This is going to sound kind of weird... but I’ve recently thought that if my apartment burned down, I wouldn’t mind it so much... I’d have to repurchase everything that mattered to me, but I wouldn’t have all of the stuff that doesn’t matter so much (but I’m not going to throw away willingly). My place would be so…

x2 on the dish soap. The few times I’ve burnt food in my ceramic crock pot, I just add some baking soda, a squirt of dish soap, and water to cover the mess, and turn the crock pot on high. It doesn’t take long for the burnt bits to just float to the top.

I can relate to this 100%. I spend far too much time dwelling on the bad jokes I make, or this stupid questions I ask in class, or the embarrassingly bad plays I make in sports. It’s honestly gotten worse recently, too. I have days where I just see my life as an accumulation of all of these insignificant failures, and…

I don’t see how the lack of numbers invalidates the points he made. A lot of the math can be done in your head. How much does a meal out cost vs. one cooked at home? How much does a cup of coffee from starbucks cost vs. a pot of home-brew. And beside, how helpful would it be, really? Everyone is going to have a…

There are some really good points in here, imo...

On top of all of that, I think it also probably assumes that your job-related costs (transportation, fancy clothing, eating out more often, etc.) decrease.

Haha I was going to say, that doesn’t sound quite right :) Our after tax take-home was around $48k last year, and we spent about $26k on normal living expenses, $8k on a new car, $10k on loans, and about $4k on odds and ends. We are hoping to bring in a bit more this year, and without the expense of a car, we’re…

I don’t mind at all! It’s far more than the minimum payment. I think the minimum is around $600 on a balance of around $55k. We are just trying to have it paid off in 3 years or so. And it was for a (slightly overpriced) master’s degree.

My wife and I pay an average of probably $1,800 a month on her student loans. Our combined gross income is <$60,000. It’s possible.

Follow the link under 'safe withdrawal rate' in the article, and it will give you an explanation of the swr.

The safe withdrawal rate is the rate that you assume you can withdraw in perpetuity,which is proportional to the expected return on your portfolio. So when that figure goes up, it is assumed that your return has gone up, and therefore, you can ‘safely’ withdraw a larger percentage. That’s why a conservative estimate…

I think the version of minimalism that the article is referring to is now along the lines of picture-perfect, blogs worthy materialism, where the furniture is just as expensive, the house is just as dolled up, and the appliances are just as shiny as those of your average ‘Jonses’.

I did a factory reset on my 2014 Moto E to try to get rid of some problems I was having. And while it didn’t actually solve those problems, it did clean up about 400 mb of files that were taking up space in my measly 2gb memory that I didn’t know existed

My wife and I have H2O wireless as a carrier, and buy our phones outright. I have been looking into hopping on my parents sprint plan, but at $30 more per month, we’d have to get fancier phones than we need and upgrade every two years to make it worth it. I’m using a Moto E and plan on using it for 2 years, and she is…

Is your concern that the food is not refrigerated? Because that’s pretty easy to solve with an insulated lunch bag. However, I just throw mine in my messenger bag (usually lunch plus a protein shake made with milk, and sometimes yogurt or cottage cheese for a snack). It usually sits out unrefrigerated for a solid 45…

Was going to say this too. That seems like a lot of Sriracha.

1) Pick a cheaper place. Obviously this depends on your friends, but mine are satisified with a dive-y bar as opposed to a fancy martini bar. Drinks are typically cheaper, and they are more likely to have specials on food and drinks.

This one has the added bonus of saving you money because you won’t be invited to future events!

In what way? That’s a pretty bold (and vague) claim to make.

I guess I take the opposite approach. Right after work, I usually take 20-30 minutes to just relax before I start on other things. I’ll watch a chunk of a movie, or play some computer games, or browse reddit, but I always set a time limit. I think that has helped. Otherwise, it’s easy for “i’ll just relax until I feel…