Splurge Monday’s Workwear Report: Belted Striped Cotton-Poplin Midi Shirtdress

386 Comments

1. Only a thousand dollars and I can look like I’m wearing my dad’s bathrobe to work.

   1. +1
      Heh, that was my exact reaction: man’s dressing gown. Maybe in a different fabric it might look more like a dress.

   2. I didn’t read the post and assumed it WAS a luxury robe, omg.

   3. I want to like Lafayette 148 but something about it is just off. Like I feel it is for a much taller woman with broad shoulders (or: my dad). I get that it is quality, but I am short and have no shoulders. I joke about it being a poor woman’s Akris, but I think that Akris would work better for me (but not for my wallet).

   4. Yea I thought this was a robe, not a shirt dress. It also reminds me of a little girl wearing her dads work shirt and not in a good way.

   5. I was thinking this looked like a robe I’d wear to a spa while on vacation in Japan.

   6. It definitely has that “I’m wearing daddy’s clothes” preschooler playing dress up vibe.
      As an aside, my husband has a robe that is this without the buttons.

   7. I think the width of the sleeves and the belt make it look like a robe.

      I love a shirt dress but mine all have slimmer sleeves and no belt.

   8. OMG, I thought bathrobe too when I saw the dress!

   9. Used to love this brand, but their prices have become insane.

      1. I recall them being a Macy’s cheap o brand, I cannot imagine paying 1k for their stuff generally, let alone for a bathrobe.

         1. I think you are misremembering. They were never a cheap brand. Cheaper than now, sure, but not cheap.

            1. Correct. They were higher end – cheaper than Max Mara and Akris but def not cheap

         2. I’ve been dressing for work for 30+ years. Lafayette was never cheap. I wonder if you’re mixing it up with some other Macy’s brand?

   10. Ha! I thought I had clicked on the wrong site and gotten menswear. The Brooks Brothers pick is fun.

   11. No but seriously, that’s what I thought I was looking at.

   12. O have a shirt dress very much like this one (but with narrower sleeves) from Old Navy. It looks like they no longer carry the long-sleeved version, but they do have the same thing in short sleeves: https://oldnavy.gap.com/browse/product.do?pid=796141002&vid=1&&searchText=shirt%20dress#pdp-page-content

   13. +1 totally thought it was a man’s item of clothing

2. I’m sitting right below an air conditioning vent most of the time at work. Needless to say, I’m on the hunt for a jacket so the cold isn’t an endless distraction. I’m quite senior now, so I feel like a Patagonia sweater fleece doesn’t convey the right level of professionalism, but I love the funnel neck/stand-up collar effect. Is there a jacket or sweater on the market, ideally zip-up but button-down would work too, that comes in wool and has the stand-up collar? At this point I’m price insensitive.

   1. Why not just wear a blazer with your work clothes?

   2. Dudley Stephens are fleece but super simple so have less ‘outdoorsy’ vibes and they read well on video. Look at the Park Slope.

      https://thefoldlondon.com/product/caccini-knitted-jacket-navy/ — looks like it comes up the neck a bit if that’s what you find flattering?

   3. You definitely shouldn’t sneak a mini space heater into the office to have under your desk. No one has ever done that and definitely no one has theirs running right now fighting the arctic air conditioning their office believes in.

   4. I would keep running searches for Henley sweaters.

   5. I always ask for maintenance to close the AC vent closest to me, and I’ve never been turned down at any job.

      1. Depends on your office set up I guess, but please don’t make other people swelter so you don’t have to put on a blazer. In my office, at least, the temperature varies substantially even on the same floor. Anyone next to a window is baking in the afternoon, there’s one office that regularly hits over 80. Meanwhile the air coming out of the vent near me is 55. I’ll take 55 over 80 any day, personally.

         1. Oh my god, I would quit my job if it was 55. I would go into hypothermic shock and require mittens.

   6. I have never tried the brand but n.peal has some cashmere zip ups that might be your style, including one with a funnel collar

   7. Banana Republic Factory has a pique collar blazer that might fit this bill.

   8. J Crew knit sweater blazer?

   9. If you’re that senior, splurge on a classic Chanel tweed jacket and wear it with everything….

   10. How about this Eileen Fisher stand-up collar, zip-up tweed jacket at Nordstrom: https://www.nordstrom.com/s/stand-collar-tweed-jacket/7498159?origin=keywordsearch-personalizedsort&breadcrumb=Home%2FAll%20Results&color=018

3. I struggle with accepting the things I can’t change in my life. In this particular instance, it’s that my parents were….not great and I am having trouble letting go of who I wanted them to be and the idea that they’ll ever care to really know me and be interested in me. I’m in therapy and still in the part of the process where it feels like things are getting worse because I’m seeing them clearly so it’s feeling like a real slog.

   Anyone else dealt with this? What was it like for you and how did you get to acceptance?

   1. I think acceptance comes from remembering they were young and navigating life themselves and also recognizing that whatever you are accomplishing or failing at is a you thing, not something done for external reward or judgment. Life is too short to let a bad or so-so start trip you up. Focus on what you are doing today to help others or follow your own passion. You have a whole life to focus on that will have little to do with them. If you were to get a serious illness tomorrow, what would be more important to you—hours in self-reflection spent trying to understand a situation you can’t change (and either can they now) or having lived your own life doing and experiencing and helping to the best you can? Remember that you are a grown up now and take that leap to live for yourself and accountable to yourself.

   2. Yes- therapy, time, & reparenting myself

      1. +1 to this. Therapy, time, giving yourself permission not to have the ‘super close’ relationship your parents may profess to want if in reality it’s a relationship where you act as the punching bag/repository for venting. I keep my parents on a pretty strict information diet and while we do have get togethers I strictly limit the amount of time they spend with my family/how often I’m willing to talk/etc. Reparenting yourseld can also be very healing, as well as intentionally building your own suportive family life.
         If they are actively harmful to you/your family you’re also allowed to cut ties with them – I know people think that it’s the worst thing in the world to not speak to your parents but you’re not obliged to be in an abusive relationship with anyone, even if they gave birth to you.

   3. It took me lots of time to get to acceptance. That said, I still sometimes mourn what might have been.

      1. +1 – and it can also hit you hard at odd/random points. My good friend lost her wonderful mother who she was very close to and I was sad for her but personally it also brought up anger that I would never get to have that warm and supportive mother/daugher relationship (I did not say this to my friend of course!). It also hit me hard previously during my wedding planning/having my child. On the plus side it really did encourage me to think very hard about how I want to parent my own child.

   4. “Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents” was extremely helpful to me.

      1. +1 that book is amazing

   5. I have something similar – I swore therapy, meds, even a change in perspective would never help me accept it. Then one day I realized someone close has exactly my situation, life didn’t turn out like he wanted either, and that did it for me. Still moving towards acceptance but the changed perspective really did help.

   6. Understanding and truly accepting that they did the best they could – within their personal limits – helped me a lot. They were products of their own personally crappy upbringing, and maybe did better for me than was done for them. There was an Oprah-endorsed book a few years ago that talked about re-framing from “what is wrong with you” to “what happened to you” and it has helped me a lot to approach a lot of situations in a way that lets go of the anger and hurt and replace it with grace. And, the realization that they weren’t going to change, so the only thing that could was my reaction.

      1. +1. Overall, my parents were solid parents but they had some big blind spots about how to support me emotionally. Over time, I have come to feel more compassion for them. They weren’t taught those things, either, so how were they supposed to know how to teach that to me?

   7. Reading up on narcissism helped me understand that the chaos my father introduced to my childhood wasn’t my fault. Talking to friends about their dysfunctional families helped me realize I wasn’t alone and that we were all dealing with our own unique challenges. And my husband and I get through the holidays by awarding each family points and announcing to ourselves at the end of the year who won the Dysfunctional Family Olympics that year. It really does help to laugh.

   8. By leaving the past in the past and growing up. You realize at some point that you get to design the life you want for yourself. You don’t need to re-litigate your childhood, just let it be and move on to what you do want. Expending energy living in the past is wasted.

      1. This. I find that the resentment rears its ugly head once in a while when my own teenager complains about her objectively amazing life, but you really just have to get over it or you’ll never be able to enjoy your life.

         1. It’s one of the reasons I find therapy unproductive. Absent big issues, it can cause you to get stuck in a spiral of analyzing the past that isn’t especially helpful for moving on and creating your own life.

   9. Not sure if I’m emotionally healthy or not, so take this with a grain of salt:

      I “accept” my totally dysfunctional childhood by accepting that it WAS, and not asking more of myself. I don’t try to “let it go” or twist myself into knots figuring out why my parents are the way they are (my grandparents were exceptional individuals who worked very hard to provide loving and stable homes).

      My goal is emotional neutrality: look at the situation and understand that it was not okay, but it happened. I accept that I will carry the scars with me for life (it rewired my brain in permanent ways), even though it’s unfair.

      IMHO, our modern society really tries to throw a pile of sugar and pink frosting over emotional issues, and that makes it worse. Therapy is a magical wand that will make it like it never happened! Acceptance means forgiveness and understanding that your parents did the best they could! (LOL, no, they didn’t.) Put a big pretty bow on the whole ordeal! That’s not how emotions work.

      1. I don’t know many therapists that would advocate pretending something bad didn’t happen. The difference is whether you are able to look at the present time and decide from a practical perspective what focusing energy on will best help you. The people I know who seem to thrive even if their backgrounds were chaos are people who approach things with a “yes and” attitude. Yes, this unfair thing happened, and here is how I’m taking that and moving forward in spite of it. A spiral of feeling sorry for yourself or angry at not having the upbringing you wanted doesn’t do anything to feed the great things you could be doing and feeling today. It’s not to erase the past or minimize those emotions. It’s to rescue the you of today into more productive thought and finding acceptance and love in the other relationships that surround you. Sometimes part of growing up is realizing that there are more important things to be focused on than whether something that happened in your past was right or wrong. While you’re doing that, you’re missing the current life around you. I look at it sort of like grieving. Those emotions are important and you will always carry them, but you can’t let them consume you or you’ll stop yourself from being open to doing and feeling what is good in the present and in your future.

         1. “Yes and” is the perfect way to describe it. It happened and it wasn’t fair, and you can still live a full life now.

   10. First of all, I want to acknowledge that you were brave to post this and brave to be doing the work of therapy. It’s hard, but it’s worth it. Keep going, even when it sucks. I always say therapy was the best gift I ever gave myself.

       The thing that jumps out at me is that your parents are living and still seem disinterested in you. If I’m reading that correctly, I want you to know that it’s okay to limit contact with them in whatever way makes it easiest for you. Cultivate relationships that make you feel seen and supported and spend little to no time and energy on those that hurt you. Perhaps in time you will identify why they are the way they are, and even find forgiveness, but that still doesn’t mean you have to let them hurt you.

       I’m rooting for you!

       1. Thanks! one of my parents is pretty disinterested, and the other has been a warm and loving parent with the best intentions but extremely emotionally immature. I am in family therapy with the latter parent right now, and while it has been really productive and things are improving, the gap in EQ is just so wide I don’t think they’ll be able to be what I want (e.g., be actually interested in me, not make everything about them etc). It’s one of those situations where I feel like I know what the answer is (I need to stop trying to get what I want out of this parent and accept them for what they are/change how I engage with them) but I feel like I can’t quite do it.

          1. The fact that this parent is going to therapy with you is huge, but I see how it can also make it more complicated – they’re trying, so you feel like you can’t have complaints. Are you also in individual therapy? You probably need to carve out space to process your feelings outside of the family therapy.

             1. Yeah I’m in individual therapy twice a week. And I appreciate parent going to therapy with me, and it is getting better. but it does make it really complicated. It feels hard to accept while also working on making things better and doing my part there.

             2. That is a LOT of therapy. It would be too much navel-gazing for me.

          2. I think what you are missing here is that you need to give up your dreams about changing your parent into who you want them to be. It is doomed to fail. Honestly, I would stop family therapy!
             Yes – You have to learn to accept them for who they are, and look elsewhere for the support you clearly need.

             It is what it is.

             1. i think you’re right. thanks.

   11. My sister was a little like this when we were young adults. We both moved away to cities to work and when we would come back “home” for a visit we would experience it differently. For me, it would be a confirmation of why we both left. For her, it would be excitement at coming home to an idealized made-for-TV kind of nuclear family experience and that was just pretty far from reality. Most of my sister’s judgment was reserved for our mom, who was far from a perfect human. I always felt like my sister refused to accept her as she was & was constantly trying to mold her into who she wanted her to be, the perfect mom, and not a whole, flawed person. Now that our parents are gone it seems like it was such a waste of time.

       I agree with others that you have to just accept the parents you have rather than the parents you wish you had. None of us had a perfect start in life, but it’s part of maturing that we move on and create our own story. I suggest you focus on that in therapy and just let your parent be who they are.

   12. My parents were not great. There was alcoholism and abuse. How I moved past it was growing up and becoming a parent myself. It made me appreciate that they were not bad people who did not care about me, as I always thought. They were flawed and did there best, even if it was not very good. I forgave them before they died which was a gift I gave to me and not them.

       1. Well done. That is a hard road to travel, and you did it great.

          1. Thank you for this.

   13. I came across this phrase and it somehow really helped me accept others’ limitations and reduced my cycle of wanting them to be more and being disappointed when they aren’t: You can’t buy groceries at the hardware store.

       Obviously, you could pick up a bag of Doritos, but if you really need a gallon of milk and some fresh produce you are going to be SOL.

   14. I find Nicole LePera and also Alanon both more helpful than therapy.

4. I love a shirtdress but this actually looks rumply and oversized (but in a bad way, not a chic way). It’s a bit better if you click through to the full image, but there are way better shirtdresses on the market (at way more comfortable price points).

   1. It’s awful!

   2. The fabric looks too heavy, like it is better suited to mechanic’s coveralls.

5. I got outside counsel guidelines from a client. They . . . have some areas where our OGC has some legitimate comments back. Any advice for how to delicately bring this up with the client? Their legal is notoriously understaffed and spread thin (and also is often hostile to us, seeing us as a cost center to them and not an ally that is often keeping them out of trouble or cleaning up messes that could be much worse). Help! I like being a lawyer but hate this part of the sausage factory.

   1. So I have been on both sides of this, as a former partner and now in-house lawyer. Are we talking things like “there’s a required 20% discount buried in the OC guidelines even though you’ve already discussed and agreed to rates” (that really happened to me – and they were expecting I would honor it) or “the client has more extensive data security requirements than we currently meet”? Basically, as we in “feels unreasonable” territory or you just have different standards for some stuff?

      Also, are they big enough to have someone in charge of outside counsel management? If so, I would offer to talk to that person directly (assuming you are the relationship partner for the client – if not, the relationship partner should do it) so your contact doesn’t have to be the go-between. I promise this doesn’t have to be a big deal; I at least have these conversations all the fime.

      1. It is some technical language not relating to billing or IT. Like subrogation or some boilerplate that should only be implicated if things go sideways but could negate our malpractice coverage. Like legit bad for us (and likely all other outside counsel).

         1. I would see if your firm general counsel can talk to their outside counsel manager. Sometimes people just don’t realize the impact of what’s in there.

         2. Clients are human. Figure out who in your firm makes this type of outreach (relationship partner) and they can say something matter of fact like “in reviewing the guidelines, we have some technical concerns with the insurance impact of Section X and how it affects our coverage.” Have your carrier mark it up with what it should say so you can show them.

         3. What you’re said here is fine: this provision can negate our insurance coverage. Our risk management team would like X in place instead.

            You might need to have a call between the person at your firm who handles this client, RM at your firm, their GC, and their RM.

   2. Just raise it with the relationship partner and/or the firm GC and have them negotiate it with the client. Our guidelines are written as one size fits all but like everything, negotiable.

   3. You need to get over hating this part of life in the sausage factory. It is an integral part of that life, and there is no reason to be embarrassed about discussing the terms or the price of your engagement. You’re not telling your contact she has spinach between her teeth; you’re being a grown-up professional who has read the outside counsel guidelines and has a legitimate concern. There is no need for delicacy.

   4. Regarding the client not putting adequate resources into Legal (in-house or outside counsel): I was a GC at a company like that. I found that upper management had a poor idea of what Legal does – they expected miracles that aren’t within the capacity of an attorney, and they didn’t value the work that was done. Without getting into details, it created problems and became a vicious cycle.

      It’s really not a great situation, and the issue of your insurance isn’t the problem here.

6. I read last week’s post about retirement savings and goals and was impressed by many poster’s net worth. If you have a high net-worth, how did you achieve it?

   Question-what is the best way to play catch up or increase your net-worth on a more modest salary when you’re 40+? Say in the $50-$150k range. Just save as much as possible, get a side gig, hope to come across a wealthy long-lost relative? /s

   1. The people with a super high net worth all have massive HHIs, like mid 6 figures to 7 figures. The idea that you can become wealthy on a low or moderate income just by skipping Starbucks is a lie peddled by Dave Ramsey and others who are making money off of people’s hopes.

      1. This. We have a high net worth and two very high incomes. We invested in rental properties over the market and also make passive income that way.

         1. And the reason you were able to buy those rental properties is that you have a high income.

            1. Yes, that’s what I said.

      2. Whenever I read the “yeah we have $4 million in retirement and our kids’ college accounts have $250k in them, we’re 36” comments, I remind myself of three things:
         1. Many people here make 3-6x what my husband and I make.
         2. Many people here have also posted that their Mom and Dad have bought them houses, paid for their college educations, or what they’ve inherited money from Grandma and Grandpa. Both my family and my husband’s family had no money so we’ve received no such help from our relatives, and never will.
         3. This is an anonymous message board and anyone can say anything, so I take all info with a grain of salt. A pretty large one.

         1. People who have high retirement savings are way more likely to respond to that question that people who do not, so the responses are also skewed in that way.

            1. +1
               Absolutely

               And remember that the vast majority of regular folks who read here…. never post. The few that post are already very self-selected.

         2. I am one of those people and none of your assumptions are true. Just fwiw. I am overly anxious about Retirement and saved mercilessly, even while still in college (and working).

            1. Yay for you? I guess? I hope you live long enough to really enjoy your money!

      3. This. (And hello to my fellow Dave Despisers.)

         According to Edward Jones, the average person aged 35-44 has $131,950 saved for retirement. The numbers here, while admirable, and very skewed and not attainable for most of us.

         1. My parents gave us our first house. Not the down payment, the whole house. We are in a good spot and it’s not from skipping Starbucks. Don’t be hard on yourself if you don’t have a lot. Don’t compare yourself to others (like me). Compare to where you started and where you are and be proud of yourself for progress.

         2. I looked at the data and it appears that $131k might be a mean retirement account a balance, not a median retirement account balance. Am I misreading?

            1. Mean = average

      4. Thank you. Over the course of a year, a Starbucks habit can cost you the equivalent of a weekend getaway or a trip to the car mechanic. That’s “nice to have extra money” money, not “retire early and rich” money.

      5. +2. We are HENRY (high earning, not rich yet) and after being in govt for so many years as a single person, it’s crazy to see how quickly money grows with two high incomes.

      6. I don’t know. I posted- we are at 2M, both 39. Our HHI right now is $300-$350k, but it hasn’t always been. I didn’t make over 6 figure until I was 33, and for a while made 26k! DH stopped working for grad school. I’ve tracked our net worth since 2012 and basically, saving early and often got us where we are today. We’ve had student debt (maybe $150-180 between us?), car loans, house loans- our first house was bought with PMI and only 3% down.

         We are certainly not middle class, but I’m a part time consultant making ~90k; DH is a VP level individual contributor making $240k. DH was an engineer then took 2 years off to go to business school (he worked part time, for a paid internship, and also chose a school where he got a big merit scholarship over a more prestigious one). He got laid off twice from start ups. I got laid off. We have 3 kids and had to figure out how to deal with working when daycare is $20k per year per kid.

         We honestly just have a “save for retirement first” mentality after which everything else is budgeted.

         1. I’m sorry but I cannot understand how you have 2 mil with those stats unless it’s stock options/crazy real estate growth. My stats are similar to yours and our net worth (two people maxing out 401ks since 2012; but didn’t buy a house until 2021) is hovering around 1 mil.

      7. This really isn’t true. My parents have never earned more than $200k combined and for most of their lives earned about half that. They have a ~$10M net worth.
         It’s a combo of:
         1) living in a VLCOL area and not upgrading from their small starter home (their house is worth maybe 150k) to keep fixed costs very low
         2) generally living modest lifestyles – they always took reasonably nice vacations but have never spent a lot of money on stuff like cars or clothes and generally aren’t flashy people
         3) working way past traditional retirement age. Tbh, I think this is the biggest factor. From the ages of 65-75, my parents were adding $100k+ per year (easily) to their savings, at an age when many people start drawing down their retirement balances.
         And I think they have also been reasonably lucky with market growth. But it is definitely possible to have (reasonably) modest incomes and amass significant wealth. Neither of them got family money beyond help with college.

         1. I dont know your age or your parents’ ages but I think your post might need generational context.
            Just because a Boomer made it work doesn’t mean a millennial can now; they’ve stacked the system against us and the data really makes that clear.

            1. Yea I do agree with that. But I will say my husband and I are also accumulating a net worth that feels disproportionate to our incomes through some of the same methods (#3 is not applicable to us yet but the other two are mostly true for us too.) I’m 40 and my parents are 75.

         2. No family help BEYOND college (as in, they had help with college)

            SAVING $100k per year.

            I’m not sure how any of this disproves the posters who are saying that most people who amass wealth are people who got help from family or who have incomes high enough to save a lot. It’s not a slight against your parents or anyone else. It just is a fact that you cannot save money unless you have access to money.

            1. Yes my parents have/had a lot of advantages. Only one of them got money for college, although the other went to state school and lived at home and graduated debt free since college was cheaper then. But the poster I was responding to said you can never get to high net worth without a mid-6 figure or 7 figure income and my parents are a counter example. They have never been above low 6 figures in annual income (actually five figures for a decent chunk of their working lives, although there has also been inflation). Obviously they are also older – I agree you don’t get to $5M+ at 40 without a high income. But I do think it’s possible by retirement age even without earning a ton.

   2. I was probably one of the people you’re referring to. I live pretty modestly, but not exclusively so, and I have one very expensive hobby. It really comes down to income. Banking all the bonuses. Probably not a satisfying answer. I’m in Finance.

   3. Saving alone won’t get you a high NW – you need to invest. S&P index funds at vanguard are fine. Only use savings, cds or bonds for emergency fund, everything else should be invested in the market.

      1. +1

         Even with modest incomes, if you save aggressively in the stock market for the long term, it can do very well over decades. But you really have to save. It has hard to save that much, and to convince your partner to save that much if you both have modest incomes.

   4. Tbh, for me it’s been about avoiding lifestyle creep, saving and investing heavily, consistently and steadily, and increasing salary as much as possible (though I’ve always been in or close the upper end of the range you quoted). And having a dual income family has helped way more than I think many people like to admit.

      1. +1 increasing income is the biggest contributor but only if you actually avoid lifestyle creep.

         For me that has meant focusing on the bigger ticket items – housing and car (or rather not having a car when I lived somewhere with public transportation) and also doing a semi annual inventory of any recurring charges. That has saved me more money with a lot less headache than keeping track of Starbucks, although that’s maybe a twice a month expense for me anyways.

   5. Save as much as possible and, if at all possible, increase income.
      Unfortunately, the best time to sock away money is in your early 20s, when most of us are barely getting by. I’ve never made more than 60k/year and the bits I put back in my 20s are a much more substantial chunk of my net worth than what I’ve put away in recent years. That’s just the power of compound interest.
      I’ve done a little side-gigging, mainly word of mouth handy-woman type stuff, but many for many side gigs, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze, in my experience.

      1. There’s a lot of truth to this unfortunately! The younger you start the better. You can still do a lot in your 40s though.

      2. Yes – saving early and investing.

         When I was in my 20’s I barely had any money and in the good years just donated to an IRA/ROTH. Now I am in my 50’s and just the modest sums of money in invested in my 20s is now worth $500k. I didn’t touch it, and kept it in a bunch of mutual funds that did well. The market went crazy.

         Buy and hold.
         Vanguard index funds or VTI ETF.

   6. High income ideally in a lower cost of living area. I have a moderate income in a very high cost of living area so I’ll never be rich!

   7. This won’t be useful for your goals but it’s realistic: Have parents that pay for your college tuition, have them invest half the money you earned from high school and college jobs, and live in cheap apartments with roommates for a few years. I didn’t start earning big money until a couple years ago but my savings are way ahead of my peers.

      As far as lifestyle decisions, I don’t travel much. It’s a great way to lose $2k in a single weekend. So many of my friends travel frequently and those domestic weekend getaways add up.

      1. I’d also not frugal my way out of a rich life. Travel may not be your thing, but I’d do it while you’re young and healthy. I think it’s pretty important to get out of your own backyard.

         1. To clarify, I typically do one “fun” trip a year to a location I’ve never visited before. My friends will travel four times during winter to the same ski resort or Florida beach town they go to every year on top of their big summer vacation. I guess you could say I value quality over quantity, and quantity tends to be more expensive.

         2. This is anathema to a lot of people, but some of us simply don’t like to travel.

            1. +1 to anon at 11:28. I have never loved travel (hate waiting in lines at airports, being scrunched in coach, which is even worse now than it used to be) and now that I have young kids I’m even less inclined to do it. I’ll probably do more of it as they grow older so they get exposure, but I honestly have no interest on my own in traveling much.

         3. You can have a rich life without traveling a lot. Some of the people I know who LoVe To TrAvEl might get out of their own backyards quite a bit, but they are also incredibly selfish and wouldn’t lift a finger to help someone else. Not everyone, of course, but I’m just saying the two things don’t always go together, and I kind of hate the narrative that you can’t be a good, well rounded, smart person without flying around the world constantly.

            1. +1 to this. Also, living through the very real effects of climate change, I personally really wish we would stop treating travel like a virtue. Not to say that people shouldn’t travel who want to but for all the talk of things people can actually do to cut their carbon footprint, flying less gets brought up shockingly infrequently.

   8. For me… it’s a lot due to “being born on 3rd base”. Minimal student loans (only from law school, parents paid in full for college), high household income in a lower cost of living area (DH and I have NYC equivalent salaries but live in Charlotte), and then each had investment accounts that our grandparents started, continued to for many years, and were never touched until we were 27/28 and used those for down payment on our first house. Then just maxing out all of the retirement savings, including HSA and back door Roth.

   9. Everyone with a very high net worth also had a very high income. That said, we’ve never made more than $150k and are up to 1.2 million in our mid 40s, which puts us on track to retire by our early 60s, barring major issues. We were in grad school and only really started saving 10 or so years ago. We don’t have kids, though, and don’t spend a lot in general, just put as much as we can into retirement.

   10. Net work around $4M here; we are both in our mid-50s. We have always been a two-income family, but I worked a minimal amount during the high-intensity parenting years. Our household income was probably never more than the low $300s through most of our 30s and 40s, although it’s been higher the last couple of years as the kids have moved on and I’ve worked more. We have expensive kids and give a lot to charity, but big contributing factors to what I consider a solid net worth: graduating from undergrad without student loans (neither of our parents paid for college; we both had scholarships, and my husband was in the National Guard; and college was cheaper in the 80s); paying off our law school loans early; buying less house than we could afford; working for a firm that provided very generous profit sharing contributions for several years; never cashing out our retirement savings; investing our retirement savings aggressively on the grounds that I, at least, expect to live forever and have plenty of time to make up for losses; aggressive but thoroughly-legal tax planning (the marriage penalty is real; retiring to a state with no income tax is an important component of our retirement planning); paying off our first house early; steering our kids to affordable colleges (the kid with the stats to go HYP went to a state school for undergrad and Stanford for her Ph.D., so her education was nearly free for us); and driving our cars forever. We also plan to work well past age 65, so finding jobs where we can stomach the thought of doing so was important.

   11. High net worth – high salary from the jump. My first job was biglaw at 25 making 125k plus whatever the bonus was that year. Had student loans but modest ones just around 75k, so I think that’s a different starting point than an 80k salary and 200k in debt which is common now. And then invested early – started retirement investing at 25 but brokerage investing only a few years after that. I was well ahead of my biglaw peers NW wise because I did NOT prioritize paying off 2 percent debt asap and use all bonuses for that which my peers largely did. I held onto the debt for nearly 15 years while building up a nest egg since market returns well outpace 2 percent. I find that that’s something lawyers have a hard time grasping or at least not until their 40s. It’s like the risk aversion of must pay debt NOW.

       Stayed in biglaw for a decade as an associate even though I should have left, wanted to leave like my peers but I knew the money there would far outpace anything I’d earn in house or government.

       Lived cheap – not MMM cheap but nothing like my peers in terms of apartment buildings, lavish travel and all.

       Starting at 40 plus – INVEST. Max out all the retirement vehicles and then throw money regularly into the SPX. Savings alone won’t do it.

   12. They’re married. Some got married fairly young. Even if your spouse isn’t a high earner it makes a huge difference, especially if they can work and pay living expenses and put a little bit of money away while you’re in school.

   13. Starting early. Saving and investing consistently. Selecting target mutual funds to keep expenses down.

   14. Living frugally while continuing to advance in my career, therefore making more money.

   15. You do this by making a lot more money.

       I was in the $50-$150k bracket and in a helping career. I went back to grad school (not law) in my late 30s with two kids and working full time and successfully pivoted to the private side of my industry. I now earn 3 to 4x what I used to and my net worth has also grown 4x.

       Both my work life and my home life are much less stressful at this income level. Parenting is easier when you can throw money at problems.

       1. Do you feel comfortable sharing what private industry you’re in and what you transitioned from?

       2. Comment in mod – not sure why – do you feel comfortable sharing what private sector job you have now and what you did before?

   16. Higher incomes make the difference! I’m in the public sector. I earned >70K$ for the first 12 years of my career, then I took a job paying $105K. I was there for 3 years, and that $30K difference is when I was finally able to start saving for a downpayment on a condo, which I then bought without any family help (from a working class family). I did some job hopping during covid, which bumped me up to $130K than $150K. I can wholeheartedly say that doubling my income is a huge game changer. I’m able to max retirement and having 6 months of emergency savings, which I never could do before. Now I don’t have to worry that an unexpected car repair will bankrupt me.

       1. I should add I’m a 1 income single person.

7. Has anyone bought a dryer recently that they like? Our’s has died. One requirement is I need the door to either open to the left or be reversible as it has to open to the left due to our space. Other than that, nothing fancy, I just need it to dry clothes and have a decent delicate cycle.

   1. We got a Speed Queen set and it is really a lot better than our 2004 dryer.

      1. We love our Speed Queen set. Inherited it when we bought our house and they weren’t new then, so maybe 15-20 years old and no problems?

      2. +1 to Speed Queen, but they are super expensive, and if you don’t plan to be in your house forever, you might like to look at a more run-of-the-mill GE or other ubiquitous brand.

   2. You’ll probably be shocked at how good new dryers are. Replaced ours with something middle of the road, I can’t remember exactly, and clothes are dry in 15 minutes. Used to take an hour plus.

   3. Check sales at Costco. Great warranty.

8. What are your thoughts re: how important it is to pay for your child’s/children’s undergraduate education?

   On a modest income, I’m on-track to have about $30k saved for each child. I’m thinking that loans beyond that will be their responsibility. If I were a high-earner, I’d be prioritizing covering it vs. home renovations, etc. but am not wanting to amass a ton of debt in lieu of my retirement savings.

   1. I don’t think that it’s important to fully pay for my kids’ college degrees. Having massive student loans would be bad, of course, but manageable student loans are fine and part of life for most.

      1. This is what my parents did for me and I’m very grateful. I had scholarships and financial aid covering about 50% of my undergrad, my parents paid as much as they could, and I took out the rest on federal (30k) and private (10k, parents co-signed, I paid off ASAP) loans.

   2. Your children can take out loans for college. Or apply for scholarships. Or attend a lower cost college. Or attend community college for 2 years and transfer. Lots of options.

      You can’t really take out loans for retirement.

      While it’s a wonderful gift for parents to contribute to college, it should never displace retirement savings.

   3. I’m not planning to have kids, in part because it’s so expensive and all consuming, but if I did have kids, I would save as much as possible but also make sure they were fully aware of the financial situation so they could focus on getting great grades and maybe working a part time job. I would also encourage them to consider a community college for 2 years and work during that time as well. I have friends who worked and went to school full time. It was a grind but they are in a great place now with a great career.

      1. This. We plan to start having these discussions in 8th grade – here is the amount we expect to have available, here is how you can stretch it (good grades=scholarships, taking community college or AP classes, etc.). My parents were all about good grades but never connected it to lesser student loans which REALLY impacts your freedom after college.
         Any financial advisor will tell you – you can’t take out loans for retirement like you can for college, you need to focus on yourself first and your kids second.

         1. Also, transfer students are not always eligible for financial aid that is reserved for first-time full-time students

            1. They can always apply and see what type of aid package they get.

      2. Community college is not really a good bridge to a four-year degree. Community colleges only offer remedial and intro-level courses, which most college-bound kids will already have taken as APs. They don’t have many of the lower-division prerequisites for courses in a major. At my UC, all the community college transfers ended up spending three years to meet their requirements, so they were really only saving one year’s worth of UC tuition and were incurring significant opportunity cost by not graduating on time.

         1. +1 if your kid is smart enough to take APs or dual-enrollment while in high school, they’re not saving much on CC. Many universities don’t accept many CC credits.

            However, my brother went to a well-regarded CC and his CC had a deal with several local universities (public and private) that for students in certain majors with high enough GPAs, they’d be automatically admitted to the university with all credits transferring.

         2. This is really, really variable by state. Some states strongly promote CC as an option for the first two years, ensure that prereqs are available, and even hold spaces at the flagship campuses for CC transfers.

            1. Yeah I’m reading this as a Californian and shaking my head. Guaranteed community college transfers are our only way out of the overenrollment issue.

            2. Yes, agree. My cousin graduated in the top 10% of her high school class and was admitted to a program in our state where she did 2 years at CC and then 2 years at the flag ship state U, with a full ride to both CC/flagship state U. My state has a really strong CC system (they are some of the most highly rated in the country).

         3. This is not true at the CC my oldest daughter goes to now. It is a feeder college for the big state university here, and she is already taking classes towards her major. It depends on the CC and maybe even the state.

            1. Forgot to add that she did dual enrollment in HS and took some AP classes. She is also taking Honors classes at CC.

         4. Many community colleges offer four year degrees. I work with multiple people with CC degrees and we have great, high paying tech jobs. They literally have the same job as someone who studied at a more prestigious university. Plus if you switch to another university, in the end the degrees all say the same thing. I also disagree that the majority of college students come in with lots of AP credits.

            1. Where are you located? I’ve never heard of a four year degree from a CC

            2. Yes, this is becoming more common at CC’s.

            3. This would be great for so many students who want a bachelors degree but don’t want to spend $$$ for it. I’ve heard a lot of people in my millennial generation argue that they want the “college experience” which has nothing to do with getting an education and a job. Not going into the details of that experience to avoid moderation. That experience should be considered a luxury you have to pay for.

            4. In California this the exception not the rule. If the UC or CSU offer a degree the CCs are not allowed to offer it.

   4. I think it’s a huge leg up in life that is underappreciated by both sides, and for that reason I’m saving aggressively for my own child’s education. Retirement and my own financial security come first of course, but I put college savings over a nicer car or home renovations for example. I spent most of my life concerned about money and am now ahead on retirement savings, plus am committed to one child which we had in our late 30s which helps the equation as well.

      I have lived this from both sides. My parents divorced young and my dad prioritized his new family. Due to a divorce agreement, my parents both paid a decent amount towards my public school but I still had loans and worked. Meanwhile, my dad’s stepkids had private college tutors, sports, the works, and landed at expensive private schools. Stepmom believed that parents should pay, even to the extent of taking out a loan for her kids and paying it back (I had to suppress shock when I heard this, as my dad was full of half-baked promises regarding my education). My husband also had his education fully covered at a private school thanks to well-off parents.

      Freeing your child from student loans allows them to pursue their interests without thinking about which job pays the most after graduation and allows them to begin building savings sooner. After attending a top MBA program and knowing my stepsiblings and DH, I’m also amazed at the job opportunities that can come out of a private or flagship public school vs a mid tier state school, and I want my child to have access to those opportunities.

      1. Re your last para, my husband stubbornly refuses to believe that some jobs go to kids at some schools (Ivy, state U honors programs or places like UVA / UNC, maybe top SLACs) but not other schools. It’s like some computer science or engineering programs graduate people making 50K to start and others 90K (maybe some COL factored in there, but also some schools get spendier companies coming to recruit from there). If you go to work at McKinsey, they pay you nicely, but don’t recruit at Local State U. I think it’s like law — some grads maybe make 50K at small firms vs 200K to start at the biggest firms that don’t recruit from everywhere (and maybe you last 4 years there, so you restart at some point on a very different salary scale).

         1. I have a longer comment in mod, but 100% this. I have several friends who work for the Big 4 because the Big 4 recruited out of my university. I know someone who went to his state’s flagship university and started elsewhere and eventually got a job at the Big 4. He said those companies would not hire people from his university out of undergrad. He chose the State U for financial reasons, which seemed wise at 18, but then held him back when trying to enter the workforce at 22.

            1. This applies at the grad level too. Biglaw goes and recruits from top tier law schools without limitation. Lower ranked schools if they come at all they’ll only interview from the top X% of the class. It made the culture at those schools way more cutthroat (based on having friends at mid-range schools talk about it) bc the stakes were so much higher.

            2. You are right re cutthroad-ness. I felt like a crab in a barrel. I imagine it isn’t like that at HYS because I feel like everyone will get a great job no matter what.

      2. I was coming in to say this. I prioritized my retirement to the extent of maximizing my 401K but priority #2 was saving for my kid’s college. She graduated last year and was able to take a very low paying job that will result in major career benefits later because she does not have student loans to repay. She knows that grad school will be on her dime but it was really important for me that she not have her options limited coming out of undergrad because of loans.

         Which is a long-winded way of saying, I would absolutely save for college before paying for a remodel.

      3. “Freeing your child from student loans allows them to pursue their interests without thinking about which job pays the most after graduation and allows them to begin building savings sooner.”

         maybe but it might also teach them that their wants are more important than anyone else’s, that they are entitled to the best without having earned it, and that someone else will always pick up their slack.

         1. I don’t think anyone who had college paid for thinks like that. Everyone I know who has loans (myself included!) is several steps back financially as a result.

         2. In my experience, kids who are inclined to be rational and humble will be thankful for having college paid for, and selfish kids will be inclined to be selfish.

         3. If a kid graduates with that mentality, their parents failed them a lot earlier down the line.

   5. If you have a modest income, especially below $100-150K or so, they may be eligible for surprisingly large amounts of financial aid.

      We are in the middle-income category where the college financial aid formulas assume we can afford to pay a laughable amount (more than half of our take-home pay, which would barely allow us to pay the mortgage and buy groceries). Paying off my student loans, which were much bigger than we’d planned thanks to a bait and switch on the part of my law school (tuition nearly doubled, scholarship did not), prevented us from saving for our daughter’s college education until she was in high school and held us back in a lot of other ways financially. We have prioritized retirement savings as much as possible but have not upgraded or renovated our house or made other large expenditures the way most of our peers have.

      It is extremely important to us that our daughter graduate debt-free, which in the long run seems to be one of the largest factors that makes the difference between a comfortable life and a constant struggle. We have determined how much we can afford to pay, which is still quite a lot, and have informed her that she is responsible for finding merit aid to make up the difference. In return for our money, she has agreed not to take on any loans. For a top student, there are plenty of good colleges that offer merit aid. IMO going debt-free to a very good but non-elite college where the kid is a real standout, then choosing an elite grad school for the job placement advantage, is a better strategy than taking on massive loans to attend a fancy school for a bachelor’s degree. Also law school is a terrible investment any way you slice it unless you are willing to live the life of a biglaw partner.

      1. Yup, my parents HHI was in that range and I got excellent financial aid. My parents and I paid for the rest, and I graduated with 35k in loans from a university that (at the time, 9 years ago) cost 55k a year.

      2. Hahaha, State U here says our HHI of $110k means we are expected to pay full freight for our freshman starting this fall.

         1. Generally colleges with this are private, not public. If your HHI is 110k, you’re actually probably better off at a private university where you’re more likely to get generous aid than a public where you’re unlikely to get any aid. Sometimes private is cheaper!! It was for me.

   6. It’s such a personal decision. For me, it’s massively important to be able to do what my parents did – fully fund tuition, room and board at my dream school. However, I say this from a place of extreme privilege – DH and I only have one child, make kid six figure income, and are able to save $20k a year to meet this goal, after fully funding retirement and meeting other savings goals.

   7. I’d rank college savings over home renovations, newer cars, etc when the alternative is safe and functional. I’d rank own retirement over college savings, though.

      I think most people would rather student loans than having their parents be destitute or needing to support them in retirement.

      1. There are merit scholarships for college; I haven’t heard about scholarships for retirement.

   8. I often think about where I’d be if I didn’t have $30k in loans from undergrad (paid off) and $15k in loans from grad school (paying off). I graduated from undergrad about 8 years ago, so my loans were actually overall pretty minor compared to many of my friends. However, I also have many, many friends with no loans and they’re the ones buying houses, buying cars, able to take vacations, pay for weddings, etc. I have several friends whose monthly loan payments from undergrad are in the $800-$1000/mo range. That’s 1/3-1/4 of their take-home pay. It’s a HUGE burden for them.

      Obviously, don’t burden yourself and sacrifice retirement spending or go into debt yourself to help your kids pay for college, but if you can, definitely prioritize college savings.

      Also, be very honest with your kids very early on about college savings and expenses. My parents didn’t really discuss it so it was a bit of a wakeup call for me once I had to start paying loans. Explain to them how much a monthly payment on different sizes of loans will be. Explain to them what their monthly take-home will likely be. Have them make a budget with that so they understand how little they’ll have leftover after an entry level salary, rent, groceries, other expenses, with which to pay their loans.

      Explain different options for post-high school: are they open to the trades? community college and then transferring to a 4 year? community college and finding a job with an AA? the military?

      One thing I don’t think is discussed enough is that if your family income is below a certain amount, private schools can be cheaper than public schools (and I”m not talking about the schools that don’t charge families with less than $XX in income). But, public schools offer a lot less in aid to higher income families. So, if you’re a family that won’t qualify for any financial aid, then public schools are cheaper. If you’re a family that will qualify for financial aid, then you’ll likely pay less at a private university. I chose a private university (as did quite a few of my friends) because it was cheaper than our state schools.

      Depending on what your child is interested in studying and what field they want to work in, name DOES matter and they will likely be better off taking loans to study at a better school. For example, I went to a university from which the Big 4 recruited heavily. There are plenty of good schools (including flagship state schools!) that companies like the Big 4 will not consider hiring entry level classes from. Obviously, MBB is even more selective (MBB did not recruit from my university). I always say, if you want to get into consulting, public accounting, or finance it is worth it to go to the type of school that these companies recruit from. If you want to do other types of work, you’re fine going to a cheaper and less prestigious school. I work in local government, so a lot of colleagues went to the closest state school.

      Finally, I didn’t realize the difference in quality of education at different institutions until I went to grad school. I chose the cheapest grad school that worked for my needs. It’s local, it’s a fine but not great school. It worked for me. But holy cow, the difference in expectations and standards was night and day between my undergrad and this school. Seeing the work that some of my classmates posted in GRAD SCHOOL discussion boards wouldn’t have flown at my high school, but it was getting good grades in graduate school. I knew this school wasn’t as highly ranked as my undergraduate, but I truly didn’t realize how different the standards would be. So, when people say “you can get a good education anywhere”, I don’t buy it.

      1. I think you can get a good education anywhere if you are basically an autodidact. I can read all the history books in the world but past a certain point, would need a teacher to teach me higher-level math and would not be ordering specimens to discect (gah, can’t even spell that). Some people learn body parts of animals from charts and some schools make you cut them up. Also, I learned a lot and got pushed, positively, by my peers — imagine being on a running team where everyone else runs a 12-minute mile — you will get better, but not the way you would if the team runs at a much faster pace. Coaches and teachers teach to the middle of the class. You want to be not too far above or below that or it will just be frustrating. I try to tell my very money-aware teen that she doesn’t have to go to community college — she knows it’s cheaper and it’s a good big city community college that transfers a lot of first-generation students to good State Us, but she doesn’t get that there are real costs to a less expensive school (and we can afford at least State U for 4 years and she is a good but not Ivy league bound student).

         1. I feel like school largely gets in the way of autodidacts though. They’d be better off finding like minded people and spending more time at a good library!

            As for people who are getting their education from school and not elsewhere, I think people wildly underestimate the difference between an excellent school and a reasonably good school, and between a “this is actually outstanding” A and a “this is perfectly fine” A. Many, many students could be far, far beyond where they are if they just went to better schools.

            1. I cosign your second paragraph completely. There’s a HUGE difference in levels of education between a really good school and a good school. This applies to all levels of education, too (which is why I never understand commenters settling for a good but not amazing school district if they have other options).

               Also, without meaning to sound elitist, there’s a huge difference in the outlooks of students I know who went to really good schools vs. good schools. So many students I know from good (or not so good) schools “settle” for jobs, careers, lifestyles that are “below” them. It’s almost as though if no one else around them is aiming high, then aiming high doesn’t occur to them.

         2. I think a lot of the important skills taught at college (critical thinking, analysis, research, written communication, making and defending complex arguments) are hard to self-teach. Anyone can learn facts and procedures or formulas on their own but the application of knowledge is hard to learn on your own, and that application is what makes college valuable.

   9. Our kids are getting ready for college, and we have been saving for college, but we are not anywhere close to covering tuition in full.
      Our local private college/universities (think Villanova, Widener, Haverford) are all at least $80k this year. In two years, that could be 90K. So we are looking at $360k in tuition for one child for four years, which would be $720,000 for both kids if they choose/are accepted to mid/higher tier private schools. Our state university will be 41k this year, which makes it such a better option for them and their future, if our state legislature doesn’t cut funding again.

      It’s hard to see these numbers and believe that families can save and spend this much for college.

      1. It’s really tough in PA. With Penn State / Pitt / Temple being “state related” universities, they’re still very expensive overall. You also never know how much state support they’ll get in the future / how much costs will rise. The true state schools are affordable, but they’re not good. I am admittedly a little snobby about education (quality, not name unless name impacts future opportunities as discussed above) and I wouldn’t let my kid go to one of the “true” state schools.

         1. Explain to an out of stater — how is Penn State not State U for Pennsylvania? This is sort of shocking to me. A friend is going there and paying out of state tuition.

            1. It’s our flagship State U but it’s classified as a “state related university” as opposed to being a state university. I don’t know all of the details, but generally it receives state funding and has connections to the state but it’s not direclty under state control like our fully state universities. I am sure that the state did this to save money (and I’m sure it’s related to us being a purple state). It’s funded by the state, but not to the extent of our fully state universities.

               So, PSU’s instate tuition is 19k (32k including room and board). However, at a fully state university (I chose one at random) tuition is 7k (21k including room and board). But, PSU is a much better school.

            2. That’s still very low. Our good state universities are above $40K/year for tuition + room and board.

      2. I think schools like Villanova are often bad financial decisions. They’re much more expensive and for most students there’s no extra gain vs going to somewhere like Penn State. My friends that went there seemed to have nothing extra to show for it, but maybe I’m missing something.

   10. Prioritize your retirement — you being financially stable will give your kids a lot more flexibility

       But after that – it /is/ a huge leg up, if you can swing it, at least for what the “expected family contribution” would be. It sucks, but most schools base financial aid on the belief that parents are paying something – and it’s definitely harder for a kid whose parents can’t/don’t pay that portion. (that being said — start having these conversations with your kids about where they’d like to go and what that looks like. Financial aid at top tier schools can be very significant, and the “sticker price” is pretty arbitrary)

   11. I (as someone who graduated in the mid 2010s with student loans) feel very strongly that if you can pay for all or some of college, you 100% should. Not doing so puts your kids at such a disadvantage. Of course, not everyone can do that and that is fine. My parents are blue collar, they contributed what they could to my education but it wasn’t very much so I had loans. However, if you can’t pay tuition, you should definitely be open with your kids and work together on finding a solution that would work best for your kid and your family.

       I have a few friends whose parents’ didn’t contribute to their college costs because “I paid my way through college”. Those friends now have student loan repayments that are $900+ a month. I guess their parents somehow didn’t get the memo that college costs have gone up exponentially since the 1980s and no one can work their way through college anymore. I feel so bad for those friends; they’re economically at such a disadvantage due to their very high loans. All of these kids chose the college that was cheapest for them to attend (public, private with financial aid or merit, etc) and they’re all still struggling. And they all have good jobs – one of whom is my college roommate and is a director at a F100 company making 130k and yet it’s still setting her back financially.

   12. I’m unsure if I’ll be a parent, but I’ve put a lot of thought into this issue because it’s affected me so much. My parents did not contribute to my or my sibling’s college education–we paid for everything from tuition, housing, and books to toiletries and groceries. Instead, they spent their money on lifestyle upgrades including a contemporaneous pricey complete home renovation for almost exclusively aesthetic reasons and chose to live on a single income so my mom could manage household affairs and their evenings and weekends were for relaxation. Their HHI was high enough that they had a sizable “expected family contribution,” so their refusal to contribute left us in a tough position to find enough loans. The worst part was that they didn’t (and don’t) talk about money, so while I knew I would have to take out some loans, I didn’t learn how much I was on my own until midway through my freshman year. My sibling is younger, so he at least had more notice and could plan accordingly up front. In contrast, my husband’s parents paid his way from college until he started working as an attorney. However, they also did not discuss finances with him, so it took him a bit to understand how to manage his money.

       If we become parents, it’s important to me that we teach financial literacy from a young age and arm them with all the information they need to make informed decisions about education (how much we can contribute, weighing the pros and cons of taking on debt, and help them pursue supplemental assistance). We are currently high earners, so I would not feel comfortable taking expensive vacations, driving luxury vehicles, doing aesthetic home renovations, or downshifting in my career if it meant that we could not continue to max out our 401(k) and IRA accounts while saving enough to cover the bill for in-state college and a graduate degree. If something happened that made it impossible for us to do both simultaneously, I would choose our retirement savings over their educational expenses. However, I would try my best to assist them by informing myself so I could give educated advice and serve as a non-judgmental sounding board while they weigh their options. I got a much higher ROI from my graduate degree than my undergraduate degree, because I learned from the financial mistakes I made applying for and attending college and knew the ins and outs of the process. If I can’t pay their whole way, I’d at least want to save them from having to make decisions without the benefit of receiving (and having the privilege of ignoring, if they so choose) sound advice.

   13. I am at this point exactly. I have $30K saved for both of my daughters, and one is a freshman in college, the other is a senior in HS. I started their 529’s when they were born, but I never intended to save enough in it to fully pay for college. There are so many other ways to pay for college, even at my higher income (kids would not get anything needs based).

       $30K does not go very far even at my state college, but older daughter is doing CC for the first 2 years which turned out to be free, due to a county scholarship that was merit based, that I wasn’t even aware of; her counselor at the CC told her about it and helped her apply. She will go to the state school after her 2 years at CC. My younger daughter will go to the state school as well (so no CC for her).

       My thinking was/is that there are so many other ways to pay for college, including merit based money (and my kids are not outstanding students; they are good, not great). I have no problem if they work to help pay for some of college, or take some loans, but the loans would have to be small. I don’t want them burdened with large student loans. I also will get future bonuses and/or stock that I can use to pay tuition, so that is there as well to help if needed.

   14. It is very important to me. I view it as a paying it forward exercise. My parents paid for my undergraduate degree,, which allowed me to graduate debt free. They also gave me a small amount ($5K per year) towards living expenses while I was in law school, which enabled me to graduate law school with only $50K in loans (everything else was covered by scholarships). The reason I am a high earner today, and have significant savings, is because of two things. One, the gift of an undergraduate education from my parents. Two, the gift of personal financial planning expertise from my parents, who worked hard to instill a good understanding of debt/student loans/retirement savings/etc. when I was young at a time it was not common for parents to do so.

   15. We had three kids in 4 years. All of them understood that we would provide about $28k each year per kid, which is what UCONN state tuition was at that time. Anything above that required merit aid or loans. We didn’t qualify for any significant student aid. All three went to schools that provided aid, we for the most part, we paid around $30k per year per kid. Granted, two didn’t go to the their first choice schools but that was a small sacrifice to pay for not graduating with student loans.

       We didn’t have any target college savings; we financed college out of current earnings. The last one graduated in 2022 and it’s great to have that extra cash now! Our HH income now is about $280k.

9. Any tips on managing anxiety on an airplane? I get hot and panicky on an airplane when there are delays, it takes to too long to takeoff or deplane, and when there are changes in plans. I have anti-anxiety meds for flights and usually take a half dose about an hour before the flight. I also cut back on caffeine for a day or two before and try to get exercise and good sleep before flying. I wasn’t always this way! I used to be carefree! But now, something about the enclosed space, lots of other people, and lack of control really triggers me – same thing happens to me on the subway. Anyway, I need to talk someone more in depth about managing my anxiety. In the meantime, what has helped you?

   1. i finally invested in good noise-cancelling headphones and the difference during travel has been remarkable. I’m not anxious about traveling EXCEPT about covid safety but even drowning out noise i didn’t realize I was hearing has made a huge difference. I can close my eyes and honestly not realize that I am basically touching strangers. A bonus is that you can better listen to meditative podcasts or other things to distract you.

      I got the Sony WH-1000XM5 Wireless Industry Leading Headphones with Auto Noise Canceling Optimizer because they were highly ranked. I adore them.

      I also had to, during covid, just reframe that travel sucks now. I used to love it and traveled weekly for work. Everything has changed. Flights are bumpier (thanks, climate change), people are ruder, flights are fuller and more likely to be delayed, there are sick people everywhere (honestly every flight sounds like a TB ward now, I am not exaggerating). Being really frank with myself and resetting expectations has increased my patience because I know going into it that the situation will suck.

      I mask, load up on good podcasts and books on my kindle, put on those noise canceling headphones, and wish for the best.

      1. the chutzpah of including ‘industry leading’ as part of your product name – I am speechless! No wait, I know what this reminds me of: it’s people telling me “I am uniquely qualified for the advertised position”!

         1. ha, i know! i pasted from amazon and was like ?? is this the product name!?!?1

      2. This, but also in the airports! I was wearing ear plugs on a recent flight and just didn’t take them out when I got off the plane and realized the experience was incredibly more comfortable turning down the noise. I definitely have sensory overload issues.

      3. The TB ward is what’s keeping me from flying right now.

         1. We’re only flying in real masks (and keeping the on the whole time) and that definitely lends a new layer of hellishness to the experience.

   2. I actually find I’m calmer if I didn’t get much sleep the night before. It’s like I’m too tired to care or be anxious. I strongly recommend early morning flights so you’ll be sleepy plus those flights are least likely to experience delays. Try to book a window seat far from the bathroom so you don’t have people jostling you as they walk down the aisle. I bring a hooded jacket and wear it cape-style with the hood pulled down over my eyes. It almost feels like I’m under a blanket. And of course download podcasts or engaging movies for a distraction. The second I get to my seat it’s hood and headphones on so I’m in my own little world.

      1. +1 Creating your “own little world” is the key to for me. I put a specific background music playlist on my noise cancelling headphones, get my beverage and some candy out and start a book I’m excited about. I’ve found if I curate enough of a ~vibe~ for myself I don’t even pay attention to what’s happening around me.

   3. I just commented with some tips for the plane. It also helps if I minimize anxiety on either end of the flight. That means making a detailed packing list a week or two beforehand, allowing more than enough time for traffic or a long security line, having my hotel info saved in my phone, never check a bag, and don’t schedule any activities at the destination within couple hours of my expected arrival time. When I do this I know everything will go according to plan once I’m on the plane, so I’m relaxed once I board.

   4. I’ve kind of trained myself to doze off during take off. I sit in a window seat and just relax and let the g-force of take off push me back into the seat. It’s sort of like a weighted blanket.

      Then again, I don’t have anxiety about flying, I rather enjoy take-offs and landings. It’s the bit up until the plane is in the air that makes me anxious!

   5. I have flight phobia which in the past was debilitating and kept me from flying for almost a decade. I used to be carefree as well! I completed the SOAR program for fearful flyers (created by Tom Bunn MSW LCSW a former commercial and naval pilot) — his book is helpful, and there are short videos and a free online Zoom on Wednesday evenings every week. The exercises helped me define my triggers and provided specific strategies for flying as well as everyday occurrences. Good luck to you!!

   6. I have a very similar reaction both to planes and subways and also used to be carefree. For me there was a specific trigger that created a lasting PTSD response. Is there anything like that for you? If so, therapy may help, although I could really use some more work on that.

      Listening to specific guided meditations helps me a lot. Specifically, I like Welzen’s anxiety series. I also take a beta blocker that I was prescribed for flying which calms down the physical response to the panic like sweating and racing heart.

   7. Take the full pill! Also cold water helps. Bring a water bottle and fill it post security.

      1. +1

         Totally

10. Do teens wear Old Navy or is that really Not Cool? I wear it but I remember how awful teens can be to each other re brands, especially budget-friendly brands.

    Signed,
    Was OK happy with my Toughskin jeans even though the cool kids wore Jordache, but did secretly long for a pair

    1. I don’t know about this specifically, but I’d get my kids a few brand name things to fit in. Nothing wrong with getting basics and most of your wardrobe elsewhere, but let hem have today’s jordache equivalent.

    2. one of my kids wears jeans and khackis from there (he has a dress code where he can’t wear sweats). I do think the athletic wear is not considered cool, my kids prefer the branded stuff (adidas, underarmor). I don’t think it’s the price point per se.

    3. I don’t think it’s the price point that matters so much as the brand. Plenty of fast fashion is at the same price point but from a cooler retailer.

    4. My daughter never did (she’s 18 now). when I suggested old navy even just for basics she’d say “you mean old lady?”

    5. I have 2 teen stepkids (and one tween). My understanding is that fashion/clothes choices are way more fragmented in this age group than they were in the 80s and 90s: there isn’t one cool brand that everyone has to have. One of them basically only buys from thrift stores, and the other buys mostly fast fashion but feels bad about it. The fast fashion is usually no-name brands from Amazon.

       That said, specific brand items that they value: Crocs, Converse All-Stars, and Doc Martens. Come to think of it, it makes sense these are all footwear since that is harder to buy second-hand.

       1. Agree. For name brands, shoes seem to matter. Jeans, not sure it’s as much of a thing as it was when we were growing up, thank goodness. Luxury athleisure brands like Lulu seem popular among a certain subset of girls. But honestly, I just don’t see as many overarching trends; kids tend to jump on micro trends that are specific to their personal style or social group.

    6. I’d ask the teen in question. It is SO highly dependent on the individual kid/where they live/if they have a dress code/etc. Among the teen girls in our area there is still a LOT of athleisure (lilly/lulu/athleta/nike) plus Love Shack Fancy style dresses for dressing up (rufflepuff but shorter essentially). The boys seem to care a whole lot less and still seem to be doing the athletic short with long socks thing plus the chinos/navy blue blazer/button down look if they’re in prep schools.

       1. Right. My daughter dressed in close to 100% secondhand clothing in high school and that was considered the coolest.

    7. Talk to your teen. In junior high my mom and I agreed on the jeans I really wanted and that the rest of my wardrobe could come from wherever she wanted. When I got older she gave me a shopping allowance.

    8. I wore a lot of it in high school (10-15 years ago) but a) that’s mostly what was in my family’s budget. Most kids I went to high school with came from very wealthy families, so I’d never be able to fit in brand-wise anyways and b) we had a school uniform, so luckily only my friends were seeing me in my weekend clothes, so it didn’t matter

    9. The sizing has gotten all weird and it’s not really shaped to fit teens the way it was 20+ years ago. The current teen fast fashion equivalents are Hollister and AE, plus Altar’d State for dresses.

    10. Honestly I think Old Navy jeans are fine esp since jeans are so much less of a thing now than in the 80s and 90s. Old Navy jeans have the benefit on no brand markings so it isn’t clear what you’re wearing unlike the days of Guess, Jordache and all. I feel like kids and even adults don’t wear jeans anymore as everyone has decided they want sweatpants all the time. If you wear jeans, people already see you as a bit dressed up – which I always find laughable.

        I’d buy my kid ON jeans due to lack of brand markings but not t shirts or anything else like that that screams the name of the company because personally I wouldn’t want to advertise budget brand. YMMV but I can see it being a target for commentary in my UMC east coast suburban schools. Plus the shirts there are really thin and cheap material – not worth the money as they barely standing up to washing.

    11. I am so glad I had a uniform growing up and that my kids wear a uniform. I honestly wish more schools would implement either uniforms or no-logo rules to limit competition over clothing.

11. Our family is trying hard to curb spending — we had a great summer so far with lots of travel, but are focusing on using what we have, eating at home, cheap/free activities, etc. for the foreseeable future. However, we have three kids (ages 8, 10 and 13) and they have to eat and be clothed :) I’m minimizing back to school shopping but will need to buy a handful of new items. Let’s assume for a moment that I will not be able to locate these at thrift stores, although I do patrol them regularly:

    – Best place to get good prices on (adult size) Nike sneakers?
    – Dri-fit boys’ tops that last?
    – Kids’ and/or adult socks that last but don’t break the bank?

    Would love your tips! And yes: I know some of you will say “Your kids don’t need Nikes if you’re really trying to save money.” This I know — just looking for intel. Thanks!

    (Will also x-post to the Moms’ page, but my two eldest wear adult-size shoes so…)

    1. i think the kohls dri tops (i think the brand is tekk or tech) are very good. there quality is quite good imo.

       1. Kohls might also have Nikes for less than the Nike store. I’m not sure about this – I get ASICS from Kohls and they are often cheaper. They also carry Lands End, but that brand is cheaper in the Lands End site.

       2. Agree. My DS actually prefers those TekGear shirts to his Nike and UA tops.

          Do you have outlet stores nearby? That can help a lot with reducing clothing costs.

    2. I’d check poshmark, there’s tons on there including kids clothes.

       1. +1, also local garage sale sites for handmedown athletic wear. I’ve been able to get bags of boys athletic clothes for $2-5 per item, even in larger sizes, in good condition as the kids grow so fast at this age.

    3. Gap for kids socks is still our preference. Nike directly for sneakers – they often run sales that they won’t offer to other stores and then google for Dri-fit boys tops once you know the brand they like. There are so many smaller online retailers that will often have lucky sizes/colors. I also set alerts for sales and time my shopping for the back to school sales around labor day.

    4. For the dri-fit tops, do you have room to hang them dry? I air-dry our family’s athletic wear and that really seems to prolong its life, even the less expensive stuff from target, etc.

       1. Yes! I do. But the kids grow :)

          1. Which is why I’m a little confused by “long lasting” and kids stuff. Kids stuff doesn’t need to be super long lasting since they grow. At least for me, “long lasting” means clothes that will hold up for at least 4-5 years of regular wear.

             Even buying the cheapest, most poorly made stuff, clothes last at least 2 full years for me. And, I’m hard on my things in general and don’t do any special washing or drying for my clothes (everything gets thrown in the washer together on the same cycle and then all thrown in the dryer).

          2. Yes, of course. But my now 6-yr old boy is wearing shirts that were huge on him two years ago and fit him now. And some clothes could be hand-me-downs to the littler ones if they’re still in good shape. My son wears gender-neutral hand-me-downs from his older sister.

             1. Yeah I mean long-lasting so that they go 2+ years on one kid + are appropriate to hand down.

    5. Marshalls and TJ Maxx for the shirts and socks. I find Nike/Adidas/Champion shirts, shorts and socks there for my size 14-16 son all the time. If they’re too big I buy them and tuck them away for next season.

    6. Kohl’s and Target for clothes. Kohl’s carries Nike items but they don’t usually go on sale. You can also shop TJMaxx online – they have a bunch of kid’s stuff.
       Honestly the best socks I ever bought were from Aldi.

    7. I went the whatever kohls has on sale with the 30% coupons. if they wanted higher end sneakers that was a “find a household job” problem for them. my kids sneakers lasted 6 months tops, they just ground through them and i was unwilling to fork over big $ on them.
       perhaps look at last years cool nikes on zappos site?
       socks were whatever was on sale in a 12 pack for each kid, often hanes brand. they just beat the daylights out of everything as athletes, it did not matter the cost.

    8. I don’t belong to Costco, so I cannot comment but I have heard that people really like Kirkland socks. I just buy bulk packs of socks for myself on Amazon (no name brand) or Hanes at Target or Walmart. Socks have always lasted years. If you need good athletic socks, I like buying Saucony multipacks on Amazon. I think it’s 8 pairs for $16.

       I love Old Navy athletic clothes, so I would check there for Dri-fit tops. I’ve also had success buying athletic clothes at TJ Maxx or Marshalls. Several tops I’ve bought from all of those places have lasted over 3-4 years (and are still going strong) with weekly wear and washing. I also have had really good luck with Walmart athletic clothes. One of my favorite workout tops is from there, I bought it two years ago (for $8!) and it’s in the weekly rotation and is holding up great.

       I’d check DSW for Nikes. That’s where I buy my (non-Nike) running shoes and they’re always cheaper there than other places. I’d also check Walmart.

       1. I was going to recommend Costco for socks too. I’ve only bought socks from there since high school, and only have white or black pairs, so when I lose a sock, I save it and eventually will be able to pair up with a future single sock. Specifically, for women’s socks, I recommend the K.Bell brand no-show socks.

       2. Late, but I was also going to say Costco socks. DH bought a mega pack as an 18 year old leaving his parents’ house and they are still going strong well over a decade later. (And that’s with the addition in the last few years of a sock-stealing Labrador!)

    9. Costco is great for socks and basic Ts.

    10. Is there a Nike outlet near you?

12. Not fashion, but this made me wish I had gone to a summer camp as a kid where you got to sail.

    Rescue by the Dutch East India Company:

    http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2023/05/09/when-the-1700s-come-to-the-rescue/

    1. That is incredibly cool!

    2. I wish someone had been able to get a drone shot of the three masted ship towing the little sailboat, that would have been amazing!

       If you like that kind of ship, Classic Sailing does a bunch of voyages with tall ships. I did a voyage they partnered with North Sailing on and it was incredible.

13. Since there are newbie slow runner running coaches and cooking schools and adult bike lessons, is there anything like this:

    Orchestra for adults of no particular ambition where all pieces are easy and largely in G major or at least in first position (for violin players who loved group playing but your school budget didn’t pass and you didn’t have lessons past 5th grade)? I can play my old books and don’t really want to get better. I just want to play. I can do wedding songs and hymns and Christmas carols also.

    1. It’s not very common, but one of these has started in my city (Denver Adult Strings Camp). It’s seasonal and the format changes from time to time with different playing levels and group sizes. I have been doing it for several years and it’s a ton of fun. I am really hoping this concept spreads to other cities.

    2. I see a lot more opportunities for adults to participate in choral music than in orchestral music. Have you considered joining a volunteer choir? Church choir is an obvious choice, but there are several volunteer community choral groups in our area as well that are not auditioned and take beginners. They tend to put on two or three concerts per year with hired soloists, sometimes several instruments, and pretty decent repertoire.

       1. Me singing is not making a joyful noise unto the lord.

          1. LOL. Love this.

    3. Check and see if your community has an adult community band or orchestra. They may play above the level you mentioned, but they may have knowledge/connections for organizations that do.

    4. My friend joined the city orchestra several years ago and has become quite proficient now. Her prior experience was being a middling violinist in high school orchestra. Go for it!

    5. I think one of the music schools in Northern Virginia near me does something like this.

14. Last week’s discussion re: the need to add salt/electrolytes to your water if you are drinking a lot of water has me thinking. I drink A LOT of plain water all day and probably need to pee about once an hour- all good. The hydration helps with low blood pressure, and keeps me from having small dizzy spells or major vertigo. I don’t add anything and can’t drink gatorade/powerade/water with powder or tablets added without serious gagging.

    Two questions for those recommending making sure the poster was adding gatorade etc to their routine: I am a non-athlete – I walk, do pilates, a little light weight training and yoga – rarely break a sweat. Would your advice apply to me? And, if so, does that Electroyte water Jennifer Anniston is a spokesperson for have the same effect?

    The entire post had me realizing I drink basically four things: plain water, tea, wine on weekends, and a mocktail of lime lacroix with some pure cherry concentrate or pure cranberry juice in it . Almost never ever ever anything else.

    1. I’m guessing it depends on how well your body hangs on to electrolytes and how many you are getting in meals/snacks? A lot of people with blood pressure crave salt and salty foods, so it could be you are getting plenty from food! Healthy foods are generally pretty high in potassium. Magnesium has always been the hardest one for me (even just to hit my RDA).

    2. No, I would not worry about electrolyte replacement with the activity you’re describing. Generally electrolyte replacement isn’t necessary except for high-intensity exercise where you are becoming dehydrated; we do worry about hyponatremia with very high levels of water consumption but that’s beyond what you’re describing.

       If you’re going for long walks in high heat and you’re finding you feel really wiped out afterwards – exhausted, irritable, desperate to eat salt – that can be a sign that you are low in electrolyte. But it’s not necessary for all types of exercise and in all conditions.

    3. It sounds like it works for you so I wouldn’t change it. Humans are meant to drink water.

    4. Only if you also don’t eat.

       1. +1. Most of us get our electrolytes via fruit, salt, and other parts of our diet.

    5. If you’re a non athlete, what you’re currently drinking is absolutely fine. Gatorade and other similar electrolyte replenishments are for intense activity – I only bring electrolyte drinks when I’m going on intense hikes on hot days with high humidity, otherwise on my usual hiking days I just drink good plain ol water. And even then I dilute the electrolyte drinks with water.

    6. If you’re not sweating a ton, you’re probably fine as is. I’m the poster who asked about refueling after hard workouts and after that post, have tried Nuun tablets. I actually could tell a difference. But, I am a heavy sweater and also do workouts that leave me drenched in the summer.

    7. You’re probably fine without if you aren’t sweating much. I only feel like I need powerade/gatorade (or salty snacks) when I am outside in the summer in the South and drenched in sweat. In the winter, I’m fine with just water.

    8. I don’t think you do. IMO, that commenter was overblowing the need for adding salt or electrolytes into post-workout recovery.

       So, I workout intensely about 6 hours a week and I, like you, pretty much only drink water, coffee, and alcohol. I will only do an electrolyte drink if I”m doing an intense workout for over an hour and am sweating a fair amount. So, this weekend I did a 7 mile trail run with some decent elevation in weather that was mid 80sF with about 75% humidity. I drank about 6 oz of gatorade after that. For normal workouts (3-4 mile runs, 45 min lifts in the gym, yoga) I don’t (though I do drink a chocolate milk after lifting).

       I eat a really balanced diet and so I am getting most of my electrolyte replacement via foods. I know I eat salt pre and post-workout so I don’t worry about salts. I have lots of fruit, which has lots of the minerals we’re supposed to replace. My dietician doesn’t see the need for me to add electrolyte drinks to my diet.

       I drink 60-80oz of water on non-workout or light workout days and easily 100oz on harder workout days. I ensure I’m hydrating with water pre, during, and post-workout.

       For the level of workout you do, I think you’re totally fine to skip the electrolytes or salt. Also, it sounds like your hydration is working for you; you’re enjoying your water as it is and your level of hydration is helping you manage your blood pressure and vertigo. However, if you are curious you could definitely bring this question up with your doctor.

    9. Yes, I would drink more salts.
       You know you have low blood pressure. Salt can help maintain your blood pressure.
       You are drinking so much plain water you pee every hour. That is a lot. Too much plain water!
       And since you are just peeing it out fast, obviously it is not helping your blood pressure so much. It only helps maintain your blood pressure if it is in your body! A little salt helps you hold it inside longer.

       You could try diluting powerade zero by 1/2, and you’ll get used to it over time.
       Or add more salty nuts to your diet.
       There’s an electrolyte powder from Costco that isn’t bad. I think a tangerine flavor… Liquid IV? Get it on sale.

       At least use more salt when you are exercising. You may realize you crave the salt/like it better when you are exercising than if you randomly try to drink it during the day.
       I bet it will help your blood pressure.

    10. Our water intake sounds a lot alike. I’ve consumed a lot of water daily for as long as I can remember because I’m just that thirsty. I generally work out once a day and am a sweaty mess. Whenever I see a new PCP, I tell the doc about how much water I drink per day in ounces. The doc always looks shocked. And then my blood tests look great. I also feel fine. I think as long as my numbers look good and I feel good, then the water intake must be what my body needs.

        1. Remember…. be careful as you get older. Your body will not always be able to handle that much plain water.

15. We are having a lot of work done on our place that includes changing out all the doors in our closets and elsewhere. How in the world does one prepare for that when you’re already moved in? No extra space for storage like a basement, attic or garage so everything basically stays or has to be moved out to a storage rental.

    Also painting so already moving existing furniture to middle of the rooms. Any tips or advice? Will obviously try to get rid of as much as possible but then what? The plan is to not be here for all this mess so just moving from room to room would only work if we delegated to the contractors.

    1. Do you have to remove everything from the closets? Anything in boxes or bins I’d leave. If they’re shallow closets and you’re worried about dust, get a few of those rolling clothes racks. You can donate them when you’re done – DV shelters and places like Dress for Success may need them. Otherwise I’d get some plastic drop cloths from the hardware store and drape them over your clothes.

       For furniture – a moving company could take care of all that.

    2. We did this after being in our home for 4 years. We have a storage rental facility near by. It’s $110/month. I don’t love paying the bill but DH and I agreed we’d keep it for not more than a year and every single box / thing that goes out gets scrutinized on the way back in. Didn’t miss it during the year? Toss/donate/recycle…gone. We rented a truck from local Home Depot for pennies for about 2 hours to get it all in to storage in one swoop. Basically, put everything in the driveway, rent the truck (rented by the HR), load it, unload it and return it. I think it was less than $50 for the whole rental.

       BTW, changing all doors/door frames was a way larger project than I anticipated. They had to touch up walls, floors (sand and fill in where old door frames did not align with new). I’m on the other side and insanely happy we did it. For the other work in general, move as much as you can for the contractors. The less moving and the more space you give them, the faster they can work.

    3. are you replacing your shelving or just literally the doors? If just the doors I’d get an army of cheap storage bags to protect against sawdust but leave everything where it is…

    4. We brought a PODS unit to the driveway and used that when our entire second floor had to be emptied out for new floors, woodwork, doors, etc. We left it in our driveway for the duration. We did not appreciate that the heat would warp a few lampshades, but replacing them was far cheaper than having it moved to a air conditioned warehouse for several months.

    5. When we updated our doors we did nothing special to prepare. You should be able to leave everything where it is assuming that none of the doors are obstructed. For messy construction work I had poles with plastic sheeting to section off areas of the house.

    6. When the work is done and you are removing the plastic/dusting everything etc., wear a mask. You won’t realize how much particulate matter is in the air, but it is enough to cause many people problems.

16. Have we done a substack recommendations thread yet? Who are you subscribed to, and who would you recommend? I am loving the Fug Girls substack and I think they’re providing a ton of content well worth the charge, frankly I’d be fine paying $10/month vs. the $5. I will likely sign up for Kim Frances’ as well. Imho the old school bloggers that are used to the content schedule are my favorites as I prefer 2-3 posts a week if I’m paying for content. I like Anne Helen Peterson’s and Amy Odell’s too but they post closer to weekly/every other week.

    1. Kim France’s is still free, which is lovely.

       1. And just as I commented, I went to see hers today and she’s switching to paid. Totally worth it, in my view, I love her content.

          1. I think the website / blog is back though?

    2. The Unpublishable! She’s on leave for July (with guest posts) so look at older articles by the regular author, Jessica DeFino, to judge. Criticism of beauty culture and products by a beauty editor.

    3. I like Downtime (formerly Girls Night Out). Her weekly post is generally free but I subscribed to support and access the other posts

    4. Are these $5 per creator, per month? That could add up fast…

       1. In my experience, yes. It’s kind of frustrating but I also want to make sure my favorite writers get paid so I am very selective about which ones I pay for.

          My favorites:
          Downtime (I’m iffy on it lately though)
          Fug Girls
          R. Eric Thomas
          Jess Graves (also iffy on it lately….we have wildly different price points for things)

    5. Old person here; what exactly is substack? Is this the new blogs? I used to love reading blogs but there are so few now, so maybe I need to get on board with this?

       1. Basically new blogs, but newsletter format.

          Love Anne Helen Petersons and Burnt Toast. Both have free articles.

17. Egypt travel question:
    A few weeks ago (I think) someone posted about their trip to Egypt and how they had a guide and driver the whole time they were in country. How did you find those people and were you happy with them?
    I am planning a trip to Egypt with my active mother who is in her 60s sometime in the next year or so. We are planning to take a Nile cruise and spend some additional time, probably two weeks-ish total.

    1. We did this trip in 2008 (DH and I). Your cruise may include a driver/guide for those locations. Ours included a guide in each language and we happened to literally be the only people on the boat who spoke English so we ended up with a private tour everywhere, lol.

       We also spent time in Sharm el Sheikh (wanted to snorkel in the Red Sea and climb Mt Sinai) and our resort helped us make those arrangements.

       We spent 4 days in Cairo and did not use a guide but were very well prepared for the realities of Cairo thanks to a colleague who grew up there. I cannot recommend staying on Zamalek (island in the middle of the Nile) enough – felt like a peaceful expat oasis after the hustle of touring.

    2. It’s best to hire through the hotels or cruises. We went a few years ago and you’re mobbed with unofficial freelance guides and drivers everywhere you go – unless you’re already spoken for. Your guide will be a barrier between you and every dodgy process and bribe, so arrange ahead of time for guide and transportation at every leg, and tip them and the driver.
       Also, get a ton of small bills because every person you interact with will need to be tipped. I would say, don’t fight it. Just set a budget that includes daily housekeeping tipping, driver and guide, and for some locations to require a second guide who also needs to be tipped. Someone touches your bags, you tip them.

    3. I found my guides in different ways, and each one came with their own driver(s). The only one I can recommend highly is Aswan Individual. The guide was great, and it was very easy to communicate with the owners of the company to plan my trip. I found this company through the Moon guidebook to Egypt.
       Otherwise: I found the Luxor guide company through my accommodation. They were fine but overpriced, although to be fair I could have bargained the price down better. I found the Cairo guide through an online search. They were fine, fairly priced, and I used them for just one day. I would not necessarily use them again because there are so many other choices.

18. My husband and I are considering a trip to Seattle, the San Juan Islands, and Vancouver next early fall. Would it be realistic to do 2-3 days in Seattle (will be a mix of sightseeing and visiting with family), 3 days in the San Juan Islands, and 3 days in Vancouver? We’d likely rent a car. Also would appreciate lodging recommendations for the Islands and Vancouver. We want hike, eat, and see whales.

    1. I think the answer is technically yes, but it took me a while to realize that you lose so much time changing locations that your three days quickly becomes 1.5 in each spot.

       1. Yeah, haven’t done this exact itinerary, but agree with the downside of moving around – allow time for re-packing, traveling, re-settling in how you budget your time.

       2. Agree. The San Juan Islands are one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever visited, but it’s 90 minutes from Seattle just to get to the ferry, and then the ferry itself is a couple hours. If that’s your priority destination, I’d consider skipping either Seattle or Vancouver. For hotels, we’ve liked the Sutton Place Hotel in Vancouver and Roche Harbor Resort on San Juan Island.

          1. I would consider the beautiful ferry ride part of the trip, personally. I think OP’s itinerary seems fine. I’ve never spent more than a couple of days in any of these places (and have visited them all) and had a great time.

          2. Seattleite here—totally agree about the ferry service**.

             For that time of the year, likely Ocras Island or San Juan Island would be your best bets with things still open in the off season. Lopez Island will be very bare bones of stores/restaurants open but still of awesome hikes and cold beaches.

             **Maybe it’ll be easier with less demand (but also fewer sailings) in Sept/Oct, but WSDot has been short staffed and the ferries themselves are old / often have mechanical issues—which has resulted in a lot of ferry issues for awhile now: delayed sailings and unexpectedly cancelled sailings. Also if you want to drive on, the 90% of the spots on a ferry are for reservations, which are released two months, two weeks, and two days in advance. And you must check in an hour before your sailing or you would be knocked to the standby list (for 10% of the spots)—and you sit in your parked car in line or walk around the parking lot/the cute little beach next to the ferry line. So coupled with the 90 minute (2 hours in traffic) drive from Seattle to the Anacortes Ferry Terminal, be prepared for a lot of time in the car/waiting. Download the wsdot app for real time sailing info. It’s much easier to be a walk on passenger but then you won’t be able to get around the island to explore.

             Other travel options: sea / float plane from Seattle to SJI.

             1. Seattleite again. Sorry for the was a wall of text above. But TLDR: the ferries can add a lot of stress to a great San Juans trip. Plan accordingly!

       3. +1. It depends how much you like moving around and packing/unpacking but we did a week split between Vancouver and Seattle last summer and felt like even that was kind of annoying. I would do Vancouver + the islands, or Vancouver Island plus the San Juans given your priorities. You don’t need to stay in the cities to hike or see whales.

          1. PS – look at where exactly you want to hike and plan around that. There’s a lot of options but they can be spread out.

19. What do you do when you have those days at work where you absolutely don’t want to work but do have things that you need to get done? Extreme Monday blues happening today and coffee didn’t help.

    1. Make a list of the 3-5 things I MUST get done today, take a little break after I accomplish each of them, and give myself permission to slack off the rest of the day once those are complete

       1. +1. I’m feeling off after a tough weekend and this is my plan.

20. Inspired by the net worth post above, what does lifestyle inflation mean to you? What have you done to avoid it and where have you given in and embraced it? Was there a certain income level where this changed for you?

    For this board, I’ve always been pretty low income so every time I get a raise I do engage in lifestyle inflation… because my income forces me to be pretty frugal. Like, I shop at Old Navy and get my nails done twice a year, go to Planet Fitness, get takeout maybe twice a year, and don’t dye my hair despite premature graying. In an ideal world, I”d mix in nicer purchases with Old Navy purchases, go to the LA Fitness instead of the Planet Fitness, get takeout on my way home on nights I work late, and improve my beauty routine so that I can get monthly pedicures in the summer and cover my grays. However, whenever I think about doing this I get stressed that I won’t be able to hit financial goals. While I”m sure plenty of commenters here have a similar lifestyle to me, I’m sure plenty go well above and beyond what my “elevated” lifestyle is and wouldn’t consider it inflation (for them I’m guessing it’s the $300/night hotel vs the $500/night hotel? Whereas I only travel to places where I can crash with friends).

    1. Most effective when it’s the “big rocks.” While this is obviously easier the more money you have, we drive an old used car (city street parking) and bought way less house than we qualified for (we purchased when we were both senior associates in Biglaw but knowing we both were headed in-house, and wanted a place we could comfortably afford on just one income if something happened). Mortgage and taxes each month are about 15% of our take-home HHI — after 401k, HSA, etc.

       We did allow for lifestyle inflation as far as frequency and quality of travel once we determined we weren’t having kids. That frees up a metric ton of cash!

       1. I could have written this exact same comment. The only addition I have on lifestyle inflation is I bought a horse, but I figure the fact we aren’t having kids kind of balances that out. I definitely notice the lifestyle inflation on my travel–we go to some of the same places, I just stay at a real hotel instead of the $80/night air b&b room in someone’s basement.

          1. Similar here. We don’t have kids (yet), are still renting, and drive two old cars. Have also avoided getting pets or cleaners, though both are tempting. However, we eat out whenever we feel like it and travel a lot, without making travel decisions on the basis of cost. I loosened the purse strings when market fluctuations began to have a much bigger impact than my spending/saving habits, somewhere between $800k-900k NW.

    2. Our biggest points of lifestyle inflation are private school and ~25-30hrs a week with our sitter. Plus our kiddo’s therapies and medications. I’d cut travel/clothing/extra spending to the bone before I dropped any of those three and they’re kind of intertwined. The private school is hands down the best decision for my kid given his personality and needs, the sitter makes it possible for our family to have flexibility and work the hours that our jobs require (and my job provides the healthcare we need). The therapies/meds for kiddo (and me tbh) are also non-negotiable for quality of living. We anticipate 5-6 more years for the sitter so we’ll refunnel that cash to college/retirement accounts at that point.

       1. I’ve noticed that the same medications keep costing me more as insurance ups the copays or even puts them into higher coverage tiers, or simply refuses to cover the ones I need because there’s a cheaper alternative which, however, doesn’t work for me. It is extremely worth it to get the right meds for my conditions, but it’s frustrating to spend so much on insurance and then end up using GoodRx anyway.

          I think our household must look very, very cheap to people who are making the same money but spending a lot less on health though!

          1. It is truly one of those ‘if you know you know’ things. My friends/family who are mostly healthy would probably be shocked at the amount of money our family (let’s be honest – me and my son) spends for healthcare/meds/PT/OT even with our very good insurance!

             1. I remember the first time I had a medical procedure after college and had to pay for it myself (still on parents’ insurance, but now footing the bill for expenses). I was shocked. I called my mom and was like wtf I thought we had good insurance? She was like we have excellent insurance, but medical stuff is still pricey!

             2. I think that’s another aspect of the “high net worth” that didn’t come up abovethread. If you have a chronic illness, or a kid with one, or a medical emergency early in your adulthood, that can knock you back pretty far.

    3. I think lifestyle inflation can always happen when it seems like a certain expense is totally normal and everyone does it, even though the same thing would have been a special occasion or reserved for high income people a few decades ago.
       Case and point: when I was growing up, going out to dinner was a special thing, maybe once a month. Now I’m trying to limit it to once per week but sometimes there are multiple gatherings and I don’t want to miss out.
       Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person who doesn’t have a housecleaner. And then there is the buying random items for a singular use, whether it’s themed decorations that you never use again, or elaborate outfits for a one time occasion, etc. Travel every month vs a few times per year.

    4. I’ve always saved a good chunk of what I earn, but I prioritized earning more and so did my husband because we enjoy nice things. So we still save a lot but spend freely because our income allows for it.

    5. I spent many years as a poor single mom before I went to law school (and eventually got married so added another income.) For me, the biggest “lifestyle creep” that is the most worth it for me is buying whatever I want at the grocery store and not having to track every purchase and buy the cheapest version of everything or go without some things.

    6. I posed above about saving a lot despite not making as much as most people here and I think it’s because I genuinely don’t enjoy spending on a lot of things. I also buy some clothes at Old Navy, never get takeout, never get my nails done, never dye my hair (though I only have a few grays), and exercise outside instead of at the gym. But I like my own cooking better than takeout or restaurants, don’t like strangers touching me, and like being outside. I don’t really like to travel, though I did a lot when I was younger and have lived in a lot of places, so don’t feel like I’m missing out in that regard. Our big one is that we spend a lot to live in a beautiful VHCOL area (where our jobs are), but in a small outdated condo, and don’t really care about the outdatedness. We had roommates for a long time, until we moved in together and then got married. I care a lot more about having savings and and freedom to do jobs we like (and to quit them if we need to) than an “elevated” lifestyle. I do think this makes it a lot easier to save because I don’t feel like I’m giving up as much. But if you do care about those things, then maybe you should either reframe it as a choice to value savings more or to try to earn more money so you can have them.

    7. Single, late twenties, no kids. My salary doubled a couple years ago. Things I upgraded include my rental apartment, the amount I’m willing to spend per clothing item, more frequent takeout, ubering instead of taking public transit at an inconvenient time, random treats like a coffee and pastry while I’m running errands, better wine and liquor (I drink less than I did in my early twenties a bottle lasts longer), splurgey groceries like avocado or seafood. Basically things that make my day to day life more enjoyable.

       I still paint my nails at home, do my own grocery shopping and errands in person, rarely get food delivered, work out at home, drive a non-flashy car, and spread out expensive or international travel. Before upgrading a habit I consider how much it will actually improve my life. Yes I could technically afford fancy salon shampoo but my hair looks pretty good with Pantene so why bother? For my birthday I treat myself to a splurge item that’s above my usual budget, like a $350 pair of fantastic shoes or beautiful purse.

    8. Working in local government has just resigned me to never having nice things. I’m not particularly fancy (happy to drive a Honda, happy with purses that only come from Target) but I definitely get bitter about how much I have to give up: travel, pursuing hobbies to the extent I’d like to, going out to eat and/or hosting friends over for dinner. It sucks!

       I’m an avid runner and cyclist. My Garmin watch broke last week. The model I’d like to replace it with is $300, which is not in the budget so now I”m just going without. Sure, I can run and bike without a fitness watch but it really enhances my experience when I can track on the watch. But, $300 is $300.

    9. A couple areas where I’ve noticed inflation but I haven’t done much to curb it: Going from a bottle of $5 grocery store wine to $15-$20 wine. I used to wait as long as possible before getting my highlights touched up (8 weeks//8 weeks plus plus in college) and now I’m trying to go every 6 weeks (I calculated it, and it’s 2 extra sessions per year). Getting a monthly pedicure (used to never get my nails done). Hotels and travel is a big one–we’ve definitely upgraded there, but I would rather go on fewer trips that are nicer than a bunch of smaller ones (and with PTO, that works better). These are all extravagances, but we chose to live in a more modest house, and we drive older, paid off cars that are easy/inexpensive to repair. Others choose a different approach. My friend just bought a house that’s double ours, and has an expensive vintage European sports car that costs an arm and a leg to repair, and only takes premium gas. But that couple is more frugal in other ways–she doesn’t wear any makeup/prefers the au natural look , they don’t eat out, etc. It’s just where you want to spend your money.

    10. 30, single, live alone, income is around 95K. I could afford two steps up in quality of apartment I rent (nicer appliances, fixtures, in unit laundry, and and a spare room) but my rents only gone up about $50/month since 2019. The location to the beach, park, public transit (I don’t drive) can’t really be beat. Life style creep for me would be paying the extra $200-300/mo that I could afford for the nicer apartment or condo in the same neighborhood. I won’t move until rent here really jumps.

        I have lifestyle creeped on take out, getting the fun versions of everyday things, supplemental or 2nd option for items I already have, and hobbies. Take out at least once or twice a week (my biggest spending area after rent and utilities), freely spending on supplies for specific hobby projects, ordering a bunch of fun smells from bath and body works once or twice a year, upgrading from a dirt devil vacuum to a Bissell, a new wool coat in a different color and style from the wool coat I already have etc…

        I’m a bit looser with ‘fun’ my spending in the last couple of years. I grew up with a parent that wouldn’t spend money on anything unless absolutely necessary, and they passed some of the baggage they have about money (inherited from my grandparents who were traumatized by the great depression, being a p.o.w, losing a business in bankruptcy etc). I’ve been trying to unlearn some of that penny pinching and stinginess.

21. Who’s right? DH squirts sunscreen directly onto the person he’s putting sunscreen on. He thinks it results in a more thorough application. I think it results in getting sunscreen all over my clothes (yes I do apply sunscreen before I get dressed, but I need to reapply during the day). I squirt sunscreen into my hand first and then rub it in. DH thinks I never put enough sunscreen on and I don’t apply it evenly. I disagree, his idea of “enough” is a greasy goopy mess that drips all over. Fwiw I’m far more prone to burning, DH maybe burns once at the beginning of summer and then won’t burn again even if he doesn’t use any sunscreen.

    1. You are.

    2. lol I could have written this post. I squirt into my hand first to coat my palms well and then spread it out. Less messy and feels less wasteful since it’s easy to wipe my hand on another patch of skin if there’s leftover sunscreen.

    3. I bought the ambre Solaire dry mist and it solved all my sunscreen problems. For my son, I put his sunscreen on when he’s in his underpants. Stand him on a towel and spray him down.

    4. Sunscreen gets squirted onto your hand, not your body. You’re right on that one. But the real answer is that your initial application should happen without clothes on. If you’re reapplying then you need to lift up your straps or seams, otherwise you’ll burn if your clothing shifts at all. So you might end up with sunscreen on part of your clothes anyway.

    5. This isn’t something where one person is right and the other is wrong, though. You have your preferred way and he has his…as long as the job gets done, does it really matter which one is right?

       1. +1 who cares as long as the person has sunscreen on?

    6. If you burn a lot, you’re probably not putting on enough sunscreen. That doesn’t mean that you need to make it a goopy mess or squirt it onto your body, but maybe use more. Maybe you’re both right?

    7. I can’t believe you posted sincerely that you think your husband puts on too much sunscreen but never burns, while you put on less and then do burn. Your answer is in your question.

       1. to be fair to the OP, she says he doesn’t burn even if he doesn’t use *any* sunscreen…

       2. We’re applying it to each other. So I put less on him and he never burns. He puts more on me and I burn anyway.

          But also we’re quite different skin types. He can go without sunscreen and not burn. I start my day looking like a glazed donut, reapply throughout the day, wear a big hat and long sleeves, and I still burn even through my clothes. UPF clothes help some.

          1. If you are burning based on his flawed application, I think you have the superior position and need to encourage him to apply the sunscreen in the correct manner. Obviously the placement on the hands first is correct and the sunscreen is just not effective when squirted directly onto the skin instead. Men are the worst. It seems obvious to me based on your experiences. You just need him to accept the facts but maybe he isn’t capable.

          2. I think you might need to find different sunscreen? I do far better and use a lot less sunscreen with mineral/physical barrier, if you aren’t already using that. I use Elta MD or Avene (the French formulation is better if you can find it). He and you might end up using different sunscreens, and that’s OK, your skin has different needs.

    8. You are both using sunscreen, so you’re both winning.

22. Any covid fatigue tips/advice?

    I’m 2.5 weeks into my first bout of Covid and am dealing with pretty extreme fatigue symptoms. I need to sleep 10+ hours a night, and nap a few times during the day. Luckily, I work from home and have been able to slink by at work, but it’s been hard. Anytime I ask the internet, I leave convinced I have long covid and will feel like this forever.

    1. Please ask your MD, but everything I’ve read about COVID fatigue says that you should sleep/rest as needed and that it does NOT improve if you push through it and start exercising too soon (there is some scientific/medical term for starting to exercise too soon, which I forget).

       Also may be worth identifying the long COVID clinic nearest you— usually at academic or large hospitals — so that you have a first step (register with them) if you decide that it has been going on too long.

    2. I had COVID for the first time in September last year. I had pretty bad fatigue and a few other lingering symptoms for 6-8 weeks. I made a full recovery and have had no longer-lasting symptoms. I ran a half marathon this spring with no issues.

       In my 6-8 weeks of long lasting fatigue I would literally come home from work, lie on the couch napping / resting for 2-3 hours and then get up and go to bed. That was all I had the energy to do. Physically, I got really tired just doing normal life (running errands, raking leaves, etc). I didn’t go to the gym for several weeks.

       1. Same here. I had it in May 2022 and was incredibly fatigued for weeks after my other symptoms resolved. It finally lifted after probably 6 weeks. I recommend being gentle with yourself and resting when you need to!

          1. Yep, me too. I had it in April 2022 and most symptoms resolved in days, but the fatigue lasted for 6 weeks. I am normally a very active person but was getting worn out going for a slow dog walk. This was also the case for my sister and husband. After 6 weeks I felt completely back to normal and haven’t had any long covid symptoms.

    3. If it doesn’t clear up soon, it may be worth seeing a doctor? Acute COVID infection can be hard on the body! They may want to check some simple things like vitamin levels (some people get depleted) and may want to consider the possibility of a new autoimmune condition (it’s not always long COVID! sometimes it’s a new onset autoimmune condition since COVID can trigger this kind of thing, but in that case, there may be existing treatments).

    4. Most people I know had fatigue for 2-4 weeks. The things that helped are Zyrtec-D and turmeric (sneak it into everything), but mostly just time. None of them have long Covid, it just takes some people a little longer to kick it.

    5. It took me about 3 ish weeks. I posted about it on here. There were times when I thought it was never going to get better, but then one day I just realized I’d been gradually been feeling better & now felt pretty normal. Hang in there!

       1. Same here. I got Covid for the first time at the end of June, and felt exhausted for a solid three weeks. About 3 weeks and a day after symptoms started, I woke up one day without the fatigue. I’m completely back to normal now. Hopefully that’s soon for you!

    6. don’t worry about this for another 3 weeks – if you still feel this fatigued then figure out next steps. Many of us had the post-viral fatigue you are experiencing and it did clear up, sharply for me and then gradually, until I felt like myself again about 6 weeks later.

       Rest and more rest, nutritious food, hydration, and start on a good vitamin regime if you aren’t already (long covid prevention vitamins include turmeric, a B-100 complex, d and zinc according to what i have read!).

    7. Thank you! This is super helpful, as always.

    8. Listen to your body and rest. I wouldn’t assume you have long Covid. Many people are fatigued for a few weeks and get better.
       And solidarity from someone who was also a Novid until 3 weeks ago. :/

    9. Super fatigued and it lasted about 3 weeks after I stopped testing positive. Think this is well within the range of normal with Covid

23. I just noticed for the first time (don’t ask me how, I’ve had it for years) that my air fryer (InstantVortex Mini) has roast and bake settings, as well as air fry. I’m quite intrigued by these. FWIW, I love food but hate hands on cooking. I’m always looking for ways to make easy and healthy meals that don’t taste like I took the shortcut to cook them.

    Does anyone have an airfyrer with other settings and if so, how has cooking with them been?

24. If you live someplace with no pantry and minimal kitchen cabinetry, where/how do you store potatoes?

    Had a gross discovery this morning of a grocery bag in which we had forgotten potatoes – IDK when we would’ve bought them but it was multiple months ago. I know potatoes need dark storage. In my parents house that meant a bin in the pantry and there was no such a thing as a forgotten potato as daily Indian food meant a daily potato vegetable with dinner. DH and I OTOH buy about 4 potatoes every month or other month. I don’t really want them sitting out in a bowl not to mention our kitchen fluorescent lights prob aren’t great for storage anyway.

    On a different note do we need to do any clean up? I threw out the gross bag, nothing had leaked out on the ground so I was done. DH is the worried type who is going on about potato gases, airborne mold, how we need to throw out the crates of sealed water bottles sitting next to that bag. FWIW the potatoes were in a grocery bag which we had torn a hole in to take a few out. That produce bag was in a double bagged brown paper grocery bag. So when I discovered this I just grabbed the doubled grocery bag and threw out the whole thing with its contents. As far as I’m concerned I’m done. Is that not accurate? Do we really need to get rid of a crate of water because it was next to it? Ran a mini HEPA that we have for a half hr before leaving for work due to DH freaking out.

    1. I don’t think you need to do any additional clean up or be worried about potato gases.

       1. If the potato gases were going to do you any harm, it would have happened already.

    2. I just buy potatoes as I need them? For example, I’m making German potato salad for my carb this week. So I bought 5 potatoes. I’ll use them all in the salad.

    3. No, potatoes aren’t a source of biohazard level contaminants. I don’t know why your husband would think you need to throw out sealed water bottles – he does realize that water bottles and most groceries get thrown on trucks and pallets and aren’t transported or stored in germ-free facilities, right? They might have even rode next to a moldy potato!

       My BF is a little germophobic, too, but even he isn’t freaked out by a moldy potato.

       My kitchen is also too warm for potatoes, so I keep them in a cardboard box in my dining area. I have a small apartment and no garage so there’s really no other place for them.

    4. Potato gases? I think you’re good.

       I personally just don’t store potatoes for more than a week or so, meaning that I usually don’t purchase in large quantities unless I’m feeding a group of people. We don’t have enough storage space for that.

    5. we forgot about potatoes for so long once that they’d practically turned into vodka. We did nothing other than throwing out the bag and doing a basic wipedown with household cleaners.

    6. I store mine in the crisper drawer of my fridge. I think it’s slightly colder than it needs to be, but I only have a too-warm kitchen and a too-chilly fridge space to choose from.
       Mold is everywhere around us, whether you have moldy fruit in the kitchen or not. A certain level is natural and not an issue for healthy adults.

    7. We have a clear plastic box with no top of uncertain origin that is about the size of a shoebox in which we keep potatoes, onions, and garlic. It sits at eye level inside the same closed cabinet as all of our breakfast cereals, spices, and some other things we use daily. Plus we use onions and garlic constantly. So if the potatoes are getting old, we tend to notice (they really stink). And the plastic contains any leakage.

       Re: cleanup – I would never throw out food just because it was near something rotten–it’s not radioactive! If/when we do have an issue I make sure the other food in the bin isn’t soft and rinse it off and then make sure it is dry before storing it again. Potatoes and onions grow in dirt after all.

    8. Oh wow, my partner has some odd hang ups on food storage / expiration, too. We use an Emile Henry large ceramic food storage container. It’s not bad to look at. Has a cork top where we keep the bananas.

    9. In the fridge. We had a similar issue like that a couple years ago. Had fruit flies everywhere. Couldn’t identify why. Finally found the potatoes in a pile of mush. Now we keep in the fridge. The last longer too.

    10. I had this exact same scenario about a forgotten potato bag. I didn’t know it until I investigated where all the fruit flies were coming from. I cleaned up, thew them away, and everything was fine!

    11. My grandparents had a farm growing up. The potato gas thing can be an issue when we’re talking industrial quantities of rotting potatoes. Like an entire pallet or truck load goes bad because it doesn’t get to market in time – then yes the farmers handling the potatoes can feel some temporary effects. That’s not an issue with FOUR potatoes. You’re fine if you’ve thrown out the potatoes and all bags they were in, which it sounds like you have. A HEPA and an open window for a half hour will clean any lingering smell. And no you don’t have to throw out things that were next to a bag of four rotting potatoes that were triple bagged! In my home if DH wanted to do any further unneeded clean up, he could do it himself – not make chores for me.

25. I wanted to ask yet again about tipping. I’m not one of the higher income people posting here. I went down a street in my area that has the proverbial butcher, baker, candlestick maker setup, and the only place that didn’t spin the iPad around with suggestions to add a 15,20,25% tip was the produce mart. Was I really supposed to tip at the bakery where I bought a baguette? Was I supposed to tip at the place where they put a pre-made sandwich into a bag for me?

    1. Neither of those IMHO. But I’m grumpy today because I was placing an online order for *dry goods* to be delivered, and was asked if I wanted to tip. Get off my lawn!

       1. Presumably the tip is for the delivery?

          1. No, they ship USPS.

       2. I bought a dog collar online recently and after I confirmed the order it prompted me to tip!!!! for a DOG COLLAR

    2. Just because they ask doesn’t mean you have to! I tip even in fast casual settings, so I would have done a small tip on the sandwich. Probably not picking up a baguette. But you can do whatever is comfortable for you.

    3. I live in the EU and reading about the tipping culture here always astonishes me. I recognize it’s a different culture and all, but I would have zero issues clicking 0%. ‘Invitation is not a summons’ and ‘just because I asked, doesn’t mean you have to say yes’ is how I feel.
       If they want to earn extra sales or extra salary, increase your prices and pay taxes and pay your employees fairly.

       1. I was honestly asking because the girl (and she was a girl, a teen) who put the sandwich into the bag for me watched me complete the iPad and scowled at me after I hit no tip.

          At the bakery I actually had to hit “other” and then leave $0 tip – there was no “no tip” option on the home screen!

          1. They can scowl all they want – life lesson for them right there.
             Bakery is gutsy :) I would still take those extra two clicks to get to 0%.
             I still stand behind the ‘if you need my tips, increase the prices’.

          2. She’s a teenager, you sure she’s not just scowling? I think you’re giving this way too much thought. Just don’t tip if you don’t want to.

    4. I press “no tip” a lot more these days, and I’m not ashamed.

    5. I ignore those machines.

    6. The only place I tip is for table service at a restaurant, and beauty services where the person providing the service did not set the prices (i.e. my hairstylist owns her own business so I do not tip her, but my nail tech is an employee of the salon so I tip her). I will sometimes toss a dollar in for coffee if I’ve gotten a latte/espresso drink because I used to be a barista. Tipping expectations are out of control.

       1. +1. This is exactly how I handle tipping. I press no tip on those tablets a lot.

    7. If no additional labor is involved (so the baguette), I don’t tip. For something with labor I do a minimal tip ($0.50 or $1 on a latte or bagel that they toasted and put cream cheese on).

       At restaurants, bars, and my hair salon I tip 20%. 25% if it’s my favorite bartender.

       I make 65k a year. I’d love to tip more but I can’t.

       1. Similar income, similar approach (except my stylist does an hourly pricing structure, not tips).

    8. I read somewhere that anyone who works the register is paid at least minimum wage, they are not dependent on tips. So if you want to, do it, if not, go blithely along your way.

       1. That’s a really good point.

       2. I don’t think this is true. And I’m certain there are a lot of employers out there not following all labor laws anyway. Not to mention, minimum wage is only $7.25!

          1. It’s a lot more, even double that or more, in many states.

          2. I mean, I don’t think “but some employers break the law” is a reason to tip or not.

          3. In California minimum wage is double that (and higher in many cities) and everyone including restaurant service staff makes at least minimum wage before tips.

          4. I’m in a $17 minimum wage area

       3. I think that really depends strongly on local minimum wage laws! The cashier in California makes at least $15.05, but the one in Georgia might be getting as little as $2.13 from their employer, with the expectation of tips topping it up.

       4. It’s supposed to be true. And lots of states have gotten rid of tipped minimum wage anyway: CA, OR, WA, MN, AK, MT, NV, maybe some others?

26. Has anyone tried Drmtology products (esp the needleless serum, tinted moisturizer, and night moisturizer) and can tell me whether they live up to the hype? I feel like I need to step up my skincare game with higher quality products and I am not interested in trying to mix and match a million products. I just need stuff that works well together and isn’t going to irritate my sensitive skin.

    1. I have their under eye patches which I enjoy.

       Feel free to upgrade your skincare if you want to but there’s no need to! Plenty of cheaper products work just as well as the fancy ones!

    2. yes! I really like the moisturizer — I like the regular one more than the physical spf one. I’ve been using it since April and recently reordered. it’s very light and has a peasant scent that’s very light. I have sensitive skin and it does not irritate it. I ordered the needless serum and the retinol recently; I like the serum fine (too soon to see if it’s working but no irritation from it) .The retinol gave me some dryness and redness but I do have very sensitive skin when I’ve tried retinol before.

27. I have been visiting my parents for 10 days and I was surprised by their apparent lack of communication. Or maybe by the lack of proper communication. They get snappy, argue about meaningless things (‘salt should be added before the meat goes into the pan’ vs ‘meat should hit the pan first’), and overall I have a feeling they don’t know how to communicate with each other anymore. Both running short on patience. They have been together for 40 years, not much new to talk about. Also, dad was on sick leave for 4 months recovering from surgery, but he’s back to work tomorrow, which should help as they will both have some ‘away-time’.
    While I love them both, it wasn’t pleasant at times and I really wonder how they exist when there is nobody around. And am really glad I am leaving tomorrow…
    No question here, just venting to the void.
    It’s just sad to see two adults being miserable with each other – when good comms would fix a lot.

    1. I wonder if they bicker this much when your dad is working. Especially if they haven’t always been this way. That said, I get how this is unpleasant. My ILs used to bicker like that, and I found it exhausting to be around.

    2. I think it might be generational. My parents definitely love each other and mostly like each other but they have tempers and communicate poorly so end up snapping about truly pointless things. I just don’t get it. But, it seems like my extended family and my parents friends mostly communicate this way with their spouses too.

       I could never be in a relationship like this but it seems common for them?

    3. If your dad just had surgery, I imagine he’s been in a lot of pain and your mom has been doing literal and figurative heavy lifting. So they probably ARE short on patience.
       And some couples just … bicker. My parents pick at each other sometimes and they’re on year 45. I either tune it out or say “ouch” in a lighthearted way if one says something mean.

    4. I don’t visit often or for long because of my parents bickering. My mother in particular goes from 0 to losing her mind in seconds. In fairness to her, while it looks to me like the yelling is coming out of nowhere really she’s been saying the same thing for umpteen years and is frustrated that she’s still not being heard. Doesn’t make it any less unpleasant to be around though.

    5. This dynamic has existed in my mother’s marriage to my stepfather for decades, and they actually don’t like each other at this point. I believe it also existed in my mother’s marriage to my father, as well, and that marriage obviously failed. Reading the post this morning about a disagreement between husband and wife about sunscreen gave me similar vibes, as do many other posts here, and I observe similar petty disputes among almost every married couple I’ve encounters. It makes me, as a person who never married, wonder if this interpersonal competition is as common as it seems. I find it deeply unsettling and it is honestly part of the reason I didn’t seek out marriage and, frankly, don’t enjoy spending time with a lot of married couples/people. I don’t get why people desire to undercut their partner so consistently over nothing and also seem to seek an audience for it.

    6. Yeah sounds like they just need a break from each other! Check back in in a couple weeks, and I bet the edge has worn off

    7. Your Mom has been caregiving for 4 months?
       Your Father has been unwell for 4 months?

       No wonder they are bickering! They both need a break.
       Hope you were visiting and helping throughout this period. 4 months is a long time and this is a big stressor on even the best relationships. And when it starts happening later in life it is a scary transition, and starts making you realize that life is starting to slow, become complicated by health issues and it is often a long, difficult road from there.

       Try to spend a little time alone talking with each of your parents. Even just a phone call, or a walk. Let them vent, talk about their fears. You may be reaching an age where your relationship with your parents may start to change/evolve.

    8. Ship them a copy of Salt, Fat, Acid Heat. And call them one on one to chat every so often. It’s hard when your partner is the source of your stress, either intentionally or unintentionally. They probably have pent up thoughts that they don’t want to express to each other so be a neutral person for them to vent to.

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