Coffee Break: Good Genes
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It's Amazon Prime Day! I've bought a lot of stuff already (including this eyebrow pencil that a friend recommended as a “true taupe”) — and there are a lot of small savings to be had ($2-$5 on a lot of listings), but there are also big savings to be had… such as Sunday Riley's Good Genes, on sale for 50% off.
I juuuust noticed my container is low, so I may have to make the purchase myself…
The serum (1 fl oz) is normally $85, but today it's under $45 at Amazon. Nice!
Readers, what else are you finding for deals in Amazon's big sale today?
Sales of note for 10/3/25
- Ann Taylor – 40% off must-have styles, and 30% off your full price purchase
- Banana Republic Factory – 40% off everything + extra 25% off
- Boden – 10% off new womenswear styles with code
- J.Crew – 40% off sitewide
- J.Crew Factory – 40-70% off everything + extra 60% off clearance
- M.M.LaFleur – Fall style event! 25% off $500+, 30% off $750+ — try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off
- Nordstrom – 1000+ new markdowns!
- Nordstrom Rack – UGG up to 40% off
- Soma -$25 off when you spend $110+, also get a free bra when you buy two
- Talbots – 30% off entire purchase, and free shipping on $150+
If you have unlimited PTO, how much do you take? Are there any unspoken rules around it?
husband has it. he has decided to match my actual PTO, which is generous at 7 weeks, and we use all of it for traveling. both of us minimize the goodwill hit by doing some light work (like, dealing with email for an hour in the morning, or attending a few calls) as-needed while on the road for lower-key trips, like visiting family or an easy beach vacation. for complicated trips (1-2x per year) we unplug more completely.
3 weeks. Less than what I had as a standard. I found it’s been increasingly difficult to take time off at my company. My manager has expectations of being available at all times.
Are you based in the US just out of curiosity? I am surprised that your husband can easily take 7 weeks without people giving him side eye.
+1 I know a lot of people with unlimited PTO and never heard of anyone taking quite that much. 2-4 weeks seems pretty standard although I’ve heard of people taking both less and more.
yes, both of us are US. however, he is 100% remote and works for a global company, so it’s less obvious that he’s away to the casual observer – people are used to coordinating with him to set up time to speak, etc.
Ah ok, that makes more sense. Good for you guys!
Good for you! More people should do this. Clearly the world didn’t collapse (at least not due to you lol) during that time.
It depends whether you’re a profit center or cost center at my tech company. Senior engineers get away with being in their home country for a month. I’m in legal, and a week off a couple times a year is still kind of side eyed.
I specify “home country” because visiting family for a month is definitely more acceptable here than laying on a beach or going on a world tour would be. I think the max anyone could get away with for a vacation-vacation is 2 weeks before people started chatting.
At least in my company, we all understand that a home country visit is often a negotiated benefit and typically requires a vacation after your parents hijack the month to take you to visit everyone. Very different from an actual holiday and typically still working.
Please tell the engineer I’m currently chasing that most people are “typically still working” on home country visits, haha. His boss is approaching this as a month-long vacation, where he’ll only disrupt it if it’s an emergency.
Aren’t they working in their home country, at least part of the time? Are they really on “vacation” for months? I’m in higher ed and we have super generous PTO (6 weeks plus a holiday shutdown) but it’s rare to take more than 2 consecutive weeks for vacation. But people go to their home countries for a month or more especially at the winter holidays and do a mix of remote work and vacation.
It had nothing to do with being a profit center vs cost center at least in my workplace.
If you’re in higher ed, you don’t have profit centers…
Well arguably some of the faculty who bring in a lot of multi-million dollar grants, but yeah not really, especially among staff.
The point is it has nothing to do with job titles or roles; long trips to faraway home countries are acceptable because people aren’t vacationing the whole time, they mix remote work in there.
I used to work at a law firm in California with “unlimited” PTO for attorneys (which was really a way to avoid paying it out when people left). As long as you billed 1900/year out the door and returned all emails and phone calls within 24 hours regardless of your vacation status, you could take as much time as you wanted. (Insert heavy sarcasm here.)
The only exception was a two week honeymoon. You could take that without responding to emails and voicemails, but you still had to hit the 1900 hour requirement.
Yeah I think all of this is pretty standard for Big Law.
I’ve worked a couple of places with unlimited PTO. In the first, an intense professional services firm, fully unplugging during vacation was uncommon and I’d say most people took 2-3 weeks total and long trips were a week. In my current fully remote company, the informal guidance is that 20 days PTO is fine and I think most people take about that across the year, fully unplugging during that time. The unspoken guideline is max 2 weeks at a time, unless it’s your wedding/honeymoon. My manager strongly supports PTO and will encourage you to take some if we’re halfway through the year and you don’t have much on the calendar. I’m taking 22 days off this year and the nature of my job means I do check email/slack once a day which I actually prefer to coming back to a mess of messages and fire drills.
I am not a fan of unlimited PTO in general but much happier with my current company than my last. The biggest downsides are the lack of time accruing, which means you can’t bank PTO to pay out when you leave, and there is no accrual based on seniority, which burns a little when I talk to friends who are sitting on 30+ days of PTO after sticking with their companies for several years while I’m still realistically at 20.
I’m really happy with our unlimited PTO but only had a vague sense of how much time I take off. I would have said more than 4 weeks. Turns out I’m taking 30 days (including holidays/office closures)! My closest counterpart is taking 37! No wonder I’m happy with it.
Most corporate offices have ~15 days of holidays so 30 days including holidays doesn’t seem particularly good to me. 15 days of PTO is pretty standard or even on the stingy side.
Ha, I’m in healthcare (and my husband is in manufacturing) and 15 holidays is not standard for either of those.
Don’t sell yourself short! I have 7 weeks of PTO available every year, and that does not include holiday closures (I think we have 12? I can remember the exact count). I take every second of it; my firm encourages us to take it all and not leave any on the table.
peak suburbia question: does anyone here have memberships to both costco and sam’s club? what do you think the differences are?
Walmart owns Sams. So we go with Costco because they treat and pay their employees well. I grew up closer to a Sams and honestly never saw a huge difference, but when I can, I go Costco.
Costco all the way, support ethical labor practices.
I overheard a teenager applying for jobs once say “I would die for Costco because they would never ask me to, unlike every other retail gig.” Very funny to me, but there’s a kernel of truth in there.
I have both because Costco is what I like and mostly use, but a family member offered to add me to her Sam’s for next to nothing and Sam’s is very close to my house. Sam’s is the king of individually packaged snacks, much more “junk food” oriented. I might stop 3x per year out of convenience and feel slightly soiled when I leave. For Costco, it is part of our regular shopping and well worth the membership cost. I would not pay for Sam’s at full rate. BTW, and maybe Sam’s does this too, but Costco is generous with food donations for local food banks and non-profits.
I am, and I frankly prefer Sam’s. They have this amazing technology called Scan and Go, which means I never have to go to a checkout line. The food is very comparable, imo. The gas station and store are never crowded. I keep Costco membship just because they have great car rental deals. I hate going to Costco and dealing with the crowds, bad drivers, and lines. Changing over to Sam’s has made shopping much more relaxing and enjoyable.
I prefer Sam’s too
I love this product but last time I got it on amazon it had no plastic wrapping on any of the packaging – I can’t remember now if that’s just how it comes or this was a weird amazon thing. I ended up returning mine. Anyone use this regularly and remember?
I would assume it’s counterfeit or a returned item. Happens to me a lot on Amazon so I don’t use it for anything that goes in our mouths or on our skin.
+1
I would never buy cosmetics from Amazon.
Fair point. I called Nordstrom and they matched the price. Win/win.
I might be in the minority but I’ve never had any issues with cosmetics, skincare, etc from Amazon. Maybe the stuff I buy isn’t worth it to counterfeiters.
has anyone looked into lymphatic drainage? i seem to be seeing a lot about it on social media.
What do you mean “looked into” it? It’s a thing that happens and you can help it along via low-level exercises/movements.
I had a relative that did it for clinically severe lymphedema, treated for years with high pressure wraps and pumping devices. But this is obviously not what you are talking about. My relative’s physical therapist used to laugh at this social media trend. People don’t know what they are doing. All science/medicine is a free for all on social media. It is sad.
But it might feel nice, and relax you and the placebo effect is real, so spend your money as you want I guess.
I got a rebounder, which I love and use often. One of the benefits is improved lymphatic drainage. I wasn’t aware of that until I started using YouTube to find rebounding sessions with music at different moves. Lots of them tout the benefits of lymphatic drainage.
I wouldn’t take health advice from social media. If I have a legit health concern or question, I ask my primary care doc.
I did a series of lymphatic drainage massages earlier this year. I am an otherwise healthy 45 year old and still have soreness from a joint surgery a few years ago. A friend recommended as she used it as part of her similar surgical recovery. I thought it was fine… but probably nothing magical and the same benefits of a “regular” massage.
I do think people who have actual lymphedema or recent surgery may benefit more, but it wasn’t magic for me.
Why would you do this if you don’t need it? My MIL does it as a treatment for edema.
If you have a financial life littered with various mutual funds and ghosts of 401ks past and high yield savings accounts and CDs, how have you managed to consolidate and where did you consolidate to? So many 1099s and if I die, no one will want do hunt all this down. I’d rather consolidate than try to keep a better “if I die” notebook (also: I might just become sick and go into decline vs simply being fine one day and dead the next).
First decided what account you want to consolidate into, then take on one account at a time. I did this a while ago, and what a load off my mind.
+1
Yup. Take your time. It will feel so nice when it is done and you have everything in one place.
Fidelity worked best for me. Now everything is rolled over, accounts combined, and it is much easier to decide on my asset allocation preferences and actually implement them.
I sort of did this and moved everything to Vanguard. The 401ks you can roll over into IRAs – IIRC I even kept my exact positions, even on Fidelity funds when I moved to Vanguard. I slowly sold them off and put them in Vanguard funds but the first step is just moving them over.
I had also looked at CDs through different brokerages but it was a pain to keep an eye on it to move money in and out — so I decided that what I am keeping of the CDs I’m keeping with Ally. FWIW money market funds are doing better right now, or Vanguard has a Treasury fund that is giving close to 4%.
The other thing you can do is use a program like Simplifi or one of the others to keep track of all of your accounts, but it can be a PITA if multiple places require 2FA every time Simplifi checks them.
I consolidated all of it into one account with my parents’ financial advisor. I know that I could do this myself. I also know myself, and I won’t. So this is a way to make sure it isn’t all randomly scattered and forgotten and is managed sensibly.
I have been doing that in the past 2 months. I have rolled over a 401(k) from a job I left in the 80s (!), consolidated another IRA, etc. It’s still a work in progress, but I am trying to pare it down so that everything except i bonds will be in 1 of 3 places.
Damn. This reminded me that I have bonds but hadn’t thought about them in YEARS. So I have almost already lost something.
I bonds!
They’re just sitting there growing. There’s nothing you need to do. I have some I bought a decade or more ago and I haven’t touched them.
We’d like to go to Mobile to check out two local colleges. We can go over winter break or in February. I’d rather visit when students are around but how is Mobile for NYE? Is it just better to wait (at least to after Epiphany)? Please send restaurant recommendations.
Mobile.. Alabama? Why in gods name would you go there on NYE to visit colleges? The students are all gone and there’s nothing to do.
I agree that it is folly to visit any college when classes are not in session, and I don’t count summer as in session. The feel is just not the same.
Summer is not as deserted as Christmas break but yeah I’d avoid that too if possible. Also the weather in the south isn’t ideal then.
I struggled not to reply with this exact sentiment.
I have not been in Mobile for NYE, but I am from Alabama and visited friends going to college and living there after we graduated college.
Mobile has an area of downtown like French Quarter/Bourbon Street but much milder, so my guess is that there would be parties, etc., but I don’t know what you’re looking for your high school student. It would be mostly locals going to bars.
Mardi Gras is in February next year and is huge in Mobile. I would try to visit around then if possible. Also visit Fairhope!
No recs, but my friends who went to Spring Hill loved it!
Are the colleges even open over NYE? Different part of the country, but my college kid has to vacate campus during the holiday break unless she wants to move to the one remote dorm building that stays operational over break, and fend for herself for food that doesn’t come from a vending machine. Sure, people could drive through campus and walk around on their own, but its a ghost town and most buildings are deserted and locked.
They drop a moon pie instead of a ball. I haven’t been, but I remember someone mentioning it the last time I was there. I don’t know that I would go visit any colleges during winter break (especially because some campuses completely close and there isn’t even staff there), but it would probably be an experience.
Yesterday’s afternoon thread had an interesting discussion on retirement and savings — what are your goals w/r/t savings and retirement? I was the OP and recognize that the “save save save, to live as long as possible” mindset isn’t the best now that I’m closer to retirement.
I don’t really have specific numbers, just want to save as much as we can without depriving ourselves of a reasonably nice life.
The reality is we already have enough saved for a comfortable retirement in our LCOL city if we die around 80 without needing extensive time in a nursing home. We’ll never have money for the scenario where we get dementia and live to 95 needing round the clock care for 10-15 years. Given that we have no idea which of those scenarios it will be closer to it’s hard to have an exact number in mind.
I’m a huge saver by nature. My husband isn’t. We currently have about 17x our spending invested. We’re late 30s. I would like to be at that magical 25x number by 45, and I think he’d be fine if we got there at 50 or 55.
Really, my big goal is just to get the man to look at a budget once in a while! It’s not that he spends a ton. It’s just that I like doing them and want him to play with them with me!
I’m a fan of the philosophy espoused in the Atlantic article from a decade ago “why I want to live to 75” and I’m planning on doing the same, meaning I don’t need to save for retirement quite as much.
I wouldn’t count on this lowering your expenses significantly. IIRC the author of that article wasn’t suggesting offing himself on his 75th birthday (which would dramatically lower your healthcare costs – albeit in a pretty grim way) he was just saying he’d decline major medical interventions after that age, which I don’t think is actually particularly radical? The vast majority of very old people I know are not trying to extend their lifespan. We had all the DNRs, no intervention orders, etc. on my grandmother that you could possibly have and her body still lived a very physically healthy 10 years after her mind gave out. I’m pretty confident the majority of people who are spending big money on nursing homes do not have a great quality of life and are not actively trying to live longer; it’s just hard to legally die by the time you’re not capable of doing it yourself, especially if your body is in good working order physically.
Has anyone done a track day where you drive expensive cars? I’m thinking about a present for DH’s 40th birthday, and I think he’d enjoy this type of experience. We’re in NorCal, so I was looking at experiences at the Sonoma track or in Los Angeles, but the websites I found don’t seem to have any availability for months. And I can’t tell if the VIP experience is worth it vs. just the standard day driving experience.
Say what you will about Chat GPT, but I just used it to plan work outfits for the next 6 weeks. I have good pieces but struggle with styling, so this is well worth it to me. I’ve tried doing this on my own, and it takes forever. It also affirms that I do NOT need to shop for more clothes and that I have plenty. That said, I’m yearning for a cognac tote!
How to you “teach” it what’s in your wardrobe? do you upload photos or include links to the item online? I’m intrigued, I just don’t know how I would do this in practice.
There is something so dystopian about not even being able to dress yourself without AI. So much for clothes as a form of self expression…
I’m sure your grandchildren will be happy for you when they’re fighting water wars