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Updated: May 28, 2021 330 Comments · by

Frugal Friday’s Workwear Report: Tie-Neck Sheath Dress

The Personal Shopper (TPS) | ·

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I saw someone wearing this dress recently, and let me tell you, it is a stunner.

I’ve had mixed results buying dresses from Amazon, but this is a really beautiful, classic-looking piece. It comes in a rainbow of colors, but I’m partial to this hunter green color.

I would wear this with a blazer and some gold earrings for a fabulous work outfit, but it would also be great without the blazer for after-work drinks. (Are we getting back to those yet?)

The dress is $29.99 at Amazon and comes in 15 colors in sizes S–XXL.

Sales of note for 9.10.24

Sales of note for 9.10.24

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About Elizabeth

Elizabeth is a 30-something lawyer living on the East Coast. She spent seven years as a Biglaw associate in NYC, three years as a partner at a medium-sized firm, and is now in-house counsel for a large company. She loves Diet Coke, '90s sitcoms, and dresses with pockets.

Comments

  1. Monday

    Thanks so much to everyone who responded yesterday with advice for a 13-year-old with NASA dreams! Last night, I handed her a printout of all the responses and said “they had some very specific advice, and sounds like it’s totally doable.” She said “that’s so cool!” and then as she started paging through the comments she said “…are there like, a lot of people on that site?”

    She’s impressed. Thanks again.

  2. anon

    I’ve asked for advice on getting rid of dark spots, and the consensus seemed to be to get a prescription retinol and/or get laser treatment. I’ve never been to a dermatologist, and I have no idea what lasers entail. Is this a simple procedure? Is there a recovery time? Wondering how to plan for this in light of returning to the office in the fall. I’m a medium skinned WOC, if that matters. I also want to get some small moles removed, but they are close to my eye and I don’t really want to go into work with a band aid on my face. Any experience with mole removal on your face?

    • Trixie

      I think you will have to go to a dermatologist who offers spa treatments as well as general derm to get good advice. I have had some laser treatments, but I am a pale skinned woman, and some have no recovery time, some have more. Moles? well worth doing, for health reasons as well as aesthetics, and maybe if you do it on a Friday you can skip the bandaid on Monday. But, people go to work with bandaids, so no big deal.

    • anon a mouse

      I had a large, prominent mole removed near my eye a number of years ago. Given its placement, I had the removal done by a local plastic surgeon who did it with consideration to minimal scarring. Because of my medical issues it took me several weeks for it to fully heal, and I had a large bandage on my face (including when I started a new job, that was awesome). But now about 10 years out there is no scar at all.

    • No Problem

      Make an appointment with a dermatologist who does laser treatments (most do), and tell them you want to do a skin check and also consult about getting rid of dark spots and maybe remove some moles on your face. The skin check is to check for cancer, and should be done every year. The derm will be able to tell you what will be best for your skin and the results you’re looking to achieve. They will also be able to give you a better estimate of recovery time, which may depend on your skin type and what exactly they need to do. If you decide to do laser treatments or mole removals, that could even be scheduled and completed and healed before you go back to the office.

    • Anon

      I’m also a medium toned WOC. Specifically ask about laser treatments and their particular effect on your skin tone. For some reason lots of doctors just assume women know the risk specific to their skin tone and don’t warn you – lasers can make dark spots worse or add additional scarring on WOC if it’s the wrong laser.

      I suggest visiting a Derm (and lbh a Derm with around your skin tone or darker if available) and ask about topicals to help fade first. I’ve used Fabior and prescription hydroquinone with success on extremely dark marks, and retinol and vitamin c regimen with weekly low concentration AHA peels at home (the kind meant for weekly application). For non-facial marks Mederma works wonders.

    • Cornellian

      I am not a doctor or a WOC, but my WOC friends seem very in to non-ablative treatments like SecretRF because they don’t carry the discoloration risks. In addition to talking to a doctor, if you check out the real self s*te you can see reviews from both doctors and patients, before and afters (sorted by your skin tone or skin concerns), and how many people thought the procedures were “worth it”.

    • Anon

      I would just search around for laser and see who does it and is highly reviewed in your area. I’d avoid “medi spa” type places and agree with others that you should go somewhere with a doctor on site. However, I will differ with others and say this doctor should be a plastic surgeon and not a dermatologist. I have had laser two different places and both were at plastic surgeon’s offices. I find them so much more open to concerns about appearance than my dermatologists have been.

    • Anonymous

      I get YAG laser once a year to clear all my brown age spots on my face, chest area and hands. Very simple office procedure. Sit in a chair, put on protective goggles, Dermatologist zaps each spot with the laser. Take about 15 minutes. In a week the brown spots crust over and fall off.

    • Anon

      If I were you I would go for a consultation first, and mention that you’d like those moles removed. They’ll walk you through everything. I have had moles removed from my face and it does not hurt. :)

  3. Monday

    (posting again to get through moderation)

    Thanks so much to everyone who responded yesterday with advice for a 13-year-old with NASA dreams! Last night, I handed her a printout of all the responses and said “they had some very specific advice, and sounds like it’s totally doable.” She said “that’s so cool!” and then as she started paging through the comments she said “…are there like, a lot of people on that s ! te?”

    She’s impressed. Thanks again.

    • Marie

      I am always impressed by the wide-ranging knowledge of this community when it comes together to provide advice on what seem like really obscure issues.

      • Monday

        I thought of that too! I went from knowing almost nothing to having lots of specific tips. We live somewhere far away from the NASA-feeding regions, so we might not have gotten this info any other way!

        • Duchess

          I work at NASA (but didn’t see your thread until this morning), and there aren’t “NASA-feeding regions” unless you count the US as a whole as a region, and even then, I know a lot of scientists that are European (as in actually French, English, Irish, … citizens). There are NASA centers of various sizes all over the US, so you are probably closer to a center than you realize. My background is electrical engineering, but even within my group, there are people with degrees in physics, aerospace engineering, computer science, and applied physics with HS degrees, bachelors, masters, and doctorates. Again, just in the group I work in, we have/had people with degrees from Maryland, Georgia Tech, Embry Riddle, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Penn State, MIT, Yale, Arizona State, CalTech, UCLA, and UT Chattanooga.

    • Anon

      I missed that thread but just took a look. Echoing others, she should absolutely go for it! It’s a dream job for many, but an attainable one. My parents both spent their careers at NASA, and even met there! They both started out educationally at community college, but of course that was a long time ago. And my mom was able to take a year off when her kids were born and return working part time, so there was some flexibility in the family sense. Also not everyone realizes it, but there are many different NASA centers doing all kinds of work, including in places like Cleveland.

    • AnonATL

      Love this. I will continue to plug Georgia Tech (my alma mater!). Not quite as flashy and competitive as Cal Tech and MIT for stem fields, but several top ranked engineering programs. I know loads of people who went on to work for Space X, Nasa, Lockheed, Boeing and other prestigious companies straight out of undergrad.

    • Anonymous

      Missed the post yesterday but that’s so great.

      Rocket Women is great site with a lot of resources. https://rocket-women.com/stem-resources/

      I’ve also heard ‘Diary of an Apprentice Astronaut’ by Italian astronaut Samantha Cristofretti is a good book.

      And if she’s on social media – she should follow Bethany Downer (BethanyAstro on Twitter). She’s like 25 and the chief communications officer for the Hubble Telescope and tweets all kinds of cool space stuff. If Bethany can attend grad school at the International Space University in France and end up at Hubble when she started in my teensy Canadian province, I’m sure your 13 year old can go far as well.

      • Anon

        Along those lines you may also want to check out Girls Inc, Million Girls Moonshot, and there are likely other similar projects. She should also seriously consider participating in FIRST Robotics if she’s not already – if her school doesn’t have a team she can start one.

      • Notinlaw

        Space is great! NASA has a lot of opportunities beyond being a astronaut, such as the space telecopes, space probes, satellite refueling research, earth observation satellites in cooperation with other USG organizations.

        There are so many interesting opportunities in addition to working for NASA. Mention to her the satellite and launch industries are experiencing a renaissance right now. Satellites are used for a diverse range of purposes. A lot of them are manufactured in the US, and a lot of satellite companies have significant U.S. operations.

  4. Vitamin C

    Recommendations for a Vitamin C serum? Have been using Paula’s Choice and it’s perfectly fine, but wondered if there are any other favorites. TIA!

  5. Anom

    Based on this being a dress from Amazon that’s really inexpensive (and kind of va-voom-y), isn’t this guaranteed to be made under questionable labor and environmental practices and unlikely to be much like the photo?

  6. Cora

    This is a dark under eye circle PSA – I’ve had them forever and always thought they were genetic. My skin is pretty good so I don’t use many skin care products, but the combination of cerave retinol serum and nature republic greek yogurt mask has literally completely gotten rid of them. I guess its the retinol + niacinamide. It’s been a happy accidental discovery for me.

    • LemCO

      Super excited to check this out! Which Cerave serum did you use? I see there are a few.

      • Cora

        Cerave Skin Renewing Retinol Serum. I’ve been using it a few times a week for at least 3 months now, and it definitely made a difference on its own, but this greek yogurt mask brought it over the finish line. One note – the yogurt mask says you can leave it on overnight, and you can, but it depends on how sensitive your skin is.

  7. Apartment Compromise

    What advice would you give an apartment-hunting couple with different housing priorities? For example, one person would prefer an older, less aesthetically-pleasing 2-bedroom, whereas the other person would prefer a recently renovated 1-bedroom. Or, one person would forego off-street parking to live in a highly walkable neighborhood near public transportation, whereas the other person prefers a quieter neighborhood with access to off-street parking.

    Adding to the stress is that we live in a competitive rental market in a HCOL city. Places go quickly, so there is rarely time to “think it over for a couple days” or do a lot of comparison shopping.

    • anon

      You both have to get on the same page about what is essential vs. what you’re willing to compromise on. Your wish lists seem incompatible, TBH.

    • Cat

      I think you need to get into the reasons for the different preferences.

      Like – is a 2BR more desirable to Person A because they’ll be working from home permanently? Because they want to host guests? Because of resale potential? Because of potential future kid or resident relative?

      Why the parking concern? Does Person B drive often?

    • white pants

      This seems impossible.

      And if you aren’t married, makes we wonder if you are too different to be moving in together…..

    • Anon

      Pick one top priority each and see if that meshes into something you can actually find. How dug in are each of you? Is the preference strong or just a toss up? My husband prefers a new, sleek modern space. Not an option where we are so he’s happily living with me in an older home, and when push came to shove, he cared but nothing that much. Helped to sort out the nice to haves v must haves/deal breakers (and for both of us to stay a bit flexible).

    • Anonymous

      Ignore if I’m wrong, but I’m assuming that a recently renovated 2-bedroom would be too expensive?

      In that case – one of the questions would be how are the two people looking at potential work? Will person 2-bed be able, capable, willing – AND LIKELY – to do a lot of work like basic things like changing flooring, doing the ground work and paint?

      Are any of you handy at all? If person 1-bed in reality do not want to do work (either because of inclination, aptitude or imagination) and wanting to compromise? Is there a difference in terms of what part of a larger is apartment needs work? Is it okay to do up the bedrooms, but an older bathroom or kitchen no go? Try and find out which bits about the older but bigger place which is the stumbling block. And be realistic about the budget. Would you have money to do kitchen or bathroom within a reasonable amount of time?

      More space and an extra room would be highly desirable in my mind, but not at the cost of living too far from public transport, and not if the reality is that nobody will ever have the skills or money to make the place what you want.

  8. anon

    Looks like the weather in DC this holiday weekend is going to be awful. Any suggestions for nearby day trips? No kids but feel free to leave family-friendly options in case others may find that useful!

    • Flats Only

      Since we have no kids and are fully vaxxed, and as of today VA has lifted all capacity and distancing restrictions, I am thinking we might return to a pre-COVID tradition of whiling away a dreary weekend afternoon on a barstool.

  9. anon

    Help me figure out my life! I am trying to decide whether or not to attend a family wedding in June in California. I would have to fly with my young, unvaccinated kids and DH and I are vaccinated. The wedding will be about 200 people, including many unvaccinated kids, at an indoor/outdoor venue. It is an Indian wedding with lots of moving parts and people can come and go as they please. We have been pretty much locked down in our city, except the kids recently started to go to school in person. I would have never considered attending this wedding or even flying…but…I don’t know..I miss my family and weddings are so fun. Is this crazy?!

    • Anonymous

      Personally would not attend. No one will be wearing masks and too many unvaccinated people.

      • anonymous

        That’s my thought. With that many people, you have no idea who all will be vaccinated. I’m Indian, but I’ve never been a fan of those giant weddings. I wouldn’t fly to one unless it was for a very close family member.

    • AFT

      Is it an option to leave your kids at home with a trusted sitter? The answer may be “no” and I understand – young kids are a big part of our family traditions. I think it’s relatively low risk for you and your spouse to travel and see people at the wedding as you’re vaccinated, low-moderate risk (but one a lot of people are taking) to travel with kids, and moderate risk to have the kids at the wedding but take precautions (hand washing and having them masked). I think reasonable minds could differ as to whether it’s worth taking that risk because of family/wanting to return to normal – I know a lot of people who took spring breaks without the added benefit of seeing family that you haven’t seen in a long time. No right answer and I hate having to do this math for everything.

      • Anonymous

        I would go without the kids. It’s not fair to them if they end up ill, esp with a long-term health consequence. Part of being a parent is sometimes making the tough calls to put them first.

    • Anonymous

      If both adults are fully vaccinated, they could go. Kids stay home with relatives/sitter which is much lower risk to them than attending a 200 person wedding.

      • A.

        Yep, this. Husband and I have three young kids and we’re leaving them at home with relatives to attend the wedding of a good friend that’s a plane ride away. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was delighted at the excuse to use this as an adults’ trip.

        • Anokha

          + 1. We are planning on not taking our unvaccinated kids to a fall wedding that involves travel. (DH and I are both fully vaccinated).

    • Anon

      Kids are literally more likely to die in an accident going to the event than they are to die from getting COVID at the event.

      • Anon

        No parent wants their child to be the statistical outlier because they knowingly exposed their child to a serious illness for fun. Not to mention the still not fully understood autoimmune and POTS-like symptoms occurring in a lot of kids. Are you willing to risk giving your kid a lifelong illness to go to a wedding, if so, I feel very sorry for them? Chill out, she should leave them at home.

        • Anon

          I don’t insult your parenting so please do not insult mine. My husband and I are thoughtful about balancing risk versus experience for our kid. He’s a Ph.D. social scientist; I have a pile of degrees, including one in engineering. We deep-dive the data and decide what is worth the risk and what is not worth the risk to us.

          • Anon

            “None of this data is about long COVID at all?”
            Yeah, because I looked for actual data – not anecdata – about it, and you know what? There isn’t any. There are stories out there on the Internet, like there are stories out there about Loch Ness Monster sightings. I didn’t find anything to support the idea that “autoimmune and POTS-like symptoms occurring in a lot of kids.” Question, if it was really something to be concerned about, or happening to large numbers of children, don’t you think the CDC or the WHO would be tracking it? They’re tracking POTS cases.

          • Anon

            I’m not sure that I do trust each and every one of our public health organizations with this? It took me more than a decade to be diagnosed with POTS and many more years for the cause of my POTS to be diagnosed and treated. WHO is notoriously bad on autoimmune conditions. CDC has a bad track record on ME/CFS which often has a post-viral pattern. I wish I felt differently!

            Still, I thought there was NHS data on long COVID in kids and that the US NIH was funding research into “pediatric post-COVID syndrome”? The data may still be coming.

        • Anon

          “Not to mention the still not fully understood autoimmune and POTS-like symptoms occurring in a lot of kids.”

          Here are some actual facts about Covid-19 in children.

          According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, between .1 and 1.9 percent of cases in children result in hospitalization, and about .1 percent of cases result in death (usually in children with pre-existing health conditions) https://services.aap.org/en/pages/2019-novel-coronavirus-covid-19-infections/children-and-covid-19-state-level-data-report/

          According to the CDC, there have been 3742 accounts of cases and 35 deaths attributed to MIS-C (the”post Covid” inflammatory syndrome) https://www.cdc.gov/mis-c/cases/index.html

          According to KidsCount, which uses census data, there were about 43 million children under the age of 15 living in the U.S. in 2019. https://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/101-child-population-by-age-group#detailed/1/any/false/1729,37,871,870,573,869,36,868,867,133/62,63,64,6,4693/419,420

          It took me about five minutes to look up this information, BTW. It doesn’t take that much time to inform yourself so you’re speaking from an informed perspective when you share information.

          P.S.: A pro-vaxx, pro-mask person spreading misinformation that’s not supported by data causes just as much confusion as an anti-vaxxer.

      • Anon

        This. I can totally understand wanting to leave kids at home for a gathering like this because it sounds like a PIA, but life involves risk, and this is an extremely minor one. You’re welcome to do you, but just know that STATISTICALLY SPEAKING, dying in a car accident is more likely than this, and you get in a car regularly.

    • Anonymous

      Go. Kids aren’t really at risk and people have been flying the entire time. #Texas

      • Curious

        The only thing that’s different here is that the variant of COVID from India does appear to be hitting children harder.

        • Quail

          Plus,kids are at low risk, not no risk. And we don’t really know the long-term effects of even asymptomatic covid on kids (something I am worried about for my older kid, who was infected and asymptomatic in 2020 – the rest of us never caught it, interestingly). I’m willing to take that chance for them for school but not a wedding, if that makes sense? Especially now that they might be able to be vaccinated in <6 months.

          And I, now fully vaxxed, would 100% take it as an excuse for a kid-free vacation. I love weddings and have so much more fun when I don't have to worry about the kids and naptimes and bedtimes and whatnot.

          • Anon

            “something I am worried about for my older kid, who was infected and asymptomatic in 2020 – the rest of us never caught it, interestingly”

            Statistically, kids are less likely to transmit it to adults or other children than they are to have it transmitted to them.

        • Cat

          I was reading that as sarcasm? Though it’s true, my Texas acquaintances have been to Mexico more times this year than I’ve ever been total…

      • Anonymous

        I don’t think anyone has mentioned this, but will there be people from India, which is the world hotspot, at an Indian wedding? I wouldn’t go for that reason

        • Anonymous

          I don’t think it’s possible for Indian travelers to enter the US right now?

          • Anon

            With enough money and time it’s easy enough – just go through a destination (or destinations) with unrelated plane itineraries.

    • Anon

      I would 100% go. You’re both vaccinated and the reason your kids aren’t is that risk to them is low. Personally, I’d try to leave the kids at home because I’d have a lot more fun, but if you can’t do that, still go.

      • Anonymous

        ? the reason her kids are not vaccinated is that there is no vaccine approved for kids under 12.

          • vax q

            I don’t know that that’s actually true. I would imagine the FDA requires vaccine testing on adults before testing on kids – anyone know for sure?

          • Anonymous

            ? this is not remotely true.

            Vaccines are almost never approved in children before they are approved in adults. It’s barely six months since they were approved in adults.

          • Anon

            Both are true. The risk is low for kids AND kid tend to go last in the trials after something is proven safe for adults. But it’s still true that their risk is much lower than ours.

          • Anon

            Priority is set based on risk. Take HPV, not for old people, but for younger ones. Covid is worse the older you are, priority for the elderly.

      • NYCer

        +1. I would have no issue going with or without kids, but I always think weddings are more fun without kids (though I have never been to an Indian wedding).

    • anon

      Personally, I probably wouldn’t go. However, if I did, I’d leave the kids at home with my partner. A family wedding is going to be a lot more fun for me than for my partner and kids.

    • Anonymous

      I’m Indian and NO WAY. At every wedding there are some relatives from India. The middle class/upper middle class in India (the ones who tend to have family here and can afford to fly here), are NOT getting vaccinated because they largely don’t believe in the vaccine, don’t trust it, don’t feel they need it because of herd immunity etc. There’s stats and articles on that. You can’t know who at the wedding just got off a 24 hour flight and got exposed and wasn’t vaccinated or is vaccinated but got exposed to some new variant we don’t even know about.

      And do you intend to keep your kids masked the whole time? Because come on it’s an Indian wedding. Indian aunties the ones who live in America are all vaccinated (very high vaccine uptake in this group) and feeling VERY confident; they’re totally going to pressure you to take the masks off the kids, it’s NBD, kids are at no risk blah blah. Reality is in our community once something is NBD to them, it’s NBD period — even if that isn’t factually accurate — do you want to listen to this all weekend?

    • Anonymous

      What are your concerns (personally getting COVID? Kids catching it? Kids being seriously ill?)? Are your kids high risk?

      If you know most of the adults will be vaccinated and are comfortable flying with young kids, I would do it. It’s not zero-risk.
      But for me, the opportunity to be with family after such a rough 18 months > the risk my kids would catch and have a very serious case of COVID.

      DH and I and all the adults in our family are vaccinated. I send my children to full time in person school (masked indoors, unmasked at recess), on a bus (masked) and allow them to be outside with friends unmasked. We have other people to our home, and as long as everyone that is vaccine eligible is vaccinated, we allow them inside. That means we have unvaccinated kids in our home as all my kids are <8 and have friends (with vaccinated parents).

      Our kids are pool tested weekly at school and there has been only 1 case in our town of 30k in the past month (not a kid).

      So, that’s where we are on the risk spectrum and I would go to this wedding unless I had an unvaccinated high risk kid. Perhaps do not have the kids indoors (or have them wear masks indoors) if possible at the wedding if that would put your mind at ease.

      • Anonymous

        It’s an Indian wedding, there will be multiple wedding related events, many indoors I’m sure. As for masks, you know your family best but in my family the “elders” would drive us nuts with how overprotective we are blah blah — because THEY are vaccinated and down to party, the pandemic is over. For me the worry about the pandemic for the kids isn’t so much covid itself which I hear tends to be like any other 2 days of fever etc that kids get so much, it’s the risk of having lingering effects after the fact.

      • Anonymous

        See, I’d say socializing after a rough 18 mos. < my kid possibly ending up with long-term health effects when I could have left them at home. There is just too much not known yet. I don't think it's just a death thing you're weighing, like with a car crash. We don't know long-term impact of even asymptomatic or mild COVID on things like clotting disorders or cardiac health or stroke risk or cognitive disorders. I'd be willing to make choices like that for myself, but it doesn't seem fair to impose that on my kid.

        • Anon

          I hate to break it to you but car accidents can also lead to long term health issues

    • Seventh Sister

      I’d go if I trusted my kids to keep their masks on for anything (anything!) inside, the whole time they are on the plane, etc., etc. But then again, I’ve definitely fudged/bent/not followed the rules to give my kids some social time with friends and family.

    • Anonymous

      I’ve been similarly locked down — I wouldn’t chance it. Indoor venue and plane flight alone would kill it for me tbh.

      And to the commenters saying KIDS DON’T DIE OF COVID yeah fine but there are some really disturbing studies about reduced lung capacity and more.

      • Anon

        There’s also really scary studies about the long term effects of no/limited social interaction. As someone who has dealt with mental health issues that scares me a lot more than maybe possibly my kid having potentially some long term health effects from a virus that is less likely to kill her than the flu. And I say this as a parent of a micro preemie who was in the NICU for over 2 months

        • Anon

          My kid came to me last August and said he was thinking about suicide because he felt so hopeless and isolated. I have never felt more panic or despair in my life than when I heard my child say he was thinking about killing himself. I hope I never, ever, have to feel that way again. So, I definitely agree with you.

  10. Anonymous

    Give me your favorite camping recipes please! I embraced the car camping lifestyle last summer and loooooved it. But eating hot dogs and chips is getting old, so I’m trying to up my game this summer. I have a cast iron skillet and dutch oven, and primarily cook over charcoal because getting wood burned down to embers is a PITA when you’re hungry. TIA!

    • Anonymous

      – Sloppy joes: buns, can of manwich, can of lentils, and mustard.
      – Grilled corn on the cob
      – Panzerottis reheat very well over a fire
      – Can of veggie chili with buns to dip

    • Anonymous

      Google hobo meals — meat and veggies cooked in foil packets. Also American Goulash. You can precook a lot and warm it up when camping. Also: always fry the tortillas if you can.

      No: jerky sandwich

    • anon

      Bacon and eggs cooked on a cast iron over coals … mmm, delicious. Or potatoes wrapped in foil and cooked on the grill are delicious. Pinterest has a ton of ideas for meals that you can wrap in foil packets and heat/cook over a flame. Cooking over charcoals shouldn’t be all that different, really, and probably a lot easier.

      • Anon

        Yes to bacon and eggs and also fish packets cooked on the grill with butter, lemon, salt and pepper. This requires a cooler of course.

    • Anonymous

      We are going car camping this weekend and here is what we plan on eating. Most of this is cooked in a cast iron pan, but we also take a camping stove and regular pots and pans:
      Breakfast: eggs, bacon, hashbrowns with tortillas (can make a breakfast burrito if you want), yogurt, fruit, granola
      Lunch: quesadillas with salsa and guacamole, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, fruit, hummus and veggies, a big pre-made salad with assorted toppings
      Dinner: meat/fish (not sure yet if it will be chicken, steak, or salmon), fried potatoes and sauteed bell peppers and zucchini, tacos, macaroni and cheese and chili, frito pie (take mini bags of fritos, top with canned or homemade chili and lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, etc.)

      • yay camping

        + 1 for the camp stove. Opens up a lot of options and makes a hot breakfast much easier. Or consider getting a jetboil if you don’t want a full camp stove (usef for coffee, ramen, mac and cheese, couscous/rice packets, anything that requires boiling water only) but for car camping it’s hard to beat the classic double burner Coleman camp stove with a rectangle griddle pan…

        Veggie hobo dinners are our campfire-cooking night #2 go-to – no need to worry about keeping raw meat cold, etc. Combine with some summer sausage/cheese if you want meat or more protein.

        • Anon

          +1 camp stove

          You can also roll up a tortilla with pizza sauce, cheese, and any toppings you want.

          And also google: dump cakes, which is sort of like an easy lazy cobbler

    • Monte

      Veggie chili: quickly fry some spices (cumin, coriander, chile powder, oregano) in oil and then toss in diced bell peppers. After a couple of minutes, add canned tomatoes and two or three cans of beans. Simmer for 20 min or so. If you have cheddar cheese or sour cream, great, but not necessary.

      I also always wind up doing one dinner of baked potatoes with tons of fixings and one of heaping bowls of spaghetti and arrabbiata sauce. If you have a decent cooler, you can add meatballs if you do it on the first day or so of the trip.

    • Saguaro

      One of my favorite things to make while camping is nachos, in a cast iron pan. I brown chopped meat in the pan, remove, then layer different things: chips, meat, cheese, salsa, avocado, etc. It is easy to serve and everyone loves it. No prep except browning the meat.

    • anon

      A camp stove is super useful – for breakfast, as others have said, but also for heating water for washing dishes and hot drinks, and for quickly heating things like chili or soup. In addition to a cast iron pan, i bring a small saucepan with a lid (thrifted!) for that purpose – i don’t trust myself to lift a dutch oven full of boiling water.

      -freeze salmon in marinade (bulgogi sauce is good). Should be thawed by the time you get to the campsite. Grill on foil. Side of grilled veggies or veggies and dip
      -pre-marinaded kebabs from the grocery store, pitas, greek salad, hummus
      -veggies and hummus and sandwiches
      -cook potatoes in the fire at night, then slice and fry with onions for hashbrowns (in bacon fat, if that’s your jam)
      -instant oatmeal is a great breakfast or snack
      -hot cocoa with marshmallows if it’s cool at night
      -quinoa salad or vinegar-based slaw keep well in the cooler for a few days
      -freeze chili, curry or soup in meal-size containers – helps keep your cooler cold and easy to reheat with minimal prep. Serve with buns or naan.

  11. anon

    I’m sectional shopping (in Canada) and feel like I’m looking for a unicorn. I am seeking an L-shaped sofa where the short part of the L is ideally 65″ or shorter in length, and there is a backrest, rather than a “chaise” area. I’m much more flexible on the length of the long part of the L. I feel like this must exist, but I’m struggling since many L shaped sectionals are way too large, and the ones that aren’t are all chaises…

    • Ribena

      I can’t quite visualise what you mean but I have the IKEA Friheten and the sticky-out bit has its own backrest, if that’s what you’re getting at?

      • Cb

        Do you like the Friheten? I am shopping for a sofabed now and kind of hate everything – and can’t afford a beautiful Loaf one.

        • Ribena

          Yeah I love it! And it’s SO much cheaper than all of the other remotely nice sofabeds. It’s not an interesting piece of furniture in its own right but it fades into the background and you can cover it with cushions.

    • TO No-Longer-Junior

      Have you looked at the Structube sectionals? They are usually a bit more apartment sized, which sounds like it’s what you’re looking for. My husband and I recently gave away a sectional from there for exactly that reason, it was just too small for our needs.

      • Anon

        I have a Structube sofa (not a sectional) that I have been very happy with. But be aware that basically everything is out of stock and will take months and months to be delivered.

        • Equestrian attorney

          I have a L-shaped one from Structube. I haven’t measured the shorter part, but I like it, although the fabric isn’t the best. It was decent value and miraculously in stock when I ordered.

    • Anon

      When I was looking for something similar I found something at Room and Board. I didn’t end up getting it — I found a regular couch plus arm chair more useful, because the 65″ part did not feel like it was providing sufficient additional seating to be useful. Like the couch would still only seat 3 people because that corner part was just kind of there. I think thats why most L shaped sectionals are pretty long on both sides.

      • anon

        Interesting – we have been locked down for ages so no opportunity to test whether a 65″ L would be big enough to be useful. Did yours have an armrest at the end? I was sort of envisioning there not being one to save inches, but even that may feel too cramped.

        • Anon

          I tested them out in store but didn’t actually buy one, but in store it felt like if someone was sitting in the 65″ part they are awkwardly close to the person sitting in the inner part of longer part, like not quite knees touching but close. I generally find that for a couch to seat more than 2 not snuggling people it needs to be enormous. I ended up with a 90″ sofa with a chaise because I like to stretch my legs out, with a chair across from it (opposite side from the chaise). I find it seats 3 family members comfortably but when people come over, only 2 will sit on the sofa and the 3rd will gravitate to the chair.

    • Quail

      We got a sectional from West Elm that is too long for what you are looking for (80″ deep) but has the backrest – the Harris. We were looking for a sleeper sofa with a backrest so that limited our choices (and required the 80″ depth) but maybe West Elm will have backrest options?

    • Notinstafamous

      Have you looked at Article? The Lappi Serene might meet your specifications. I’ve been incredibly impressed with both their customer service and their quality on everything I’ve bought from them over the past 2-3 years. They also have some modular ones you put together yourself.

    • Cc

      Do you have a Macy’s ? You can customize their sectionals. Take a look at the Radley and you can see the dimensions for each piece – you can put any combo of those pieces together

  12. SSJD

    Please don’t post dresses like this. I’m not interested in buying anything from Amazon if I can avoid it. On top of that, this look is totally inappropriate for work. Third, a dress that costs $30 is going to be garbage–the quality will be poor, the material cheap, sizing inconsistant, and the item likely will not last more than a season or two. As a community, I’d hope that we can avoid fast fashion purchases such as this one and that your blog will not promote transactions that hurt the earth and our economy in multiple ways.

    • Anon

      Or, what people always say: buy it used!

      Anywho, I think that this is something that would look good on, say, Megan Fox, when she has a role in an office. I don’t think that I could pull this off even in the correct size and with substantial shapewear to smooth over lumps and bumps

    • Anonymous

      It’s not just the environmental costs either, it’s the human costs too! Women are abused in these factories for these cheap garments. Everyone can do better and we should encourage that! I stopped buying new fashion as a poverty stricken undergrad and have stuck to it many years later as a middle class professional.

    • Anonymous

      Yeah, I completely agree with this. It is actually more important than ever to avoid fast fashion because of China utilizing Uighur forced labor to produce cotton.

    • Anonymous

      Yes, this. I’m not a complete saint, but fast fashion is a battle I will pick due to the environmental and human labor costs. (I recognize my privilege as someone who a) is straight sized and can find a large range of used clothes in my size and b) has the time and income to browse for high-quality stuff on secondhand clothing sites. )

      • Anonymous

        Is being straight-sized a privilege? Or is it the result of ethical decisionmaking?

        • anon

          Ew. Stop. Just because you can afford to buy organic vegan foods doesn’t mean that everyone even has access to those types of foods.

          • anon

            also forgot to add that it’s quite an assumption to make that anyone who isn’t straight-sized isn’t making “ethical” choices, whatever nonsense that means. Hormones, genetics, emotional eating, and all sorts of other things factor in to people’s weight. If you can just make “ethical” choices and be straight-sized, yes, you are privileged.

          • emeralds

            +1, Anonymous at 11:00/11:37 rolling in with some of the grosser takes I’ve seen recently.

            I’m straight-sized, it’s absolutely privilege, and it has absolutely nothing to do with being “ethical.”

            (WTF does that even mean? Is this our apparently-resident “veganism is the only way to have morals” assh*le?)

          • Anon

            “Is this our apparently-resident “veganism is the only way to have morals” assh*le?”

            Yep, this is her. I wish she’d move on and take her BS someplace else, but so far, no luck with that.

        • Anon

          Please learn more about this; you have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t know many people with unwanted weight who didn’t gain it as a medication side effect or in connection with a serious medical condition. And many people don’t even know that their hunger and the symptoms they get from not eating are connected with a medical condition (for example, CDC estimates that a quarter of American diabetics don’t know that they are diabetic, and that a full ninety percent of prediabetics don’t know that they have impaired blood glucose control). These conditions in the US have been connected with now illegal pollutants that are affecting the grandchildren of women exposed when pregnant. Yes it’s a privilege to be descended from people who weren’t downstream of past industrial pollutants. And if you’re talking about plant based diets, keep in mind that grains and legumes are fairly high in starches and can make blood glucose control more difficult. This is just one common example among dozens; think of people taking mirtazapine, prednisone, seroquel, lyrica; even birth control causes weight gain for some women who are sensitive to its endocrine effects.

        • Anonymous

          My scrawny straight-sized ass can tell you it is not ethical decisionmaking, 11:00/ 11:37. Check your fatphobia. -11:14

    • Anon

      I agree more or less but we’re also going to babe to ban Zara and H&M and F21 and Walmart and a lot of Target. Amazon doesn’t have a monopoly on poor labor conditions. (And sneakers and iPhones and so on and so on)

  13. So Anon

    My second nutribullet blender has died (motor burned out). They were great for a while, but I am now having Daily Harvest smoothies everyday and the nutribullet does not seem to handle the smoothies well. Any recommendations in the under 500 range?

    • Anonymous

      You can get a Vitamix for less than $500. Just keep in mind that if you plan to store or.use it under a cabinet, you will probably want to look at the low-profile container. The A2300 looks good.

    • Anonymous

      Vitamix or Ninja. We have had a Ninja for a couple of years now and it works great. My mom has a Vitamix and loves it.

      • Anon

        We have a Ninja and we love it. We’ve had ours for over 3 years and it’s still going strong.

    • Formerly Lilly

      Vitamix – reconditioned is fine. I was not happy with daily harvest smoothies until I got the vitamix. I still let them thaw with the liquid in the vitamix container for about five minutes because then I don’t have to bother with the tamper, but the vitamix will handle them frozen solid if you use the tamper.

    • Anonymous

      Vitamix for sure. Costco usually has a good deal, I got mine for under $300. How do you like the Daily Harvest smoothies compared to smoothies that you make on your own?

      • So Anon

        I absolutely love the smoothies from Daily Harvest! I used to make smoothies every day on my own, and I enjoy the variety and different ingredients in the smoothies from Daily Harvest. They are delicious, and if I add a scoop of protein powder, they keep me going through the morning and my lunch-time run. In theory you could construct them on your own, but I don’t have the time, patience or storage capacity to find all of the stuff they add.

    • Anon

      Can you tell me more about these smoothies? Are they pre-packaged and you buy them at the store?

    • Anon

      I love my vitamin. I was skeptical about spending that much money, but it is a workhorse, I love it.

  14. Anonymous

    So if someone deletes 4 years of FB posts (covering very gushing marriage and all of the Trump years (pro trump)), is she on the outs with her spouse? On the outs Witt the Cheeto? All of the above? I cannot imagine how long this takes.

    Thanks, Pandemic, for making my life very Rear Window sometimes.

    • Anonymous

      If I was to guess I would assume leaving an abusive marriage, which usually means being able to actually express your own opinions. There is a real chance she was never a fan of the Cheeto and posted those things to fall in line.

    • Anon

      Was she in DC on Jan 6th and is now cleaning up her profile in case the FBI comes knocking? Is she leaving Facebook and or social media all together? Looking for attention in real life as friends check in to see what caused 4 years of deleting?
      Keep us informed if you find out anything else.

    • Anonymous

      She may have simply changed her privacy settings so you’re seeing fewer posts. Which leads me to conclude she’s on the outs with you. It takes a few seconds.

    • Anon

      Why are you so wrapped up in this person’s life?

      I changed the privacy settings on my FB so that only a few dozen people can see most of what I post. For Reasons, I am supposed to be Facebook-connected with a large number of people, so the easiest solution is to have personal stuff visible to a very limited audience and almost nothing available to the other people.

      Just as people delete their twitter feeds occasionally, maybe she’s doing a delete of FB posts. Is it weird when Jessica Valente deletes her old tweets?

      • Anonymous

        Sounds like OP is “so wrapped up” in the person’s life because the person invited her in by posting on social media for four years about her marriage and political beliefs. But yeah, the OP is “obsessed” because she read what that person invited her to read and then sat desperately waiting for feedback on from.her many FB “friends”, including the OP.

        • Anon

          “then sat desperately waiting for feedback on from.her many FB “friends”, including the OP.”

          Where did you read that the friend is “desperately waiting for feedback”? Sounds like you’re projecting a lot or you’re the OP and know you’re a little too involved in this woman’s life.

    • Anonymous

      Maybe applying for a job where she knows her social media will be looked at? There are all kinds of other reasons…

    • Anon

      I recently deleted almost all of my social media history (and most of my accounts) just because I started to see FB and IG as pretty toxic forces in my life and society.

      • Anone

        I don’t understand comments like this. Why go out of your way to be rude and post an unhelpful comment to cut someone down? Don’t pretend like you’ve never analyzed someone else’s social media posts before.

        • Anon

          Having been on the other side of people’s nutty hot takes on my life, I completely feel this. “She deleted FB history [note: the “deletion” might have been a change in privacy settings], so she’s divorcing her Trump-loving husband” is quite the conclusion to jump to.

          Let me tell you, you quickly figure out that the hot takes are because people are REALLY determined to run everything through a filter to hit a pre-determined conclusion, even when there are perfectly rational explanations that better fit the evidence. Some people who crazy-hot-take on my life fundamentally do not respect me; others are trying to work through their own issues by wishcasting on my life.

    • Anonymous

      She’s probably going through something painful with her marriage and this post feels mean.

      • Anon

        IDK — my guess is that she’s on the outs with her spouse. That it overlaps the Trump years is a red herring. I had a friend abruptly (to me, who lives several states away and keeps up via random FB comments) change her name back to her maiden name. Thus proving that FB is a highlight reel.

        TBH, I wouldn’t delete stuff with an ex, but my FB feed is 100% sanitized (due to job, friending with older relatives, not being willing to spend time doing filtering). Deleting an ex seems to be the thing that my tween cousins would do — very Taylor Swift. And it’s just that crowd that the next week would be back together (#blessed) and loudly trumpeting that.

        Cannot wait to be living my life in person via online again.

  15. A.

    I’ve really upped my workout game and am slowly replacing my crummy old t-shirts with “real” workout tops, and have snagged a few pairs of leggings I feel good about. Next step: sportsbr@s. I’ve nursed three kids and have ~D sized b00bs, so I need something at least somewhat supportive. The Freyas from my nursing days are too much, plus they have seams down the front and I don’t like how that looks under smooth tops. My workouts include yoga, HIIT, strength, lots of Peloton rides, and the occasional outdoor run. Would love some recommendations!

    • Monday

      Lululemon Enlite. Worth the cost if you have large breasts and work out a lot.

    • Katie

      Wacoal makes a great one. Easily found at Nordstrom, and then occasionally on sale online in unusual colors.

    • Anon

      Panache Ultimate High Impact. I’m a G cup and this bra fully supports me. The best part is that it hooks like a regular bra but still fits tightly, so you don’t have to dislocate your shoulder to put it on.

          • Elegant Giraffe

            I started buying these thanks to recs from here and love the front zip. Size up

      • Monte

        My first choice as a FF/G cup as well. If you think the seams might be an issue, the Freya Sonic High Impact is my second choice for my workouts (mainly running, occasional HIIT).

      • e

        THIS THIS THIS! Love the front zipper and the velcro shoulder and band straps. Forever in love with these.

      • Anonymous

        Agree on the well-made, but Shefit dies not work for all, 28 band G or GG would be too much breat tissue for the 28-adjacent size, for example.
        I think cup-sized sports bras are a lot better. Bravissimo or Panache are great, Shockabsorber (beware super tight band) gold but you might need help getting in/out.

    • Carrots

      I’m about the same size and have found luck with the all in motion ones from Target. They have a high support category and I’ve been able to successfully do HIIT workouts without feeling like I’m going to give myself a black eye

    • Nom

      I am a huge fan of Elomi, which in my household is fondly referred to as “b0 0b armor”. It is very VERY compressive, which is essential for me because apparently I am extra sensitive to bouncing. (TBH before I tried Elomi, I 100% hated and avoided running, primarily because of this— and now I am a regular outdoor runner.)

      If Elomi is too much compression, I’ve also had reasonable luck with Shock Absorber and Glamorize, but I mostly use those ones for strength training etc.

  16. SSJD

    What do I do about shoes that cut into the back of my ankle? I bought a beautiful pair of Eileen Fisher platform oxfords (at a second hand store; in great condition). They feel really good all on my feet, but yesterday I walked 6 blocks in them and they cut into the back of both ankles. Any good tricks or advice? It’s been years since shoes hurt me like this (I associate it with college), and they are such “sensible shoes”! I’d like to make them work as they are a beautiful red suede/nubuck. Really pretty.

    • Anonymous

      I would put one of those blister bandaids on your ankle and keep wearing them. Or add some moleskin to the shoe. I had a pair of shoes that cut up my ankle the first couple times I wore them, but now they are super comfortable.

    • MagicUnicorn

      I chronically have this issue and my only surefire solution is to ignore the siren call of otherwise lovely footwear, and only allow myself to become attached to shoes that either have a smoother/higher collar in the back, or a padded collar. There are certain collar shapes that work for me (and many others that do not), and I have become good at weeding out ones that are not suited for my foot.

    • Anon

      I’ve never been able to make shoes that cut into the back of my ankle work. If they just rub a little, they might work, but if they dig in, I have to get rid of them.

      • Anon

        I’ve actually solved this for myself. I have a very shallow heel so this happens with nearly all shoes. I put a pad right under the heel, cut diagonally to reach a touch under my arch. I use Costco’s carpet pad but I’m sure you can use actual shoe padding/insoles (it was just getting too expensive for me since I have to do this with every shoe). This lifts your heel out of the shoe bed a tad to let the shoe construction grip your heel, not go above it. I use two pads in very deep shoes.

  17. Anonymous

    I negotiate next week with a very low amount of authority. We have already negotiated three rounds, all parties are ready to settle, but I can’t get any more authority. I might get more at the honest last minute but I’m trying to stretch a small amount over several offers. We’ve already talked about taxes and payment timing, and other non monetary benefits, and agreed that this session we will just focus on the number. Unless my client makes a huge shift, which they are almost guaranteed not to based on my understanding of their financial situation, I could use some ideas for how to make small moves and somehow settle!

    • Anon

      You can’t. You need to have a candid discussion with your client and get more authority.

    • Anonymous

      I’ve tried a few things:

      Disclosing the financial status with records to back it up

      Focusing on time- in my jurisdiction trial is at least 5 years away

      Reminding my clients that they’re paying me too and giving them an accurate budget of if they do not settle, here are all the next steps I have to take and how much they will cost you

  18. Anon

    Whoever posted the vegan chickpea salad. Ty! I made it for family and it was delicious. Will definitely save the recipe for future!

    • CountC

      Oh, excellent! I am glad you anad your family liked it. It’s so easily customizable too – add or take out whatever someone does or doesn’t like!

  19. Anon

    For various reasons I’ve recently greatly reduced my consumption of fish, pork, and beef. However, I keep running into the following scenario: gatherings where someone cooks a meal for a group, and the meal consists pretty much entirely of the proteins I’m avoiding. Part of me says if there’s no other options, to just eat what’s available to avoid drama. I don’t identify as vegan or vegetarian, and don’t want to make a fuss, so maybe it’s not a big deal to just suck it up and eat the food? I would bring my own food, but I’m pretty sure this would offend the host. Any tips for navigating this situation?

    • Curious

      If I were your host, I would totally want to know this ahead! I’d cut the meat in the chili down to flavoring quantities or make falafel or something.

    • Anonymous

      If you haven’t completely eliminated a food from your diet, then yes you have to suck it up and eat it if that’s what’s offered.

    • Anonymous

      Talk to the host beforehand and mention you are taking eating ethically seriously these days. Ask if they are on board with providing ethical meal options. If not, you can either tell them you won’t be able to support the gathering with your presence or you can go and bring a lunch box and eat out of it at the event.

      • Anonymous

        OMG. Don’t do this. That’s the worst. It’s not inherently more ethical because it’s not meat. Locally produced meat (or wild game) has a much lower carbon footprint than falafel trucked in from thousands of miles away.

        And ethical is a relative term. I eat locally produced meat but I avoid California almonds because the water situation in the western US is completely unethical due to the destructiveness to the environment for profit. There are many less water intensive methods of agriculture that large commercial farms are choosing not to use because they cut into their profits (source, DH who works specifically in agricultural irrigation)

        • anon

          Yes to your second paragraph. I live in the middle of beef country. It’s a whole lot more ethical for me to be eating that than trucking in ingredients from half a country away.

        • anon

          As a Californian, thank you. I dislike that there’s so much water wasted in agriculture, yet individuals and communities are being asked to make real sacrifices when it comes to water. Makes no sense to me when certain large ag businesses could just be less wasteful.

          • Anonymous

            It’s not even like new technologies are needed. There are a lot of irrigation techniques currently in use in Israel and others of the middle east which could easily be used in California. They just don’t because of $$.

        • Anonymous

          This message a not true. Lentils shipped from half way around the world are still more sustainable than meat. There are literally hundreds of studies on this. I get that you personally don’t care but don’t trick other people into making bad decisions by lying to them.

          • Anonymous

            Maybe if you’re shipping them to major centres but we don’t all live in NYC or LA.

        • Anon

          Beef and dairy are far and away the most water wasteful “crops” grown in California, not almonds. The #1 use of agriculture water is alfalfa, which is fed to cows. You can certainly argue that cattle are an effective way of making use of otherwise “unusable” rangeland in other states, but they are clearly a massive source of greenhouse gases no matter how they’re raised and the whole water argument against beef substitutes is laughable when you compare it to the amount of water used to grow crops for cows since so few cows are truly grass fed, though I agree that’s more ethical.

          • anonshmanon

            yup. A lot of the almonds use so much water narrative is actually beef farmer lobbying.

          • Anonymous

            I wasn’t comparing California beef to California almonds. I was comparing local beef or wild game to California almonds.

            Local seasonal eating is one of the easiest and most accessible ways to reduce GHG emissions. A lot of produce is also moved by air transport which is the worst for GHG emissions.

        • Anon

          “Ethical is a relative term. I eat locally produced meat…”

          Eating meat is unethical, period, full stop. Forget the environment and sustainability aspects. It’s unethical because it is slaughtering an innocent animal.

          • Anon

            I choose to support the continued existence of endangered heritage breed livestock.

            I also just don’t really believe humans are so different from animals that it’s wrong for us to kill to eat but okay for animals to kill to eat; to me this seems like a double standard that has nothing to do with the added responsibilities that attend human technology or human understanding of the world?

      • anon

        As someone who hosts quite a bit, I would be very put off by this approach, from asking me whether I’m “on board” with ethical meal options (well, I guess not, huh?) to saying you can’t support the gathering (huh?) to bringing your own lunch box when I’ve put in the effort of trying to make a meal that pleases all and probably has already accommodated guests who have legit dietary restrictions (though I guess we can’t please everyone).

        You could bring a side dish (keyword) to share, but please give your host a heads up.

        I’m perfectly fine with doing my best to accommodate dietary restrictions for health reasons, but if you’re going to turn your nose up at my “unethical” meals — well, I won’t be super eager to invite you back for a meal.

        • Senior Attorney

          This. Tell me what you don’t eat and I will do my best to accommodate you. If you lecture me I will be unhappy.

          • Senior Attorney

            And really I don’t care about your reasons — if you don’t eat meat that’s fine. Don’t need to know why. And if you only eat meat from animals that had their own rooms and cable TV subscriptions, for purposes of accepting dinner invitations that’s “I don’t eat meat.”

          • anon

            Your second sentence legit made me LOL. Just tell people you don’t eat meat; I really don’t care about the reasons, either.

          • Anon

            Just want to add, do please tell me if you can’t eat something! I had a person with a dairy allergy come to a small baby shower I threw the other day (she was one of four guests) and she hadn’t told me beforehand she couldn’t eat dairy, and unfortunately, there was dairy in almost everything I served. I quickly put together a plate of cold cuts and crackers for her to go along with some salad I hadn’t managed to get feta cheese on, but I could have easily accommodated her much better had I known about the restriction ahead of time. And I would have been happy to do so; I have dietary restrictions myself, and totally get it.

        • Anon

          My idiot nephew was completely on fire with veganism at one point and said something about “I don’t eat dead animals” in response to a Facebook post about a barbecue.

          He didn’t get invited to my barbecues any more, which was too bad for him because immediately after his veganism phase he went full all-the-meat-all-the-time keto. But then he probably would have had something obnoxious to say about the potato salad.

          Sometimes it’s the person, not the diet. Like the person posting all over here today – no diet is going to fix what is rotten inside you.

      • anon

        I am mostly vegetarian, and try very hard to use animal products from animals treated more humanely. I didn’t get pet chickens because I thought my small backyard wouldn’t be big enough for them to be happy.

        I would be super annoyed if a guest broached dietary restrictions as “eating ethically.” Just tell me your restrictions and I’m happy to make something vegetarian for you.

        However, if something isn’t really a restriction, but you’re just trying to cut back, I don’t think it’s appropriate to share that as a restriction.

      • Anon

        …what kind of world do you live in where people talk like this and where this isn’t a rude thing to say “can’t support the gathering with your presence”, “ethical meal options” – what? No.

        Be a normal human and say “hey I’m eating vegetarian/vegan these days, do you mind providing an option for me and, if that’s too much trouble, I understand, I’ll bring my own main and will plate it once we eat.

      • Anon

        I would definitely not want to even have this person come to my gathering if this is what they told me. Wow – “support the gathering with my presence…” I know we’ve been somewhat isolated for a year, but are people so out of touch?

        • Anon

          Yeah, I’d be chopping you off of my friend list and that would be the last time we interacted. And I’m the kind of person that’s still friends with people from childhood.

      • Cora

        What a weird statement. Just ask if there will be a vegetarian option, and offer to bring a dish if not. Why are people here so strange and awkward.

        • white pants

          +1

          This is perfect. Please do not insult your host. Please just decline food centered invitations if are not comfortable with this. I will be very upset if you lie to me and say you are vegan if you really aren’t and I see you eating meat in other places.

          OP – just eat ahead of time, or eat when you get home if you can’t make do while there. What are we…. 7 years old?

          The amount of self-centeredness these days is really over the top.

      • busybee

        I’m guessing Anonymous at 11:27 doesn’t get invited to too many social gatherings. Don’t take her advice. If you’re not a committed vegetarian, I think you should just eat the dishes that are served.

      • Anon

        Hahahaha I found the person who never gets invited to parties!

        I seriously think this “radical environmentalist” poster just picks a day to come in and troll us all, and today’s the day. What’s going on, Anon at 11:27? Don’t you have any fun plans for the holiday weekend to get ready for?

      • Anon

        this is what someone who has never been invited to anyone else’s house would say, and it’s not hard to see why that is the case with this person.

    • Anon

      As long as you actually know the person reasonably well, just say you’re not eating much meat these days (don’t lie and say you’re a vegetarian) and ask if you can bring a veggie side dish to share. You don’t have to make a big deal about it and most people want to make their guests happy. It’s a little different if you don’t know the host or the situation is more formal. In that situation, I’d probably just suck it up and eat some.

    • Saguaro

      Stop making this an issue. What I do is simply eat what I can. There is always something else besides meat, usually veggies or a salad, or some other type of side dish. That’s what I eat. I don’t need to tell anyone, explain myself, or talk to the host about it!!!!!

  20. anon

    Talk to me about camping. I am at least a moderately outdoorsy person (I regularly enjoy biking, hiking, and kayaking), but I don’t go camping. I do feel like this would bring me to the next level, outdoors-wise, and I do see why people like it. HOWEVER: I can’t get past the idea of how much WORK it seems like goes into even a short weekend trip close to home. I know how much planning and packing it takes just to get my family to the lake for the day. The packing and unpacking involved in camping seem like a giant hassle and like a major buzzkill, as do all the contingencies that go into planning for bad weather or whatever else that could go wrong. So, my real question: Obviously, the work is worth it to many of you. Have you found any hacks for streamlining or tolerating the process?

    Honestly, this sounds dumb, but it is one of my major barriers to traveling in general. I enjoy myself when I get there, but I find the lead-up really stressful and un-fun, even though I’m a very organized person. And then you have to return to reality while dealing with the unpacking.

    • Anonymous

      The hack is going to a park with cabins with a kitchen and indoor plumbing. Anything else is not worth the hassle for me.

      • anon

        OP here, and yeah, love this. I try to do it at least annually. But dang, it is HARD to find an opening at these places; they book up super fast.

      • Anonymous

        This is what we do. Basically all day outside and cozy bed and hot shower at night. They do book up super fast though.

    • Curious

      Like a lot of things, it’s way worse the first time. There was a summer when we backpacked almost every weekend and we just… got in the routine. No kids at the time, though.

    • Anonymous

      Camping is indeed a lot of work, much of it revolving around food. If you can eliminate or streamline the cooking, it gets a lot easier. We do a lot of weekends at a national park that has food service so we can leave the full camp kitchen setup at home.

      Counterintuitively, the work-to-reward ratio can sometimes seem better with a longer trip. I like to do 5-6 days so we get more bang for our buck from the packing and unpacking.

      I also find the planning and anticipation to be a big part of the fun, but perhaps that’s because the only vacations I had as a kid were camping vacations. My husband did not grow up camping and does not find any of it to be fun.

    • Anonymous

      We go camping a lot during the summer. Some things that help make it easier for us include having a couple of “camping boxes” so that everything except food is all stored together and ready to go. This includes our camping cooking supplies (which for us is old pots and pans, plates, utensils, spices, etc), our air mattresses and sheets are stored together in a box (which we store inside because our garage gets hot and it can ruin air mattresses), and then from there we just mainly grab the big things that are stored together in the garage (tent, sleeping bags, chairs, folding table). Kids each pack a backpack with clothes.

      It is a ton of work, but to me it is worth it to get us outside and unplugged for a weekend, especially now that my kids have been online schooling for a year. It is just so much screen time all the time. I love that we can get away to a place with no electricity and no cell service. So to me the work is worth it. We gather everything up the night before and then throw it in the back of the Highlander in the morning and head out. It takes twice as long to pack up to come home and I always underestimate the amount of time. So now on our last day we always eat a nice breakfast and start packing up. We still won’t leave until the afternoon haha.

    • Anon

      Eh, I used to camp a lot but now feel like camping is a little overrated. Part of this is living in a state where you have to book campsites like a year in advance or else show up early on the day of and hope you can snag a site, which doesn’t really work well for my schedule. The other big reason is that we like early morning hikes and photography, and it’s a lot easier to get up and out the door early when staying in a hotel or at our house than it is when staying in a tent. I’m lucky enough to live somewhere where I can drive to a lot of great outdoor locations, but you can definitely stay at reasonably affordable cabins and hotels in a lot of places. If that makes you more likely to spend time outside, just do that instead of trying to force yourself to camp.

      • Anon

        I am outdoorsy but not historically a camper (single woman who spent my 20s in school and had breaks solo at odd times, camping never seemed safe vs staying at a cheap hotel with running water and a locking door). I only camp now b/c I fell in with a group (so: safety in numbers) that knows what it’s doing (so I do as they do, and one person actually handles things like reservations 3-9 months out; sometimes we have lost out; sometimes weather makes a camping trip into a day trek). I do love campfires — there’s nothing like that in a hotel. Otherwise, I do not love layering on the deodorant and my oily hair and skin becoming nasty by the time I return home.

    • Anonymous

      I know someone will come after me with a pitch fork for this but whatever I don’t care anymore. I like camping because it’s a good way to vacation in a local low carbon way. It does take a lot of planning, but the way I do it is a meal plan and lots of glass jars/tupperware. Any “cooking” is just dumping the food into a pot or onto a grill and then washing a container. I make it as easy as possible on myself and it’s truly much simpler than when I make food at home.

    • Cornellian

      I’m the same way with camping and travelling. I think a couple things that help:
      -I have a milk crate with basically all of my camping materials. Tent, sleeping bags, little camp stove, oatmeal and instant coffee that we take on every trip, headlamp, bug spray, sunscreen, etc. Then when we want to camp all I need to pack is fresh clothing, food and water.
      -take a grocery bag or something to throw your dirty clothing in in the back of your car. Then when you come home just dump them directly in to your machine or hamper.
      -if you can, store your foldable chairs or blankets in the car. My car is always parked in the driveway, so if I need them at home, they’re there, but there is also no need to pack them if we’re taking a trip

      The PITA thing for me is how filthy my car inevitably gets, which I’m not sure you can easily fix. I did switch to hard mats you can shake and hose out, which has helped a bit.

    • Anon

      You really don’t need a lot of stuff. People post about gear because they like shopping, but honestly you don’t need half of it. You don’t have to eat gourmet meals and you can honestly even wear things again if you don’t feel like packing a lot. If you forget something, you’ll work it out. All of our camping/cooking stuff is in a plastic bin, so we can just stick that bin, the tent, sleeping bags, clothes, and some food in the car and go. My contingency plan for bad weather is to stay home.

      • Anonymous

        This is what I do. We do hotdogs over the fire, bring very few clothing items, use our lightweight backpacking tent and stove, and just hang out. It doesn’t need to be a huge production. All of the cooking supplies fit easily in one bin. It’s 100% worth the effort for us.

    • Go for it

      Ha ha my idea of camping is a hotel

      Honest I’ll only go if someone else does everything~Prep, Cook, setup, takedown..all of it

      I’ll pack my bag, that’s it!

  21. Anonymous

    Does anyone else find that their parents “mis remember” the past in ways that are just wrong in order to make everything seem different than it was, or is this just my family? I mean I grew up in a family that was VERY tight with a dollar — unnecessarily so as they were middle/upper middle class but VERY focused on saving for the ivy leagues (of which they did pay a lot but we had significant loans too), retirement etc. I mean that was their life choice, they were immigrants with money anxiety, but if we had taken a vacation or 2 and had some fun, those would’ve been some nice experiences with just the 4 of us.

    So now I have cousins who are also immigrants — but they came in the 2000s rather than the 1970s — and came at higher salaries. But then they also aren’t as hyper focused on out of state or private colleges or retirement, are more interested in making memories before their kids move out. If I so much as saying ANYTHING like — that’s great that they vacation yearly with their kids; cousin’s kid is so lucky to get a car in high school or study abroad in college, it is met with this crazy — YOU had that, WE did that, or my favorite — you DIDN’T even want that, you never asked us for it!? As I’m like — uh I BEGGED you for a car, I begged for us to go on ONE vacation in high school, I even offered to work to save money for these extras and was told no child of theirs was going to work retail with the “regular” people. I mean it is what it is, they did it how they wanted, I am now living how I want and I can buy whatever car or vacation I want, but they are SO adamant that they were such easy going parents and we simply just didn’t ask for things that it’s like WTH!? Anyone else?

    • Anon

      It’s revisionist history time for me and a lot of my friends. We’re all late 30s/early 40s, and I think the first wave of grandkids prompts a LOT of revisionist history. The parents want to have been “right” about the way they raised us and the choices they made. Maybe they are unwilling to see their grandkids treated the way they treated us. Maybe they want to be seen as an “authority” on raising kids. Maybe the rejection of their parenting styles stings.

      • anon

        Just visit any online comment section populated with parents of grown kids. They did no wrong as parents, their kids were perfectly well-behaved children, and now are perfectly successful adults. I call BS.

        • Anon

          Are you serious? I am a parent of grown kids and while it’s true that so far they’ve turned out fine, I know I was and am far from a perfect parent.

          But news flash to OP and others, expecting your parents to have been perfect and resenting that they weren’t very far into adulthood is childish. Unless you were in an abusive situation, just move on. Your childhood is behind you and made you who you are today – the good and the bad.

          • Anon

            I’m the Anon at 11:56, and there was abuse. I resent a huge amount of my childhood and the problems it caused well into adulthood.

            My in-laws often say that they really don’t know how to be parents, despite having several kids and being very involved with their grandkids. Yet, their grown children are all happy, employed, married parents who love their own parents. That actually seems to be pretty typical of kids whose parents acknowledge their own limitations. Then there’s the parents who are into revisionist history, and it’s heartbreaking how many of their adult children are in therapy.

          • Anon

            Great. You realize there are lots of grandparents who do this? Their existence isn’t an attack on you. If you aren’t one of these grandparents, awesome, move on with your life. Welcome to the life of being a millennial where people say awful things about your generation that don’t apply to you.

    • Senior Attorney

      And now I’m having this fantasy of your parents posting on their old people’s forum about “OMG my kids don’t even care about all the help we gave them for college and just complaining about the things they didn’t get!”

      OP, I think your only option here is to shrug and say “welp I guess we remember it differently” and move on. And stop throwing your cousins’ goodies in their face while you’re at it. As you’re seeing, no good is coming of it.

      • Anonymous

        I’m not throwing the cousin’s goodies at anyone. I wouldn’t even know it if my parents didn’t bring it up, as I talk to these cousins 1-2 times per year. THEY are the ones that talk to the cousins (the immigrant parents) weekly and the cousins tell them oh we are doing this or that with our kids. Then my parents want to discuss and if you dare say oh how cool for their kids, you get their defensiveness. But yeah I guess the answer is just shrug and be like that’s nice.

    • Anonymous

      Revisionist history. My 60-70+ year old family members engage in it every time they are near a baby/toddler in the family. To hear them tell it, it’s ridiculous that a 3 or 4 year old still naps because it’s the sign of a lazy kid and theirs never did that (uh yeah I did I vividly remember afternoon naps at that age), apparently he should be acting like a 40 year old and head off to the office; it’s NBD for them to not check the time and call a young family member/ring their doorbell at a time when their 2 months old is asleep because oh well the kids need to be taught to sleep thru those things (sure they do but come on these parents are exhausted and were just breathing for a second when the kid fell asleep, must you interrupt that); it’s ridiculous for any kid ever to have a meltdown or need to sleep in their own bed or whatever, they should all be 1000% adaptable because their own kids were. Uh yeah ok.

      • anonNoVa

        Yes to all of this. My parents upped the ante by telling me and everyone else who cared to listen that we should just drop off my toddler with them for a few weeks so they could “straighten her out” using their magical parenting techniques.
        That said I realized that my mother was the queen of revisionist history and gaslighting as early as middle school (the worst was when my grandmother was crying and my dad was fuming about some fictional horrible thing I’d supposedly said to my mother). So although it stings I have long practice with trying not to pay attention.

        The reality is, though, that it hurts when your parents say things that suggest you are lying and being disingenous about your own childhood. It’s not about holding them to unrealistic standards, but just acknowledging the messy truth.

    • Seventh Sister

      My mom and in-laws totally rewrite history. I had my MIL telling me that she single-handedly taught the kids all of the middle and high school curriculum every night because even the “gifted” teachers couldn’t do anything right. To put it mildly, my husband and BIL have a different version of events. My mom claims my sister and I didn’t fight as badly as my kids fight – which is funny, my sister and I tried to kill one another when we were awake for the better part of a decade. And all of them claim that they were super anti-racist and the most tolerant people ever in their little towns. Hahahaha no.

      • Anon

        Well, my parents think they never used corporal punishment on us… They were deeply offended and shocked when I brought it up once.

    • Anon

      My mother doesn’t remember anything correctly, it’s kind of nuts. There are things from my childhood that I find traumatizing and still difficult to cope with and she doesn’t even remember or remembers completely wrong.

    • Anonymous

      It used to really bother me. Now I’m more like ‘okay lady, you do you’. Like I was there? I know we stayed at Holiday Inns, Days Inn and similar on vacation so it’s a weird flex to act like I’m having my kids vacation in a run down area if I don’t take them to a Fairmont or other 4/5*property. We stayed at a Fairmont one time when dad had a conference. So weird and I’m really going to try avoid doing it to my kids.

      My mom is way worse for it than my Dad because she super cares what other people think.

    • Anon

      Lol yeah, all the time. My mom remembers my adolescence as easy and our relationship as always being 100% positive. She’s very proud of how successful we are all now, which is definitely due to “how supportive she has always been of us (her kids) and our interests.”

      OTOH, I remember our screaming and crying fights that ended with her saying she was going to send me to “military boot camp school”. FWIW, I think that kind of “I will send you away if you don’t do exactly what I want” threat is horrible for any kid, but also WTF I was a well-behaved A-student and the worst fight was over whether I could spend more time working on a fundraising event for a local non-profit, so… yeah…

    • Anon

      My mother remembers different things then I do, and I have some memories she does not have. Interestingly, as far as the current discussion, the are the areas of difference. Her memories focus on times she felt she was failing me as a parent, or unable to provide what she thought I needed. My memories are ways in which I felt I disappointed or disadvantaged my family, sometimes unintentionally. We don’t disagree about any of it, but the areas of the memory Venn diagram for both of us focus on our own perceived shortcomings, rather than the other’s.

  22. Cornellian

    Just a PSA: Strivectin is having a 25% off sale. Someone here recommended their anti wrinkle defense moisturizer, which I really like, but which is SO PRICEY. if anyone has been thinking about pulling the plug, it may be the weekend for it.

  23. Anon

    I have a question about debit cards/Amazon accounts for kids. My 7th grader wants to know when she can get her own card/account to order things. She says her friends have cards to order things on their own? In 7th grade?? Anyway I’m open to considering the idea, but I’m not really sure what it involves. If you have done this for your kids, is it a credit or debit card at a specified $ limit or just an Amazon account that is linked to yours?

    • Anon

      What does a seventh grader need off Amazon that you can’t order for her (aside from a present for you)?

    • anon

      We have Greenlight debit cards for our 8 and 10 year old so that they can learn to manage money, but they don’t have the ability to shop online on their own bc of the way we’ve locked down their devices. Does she have an allowance? A bank account?

      • Anon

        I’ve thought about Greenlight cards for my kids now that the world is cashless. Most likely use is at the ice cream place down the street. Can you lock them out of online shopping? I don’t want them buying a lot of in-app game purchasese, etc. during their allotments of screen / gaming time. I guess I can just hold the cards unless they are going out with friends and IIRC I can see what they do after the fact pretty quickly.

      • Anon

        We’ve had a Greenlight card for our 14-year-old for a couple of years and it’s teaching him a lot about managing his money. His allowance (currently $10/week, he will get a raise on his birthday in July) gets deposited into the Greenlight account, and we see everything he spends money on and what his balances are in the “Spend” and “Save” categories. Recently, we got to have a “teachable moment” when he got invited to go with a friend to an activity and did not have enough money to pay for his ticket because he’d blown $20 (all he had in his Greenlight account) buying some kind of digital costume for one of his Xbox games a few days prior. He did some frantic weed pulling and yard clean-up to earn enough money to pay for his ticket, and we got to have a nice conversation about why you don’t spend accounts down to zero, ever, because you never know what’s coming along in the future. I think it’s an effective tool, way more effective than anything I had to learn how to manage my money when I was a teenager (when it was just about cash in my wallet).

        OP, Greenlight’s pretty good about allowing parents granular control and so we’ve gradually allowed more permissions as my son’s gotten older. One thing you can do is turn the card on and off, so you could manage it as, you give her the card and turn it on only when there’s a previously-discussed purchase to be made, and turn it off the rest of the time, until your daughter gets a little older.

        • Anonymous

          What exactly is Greenlight? Is it a debit card, a prepaid credit card, a gift card, something else? I’m looking for some sort of card for my 14-year-old that functions like a debit card but has the superior consumer protections of a credit card. I don’t want someone to be able to steal her debit card number and drain her checking account.

          • Anon

            It’s a debit card: https://www.greenlightcard.com/faq
            However, while I can load money into it through my bank account, it is not “connected” to my bank account the same way my debit card is. For each child with a card, there are three different (main) buckets of the Greenlight account:
            – Parent’s Wallet
            – Spend
            – Save
            I load money into the Parents’ Wallet once a month from my bank checking account (I do this manually but they have an autofunding option) and from that, his $10 allowance is automatically withdrawn and sent to his Spend and Save buckets (right now we have it split 50-50). All the debit card accesses is the money in the Spend bucket; it’s not tied to the Save bucket or the Parents’ Wallet. There is no overdraft; either there’s enough money in “spend” to complete the transaction or there is not (this is one of the first things my son learned). Same as if you had the settings on your bank debit card set to reject transactions rather than drawing down from your savings account to complete a transaction. So exposure to someone stealing the debit-card number and draining all the money out is limited, and we limit it further by encouraging our son to keep money in Save until he wants to spend it. When he wants to move money, I get a notification on my phone and have to approve it (and this has lead to some conversations about taking savings and spending it on foolishness that have been useful).

            So, in our case, he’s not really managing a bank account (and dealing with all the risks and exposures that entails), he’s just managing the money in his Greenlight, which is similar enough to managing a bank account that it’s been educational. For his age (12 when he got it; 14 now) I feel it’s an appropriate level of autonomy. When he gets his first check-paying job (which is at least a year away), we’ll have him open a checking account to deposit that money. For now I think this is working well for us.

            P.S. for anyone interested – Greenlight also has an “invest” feature we just started using. I gave my son $100 to invest and he bought some video-game company stock and he’s up to $108 in just a couple of months, which he was excited about. That lead to some good conversations about buy-and-hold investing, what risky investments look like, etc.

          • anon

            Also, worth pointing out – if someone steals your/your kid’s debit card or prepaid card, you’re not just out the money so long as you pay attention to statements and timely report the fraud to the bank (the relevant law is the Electronic Fund Transfer Act/Reg E; the CFPB has a good explainer on your rights). So if anybody ever does steal the card or card number, don’t assume you have no recourse!

    • Anon

      I had my own debit card at that age (early 00s), linked to my parents’ account. I don’t think it’s really that crazy. I could pay for things if I was out with my friends. With online shopping these days being so popular, I could see why she wants the ability to shop. Maybe she could have her own account with her allowance money in it and it could teach her to manage her own money.

    • Anonymous

      You can set up an Amazon teen account where the kid can make purchases; it may require parental approval.

      As far as debit and credit cards go, in my circle parents seem to make kids authorized users on their credit card accounts when they start driving.

    • Liverpool

      Hmmm; she sounds like she’s exaggerating.

      What you could do though is give her a pre-paid debit card (if there are any without fees) loaded with money she earned through chores. Any online purchases have to be approved by mom and dad. If she wants more money, more chores. That way you can teach her about budgeting without worrying about spoiling her?

    • SMC San Diego

      From the perspective of someone whose kid is now in college, I am going to give completely different advice.

      (1) My daughter received an allowance and (starting at 15) had a job. I did not police how she spent her money. If she wanted to blow all of it on in-app purchases – her decision. If she wanted to spend it all on overpriced junk – her decision. Then when she wanted to get or do something on the list of “pay for it yourself” and did not have the money, she learned. If she had tried to buy something completely inappropriate, I would have stepped in but she knew what I would not allow in my house and generally abided by that (e.g. no first party shooter games). This cut way down on our conflicts as she went through her teen years. Once she was driving the deal was that I paid for gas and insurance and in return she ran errands without complaining.

      (2) I am an Amazon Prime member so I just let her order from that and she paid me back (no advances!). I did not have a “teen” account and am not sure they offered it then but that might be a solution.

      (3) She had a bank account and a debit card from age 13. I showed her how to check her balance on the app and set her loose with strict warnings about the evils of overdraft fees and subscriptions. But again – her money and her choice on how to spend it. I was on the account and did regularly check what she was using it for and checked her balance. She also had a savings account and I encouraged the use by telling her once she saved half of the cost of a high price items she wanted I would pay the other half.

      I now have a college student with a firm understanding of how to monitor her spending, handle her bank account, and budget her money. She got an on-campus job (currently remote) without any prompting from me and regularly deposits money into her savings account. And it all started with letter her handle her $40/month allowance on her own and giving her the modern day tools to do that.

      • Anon

        “I now have a college student with a firm understanding of how to monitor her spending, handle her bank account, and budget her money. She got an on-campus job (currently remote) without any prompting from me and regularly deposits money into her savings account. And it all started with letter her handle her $40/month allowance on her own and giving her the modern day tools to do that.”

        This is exactly our goal in doing what we’re doing with my son’s Greenlight card. Neither my husband or I got any advice or training from our parents in money management growing up. I had an allowance, I made money babysitting, and I had a fast-food job as an older teen. I didn’t know about budgeting, and didn’t have a checking account until I went to college and got a cursory explanation in the bank about how to manage it. No surprise, I ended up overdrawing the account, and then when I got my first credit card, I ran up the balance and couldn’t pay it off. My husband had similar issues with credit cards and lack of funds where and when he needed them. We’ve talked honestly with our son about money from an early age, and now that most transactions are digital (I don’t even carry cash any more, and haven’t for years) we feel having him manage his own debit card is training for what he’s going to have to do as an independent adult. As I shared above, there has been some spending on foolishness that backfired on him, but that’s an easier lesson to learn when you’re living at home with no rent, food or utility payments. The first time as an adult that I overspent foolishly and ran out of money, I wasn’t able to make rent that month. I’m all for allowing teens to make some mistakes while they’re still living at home, with a safety net, vs. learning a harder lesson out in the “real world” later.

    • Anon

      There are other ways kids get online money. When my son was about 12, he mentioned buying something online (gamer related as I recall) and I was confused because he had no access to a card; turns out he was creating and selling SoundCloud beats or samples and had set up a PayPal account. I admired his industry but it was a little alarming.

      • Anon

        It’s so funny that you posted about this, because we’re having a conversation right now about how my son can sell a video game he and a friend coded (via Steam or another platform), and we don’t have a good answer. Apparently some minors have lost a lot of money when PayPal finds out they have an “illegal” account and shut them down, and then they’re also prevented from opening a new account when they turn 18. I would gladly sign on his behalf and accept liability to get him an account, but PayPal doesn’t provide a mechanism for this.

    • Anon

      I got debit cards for my kids when they started high school. They were taking the city bus back and forth and eating lunch off campus, so I figured there might be occasions where they needed cash and didn’t have any. It worked out fine. We left smallish amounts in their accounts (less than $100) and kept an eye on the balances to make sure they didn’t scrape bottom. They also had a budget so unless they spent all their money for some sort of emergency, if they ran out of money until the next deposit, they were brown bagging it for a while.

      But the money was for lunches and pocket money, not for purchases on Amazon.

      For a little one I think all you can do is set up an Amazon gift card and keep an eye on it. 10 years old is too young for a debit card.

  24. Anon

    Any favorite easy/fast healthy meal ideas? I feel myself slipping into a period of depression, which for me means everything is so much harder and takes so much more energy than normal, especially cooking. I end up eating a lot of junk food and then that makes me feel physically and emotionally worse. I’m working on some other aspects that typically help me feel better but I could use some food inspiration!

    • No Problem

      Scrambled eggs is always a go-to for me. Add some toast and a side of fruit.

      A meal I make often: buy the fish fillets that come frozen in individual portions – I often buy the tilapia. Defrost one in a bowl of warm water while you make a baked potato in the microwave and steam some vegetables (fresh or frozen). Once defrosted, salt and pepper the fish and sautee in a pan with butter. All done within 20 minutes and a good balance of veggie, protein, and carbs.

    • Anonymous

      Microwave Bowl meals like frontera.

      Tyson frozen precooked chicken with frozen vegetables and frozen precooked.

      Boca Burger and chips and salsa.

      Costco microwave burritos or premade meals from the deli aisle.

      Salad “kits” with or without precooked protein of your choice.

      Frozen lasagna

      The judgmental food police can just move on from this, she asked for emergency assistance and healthier than ordering out and not eco-friendly, healthy perfect food advice.

      • Anonymous

        Frontera like the Frontera Grill, my favorite restaurant? I must find these bowls.

    • AZCPA

      I try and stock a lot of things that don’t need cooking at all – between my spouse’s weird schedule and me trying to navigate complex stomach issues, there are times I just don’t feel up to cooking. So we gave ourselves permission to have snack meals and that might help. Hummus cups from Costco, already peeled hard boiled eggs, nuts, even a cheese tray – things that don’t need to be heated up or even cut. Basically, we make healthy choices as easy as the junk food.

    • Anonymous

      +1 on the frozen fish filets. I love a lot of fish, but a super easy, delicious preparation is a tuna filet coated in toasted sesame seeds, then seared to medium rare in a skillet with some sesame and avocado oils. You can dip in a teriyaki glaze or make a citrus aioli. I eat this on a bed of slaw or other greens (maiche, pea greens, microgreens, whatever). Avocado is also good with it. If you like a starch, rice is great or you can slice the tuna steak and put the whole thing on a bun. Very quick and delicious.
      I also recently made the Lentil and Olive Stew from.Post Punk Kitchen. It took only about 30 minutes and then I had nourishing and delicious soup for a week at a pretty low cost. I am not a vegan but the stew is free of any animal products and very well-rounded, especially if you increase the greens in the recipe. To mix things up, on two occasions I ate it with half a grilled chicken breast seasoned with a pretty generic seasoning mix.

    • white pants

      I hear you.

      Agree with eggs – scrambled eggs is so fast and easy. I also bought one of those very cheap hard/soft boiled egg makers online and weekly through in a bunch of eggs and keep a stash of hardboiled eggs in the fridge for an easy protein.

      Tuna fish
      Quesadillas.
      Cheese and crackers
      Frozen meals from Trader’s – I like the black bean burritos and all the indian ones.

      Keep a stash of cheap frozen vegetables that you can “steam in the bag” in your microwave. They are fantastic. Get peas, corn, green beans, chopped broccoli etc… And just try to force yourself to add a bit to each meal.

      Keep some fresh fruit/cherry tomatoes/baby carrots etc.. in the fridge so you can always just add to any protein to make things well rounded without needing to cook. Also get nuts from Costco.

      Once a week, Costco order online with delivery with their rotisserie chicken and other . Then eat it hot one day (recipies for easy reheating whole chicken online), then use it for chicken salad, chicken quesadillas. and maybe make a big chicken stew or chili one day (easy throw together recipes). as this freezes well and you can eat for days.

    • Anon

      Do you have a Costco membership? They have lots of healthy frozen or refrigerated things that make eating healthy easy. I particularly like their pre-seasoned salmon in an aluminum tray that goes straight in the oven for 20 minutes, microwavable bags of delicious Indian-style lentils, and they have frozen “chicken” (veggie) patties that taste just like chicken nuggets (yes, I’m 5) but are actually good for you. And their shrimp cocktail (near the salmon) is always perfectly cooked and such a good lean protein!

    • Anon

      Oh, this is definitely my category as I am both lazy and have a chronic illness that limits my energy and makes me somewhat picky about the food I want to eat. I’m vegetarian, so I rely a lot on a few staples when I don’t want to really cook:
      -burritos with refried beans, salsa, guac, any random veggies in the fridge on a whole grain tortilla
      -whole grain pasta and jarred sauce
      -pasta salads with lots of veggies and chickpeas (make a big batch, eat all week)
      -PB&J on whole wheat toast (it’s a classic for a reason, but I also sub apple or banana for the J)
      -pretty much anything else on toast. avocado toast is a cliché, but good, and just did broccoli with melted cheese
      -frozen falafel in a salad or pitas with lettuce/tomato/dressing (buy the bagged salad and cherry tomatoes)
      -frozen veggie burgers and other sandwiches (chickpea salad)- I always have pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, chipotle mayo, and other fun toppings for sandwiches

      • Anon

        Sorry, that’s just breakfast. I also like lots of premade stuff from Trader Joe’s like their salads, particularly the orzo salad, and wraps.

    • Monte

      Ramen. Yes, I know it is not the healthiest, but it feels like comfort food to me. To mitigate the bad stuff, I halve the powdered/salty stuff, add in a bunch of chili sauce for more flavor but less sodium, and then add in any/all frozen veggies I have on hand — typically peas, edamame, roasted corn, and broccoli. And maybe more water so it is still soupy. It takes 5 minutes, I get in two servings of vegetables (I really love broccoli), and I am not thinking about prep/cooking/cleaning any more than absolutely necessary.

      I also frequently roast frozen salmon with whatever fresh veggies I have (broccoli and grape tomatoes) and just dress with lemon/olive oil and serve over farro or basmati (typically make a cup a week and either eat or freeze and reheat later). Again, five minutes of dicing/seasoning and 15 min hands off time in the oven.

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