Splurge Monday’s Workwear Report: Wrap-Effect Printed Satin/Twill Midi Dress

This post may contain affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

A woman wearing a orange print Gucci silk dress and carrying an off-white Loewe bag

Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.

It’s summer, it’s hot, and sometimes we just need a colorful wrap dress to get us through the day.

In my Biglaw days, I knew a partner who worked with a lot of artists and celebrities, and instead of suits, she had a collection of the most fantastic dresses you’ve ever seen. I think she would have loved this bright orange Gucci wrap dress for the summer and would have worn it with a pair of fabulous heels that cost more than my rent. She walked so Elle Woods could run!

The dress is $3,980 at NET-A-PORTER and comes in Italian sizes 36-48. 

A few more affordable options in bold orange prints: Nina Leonard (Nordstrom Rack, $29.95), Chaus (Nordstrom, $99), and in plus sizes, City Chic (Nordstrom, $104 on sale).

Sales of note for 1/31/25:

  • Ann Taylor – Suiting Event – 30% off suiting + 30% off tops
  • Nordstrom – Cashmere on sale; AllSaints, Free People, Nike, Tory Burch, and Vince up to 60%; beauty deals up to 25% off
  • Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + extra 20 off your $100+ purchase
  • Boden – 15% off new season styles
  • Eloquii – 60% off 100s of styles
  • J.Crew – Up to 40% off winter layers
  • J.Crew Factory – 50% off sweaters and pants
  • Rothy's – Final Few: Up to 40% off last-chance styles
  • Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
  • Talbots – End of season clearance, extra 70% off markdown tops + extra 60% off all other markdowns

462 Comments

  1. I’m pretty sure that I’m the only one, but I absolutely love this. Way out of my price range, and way way out of my lifestyle range, it is in my color range. If only I had a completely different lifestyle and budget ….

    1. Same, except don’t love the high slit. But for that, I could wear this in my role (GC at F200 company).

    2. I love this. I don’t even like orange as a color, but mix it with white and some pink and I am there for it.

      OTOH, I bet it is real silk. Which means that I could ruin it in one use (if not the rain, then some sort of sauce at lunch; it’s unseemly for a woman in a 4K dress to don a surgical gown for a meal, but I’d be afraid not to).

      But yes, if I could get it in something that I could dot with Dawn and throw in the washer, maybe for a tenth of the price, I’m sure I could find some things I could wear it to at least a few times a month.

      Queen Maxima would rock this.

      1. Whelp, we know from the Cerulean speech that fashion moves from the runaway to the discount rack, so I’m hoping that some versions of this will crop up at a J Crew price point within the next year or two.

    3. I love this. I couldn’t wear this in a million years but I would admire the heck out of anyone who did!

    4. I don’t understand the chain print. It’s off putting. Like are you bound in this dress or something? And it seems very dated but maybe it’s going for a 60s/70s vibe?

      1. Hermes / Gucci have these equestrian-esque things. DVF is who does the stylized chain.

      2. It’s the horse bit style link that Gucci uses frequently.

        Orange is terrible on me but I’d happily wear a more subdued cousin of this to work.

    5. The colors make me so happy. If I were a Lady Who Lunches, I would be rocking it this summer.

  2. I’m doing a big renovation project and am diligent tracking all my expenses to have proof of cost basis once I sell the house. Is there any way to account for the time that I am investing? There is a certain amount of “sweat equity” going into the project – I could pay 3x the cost and have someone else do certain tasks, or I can do it myself for a fraction of the price but triple my time. Even if I were to be working a minimum wage job for all these hours, it would really add up! This is my first time doing this and I want to make sure I’m not missing something significant. Is there a way to account for this in your cost basis? It really should count as an investment (of time) and reduce the taxable profit when it comes time to sell!

    If relevant: This isn’t my day job – I’m a regular W2 employee in an unrelated industry. I expect my gain to be substantially over the 250k threshold that you get to take tax free for the sale of your primary residence.

    1. Uh no. This is just what doing renovations entails. Or any big project really.

      The profit for your time is that you get to enjoy a house renovated to your taste.

    2. No, this isn’t how it works. You only get to deduct your actual expenses for labor, material, etc. that you pay to someone else.

    3. No, it does t work that way. Also? Hire a GC. What you think you’ll save you’ll spend redoing things.

    4. That is not how any of this works. No, you can’t account for your labor; you’re the homeowner. Sweat equity means something to you, not to any potential buyer.

      1. +1000
        Your house will sell for what someone else will pay for it at the point in time it’s on the market- not how much money you’ve put into it. Also do some research on which home improvements actually add value (or at least recoup your costs) at resale. No matter how nice the reno is, some changes only return a fraction of the investment.

        1. That’s not what she’s talking about. If you improve your home you can claim a stepped up basis on your taxes so that the increase in equity isn’t counted as pure profit for capital gains purposes.

      1. This is the correct answer. It’s an IRS regulation and applies to basically everything.

    5. You can’t deduct any of it. There MAY be some state tax benefits related to energy improvements (pellet stove, solar panels). I flipped a whole house and nobody cared what my costs were, it sold for what the market determined was fair.

    6. Why are the people answering the question wrong (she’s not asking about deductions, for instance, or about how this affects the ultimate sale price of the property), or answering a question you didn’t ask, being so mean about it? If you don’t understand the tax question, maybe just don’t respond.

        1. Yes, they are wrong, because they are answering the wrong question. Deducting is not the same as keeping track for purposes of not paying gain on the house when she eventually sells it, and responding as if her question is stupid, when it’s not, is mean. It is also condescending. The OP asked a legitimate question. I also think the answer to being able to deduct a charge for your own time for purposes of calculating the gain when she sells the house later is “no,” but almost none of the snippy answers above address that.

          1. Agree with you. Lots of people REALLY don’t know what they’re talking about here.

          2. Actually a lot of us are very familiar with cost basis and answered accordingly. It’s still no for your personal time.

          3. Agreed, a lot of people are misunderstanding the question. I’ve done something like this (invested in capital improvements on a rental property) and it’s important to differentiate gains in value due to your investments in the property from the organic growth of the value of the property.
            (And in my case also keep track of the depreciation I claimed on those improvements on each years taxes).
            Several people gave the right answer though – Your own time doesn’t count, even at minimum wage :)

  3. not at all.i love it too. if i didn’t sweat, spill, get pen on my cuffs and i did iron…. it would be perfect.

  4. Two questions about tailoring:

    1. Has anyone ever replaced a button fly with a zipper? Bought a really nice pair of pants, deeply discounted, without paying that close of attention and want to keep them, but I do hate a button fly. Find them awkward and difficult. It would be worth the cost, given the initial investment was so low, but have no idea if a good tailor can do this. Anyone with experience?

    2. I also bought a super cute sundress in that gauzy, kind of wrinkly fabric you see everywhere now. The material feels as though it has some heft, but lo and behold when I put it on, it’s pretty see through. I know I can wear slip shorts, but am pretty self conscious about this. I hate to wear a slip; has anyone ever successfully had a tailor add a layer to avoid the transparency?

    Am new to the world of having a tailor really help you customize clothes to your actual body and preferences, so looking forward to learning more.

    1. On 1, you could probably do this by making the buttons permanent and adding a zipper inside. On 2, while I tailor a lot of things, I don’t invest in one season items or anything super casual, it’s never worth it. I’d just get a slip of it bugs or wear as a pool coverup.

    2. on 2, is it see through like you can literally see your undergarments through the fabric? if so, just use it as a pretty cover up. If it’s see through in that when you’re backlit you can see the whole outline of your body and you don’t like it? Shrug, I’d wear it as is. A slip or lining will defeat the purpose.

      1. Same. This would not make me self conscious and I would not put any money towards tailoring here.

    3. I don’t buy stuff like #2. I don’t want to bother with an item if it’s not good off the rack. Return it instead of putting more money into tailoring.

    4. The button fly may be something a tailor can change, but I expect it will be expensive, because adding a set-in zipper will require taking a good portion of the pants apart and then putting them back together. The only way to know is to bring it to a tailor and ask.

      For the sheer dress, again, what you want may be possible. It will depend on the seam structure of the dress, and similar to the pants, will likely mean the tailor has to take it apart, add the additional layer, and then reassemble it.

  5. Continuing the conversation about the eldest daughter carrying the weight of the world, if you are the child who handles the majority of care for your parents, how do you not let it negatively impact your relationship with your other siblings? My parents don’t need a ton of help from me yet but my siblings don’t help at all and it’s very difficult for me emotionally. How do you not want to completely cut off your siblings when they don’t lift a finger? I feel like it shows how much they care about their family and if not for my parents and holidays, I wouldn’t even see them. It’s hard to accept that your siblings don’t care about you.

    1. Do your parents recognize that you shoulder the burden? If they do, and if they also wish your siblings did more, could they specifically ask a sibling to help with a specific task?

      I’m 31 and my brother (29) and I already have specific tasks, either for now or the future, that we know we’re the “lead” on. Our parents are early to mid 60s and very healthy, work full time, and totally self sufficient, but we already have divided up some tasks.

      1. I would love to hear more about this! What are the tasks? Financial, medical?

        1. Right now they’re really basic – my brother helps them with tech questions (buying new devices, troubleshooting issues) and when they need help with physical labor. I actually work for the same employer as my dad and seem to have a better grasp on our benefits and insurance, so I help navigate that and help them choose plans. They know I’m good at research and am more internet savvy, so I help with random things they need more info on.

          Down the road he’ll have financial POA and I’ll have medical – this fits both our interests and skills best. My brother is an accountant, I work in public health policy so while I’m certainly not a provider, I do understand the system pretty well.

          My brother lives 2 miles from my parents, so he’s around if they need something quick. I’m 15 miles away, so I can easily help out, but less so at a moment’s notice. But, I’m better planning and organizing and problem solving so I handle the big picture.

          1. This is probably a therapy question – with respect, you’ve barely even scratched the surface of what caregiving may entail for you, and you’re already upset with your siblings. Worthwhile to explore how to get to acceptance about what you are giving, versus what they are giving.

          2. Hi, I think you’re replying to me but I’m not the OP! I’m not upset with my sibling – I think we have a good balance now and trust that we will in the future. I don’t see either one of us not helping and forcing the other to pick up the slack!

    2. That’s a big jump. Have you or your parents asked them for help? Or has the help needed been quick one-off things like going to the occasional complicated dr’s appt or configuring their new router, and siblings don’t see that as a big deal? I mean, worth a chat with them about long term care needs, but your hypo is a little extreme.

    3. I have one sibling who lives far away and is broke (rocky employment, divorce is financially hard on every family even if a net + otherwise). I live not-as-far from my aging parents, but still a plane trip away and they get monthly short visits. My sibling is quick to criticize every last thing that they and I do but does not actually help. (Will ask parents for $$$ though). Dad is alienated. Mom gives sibling $$ for needed items (would be more burdensome if sibling were to lose housing and need to move home with a bunch of kids). I just handle as asked and I will propose things that I’ve scoped out that I think are needed / beneficial / affordable. At the moment, they will drive on local known roads, but after that, it will get very hard. It is already just stressful to the extent of the sibling, almost the worst part of all this.

    4. My brother doesn’t get a cent of my parents money when they pass. It’s the only way I keep a civil relationship with him and deal with my parents. My parents know my brother is a lemon and have acted accordingly. I could not take on all this extra labour if I knew it was ultimately just going to be for his benefit. It will be real messy when they die and he finds out though

      1. My understanding is that it’s easier for him to challenge the will if he’s literally left “not a single cent.” I believe it’s better to leave the disinherited child some amount to show that their omission from the bulk of the estate was intentional. Or that’s how it worked in the situation I am closest to.

        1. I oversimplified for the sake of a short comment but my parents have all their legal ducks in a row and it’s iron clad.

    5. Take a lot of steps back here, first, if your parents aren’t asking you to do things then what are you even talking about? Second, all this depends on what the capabilities and logistics are. My sister used my parents as her basically exclusive caregivers for her kids and now she takes care of their physical needs. I handle financial issues. It doesn’t all need to look the same. We also have a great relationship and I recommend cultivating that and putting your petty childhood issues aside. It will make a lot of things easier as you age.

      1. +1 Nothing in life is really equal. Do you live closer to your parents? As much as it may seem unfair, for physical in-person tasks, the child who is closer will shoulder a lot of the work. Ideally, that proximity would be mutually beneficial over the years (help with childcare, hosting you for meals, companionship, etc). But again, relationships are not tit-for-tat, and how do you quantify the “work” they did raising you all, anyway.

        If it gets to be too much, you can talk to siblings about paying to outsource as much as possible, and in later years (when there may be illness, surgeries, hospice) one would hope all the children would devote time and vacation days to visiting. But again, my perspective is that when you love people, you just have to do the inconvenient and hard parts sometimes, and there’s no accounting formula or balance sheet.

        1. I respectfully disagree. My out of state brother came home once while one parent spent years sinking further and further into dementia. On that occasion he left early the next day because he “just couldn’t see her like that”. My father and I provided her care until it was impossible to do so at home, and then we were ever present when she was in dementia care. Now it is my father, who is mentally all there, still able to be in his own home, but physically frail. Grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning past what the housekeeper does, taking him to dr’s appointments, taking him riding around so he gets out of the house, etc etc etc – these all fall solely on me.

          I do it out of love but that doesn’t mean I don’t resent my brother who has never assisted our parents in any way. There is indeed an accounting in my mind. In fact, there is negative judgment of him in my mind. If you have never felt trapped as the caregiver – always with go bag ready, ever ready to be called out of your social plans, worried like hell that you are going to be needed when you are in court and can’t leave – well, I’m happy for you. But it is a form of trapped when you are carrying the load and siblings are just out there living their best life.

          1. +1000. You abandon any sense of responsibility and are glad to dump the load on your female family members (but then you’ll probably come back when it’s time to cash the inheritance check)? I will NEVER think of you the same way again and we probably won’t have a relationship period.

    6. I feel like my siblings and I did a very good job handling my mother’s aging, but there is no doubt that my younger sister (5th oldest over all) handled much more of the day-to-day stuff than the rest of us since we all live out of town and she lived next door. I feel that there was little we could do to even up the sides, but we did throw money, and listen and express our appreciation. I’m not really sure what else we could do. My mother also did a ton to make sure she wasn’t a burden, she took a car service to appointments so my sister wouldn’t have to miss work, she got meals on wheels and grocery delivery so we didn’t have to worry about her nutrition, she paid for extensive renovations on her house to make it easier for her (moving the laundry room to the main level, etc.), and later moved into a senior community.

      With my mil, I feel like the pain is spread evenly over all of the kids, but I also know the oldest sister (who is the not the first born) feels like she endures the bulk of the burden. DH and one sister are physically the closest, so they do a lot of the little things. My MIL does nothing for herself and heavily leans on her children to care for her. She refused to get grocery delivery during Covid or now, won’t order anything from Amazon, refuses hearing aids so it’s difficult to speak to her, etc.

      1. I feel like your description of your mother-in-law is a problem that’s not talked about enough. There are a lot of seniors who either cannot or will not help themselves but still expect significant help from family, even if it comes at extreme cost to their lives (giving up jobs, major time away from kids every single week, etc). I don’t know how we solve it but “teehee she likes her house, what can we do” isn’t it.

    7. I’m worried about this. We had a family crisis and one of my brothers ran the other way completely and didn’t speak to anyone for months until it was time to ask for a handout again. The other brother did well but I have no idea how all three of us are going to work together. I dread it.

    8. With one set of grandparents, one daughter was in the same zip code, as was one granddaughter (a nurse). They did the majority of the work. One son and DIL were close and did less but significant work. A lot of that was losing a day to go to them, take them to various specialist appointments that were 1-hour away, and then a meal and then home (rural family; anything but a nurse practitioner is at least an hour drive). Local daughter provided meals most days towards the end (5ish years, while she was retired). My mom was a flight away, but had more $, so she paid all of the bills — yard person, cleaners, most groceries, clothes, meds, etc. because their pensions were tiny and were less than their expenses (but it cost less to keep them at home and they preferred that). But everyone was on board with this (my grandmother had watched my cousin’s kids when they were little when they got off the bus, so they were mutually interdependent for a LONG time before it went more one-way). When my grandmother had cancer, my mom was retired and she moved down for a summer to take care of her (maybe longer?) because everyone else was still working.

      1. I think that timing about who is retired already and who is still working full time is key. The line I drew in the sand a while ago is that I will not compromise my job security for my parents’ care. They genuinely would not care that I lost my house to foreclosure if I lost my job. So here we are.

    9. Each of my sibling’s relationship with our parents is not their relationship with me.

      1. Can you elaborate?

        In my family, we used to go to church (whiskeypalian) weekly. The story I have struggled with more and more as I’ve aged is The Prodigal Son. You can imagine why. Just letting it go and filling my life with other things is what helps vs dwelling on things I can’t help.

        1. I think it’s partly because of the way my parents split up and how different siblings had different experiences with that depending on life stage and other factors, but I feel like where it’s landed is that some of us felt more supported by one parent or the other, and that so far we have made decisions based on how in contact we still are and what other obligations we have. Maybe it will get harder in the future! There’s no money or inheritance involved though. And there’s no prodigal son scenario where there’s a beloved and treasured child who receives a lot and contributes nothing; it’s more that some siblings are closer or more distant.

        2. I think it’s quite revealing in that story that the father never really answers the diligent son’s question. He responds that everybody should be happy the prodigal brother is saved, which, great, but why wasn’t some of this happiness and appreciation shown to the son who showed up every day?

        3. As an oldest daughter that parable always grated on me (and was part of a series of last straws that lead to me leaving organized religion entirely, to be frank) but one angle on that story that helped me reconcile it later is that we are *all* the Prodigal Son, while we all think we’re the Steadfast Son. I believe some readings of it are that the Steadfast Son is almost a chimera-like creature that doesn’t really exist in the real world, and the focus is on “God the Father’s” love and acceptance of “us” no matter how sinful we were in our lives, we can still repent. It does really change the reading of the parable, because most of us instinctively recoil “but I followed the rules!” but in the Christian reality, we all really are sinners (note: I don’t really follow this belief system, just explaining) and need to keep that focus on repenting and forgiveness not what we did “right” per se.

          But regardless of that very generous reading of the parable, it *isn’t* fair or equal. I would say the only very slight silver lining in being the Good ChildTM is that it nourishes your soul in a way you might not imagine. I don’t mean like…bragging rights about being a good person but more the quiet knowledge that you did the right thing even when it was hard and no one can take that from you.
          Cold comfort at times, I know. :(

    10. I’m in the same boat, classic eldest daughter who will be doing all the caretaking when the time comes. My sibling has been absent from my life for many years so I’ve gotten used to it unfortunately.

    11. For me, it sort of does affect my relationship with my sister, but also with my parents, because my parents don’t really care for my sister and have made it quite clear they would prefer to have me handle everything. My sister is willing, but sort of unable, both for financial reasons and personality reasons. I resent them all a little but give my sister credit for saying she is willing.

      1. Yes, I’m one of four. My parents only trust my one sister and I for serious things (medical or financial). My brother is great for other things, but not this stuff. My other sister is pretty mean, so she doesn’t do nearly as much and my parents don’t really want her to. Like, when my dad was recovering for surgery my brother moved there for 3 weeks to move my dad and help him get ready in the morning. My parents have a cleaning lady and a lawn service so there’s not much physical stuff but my brother does all of it.

        My nice sister, brother, and I all work FT and live 10-20 mins from our parents. My eldest (mean) sister is retired and lives 45 mins away, but claims she’s too far to help out.

        Nice sister, brother, and I all see my parents 1-2x a week, for a mix of social and practical reasons. Mean sister is 1x a month, never more but never less.

        1. Once a month visits are completely acceptable 50+ visits a year is a bit codependent

          1. I mean, yeah my family is codependent. Not in an enmeshed way, but in a “my parents do some childcare for me and I do some eldercare for them” way. A LOT of families are “codependent” in this way.

          2. You do you, but with the caveats that I love my parents, I really like my parents, and they live 10 mins away I am more than happy to see them approximately 100 times a year. Especially since we have a really symbiotic relationship – they do 2x a week childcare for me, I accompany them to cancer-related doctor’s appointments as a second set of eyes and ears and I help them with household tasks they are getting too old to do.

            I also grew up seeing my grandparents a few times a week and I loved it. I want my kids to have the same opportunities.

          3. When you live nearby and your parents are elderly and need help, only 1x a month visits (especially if you’re not working!) is rude.

    12. I am the youngest of 3 daughters and so far my sisters and I have shared responsibility for my parents fairly equitably. Both siblings live in the same neighborhood as my parents in the suburbs and I live in the city about 50 minutes away. Both siblings have benefited hugely from my parents helping them with childcare- ranging from my mom watching my nieces full time as babies to several days per week as toddlers and now to school pick ups and shuttling to activities multiple days per week as elementary aged kids. I’ve received no/little help with childcare since I live further away and they are busy with my nieces. When my parents need help, my sisters step in for most of the in person stuff (needing help printing/emailing documents, showing up to the hospital to relieve my Mom when my Dad was hospitalized for Covid), where I visit and help when I’m there and try to do my best to help with tech stuff (making online appointments for immediate care visits or vaccines since my parents are not tech savvy, setting them up with Mychart so we can message their doctors, dropping off groceries on the weekend, etc.) So far, it is working. My parents are immigrants and have a strong family mentality, so all 3 of us are equally committed to helping them given how much they sacrificed to raise and provide generously to all of us.

      It’s more unbalanced for my MIL. My FIL died 5 years ago and my MIL leaned very heavily on her 2 sons (DH is oldest) when FIL was sick. She refused to allow full time nursing care at home because she didn’t like having nurses in her home, but expected her kids to instead provide round the clock nursing care in addition to their full time jobs and families. BIL ended up taking a sabbatical from work to care for FIL at the end for about a month and we live 5 minutes away so DH was there every day. After FIL died, BIL moved out of state, so we’re now the only ones local to MIL. DH and I handled the entire estate process and help my MIL with everything (DH does any physical tasks she needs, we help her with her taxes and financial questions, we take her on vacations with us, and any other day to day tasks). She broke her ankle about a year ago and DH handled all Dr appointments and surgery, physical therapy, getting her set up with food delivery and checking in on her regularly. BIL visits about 1-2 times per year. It feels very unbalanced, but it is what it is. MIL is very selfish and never offered to help when our kids were young even though she was healthy and lived 5 minutes away, so I’m a bit resentful of how much we are doing for her, but again I come from a family with strong sense of familial obligation so can’t fault my DH for doing so much for his mother. It is just a very one-way street.

    13. In my family, we each contribute, but there’s definitely a gender role divide. I’m the middle child/eldest daughter, and I’m the motivator on the team. If something needs to be done, I’m usually the person saying it and figuring out who can do it. My job is biggish, but I have more vacation than my siblings and have flexibility to work remotely, so sometimes I’m the worker bee, but not always. My sister, the youngest, is geographically closest, but still a plane flight away, and she has a school-aged child and not a ton of vacation time. She shows up a lot, and I’m really grateful for that. I would say she and I shoulder an equal share of the burden, but usually different tasks. And we’re always on the same team.

      Our brother will show up when asked to, but he is never the one who thinks of it. We have to ask/assign him tasks, but he does them willingly. I’m resigned to the fact that he will never handle the emotional labor that my sister and I do. It just isn’t in him, and I don’t have the energy to fight him about it. I’ll just keep bossing him around.

    14. I was the only one of four (two full siblings and two halfs) who had the ability and inclination to help my parents. I did it because I am a decent human being and I was closest geographically, even though my relationship with my parents was not the best. Honestly, at the end of the day I decided the trade off of “making all the decisions myself” vs. “not having help” was worth it. When they passed their modest estate was split four ways, as they’d wished, and that was also fine. (With the caveat that I am far more finacially well off than the other three.)

      I have completely cut off my one full brother because he is a failure-to-launch MAGA-head who sponged off my parents for their whole lives. The “not helping” was the least of it. As for the half siblings, my dad pretty much abandoned them when he divorced their mom so I feel like it’s completely reasonable that they didn’t show any interest in elder care when he got old. I see the brother who is local and am casual facebook friends with the sister who lives on the opposite coast, and that’s fine with me.

    15. There are 3 sisters in my family, no brothers. DH and I help with my widowed mother with financial stuff and home maintenance, shopping, etc. I live about 4 hours away and visit her once a month. Another sister is a nurse who lives about 2 hours away, and she’s the go-to for healthcare issues and she visits a couple of times a year. 3rd sister lives on the west coast and doesn’t really help with anything, except a text now and then, but she is mean, nasty and always ready to fight about something. When my mother had a hip replacement, we asked her to stay with my mom for a week or two since she’s a SAHM with 2 kids in college. She refused. She visits for a weekend once a year. I’m the executor of my mom’s estate, and everything will be split evenly. I don’t really see helping my mom as a burden right now, but that may change if/when she gets older or sicker.

    16. My brothers left me high and dry for years, until the death of our mom. The breaking point for me was when I badly injured my back lifting said parent multiple times a day. I begged my brothers to support me in demanding we hire help, at least for physical support with showering. That I would pay for. They refused (“it’s dad’s decision”). They did not care if I ended up permanently physically disabled or worse if I dropped her. I had to take unpaid leave for intensive PT.

      Our dad is still alive. I have made it clear to my brothers that anything he needs is on them. Dad also did not care if I ended up permanently disabled as I did all the physical work. Until these events, I idolized my father. I would have done anything for his comfort. Not anymore. When he dies, I will dance. I just hope I outlive him, so I can experience life as more than a puppet.

      If your family see you only as their mule, get away from them at first opportunity.

    17. It did affect my relationships with my siblings. I was very hurt, upset. The demands were very damaging for my personal life/career.

      You are unclear as to whether your siblings know what you are going through. You are also unclear as to what your parent’s aging plan is, if there is one at all.

      People aren’t mind readers, people are generally self absorbed and many will prefer to do the minimum when it comes to this stuff. And brothers…. well, it is what it is. And some or more functional than others. Their wives may also be irritated by requests, particularly if they are not close with your parents/live far away and have their parent’s issues to deal with too and a busy family. That is pretty normal. Everyone is busy, with lots of demands on their time, and with kids etc..

      My married brother with kids and a wife that was not close to our parents did…. almost nothing, except come to visit when parents were critically ill/near death. If I called him and asked him firmly to do one thing, or give $ for something, he would usually try to do it. But he hated conflict, does not have great social skills and generally avoids anything difficult. But at least he called once a week, and the grandchild actually developed an incredible bond with my parent from talking once a week for many years.

      I encourage you to have an open “family meeting” with your siblings and just lay it out on the table. Talk about what each is willing/able to do long term. Don’t regurgitate every hurt/complaint. Come with a simple, concrete statement about what you are willing to do, what you need help with and with suggestions for how your siblings can help. And then then you need to start having the open dialogue with your parents, so they know what you are willing to do…. and what you can’t.

      I find it most helpful to have very specific requests for my siblings, if they do not initiate on their own. They also don’t know what you don’t tell them, and underestimate the mental work/stress of being the local one to help. At a minimum, have them throw $ at things, have them come visit at regular intervals. You (or your parents) can be ready with a “list” of things they can help with, and a break for you during those visits. Yes, you can have one person handle finances, fine the elder care lawyer etc.. One of my brother’s would take care of finding things that I needed…. “I need a humidifier for their bedroom…. please find/order a reasonable one with these requirements…. ” Whatever. They can also be doing regular check in phone calls.

      But you need to talk with your parents too. The financials need to be clear. This is where parents money should be spent – not yours. And topics need to come up as to what will happen once the “family home” is too difficult to manage.

    18. You just accept it and move on. I’m on the other side of this question and it was not equitable but they were never going to change who they are. You will save yourself a lot of grief if you go in with the mindset that you will not get a return on investment. Your parents may choose to compensate you more but in practice of sacrifices you might have to make professionally or personally, it won’t be an equal balance sheet. And by the way, if that means you choose to have a different relationship with your siblings after your parents are gone, that’s ok too. Put the boundaries you need in place.

    19. This is one of the reasons I’ve never really understood why people say being an only child is so awful when it comes to elder care. I may not have siblings to help but I also don’t have conflict with them about decisions or resentment about them not helping.

  6. I feel so frazzled all of the time – I’d love to be the person with the tidy apartment, who actually uses the groceries I buy, with a morning routine that isn’t “hit snooze until I’m running late”, but I’m not.

    I’m decently busy, but not OMG so busy that I couldn’t have my life together. I just get into a rut and it’s so, so hard to pull myself out of it. What small steps can I take today (and what larger steps can I take next weekend) to get myself a little more “together”?

      1. Aside from work, most of my screen time is “beneficial” – reading on my kindle, looking up recipes, looking up how to do something for a hobby, playing the NYT games and sharing with my grandma (who can’t do much else). As for scrolling, time on here and social media, etc. less than an hour a day. I almost never watch TV.

        1. Okay, doesn’t sound like that’s causing the mental clutter, then. Have you tried meditation or exercise? Just trouble-shooting for common ways to calm the mind and be present.

          1. Exercise: I’m usually decent – either I have a week where I work out 5x and have a great mix of cardio and strength. Or I have a week where I do nothing, except my standing weekly run with a friend or rec sports game. I am really trying that even on the weeks where I don’t workout the way I like to (30-45 mins 5x a week), I still at least do a 5 min circuit or something.

            In an ideal world I would work out in the AM before work so I can’t get off track, but I am having trouble fitting that in.

            Meditation: While I don’t officially meditate, I do have hobbies that I find meditative. I am currently really into paint by numbers and I find that that’s very meditative for me. Ditto getting into a good book or being in a good “rhythm” on a long run.

          2. Just to fully rule things out, since you’ve mentioned exhaustion several times and it sounds like the exhaustion is new, have you had a recent physical to rule out any physical causes? Anemia is common among women our ages and is an easy fix once you know about it.

          3. I haven’t – I kind of chalked it up to being related to a) general aging – even though I’m still young, I’m not in my 20s anymore and as all of my friends have gotten into our early 30s we all discuss needing more sleep and downtime than we used to b) moving to a new level at work, which definitely requires more of me mentally and c) having to juggle (intermittently) non-work issues that were time and mental capacity consuming.

          4. Have you tried having a morning checklist to help you get out the door? It sounds silly, but it takes away the mental load of having to remember things. That, and keeping essential things NEAR THE DOOR is key.

      1. I think one of the issues is that I am usually exhausted. I have to leave my apartment by 715 to get to work, I have a pretty minimal AM routine (would love to add 5-10 mins to do my hair, but can’t find the energy). I wake up around 615 or 630, spend too long dragging myself out of bed, have coffee and do the NYT games / chat with grandma for about 15 minutes, then get ready for work. Getting ready only takes 15 isn minutes, but I’m always running late somehow. Which means I don’t grab my lunch from the fridge, so then I get Sweetgreen for lunch (at least its veggies), and the food goes to waste.

        I try to get in bed between 9 and 930 with the goal of being asleep by 10, but that isn’t always successful (usually I’m in bed on time but can’t fall asleep, some nights I have revenge procrastination and don’t get off my couch until close to 10, some nights I have plans that keep me out a little later).

        1. If you’re always running late it’s because you are lying to yourself. Clearly getting ready doesn’t only take 15 minutes or you wouldn’t be late all the time.

          1. Usually I’m ready for work and then something pops up (where did I put my keys? oh shoot its trash day, need to take a can to the curb, did I take my meds / let me double back and take them).

          2. Yeah girl that’s what I mean by lying to yourself. You gotta add at least 5 minutes to your getting ready time to account for things coming up.

          3. I used to calculate time the same was as you, OP! I always felt frazzled and late for everything or just barely on time. I live with a Very On Time person now, and adapting some of his habits have really helped me.

            I would say that it takes me 15 mins to get ready because it does really take me 15 mins to put on clothes, wash my face, do my makeup, and brush my teeth. Yes! But it does NOT take me 15 minutes to get out the door because of the stuff you said. So I calculate an extra 10 mins when thinking about how much time I need in the morning.

            Also for stuff like losing keys, I always always always put my keys in the same spot. It is a spot that makes sense to me (a little table by the door), and even when I’m tidying, I don’t move my keys even if it could look more aesthetically pleasing if they were hidden away. Same with other important items like my phone charger, wallet, etc.

            Also, I sense in some of your comments that you might be letting the perfect get in the way of the good. You used to tidy for 5 mins at night but you feel like you can’t get it all done or you don’t know where things go now, etc. But that’s okay! Put away what you can for 5 mins. Start tonight. It doesn’t have to be everything. In fact, it won’t be everything. But getting a start and doing SOMETHING will help your life feel less stressful.

            These are just a couple of little things. Unfortunately, it’s hard to build a habit and there’s not much beyond you just have to get through the initial phase of getting up earlier or not doing NYT Games in the morning and instead doing them at lunch, etc. Once you get through a few days and your morning is easier, it will be better.

        2. Late to this conversation, but having had this problem myself in the past, I wanted to weigh in and hope you see it. Your exhaustion sounds like it needs an investigation, as in a doctors visit and a blood panel. When I had your problem, it turned out to be a vitamin deficiency that, although it took time to fix, made a huge difference for me.

          On another front, you might get some ideas from the book The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg.

          Good luck with this—I totally empathize.

    1. I’m a big fan of the “point your skis downhill” mode of setting yourself up for success. The night before: everything is laid out or automated so there are no decisions to make in the morning. Clothes, coffee set to automatically brew, usually I make a to-do list for work when I’m logging off the night before.

      Make adjustments to match your lifestyle, rather than trying to contort your lifestyle to match your preferred outcomes. Why aren’t you cooking with the groceries – not enough time, burnout, spontaneous plans that come up? Scale back what you buy so you’re not planning to cook as much, and adjust further if you need to. Untidy apartment – would 10 minutes a day make a difference, or do you need to purge 10% of what you own so everything else fits better?

      1. This is a good call out – I used to be much better with having my stuff set (literally and figuratively) for the next morning before bed. I find that I just get so tired that it’s a struggle to do this, but I do feel much more together when I do this!

        As for cooking, kind of all of the above. If I don’t cook by Monday night then I find myself not cooking for the week. Some weeks even making pasta feels like too much effort after a day at work? I keep breakfast and dinner easy (throw a cup of yogurt in my bag and eat it at work for breakfast, things like girl dinner or cereal or toast for dinner). I try to meal prep a lunch, but I honestly couldn’t tell you the last time I did that? But, usually if I don’t cook its a combination of lack of time or energy or plans coming up.

        Untidy apartment – I used to take 5 mins every day to tidy up, but once again got away from it and I’m not sure why. But, because things don’t really have a “place” right now, I find tidying up overwhelming. I have dyscalculia that really impacts my spatial reasoning so I struggle with seeing where things should be stored / where they fit / good ways to store things. I’m in the process of purging and would like to purge more, but I still don’t know how to organize things in my (small, oddly laid out) apartment.

        1. Can you get a friend to help out with the organizational tasks? There is no one right way to store things. You have to organize stuff in a way that makes sense for you not the way things look on Pinterest. Check out KC Davis or Clutterbug on YouTube.

        2. If these spontaneous plans are throwing things off this much, is it possible to just … not do them? It sounds like you need more rest and recovery than you’re actually getting.

          1. On the nights I have plans (admittedly, frequently) they’re *usually* something I’d already be doing and have me home well before 9PM. They’re usually exercise or hobby related, but I just do them with a friend or two instead of alone. Maybe once a week its grabbing a drink or a bite so while its not something I”d technically do on my own, its not throwing stuff off.

            For example this week I’m running with a friend today (we always run on Mondays), tomorrow a friend is “coming over for dinner” aka I”m picking up a premed quiche from WF and throwing it in the oven and we’ll eat together, and Thursday a friend and I are playing tennis for an hour after work – we may grab a drink afterwards but still I’ll be home by maybe 830?

            I live alone and while I go into the office, my job itself is very solitary, so I do find it good for me and my mental health to see friends after work somewhat regularly.

        3. So don’t put pressure on yourself to make elaborate meals. Girl dinner is fine! Or do one of those meal boxes like Hello Fresh so you don’t even have to think about it.

          1. Oh I’m fine with girl dinner! I just struggle with lunches. I don’t want to spend the money to get a salad every day, but I really, really struggle with packing lunch. I know it only takes a few minutes (especially if I meal prep lunch, which I try but fail to do) but its a hurdle I cannot seem to get over.

          2. For lunches, when I am struggling to pack lunch everyday, I get the easiest things I can just throw in my bag. Premade salad from the grocery store, a tuna packet and a box of crackers, an apple and the whole jar of peanut butter, etc. This keeps me from eating lunch out, even if it is more expensive than chopping veggies for a salad myself and portioning out dressing or whatever it is still cheaper than a $20 salad from the place near my building.

          3. I think removing some of the guilt will make you feel better. If you can afford an $11 salad, it’s okay to get one! Even if it’s just because you’re tired and it’s easy! Maybe leaning into fully accepting your current choices will make it easier to make changes, because it will feel like less of a moral failure when making changes is hard? IDK, that’s so much easier said than done, but I see a lot of myself in your framing of this topic, and I always find it easier to make changes when I think the stakes are just really low. (The hard part is convincing myself of that!)

        4. For cooking – keep frozen or convenient ingredients on hand so you can make meals in a pinch. No one judges you for frozen pizza plus microwaved vegetables, and it’s a decent dinner! Individually wrapped fish (we eat a lot of salmon in my house) can be thawed in 10 minutes while the oven preheats, then cook quickly. Or a rotisserie chicken that you can shred and eat in a few different ways – with rice, on salad, etc. Lower your expectations for yourself and see what happens.

          We do a lot of 30-minute meals — one of the ways that I try to stay on top of tidying the house is by not sitting down while dinner is cooking. Water boiling for pasta? Do a 5-minute dash to put things away, or speed-sweep the floor. Something in the oven for 15 minutes? Fold the laundry and put it away, wipe down the bathroom. Little things that make me feel accomplished but without much extra effort.

        5. It sounds to me like you are generally doing your best. Not everything is a priority, and if you aren’t making the effort to do something like prep lunches in advance, then it means that you probably don’t want to do it. Give yourself permission to buy lunch every day if it isn’t causing you problems.

          It sounds to me like you are doing a lot, and it’s enough. You have a job that sounds like it takes a lot of your time and energy. You work out regularly. You maintain relationships with friends and family. Girl, you are winning! Buy more underwear if you can’t do laundry, and let go of the feeling that you should be perfect. Life is not IG, and your life seems good.

        6. Is there anyway you could package everything up in the fridge bag and all the night before and just grab the lunch bag on the way out? Also, I know someone else mentioned this, but if you’re being slowed down because your always too tired to get out of bed quickly, double check that there’s nothing medical.

    2. Take the time to do the things you need to do. Get up when the alarm goes off. Make sure your morning routine meets your needs and your time constraints. Do your laundry, do some meal planning, pick up after yourself so your space is tidy.

      1. I will be the first to admit that not having in-unit laundry makes things harder on me than it should! I did look into breaking my lease to find a place with in unit laundry, but it was prohibitively expensive.

        I don’t know why laundry feels like such an obstacle – its two floors down. Sometimes a machine isn’t available, but that’s maybe 1/3 of the time I try to do laundry.

        1. Can you get wash and fold service?

          I admit that one of the reasons I will never live in NYC is that I refuse to live without in-unit laundry.

          1. I looked into it, but there is no wash and fold near me! I did get one of those “portable” washers, which is great when its out. But, it’s a PITA to dig out of storage. But, there’s also no place to keep it out / near the sink where I’m not tripping on it.

          2. Wash and fold rarely has an internet presence. You might have to physically check the dry cleaners near you.

    3. Every night before bed, I make sure every dish in the house that can go in the dishwasher is in the dishwasher and then I run it, and every other dish I hand wash. Without exception. Every night. Then every single morning I unpack the dishwasher and put the dishes from the drying rack away. This is not my natural inclination but it has been transformative.

      1. As someone who could have written OP’s post, this is not transformative for those suffering from burnout and exhaustion. Extra work is not the answer.

        OP, have you had a full medical checkup with bloodwork? I could have written your posts, especially the part about being exhausted all. the. time. After getting on a prescription that has the side effect of insomnia in some people, I’m suddenly vaulting out of bed in the morning, well rested and in much better spirits to take on the day.

    4. Organize the home screen of your phone. Get a manicure. Go out for a yoga class. These 3 small things usually get me in the mood to do bigger things. Might the issue be bigger? Much of what you described was me before getting busier. Once I got busy, it forced me to deal with a lot of these things more efficiently. For example, after getting busier I stopped putting mental pressure on myself to do fancier meals for recipes, and just focused on getting fed so I used all the groceries, like a random stirfry. In the tidy home, the biggest thing that helped me was having less stuff. I purged a ton. Now there is less to maintain and I’m not overwhelmed. I know this sounds weird but having worked retail as a student, I think of it like that- I decorated one time, everything has a place, I keep a photo of how things should look, and now I just maintain.

    5. 1. More sleep. The more sleep I get, the easier it is to keep everything else together.
      2. Grocery-shop more frequently. I used to do a massive weekly meal planning + grocery shopping session. At some point it became exhausting to buy and put away all those groceries, and if I was tired or just not feeling it that night I deeply resented being obligated to cook what I’d planned several days ago. Now I do quick shopping trips for 2-3 days’ worth of lunches and dinners at a time max. It’s much less burdensome and makes it easier to adjust plans without wasting food. When I’m really overwhelmed I will shop one day at a time.
      3. If possible, purge your belongings so there’s more space in your cupboards and closets. It’s a lot easier to put away the iron if you don’t have to move three other things to do it.
      4. Set up your storage and routines to facilitate “touch it once.” For example, I dump junk mail in the recycling bin on my way through the garage so the junk mail never even makes it inside the house.

      1. I wish I could sleep more – not sure why I struggle with it but I always have. I do have intermittent insomnia, but even on nights without insomnia I usually am dead tired before going to bed, get into bed but take ~45 mins or longer to actually fall asleep despite being exhausted, and then half of the time I wake up (tired) before my alarm.

        With insomnia, I usually wake up around 3AM and am unable to go back to bed. Or, if I do, I don’t fall asleep until 7ish.

        1. Same here! Frequently baffled by commenters who are like “sleep is so important! You have to prioritize it.” And I’m just like…I’m trying?? My tired body is not complying in a timely fashion?

          1. Me too! I give myself 9 hours in bed on weeknights and I’m lucky if I sleep for 7 of them!

          2. The reality is that if you are not sleeping there is no life hack for staying on top of things. If you have insomnia, you need to fix that somehow before you can fix the other things.

            Also, some commenters are suggesting getting up earlier. If someone is exhausted, this is the exact opposite of the advice they need.

    6. You’ve mentioned a couple of times being exhausted. Have you gotten bloodwork to check for something like thyroid issues or low iron?

      1. I wondered the same thing. Or something like anxiety, which can rapidly deplete your energy reserves. Baseline exhaustion makes it nearly impossible to stick with routines.

        1. I do have anxiety (for which I am medicated, but maybe I need to adjust dosage), but my last bloodwork (which happened after this level of exhaustion) didn’t show any anemia or thyroid issues. But, I should look into it again.

          +1000 that baseline exhaustion makes sticking with routines so hard.

          1. May not be relevant to you, but my anxiety med (lexapro) does reduce my motivation and “get sh1t done” mode. I’ve had to lower my dose as my to do list just kept growing and I couldn’t get anything done. I think because it calms down the prefrontal cortex it also makes you a bit less motivated.

    7. Why are you so tired all the time? You keep getting good advice but then reply that you’re too exhausted to do it. Are you actually this tired constantly?

      1. Yes – I didn’t realize how much my exhaustion was impacting me until this thread but it’s a problem for me. I have intermittent insomnia, but as I’ve gotten older its hard for me to “bounce back” after a night or a few with bad sleep.

        I don’t work long hours, but I work more than 8 hours a day. I have a decent personal life (social, dating, hobbies), but not to the extent that it should wear me out. My job is demanding, which I have definitely notice impacts my energy levels, but its not so demanding that I shouldn’t be able to cope.

        I had a medical issue last year, so as a result had lots of testing and bloodwork. Medical issue is mostly resolved (and was not related to iron deficiency or thyroid or anything), but maybe I should get bloodwork run again to be sure. I do have anxiety (and am medicated for it), which can be draining, but historically hasn’t been debilitating.

        I definitely feel better when I exercise regularly and eat well, but finding the energy to do those things can be challenging.

        1. 1. For the mornings, something pops up regularly enough that you should just pad your schedule by 10 minutes. Worst case you’re early.

          2. I can’t help with the insomnia, but is it possible you’re introverted but don’t know it? It’s not the same thing as being quiet and shy. If I had plans every night after work I would be an irritable basketcase by Wednesday since I recharge by having low-key evenings after days filled with meetings.

        2. Following up on the expectation that your social life “shouldn’t” wear you out. I don’t think there is an objective right amount here, and obviously your needs may also shift over time (in either direction!).
          I have an hour to 90 minutes between getting out of bed and leaving the house. I then have 3 hours between getting home and going to bed. I don’t work on weekends for the most part. I can fit one weeknight dinner with friends and one weekend activity, but I need to rest of that time to feel reasonably in control of my space and my routine. I will do more socializing occasionally but it comes at a cost, such as skipped workouts, wasted groceries, messy house. I don’t know if that’s comparable to others, but it’s what works for me.

        3. Something has to give for you. If theres a medical part to this, that will take time to figure out. And if it is medical you may be in this period of life until its sorted out.

          You say you shouldnt be tired from your social life, hobbies and work. You should be able to handle it and you dont know why you cant.
          The fact is that you are too tired and you are not handling everything you’re doing. White knuckling life isnt sustainable or healthy.

          If you need more rest and sleep, you need to cut out socializing or hobbies to make that space. No ones figured out the secret to adding hours to the day. Work is a necessity. Feeding yourself, cleaning yourself, and occassionally moving your body are necessities.
          Hobbies and socializing are cup filling to a point, and are unfortunately the easiest things to cut out to make time for more rest.

          You replied before with the plans you had scheduled for the week. Thats alot, even if its what you’d do anyway or you’re home before 9pm.

          My suggestions (I dont think you’ll take it):
          Cut the socializing and hobby activities down to Friday and Saturday only. Sunday through Thursday are work and you time.

          Stop putting pressure or expections that you’ll cook every meal at home. And set up weekly delivery for the lowest effort foods you can eat. Girl dinner and girl lunch.

          Add 20 minutes to your morning getting ready time. Your entry way is your drop station for keys, bags, jacket, shoes, medication. They live there now. Get a coat rack, get a small table, get some command hooks. Or dont and just use the floor.

          Reframe getting ready to include every aspect from the time you get out of bed to being physically in your car/ on your commute. Your coffee, crossword time included. Taking out the trash, going back for whatever you forgot time included.

          Take a cardboard box and leave it in your highest traffic room. Every time you pick up and item and realize you dont know where to put it, how to deal with it, or wonder why you even have it throw it in the box. Actually, put an idk what to do with this crap/ dont want to deal with it right now box in every room.

          Start finding homes for things. Pick something you use atleast once a week or daily. Where is the first place youd look for that thing? not where you think X things should be kept. It lives in that spot now.

          Do 5 minutes of tidying once a week. Do five more minutes if you realize you got into a zone.

          Work on not moralizing being busy, tidiness, and homekeeping.

          1. I do agree that something has to give with the OP, but I don’t think she needs to cut back on socializing just for the sake of cutting back – if she’s going to run after work anyways why shouldn’t she do it with a friend?

          2. this varies by person, but doing something WITH someone means you’re “on” with them mentally – leaving you in a different mood at the end than if you’ve just been in your own head (in a good way!) that amount of time.

    8. Short term – Capsule wardrobe like you are on vacation. Identify 2 weeks’ worth of clothes, wear it and keep it clean (everything – socks to outerwear). If needed, rinse stuff out in your apartment as if you are traveling. Put the other laundry in a laundry bag and set an appointment on your calendar to address it; leave it alone, don’t think about it until the appointment. Having a uniform will reduce decision-making and stress in the morning, gathering the launding in the bag (or whatever) will put it out of your line of vision, and scheduling the chore will allow you to quiet your mind about the task until the appointed time (which may help you get better rest).

    9. You need to carve out time to get your ish together. Clean out your apartment, get rid of stuff you aren’t using, be ruthless. Then once you’ve cleaned out, clean up and organize. Get to bed earlier and get up earlier. Assess the time you need differently, if you’re always rushing you aren’t currently accurate. Take 15-30 minutes each day to organize yourself for the next one and to straighten up. Hire a cleaning service if you don’t have one.

    10. For running late in the mornings – I like to set a timer counting down to whenever I need to leave (or realistically, to five minutes before because I’m a mess haha). So when you get out of bed, set a timer counting down however long it it until you need to leave. Siri can do it if you say “set a timer counting down to 7:00 am” or whatever.

      For the tidiness. I’m the same way. First thing is have some grace with yourself. It doesn’t actually matter in the grand scheme of things if your apartment is untidy for a while. I find that bins are so so helpful, bonus if they are somewhat decorative. That pile of stuff that I don’t know what to do with yet but I’m sick of looking at it? Put it in a nice basket.

      Perhaps most importantly, be sure you are scheduling time on the weekends for relaxation fun. Also for morning routine time, it sounds like maybe you have some level of a commute in the morning? I suggest turning that into part of your morning routine, either listening to something (podcast, book, music) or reading or something if you’re on public transport.

      Lastly, I love that you do the NYT games with your grandmother as part of your morning routine.

    11. I have similar struggles.

      -set alarms for things you forget – I have a reminder for the garbage or recycling bin every week, daily meds, “have you left yet” for the morning and “screens off” at night. (I have a “have you left the office yet?” alarm for the days i’m on the road for court, too).
      -do as much the night before as you can: pick out an entire outfit including shoes/accessories; shower; fill your water bottle; pack your lunch.
      -put your entire lunch, including shelf-stable items, in a bag in the fridge. When you’re leaving, put the bag in your tote.
      -bring a variety of snacks to the office – peanut butter, tuna, crackers, apples, nuts, baby carrots – so that you’ve got lunch if you forget it.
      -Alternately, lean into it and budget for takeout lunches so you’re not wasting the lunch you’ve packed.

    12. Is there anyway to move your working hours back? If you go to bed later, do you sleep better? For me, if I go to bed at 10, I’m going to toss and turn for over an hour. If I go to bed at 11:30, I basically fall right asleep. But that means that I set ny alarm for 8am, and don’t get till work till 9:30 (which is totally fine in my office). Not everyone is meant to be a morning bird, and working against your natural rhythm can be exhausting

      1. Unfortunately, the most I could move my start time back would be 30 minutes. But, It doesn’t seem to matter to me when I go to bed, I still have sleep problems and I still wake up on my own earlier than I’d like to.

    13. Based on some of your comments (losing keys, forgetting tasks, time blindness, being exhausted all the time), I wonder if you have ADHD. These were symptoms for me before I was diagnosed as an adult. Also have anxiety and my bloodwork was all fine. I’d get tested by a reputable psychologist, if for nothing else just to rule it out. Getting diagnosed and starting medication was life changing for me in getting my life together.

      1. Hmm quite possible – there’s a lot of ADHD in my family. I will discuss with my doctor.

    14. Do less. You cannot motivate yourself out of being tired and frazzled.

      It’d be worth trying to recharge and set up some things to make the week easier:
      -Buy your favorite 0 effort dinner (frozen lasagne, bagged salads, precut fruit)
      -Hire a cleaning service
      -Sleep until noon at least one day
      -Read “how to keep house while drowning”
      -Make a Dr Appt to see if there’s a medical reason for exhaustion (anemia sneaks up on a lot of women)
      -Call a friend and do something relaxing (getting a manicure & gossiping)

      1. I really, really wish I could sleep in. Most weekdays I wake up before my alarm and weekends I’m up by 730 or so, no matter when I go to bed or how well I sleep or how well rested I actually am.

        1. You probably have already thought of this but for me blackout curtains or a sleep mask are game changers: light wakes me up in a way noise doesn’t (and that switched sometime in my late 20s; I used to think it was weird that some people would wake up if they were still tired!)

    15. Hi — I’m you 5 years in the future! I’m still frazzled sometimes, but no longer in a rut! I’ve stopped thinking about “routines” and started focusing on “habits.” To my brain, a routine is a multi-step nightmare. A habit isn’t so bad. Here are some small steps and big steps that worked for me!

      Small steps:
      1. Go grocery shopping twice a week. Buy some premade salad kits and pre-cooked chicken breasts. This is your lunch and you don’t have to give it any more thought. (Follow CaroChambers on Instagram if you want some tips on zhuzhing up a bagged salad!)
      2. Pack everything you need the night before. For me, there are two bags. One bag has all my food, snacks, and beverages for the day. The whole thing goes in the fridge the night before so I can just grab it in the morning. The other bag is non-food. Everything must go in the bag — this includes keys, wallet, laptop, etc. This way, I’m only grabbing two things on the way out the door.
      3. Pair tidying with something else that you do all the time. For example, while I brush my teeth, I clear my bathroom counter and put away anything that doesn’t belong there. While I’m waiting for water to boil on the stove, I’m taking out expired items from the refrigerator.
      4. Let your brain wake up to something fun in the morning. I have a dumb little game that I like playing on my phone. Maybe it’s a podcast or a TV show. After 5-10 mins of that, I feel ready to get moving and less physically exhausted than the days I hit snooze a bunch of times.

      Medium step:
      1. Make a doctor’s appointment. I couldn’t get out of my own way until I started Zoloft. I’m off it now, but a combo of anxiety and depression left me feeling really stuck. The Zoloft really helped tamp down the anxiety so I could help myself.

      Big Steps:
      1. Clear a weekend day. Pick the one or two most problematic areas in your house. Clean them until they shine. If this feels paralyzing to you, I echo the recommendation for KC Davis, How to Keep House While Drowning. Get the audiobook if necessary!
      2. Figure out what you need to do to keep those shiny, clean rooms somewhat tidy. For me, that’s running the dishwasher every day and not letting mail pile up. The trick is to make those things as easy as possible for yourself. On the mail thing, I put a shredder in my kitchen. It’s not cute, but that’s where the mail ended up.
      3. Keep repeating steps 1 and 2 until you can get to a point where your home feels somewhat tidy overall.
      4. Declutter ruthlessly, but in small doses. I did a cabinet or drawer every week.
      5. Hire a cleaning service, if you can. Hiring cleaners was too stressful for me when I was in full-on hot mess mode. But now I know that it’s reasonably tidy, I can just do a quick 15-minute pickup before they come. It’s not cheap, but it has improved my quality of life immeasurably.

      And if I can offer a bit of advice, being too hard on yourself is 100% not going to work here. No one is as “together” as you think they are!

    16. Okay this sounds really kooky and goofy but I started using mouth tape during sleep and the quality of my sleep skyrocketed. I no longer felt groggy and tired and reluctant when waking up. It’s shocking how much it helped. Now if you’re not someone who has sinus or mouth issues (and sleeps mouth-closed) you may not benefit, but it’s worth a try! I also found since mouth taping that my tongue is also not in the right position and my jaw kind of “drops” even with mouth tape so I’m considering one of those silly jaw support things that makes one look like Jacob Marley, heh. I think the role of just merely breathing is very overlooked in quality of sleep!

  7. My husband and I are looking to rent a small single family home in a HCOL metro area. We’ve narrowed it down to two options; I’m seeking opinions on which we should choose. For context, I work from home but my husband has a daily driving commute. Our HHI is right around 200K. We have no debt.

    Option A:
    – $3,500 monthly rent
    – One time broker’s fee of $3,500
    – Husband’s commute would be about 20-28 minutes
    – 830 square feet
    – This would easily be the nicest quality place we’ve ever lived. The interior is dreamy and full of charming details (built-in bookshelves, exposed beams, fireplace, lots of windows). My eyes kind of popped out of my head as we were touring the place.
    – Cute, light-filled office nook that I’d use to work from home.
    – Quiet, cute neighborhood. Walkability is OK. Quick walk to a coffee shop, but the handful of other things we’d use (public library, diner, post office, drugstore) are about a 20 minute walk away.
    – The owner hired a property management company to handle maintenance. We’ve gotten a good vibe from our interactions with the property manager so far.

    Option B:
    – $2,600 monthly rent (equivalent to our current rent)
    – No broker’s fee
    – Husband’s commute would be about 18-20 minutes
    – 750 square feet
    – We were happy with the interior finishes (hardwood floors, crown molding, tile backsplash in the kitchen) and overall quality of the home. But it didn’t wow us like Option A and we would have liked a few more windows.
    – The room I’d use as my WFH office was just OK. It was the only room with wall-to-wall carpeting (not a fan of carpeting in general) and I disliked the paint colors. Some of this could be alleviated with an area rug and a fresh coat of paint.
    – The house next door has a dog that seems prone to barking.
    – We’re friends with a couple who live about a 10 minute walk away. This is an important factor for us since we’ve had trouble making friends in this area.
    – The house is only a few blocks away from our current rental, so we’re very familiar with the neighborhood. It’s quiet, but the neighborhood aesthetics are very….blah. Walkability is OK. Quick walk to the neighborhood ice cream shop. 15 minute walk to a small shopping plaza with a CVS, Staples, TJ Maxx, post office.
    – 5 minute walk to the neighborhood pond, which I would use regularly via stand up paddleboard.
    – The current tenants spoke positively of the landlord, but our interactions with him have been unremarkable so far.
    – There would be a 3-4 week gap between the end of our current lease and the move-in date for this place. We’d need to put our stuff in storage and get an airbnb during this time. We’ve researched the logistics and come up with a plan for how to make this work. But it adds a big logistical headache and disruption to the move.

    I’d love to hear thoughts on which home we should rent. We’ve truly scoured the market for other options, but these are the best choices we’ve found that fit our needs and timeline.

    1. Is your retirement on track?

      Assuming yes, I’d take option A. You clearly love it, and it sounds like you might love it $10,800 worth (the incremental annual cost).

    2. Call the Airbnb + double move costs a wash financially vs. the broker fee, or possibly a little more.

      Bottom line – is it worth $11K per year to you to live in a cuter house? That’s 5% of your gross, and a lot more of your net.

    3. B – to me location is everything so being near friends, better walkability, the pond, and a shorter commute for your husband make it worth it to me.

      Honestly, I’m so jealous of the neighborhood pond – I would do almost anything to have such easy access to useable water!

    4. On 200k/year that $900 a month is meaningful. You can’t afford A even if it’s dreamt. Go with B or one of you get a better job.

      1. This is so silly. You don’t know what her current investments profile looks like, what her monthly expenses are, what the taxation situation in her state is, or even whether the $200k is pre- or post-tax.

        1. 200k/year is only about 10k/month after taxes. Paying 3600/mo out of that only leaves 6300/ mo for two people. Do they drive? Vacation? Go out? I can’t imagine spending almost 40% of my take home pay on rent. Not even a mortgage where you’re at least building equity.

          1. You must not have rented in the last ~5 or so years. I make less than them but still make decent money (MCOL making 96k) and don’t have a flashy apartment by any means, and its still about 40% of my take-home. I have cheaper rent than any of my friends, many of whom make about what I make.

          2. Yeah rents have gone nuts, but $11K is a sizeable difference here and the OP actually has a less expensive place as an alternative, so saying “but paying a ton for rent is totally normal!” is not the whole story for the OP!

          3. $6300 after housing expenses is so far from difficult that I struggle to take this argument seriously.

            OP works from home, and so loving the space would be a top priority for me.

          4. If you want to buy a house or save for retirement or an emergency or easily buy a car or do just about anything else, $6300/mo for two people ain’t a lot.

          5. Again, that depends on location, taxation, current savings, and lifestyle, which is why the blanket statement that she can’t afford this makes no sense.

          6. Until she says she’s won the lottery or has millions in the bank from an inheritance, she can’t afford it. If she’s renting those facts are highly unlikely. Sorry if this is hitting your own personal finance discomfort level. This is where people can actually make an appreciable lifestyle change and save money. 10k a year is a sizable chunk of change toward a down payment.

          7. It isn’t hitting my discomfort level. Sorry you aren’t frugal enough to figure out how to make your savings goals work with $6300+ in disposable income, but she absolutely can afford this if she decides she wants to afford it. She might decide she’d rather spend that $10k elsewhere, but it’s her choice, not yours.

      2. Absolutely, option B. Shorter commute, cheaper. Think of it this way, you could very easily invest in some gorgeous antique Persian rugs, buttery smooth leather chesterfield chairs, original art, etc with the difference in spend. And those pieces could travel with you.

        1. +1. B seems like a no brainer to me, but housing is personal and it sounds like you prefer A. The difference in price is meaningful IMO.

    5. Does either apartment have a parking space? That would be a huge factor for me as well as things like central AC, dishwasher, and laundry in the unit. Assuming those factors are equal I’m leaning towards option B to save money and add to future goals like a down payment. You’re saving nearly $11,000 by going with option B assuming your temporary accommodations are the cost of the realtor fee.

      1. Yes, things like parking, laundry, dishwasher, and a private outdoor space are so important to me that I’d take pretty much any apartment that has those over my dream apartment that doesn’t!

          1. Yes, I will give up anything (currently have given up in unit laundry) for my balcony! I use it every day in the nice weather. It brings me so much joy!

      2. And ask about utility costs. Lots of windows and a fireplace sound dreamy until you realize how much heat escapes from them during cold weather, and then you can’t enjoy them because you have to close them behind heavy drapes to insulate against drafts.

    6. You’ve come up with a lot of objective reasons why B is better and it’s still loud and clear that you just want A. Go with A.

    7. Both sound like solid options. The decision sounds so personal, like how much do you value living near a friend? Does DH resent the slightly longer commute? How important is it to you to have great finishes? Yes there is a financial factor but you may potentially offset a higher cost of rent with reductions in other areas. DH and I just moved to a much higher cost place- the finishes in the house are so freaking nice that we don’t eat out as much, we love hanging out in our swank kitchen. We love it so much it inspired us to eat healthier and less meat and processed foods. I’m surprised at how much our food costs have gone down.

    8. Assuming that A fit the household budget, the barking dog and the need for more natural light inside would be deal breakers for me on Option B.

    9. I think it also depends on the bigger picture – do you anticipate staying here for a few years? a year? Are you planning to rent long-term or save up for a house? how does your budget feel now – would it be easy to find that extra $900 a month?
      for me – things like the commute, closeness to friends, etc. matters more in a rental vs. windows, architectural quality, etc. would matter more in a purchase.

      1. this – if you were *buying* i’d go for the option you love if you could swing it. but if you’re renting keep your expenses low and save the money. think of the places you could travel with $11k a year… if you stay there 5 years that’s $55k, which might be a downpayment.

  8. I’m in a fortunate position where I don’t need to work- HHI is close to 350k and my husband makes nearly 3x what I make, so the money I make is certainly helpful but we could definitely get by without it. I have absolutely no desire to totally leave the workforce – I enjoy what I do, I enjoy having a positive impact on my community through my career, I enjoy financially contributing to my family, and god forbid something happens and I need to go back to work, I do not want to have a big gap on my resume. Also, while we don’t need my salary, it is helpful for the “nice to haves”.

    That being said – I wish I worked less. Even though I have a pretty standard 40 hour a week job, I wish I had more flexibility or time to be more involved with my kids’ lives. I want to be able to chaperone this field trip or attend most soccer games or organize the community swim team or be on that PTA committee or whatever it is we get into. I don’t want to be a mom whose entire life is the kids (I like having my own life and I think its important to model that), but I think a) its fun and I want to do more with my kids’ activities and b) so many valuable community events and orgs do run off of volunteers and I would like to contribute more.

    Going part time where I currently work is a non-starter, unfortunately. I would love if I could keep my current job and cut down to 30 hour weeks, but I can’t.

    I know I’m far from the first mom to be in a similar position, so for those who have been here – what did you decide and how did you make your decision?

      1. I get 20 days vacation, 11 days sick, all federal holidays but no additional holidays like holiday office closure or Friday after Tgiving. I use all of it (week long vacation in the summer and at spring break, a few days at the holidays and a few long weekends in the summer eats up most of it, then random half days and hours here and there for kids stuff)

        1. is there a possibility of negotiating more WFH days or an alternate schedule (easier if your projects are pretty much all independent work)?

          As far as “warning” anecdata, if you quit and then divorce, it is not pretty watching your parents’ 50-something friend scramble to get a real estate license because she couldn’t get a job in her old industry after a gap.

          1. Yeah, I have zero desire to either leave the workforce completely or to be self-employed. I’d be happy to pivot my career (like adjunct teaching), but absolutely zero desire to leave the workforce!

          2. I see folks mention adjunct teaching a lot on this and other forums, but adjunct teaching isn’t really staying in the workforce or a career pivot. I just don’t want anyone to think they would be well-positioned to reenter the workforce because they have taught as an adjunct. It’s generally very low pay and it’s not going to be the kind of thing that is likely to help you get back into an industry job.

    1. BigLaw and a lot of our rockstars just to this and balance it out on their end seemlessly. [A lot of our “failure to advance” people who are going to get counseled out do this but do not balance out the work and is why everyone is getting punished with another day of return-to-office.] So it may vary greatly by field.

      1. I don’t think “well, successful women just manage it and unsuccessful women don’t” is all that helpful of advice.

        1. Maybe: talk around and see who is doing this quietly and how it’s going for them. Or at one bank, people can have an 80% schedule by just asking.

    2. With kids and retirement to fund, I think you need to work, that’s not quitting time money. Just lean out a little and don’t say anything.

      1. I don’t have any desire to leave the workforce completely. My options are stick where I am and do less with my kids or look around for an alternative (either in my field or pivot to a new field) where I can go PT.

    3. What’s the availablity to flex your time and are you using it to your maximum benefit? Can you chaperone a field trip for a school day but get the credit for working some early morning hours and late night hours? Can you work a 5/4/9 schedule so you have a day off every 2 weeks?

      1. Unfortunately, no. Job is very butts in seats 9-5 and without that you have to take PTO.

        1. Can you take a reduction in FTE status? Like get an 80% salary for an 80% schedule (one day off)?

          1. Isn’t that what leave without pay essentially is? Can your job do leave without pay for you after you max out paid leave? FMLA?

          2. You can only use FMLA for new babies and family health issues. You can’t take it because you want to work less.

        2. I would look for similar jobs in your field where they allow work from home at least some days. Maybe there aren’t any, but I’d certainly look. That way you know you can manage the workload with a new job, but have more capacity to work around your schedule some days. Also you have the personal fulfillment of having a full job with its own benefits.

    4. This is me! H makes ~$280k right now and I have a consulting income stream of ~$50-$100k/year depending on the market. My kids are all in elem. if I had to, I (think I?)could go out and get a job earning ~$250k+. I had one. I get offers from former colleagues occasionally.

      I would look at your current job and start networking for part time or contract work. Take on some bigger roles in your community (pta/sports/religious groups/whatever). Lean out of your job a bit and see how it feels. Try and get one contract type role in place, then quit.

      FWIW, I’m involved in PTA-like groups and the connections are fantastic. In my town anyway many parents have kept toes in the water but are largely part time. Our current PTO board has 2 full time parents, one fully SAHM, and two moms that work part time in roles like fractional CFO or executive level marketing or IT consultants. You could also take a role in something like town or school admin where you have easy hours- like 7-3 or 8-4. You won’t make tons of money but that’s not really the point.

      1. I have been toying with the idea of working in very local (town) government or the school system. I actually currently work in a different level of government.

        My mom was a teacher, so her schedule aligned with ours 95% of the time. I think part of my struggle now working a job with a non-school schedule is that I did see my mom have a career that she really liked and was fulfilling but still let her spend all school breaks and every day after 3:30 with her kids. She was able to coach town and school sports, make it to most games in sports she wasn’t coaching, volunteer with the neighborhood community group, etc. while working. That’s so not an option for me right now.

        On the other hand, a friend of mine left her job in marketing, took a huge paycut, and how is an admin assistant at the high school. She did it for the schedule but she does resent how she is not using her business skills or degree at all in this role.

        1. Some people live to work and others work to live. DH and I decided work pays the bills; we are done with the prestige angle.

          1. I guess its not “prestige”, but rather that I would be bored, and thus not happy, doing admin work.

    5. A couple of thoughts:
      I use PTO for some of these things, as do many of my coworkers. It is literally the only reason I’m sticking around in higher ed, which has become a hellscape in many other ways.
      Since your company sounds pretty unflexible, is it possible to negotiate some of this with your boss on an ad-hoc basis?
      If all else fails, you could consider switching jobs to something that’s more aligned with your personal goals.

      I feel you; this stuff is really hard. And even with more PTO than you have, I find it really difficult to get away sometimes because it’s not like the work just disappears.

      1. Yeah, I think my struggle is that I work in the public sector in a job that I find fulfilling in many ways (I enjoy the work I do, the work I do has a good impact on my community), but its not a schedule that works for my family. I worked one non-mission based job in my career and HATED it.

        I’m happy to pivot to something, I just need to figure out what.

          1. Yeah I should look into nonprofits! Perhaps its attractive to them to have a PT employee because they don’t need to pay someone FT.

            I very much understand the downsides of non profits (lack of boundaries, pay, its mission-based work so you should sacrifice yourself to help the mission) – I worked in this space before I went to government. Since pay isn’t really an issue for me, as long as I can hold tight on the boundaries I think it’d probably be fine

        1. Is there a way to do a similar job but work for yourself and so decide for yourself how much work to take on and when to get it done? Of course, comes with the downside of running a business as well. But in my line of work, I currently work for a governmental agency as a lawyer. We also hire private lawyers on a contract basis to do the exact same work. So if I didn’t want to work at my agency anymore, I could do the same thing but working for myself. (without the benefits of the government job, but without some of the bureaucracy too.)

    6. Can you try to find something that is less “butts in seats” and more contribution based? That’s the type of role I’m in. There’s a certain amount of output expected and they don’t really care how long it takes you to do it. I used to work in a role 3x as fast paced so I’m able to finish things efficiently and then have flexibility for family stuff. It flexes both ways though- occasionally there is something that requires a bit more during non-standard work hours and I’ll take the time to do that because of the flexibility I get during standard work hours.

    7. I’m mid-40s and have three teenagers. I felt like you when my kids were in elementary school, but once they get into middle school, there aren’t as many volunteer opportunities for parents and there are no field trips, and the kids want to spend their breaks with their friends or at camp or doing sports, not hanging out with their parents. If you want to spend time doing PTA, that’s a worthwhile goal, but my kids did not care about the time I spent volunteering for our local school foundation, fundraising, bake sales, etc. In my well-off suburb, there are a lot of SAHMs who love doing that stuff because it enables them to use their skills, Type-A organization, etc. but they really did not need my help.

      If anything, I helped out a lot more by staying in my job, making more $$ and donating a lot more than other parents. Over time, our HHI grew from about the same as yours (and similar breakdown between me and DH) to a HHI about four times that amount so I’m glad I stayed in the workforce.

      The other thing I learned was that the kids cost way more money as they get older, do club sports, private lessons, camps are expensive, college is expensive and keeps going up over time, travel costs a lot more, so having the additional cushion has been really important and I’m glad I stayed in the workforce, working full-time, and building my career to a level where I have more autonomy and more money.

      1. This is a helpful perspective, thanks!

        I would like to have the time to help out with things that are going to foster community, if that makes sense. I do NOT want to be the mom who is always at school or activities, but we live in a suburb that’s pretty small and has good community and I’d like to be able to help foster that.

        I also would like the flexibility to do things like camp because the kids want to, and not because we need childcare. The camp they’re in now is 100% just childcare. I think in general kids are over scheduled,so wouldn’t hate building in more downtime or time for spontaneity with them.

        As they get older, I want to be around enough to a) be there for their sports games or concerts or whatever activities they have and b) keep enough of an eye on them and their friends for safety and just “being there” reasons but not too much of an eye that I feel like I’m the secret police or have them feel like I’m smothering them or that I’m always around.

    8. I just started doing this stuff, tbh. I figured they can fire me if they’re not happy, but so far all my reviews have been fine. A lot of jobs don’t actually require 40 hours of work.

      I’m also religious about protecting my PTO. I have similar vacation time to you and use it all for vacations of at least one week in length. We do short trips on holiday weekends, and I don’t take PTO to duck out early and attend a kid’s class party or something like that. During summer and teacher workdays I WFH with kids around. Once they’re in elementary school that’s pretty manageable.

    9. Read this whole thread. You need to change companies / employers.

      You need a place that has more PTO or more flexible PTO. Then you can hit your goals of wanting to still work, making contributions, and being there a bit more for your family. Just because you can’t get or imagine that flexibility at your current role doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It does–just not where you are.

      Start your jobsearch. See what you find. You may be pleasantly surprised.

  9. I got some Ruggables back during the pandemic (when it was hard to buy anything from anywhere) and we had a pandemic puppy (hence need for washable rugs). Puppy is now dog that goes to one rug for his GI accidents (he is pretty consistent on that, thankfully). So we need a new rug while Ruggable now has options beyond just the towel-type ones I first got. Has anyone tried any of the plusher models? I hesitate to buy a real-er rug just due to needing to clean it AND the plastic backing part of the setup. And in a large room with furniture, I actually have had to spot-clean at times, but that tore through a seagrass rub whereas the ruggable is each to scrub away and then flip a corner over and let it dry.

    There may be other solutions in other rooms, but IDK how the higher-pile Ruggables do for cleaning, if they shed, etc. Thoughts or advice?

    1. I’m just not into them, we have one in the kitchen and I can’t imagine it as something I’d put anywhere else. We have a dog, she likes a specific corner of one rug for accidents and I just invest in a lot of nature’s miracle, it really does work. We have real wool rugs everywhere. A middle ground is get cheaper mass produced wool rugs from Wayfair and the like knowing you aren’t spending a ton and toss them if they get ruined.

    2. I highly recommend going to carpet store (the kind that sells wall to wall carpet). Nicer stores will have a selection of carpet intended to be custom bound for area rugs. I was really surprised by how many higher end options there were. I ended up getting a custom made area rug with a waterproof backing. I can basically just shampoo it in place without having to worry about ruining my wood floors. Or if you get a regular area rug, you can also do the same thing, just get a pad with waterproof backing for underneath. You can still flip the corner over to let it dry. Just don’t get something uncleanable like jute or seagrass.

  10. I’m looking for claw clips that work on thin, mostly straight hair. Does anyone have any recommendations?

    1. IMO, you need to tie your hair in a ponytail and flip that around or the clip won’t have enough to hold onto. Dry shampoo and aqua-net may be needed to make your hair more grippy.

      1. My hair is not long enough for claw clips, but this is exactly what my fine-haired daughter does. The clip hides the ponytail holder and you really can’t tell unless you’re looking closely. Otherwise, the clip falls out within minutes, and trust me, we have claw clips from many different brands.

    2. Some of them have a silicone lining that is grippy on the hair. That’s what I look for.

      1. Thin fine hair person and I’ve found that more often than not, they are heavy enough to pull out of my hair. I couldn’t run in them but they aren’t up to walking or stairs.

    3. I have the small Teleties claw clips and I love them. They hold all of my fine straight thin hair. The size is key—don’t get the tiny or medium, get the small. Not sure what magic is in them but they hold really well!

      In comparison, my sister has super thick hair and she has the large Teleties clip and it works really well for her.

    4. I just get smaller clips. Links to ones that work for my fine, thin, very slick hair to follow.

      1. Goody style that works well for me: https://www.amazon.com/Planet-Sustainable-Spider-Medium-Neutral/dp/B088S2817Q?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

        Scunci ones I like that have the grippy silicone lining on the claws: https://www.amazon.com/Scunci-No-Slip-Clips-3-5cm-Count/dp/B00H95T0Z0/ref=pd_ci_mcx_pspc_dp_d_2_t_1?pd_rd_w=GFGzD&content-id=amzn1.sym.568f3b6b-5aad-4bfd-98ee-d827f03151e4&pf_rd_p=568f3b6b-5aad-4bfd-98ee-d827f03151e4&pf_rd_r=Q51NA5FEDAX0JZWJ7HTC&pd_rd_wg=U4MN4&pd_rd_r=ad1a13a0-9928-4f39-816b-c95e21f916c4&pd_rd_i=B00H95T0Z0

        The Goody ones sit flat to my head and are a bit more comfortable, although they tend to slide if my hair is very clean and dry when I put it up. The Scunci ones stick out further from my head but stay put better. Both are roughly the size of a ping pong ball, not giant like a banana.

  11. Hello
    Just thougth I would pop in and update – (TLDR divording abusive, alcoholic husband) – sinve my last update I have been doing well – I think some of the advice I got here really helped me in framing the whole divorce financial picture, and I feel a lot more pragmatic about all that, and indeed begin to have some seeds of optimism about future savings goals and targets (and also spending) plus a fairly clear goal in my mind of making things work to stay in my current house. The formal part of the divorce is under way, and I think I feel better that that is now out on the table.
    The police side of things still goes on – I still don’t have a decision on whether he will be charged, but to be honest that doesn’t make a difference to my story, and I will cross that emotional bridge when I get to it.
    I still feel so deeply sad that our life together ended in this way, it wasn’t what I had thought my life would be. I suppose in one way I feel validated in that nearly everyone who knew us together now tells me that there were red flags all over the place, but in another I feel so foolish for not seeing them and letting my life be so affected by him. I don’t know that I would have given up before I did, and it does give me continued strength to hold strong in my non contact.
    Thank you again for listening – it really does make a difference to me. Today one or two steps forward! :o)

    1. You sound so self-aware and prepared for what’s ahead. Kudos for that, I’m sure it was not easy!

      1. Thank you – this experience has really taught me what ‘one day at a time’ means, I keep repeating that and the serentity prayer when it all gets too much.

    2. I’m amazed at how composed and level-headed you seem during this ordeal.
      I hope you will always feel supported by this community.
      Wishing you all the best.

    3. Big hugs to you! Keep putting one foot in front of the other — better days are coming!

    4. Good for you on your healthy perspective on criminal charges — in reality, that decision is in the hands of the police and/or prosecutors, and you would be simply a witness (or, if we are being fancy, a complaining witness). If your soon to be ex is charged, please do yourself and all other similarly situation survivors a favor and cooperate as much as possible with the criminal justice process, even if it takes much more time than it should. Criminal defendants count on witnesses dropping out as one way to evade being held accountable and responsible for their actions. Hang in there!

      1. Absolutely, I will go through on the charges. It is not for me, but there will be others more vulnerable than me who will need to be taken seriously. I also know now, once I am on the other side I will find a way to provide some sort of support, for women in a similar position. X

    5. I’m so glad to hear you’re now on your way to new and wonderful dreams ahead.

      And please don’t be so hard on yourself for missing red flags. Part of why the red flags were so hard to see is that he was good at manipulation. Manipulation is often like that frog boiling in water thing. Those outsiders may have been able to see the water was hot, but you weren’t because you entered when it was lukewarm and kept wanting it to go back.

      Good for you for getting and staying on a much better path now.

  12. Anyone else super disappointed in the Netherlands for allowing that convicted r@pist to compete for them in beach volleyball? It’s not like it was a conviction for theft when he was in high school or vandalism or something. So disappointed that they DNGAF.

    1. I saw a headline on this and . . . 19 and 12. So yikes. But, I’m also wondering, how much does a sports team google or run background checks? I would have thought that some rivals for the team would likely have done this and passed it on (if youth sports, some crazy sports parent definitely would have done this already). But, yeah, this is what alternates are for. Maybe they found out too late?

      1. I don’t think this was ever a secret. I read about it months ago (the Daily Mail was on top of it.) I think the country just made a determination on eligibility within their own rules and the rules of the Olympic Games.

    2. I find it concerning, considering there are a number of underage athletes competing at the Games. I feel like somebody screwed up here.

    3. I’m angry and disgusted. Arguments like “he did his time” ring hollow when he served just 13 months of a 4-year sentence and 4 years isn’t enough anyway. Charlotte Dujardin is out for whipping a horse excessively (as she should be). Other athletes have been sent home for bad attitudes or minor smoking infractions. But a child rapist gets national team support? This quote from his coach (reported in WaPo) says it all:

      “Asked about the optics of appearing to be protecting a child rapist, John van Vliet, a spokesman for the Dutch team, said, “We are protecting a convicted child rapist to do his sport as best as possible and for a tournament which he qualified for.”
      Read those words again, if you can.
      “We are protecting a convicted child rapist to do his sport as best as possible.” “

      1. I think that line works for a lot of other crimes (like property crimes) but crimes against people, especially with a minor. A lot of youth are in the athlete dorms!

        Let him to go the Felon Games with Oscar Pistorius.

        1. He isn’t staying in the athlete’s village but that’s not enough for me. He should not be given the opportunity for glory on the international stage. Competing in the Olympics is a privilege, not a right.

          1. Right. To the Felon Games he should go. I’m surprised that the team (like for his sport, not the team overall) wants him on it.

    4. It’s absolutely disgusting, but look at the Stanford swimmer who was convicted of s3xual assault and the judge gave such a light sentencing citing his swimming career. They care more about protecting the r@pist than women.

      1. But like…the judge did that, not Stanford, not any international swimming body. The kid is a pariah. In a sense, the system for Brock Turner worked. Here, the article I read was just…shocking. His volleyball partner said, “I’m really enjoying playing with him, and he did his punishment, so it’s all OK.” (I paraphrase, but that was the gist.)

        I guess there’s a part of me that thinks,”Once someone has done their time, they should be a normal member of society.” And then there’s this other part of me, that read what he did–HE FLEW TO ANOTHER COUNTRY, RAPED HER, LEFT HER AND TOldD HER TO GET THE MORNING AFTER PILL!–that no way, no how, should this guy ever be a member of normal society, let alone a representative of his country. Sorry, sir, you’ve lost your privileges!

    5. I’m not sure who to be mad at b/c this is complex in the US and IDK how it works there. I am mad at SOMEONE.

      From listening to the Des & Kara podcast, at least in track, it is really complicated as to who gets on which team. But the country of the US doesn’t determine it — it seems that each sport has a governing body that authority delegated by the USOC to determine who is on which team and for which events. In the Netherlands, IDK that it runs the same way, so maybe it’s Netherlands Volleyball (so the country and its committee and fellow team members may be out for having my ire thrown at them and IDK who gets to overrule what, so it may be that at some point is get angry and think of how to draft around this going forward).

  13. Ranting into the void: I’m so tired of living in the city and the suburban housing market is depressing. For job reasons DH and I can’t move for another year or two. But most weekends we’re driving in traffic to see friends and family that live in the burbs. It’s becoming more frequent as our friends buy houses and schedule all plans out there “because it’s so much easier than coming to the city.” I agree parking is easier but it feels like my weekends are consumed by traffic and travel. I just found out I need to attend a wake in the suburbs this week, so I have to drive in weekday rush hour. It never ends! If you were one of the last friends to live in the city, did you draw a line in the sand at some point?

    Meanwhile, my parents keep making out wildly of touch comments about house hunting. They have asinine reasons for why we can’t possibly live in X suburb or buy a house without Y feature. In reality there are barely any houses for sale and the desirable ones get snapped up within a day. Unless something changes, we’ll have to pounce on whatever’s available. I’m sick of explaining that people our age don’t have the luxury of being picky. I normally think the boomer stereotypes are over the top but good lord are my parents ignorant. Any suggestions on pithy ways to shut these comments down?

    1. I don’t have any pithy responses, but I think you can do the old, “We’ve already talked about how the housing market is right now.” And just leave it there.

      I think it’s fair to cut down on your weekend commitments due to the drive time.

    2. A) Can you use public transportation to get to the burbs (specifically trains) rather than deal with traffic and parking?
      B) Can you rent in the burbs instead of having to struggle with the buying market? There are several walkable suburbs with apartment buildings or townhouses in my city’s suburbs. These are also right on train lines, which makes it easy to get into the city for stuff too.

    3. I just made city friends. I hate the burbs and we’re childfree so it was just easier to find people with similar lives than trying to force it to fit. When searching for new friends though I was pretty clear I wasn’t going to invest unless they were around for the long term.

    4. Can you take the train to the burbs? Can you rent (either an apartment or a house) in the burbs?

    5. We still live in the city and don’t go to the burbs much. Our friends still prefer to come here for restaurants and nightlife. We will also skip things that are just inconvenient.

    6. People aren’t moving to the suburbs AT you. They are stuck with the same money constraints you are the being able to stay close in.

    7. I live my life! I do not feel like I need to be constantly running after other people. If I want to see people I invite them to see me and expect things to be roughly balanced and if not, I just see them less. I’m not constantly being the one to trek. Focus on what is good about city living! Go to the theatre visit museums go out to dinner. Live your life not just a waiting room

    8. Can you reframe the comments from your parents as points to think about? Or ignore. Just conversation fodder, rather than gospel? We just bought for the first time in the burbs (and we’re GenX). There are lots of things one or the other of us would have liked, but yeah, inventory is low to nonexistent, competition is fierce, so we had our deal breakers but pounced when we found something that worked.

    9. I’m not sure about the friend part, but for the parents, I would honestly stop talking to them about this. Just tell them if/when you have a house. Then if they say something out of pocket, just say something like, “We’ve talked about this. We’re excited about the house.” Then just gray rock (responses like “ahh” or “okay” or “hmmmm” and then move along… be uninteresting on this topic). This is the strategy I used with my parents for basically any big decision in my life because their negativity and refusal to empathize was just too much.

    10. A wake is different than socializing, so I guess you have to go to that, but do you have to go to everything else? Your last line makes me think you want to set a boundary, and that’s perfectly fine. You don’t have to spend your life schlepping out in traffic to see people. And at the same time, they don’t have to go into the city to see you. Maybe this next year or two is not one for gatherings for you.

      We were among the first of our friends to leave Brooklyn for the suburbs. We also had a baby shortly after, and we basically did not see our city friends for a while. We saw our best friends maybe once that first year, but gathering was def not a priority for that season of life.

    11. For your parents – “Bless your heart” was designed for this situation.
      For the next 2 years, lean into the city stuff you’ll be leaving behind once you find your suburban home. Squeeze all the juice out of city life – openings, pop-up shows, varried food, etc.
      And maybe you don’t do all the driving all the time. Maybe once in a while a friend picks you up at the train station as Cat suggested (our trains wouldn’t get you all the way to the suburbs).

    12. I do not drive to social things – this is mostly because I want the freedom to have more than 2 drinks and so therefore I need to be able to take the train then. My friends are probably 50/50 burbs and city and I’d say 75% of my burbs friends are walkable to a train station. For those who aren’t, I suggest that we meet at a restaurant that is train station walkable for me or I invite them into the city. As a bonus, on the train I can do something I enjoy like reading or chatting with a friend (texting or calling) or whatnot.

    13. OP here. The train isn’t an option. It requires ubers at both ends, doesn’t run often enough on weekends, and we can’t get between suburbs once we’re there.

      It’s helpful to hear that some of you opted out of suburban plans for a while. I feel guilty saying nope, this exceeds our 1-2 visit monthly maximum. It’s reassuring that to know we’re not selfish jerks for this (despite our families acting like we must hate them for limiting visits)

      1. The roads run two ways. If your friends and family hate driving into town, why do they think it’s okay to expect you to drive out of town? It’s rude to expect one person in the relationship to always sacrifice on a certain point.

        This internet stranger gives you permission to stop feeling guilty and to enjoy the city life!

        1. The road absolutely runs two ways! My last city friend moved away but I went in to hang out with her at least as often as she crossed a bridge to see me, if not more. Most of my good friends are a bridge away (bay area) and I would never insist everyone has to come to me. That seems to rude to me! OP has some self-centered friends.

      2. 1-2 visits a month is A LOT. I can see how you’re burnt out doing more than that!

        And I say this as sometimes who loves getting together with family, but I still don’t make the 1.5-hour drive more than once a month, and sometimes not at all in month.

        1. See to me, with 8 weekend days in a month 1-2x doesn’t seem much, especially to see friends.

          How far is the commute out to the burbs? Can you guys meet somewhere in between – like alternate between you going there, them coming to you, and meeting halfway?

          1. If Philly is the example, you’re talking 2 hours in the car for the round trip to the further-out yuppie suburbs. And it’s annoying stop and go, trucks and erratic racing drivers, awful traffic. Of course the suburb friends want to push the burden on them!

            Sounds like the OP has been doing that a lot of weekends, not just 1-2x per month, and yeah, it’s tedious.

          2. oh yeah, that’s why my first suggestion was the train! But it sounds like the OP isn’t near a hub station so it’s not a good option.

          3. Seems a lot to me! Weekends are important to everyone! You don’t want to be spending your precious few weekend days accommodating someone else’s lifestyle. Especially when they don’t reciprocate.

          4. well, sometimes yes, but also the choice is not “spend hours in the car” or “don’t socialize”

        2. OP here. Thanks for the reality check. It’s 1-2 hours depending on who we’re visiting. We try to stack a couple visits to limit the number of trips. The worst traffic is near the city so meeting halfway doesn’t make it less frustrating. The trains are great at getting suburban commuters to the city’s business district on weekdays, but not at getting us from our neighborhood to the burbs on weekends.

          It sounds obvious hearing someone else say it but we should push for more city visits if people insist on seeing us. I think I needed validation that we’re not being unreasonable.

      3. I hope you don’t mean literally saying ‘this exceeds our 2 visit monthly maximum’. If you do, stop. ‘We are booked that weekend’ is all you need. Sometimes I am booked with cuddling at home and doing an errand.

        Going between suburbs? As in scheduling socializing with multiple parties per day? I don’t have that kind of energy…

      4. Can’t your friends make this easier on you? Why can’t they pick you up from the train station and drop you off? Ideally, they would even have a guest room for you to spend the night. It’s a two way street and the burden shouldn’t always be on you.

    14. Just don’t even bother talking to them about it. And if they make comments- treat it like water rolling off your duck back. This was what I had to do with my in-laws about schools and work expectations. They cannot wrap their heads around how things have changed and make the most senseless comments about their opinions about schools and the job market of 1994 it feels like. I just topped talking to them about any of it, and when they make a comment, I just ignore it.

    15. Since the market is bad, if you want to move to the suburbs why don’t you rent there?

    16. What stuck out at me: they say it’s easier for you to travel to the suburbs. Eventually, it should be somewhat reciprocal. Maybe they come into the city once for every two times you visit them, or they take the train in and you meet them at the station.

      It smells a little bit of “it’s easier for ME to stay here and have you sit in traffic than for me to sit in traffic.”

      1. Why would they reciprocate? These people have shown OP they’re self involved and the chances of that changing are zero

    17. Commiseration on the comments from family about house hunting. Once my in-laws needed to downsize for financial reasons, I think they finally understood how wildly out of touch their suggestions were. They had no clue that people made offers within hours of seeing houses, people paid in cash, people did not make offers contingent on selling their old home, people bought as-is. Let alone their feedback about aesthetics! We did not have the luxury of being picky!

      I think many of my friends and I who moved to the burbs wished they could have stayed in the city, but got priced out when we had kids. I often feel some grief about my old, fun life when I go into the city. It’s taken a few years for me to hang out in the city without feeling bitter. It’s like “the one who got away.” That said, I don’t think it’s fair to expect my city friends to always come to me. We try to alternate, even if that means less frequent visits or my DH or I has to stay behind at home with the kids while the other sees friends.

  14. My work renovated our office space and now the entire hallway/facing wall and door of our individual offices is glass. I hate it. I knew I would hate it, I lobbied against it, I begged for at least coated glass, but it’s even worse than I thought. We have some older men who love to knock and walk into your office at the same time; our doors have never locked. I naively thought, maybe this will stop them, because they’ll be able to see you so they’ll know you’re on the phone or in a meeting or focused on something. Nope. I even put up a sign that can flip between, do not disturb and welcome. It barely slows them down. And now the disruption from the knocking is worse because knocking on glass is so much louder than knocking on solid wood. The distractions are terrible and I feel like I’m always on edge worrying that someone is going to barge in on me at any moment. I do not understand people who claim to get more done in the office than at home.

    1. Oh, that sounds awful. Would they allow you to add a frosted glass film? There’s a lot of glass in my office, and a number of people have done that for privacy reasons.

    2. Ask for a pull-down shade or frosted glass. Neither option is terribly expensive. Point out that in the event of an active sh00ter, being able to hide in your office is paramount.

    3. I had an office with a glass wall and found it helpful to face my desk towards the glass so I could see people coming. That way I wasn’t always on high alert worried that someone would walk up behind me.

    4. If I didn’t have kids, a messy house, a dog, maybe I’d get work done at home but the area is noisy, the house is noisy, and I don’t have a dedicated space much less an office.

    5. People barging into your office is a cultural thing, can you raise it with your manager? If glass doesn’t stop them, I’m not sure what will. There’s not a physical solution for their rudeness.

      I HATE glass walls so much. I don’t want people to see me working, and I don’t want people to see when I’m taking a break (I like to stand up and stretch a lot between calls). When my office went to that setup, multiple women covered the interior of their glass walls with craft paper to make an opaque wall.

    6. I absolutely loathed the glass wall office. I have a disability to manage and so got permission to put blinds in my office window. That and a door stop keep me sane.

      1. OP – if your office is generally open-door, just closed during calls, a little wedge stop that you put behind the door when it is closed should at least stop the barging in. I would put a big note (DND – on a video conference) at eye level on the inside of your glass facing out so they can’t claim to be unaware.

        Might make for an even noisier situation, at least at first, but you should not need to use it more than a few times anyhow if a couple of rude old guys faceplant into your door while trying to barge in without an invite.

        1. Huh? Then she’s in trouble for physically injuring others and potentially breaking the glass. It’s a workplace safety problem in various ways. What if she faints or has a seizure & no one can get in?

          1. She could put the wedge 3 inches back to allow for emergency access if that is a realistic concern, and the big, obvious sign telling people not to enter makes the rude barger-inner the problem.

            Source: my office had a very similar issue. In our non-glass offices, doors did not lock but if they were closed you were NOT supposed to enter unless invited. The boomer who thought the “DND/Nursing Mom” sign didn’t apply to him and would literally walk in on women pumping in their closed office learned quickly that rules did indeed apply to him when he broke his glasses running into a door that stopped tight when it hit a rubber wedge. Management told him he was lucky to keep his job when he tried to complain about his broken glasses, bruised nose, and injured ego.

    7. I had this fishbowl office for four years. All glass, nothing frosted. No advice except that when that job laid me off it was a great day!

      1. There’s a nursing room that has changed names periodically, I think it’s called nap room or something now. It’s a glorified janitors closet. So no that’s not really an option for actually getting work done, unfortunately.

        They rejected the frosted glass idea and we are specifically prohibited from getting our own frosting. I do face the glass wall so I can see people coming, at least.

        1. Ugh, that’s awful. I worked somewhere with glass walls (just out to the hallway), and pumping women were given the option of a film applied to their glass, a move to an unrenovated floor, or using the old pumping room (which had snacks). No further advice, just annoyance on your behalf.

  15. We’re in a heat advisory, so I’m dressing for maximum breeziness today.
    – J Crew Factory poplin shirt in a blue/white stripe
    – Cream colored skirt, also from JCF
    – Camel loafers

    It’s borderline casual, but I’m too damn hot to care! What is everyone else wearing?

    1. I’m not wearing it today but I recently bought the JCF gauze shirt that’s been mentioned here before and it’s perfect! I love pretty much everything I buy from there.

      1. I love that shirt! Do you wear it to the office? I haven’t yet and we’re business casual. Just feels a little too casual?

    2. An Old Navy dress in a linen blend. It is the Jacquard Mini Swing (they have it this year, but I bought it last) in a white/hot pink/orange pattern. I’ve lost a little weight since last summer so it is a bit big and mumu-like on me, but comfy and cool.

    3. I’m retired and not going anywhere today, so… white denim shorts, GAP navy and white striped cropped oversized polo from a year or two ago, flip flops inside the house but about to put on sneakers and go for a walk.

    4. Rag and Bone trouser Jeans; Black silky tee from CABI; Black platform shoes. Heavy silver necklackel white Nic & Zoe jacket (took off the minute I got to the office)..

  16. What are the norms surrounding billing for travel time as an independent consultant? At my old salaried job, we billed for time we actually spent working plus time spent in transit, deducting meal breaks. For example, if it took me 12 hours door-to-door to get to my destination and I took a half-hour dinner break, I’d bill 11.5 hours. If I had an 8-hour meeting and then spent 2 hours in the hotel room prepping for the next day, I’d bill 10 hours. I am now looking at a consulting contract that limits billing to 8 hours per day but also requires days much longer than 8 hours–for example, it requires a 3-day trip with 1.5 days of meetings, which means I’d be barred from billing for part of the trip there, evening prep work after day 1 of meetings, and most of the trip home. Is this normal and just part of the reason why consulting rates are supposed to be much higher than hourly rates for employees?

    1. it’s negotiable. At my firm, some clients wouldn’t let you bill travel time, some you could bill at 50%, etc.

      1. oh and as to the actual work days that will be longer than 8 hours, mark up the contract with your very valid point.

        1. I think it would be fine to bill out overnight travel days at 12 hours. That covers work, waking hours not spent at home, but doesn’t cover sleeping time and meal time.

    2. Every minute I’m not b*tt in seat and available to my other clients I bill for. Rather than hourly, bill on a daily rate that takes into account travel or longer days.

    3. In some contracts, you negotiate a separate travel budget but you would do that at the start. Assuming that you bill a set number of hours for the month or the contract, most would flex their time to make the hours add up. For example, if you have 176 hours for the month and you expend more at the start for this trip, you would have to work less later in the month for them to add up. But typically most contracts don’t add up to the full number of available working hours to account for holidays and PTO.

  17. Surveying the hive mind – is there any real benefit to listing clothing/shoes on Thredup these days? All I’ve heard is how little reward there is for the effort and how they’re not returning items/not paying out much. I’d be posting lightly used work clothing/shoes – Boden/MGemi/Jcrew/Kate Spade and some athletic gear. I’m not anticipating making this a ‘side hustle’, just trying to fund some back to school clothes for my kids. Any recent users who can weigh in?

    1. Thread up pays literal pennies if anything at all. For what you’re talking about I’d do poshmark. People buy over there. Too much of a hassle for me personally, I just did it during the pandemic when I had more free time. But at least you actually can resell for a decent amount.

    2. ThredUp is not worth it for selling.
      Poshmark or Mercari are okay.

      Personally, I have the best luck on Facebook. I’m in local resale groups and there are also brand-specific groups you can join.

    3. I am entirely too lazy to post things on Poshmark and ship them, so I use thredup. I have made more than $3500 over the last couple of years. This tells me I need to stop buying so much and getting rid of items while they are still in good condition, but I already knew this.

    4. I think local consignment shops are your best bet – low effort, decent return (comparatively). Some give you a higher rate for taking store credit, which is nice if you’re looking to fund other clothing purchases.
      thred up is OK to buy from but it’s literally pennies you’ll get back.
      Poshmark, Mercari, or FB marketplace will all get you a higher return but it’s a lot more effort. esp. for work clothing, posh is a lot slower/cheaper than it used to be pre-pandemic.

    5. Go with Poshmark if you are willing to deal with all the photos and storing your items while you wait to see if they sell. Thredup is exploitative.

      1. I am not OP & I am 100% not willing to do the whole Poshmark rigamarole. I don’t want to spend my time taking pictures, posting items, waiting to see if I get paid, boxing items, printing labels, then getting my ass to the post office. Then dealing with complaints & refunds if the buyer doesn’t like it for whatever reason (has happened to me!)

        I am so glad other people are willing to do it because I buy like 50% of my wardrobe secondhand. But it’s not for me, for sure!

    6. Thredup is soo easy and better than getting $0 back. I think of it as a donation with the possibility of getting a bit of money back.

      Poshmark is a lot of work.

  18. Talk to me about drinking in front of kids. Our kids are now 5 and 7 and notice when husband and I order a glass of wine or beer at a restaurant or if we make a cocktail at home. We’re very disciplined about our drinking, only friday and Saturday nights and rarely more than 1-2 each. We do have more when were at kid free events. However, we like to drink around 5 pm so that by the time we have dinner and go to bed, it doesnt impact our sleep. However, our kids see us having a drink while they are swimming or having a glass of wine on vacation etc. I’m not sure why it bothers me when they ask if they can have a sip but I’m not sure if im normalizing drinking for them at a young age. It’s obviously something that we are able to responsibly enjoy at our age, but my husband grew up with an alcoholic father and I grew up in a family that didnt drink, so we didnt drink in college and drank only at social events through much fo our 20’s. I’m not sure what I’m asking, I just worry my kids wont appreciate how dangerous alcohol can be because they see mom and dad drinking. Most of my friends rarely seem to drink in front of their kids? What do most of you do and how will this change as they become teenagers etc?

    1. I wouldn’t change a thing. Kid asks for a sip and the answer is “no, this is for grownups.” Honestly, changing your adult life like this is one of the quickest ways to destroy your marriage too. You need to be an adult and partner first. Model good behavior but that doesn’t mean taking everything back to some adolescent phase.

    2. I came from an environment where drinking was very normalized, my parents / extended family / parents’ friends all drank in front of us as kids, and I really don’t think it impacted us negatively. To me the way you describe you and your husband drinking (and the fact that most of your friends don’t drink in front of their kids) actually seems really restrictive to me, based on my upbringing.

      I actually think its good to drink responsibly in front of kids – if you hide your drinking from kids I think it shows that drinking should be hidden / its some sort of forbidden fruit. If you don’t drink in front of your kids, they probably won’t feel comfortable coming to you to ask questions or discuss drinking because they think its hidden for a reason. If you have a few drinks in front of kids but are responsible with it, they see that you can and should drink responsibly rather than binge drinking.

      If we asked for a sip we were told no, this was only for adults. This wasn’t the only thing that we knew existed but wasn’t for kids (non PG rated movies or TV shows, explicit music were all things we knew existed but also knew weren’t for kids).

    3. I think you’re being to puritanical. Nothing wrong with appropriate drinking in front of kids. Nothing wrong with explaining its an adult drink and they can’t have a sip. Nothing wrong with things being OK for adults and not for kids.

      1. The first miracle was turning water into wine, so I don’t see how drinking is inherently bad. If it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.

    4. What you are doing seems fine to me. I’m sure you are vigilant about not drinking and driving with your kids/family. So one parent doesn’t drink and is designated driver.
      Kids will remember this. And they will likely be exposed to alcohol in peer groups sooner than you would like. I drank with friends starting in junior high (!) and was still the top of my class, but very subject to peer pressure. However, I appreciated that my mother had told me that she would pick me up any time / any place. They should have been more clear about what was allowable behavior as children and what wasn’t.

      I would also be open with your kids when they get older about their alcoholic grandfather / addiction. These things shouldn’t be hidden and should be explained. We have a lot of alcoholism in the older generations on one side of my family, and untreated mental illness interwoven (anxiety/depression). Different times. My generation is all very aware of our own issues, that we are more at risk for addiction, and are more careful with alcohol.

    5. We have had drinks like you have, in front of our kid ever since he was little (8 yrs now). I don’t see any problem with that.
      “No, drinks with alcohol are for grown-ups only” is a perfectly good answer, be factual about it and don’t make it into some big thing.

      That being said, we have spoken to our son about the negative aspects of drinking alcohol: It can make people sick if they drink too much and too often, people who drink more than 1 glass of wine or beer should not be driving afterwards, and drinking too much alcohol can make you angry, silly, and doesn’t allow you to make responsible decisions. We’ve also spoken about drugs including alcohol and why they can be addictive.
      In those conversations (and with our behavior), we are making it clear that we as his grown-ups always pay attention to not consume too much and too often so that we can be responsible and kind, and not get ourselves and others into trouble (ensuring our kid that he is always safe).

    6. You should be normalizing sensible consumption of alcohol so your kids know how to have a healthy relationship with it!

        1. Agree with this. Maybe it’s yours and your husbands backgrounds that are a bit triggering on the topic?

    7. I’m think it’s important for kids to see adults responsibly enjoying alcohol. Food and alcohol are such big parts of our culture. If you make it seem shameful or forbidden, kids are more likely to grow up with a complex relationship with alcohol.

      And I guess this is an unpopular opinion but I totally let kids have a sip of alcohol I know they’ll hate. Sure kid have a sip of my old fashioned. I would probably hesitate to let them drink something they might actually like. In my family we also serve about 2 oz of wine at Thanksgiving and Christmas to kids ~14 and up if they want it.

      1. I have the same unpopular opinion – if my kids ask they can have a sip. The 16yo is totally uninterested, 13yo asks sometimes but isn’t that interested overall. My boomer parents were big drinkers and normalized it for me – I drank plenty in college but never blacked out and maybe once threw up. I have a glass or two of wine or beer once a week as a middle-aged mom. It’s fine.

        1. When I was a toddler I’d ask for sips of my dad’s beer because it was Rolling Rock and had a horse on the label. It’s still called “horsie beer” in my family.

      2. I… once did this with my kid. It was cask strength bourbon at a tasting event (where kids could attend).

        He spat it out and hasn’t asked since.

        1. My then-8 year old repeatedly asked for a taste of my weekend margarita one summer, so I poured them a small shot of straight tequila. They tried to down it with no success and a whole lot of anger that I had agreed to let them try such a “nasty, gross” thing. As a 19 year old, they still dislike even the smell of alcohol.

          1. OMG. Lots of alcoholics hated the taste of that first drink but loved the effect. Even as children.

          2. Oh, don’t worry, there was definitely none ingested. The only effect was an immediate spewing out of the entire 1/4 ounce coupled with a violent hacking cough, like a cat with a hairball.

      3. My now college aged kids talk all the time about the handful of occasions they mistook my gin and tonic for a glass of ice water and helped themselves. Disgusting, according to them.

        Zero interest in gin or tonic from either of them now!

      4. I’m a very light drinker (mainly champagne at weddings, wine on vacation in wine regions and occasionally opening a bottle of wine when we have friends over for for a nicer dinner) but my kid is around for most of those times and has seen me drink plenty. I don’t see any issue with that, even if they’re asking for sips. “It’s a grown up drink” is a fine answer, and unless you’re getting hammered I really don’t see why drinking in front of children would be problematic.

        I also let my kid try a tiny sip once when she was about 7 or 8. We were on a plane so it was not good wine and it was also sparkling, and she’d never had a fizzy drink. As expected she spat it out and said it was disgusting.

      5. my parents would let me dip my pinky in their drink to try it (in retrospect, gross), leading to me telling strangers on the bus when I was around 4 that I liked wine, coke, scotch, and beer, so maybe just try to avoid that lol

      1. but for good reasons, given their family background. OP, what you are doing sounds reasonable.

    8. I grew up in a household that had more of a European mindset about alcohol, very relaxed, so adults drinking a glass of wine or a beer at lunch or dinner around kids was totally normal. DH and I have done that too. When I was little I would ask my parents for a sip and I remember thinking it was disgusting, so I let my kids take a sip too, and they thought it was disgusting. Sometimes if we have a special occasion involving a toast, the adults get wine or champagne and the kids get “kid wine” – sparkling Welches. We don’t have any alcoholism in our family, everyone drinks moderately.

      1. This is how I grew up also. My parents had a glass of wine together with dinner each night and sometimes my dad would have a beer after dinner. Neither of them liked hard liquor. If we asked, we were allowed to try their drinks. By the time I was in high school, I also would have a glass of wine with dinner – dinner was family dinner every night in the dining room with delicious, home-cooked food; I was not eating and drinking alone.
        Neither sibling nor I has ever had any problems with alcohol. I probably have two dozen glasses of wine per year and generally don’t drink because I just don’t care about it. Sibling and I also were not fascinated by it and desperate to drink when we got to college as kids from restrictive homes seemed to be. I thought all of the college drinking was just dumb; couldn’t people find something more interesting to do?
        We do have alcoholics on both sides of our family. My mom always emphasized we needed to be careful about our alcohol consumption for this reason, and that messaging has stayed with me in a healthy way.

    9. Thank you for asking this question. I grew up in a similarly non-drinking religious family so I wonder about this all the time.
      My kids are now 14 and 8 and we occasionally drink in front of them, especially weekends at brunch etc. We used to have a drink later at night after they went to bed (past 8pm) for similar reasons but with bedtimes much later now (9:30-10 for older kid) it is not possible.
      When they ask for a sip of alcohol, the answer is always, always no, not for kids. They also ask for a sip of coffee and tea and while I used to say no at younger ages, I have occasionally given in with a sigh because I see their peers (even of the 8yo) often drinking a whole iced tea and sips of coffee. I have told them that caffeine has detrimental effects on children and impairs growth.
      I would like to see a study that compares (1) families which normalized social drinking and (2) families which didn’t drink much in front of kids, to see which kids were more likely to end up abusing alcohol. I’m not sure if the norms on this will change over time. Smoking was normalized at home but is now seen as problematic for example. Does having a parent who smoked make you more likely to try it? I think yes, but haven’t read up on it.
      Anecdotally in my case, nobody drank at home and I didn’t even try alcohol until my 20s – I have never blacked out and only once thrown up.

    10. agree it’s much safer/better to model healthy drinking habits as they grow up instead of making it some secretive scandalous thing. I do think it would be appropriate when they’re older to share about their grandpa, given the often(?) genetic component with addiction.

    11. I think by growing up in a family that didn’t drink, you have a pretty warped view of what normal family drinking culture looks like. IME, this actually warps an adult’s view of drinking more than being raised in a family with an alcoholic.

      All this to say, drinking in front of your kids is fine, discussing the dangers of drinking is fine, and either allowing one tiny sip or no alcohol at all for kids because they’re adult drinks is also fine.

    12. I could have written this post — husband has a functional alcoholic parent and my parents don’t drink much (when we were little, it was for religious reasons, and now it’s for health reasons). We do what you do. Intellectually, I think it’s a lot healthier than growing up in a household where alcohol was a big sin or a household where adults consume a full bottle of wine alone every night. Emotionally, I know the feelings you’re feeling.

      Anyway, just saying there’s someone else out there doing exactly what you’re doing.

  19. I’m really enjoying the Olympics! But the ad for AI helping write a fan letter has stuck with me, and not in a good way. This is the message Google wants for our kids? That instead of learning and trying something yourself, you should just ask technology how to do it for you? It feels like everyone’s just looking for a cheat code. And yes, I get that technology can be helpful and that there are legit uses for AI. Something about aiming this at kids hits differently.

    1. I saw that and thought the same thing – I hated it. Athletes are supposed to get handwritten letters from kids with funny phrasing and misspellings and earnest good wishes, not polished AI copy that was literally written by a robot. Call me a curmudgeon, but it’s wrong to use AI to replace heartfelt sentiment in things like congratulation notes, thank-you notes, catch-up emails with loved ones, letters to Santa, and more.

    2. I mean do you Google things? Use a calculator? That’s where this is going. No one sees it as cheating if you aren’t using an encyclopedia anymore.

      1. OK, but the encyclopedia could not write the letter for you and if you copied a letter word for word out of, say, an etiquette book, it wasn’t looked upon favorably either.

        1. Actually there are form etiquette letters that people use. I never heard anyone say it was bad form. My grandmother gave me a book of them when I graduated high school or college and I’ve found it helpful for writing condolence notes especially. I personalize them but I’m really bad at knowing what to say when someone dies and I found it helpful to have some templates.
          A fan letter to an athlete from a kid does feel a little different since as that’s supposed to be happier and more hopeful, and also letters from kids should have all these cute misspellings and bad grammar.

      2. I do think being reliant on a calculator is very bad. Google is different – no one is a catalog of all things and we all need to be able to look things up toearn.

      3. Do you want the next generation of Americans to be able to write fluently and with purpose? To be able to express themselves and their ideas fluently and clearly? Where do you think people learn those skills, if not through starting as kids whose writing is allowed to be messy, unpolished, and imperfect, and also heartfelt and beautiful and joyous in a way AI algorithmically generated copy will never be?

        I hate that commercial.

        1. Laughing at myself for reusing the word “fluently” after failing to practice the self-editing skills I’ve learned through trial and error and similar f*ckups. AI would never have the range.

    3. Also, how useless & disrespectful to the recipient. But it’s always been aimed at kids in a sense & it is problematic because they won’t learn or be able to evaluate the quality of the AI response. It’s a huge problem for schools.

    4. My husband complains about it every time it comes on, and he works for an AI company, haha.

  20. I had a long and lovely vacation. Now work starts again and I am thinking about two things: How to keep the rested feeling from summer and vacation for as long as possible? How to stress less in general and not let work take over you life? Please readers , give me your best tips. Thanks a lot

    1. I let a lot roll off my back which helps with stress. There are things that I do try to optimize, but for the most part I go with a “good enough” approach. I apply this to work and my personal life.

      1. This is a really healthy way to live, and is hard to adopt if your personality is different.

    2. I met up with a friend this weekend who told me that he strategically uses silence as a response, which is something I haven’t really thought about before. That complain-y email from a colleague that isn’t asking you to do anything? Sometimes a non-response IS a response. Made me realize that I did this in a meeting a few weeks ago: the other person said something about himself that I think was designed to elicit a response from me [“me too” or “gosh, I wish I could say the same”] and instead I just let the comment hang there. Silence was an answer in itself and was actually sort of empowering to just watch him see my non-reaction.

      Think about whether you can stress a little less by responding with silence or more minimal responses. Do not engage with the drama.

      1. This resonates a lot with me, I tend to very much always responding and acting. I am going to think about this because I have this tendency to think that not responding weakings me. Interesting to hear about your feeling of empowerment. thanks

        1. Interesting take. Do you think it is adaptive to always engage with drama? I agree it’s not an approach that can work 100% of the time, but it can work when used selectively.

        2. it seems to me to be different things. it would be maladaptive to refuse to interact with people in general. but not if it is about refusing always to be on high alert

    1. Replica as in a knock off? Absolutely not.

      I am not a bag person – I own one purse and its from Madewell. I’m also not a visible brand person. Even if I otherwise like something, I’ll avoid buying it if it has a visible brand. I do care about brands when brand = quality or if I know a certain brand fits me better, but otherwise I choose things based off of design (do I like it), fit, comfort, and practicality.

      1. Same. I wouldn’t knowingly purchase a knock-off, but I also would not intentionally buy a designer bag because the cost just not worth it to me. For all I know, my own Madewell purse could be a knock-off of some famous designer thing and I just don’t follow that world.

    2. I have owned a bag that was made by one company and sold in a real store (just Target, but still) that was inspired by a nice luxury bag. It was definitely not a replica, but some of the features were similar. I think that’s fine.

      I would not buy a copy of a designer bag. It’s not like I feel sorry for Hermes or something, but at the end of the day, the bag is their IP, and I feel icky paying someone to violate that. This is partially because I do creative work and don’t want someone ripping off me or my colleagues. Also part of the draw of a luxury bag to me is the fine stitching, the amazing leather quality, the way the details are so specific, and a dupe usually doesn’t have all that.

      So, if I’m going to spend more than what I’d spend on a Target bag, I’d rather get something high quality that’s unique and not a copy of someone else’s work.

    3. A replica as in the bags that are made to look designer using high quality materials by craftspeople? Yeah I’d probably be fine owning one of those, the fashion houses aren’t exactly ethical and I don’t care if they lose their cut. I wouldn’t buy a knock off like the kind of bags you buy from an alley though.

      1. this – there was a NYT story about this earlier in the year i think and i’ve been lurking in some of the reddit threads they mention in the article. i’ve been looking but haven’t decided which bag i want to try first.

    4. Nope. I would rather spend my $$ on something I genuinely like that is good quality rather than on junk.

      1. Yup. I can’t afford a designer bag but I can spend $200-$300 on a decent leather bag that isn’t a knockoff.

    5. No. I think it’s silly to spend so much money on a bag. By carrying a replica of a bag that costs that much, I would be sending a message to the world that I DON’T think it’s silly to spend so much on a bag, that I did actually spend that much. It seems hypocritical somehow. Like I’m pretending to be someone I’m not and don’t even really respect.

      Then again, if I found an authentic Birkin for $100 I would totally buy it. Does that mean I’m pretending to be someone who spends that much on a bag? Idk.

    6. no, because I don’t buy designer bags for status at all, ever. Unless it’s a very obvious LV or Chanel logo, I also wouldn’t recognize what designer label somebody else is carrying. I am in a transition of upgrading to higher quality items, so I might spend more money for an item that will last longer, and a replica won’t fit the bill.

    7. My stepmother used to travel to different countries and buy high-end replicas, some of which were gifted to me when I was in law school. I carried them a little bit, but was never comfortable with it. It felt like pretending to have more money than I actually had. I still have them in my garage because I feel bad tossing them. I prefer to “punch at my own weight” if that makes sense? I buy nice stuff, often on sale, in a price range that actually matches my income level. BUT…does anyone remember that Atlantic (I think?) article a while ago about the ultra wealthy buying replicas? The difference there is that they can actually afford a real Hermes.

    8. Nope. I have a few actual designer bags that I purchased i their countries of origin (Gucci in Italy, LV in France, etc) but it’s more for the souvenir value and less for the “brand,” if that makes sense.

    9. Nope. At this stage in my life, I have no interest in designer labels period. So many better things to do with my money. When I was in my 20s, I loved them and coveted them but didn’t want to be fake so I bought real ones at my modest price point (Coach/Kate Spade/Michael Kors) not the four figure bags.

      One of my friends is from China, where fake bags are a big industry, and she’s very into fake designer bags, especially Birkins. She has a lot of them that she swears are indistinguishable from the real thing, and she paid a *lot* for them. It’s not for me. At the prices she’s paying I don’t know why she doesn’t just buy a real Louis Vuitton or something, but it’s her choice how to spend her money.

    10. The only circumstance I could really justify is what they call a “fantasy” bag–a rep that uses colors or labels or styles that don’t exist and is clearly just for funsies. I had a brief phase where I considered it but ultimately I had too many concerns about exploitation etc (and I’m not typically so uptight) and decided I’d rather save my pennies and get a beat up/well used designer bag and make like I’d had it for years as my type of pretend :P

    1. Depends on what it is. If I find out that a male author or artist is a rapist, I don’t purchase or peruse his work. I was going to read The Mists of Avalon, which a lot of people had recommended to me, but when I found out that there were serious and credible allegations of child sexual abuse against her, I didn’t pick it up.

      I’m very mindful of making up my own mind on this stuff, though. There are some women who are the victims of smear campaigns and if you look into it yourself, you’ll see they did nothing wrong.

    2. Not only was the original crime horrific, the way the stepfather admitted to it in writing and tried to justify it was even worse! Honestly it reads like a real life version of Law and Order. I hope this remains a huge stain on her name and legacy. I only wish this would have become public sooner so that she could have suffered the loss of prestige that was apparently more important to her than her daughter.

      1. I have recommended her work for so long I am chagrined. Just threw away her most recent collection unread.

    3. Yes – or there would not be much left for me to enjoy.

      The woman is dead. Whether I read (or do not read) her books does not impact her a whit. We can dissect her though processes endlessly and how they were reflected in her writing, but nobody who read her work came away thinking that child abuse is OK. So I read and continue to read her work, just like I read the work of a lot of imperfect people – and enjoy their art and listen to their music for that matter; I find it curious who gets posthumously “cancelled” and who does not, considering that Michael Jackson remains an icon.

      1. The author/artist doesn’t matter much to me in terms of art. But I also don’t buy much of anything, so it’s not a calculation in terms of money that I usually have to make. I don’t judge people with a zero-tolerance mindset on this though. We’re allowed to decide what literature and art we allow in our lives.

        But I’ve never gone in for hero worship to begin with. You just can’t know who a person is. Better to keep an emotional distance from the artist.

    4. My rule is that I separate the profit from the art. I will never, ever, give money to certain artists who have assaulted or stalked women, and my Spotify is set up not to play their music because they get royalties. If I was absolutely craving listening to an old tune from high school and I have a CD with that song on it, I’m not going to stop myself from playing the CD. (Really dating myself here).

  21. Is anyone a trustee of their HOA/condo association? I’m 1 of 2 trustees trying to restart a defunct condo association of 7 units, with majority landlord/non-owner occupied (so little commitment to the building). I recently organized our first 2 meetings in 3 years.

    We are self-managed, so no management company to guide me. Any resources for basic How Tos? This is a timely question because an investor is selling a unit, and the would-be buyer’s agent called me with a ton of questions I couldn’t answer: short and long term maintenance plans, budgeting for repairs, etc. I know these things need to be done, just not sure how to start.

    The other trustee is also a landlord and a trustee in name only, so I can’t expect any help or guidance from her. The agent also sent me a Freddie Mac form to complete, and it seems I need an attorney to guide me…

    1. No experience, but given the lack of buy-in from other owners and the lack of relationship, I would have no problem hiring all the help I needed (on the HOA’s dime). It might mean higher fees for everyone, but that seems better than spending an inordinate amount of time trying to figure things out on my own to save investors in the other properties money or facing liability for doing things wrong.

    2. Board member here. You need two things pronto: legal assistance and a copy of the governing documents. The lawyers that do this are highly specialized. A random lawyer who is helpfully trying to figure it out for you has a good chance of effing it up. In your shoes I would probably call a couple of property management companies and ask who they use. As for the governing docs, you need a copy of the Master Deed and any amendments, which should be on file with the Register of Deeds, Bylaws and/or Charter and/or House Rules, if they exist. The first three will define your scope of power and responsibilities. You also need a copy of current bank statements, budgets, or any other financial docs. If there is no management company and no functional board, I doubt budgets or maintenance plans exist. If they don’t, and there is no functional board, then these are facts that a prospective buyer should have and likely will affect their decision to buy.

      For meetings or elections with absentee or uninterested homeowners, you need to get their proxy for that meeting or election, and then you vote their vote.

      It sounds like you have taken on a huge job. If it’s feasible for you, I would sell and get out of this situation. I’m on the board of a midrise building and our property management company handles the financials, acts as a liaison to contractors such as the yard service, and along with the attorney, provides advice. There are some tricky fair housing issues that one has to be cognizant of. There are new federal regulations regarding board members. There’s a lot of stuff you need to know where common sense alone isn’t going to get you there. I hate to be Debbie Downer, but in my experience that’s just how it is.

      1. “Editing” to add: and you need Errors and Omissions insurance if you are going to fill a fiduciary position with regard to the property. You’d be surprised what you can get sued over, legit or not, and worse than that, in my experience, is for the board to be the subject of a Fair Housing complaint, legit or not. The latter is heavily weighted in favor of the Complainant.

      2. Lawyer here, and have watched my parents’ condo association saga with horror over the decades.

        Please, please get insurance that covers you immediately. People are nasty, vindictive, can put liens on you, can tie you up in expensive arbitration or litigation–all of this for your good deed of volunteering. And I don’t mean the HOA–they can sue you personally. They can affect your property personally. They can cost you tens of thousands of dollars.

        Be so careful. Sadly, no good deed goes unpunished.

  22. Hivemind:
    I’m collecting donations for summer sport coach gifts. I have about $50-100 per coach. The coaches are mostly 17-22 year olds (some HS seniors, a couple college grads, but mostly college students). Ideally, we would give them their gift/tip as a gift card for security reasons. Any suggestions for the type of GC?

    Or, do we just do cash and trust the cards make it to their rightful owner?

    The gifts are usually given directly to the recipient at the end of year banquet but some coaches can’t make it so they get them at other times.

    In the past, they’ve done GCs to Starbucks, Chiptotle, Amazon, etc. and we can do that too. I’m out of touch with teens so not sure what’s best as a blanket choice for ~15 or so people.

    1. Amazon or Target – you can get fun or practical things at both places. As a college student, Amazon would be great because I could get textbooks, groceries, or toiletries with it.

    2. My 17-year-old who has a coaching job would prefer, in approximately this order: cash, Target, Amazon, Starbucks. She is not as much a fan of the Visa gift cards because those tend to be more difficult to spend.

    3. Cash by Venmo is easiest. Def not Visa gift cards as they are a PITA to spend online, as opposed to being able to load an A-zn or Target gc to your balance to spend down.

    4. Amazon or Target (assuming plentiful Targets in your area).

      def not the visa ones – they are so annoying to spend & hard to redeem online.

    5. You could do thank-you cards for something physical to hand to the coaches who are at the banquet, and then just Venmo all of them the gift itself.

      Barring that, Amazon or Target (if local to you) would be the most easy to use. I wouldn’t do restaurants for a group that size, since it is hard to know if they all like or can eat at the one you pick.

      Definitely avoid pre-paid Visa or MC; those are horribly inconvenient for the end user.

  23. Did anyone else read the Linda Yaccarino story in the NYT this weekend and think of the person here who posted “that’s what the money is for”? Linda, if you’re here, give us a sign!

  24. Ugh. I just mentioned to my husband that the weeds in our front bed are out of control and we need to hire a better landscaper. He got all angry stormed off. It’s a pain in the neck to call people but we’ve already agreed the current company stinks. It’s a total non starter that we do this ourselves; he’s injured and we have young kids and jobs and can afford to outsource this. He’s storming off and complaining about how he wishes he could do it himself. He used to do that and it always looked terrible. Why is he angry? This is ridiculous.

    1. Could it be that he’s upset about his injury for various reasons, and this is just another reminder of things he can’t do?

      But also you both need to use your words and discuss this – him storming off isn’t helpful, and you coming here and asking strangers why he’s angry isn’t helpful – how would we know?!

    2. I got incredibly angry when my husband insisted on paying $$$$ to a landscaping company to do a task 100% wrong and make our yard look worse when we could have done it very well ourselves over a weekend for $250. Of course he’s mad that you been wasting a ton of money on a landscaping service that’s no good and now one of you has to go through the selection process all over!

      1. this answer is… unhelpful at best.

        OP, frustration at the process is normal, but that kind of anger is not. I honestly don’t care if it’s because he’s being reminded of his injury, it’s an inappropriate way to treat your partner. I would say to him along the lines of “we can’t change the past, but treating me like this is definitely going to change our future” and hand him the laptop to start checking on alternatives.

        1. I’ll disagree on this. Anger is incredibly normal. Bad communication is also, unfortunately, very normal. It sounds like he relayed the reason for his anger, we don’t know what “storming off” looks like, but this sounds like an unpleasant conversation at worst. I think you meant well, but the script you outlined, along with the handing him of the laptop, will probably not improve much. It sounds like they are not aligned on what they can and cannot do themselves. Re another commenter, it’s incredibly frustrating to put money towards a problem and have it handled badly.

          1. Yeah, threatening to divorce him for being frustrated at wasting effort and money is completely out of proportion.

          2. Yeah – I feel strongly about not policing other people’s emotions. I can draw a boundary about how they talk to me or act around me, but I can’t control how anyone feels. I personally prefer storming off to handle their anger on their own to them being angry around me.

          3. ok mb my script went too far but the thought that a husband would “storm off” over a comment about a disappointing service provider? that is such unacceptable emotion management that I got the ick from here.

          4. Totally, and sometimes we just have bad days and it’s got nothing to actually do with the landscaper.

        2. “Storming off” is often recognizing that your emotional capacity has been exceeded and walking away to cool down, which is actually pretty excellent emotional management.

          1. ok how I picture this going at my house- it’s the quick-trigger anger to this question that’s weird to me!
            Cat – “I’m starting to regret the choice of the least expensive landscaper, because it doesn’t take care of the weeds. what do you think about switching?”
            Huscat – “oh man, that search was so annoying and it’s already expensive. are they really that bad?”
            Cat – “yeah, it looks like we put in a bed of annuals but it’s crabgrass. I think we can afford the extra $300 a month so our yard looks nice and we don’t have to be out in the 95 degree heat weeding.”
            Huscat – ugh, I wish I could do it myself! jeez. ok, let me look at the budget with you.”

          2. That is a wonderful interaction, and I’m glad that’s normal in your house! I’m just saying I think there is a wider spectrum of normal and healthy than just that.

      2. “Of course he’s mad that you been wasting a ton of money on a landscaping service that’s no good and now one of you has to go through the selection process all over!”

        Op here. Nah, he payed a barebones landscaping company for mow blow and go. The were unreasonably cheap and weeding wasn’t part of the deal. I’m stepping in because he’s being a giant baby about this, which was his domain. I hire the house cleaner and if I failed to contact for say scrubbing the shower I don’t think I’d freak out if he pointed out it was dirty. It’s just not a reasonable thing to get emotional about.

        1. so now knowing you shouldn’t have expected weeding- I still think his reaction sounds OTT. but what about suggesting you do some family chores outside? your kids are old enough to help with weeding. What’s his injury? With a foam kneeler could your husband help, or no?

          1. My mow and blow gardeners weeded in addition to the mowing and blowing. It’s not an unreasonable expectation that you wouldn’t have visible weeds sticking up when they leave.

            However, the mow and blow gardeners only showed up about 60% of the time so now we are DIY. It’s really hard and annoying to find reliable service providers so I understand the husband’s frustration in this post, but not taking it out on his wife.

          2. He says he can’t do it and I choose to believe that. I really detest yard work and I have no desire to spend family time doing it. Awesome for other families but absolutely not for me. The dirt and worms and bugs are just not my jam. I’d honestly rather scrub toilets. As I said when my husband was healthy and before kids he did the yard work and everything looked terrible. Not only that but he was always complaining about it. It’s just such an easy no brainer to hire someone and not get angry.

          3. It sounds like you two are not on the same page about the desired end result – how nice it needs to look (since you didn’t like his standards either when he was doing it himself, or handling the outsourcing). Strangers from the internet can’t tell you “who’s right” or whether your standards or his are objectively unreasonable; but I’d start with getting a shared understanding of what is actually really necessary. Part of splitting responsibilities is letting things be done different than you would, while also making sure everyone’s minimum reqs are met

        2. You are both placing a lot of contempt and emotionality on this—you are calling him a “big baby,” for example.

          Keep the status quo for a couple weeks. Let the situation blow over. They’re just weeds. Then discuss when everyone’s got their adulthood back underneath them.

    3. Or start training your kids in yard work? My brother and I were 6 and 9 when we started at our new house. I had a lighter set of chores in the yard, and my brother’s was a little heavier.

      1. Yeah to me young kids mean that the family can do yard work? Even if they’re toddlers, they can “help” while you do the work and then as they get more competent, they can take on more?

        FWIW, I grew up in a family that outsourced nothing and outsourcing things I can do myself makes me uncomfortable because the concept is still so foreign to me.

      2. My grandfather used to give his grandchildren a dime for every dandelion plant properly removed with the tool. Back when you could turn your kids loose in the yard with pointy objects. Current version might be a set amount per bucket filled with weeds.

        1. I gave my own kids a quarter per snail, which are a real problem around here. Unfortunately, they weren’t willing to pluck slugs.

    4. It sounds like his immediate anger is about the injury. Being injured and unable to do the stuff you usually do is really hard. I get that he didn’t do it well in the past, but he was physically capable of doing it. And right now he is not.

      I also agree with the other posters who said that doing it as a family is a good idea. We did yard work as a family basically most Saturday mornings. And then we went out for lunch or ice cream or something afterward, which I have wonderful memories of and always felt like a fun reward for doing the work. As soon as the youngest child went to college, my parents hired someone else to do the lawn.

      Like with so many other things that parents do for the benefit of their kids, as an adult, I am very happy my parents had us all (including the parents) do the yard. I’m sure I complained a lot about it at the time. But I have another life skill now.

      That aside, if hiring someone else to do your yard is the answer, then I think you fire the current company and hire someone else. The new company’s first task is to handle the weeding, which will be an additional charge.

      1. Yeah – we have 5 of us in the family and have 5 chore assignments that we do for ~1 hour on Saturday mornings. Each week we rotate so we all do it all. Yardwork is one of the chore assignments.

        We scale things to be age appropriate (and season appropriate for yardwork). but this way everyone can do at least a “good enough” job at most household tasks. The tasks are yardwork (mowing, raking, weeding), kitchen, bathrooms, floors (vacuum, sweep, or mop), and “non floors” (dust, windows, tidy up). Everyone is also responsible for cleaning their own room, doing laundry, and changing their sheets. Before going out with friends on a weekend your weekend chores must be done and your bedroom must be clean.

        On weeknights we also have a cleaning up after dinner rotation (load and start dishwasher; hand wash anything that doesn’t fit in the dishwasher; put leftovers away and takeout trash; wipe down counters and table and quick sweep) that the 4 non-cooks rotate through each night. A few nights a week we all take 5-10 minutes to tidy up the downstairs or our bedrooms so nothing gets out of hand.

        1. Op- i agree. I called two places already. One more thing off his plate and onto mine because he’s a door slamming miserable person. I’m glad my house will no longer look abandoned but good grief this middle aged man is like a toddler.

          1. I agree it sounds like a bigger issue. I grew up in a home where we had to walk on eggshells for an adult-sized toddler, and it was unpleasant and has led to a lot of therapy bills.

          2. You’ve expressed a lot of contempt for him in your comments. It may be very well earned. But I do think it’s worth reflecting on whether it’s just venting—which, go ahead, girl, sometimes we all need to!—or whether you actually believe it—which may lead you to consider other options.

        2. Same. He’s having a tantrum bc he’s frustrated; ignore it & call a landscaper. If he regularly throws tantrums, have a conversation.

          1. And if that conversation doesn’t work switch it to a conversation with a lawyer. Nobody should be subjected to tantrums from their supposed partner, and children don’t need to think that it is normal and okay.

  25. What is a good gift I should take from San Francisco when I go to visit family in New Zealand?
    I think they are strict about food coming into the country, so maybe avoid food. TIA for any suggestions!

        1. +1, packaged shelf stable chocolate and candy is no problem in NZ. I go to visit family every 2-3 years, and have always brought chocolate. Be sure to declare it when you arrive, they may scan your luggage but that’s it.

        2. FWIW my in-laws are from California and they always bring See’s, it’s very mediocre if you live somewhere with real chocolatiers. So the see’s just gets set out on the staff lunch table cause I’m not eating it

          1. It sounds like she does enjoy other chocolate. It’s okay if she doesn’t like See’s!

          2. I enjoy life a lot, I’m a snack monster I love candy and chocolate, but See’s really just isn’t that great. I obviously don’t say that to my in-laws or anyone I know from California because that is heresy as you can see…..

          3. It’s a matter of opinion. I’ve tried fine chocolate all over the world including places like Belgium and Switzerland, and See’s is up there on my pretty short list of the best of the best. You can say you don’t like it, but it’s not objectively bad chocolate.

    1. Grateful for any non-candy answers too, one of the family members is very health conscious. Any other local specialties? I don’t think they are into sports teams.

Comments are closed.