naamahdarling:

jeza-red:

firebyfire:

jeza-red:

ivyadrena:

owlmylove:

osointricate:

• Adulting tips from an adult who doesn’t adult good:
• Keep two separate dirty clothes bins. One for clothes. One for towels. That way you won’t have to dig out towels from a mountain of clothes you can just wash a load when you are desperate.
• Anything with “pet deodorizer” in the cleaning label can be poured down the sink to kill bad odors kill gnats.
• Try to change your sheets twice a month. Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t. 
• Start a decent first aid/OTC pharmacy when you have some money left over. Disinfectant, aspirin, allergy meds, Etc. You never know when A) you can’t afford a doc atm or B) you can’t get yourself to go to the doc or C) both or D) your idiot friend just decided to snowboard off your roof. This doesn’t have to be a priority.
• At some point you’ll have to buy a thermometer. Don’t buy the cheapest one, it won’t last past the second cold of the year.
• Get a clock that runs on batteries because lol you will lose power at some point.
• On that note, if you have room, get some kind of ice chest/cooler because you will lose power at some point, and while your freezer will remain nice and cold for a day or so, your fridge will not so the ice chest will come in handy because you can always replace the ice but your milk will go sour.
• Also on this note: buy a flash light and slowly and surely never throw away a candle. Ever. Ever. Ever. Unless it’s done and then you have my permission. The first time you have to take a shower without power in the dark you’ll thank me.
• Also bic lighters are cheap and easy and jfc you have to light candles somehow.
• Be on the look out for: cheap blankets, fans, and space heaters. Buy whenever possible. They will save your life.
• Bananas go bad quick. Eat them. They are good for you.
• If you have a car, keep the following things in it: a towel, a blanket, a change of socks, some cash, a flashlight, and some kind of food like a granola bar. If you have an old cell phone, keep it in there too. While old cell phones won’t have service providers, most (newer) cell phones still allow you to dial 911 despite not being connected to a service.
• If you have the space (I have a garage that’s too small for my truck so I use that) and you have a in-home washer/dryer, hang clothes to dry. A) easier on clothes so clothes last longer B) less electricity = less money & less energy usage.
• Dryer sheets + rugs = getting out pet hair
• Dryer sheets + hair = gets rid of fly-a-ways. (Scented dryer sheets = makes ur hair smell good.)
• Towel on a cookie baking sheet = ironing board (I’ve also heated up a skillet and used it as an iron in a frantic last minute freak out)
• Keep extra toilet paper within arms reach of the toilet

to hell with adulting, most of this is awesome advice for surviving hurricane season in florida

Also, something that came to me with years of adulting and saved me nice cash throughout these years: 

• cheap doesn’t mean bad (!!!!!!!)
• buy good food, because good food is good for you, but there’s no point in cashing out a pack of Always’ every month, girls, when the store brand pads cost a quid-a-pack and work exactly the same. I buy mine at Sainsbury’s and usually my period doesn’t cost me more than 2£.
• same with tampons. also, buy tampons with paper applicators – they’re eco friendly and in a disastrous situation when a disposal bin is not available, they have a bigger chance of not clogging the toilet (applicators, not the cotton part)=_=  
• same applies to kitchen towels, floor cleaning products (because they go on your freaking FLOOR) and generally cleaning stuff. buy cheapest and buy in bulk. your spilled soup won’t snub you if you wipe it up with a brandless paper!
• overall, scout bottom shelfs of every isle, treasures hide in there.
• get as much herbs as you can fir in your cupboard and learn to spice stuff. even the cheapest, blandest canned soup can be saved with a liberal measure of basil.
• FOLLOW MEASUREMENT DIRECTIONS I know it’s tempting to put just one more cork of that fabric freshener into the wash so your sheets smell like AXE commercial, but stop. one measure per full load. it will last longer.
• walk around your ‘hood, check out supermarkets and see which ones do good ‘brandless’ appliances. I mean, ALL my kitchen appliances are Lidl-brand and they’ve been preforming faultlessly for the last 3 years. The myth that the “brands will work longer/better” is unfounded in my experience.
• same with pots and pans. I’m not Gordon Fucking Ramsey, I can boil my fucking milk in a 1£ saucepan just fine.
• about pans – use wooden utensils on anything Teflon! you want them to last, ey?
• a strong vinegar is known to remove stubborn stains, try it. it can also clean your toilet. (I have a bottle of 80% lithuanian vinegar that I firmly believe was extracted from the Alien’s spit)
• get. yourself. a knife. sharpener. god. 
• scissors in the kitchen cupboard. don’t question. put them there.
• good food is not hard to find! go to the supermarket in the evening, some of the bigger ones discount their produce then! it’s still perfectly good stuff, but stores have ridiculously short use dates on raw stuff and you can use that. same with breads. 
• you tired of waiting for your fruit to ripen enough that you can bite it and not leave your teeth behind? If you live in England, locate your nearest Halal store and go crazy, because, apart from some nice cuts of meat, they have the best  ripest freaking fruit I’ve ever seen*_* Watermelons the size of your youngest child, plums big as a fist, bananas as big and curved as your boyfriend’s… well, THEY HAVE IT ALL Don’t be afraid of the bearded dudes either, they’re perfectly cool. 
• you can keep root veggies (potatoes, carrots, onion, beets, etc) in a cupboard instead of a fridge. make sure it’s dry and dark and you have yourself veggies for longer. 
• keep fruit out of direct sunlight for it to last longer too.
• take your veg/fruit out of the plastic packaging as soon as you get home. they get all ‘sweaty’ and rot at the speed of light if you let them in. even if they’re being kept in the fridge. paper bags ftw.
• whatever you don’t use, you can freeze. like, everything is freezable. even water. can’t finish this soup? reduce it and then freeze it. you can finish it in a month. that block of cheese you see going dry? pack the sucker in the bag and it will go on a pizza two weeks from now.
• buy a water filtering jug. why drink bad tea when you can have good tea?
• stock on grains – rice, grits, barley, and beans. one cup will get you a long way with these.
• if you want to make some beans from dry, a night before put them in a pot with water, so they soak it up and on the next day they’ll cook faster:)
• no rice cooker and saving electricity? boil rice, swathe the covered pot in a layer of newspapers and stuff it into your bed for an hour or two. rice will come out nice and soft. works with grits and barley too. 
• buy. milk. in. smaller. jugs. american scientists discovered that you rarely need as much milk as you think you’ll need. no point in throwing it out. unless you have kids. then buy as much milk as you think you need. 
• let’s be honest, store-brand Coke tastes exactly as bad as the real deal so why pay more?

• have a needle and threads (at least in black and white color); I needed them two days after moving into dormitory and I was very grateful my roommate had a needle and black thread,
• you made enough soup to feed whole army but your freezer is full? put it into the fridge once the pot is cold and the next day pour cold soup into different pot – heating whole pot of soup and then putting it back to the fridge is risky; this way one pot with soup can last about 5 days in a fridge and you heat only amount you think you’ll eat;
• blood stains on your clothes? pour some salt on them and wash it in COLD water;
• having lighter is good but a few box of matches won’t hurt;
• when you have spare money buy cereal, potatoes and frozen vegies/fruits – you never know when you suddenly will be without money (speaking from experience: you can live a week on cereal),
• have a cloth to polish your shoes; it’s not something anyone really thinks about till they need it,
• kind of less important : light-bulbs! trust me on this and buy the ones that imitate sunlight especially when your room is dark – mine is very dark (under the roof) and buying a light-bulb with cold, white light was the best idea,

more adulting advice!
And yes, the needle and thread are good to have!

• Dollar stores carry fancy glassware you can use to dress up your table. Live alone? Fuck it. Buy a cute red tumbler or a long-stemmed wine glass. Drink shitty things out of inappropriately posh vessels.
• Hide two rolls of toilet paper. This is your emergency stash. Hide one in the bathroom. Hide the other somewhere else. With your bedclothes and linens storage is good, if you have it, but anywhere will do. Do not touch it unless it is an emergency. If money is so tight you can’t do this right away you can work up to it starting with the tail end of a roll – enough for one trip to the bathroom – and replace it with rolls with slightly more paper as time goes by.  This will save your literal ass.
• Washcloths. You can get bundles of shitty washcloths for cheap at many discount stores. Keep some in the bathroom. In addition to serving their function in the shower or bath, a nice warm damp washcloth is an alternative to toilet paper if you run out.  If you are too disgusted by the results to wash it out, you can bag it and throw it away.  This is not ideal, but neither is being stuck with diarrhea or a nasty period and no toilet paper!
• Keep a bug-out bag packed at all times. It can be a backpack, gym bag, or even just a plastic bag with other plastic bags to corral contents inside it. Here is what is in mine: a towel, spare set of clothes, 4 trash bags folded up, 1 roll of toilet paper, Bandaids/plasters and antibiotic cream, baby wipes. Tampons and pads even if you do not menstruate! Toothbrush and travel toothpaste. 2-day supply of meds. Several packets of instant oatmeal. Ibuprofen, antacids, Benadryl, allergy meds, earplugs. Phone charger. Some cash – small denominations are better so you don’t have to break it to use it in snack machines or whatever.  Quarters for toll roads. There’s a lot of other good stuff you could put in there. Hand sanitizer, soap, travel shampoo. Tailor to your needs. This bag goes with me on any trip where I will be further than 10 minutes from a toilet. It contains everything I need for an emergency sleepover. Peace of mind!
• Consider keeping a small book with important information in it. Phone numbers written down in case you lose your phone or it dies.  Include the number for your credit cards’ help lines so you can cancel them in case of theft. Your prescriptions, doses, contact info for where you fill them and your prescribing doctor. Your health insurance carrier, ID number, and contact number for their help desk. You can include other private information like credit card and bank account numbers if you devise a way to encode it. (Something as simple as subtracting or adding your birthday from it works. Thieves aren’t going to be interested in code-breaking.) This book or a copy of it can go in your bug-out bag.
• Keep a list of your meds on your phone somewhere, so you can refer to it.  Update it regularly. Add the names and numbers of your pharmacies to it as well.  You can show it to nurses/doctors for them to copy from if you need to.
• Every time you get a scrip filled, take 2 or 3 pills and squirrel them away in one of the old scrip bottles. Label the backups as such.  You are allowed, with most prescriptions, to fill things a little before the 30/90/whatever-day mark, to account for business holidays/weekends/etc. Learn what your insurance’s rules for this are and do it as early as you can as often as you possibly can, saving back the extras.  A week of extra is good.  A month is better.  You need to be able to outlast the immediate effects of a sudden change of doctor/insurance.  If you’re dealing with a more tightly-controlled substance, I’m sorry, I have no tips for dealing with that bullshit, but you have my sympathy. Do not do this with antibiotics. Finish your course completely, always, every time, unless told not to by a doctor. 
• Did your meds dose change? Don’t throw away the old meds! Label and keep them! In a pinch, they are better than NO meds!
• Keep an extra box/bag of cat litter in the closet or garage for an emergency situation. Same with pet food – have a fallback for those times when you meant to go to the store and get sidelined for a few days with something else.
• Keep. Cash.  I know we are all poor and miserable, I know this will not always be possible.  Believe me, I know.  I keep a small cash stash, and sometimes I have to spend it and take months to build it back up to even its previous puny level.  It’s worth it.  Even a dollar at a time.  It really helps to have it there for those moments when you can’t get to the bank and don’t have your card or have nothing IN the bank.
• Photocopy your car insurance papers so you have SOMETHING to use until you can get replacements if you lose yours.  It’s better than nothing at all.  Most car insurance papers are sent in pairs, anyway.  One goes in the car, one goes in a safe place at home. Front and back.
• Photocopy your health insurance card, if you have one. Front and back.
• If you can, leave a couple day’s worth of meds at a trusted friend’s house.
• Know which hospital your insurance has best coverage with in the event of an emergency so you can tell ambulance staff where to take you.  Your out of pocket/deductible rate may be better at one than another.
• Be polite to phone bank workers, even when they are being a pain in your ass. It’s a truly truly shitty job, they’re shackled to it just like you are shackled to yours.  They’re human.  Don’t yell at them.  Be firm, but don’t verbally abuse them.  Be kind whenever possible.
• That said, never buy anything anyone tries to sell you over the phone.
• If you did not initiate the contact, do not give ANY personal information to anyone claiming to represent your bank or credit cards.
• You can make payment arrangements for a lot of things. We just paid off a $120 lab bill in $20 installments, and doing so allowed us to pay off multiple other smaller bills alongside it.  NEVER be afraid to ask or negotiate. Be clear about what you can and cannot afford, and see what kind of deal they can offer you.
• Unless you plan to pay immediately, do not verbally acknowledge your responsibility for a debt from a collection company when they call you, even if you know it is legit and do intend to pay it eventually.  At most, you should say you have no memory of the thing and ask them to send you a paper statement so that you can go over it and see if it IS a legitimate charge.  Make them communicate with you on paper.  That is much safer for you.  If you need to, you can say you want to dispute it.  This doesn’t harm you, it just means they need to provide you with proof of why they think it’s a valid debt.  This will probably include documentation from the original holder of the debt.  They will have to mail it to you.  You don’t have to follow through with the dispute.  This may buy you extra time, though.
• “I’m sorry, I’m confused. May I ask who’s calling?” If they don’t answer that, or say they can’t, they are either medical personnel trying to be discreet (really not likely, you mostly only see this from sensitive services like family planning, and you can always call back any clinic you are expecting to hear from), or they are debt collectors (very very likely), or they are scammers.  Do not confirm your identity because if they know they have the right number, they will keep calling.  You are allowed to end the call.  Do so with a statement that they are not to call you back. You are allowed not to be harassed about your debt. You know it’s there. Let them chase their tails.
• In general, look into your rights as someone with debt and find out what collection agencies are and are not allowed to do. Many companies push the rules, and you also have rights you are probably not aware of.  My ex worked in collections. I’ve forgotten most of what he taught me, but debt collectors are bound by more rules than you think!
• Get confirmation numbers for all phone payments and write them and the date you paid on the bill, then file the bill someplace safe.  Trust me.
• Big box discount stores like Costco have pharmacies and good prices, and you don’t necessarily have to be a member to utilize them. Check into it. They can save you a lot.
• Know your friends’/family’s medical conditions and what to do if one of them flares up (panic attack, seizure, etc.). “I know you have [x]. I’d like to be able to help you in the event of a crisis. Can we talk about what to do?”  Then carefully listen/read any links/etc.  Email works well for this.  Revisit the information from time to time.
• Know the same for anyone’s PETS that you are pet-sitting.  Contact numbers for owners, vets, and pharmacies, medication, name and number and location of an emergency vet and an emergency housecall vet if there is one in your area.  Poison control number.
• If you are very close to someone with a medical condition that requires special treatment, know that doctor’s name at the very least so that in an emergency and if there’s nobody else around who knows them like a partner or family member, you can facilitate communication between hospital staff and that specialist.
• Tip your pizza (or other food) delivery driver. Corporate are assholes and don’t give them that delivery fee.

I’m aware that preparedness is a thing that to some extent needs to be afforded. You need to be able to spare a couple bucks for extra toilet paper or cat litter.  Just do the best you can. This isn’t an all or nothing thing.  This is you interacting in a deliberate way with the world around you, ready to react quickly and, ideally, to act instead of react.

Be well.