin-side down, and lightly whack the long sharp edge of the knife into the seed without risking your hand. If you’re afraid of the avocado escaping, hold one end, but don’t put your whole palm directly in the line of cut. A lot of people wind up in the ER because avocado seeds are slippery and may send the blade askew, or just because they missed. Twist to pop out the seed, and whack the handle on the edge of your trashcan to dislodge it into the trash.
I worked in the ED for a decade and this is very true. Avocado injuries might be the most common non allergic good injury. I do mine like this guy says. Usually 3 or 4 a day. I only use butter knives to cut them and the wacking the seed still works. I then take the knife and make either slices or grids in the fruit while it is in the peel and use a spoon to scoop out the pre cut flesh
Of course, you could just use a spoon to remove the pit. Or I saw another variant where you push it out from the “back” of the side its stuck in once cut in half, no tool needed beyond the initial halving
Read the lines before that – or at least read the “also” to notice stabbing is a secondary injury.
Mostly: just put the avocado down! ERs feel the need to warn about how common an accident this is, so why tempt fate?
People lose their grip on the avocado and accidentally slice their palms or fingers, doctors have warned. When this happens, there’s a high likelihood of people accidentally severing their nerves or tendons. However, people also tend to stab themselves in the hand as they attempt to use the knife tip to remove the avocado pit.
From the Sun:
Wolfe recommended holding an avocado down on a cutting board and slicing into it with the dominant hand, cutting around the fruit at the equator, then rolling it halfway over and cutting again, according to CBS New York.
But then again, I grew up eating ripe, if not nearly overripe avocados, the kind whose flesh would turn into mush if you try to grab them. So, yeah, I would just slice the avocado in half (going around the pit), remove the pit, and then scoop out the flesh.
They are quite thin and have a sharper edge then normal spoons which makes them perfect for scooping out avocados, mangos, the seeds of pumpkins and all kind of melons or vegetables for filling (like the core of a zucchini or cucumber).
I really wouldn’t want to miss them, they are so versatile.
I try not to drink calories at all, but if I do, it’s considered part of the meal.
I strongly recommend this, as strongly as reading the news everyday. Don’t watch or listen to it, READ it. It makes you conscious of your participation, makes it easier to remember, and over time, will sharpen your critical thinking skills
If you’ve ever thought ‘holy fuck some people are dumb’, well, if they read the news on the reg, they’d be less and less dumb, everyday.
I hate the talk about soda. It’s a flavored carbonated drink and carbonation isn’t killing people. When schools banned sodas from vending machines, they replaced them with yoohoo and other drinks that had as much or more sugar than the carbonated drinks they removed. -stepping off my soapbox-
People don’t realize that ultra processed food is basically everything they eat and drink. There are very few things that aren’t, and they’re mostly whole food adjacent.
If it’s not straight up water and plain vegetables, fruit, and grain equivalents, it’s more than likely ultra processed no matter how healthy it claims to be.
So much of non-genetic cancers comes from what we ingest willingly. A large portion of it would stop if everyone ate a well rounded whole foods diet. But shit is expensive, takes time and kwh to make, and people are busy trying to enjoy life.
The problem isn’t carbonation (Bubly, Liquid Death have 0g). The problem is carbonated sugary drinks typically have more sugar than other sugary drinks, not a rule but per amount sold.
The typical soda has 38g of sugar per 12oz (can). Google states the following: Coca-Cola is 45g. Mountain Dew is 46g. Redbull and Monster are 34g. Arizona Sweet Tea is 31g. Apple juice is 33g. Orange juice is 28g. Cranberry juice is 42g.
Anything over 28g is no go territory for me. Anything under is generally not an issue blood sugar wise for me. Note: I am not diabetic.
I’m going on holiday to Greece next month, so have decided to forgo my usual weekend ales until then. Partly to be a little more comfortable in my swimming shorts, but also because £10/15 a weekend adds up to a few cold pints of Mythos by the beach.
But I was amazed at how fresh I felt last Monday morning after not having drunk any beer over the weekend.
I had better seafood in Greece than anywhere else in Europe. Fresh grilled octopus with a squeeze of lemon, fried sardines, squid salad, everything just perfect. (Note: I haven’t done Nordic countries, and they might do cod/coldwater-fish/etc. better, but that’s be a different style.)
Edit: I do get the irony of someone with my username posting this. I understand what’s wrong with binge drinking and me in general, I’m just not ready to fix it.
I drink pretty much only on the weekends and that’s pretty seldom.
Is one glass of wine really that bad though? Like compared to a glass of grape juice? Because of the sugars and calories and is alcohol in this percentage range (approx 14%) enough to cause damage to your liver over time?
Depends on the person. I’m content only have 1 at a time. I don’t have an addictive personality though. For some people this is great advice. Others, it doesn’t affect.
If you need to remember something for the next time you go out, put your shoes somewhere odd. When you go to leave, you’ll remember you moved them, which will remind you why you moved them.
Even just a couple inches over is enough to remind me. Or just a separation between them instead of them touching. Or turn them backwards. Though, this only works if it’s relatively uncommon for you to do it. And if you live in a household that does indeed take their shoes off, some don’t. But it’s a surprisingly effective reminder if all that.
On the original topic, shoes last a lot longer if you don’t wear the same pair day after day. The continual dampness from foot perspiration breaks down the materials much more quickly. Giving each pair of shoes a couple of days to dry out between wearings will greatly extend their lives.
This effect may not be visible to many people, but if you have a physical job, it can save you a lot of money.