25 Fun Ways for Seniors and Retirees to Make Extra Money

where can i make extra money online

where can i make extra money online - win

Invest Crypto: Invest your cryptocurrency for great returns.

/InvestCrypto is a subreddit where people post about ways to invest their existing cryptocurrencies - Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, anything! One shouldn't expect to make a living off this, but it's definitely possible to do well.
[link]

Drinking Dollars: make some extra money online

Drinking Dollars provides resources and guides on how to make some extra income online.
[link]

1500 kCals A Day!

A sub about eating on 1500 calories total per day.
[link]

(GME DD) One DD to rule them. One DD to find them. One DD to to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

(GME DD) One DD to rule them. One DD to find them. One DD to to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

Ok retards listen up. Been seeing lots of cucks writing small DD pieces of bullish or bearish shit. You cucks need to read this cos this is the whole fucking thing.

this is also basically my magnum fucking opus so upvote retards. Dont give me awards, legit go buy a powerup membership for a year. Cant tell you to buy shares because we gonna get closed down by SEC somehow.
im also not some fininacial advisor or whatever just read this and make your own conclusions degenerates. Im not fucking liable lmao but i am balls deep 125 shares @ 19 average now, its literally all I have on this earth.
TLDR: GME DD sumarized, Margin wont affect longs the same way as shorts right now. Dont buy shares on margin though and get ready to supply collateral regardless. Short interest is up and some smart retards are on our side. Read the post to raise your IQ from 8 to 9 though. 🐻 🌈s mega fuk and even posting high level bear shit to scare us.
Compulsory 7 rockets so you autists dont start having a seizure or something:
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
Basically been seeing posts about "blah blah margin this, short interest this, WS to clever blah". Going to split this post into distinct sections but im no english degree cuck so dont expect any bear bloomberg level shit or something

1. GME is a fucking steal regardless of squeeze. Buy now or be left on a dying planet while we head to alpha fucking centauri.

So basically everyone here knows about Ryan cohen and his horsemen of the apocalypse coming to steal melvins lunch money. This man bought apple stock in 2017. Hes fucking rich. Hes also an eccommerce wizard, taking CHEWY from a measly 100k co-founded company to a $4 Billion company in 2017 at which point he sold it to petsmart or something. Its now valued at $40 Billion, granted anything eccommerce now gets money thrown at it like a stripper in a high flying strip club or some shit idk im a virgin so dont listen to me, so it may well be a bubble. Regardless the thing grows its revenue like bacteria doing binary fission on agar jelly 🚀🚀🚀🚀.
THEY SELL FUCKING PET FOOD. the market for that is like what? $1?. Gaming is going to the moon and is basically recession proof because of how cheap game is compared to other things for how much you get out of it. Any bears saying that Gamestop cant compete with digital or with amazon. Ryan cohen already slapped amazons head in with a no name brand. Hell fucking do it again. About digital everyone here already knows, microsoft deal, Ryan cohen also mentioned the possibility of having "Digital game exchanging" or something, image below.
Online trade ins. It says online.🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
He also mentions streaming, digital content etc and aside from all the digital stuff wants GME to move to a community centric structure where big stores operate with VR centres, Internet cafe, table games like Dungeons and dragons and 40k (rapidly growing somehow will boom post covid) and as we now might know due to this post:
https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/kypuyb/gme_dd_buildapc_kiosks_coming/
BUILD YOUR OWN PC KIOSKS. This is the literal smell of money. Go to your Gamestop to build your PC with your kid? Gamestop is already the goto place wher your parents go to get you your latest digital fix so now they can go build PC's and it cant go tits up?
Now for some pussy boomer talk (aka fundametals or something).
The expected Q3 EPS was -0.84$ or something close to that. The actual loss was -0.53$ but boomzoids only talked about the revenue drop. No shit sherlock its closing all its dead weight stores.
In the holiday report I will talk about a bit more below, 11% of stores were closed and revenue dropped only 3%. Comparitive store sales increased nearly 5%. They cant get enough consoles to sell so expect the momentum to carry on for the whole year I expect. Eccommerce is up 300% over holidays. In Q3 they reported 800% to date. In 2020 Gamestops eccomerce went up 24x. YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT. Online sales now account for ~33% of Gamestops sales now. This is literally gold dust for ryan cohen.
We are still trading at 0.38 P/S at this price. The average P/S for the SP500 is 2.753. Massive upside on these two numbers alone.
Burry got in this for the MOASS and the intrinsic value. At the time intrinsic value was like $22 and this will pump up as RC takes it to new heights.
GME in Q3 somehow halved the expected loss. Big Bad Boomer sherman somehow didnt fuck it up that bad by saying "omnichannel" at the speed of light. Yes the revenue dropped 30% but thats covid for you. As the PC kiosk post above shows GME now sells small items basically so fast they have to have fake stock lmao. The new console cycle always spikes the share price sky high too, as youll see in a crayon drawing later. The potential revenue that this console cycle brings in could be huge. Biggest ever is potentially a true statement and Gamestop sells every fucker they get. Combine the fact that they share game pass ( a massive hit) revenue from the xboxes they sell, something no other retailer has, revenue could be sky high.
Now I know you autists are starting to develop short term dyslexia or something but keep reading. This could be the most important piece of shit you read in your life. How do you think I feel? My brains overheating just trying to write coherent sentences.
Holdiay report was a bear trap imo, saw people saying the decrease in revenue was bearish blah blah blah. Lies. Comparitve store sales rose 5% and thats with some towns having like 4 gamestops. When the leases dont get renewed and these stores get liquidated (Also in Ryan cohens letter) they can just get this influx of cash and pay down debt and invest in logistics and marketing and new growth. Gamestop realistically needs like 1/2 the stores they have now and just need to improve efficiency.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/349890 this article the messiah himself wrote. In it he states:
At Chewy, we had maniacal discipline when it came to how we spent money. The company-wide culture of frugality came from his example. Free cash flow was our unwavering governor of growth. We grew Chewy from $200 million in sales in 2013 to $3.5 billion in 2018 while spending only $130 million in capital, all of which went into opening distribution centers across the country and acquiring new customers.
Maniacal. Thats all I need to say. The guy is going to get to mars before papa musk and he wont even break a sweat. When FCF starts to catch up to WS expectations every analyst who donwgraded them is gonna get ditched and upgrades will start to happen.
So in the heading i said its a steal. That implies some future higher price target right? Well here is my guess for a conservative price target based on the information above and also some more I probably forgot cos im a retard.
​
The difference is where share price looks to be and where market cap places us is due to difference in outstanding shares (another reason shorts are fuk)
The difference is where share price looks to be and where market cap places us is due to difference in outstanding shares (another reason shorts are fuk)
This alone means if for not inflation adjusted terms we reached 9.8Bn or whatever the crayon chart says we should reach:
9.8/2.48 = ~3.95 3.95 * $35.5 = ~$140. The share price now to reach old mkt cap is $140 fucking dollars. Thats a 4 bagger from now. It gets better.
from statista :
Considering the annual inflation rate in the United States in recent years, a 2.24 percent inflation rate is a very moderate projection.
If we take 2.24% inflation, the this share price target in todays money means we should reach $182 because of $140 * 1.0224^12, = $182 in adjusted. Thats more than a 5 bagger. basically we could see $10 GME price from short manipulation and buying more is basically a lottery ticket!
I really dont understand the bear thesis. The only bear thesis ( short term this one) was that margin would affect longs more but I looked at it on ortex and its basically bullshit. Buy shares with cash though dont use margin. Own your piece of GME dont borrow it. Bears just spout "DigITaL" or "BlOCKbuSTER" so much Ryan tweeted a shit emoji at them. All the bears think theyre clever. What the fuck makes those cucks special? How are they different now than the ones from $2, or $4, or $10.
Bears are betting against:
Ryan fucking cohen, buisness legend CHEWY from 100k investment, now 40 billion
Michael burry, Investing legend, predicted the housing crisis and is in GME since april
u/DeepFuckingValue , the new WSB god chad, now basically a whale
Reggie Fils-Aimé, gaming and buisness legend, former COO of nintendo
Senvest, a mega fund thats actively managed
Norweigan sovereign wealth fund
Fidelity, Vanguard and blackrock own this shit and are never selling they literally dont give a shit
All of WSB has now formed a shield wall against the bears
Microsoft gave GME highly discounted azure deals and free office use for all employees and a revenue sharing agreement. Bears are stupid if they think MSFT didnt vet GME.
​
Some valid bear thesis left now (the only ones left) -- Ryan Cohen dies.

2. Now some analysis on the short squeeze and some technical data on puts and calls and ortex data.

Ok everyone on here and their cat, dog, bedbugs and wifes boyfriend knows about the squeeze. Jimmy chill aka cramer even talking about it. Gamestop is literally the most shorted stock of all time and space. The squeeze makes every autist salivate because its basically free money while cucking big money out of like what 1% of their fund.
Although I know all you cucks hate shares, and hate holding, if the squeeze doesnt happen selling is probably the most retarded thing anyone could do. Its literally buy high sell low and you fucking disgust me. STONK ONLY GOES UP.
This squeeze is so monumental that its been sucking sharks in like fresh blood. Most of the funds where shorting this from 30-15 dollars before this year so they didnt really care. It all changed with 2 people. u/DeepFuckingValue and Dr. Michael Burry. These guys are as OG as it gets with GME. I think u/DeepFuckingValue may have even sniffed this trade out before the legend himself. Since then funds will have churned this through their rules and started jumping on this train. Ive been in since $13 with 125 shares. If I had more money Id be buying but im just some stupid student ok. Im merely a medium for this money made information.
The stats for this stock now short wise are, from ortex:
Concrete short interest as of 31 December 2020: 71 Million.
Estimated short interest, January 11th data: (This isnt predicted, this is from data in flow, has margin of error) : 77 Million
Short shares on loan 7 days ago: 50 Million
Short shares on loan now (This breaks the bearish margin calls affect longs more thesis): 54.2 Million
% of known float short: 147% as of 31 December 2020
% of know free float on loaned shorts: 108% as of January 11th.
Some guy on here took into account extra buying on wednesday, Institutions, Burry, RC's extra 7% and WSB ownership (something so stupendously retarded no serious firm will do it) that float on short could be in the 100s of %. Total short float now I would say could be 200-400% if the numbers are correct. This pisses on all other short squeezes. Some countries ban shorting above 100% cos of how autistic it is.
The recent hike in interactive brokers available shares is probably a mix of sell off on friday (remember some guys are now buying lambos with GME money. If they held they could buy 10), calls exercising and puts being covered and brokers ditching the shares. Nakedshort even reported 5 million naked GME shorts on friday. This is bullish as fuck because the best the shorts could do on a red market day was -10%.
Gamestop is still on the SECs threshold list for 27 days now.
This shows naked short selling and downwards pressure hasnt capitulated
Need rockets 🚀 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀:
Ok so now if WSB owns an estimated 6-8% of the stock and we all know to move over to cash accounts now to avoid margin calls, we should be minimizing longs getting margin called. Every bear on stockwits is a clueless cuck who spouts "blockbuster" and these guys dont even know what margin even is so my bet is the colossal 54 Million shares short on loan are gonna be affected by the margin calls more. Why? Because every long on margin is in the green, and now a true zealot/extremist/autist for ryan cohen so will supply their account with collateral to avoid margin call. Shorts are in the massive red zone. How do I know you ask?
Ortex data from Jan 4th 2021:
This is the data from ortex for short interest for Gamestop for Jan 4th
So this shows for jan 4th the estimated short interest is 66.98 Million shares. From the exchange reported 71 Million on december 31st this makes a lot of sense because the share price fell from ~21 to ~17 so shorts took profits. The shares on loan arent for longs too. This is all purely short data, and 47M shorted at $17 this shows.
These shorts are in a circle of hell we cant comprehend and makes satan scared.
🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
Now for the data for this week:
​
Ortex short data for Jan 14th for Gamestop
SHARES ON LOAN HAVE GONE UP. BUT 87% OF LOANED SHORTS WHERE SHORTING AT SUB $20.
Cost to borrow is also up, estimated short interest is up to a cataclysmic amount.
Longs on margin need to supply collateral, but we are in the massive green zone, shorts are underwater. Margin calls will ravage the shorts and sting the longs. We also have the uptick rule in place until the end of the day, so shorts can only short on the way up. Im not saying itll happen but this shit is skewed in our favour big time. we need to 💎🙌💎🙌💎🙌💎🙌💎🙌💎🙌💎🙌💎🙌.
🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
Seen a lot of talk about Gamma hedging and delta.
You realize that the fucking bankers and brokers dont understand gamma hedging right? That shits up their with the black-scholes equation and feynman-kac solution. Forget about it. The retards claiming to understand it are either payed by hedge funds or lose money. The guy who took out outs thinking options exercising and gamma hedging would lead to a collossal sell off on friday lost money on his puts because no one except some quants in a goldman sachs server room know this shit. The idea is simple about neutral delta on options that people take out, but the simple system interacts with every other thing in the stock market, and wow who couldve guessed it, like nearly any other element of the stock market predicting something by the day is nigh impossible. That guy talking about Gamma , Delta and margin calls is on weeklies. Hes no more autistic and equally retarded as all of us. Hes a chill guy though so dont berate a fellow brother.
Now weve established the likelihood of longs getting margin called is far smaller than shorts, on to the options distributions
Two images now: Top one is before the end of the 15th, the other one is after market close:
​
This shows the suspected melvin puts (51000 contracts, 5 Million shares, rolled up from july, strike price $24) and lots of big ITM calls.
🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
This shows the big put contract didnt get rolled over and the big ITM calls got exercised on friday. Large puts are underwater big timem while calls are in the big tendy zone.
These two graphs, show before market close and after. As we can see the massiver 51000 put contracts didnt get rolled over and the chances that those were melvins july puts rolled up is very high. They expired worthless. Lots of calls are printing big time while huge amounts of puts are worthless and bleeding money.
Something else we can extrapolate from the charts is that massive options trades are not present on the scale we saw before (tens of thousands).
🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
We are seeing a discrepancy in the number of puts/calls opening up at the higher prices with calls gaining fast. This could show that some funds are now becoming optimistic on the long or short term prospects of gamestop. There are also more puts than options and if we assume this for shorts vs longs on margin (without even taking into account that all shorts are borrowed shares and pay interest further bleeding cash) then shorts are likely on more margin than longs.
Regardless fellow autists my main point is two show that the bears are underwater and the bulls are flying high with regards to options.
Now lets compare this possible squeeze with others.
Bear in mind this is the most shorted stock of all time, but differences in free float change the share price differently.
Kodak went from $2.16 to $33.2
Volkswagen went from ~200 euro to nearly 1000.
Overstock went from ~$21 to $123
Blue apron went from $2.31 to $18
Ive been seeing some estimated that 1 million shares is roughly a dollars move in share price. This maths is about to be pretty autistic so bear with me degnerates.
$1 now is 2.81% of the share price. Everything in the markets is exponential and based on percentages. So if we assume a full squeeze of ortexs estimated short interest (This assumes no sell off and no new shorts, new shorts can be positive or negative depedning on when in the squeeze they happen) $35.5 * 1.0281^77 = $299. GME to moon. 🌑 .
This shit can happen. Hold on.
GME has squeezed and been manipulated before and it always happens around the console cycles. Shorts never win and they wont win now.
​
This post right here I found months ago and got me in the squeeze from the honourable and valiant u/Uberkikz aka Rod Alzman
Basically the crayon chart shows green (outstanding shares) orange ( short shares) purple (Market cap) and cyan (Share price). In 2006-2008 the share price rose in tandem with short interest ( Like now ) Until console releases when you can see an abrupt squeeze happend mooning the share price.
This happend to a degree in 2013 with the xbox one but worse conditions for the company and a worse console launch lead to slow short covering but the share price still mooned.
Now we get to the best part. History is repeating itself for the third time and the shares sold short are literally higher than the outstanding shares, which have been decreasing since 2010. Short shares are also at the highest point ever and GME hasnt had a brighter future, well ever. Ps5 and Xbox Series X. are the two most hyped consoles since the Ps2. This is setting up the foundations for massive price movements weve never seen before. This shit has literally never happend, ever. Uncharted waters and we are the captain.
For the insurmountably retarded autists who think that the squeeze has happend look upon this and despair:
https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/kwpf6k/gme_gang_there_hasnt_been_a_short_squeeze_yet/
IHOR IS A MEGA WIZARD
Ihor I quote:
A long-buying tsunami ... is the primary factor for the price move
Ihor Dusaniwsky is managing director of predictive analytics at S3 a firm similar to ortex. He told bloomberg that the squeeze hasnt happend yet and that this was long buying. If someone knows this shit its him. He was talking about the tesla squeeze in january 2020. He has access to resources we can only imagine. Barrons cut his comment that the squeeze hasnt happend yet out it was that fucking bullish. All the media ramming down "Short squeeze has happend" down peoples throats because bears are fucking scared.
The bots on stocktwits spamming bearish sentiment should show how rattled they are.
Edit: You fucking degens just enlightened me that cramer pump is real, funds are ruminating over the long weekend, and stmmy bills pumps stonks and that stimmy bill buys many an xbox. See you at andromeda! Also more rockets.
Edit**: Some autists thought lottery ticket was misleading so instead, gauranteed lottery numbers!**
Edit 3: RYAN FUCKING COHEN TWEETED THE HOMIE JUST TWEETED. PEANUT EMOJI. HES 1) NUTTING 2) SAYING 35 IS PEANUTS 3) GIF SAYS THERES A CHANCE, SHORT SQUEEZE IMMENINT HOMIES
Edit 4: Amazing post here showing that unlucky prize guy was wrong like I said. Ihor also talked about the hypothecation agreement.
Edit 5: This is true and I forgot to add
from u/luncheonmeat79 via /wallstreetbets sent 2 minutes ago
There’s also the chance of a ratings upgrade. Moody’s and S&P have GME at B3 and B-, which is rated “highly speculative”. Ratings are reviewed every quarter, and a review might be due this month (i.e. this coming week or next). Good chance that the agencies might upgrade GME to a B2/B, or even better to the next higher band (Ba/BB).
Edit 6: We are scraping 42 in frankfurt. Granted its low volumes but pre market should open at these prices I think?
Conclusion: Buy shares with cash not margin. Hold shares forever unless RC dies (Shame hes a cybernetic demigod), Melvin bad, Shorts fuk, 🐻 🌈 posting bearish shit are doing weeklies for the second time after they expired red on friday, GME to $200 without squeeze, Ryan cohen a god, GME is still a value play, Good luck have fun.
submitted by TitusSupremus to wallstreetbets [link] [comments]

The community doesn’t understand game development - A very long post from a game designer

I’ve been playing Destiny for quite some time and I’ve enjoyed the community around it a lot, but the one thing that frustrates me the most about Destiny is how little the community actually knows about game development. It’s driving me crazy, so I wrote this whole thing down. I’m a game designeproducer myself, I’ve never worked on a project as massive as Destiny (not many people ever do), but I have worked on several gaming projects, some of them big in large companies, some of them small gaming apps. I know enough to explain the basics here, but I’m definitely not the ultimate authority on videogames and I’m not representing Bungie whatsoever, everything here is only from my experience. My goal here is to give you some useful info and calm my mind about this.
The Destiny community is incredibly vocal, especially this sub, which is generally a good thing, but the lack of understanding really damages not only the enjoyment of the community members but also the game itself IMO. I’ll explain some of the basics I think any hardcore fan should know here with an example and then I’ll outline some specific problems.
How Games Are Made
A videogame pipeline can be simplified into this flow: Demand from the top/the market -> top management decision -> design and prototyping -> development and feedbacks -> in house testing -> public testing -> marketing and publishing -> data collecting and analysis -> feedback implementation. It’s a circle that applies to everything from the big picture like the main campaign, to the smallest details like colors of shaders or proofreading of even the smallest posts. Every decision made in this system, even the tiniest ones, has to be debated, supported by data and expertise, approved in multiple places based on the priority, and checked multiple times after it’s implemented.
Game developers, especially in a powerhouse like Bungie, are very skilled, talented, experienced, and passionate people who always do their best to navigate that flow to satisfy the demands with a quality product delivered on time. I can’t stress this enough, developers (including QA testers, designers, artists, marketing, publishing, the whole team) are pretty much always incredibly hard-working people with a love for video games, because otherwise, they would never stay in this scummy business. They’re underpaid, overworked, and most likely overqualified for what they have to do. Some of them know almost everything there is to know about their field and they’re always improving as well.
Because video games, especially gargantuan living games with real-time action combat like Destiny, are insanely complicated, you need sometimes hundreds of experts to put them together. The pipeline needs to be perfectly planned, flexible so you can adapt to problems, and also easy enough to implement so you can deliver the product on time. All of these factors result in a tight-rope walk that never ends.
Now it’s time for an example. Let’s say during Season of the Worthy you get an assignment to create a catalyst for Thorn that would make it more popular in PVE, but doesn’t make it overpowered in PVP. Seems simple enough, right? There are dozens of posts about this topic on this subreddit, how hard can it be. The answer is, very, very hard.
You start working on your designs. You analyze all other exotic catalysts and hand cannon perks in the game - how they were made, their philosophy, psychological effects, and how they influence gameplay, you discuss everything in your team. When you create your first version, your design lead tells your whole team that hand cannons are getting a range buff and Thorn is now a 140 RPM and you have to adjust your design. After that, your priorities get shifted to helping with Beyond Light and the DSC weapons so it’s finished on time, so you put Thorn on hold. You don’t want to waste time though, so you give the art team an assignment to create the catalyst icon.
After two months of work on Beyond Light, you come back to Thorn, but now you basically have to start over because the future meta has changed so much. You create new designs and this time they’re approved by management, so you move onto prototyping. Developers are way too busy debugging and QA testing Beyond Light, so they have no time for Thorn and that task gets put into their To-Do list. You have no choice but to move onto your other tasks and start working on weapons for seasons 13 and 14.
When development starts finally working on Thorn, they find an exploit in your design that would allow it to two tap in PVP, you have to rework it again and hope they’ll have time to implement it this time. They don’t and the Thorn catalyst now officially misses its deadline and is pushed from Beyond Light. The marketing team doesn’t hear about it though, so they publish the icon you had made four months ago, leaking the catalyst coming out. This is of course your fault, but these things happen during all the chaos and there was almost nothing you could have done.
When you finally push this task through and it’s checked and approved dozens of times in different places (weapon design team, design lead, writing, sandbox team, development, QA, studio director, etc.) you have to make sure it’s published correctly in the right build, it has all necessary descriptions and marketing texts done and translated into all languages and the community managers know about it so they can get ready to collect data.
This single task took you a year to complete even when you did your best to do it fast and well and I left out about 90% of problems you would normally encounter. THIS is game development.
Community Attitude and Feedback
Now we get to why the uninformed community hurts the game so much. This sub would only see Thorn getting a catalyst and it would immediately be flooded with posts like “The catalyst sucks in PVE, buff pls”, “Bungo doesn’t care, the catalyst sucks for Warlocks” and a few “Why catalyst for Thorn, but not for Skyburner’s Oath”, completely missing the point of the catalyst and adding nothing to the discussion.
Bungie devs are way more informed, skilled, and experienced than us, the community. The only feedback they are interested in from us is quantitative - basically what we like and what we don’t like about the game. Any posts giving them ideas, elaborate reworks, or straight up negative outrage will accomplish nothing, because they already know everything about the game and discuss it daily in way more detail than we could ever imagine. The only qualitative feedback they should collect and measure is from content creators and the top 1% of the player base because those people actually know some aspects of the game Bungie doesn’t. I know it may sound like the hated “Bungo only listens to sweats and Youtubers”, but that’s kinda the point, they should be listening.
It doesn’t mean that our voices are ignored or not listened to. I would bet all of my money that all forums are constantly monitored and analyzed. The truth is, however, that the only valid opinion we can give that Bungie should consider is what aspects of the game we like, and what aspects we don’t. Anything beyond that we already tell them through data they collect from our play sessions.
As I wrote above, any change within this massive game is complicated and could take months or years to be implemented, so being upset we don’t have everything now is just useless. Bungie is hard at work to make good stuff, we should respect them more and not bring out the pitchforks every time a season slows down a bit and we can’t play for four hours a day every day for the whole year. There will always be problems in a live game and they are doing a fantastic job, I can’t even imagine how much work must go into it. So before you post about something in the future, take a moment to think about the process and figure out what exactly you can provide to the devs with your feedback, because otherwise, you’re fanning the flames on something that probably isn’t actually burning. It’s just taking its time as it should.
With all of the above said, it isn't the community's fault that we're not informed. The fault lies entirely with Bungie not educating people enough and this problem could be avoided.
Reasons Why Things Suck
I’ll close by giving my two cents on why the game isn’t perfect and never will be, just so you know where the community's frustrations should go.
  1. The biggest reason that influences everything - Bungie is a company owned by a group of shareholders that will always force the studio to grow and provide more profit. With every extra dollar, the value of the company grows and the board of directors gets richer and because of the super predatory capitalism we live in now, Bungie has to justify every single decision with a monetary value. It's not the fault of the devs, they don't make much money themselves.
  2. The game is massive and always online. I’m pretty confident that no other studio would be able to support Destiny for so long without the game completely crashing down. Technology always evolves and it’s almost impossible to keep a living game up to date, so some parts of the front end of the game will always suck because Bungie has to upkeep the back end we will never get to see.
  3. The project has been going on for a decade, which leads to people wanting to naturally move on. Replacing team members on a living game is very difficult, which leads to problems and delays.
  4. The community is not educated about the game enough, which is why I ended up writing this. The continuous cycle of negative outrage that comes from a lack of understanding damages the game because the devs are forced to deal with it without disclosing information. If people knew more, they could help Bungie, but no company that wants to make big profits will ever open up its communication because it would show just how many decisions are influenced by the search for profit.
That’s it, sorry for the length of this essay. I hope you learned something and let me know if you’d be interested in more stuff like this (takes on sunsetting, sandbox, etc.). I would like to give people more info so they don’t waste their precious time on stuff completely outside of their control and maybe educate people about the industry. I love the game and I hope you’ll appreciate it a bit more now.
Edit 1:
This post is not meant as a defense for the faults of the game or an excuse for bad decisions, it's meant as a resource to give you perspective and information. If you believe the game is not as good as it was promised to be or disagree with some design choices made, you are of course entitled to your own opinion, and there are quite a few things I myself absolutely hate in Destiny. I can't answer questions related to design on Destiny with confidence, because I don't work for Bungie and I won't speculate much on why certain decisions were made. I can give you my opinion on stuff like sunsetting based on my experience in another post, but ultimately it's only speculation with little benefit. All I will say is that there is always more stuff we don't know about the game than we do know and design should be judged in context.
When it comes to questions related to Bungie's scummy tactics when it comes to monetization and bad communication, I agree with you, as I said above. Money is the biggest factor of why Destiny suffers and the best way for us to do anything about that is to stop buying it. I know it's a cliche statement, but it's true.
And lastly, for the comments saying stuff like "shut up, Bungie sucks and you know it", please read what I said again and think about it. The devs most likely love the game just as much as you once did, if not much more.
Edit 2:
I'll add one thing that keeps popping up. It's clear that Destiny is a product developed for profit, so if your outlook is "I don't want to know about development, I'm just an unhappy consumer that didn't like this product", I agree as would most likely everybody that it's absolutely a valid stance, but that's not what my post was about. If that's how you see any product, you should tell the producer why you didn't like it if you care enough to do so and move on. The post is meant to inform people who don't want to move on from Destiny, especially those who continuously engage with the product from a place of understanding even if they don't have it, which wastes their time and does nothing for the product. If you don't like this game or any other game, it's absolutely OK and you should move on from playing it, complaining about things you don't want to understand won't help you achieve what you want and only makes the game worse. As I said above, the best way to show your disagreements is not to support the company and if you don't like Destiny, please stop playing it and take care of yourself. Your time is valuable, don't give it away to someone you don't agree with.
Edit 3
This will be the last edit on this post. I appreciate all the awards and great discussions happening below, but holy cow did this get a lot of vitriol. I expected a lot of negativity, but it still surprised me. It's partially my fault for trying to talk about so much with not enough room so I'm sure I made a few mistakes. I'll reply to a few things that I want to make clear and then leave this alone, it's way too long anyway.
If you see any malicious intent, attacks, arrogance, or "Bungie shilling" between the lines, I put none there, at least not on purpose. My goal was to inform, as I said right at the start, so if you see any other agenda, it's not there and my writing either wasn't clear enough, or you're looking for something that I didn't write. Take the post for what it is, a stranger on the internet telling you something you may not know from their experience. If you disagree with me, downvote the post and explain why, no need to insult anyone, you're once again wasting your precious time.
I didn't mention management as a problem on Destiny, because I don't know enough about it. Leadership is very often a problem on any collaborative projects but calling someone out without the necessary data is exactly what I warned about in my post, so I won't comment on it, but feel free to disagree with me. Maybe you know more about the subject than I do and I'll be happy to read your reply.
I never put myself up as an ultimate authority on the subject, all of this is just basics I thought hardcore fans should know and I communicated that. This post was already very long and I didn't have time, nor did I want to describe theory in detail, so insulting me over not explaining how scrum works in a post meant for people with no experience is not necessary. If you want to argue about production methodologies, my reasoning on examples given, and how healthy management looks like with me please feel free to message me and I'm sure we'll have a cool conversation, I'd love to hear about your experience from working in gaming.
And that's it, I hope you got something out of this. Have a great day and see you around.
submitted by Theseus17 to DestinyTheGame [link] [comments]

AITA for wanting to go to college even though my siblings need me?

UPDATE: Hey. I wasn’t sure where to post an update and wasn’t even sure if I wanted to, but you deserve one. First off, thank you all so much for your kind words, resources, offers of help, etc. I’m still sifting through much of it and trying to reply where I can. Now, for the actual update portion. I am NOT going into intricate details about this so please do not send messages asking for more info. A close friend recognized the story and brought to the attention of a guidance counselor at our school, who confronted me about it. I denied it as I didn’t want anyone to find out it was me(I was mostly jsut embarrassed.) My friend called CPS after that. I was pissed, and didn’t talk to her for a few days. CPS came but I’m not going into details. My siblings and I will be separated a bit. I’m still pretty broken up about this as I really don’t want to be separated from them but I know it’s likely the best. Thank you all again for the massive support I received. Sorry if this sounds sloppy or lazy but I’m still processing a lot of emotions right now.
Hey, I’ll get straight to it. I(17f) am the oldest of 9(15m, 13m, 13f, 12m, 10f, 7m, 5f, 2m) My mother is a single mother who works hard to supply for us but relies mostly off child support(as my most of my siblings and I have different fathers). Though I’m only a half sister to most of my siblings, I still love them all very much and try my very best treat them as equal.
I got a job at 14 to help make extra cash and my days normally consist of getting up early to help get all the kiddos to school(or getting online for virtual school) and then going to my classes of the day(I’m a junior in high school) before going to work right when school ends and getting home a little before midnight. During the day while I’m in class, I’m still watching my 2 year old brother and making sure all the other kids are still in class/paying attention. My mom works at a small restaurant nearby from around 7am-3pm, but when she’s home mostly just sleeps because she’s tired from her long shifts.
Now for the actual AITA. Recently I’ve been looking at and getting ready to apply to colleges but haven’t told my mother. She went through my laptop the other day and found out what I was looking up financial aid and looking at some state schools a bit farther away(600-700 miles) and got really upset. She started crying saying she couldn’t afford to send me to school and that she couldn’t continue to care for my siblings without me. I felt really bad and apologized and we just sorta dropped it, but I didn’t plan on stopping searching. I mentioned the other day I was really interested in a nearby state school(one state over) that offered my major and was cheaper than in state tuition at my state school. I was super excited and told my mom. She completely blew up at me. She kept telling me how selfish I was to abandon our family and that if I left I’d be setting my family up to fail. She started yelling and crying and soon my siblings got upset and also started crying too. It was a mess that left me really conflicted.
On one hand, I don’t want to be selfish and prioritize my future over my siblings but on the other hand, I’m just exhausted. I’m so so tired on running on 4 hours of sleep and then just spending all day either working, babysitting, or doing school. I understand that’s how life is and that it’s just hard and I have to learn to deal but at the same time it all feels so frustrating. I see all these other kids my age going out and having fun and doing teen things and it makes me sad that I have to miss that. But I know it’s my responsibility to take care of my siblings. I’m at a loss and at this point just need to know if I’d really be an asshole if I decided to go to college. I’d still send money home as often as possible and I’d get financial aid and take out a loan to spend as little money as possible but I feel terrible for wanting to be selfish and leave my family.
Edit: I had no idea I’d get this much response and to each and every single person I am so, so grateful. To the people sending me private messages offering college help, thank you so much. I’m trying to reply to as many comments as I can but I don’t have a lot of free time so I hope this makes up as a thank you! You’re all such kind people. Addressing some common questions and points:
-“Why don’t the other kids have jobs? Specifically the older boys?” I understand they’re the same age as when I got a job but I can’t ask them of that. I want them to be able to study and have fun and be teens. Unless they want to get a job, I don’t plan on asking them or forcing them to get a job. Though, now that I’m sure I’d like to go to college (thank you for helping me decide!) I might sit down with them and talk about getting a job, something that brings more cash but won’t prevent them from having their childhood taken over.
-“Where’s the dad(s)?” We only know the father of me(also my 15yo brothers dad), the 13 year olds(twins) and the 7yo. My mother had too many “dates” when the others were conceived to know who the fathers were for sure. The fathers we do know pay child support but my mother got full custody of all of us anyways.
Thank you all again so so so much. I’m going to be applying to colleges with low tuition when the time comes and won’t tell my mom until the day I move out. I also plan to talk to my siblings about what this means. I’m considering trying to find a situation where I may also bring along the 2yo and maybe the 5yo. Much love to all of you and thanks for the kind awards.
submitted by notam0use to AmItheAsshole [link] [comments]

I built a decent Gaming PC for $206 using used parts from my local area...

***WOW this post really blew up. I'm really grateful for all the great comments and awards. Thank you everyone. This was my second PC but I have been really getting more into the budget build route and so I'm glad other people are into that! Happy deal hunting :)
DISCLAIMER: I sourced these used components over the last few weeks in my local area (SF Bay CA). Where I live, there's a pretty good selection of used PC parts so your mileage will vary depending on where you live. But I just wanted to put it out there that many of you can definitely build a decent gaming PC for $200-400 if you are willing to spend the time to hunt for deals in your local area, especially if you live in/near a metropolitan area.
pics
Parts List
CPU: Intel Xeon e5 2620 v3 6 core/12 thread - $16 eBay
Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth X99 - $85 Craigslist
CPU Cooler: CoolerMaster Hyper 212 - $20 OfferUp
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR4 2400 MHz (CPU reads a max of 1866) - $40 OfferUp
Storage: WD 640GB HDD 7200 rpm - $10 Craigslist
GPU: EVGA GTX 960 SC 4GB (I actually bought 2 at once for $75 on Facebook Marketplace, sold one on eBay for $100 essentially GIVING me $15 (after eBay/PayPal fees) and a free GPU)
Case: Phanteks prebuild case w/ 3 RGB Apevia fans - $30 Craigslist
PSU: Corsair CX600 - $20 Facebook Marketplace
Total (including the $15 I gained from selling the extra GPU): $206
I can happily play CS:GO, Apex Legends, Fortnite, GTA V and many other games at 1080p at medium settings or better and get 60+ fps. With a better GPU and a little more money, you wouldn't have any issues getting much higher FPS.
So let's break down these components a little bit more and talk about which deals will be harder to replicate if you plan on doing something like this.
Firstly, the CPU is actually the easiest part to attain on this list. These can regularly be had for $20 off eBay. This particular X99 motherboard is VERY NICE for $85 (I actually got it for $70 but paid $15 for the OEM IO shield off eBay because it didn't come with one). It's a quality mobo with 8 slots for RAM so upgrading RAM on this will be as easy as buying another kit of the same capacity and as time goes by and RAM gets cheaper, you could just keep doing that if you wanted without having to get rid of your previous RAM. But finding this exact motherboard for the price may be difficult.
Luckily there are X99 motherboards being made out of China right now using recycled chipsets for about $60-120 depending on the particular models (available from AliExpress). Some of these motherboards are actually pretty good quality, but definitely do your research first. I recommend checking out Miyconst on YouTube. This Xeon/X99 setup is pretty popular in Russia and Brazil because of hardware prices and availability so this is a Russian Ukrainian guy who reviews all of these Chinese motherboards in great detail.
The CPU cooler will be easy to find for about that price. Even new, the Hyper 212 is only $35 but if you buy used just make sure you get the LGA2011-3 hardware necessary for securing it to the motherboard. $40 for 16GB of DDR4 is a good deal but I've seen this same deal pop up a few times but more often at $50. Finding used but working 500-1000GB HDD's for $10-20 is quite easy but I recommend only using this as a storage for games and re-downloadable files. I planned on having a m.2 SSD in this rig but accidentally bought a SATA m.2 drive instead of NVMe (SATA m.2 not supported by this motherboard) so I will still need to upgrade that. But any SSD for your OS and important files will do and you can find these for around $30-40 for a 256 GB SSD new, maybe $10-20 more for an NVMe.
The GPU of course is where the real bargain hunt will be. In 2021, GPU's are super overpriced but I had seen another 960 4GB for $40 in my area after purchasing 2 of them for $75 total, so getting one around $40-60 is definitely possible. This is where I'd upgrade first (after an SSD). Other higher performing options would be the R9 390 8GB (recently purchased one for $80 and another for $100), the RX 580 8GB (recently purchased one for $125 but seen them locally for $150) or even a 1080 (purchased one for $200 but have seen them go for $260 locally). Really, any decent GPU you can find for around $50-200 would be great with this build. I recommend referring to this Tom's Hardware List to see where GPU's rank overall when you're shopping for a used GPU. This part will be where you'll spend most of your time hunting, but those elusive GPU deals are out there!
This case was a good find but I had also received a FREE CoolerMaster ATX case not too long ago, with 3 140mm fans included, in great condition. People often give away or sell their cases for cheap because they take up a lot of space. Look for one with fans included and even better if it comes with screws/standoffs.
Finding a 500-700W PSU for $20-40 is not difficult but this is a component that many people would just prefer to buy new and I don't blame them. At least by 80+ Bronze if you go used. But honestly, I think I'd rather buy a used PSU from a reputable brand than a cheap, new PSU from some brand I never heard of.
Overall, this was a fun build to make and I love reducing e-waste so buying used is good for me. I highly recommend though that you have all the appropriate screws/hardware when buying used parts so ask about that stuff when you purchase something and if it's not included, buy that replacement hardware online before you start your build because it's frustrating to start putting your PC together and then realize you don't have enough screws, etc. It's a little more of a hassle but you can save a lot of money!
Feel free to ask any questions, this is only my second PC build (just started last month but have been diving DEEP into PC building rabbit holes online). But I hate when people on this sub instantly shoot people down asking about $200-400 PC's saying it's not possible. IT IS POSSIBLE, but you have to get creative and it also helps to live in certain areas I won't deny that.
submitted by Mattdehaven to buildapc [link] [comments]

FROM A PROFESSIONAL CHEF TO YOU: The tricks that anyone should know when they buy food.

I wager everyone here knows some of these things, but I’m gonna list everything I can think of in regards to eating healthy and well. I’m gonna make this a list with sections, so hopefully it’s easy enough to parse.
—————-LEGUMES———————
-Buy these dried as often as possible. Keep a stock of beans, lentils, and dried chickpeas around if you can. They’re cheap, almost always available, and virtually imperishable. As such, assuming you don’t throw them out and keep them properly stored, buying these is a 100% return on your investment.
-Legumes are one of the most versatile options in your kitchen. As long as you soak them and put them in the fridge before you go to bed they’ll be available the next day to cook quickly. These are the best thing to have if you’re looking to stretch a meal because of their nutrient density and the fact that they’re just damn delicious on their own.
-Look into middle-eastern and African cuisine for creative ways to use these ingredients. Some really common examples are lentil curry, hummus, falafels, and putting chickpeas in a shakshuka. This isn’t a recipe post, so look up how to make them yourself - some grandma has a better (and probably even cheaper) recipe than I do.
————-GRAINS AND CEREALS ————
-Like legumes, these are very versatile. However, I find most people know very little about them outside of wheat and maybe oats. I highly recommend learning what the most commonly eaten grans and cereals in your locality are, and then finding the affordable ones. There will be at least one. I guarantee it.
-FLOUR is an essential staple, unless you’re celiac or gluten free - a topic on which I won’t speak because I’m confident anyone who has to deal with those issues knows more than I do. I recommend grabbing all-purpose flour due to its gluten content being a middle ground between low-gluten pastry flour and high-gluten bread flour. You can still use it to make bread, and it has a myriad other uses as a binder or thickener for sauces.
-RICE is amazing, as most know already, but seriously - it’s one of the most important crops in the world. It’s kept civilizations alive on its back for all of recorded history, and it’ll keep you alive, too. There is no better “fill me up” food I can think of. Wait for those huge sacks of rice to go on sale (it happens pretty frequently), then buy 2. They last forever. Ideally grab long-grain rice if you’re just looking for a side-dish or fried rice base, but in a pinch short grain’ll do; it’s just less forgiving and the starches don’t retrograde as fully so when you cool it it doesn’t keep as nicely.
-KEEP IN MIND that rice is pure carbs. It’s a good base, but you need other stuff to go with it or else you’ll be deficient in nutrients and feel awful all the time. Trust me from experience - college me went through a raw-egg-on-rice phase, and it wasn’t pretty.
-BARLEY, also, is amazing, but for other reasons. It’s high in protein and iron, and can help dramatically improve your nutrient intake for very little cost. In soups, roasted in tea (thanks Korea), and used in tandem with rice, it can go a very, very long way in making your diet a more sustainable one in times of austerity and plenty, alike.
-AVOID “SUPERFOODS”. Not because they’re bad for you - just because of their jacked prices. Not to mention oftentimes the industries surrounding them are ethical nightmares. Don’t get me started on avocado cartels and the impact of quinoa farming on low-income South American communities. In reality, most grains and cereals have a lot of nutrients and minerals, and they’re often overlooked. Learn the nutrition facts, and make decisions accordingly. Google and online databases are your friends, here.
———FRUITS AND VEGETABLES———
-ONIONS: buy them fresh and store them in dry, enclosed spaces, and buy tomatoes canned and without salt added. Use onions in almost everything, they’re delicious, cheap, and nutritious.
-TOMATOES: Good fresh and better canned. Use fresh tomatoes raw for whatever you want and use canned tomatoes for sauces. Buy canned tomatoes with as little added salt and sugar as possible.
-BASICALLY EVERY FRUIT: go for it, these things are nutrient bombs and they’re delicious. Buy them seasonally for the best value and if you have a day to do so, preserve them if you ever see a huge sale. I’m still enjoying lacto-fermented blueberries from last year’s insane blueberry harvest where I could buy a pint for a dollar.
-FOR SHOPPING: Generally when you buy produce you should go, in order, to the discount rack, then the sales, and then everything else. Someone out there has a recipe for literally everything, and some of them are even good. A pepper with a blemish or tiny spot of mold is still fine, assuming you cut away the blemish or tiny spot of mold.
-I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH; FIND THE UNDER-APPRECIATED AND OVER-SUPPLIED PRODUCE. There’s always a bin of some forgotten veggie no-one eats for some reason. In the west, at least, it seems to often be rutabagas/turnips. I’ve also seen apples in the fall, corn, and cabbages fall into this category. This is because of a good harvest, or because of a lack of consumer interest - any time this happens, capitalize on it. Everything is delicious if you cook it properly. Buy seasonally, and learn how to use the things you buy. You’ll eat like a king and pay like a pauper.
-CANNED STUFF - I generally have a personal aversion to all canned veggies and fruits except tomatoes, but that’s just my privilege speaking. If you want to buy them or if fresh produce is hard to come by, avoid getting anything with added salt or sugar. Cross-reference the nutrient info on the can with info from a fresh counterpart to avoid buying filler garbage, and try to find somewhere to live with better food accessibility. Alternatively, save up and make a killing by opening a fruit and vegetable market to remove the need to read this very ling post any further. (This is a joke and I recognize the struggle of those in impoverished communities with awful food accessibility.)
-FROZEN STUFF - frozen fruit and veg is great, mostly. Maybe dodge the chopped carrots and corn a lot of us ate growing up or find in bad takeout Chinese food, but hey - grab that bag of frozen berries or peas and throw ‘em in anything that warrants it. Technology for frozen produce has improved dramatically in the last few decades, and we should capitalize on that.
——-PROTEINS——-
-IF YOU EAT MEAT, buy the least processed cuts you can. Whole chickens, meat on the bone, and ground meats are your best friends. Go to butcher shops, if you can. Freezing meat is fine, but try to avoid buying pre-made frozen protein options. Get raw product and do the work yourself to save a LOT of cash and get better food out of it.
-MEAT IS A LUXURY, NOT AN ESSENTIAL. I say this because in modern western culture eating meat everyday is seen as normal. This is an oddity when we examine all of human history, and this notion should be abandoned if we’re trying to live more affordably. Meat is grossly overrepresented in most diets, and you should always ask if you could cut your portion of meat down in exchange for more vegetables and grains.
-LEARN HOW TO BREAK DOWN YOUR PROTEINS. A chicken isn’t just 8 portions of meat - it’s also bones and carcass for a stock or soup, fat to be rendered out and used as a cooking oil (thanks, jewish folks!), and skin to be cooked down into delicious little chips. This same list can be used for pork, beef, and any other mammal you eat.
-FISH IS IFFY. Like, as an industry. Not many people know their fish, and fish processing companies know that and capitalize on it. I always tell people who like fish to buy fresh and whole, and to learn how to pick good fish. Buying cheap processed fish products is akin to asking to be ripped off, to harm the environment, and to accumulate toxins in your body, all at the same time. To not get completely F-ed over by what is maybe the worst food industry in the world you need to know your fish, know the company you’re buying from, and know who’s doing the fishing. Good luck, and please try not to contribute to the death of our water ecosystems. (A good trick is that if you can afford fish when you’re poor and you don’t live beside a large body of water, you almost certainly DON’T WANT IT.)
-IF YOU DO BUY FISH OR SEAFOOD, all the rules for proteins apply. Fish bones and crustacean shells for stock, fat deposits on the occasional salmonid for whatever you want, and fish skin, if it’s your cup of tea, for a lovely snack. Hell, fish organs and salt make up the base for a fermented fish sauce, if you really want to go the extra mile. Rome survived off of fish sauce and bread for longer than our society has been around. The one big difference between fish and meat is that frozen fish tends to suck relative to fresh in a much bigger way - both in terms of quality and retained nutrients. Put frozen fish in soups or curries, to avoid nutrient drain from the water that inevitably will leak out of your fish.
FOR VEGETARIANS AND VEGANS: You know more about your protein options than I do, and honestly they would require a lot of research I haven’t done to fully discuss. Clearly I have more to learn on the subject, and intend to do so. I only encourage you all to do the same ✌️
——-EVERYTHING ELSE——-
-STAY AWAY FROM THE INSTANT RAMEN. I know it’s cheap. I KNOW you like how easy it is. I don’t give one flying fuck. It’s awful for you, it isn’t cheaper than a bowl of rice with soy sauce, a fried egg, and some frozen peas, and it’ll kill you slowly. Just don’t, and ignore anyone’s advice about how it got them through college. Hell, if anyone’s advice involves doing what they did in college, take it with a grain of salt. There’s good advice sometimes, and a LOT of bad.
-AVOID THE JUNK FOOD AISLES. Chips, sugar cereals, premade salad dressings, sweet juice/pop, and processed foods like KD or tv dinners are not the way to go if you’re looking to get the most out of your dollar at the grocery store. They’re bad for you, they’re expensive relative to the cost of production, and they put a burden on your body that you’ll pay for down the line. Exceptions to this are staple sauces like a good soy sauce and fish sauce, grains and legumes, and canned veggies.
-CHEESE IS A LUXURY, SO TREAT IT LIKE ONE. If you’re gonna buy it I recommend buying less of it less often, and buying the good stuff when you do. Kraft block cheese only costs as little as it does because it’s the by-product of the real money-maker: whey protein production. If you’re gonna buy cheese, please support a real cheesemaker. The cheese lover in you will be happier for it.
-ALCOHOL IS ALSO A LUXURY. If you want a drink, I recommend doing it less often and drinking the good stuff. If you like the cheap stuff that’s fine, “good stuff” is all relative anyway. Just drink less and focus on quality over quantity, whatever your preferences are.
-MAKE YOUR OWN COFFEE, AND BUY A THERMOS. I know Starbucks is delicious. Guess what? You can find a recipe for every drink they make online, and then make it better. Some restaurants literally survive because they can sell coffee at a nearly 2000% markup. Truck stop diners and high-end coffee shops do this. I recommend making cold brew the night before, since you literally just have to strain it in the morning rather than brewing a pot.
-FINALLY, LEARN TO COOK. All of this information is fundamentally more useful if you know how to cook. Not knowing how to cook is a luxury afforded to those with the means to afford living in ignorance of this most basic human skill. You are living outside your means if you live in a well-off country, don’t make a least $60k a year, and can’t cook.
Best of luck to you all. Stay safe out there.
EDIT: A number of folks pointed out lots of things to me which I wasn’t aware of in regard to beekeeping, so I cut that section out as it was misrepresentative of the industry and failed to highlight key problems in it. Others felt I was being mean to vegans and vegetarians and regardless as to my intentions, I can see evidence that that whole section detracts from this list as a whole and isn’t informative enough to keep. I’ve removed it accordingly. Thanks for the feedback, positive or negative - keep doing good work ✌️
EDIT: Someone made a good point that grocery stores are all laid out different, and not everyone knows the “centre aisles” mantra. So I changed it to “Junk food aisles” for clarity.
EDIT: I somehow mistakenly said South African communities were effected by Quinoa production when in fact it’s primarily South American. Sorry ‘bout that.
submitted by aichliss to EatCheapAndHealthy [link] [comments]

My journey from 18$/hr helpdesk to 240k+ over 12 years. Age 37.

Started in helpdesk at age 25 in 2009. No college education and only high school diploma. Video gamer. Loved computers. Writing this not as a guide for what you need to do, but what worked and what was successful for me. I hope it helps someone.
​
2009-2010 Helpdesk Tech 18$/hr
Loved what I was learning about AD and decided to dig in with Powershell. Learned the ins and outs of powershell and started to write my own tools to make my job easier: Password reset software, account lookup, pulling information from SCCM, the works. I'd ask the other guys on my team what they'd like to see or what would make their job easier and I'd find a way to make it happen. Did this for a year and promoted to helpdesk engineer. When the engineer position opened up I scheduled a meeting with my manager to make my intent clear.
2011-2012 Helpdesk Engineer 45k/yr
Here I was escalation for the techs. Continued to find ways to reduce tickets: self service password reset software, spearheaded windows 7 deployment, reviewed ticket logs, found ways to better leverage existing management tools. Lobbied for MSFT to come in and do some training with me on SCCM so I could learn the ins and outs of managing a larger userbase (~1000 employees). Constantly made contacts with the sysadmins, learned as much as I could about storage, virtualization, linux, etc. Asked for extra projects. Came in to work an hour early every day and left 1-2 hours after quitting time. Brainstormed ways to make a difference to the company I worked at to further reduce tickets or workloads from other teams. Scheduled a meeting with the sysadmin manager to make it clear to him that I was interested in being a sysadmin on his team, and asked him what I could do to be the obvious choice for a promotion. Within 2-3mo I was on the team. Got hands on experience with NetApp, 3PAR, & Linux. Originally they wanted me for storage and I was happy to oblige.
​
2012-2015 Sysadmin 60k-85k/yr
Started out as storage admin at 60k as mentioned at the same company. Helped create volumes, raid groups, etc. Called all of our vendors and asked them to teach me as much about storage as they were willing. Went to a few classes for NetApp & 3PAR. Got certified in NetApp (7mode at the time). I started automating storage tasks with Powershell. Got everything automated to where projects that would normally take several hours or days were done in minutes. (FC Storage zoning, for example).
After a 6mo-year (my timelines are a little fuzzy, hard to remember) and getting this automated and refined, I started working more with the VMware team, learning as much as I could, worked with them on ways we could integrate with storage, I requested a few VMs with rights so I could learn more about VMware (note: this can be really hard in very large organizations where everything is highly controlled and silo'd). Did the same as before, pushed on it. One of the VMware guys quit. I immediately scheduled a meeting with the VMware team manager. I made it clear that I was interested in taking on the position, and that I had automated my previous role sufficiently to be able to handle both VMware and Storage tasks. Stated I didn't want a pay raise, but instead requested a VMware VCP training course. Did the same as before, find where things need to be efficient, find ways to save money for the company, find ways to learn more without your company needing to invest more. Eventually I was handling Backups, VMware, Storage, Load Balancers (F5), & Physical Compute. I did not take on or have interest in Network or Security.
After another year and a half of doing this I scheduled a meeting with the CTO. I explained that I was doing the job of five and that my salary was out of alignment, I kindly requested that he consider bringing my salary in to the ballpark of where a VMware/Storage administrator should be. He offered me 75k. I said 85k was more than fair, especially considering what I was doing for the company. He obliged.
Because I was handling so many different technologies on a day to day basis, I was also working with our vendors that sold us all of those projects. I learned as much as I could about as many different technologies as possible. Because I was responsible for what amounted to 5-10m of budget, because I had my hands in all parts of the org, had automated most of my tasks, I was involved in all technology purchases not related to Network or Security.
​
2015-2017 Systems Engineer 110k/yr
1 year after the salary increase I applied to one of those vendors, or VARs (value added reseller). I gave the company I worked for a 3 month notice. They were unable to fill the position and contracted me back for 3 additional months while they proceeded to hire 4 people to replace me, I helped them interview. The new company asked me to move and laid me off after a total of 6 months of employment. I found a new job 3 days later and accepted. I worked for a very small outfit doing UCS/SRM deployment for 6 months and got a job at a local var.
Continued to learn and push. Learned as much as I could. Bought a home lab. Had my own VMware environment (with free licenses). Sold, implemented, and supported hardware from all sorts of verticals. Still managed to stay away from Networking & Security. If a client bought VEEAM, I would go get the same software I would be deploying for them and do it at home 3-4x before meeting up with the client. I looked like a pro to the client and I had only used the software the day prior.
Started bugging the AWS guy to teach me more. You're probably starting to see the pattern by now. He quit and we were going to lose our AWS partnership unless someone got a solutions architect associate certification within the next two weeks. I let my boss know that I would handle it, but I needed two weeks off to do it. Studied every day, 12 hours a day up until the test. Made my own AWS account and used my own credit card to get things going. Bought an online training course and pushed on it. Saved the partnership with AWS and they started giving me AWS projects to work on with clients.
2017-2020 Solutions EngineeArchitect 160k-190k
Managed services & private cloud organization reached out to me to help them sell their cloud. Note, this is all technical sales, NOT hard selling. My commission at the time was only about 20-30% of my pay. Agreed to sign on. After 2 years of always learning, pushing, and going after more I scheduled a meeting with the Director for Solutions Architecture to make my intent known. It was pretty funny actually, I've been doing so well (#1 across the company) that when I called him he said "Ah man, I was hoping you'd call me" and I said "Ah good, I'm sure you've been wanting me as a Solutions Architect and I'd be happy to work for you. Let me know when the first interview is." (note: I already knew the guy pretty well, heh, wasn't a cold meeting). Acted as Solutions Architect at around 190k for a year before I started to get incredibly bored. I was only helping to sell a single product. Set up kubernetes at home because it was a huge gap for the company and held trainings on containers. I did not like learning about products that I couldn't sell.
​
2020 - Today Solutions Engineer 240k
Turned down a job at AWS as a Solutions Architect to work at a large VAR as a Solutions Engineer at the same pay. I did not want to be limited to only AWS. Yes, I realize how crazy a statement that can seem to some. The company I'm at is quite large, but not the behemoth that is AWS.
​
The path is there ladies & gentleman. You have to want it so bad it hurts. So bad that you go home wondering how you can make a difference at work. You go to sleep excited to learn the next new thing tomorrow. So bad that you're not afraid to schedule a meeting with the CTO to tell him you want more out of your job. That you'd be willing to make less to learn more. That you want more pay because you have a track record showing that you've earned it. That when you start to realize your value you recognize it and move to a new company, expecting a high salary as a result. You can't make salary jumps like this by staying at the same company.
I worked hard for this, and you can too.
What's next? I'll keep pushing. I think I want to be CTO at a company someday. Not sure what that path looks like yet.
If this helps one person, it was worth the time to write it up.
submitted by Nylian to ITCareerQuestions [link] [comments]

AITA for being upset that my friend is charging me an expensive "service fee" for what I thought was a favor after I already spent money assuming it was a favor?

I recently left Japan where my friend lives. I recently asked her for a favor to ship some things out to the USA for me. Quick background, I left some of my brand name clothes at her place so she can resell it since she flips and sells used clothes. Originally, I was going to just sell my clothes to a thrift shop, but then she said she can make 20xs the profit by selling it online. So, we agreed to sell the clothes and she gets to keep 50% of the profit which would be more profitable than if she bought those clothes and resold them. If it doesn't sell, she could keep them.
But it turns out my sister wanted some of my clothes, so I asked her if she was willing to help me ship it to the US for me and I'll pay her the shipping and packaging fees. She agreed and I thought it would be a favor among friends. I was going to give her an extra $20 anyways as a thank you. She didn’t mention any service fee during the agreement at the time. I figured that since she was shipping clothes anyways, I asked her if she could ship me some matcha as well if I bought it online in Japan and shipped it to her. She said okay.
She was putting off the shipment for a month because of mental health, which I completely understood. I didn't want to rush her since it was a favor and told her to take her time. Suddenly a month later she messages me and tells me she will charge me $70 as a service fee to ship the items to me. I don't have a problem with the fee itself but with the fact that she brought it up suddenly after I already bought the matcha and shipped it to her.
She told me the reason why she is charging me is that she feels as if I treated our relationship as business transactions. The two points she brought up were that I sold her my used bike and a gift card. She offered $35 for my 1yr old bike when I was going to sell it for $50 (I paid $120). I didn't want to sell her my bike, but since she was my friend, I told her I'd give it to her. Fast forward to now, and she says that if I treated her like a friend, I would have given it to her for free.
She was the one who asked to buy the bike! I never even asked her to buy it! Similarly, she offered to buy a sold-out limited gift card that I was going to gift someone else (a $16 value), but I just asked for $10. Now she says that because I didn't give her my used items for free and instead accepted monetary compensation, it means that our friendship is purely transactional and it's fair for her to charge me this service fee. But I wasn’t going to give her the bike or card in the first place…
I would have understood if she told me that she was uncomfortable at the time. I could have sold my clothes myself or to a thriftstore. I would have also just rebought the clothes and matcha here. But now I wasted money on matcha with "hidden fees"
TLDR: Friend brings up other times money came into the equation between our friendship, so she's expecting me to pay $70 for a month late service fee but didn’t tell me upfront.
Edit: she’s asking for $120. $50 for the packaging and $70 for her labor.
Edit 2: I originally never told her that she can have the clothes (I was gonna pick it up in a few months if it didn’t sell once corona was better), but she complained after I asked her to ship my clothes back to the us that the clothes were taking up space and would throw it away in march without asking me first. I didn’t want to confront her about it so i told her she can just keep them in march. She hasn’t listed anything yet or started selling. I would probably never get my “profit” and just treated the clothes as a lost cause. I didn’t care about whatever lost profits I may have lost, but thought it would be okay to get my clothes back if she was going to profit anyways.
Edit 3: I got a reply from her just now after I told her that my budget was $70 maximum and that the estimated shipping costs were $30 based on online estimates. She quickly backtracked and told me she would graciously accept $70 for shipping JUST the matcha, but not 2 of my brand name clothes. The $25 matcha I bought is 500 grams and would cost max $20 to ship to the US, but she wants an extra $50 for her labor. Since she is expecting me to pay $70 for $25 matcha, I told her she can just keep it and the clothes since I didn’t want money to ruin our friendship.
Edit 4: Thank you everyone for responding to me! I’ve decided to tell her she can keep both the matcha and the clothes, so I would be done with this arrangement. I learned my lesson and need to have stronger boundaries for friends and not let them gaslight me anymore. I am a little bit disappointed with her attitude, but I’m not angry at her anymore since I could understand her perspective (the YTA judgments really helped).
Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to and respond my concerns. I properly read all of the comments and reflected on then, even though I might have not gotten the chance to respond!
I rebought the matcha and reshipped it to a professional reshipment service that had just a $5 service fee. So in the end I will get my matcha! All is well!
submitted by mimibrightzola to AmItheAsshole [link] [comments]

In a recent post, a lot of people are claiming it's tone deaf to say being vegetarian is cheaper/easier. I'm here, along with the entire developing world, to tell you about how to create a foundational diet, and just how privileged you sound.

I'm in awe of the sheer number of people in a recent post who said it's cheaper and easier to be an omnivore than it is to be a vegetarian. While there are a select few instances of extreme conditions, such as being disabled in a food desert where you rely on meals prepared by others, the majority of people are able to eat for much cheaper if they eat vegetarian.
Living in developed countries has led to an abundance of meat products available, however, this is a luxury. Vegetables grow from sunlight, water, and soil. This is basically free. Animals need food, water, space, time, and fancy processing to not get you sick. This inherently makes it more expensive to grow meat compared to growing vegetables.
The universal stable diet is rice and beans/lentils. You can survive on this. You can survive on potatoes and butter. You can survive on a lot of things you wouldn't realize are enough. These things aren't glamorous, but they're just as glamarous and easy to prepare as meat containing dishes. You don't need refrigeration for beans or rice, and it has an extremely long shelf life, either dried or canned. Again, these are universally available and universally consumed by even the poorest.
If you want a cheap and easy vegetarian diet, you need to start with these staples. Meal prep, plan ahead, find a system that works for you. Do you need canned beans and a rice cooker? Go for it. Dried beans are honestly just as easy, but they do require an hour or two on the stove after soaking overnight. I have a pressure cooker and rarely use it because when you make beans as a staple of your diet, you can start soaking them at any time. It makes no difference if they won't be ready for tonight, because I'll just cook and eat them tomorrow.
Pressure cookers are also getting increasingly affordable, and things like instantpots can be used for tons of different things besides pressure cooking. There's a great market of secondhand kitchen appliances that are still perfectly good, so check Craigslist, check Facebook market place, check with relatives and friends who might have an old machine they are willing to sell. Also, they make non-electric pressure cookers that go right on the stove, so look for those too.
Also, remember that beans exist in many forms. Black beans, red lentils, black lentils, kidney beans, chickpeas, red beans, adzuki (sp?) beans, besan, and more. Hummus, refried beans, dessert bean paste, sambar, daal, dosa (which also contains rice), tofu, and soy milk are all made of beans. You don't always have to have them in their whole form.
Once you've gotten that down to a good system, you're set to build off it. Buy what's available and within your means to enhance the staples. The general rule is to prioritize nutrition and then focus on the flavor. Most of the time, just adding basic proteins and fats will naturally enhance the flavor.
The first add-in tier is eggs, dairy products (ignore if vegan). Eggs are easy and cheap, I add them to any meal for increased nutrients. Sour cream is cheap and tastey. Cheese is a vegetarian's closest cousin to meat if you miss the flavor. Cottage cheese, paneer, ricotta, and yogurt are also awesome and can be made at home just from milk and a one agent (either an acid for the first three or from existing yogurt for yogurt). Egg/dairy products can really enhance both flavor and nutrition (animal fats for healthy hormone production, B12 for energy and metabolism, and certain amino acids for general life functions), and are usually a quick add-in. The best part is they're still cheaper and easier than meat.
Next is vegan proteins like tofu and seitan. I don't recommend putting it this high in the priority if you are ovo-lacto, but I do recommend if you're vegan. Get tofu at an Asian market and it'll be dirt cheap, like $1.50 for a brick which is enough for at least two meals. Look online for the cheapest wheat gluten powder, mix with oil, water, and spices (especially soy sauce, besan/chickpea flour, mushroom powder, and nutritional yeast for the amino acids and B12) and MSG for that umami flavor, then boil or steam until cooked. It takes time, but it's so cheap and tasty.
I also strongly recommend building up an arsenal of spices. The first things I'd get are iodized salt, sugar, vinegar, oil, and MSG. These are cheap codes for your taste buds and are very cheap and shelf stable. Also, some sort of broth base or bullion. I use "better than bullion vegetable broth base" which is $5 for like 76 servings. It drastically elevates flavor for cheap.
After that look for spice blends you like. They're more expensive than the individual spices, but you can recreate it once you like it. Adobo, garam masala, curry powder, five spice powder, and a good chili powder are great starts. I recommend anything with little to no salt so you're just paying for flavor and not spiking your sodium intake.
The next thing to get is flour. It's cheap and can be made into infinite forms. Wheat flour can make tortillas, roti, bread, pasta, you name it. Make a roux and turn that into various sauces for dishes. Perfect for if you either get bored with rice or if you have extra time and want to make a meal special. Don't forget about other grains as well. Chickpea flour has good nutrition (and is dirt cheap at indian stores under the name besan), rice flour can be made into mochi, and there's plenty of others than may be cheap in your area. Even potato flakes are practically as cheap and easy to store as flour.
Next, get you some long term vegetables. These should be available everywhere without question and can keep for weeks. Onions, garlic, ginger, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, cabbage, certain squashes, dried peppers (learn how to use them, ask me if you want to know more). These can add cheap nutrition and bulk. They can also serve as the basis for many homemade sauces and soups.
The next level is canned and frozen vegetables. This is a fast easy way to add nutrition that's available everywhere and will keep a long time. One great meal is a stir fry with all frozen vegetables, a stir fry sauce, and tofu. Get the stir fry sauce and tofu from the nearest Asian market to cut costs, then sprinkle in MSG for authentic flavor. Serve with rice or noodles for a super quick and cheap meal that will be on the table faster and cheaper than ordering takeout.
I'm also a huge fan of pickling my own vegetables. 1 cup boiling water, 1/2 cup vinegar (white or apple cider), 1 tablespoon sugar, and 1 teaspoon of salt. This is the pickling liquid recipe I use, then just toss in chopped vegetables that are close to going bad. Cabbage, carrots, peppers, cauliflower, and onions are some of my favorites. Add a few whole mustard seed and whole black peppercorns for even more flavor.
The next tier is cheap sauces. Salsas of all different kinds, tomato sauces, stir-fry sauces, ketchup, mustard, simmer sauces/curries/gravies. Look for things in a can, as they can be cheaper but still really tastey. These are all enhancers and don't add a ton of necessary nutrition. However, they tend to last a long time and can transform the flavor of these same old foundational items. Once you start to like a certain sauce, learn how to make it at home for cheap.
The next tier of add-ins are the mid-tier stable vegetables. Peppers are in a league of their own, and are almost necessary for flavor. Tomatoes are as well. Then there's virtually anything in stock and on sale at your local market. Learn how to prepare things and remember the recipes from year to year when that vegetable is in season. I'm hesitant to put this so far down the list, as you should probably try to get a least one of these each time you go shopping, but it's technically not necessary.
The next tier is short term items, strictly for flavor, like fresh herbs. Cilantro, green onion/scallion, parsley, basil, mint, etc. Buy these only if you have an immediate use because they'll go bad faster than a cop with a complex given some power and immunity. I personally but cilantro every week and green onion every other week. It costs like $0.50 or $1.00 each at most, but I also cook almost everything fresh because I have the time, and these really transform a dish.
The penultimate tier is meat substitutes. These are an expensive luxury, but they're fast and tastey. Add to a dish to really elevate it. Tbh, I rarely buy these (except a pack of frozen veggie burgers once a month for a really quick meal) because once you learn how to cook with spices, these no longer taste that good.
The last tier is supplements. If you're not getting enough of something from your diet, get a supplement. They're not usually as good as getting it from food, and you should try to change your diet to increase the amount of that nutrient you're getting. For example, use cast iron pans to get more iron or just eat more beans and lentils (I know it's obvious, but look into the specifics for whatever nutrient you need). Protein powders/bars can also be a very cheap source of protein, so don't think they're just for body builders!
In a separate category are fruits and nuts. These are optional, but are great for added nutrition. I'm blessed to have some good money, so I eat dried fruit and nuts with yogurt everyday for breakfast. There are cheaper options like bananas and apples with peanut butter. Some other options are mixing peanut butter, hoisin sauce, and sriracha in equal parts for a delicious asian peanut sauce, mixing peanut butter with milk (dairy or non-dairy substitute) to make a dessert peanut sauce, or grinding cashews into paste and adding it to sauces to make them creamier.
For fruits, frozen fruit can be a good way to introduce otherwise expensive fruit into your diet for cheaper. They can go in smoothies, be turned into sauces, or even just eaten. Frozen fruit doesn't go bad quickly (unless you keep thawing it), and it's usually fully prepared. I personally love making mango lassi with yogurt, milk, frozen mangos, and green cardamom or cinnamon as a cheaper alternative.
Fresh fruit can also be very cheap when in season if you're in a place that offers this. It's not a necessary part of your diet, but it introduces variety and some good antioxidants. You can even freeze your own for cheaper than pre frozen if you find a good deal.
I could go on about this forever, and I may even release a meal plan and shopping list (although be warned, I cook everything from scratch and a lot a ton of time because I love it).
My point is that it's far cheaper to eat vegetarian if you're eating a vegetarian diet. Don't eat a substituted meat eater's diet. It's like buying clothes at a big and tall shop and tailoring them down to your size. Of course it's going to be harder and more work. You may live in an area with 90% big and tall stores, but you need to take a little bit of time to find the other 10% of store that you may not be familiar with that do have clothes in your size.
Look for Indian markets, Chinese/Eastern Asian markets, Latino markets. These tend to have lots of foods based around vegetarian diets, and they have them cheap. You'll quickly find shortcuts like gingegarlic paste and premade spice mixes at Indian markets. Suddenly, it's super cheap and quick to make things like chana masala, stir fry, lentil soup, and other dietary staples from other countries right at home.
As a follow up, I'll say to not try to eat the exact diet of these other countries. Sure, you just found cheap lentils, but don't think you can suddenly just make fully meals with fancy chutneys and dosa for pennies. Use these stores to find what's cheap, and easy and then add just that item. Fusion meals are your new lifestyle.
Unfortunately, there's not a shortcut, and it will take a full day to go shopping, learn a new recipe, and cook. However, there are tons of resources online like this sub and /eatcheapandhealthy, with people going through this also. Learn from their hardwork, and within a few months, you'll be an expert.
Finally, you can have this lifestyle at home and still enjoy eating with your friends. Don't stress if a couple meals a week are just side dishes at a restaurant or at a friend's house. Not every single meal needs to be a fully sustainable complete amino acid source blah blah blah. Just make up for it the next meal, and you'll live.
TL;DR - if you think being vegetarian is classist and a privilege, you're doing it completely wrong
submitted by boldandbratsche to vegetarian [link] [comments]

Why are the knives all gone? An explanation to price increases and constant OOS messages

Why are the knives all gone? An explanation to price increases and constant OOS messages
We’ve seen an influx of new members to the sub and one of the questions constantly being asked is “why is the knife I want still out of stock?” Longtime members, meanwhile, are more likely to ask why the same knife costs 30% more today than it did a year ago. These are good questions, but the answer is sufficiently complex that answering in a comment reply doesn’t give a full picture.
This writeup will aim to present that big picture. We’ll examine how we got here, the current state of affairs, and some predictions for the future.
​
https://preview.redd.it/owygjsf4tvg61.png?width=227&format=png&auto=webp&s=ea8f629779e8d1509658cbbf2841548dbe1ae458

Part I: Demand for high-end kitchen knives is increasing

It’s hard to nail down exactly why demand has increased. There are many underlying causes and yet each of them individually only goes so far. We’ll consider them in combination to understand the surge.

Online interest in knives is growing

Let’s begin close to home. Here at chefknives, we’re about to reach 100k subscribers. That’s a meteoric rise from a small following just four years ago. Here’s how that growth rate looks:
​
Growth in chefknives subscriber count 2015-present
For comparison, here’s that same growth trend compared to two subreddits with about the same subscriber count as of early 2018 (Delaware and Wildlife)
​
Subscriber growth of chefknives (blue) compared to Delaware and Wildlife (green and yellow). Source: subredditstats.com
If you look at growth rates across other kitchen knife communities you’ll see similar trends. More people than ever are talking about their favorite work cleaver, looking for an “upgrade” recommendation, or asking how to sharpen their grandpa’s vintage sabatier.
We need to be careful in recognizing that these trends play a part in overall growth in phenomena like Reddit, a revival in home cooking, and more. Yet even when compared against these background events, the surge in kitchen knives is remarkable. Reddit approximately doubled its subscribers and posts between 2018-2020. chefknives has doubled three times.

Home cooking was undergoing an early renaissance leading into 2020

It’s no longer the idyllic 1950s. As economic pressure and then cultural allowances pushed traditional gender roles into a more diverse working environment, the reality of the American kitchen became at once more egalitarian and less dedicated. Critics decried the decline of home meals as a loss of culture. More pragmatic Americans saw it as an economic reality.
Ultimately that means more of us in the kitchen out of choice. Nowadays it’s unlikely that Redditors here have (or are) a dedicated parent or spouse who stays at home and cooks all the meals. More likely is a sharing of labor in the kitchen; or, where couples take regular home tasks those chores are less likely to be gender-assigned. Furthermore, the amount of couples choosing to have children is trending downward as the age of first-time parents goes up. Fast food and other pre-fabricated meals are cheap and readily available for those who don’t feel like cooking. Working adults are therefore more likely to choose participation in home cooking than ever before.
Against this unique backdrop began a rebirth of cooking at home - Google Consumer Surveys from 2015 showed discovery search terms on the rise (“best recipes” saw 50% increases year-over-year) and online populations spending increased time researching recipes. Social media programming like Tasty, Binging with Babish, Laura in the Kitchen, and Maangchi took over our Facebook feeds and YouTube recommendations out of nowhere.
​
Source: Acosta research \"COVID-19: Reinventing How America Eats\"
And then, suddenly, home cooking became a necessity for us all. Restaurants closed and grocery stores faced massive supply chain issues shelving their most popular products. A population already casual fans of Bon Appetit and Beat Bobby Flay suddenly found themselves unexpectedly making fermented foods come alive and, while certainly not giving professional chefs a run for their money, then at least discovering their homemade chicken nuggets beat the hell out of Tyson’s frozen imitation.
Many of us saw 2020 turn our nascent interest into a favorite daily hobby. So, like the earlier run on toilet paper there began a run on high-end kitchen knives.

Entrenched brands are losing share in the high-end market

Until now I’ve delayed defining what high-end means. What exactly makes a high-end knife? We’re certainly not talking about $15 supermarket knives or the $30 indestructible house knife that line cooks use to chop parsley and open stubborn cans. Rather, we’re speaking of what somebody buys when they want to invest a little more. That’s the chef de commis who wants to start bringing their own knife to work or the home cook staring longingly through the glass front window of a Williams-Sonoma.
Unfortunately, once we get more specific about what a high end knife is, people tend to have wildly different standards.
​
I fully anticipate this will be the graphic people seize upon in the comments section, which is why I added descriptive text. That probably won't stop a few screeches about what high-end actually means but, eh, c'est la vie
I’m not going to bother saying where high-end knives begin, but for now let’s simplify to somewhere >=$100. This limits us to a handful of brands (at major retailers, at least) and comprises the vast majority of discussed lines here on the sub.
If we look at Internet search terms for high-end brands, we see people losing interest in established names that cannot prove their price to performance value. For example, let’s consider Google search rates associated with traditional German brands like “wusthof,” “henckels,” “messermeister,” etc.
​
source: Google Trends
All of these terms have seen a slow decline in search interest from 2007 onwards. In comparison, between 2014 and 2018 the interest in “gyuto” increased on average by 50% while more general cooking terms like “recipe” or “saucepan” have seen slow, steady increases.
Why are the traditional Solingen brands losing the interest of consumers? One theory is that knife designs are fads like clothing or trendy restaurants - a full-bolster Wüsthof and Nautica jacket may have been all the rage in the early 2000s, but interests simply change over time. If this theory is correct, the current “fad” of Japanese profiles, damascus cladding, Serbian chef knives, etc. are all temporary tastes which will give way to the next fad.
A related explanation is that the Red Queen hypothesis is at work - a theory from evolutionary biology that suggests adaptation is necessary just for survival. Indeed, many of the classic lines of these brands have changed little in the past years and certainly the main differences have been cosmetic. This explanation places blame for brand decline on the brand itself rather than consumer preferences. While unpleasant to point fingers, it’s worth exploring the other side of this coin to get a complete picture. In other words, let’s explore brands that are successfully adapting.

The high-end market is pivoting away from Europe and toward Japanese manufacturing

If consumers have a new standard in aesthetic and performance then how can existing brands stay relevant? Large household names like Zwilling, Victorinox, Wüsthof, Kai, and Messermeister have had varying success in introducing new knives in large western retailers. Focusing on the American retail space, we see that knives which successfully embrace the new consumer demand already own or else license pre-existing, non-Western manufacturing. Struggling brands, on the other hand, try to adapt Solingen practice to produce novel designs and the result ranges from “interesting interpretation” to “missed the point.”[1] [2] [3]
I won’t try to explain why Wüsthof hasn’t had luck making a competitive nakiri or why Messermeister allowed their awful “usuba” design past the concept phase. Suffice to say, the knives that western retailers are pivoting toward tend to be Japanese imports. This may be occasionally disguised by branding, but make no mistake that these are not German copies. Zwilling simply purchased a large manufacturer in Seki City; it becomes obvious when you put them side-by-side with the other Seki manufacturer sold at major American retailers.
​
Knife lines sold under a German and Japanese brand respectively.
Meanwhile, co-opting manufacturing (either by rebranding OEM knives or simply sourcing from the same supply chain) is not exactly a new concept. While this practice is less visible in major brands, it is prolific in the Japanese native market and within smaller retailers in the U.S. For example, take the first design from the Zwilling vs. Kai graphic above and see how it’s copied ad nauseum:
​
I'm not sure how many of these originate from the same knife blanks vs. different sources of steel that just happen to look very, very similar.
Okay - so what does this mean for Japanese and European manufacturers? For the Europeans, things are not looking good. Unless they somehow convince consumers that their performance to price ratio is going up (and this is a losing economic proposition at present), then major restructuring of their industry is on the horizon.
Meanwhile, the remaining question for Japanese manufacturers is twofold: (1) how do they compete against manufacturing in countries with even lower production cost bases and (2) can they scale up fast enough to deal with this demand? Keep these questions in mind as we’ll soon return to the problem with supply.

Conclusion: the global health crisis caused a run on already sparse supply

The COVID demand surge is unique because potential customers cannot be guided by in-person sales staff toward the high-margin knife they want to sell. Indeed, retail sales of the same Solingen brands listed above have actually been strong even as their internet searches have declined - which is why you continue to find them in malls. So, absent retail staff, interested consumers turned online and the growth rates at chefknives illustrate that.
Meanwhile, online communities have been building their following over years. Each community tends to have their favorite brands with some overlap, but this knowledge base tends to be built up over years and decades. That’s because trusted reviews are infrequent (we want more!) and consensus takes time to develop. As consumers turned online, they found communities recommending products already facing scarcity issues.
What do you get when combining exponential demand with a shift in consumer preferences for a relatively small market of available knives? A run on supply.

Part II: Supply cannot scale

High-end knife manufacturing is unlike low-end manufacturing

Low-end manufacturing is all about limiting cost and producing volume. Typically parts and processes must work together with high tolerance for error - imagine trying to grind a precise geometry when the heat treatment isn’t even and one portion of the knife abrades more quickly. So, there is almost always a tradeoff in performance for price and production at scale. Workers can be trained in a single task, such as soldering the tang to the blade or inspecting heat-treated batches of blade blanks. Many tasks may be automated altogether with humans only inspecting the results. When most Redditors think “mass production” they likely imagine this kind of manufacturing. Yet “mass production” doesn’t mean low-end by default.
​
Typical factory setting of Japanese knife manufacture. This particular factory produces both low and high-end knives
High-end knives can be similarly produced at volume, but the production process is more demanding. With higher performance requirements come lower tolerances for error and this means additional training for workers. Heat treatment must be more exacting so that grinds can fit within tighter parameters. This often requires cross-process knowledge so that the sharpener, forger, and metallurgist each understand and can identify minor discrepancies in the others’ processes. Sometimes the sharpener, forger, metallurgist, and polisher are the same person - though this is less common than marketers would like you to believe. Eventually, workers can specialize in a single aspect like polishing or forging and they become so good that others will solicit their services as part of their own process.
So in summary, high-end manufacturing requires more training. Some of that additional training is cross-disciplinary while some is highly specialized. In practice, this means working in various positions across production before settling into a specialty. All that additional training takes years, which is why apprenticeships and decades-long careers are the norm in high-end Japanese manufacturing.

There are limits on how quickly new workers can be trained

Now equipped with understanding of the training required for a high-end manufacturer, we’re ready to dive into the story of a Japanese bladesmith who we’ll call Kenji. It’s 2018 and he wants to scale up production rapidly.
First a little bit more about Kenji. He didn’t start his career in bladesmithing - in fact, despite his city being famous for metalworking and knives, everybody told him that industry was moribund back in the 2000s when he went to university. So, he worked his first years designing heavy machinery before a family emergency unexpectedly brought him into the family business. Years later, he has grown into a management role for the production where he has two full-time employees plus an apprentice. One of those employees is the father of his childhood friend. The two families’ knife businesses merged several years ago.
Now it’s 2018 and Kenji is seeing demand skyrocket. He knows that even if production doubled, he would have a hard time meeting demand. So, how can he double production as quickly as possible while maintaining approximately equal product quality?
In short, he cannot. We’ve already covered how slow training can be, but hiring experienced workers to train them can be equally taxing. That employee whose child was schoolmates with Kenji? None of his sons went into knife making because they saw it as a dead end professionally. Similarly a generation of family businesses shrunk or died out and so Kenji was a dying breed when the market suddenly became hot. Even as knifemaking becomes a viable career once again, finding apprentices is not simple. Many are mindful that consumer interest could quickly return to apathy and such a career does not pay dividends for decades.
Kenji’s story is the norm in high-end Japanese production. Even at a breakneck pace, it will take him several years to double production. If the market should falter during this time, it would be disastrous for his business’ solvency.
Historical data for "Kenji"
YEAR EMPLOYEES PIECES PRODUCED
2014 2 330
2015 2 310
2016 3 335
2017 3 440
2018 3 490
2019 5 570
2020 6 355 
Ballpark numbers for the manufacturer Kenji manages. In mid-2018, he began subcontracting the majority of his sharpening and polishing labor and changed his product line to use more prefabricated steels. 2020 saw major business interruptions due to the COVID19 crisis.

Price increases are slowed by the business landscape

Meanwhile, the free market capitalists here on Reddit have been positively wetting themselves waiting to ask “why don’t the knife makers simply raise their prices?” The simple answer is that Japan’s economy is a free market economy in the same way choosing dinner as a family is a free market decision. Piss off your partner and you can guarantee you won’t get any dinner.
Of course price increases have been happening over time, but slowly. Many makers are still fulfilling backorders - sellers swap stories about shipments arriving for orders placed years prior. Others are under obligations to sell via wholesalers or trade brokers who behave territorially when vendors or other middlemen encroach on their network. Finally, every maker is conscious of how their prices play into the overall landscape of colleagues and competition. Did you apprentice under another bladesmith? If so, what happens if you start selling your knives for more than him? What message would that send and how would he react?
The net effect of this is a market with unusually rigid prices and inflexible scalability. These problems are not intractable, but like all market shortcomings they require time to fix. Beginning in 2020, that time suddenly became equally scarce.

Conclusion: the global health crisis slowed production of an already scarce supply

As the world left the late 2010s, Japanese manufacturing was struggling to scale its production and downstream sellers began to slowly change pricing expectations to meet the new demand surge. Both changes were gradual if not energized - scarce supply was spurring young people into rejoining an industry long thought dead in Japan. Eager young apprentices began showing up to job openings in Sanjo, Seki, and Tokyo for the first time in generations.
Then suddenly that already scarce supply lost crucial days of business production as Japan first began implementing workplace hygiene measures before entering a state of emergency from April until May. These along with other interruptions have severely hampered production capabilities during a time when the business pipeline could hardly afford it.
The run on supply that we explored at the end of Part I is different than the slow demand increases from the decade prior. Large manufacturers had time to expand operations into China and Indonesia while small manufacturers took on apprentices. OEM practices improved and producers were able to streamline their work over months and years. Everybody lagged a little behind with the promise that soon, supply would begin to scale as young apprentices became journeymen and then master smiths.
This run on supply caused a multiplier in demand as production scaled down. Manufacturers no longer lag slightly behind their orders - vendors are reporting it will take years for operations to recover and resume the same pace they had before.

Part III: What’s the future of kitchen knives?

Now we know why the knives are all gone and that the problem is unlikely to be resolved in a few extra months of production. So, what does the future hold for high-end knives? I will propose some educated guesses for what happens over the coming years.

Either Japanese manufacturing practices will scale and expand their industry or else interest will move on - potentially to China, Indonesia, and Vietnam

The Japanese market is already being eaten from both ends. At the very high end, we’re witnessing the rise of custom makers in the US and Europe whose individual pieces command price tags well into the “collectible” range for Japanese knives. Meanwhile, Chinese manufacturing is eating into the bottom range of Japan’s knife market with Indonesia and Vietnam closing in. Some of this movement is driven by Japanese companies who outsource low-end manufacturing, but it’s likely that jobs continue to move offshore en masse.
The key question is whether Japanese manufacturing can scale quickly enough to preserve their market share at the $100-500 range. The domestic Japanese market likely needs 10-20 years to scale up production. The question is whether foreign manufacturing needs this long to capture market share, even if Japan does manage to scale up eventually. The past five years have seen neighboring countries scaling up their production quality and doubling quantity every few years, so things are not looking great for the domestic Japanese market. Here is a predictive model based on the past five years of growth.
Predicted model of market share after 15 years wherein Japan doubles production while China, Indonesia, and Vietnam each double every 3-5 years.

Today’s most popular knife fads will be replaced by new ones

One thing we haven’t mentioned until now are the hangers-on of high-end knives. For example, the prolific Sakai Takayuki VG-10 damascus knives are streamlined imitators of more expensive knives like Anryu or Yu Kurosaki. They take certain aspects like the hammered (tsuchime) finish and suminagashi pattern and build the knife around them, allowing the knife to spread more quickly because of the reduced prices.
Yet there are even more extreme imitators coming out of China and Southeast Asia who move faster and are less scrupulous about marketing. They flood Facebook with ads featuring shiny damascus blades with handles so colorful it looks like an M&M mass murder. These companies move massive volume before customers grow wise and thus hasten the lifetime of the fad. For some, it’s an educational experience. For others, they’re just happy they scratched the itch.
At any rate, movement like this eventually spells the end of one consumer taste to be replaced with another. So, I predict that the current fads (VG-10 damascus, hammered finishes, serbian chef knives) will soon fade and be replaced by others. One way this prediction might come to pass is that two years from now semi-scam companies will start advertising cheap cu mai (five layer steel with a stripe of nickel) offerings instead of their current Sakai Takayuki imitations. Or maybe it will be a faux kasumi finish or etched core stainless-clad instead.

Successful manufacturers will begin to partner with small, non-Japanese makers to innovate in their designs and production

Zwilling has already done this with Bob Kramer once, so why not again? The most popular U.S. custom makers are struggling to produce at volume, so these partnerships could solve the problem from both ends. I predict we’ll soon see some version of Wüsthof releasing a line of Maumasi-designed blades or Victorinox licensing Don Nguyen’s handles.
This will, of course, come with challenges. Knife enthusiasts mostly have bitter tastes in their mouths with the memory of the Shun Ken Onion and members of the forum here have pointed out that ZKramers struggle to produce consistently good geometries. I don’t necessarily predict these partnerships will produce good high-end knives.

Conclusion

The knives are, indeed, all gone. And that’s unlikely to change for the near future. The brand you desperately want to come back into stock will continue to face shortage issues for years and may never come back at all. But that’s okay.
Instead, newcomers will soon replace the current favorites. Five years from now, the most sought-after knives will have diversified and new names will replace the old ones slowly. In the past five years, those new names have mostly been Japanese. I suspect the new ones may not be.
Until then, may the back in stock notifications be ever in your favor.
submitted by marine775 to chefknives [link] [comments]

AITA for deciding I won't give any Christmas gifts this year after my mom cancelled a transaction on my card?

I'm still angry over this and I may not write very well, and also I probably don't judge the situation very well being this angry so I came to you.
I'm a student. I have a student bank account, where my college gives me money for transport (when we had physical classes) or scholarship. These kind of bank accounts have no fees, but are age restricted (can't have one if you're over 25) and need an overseer. When I asked the bank about it, they told me it's just a security thing so I chosen mom because she's more tech savvy than dad.
Well through some incredible luck I managed to get only top grades last year so I was awarded a study scholarship. Great! I've been saving it up, looking forward to word wide Black Friday, eyeing an amazing drawing tablet. I do digital art on very old intros, the tablet I was eyeing is as big as my monitor, is a display one and all around amazing.
Black Friday rolls in, and Amazon Germany (closest to me) has it in stock at an amazing price! A price I could afford! I was so damn happy, I ordered it.
Then I got a notice that the bank refused the card. I emailed Amazon (their customer service is so fast) and we went over the card details and such making sure it was alright. It was and they advised me to call my bank.
It was odd, I had bought things online in the past with this card and it went through. I had enough money for it (even extra) so I thought maybe they had technical difficulties. But it was too late in the day to call and they don't work weekends, so I left an email.
Only to find out today that for "big transactions" they ask for agreement from the overseer and that mine cancelled the transfer. I was like wtf and confronted mom about it (who throughout the weekend acted oblivious) and she told me that of course she couldn't let me "throw money on something I don't need" and that "I wouldn't have money for Christmas presents if I bought that". Then she had the audacity to ask me what I was planning to get my family this year.
I told her that they won't get anything more than a bread shadow* from me and I went to my room and cried on the carpet. I missed out on the offer, I can't afford the tablet anymore and it's all because mom wanted Christmas gifts. And no, I won't get her anything. Last year she got me a blouse too small for me that she later took for herself. She can gift herself this year too.
*Bread shadow= expression for nothing in my language
Edit: there are so many comments and I thank you all, I'm trying to reply to all of you but it'll take a while
Edit 2: thank you so so much for people offering me money in comments and dm but I can't accept that. I'm really grateful for you trying to help but I really can't take that. I'm really thankful for the offers and advice

Edit 3: all hail u/Epic-Hamster!

So many people offered me advice, money, their tablets or other means of helping and I'm really thankful to you all! Also, lots of you told me to check the sale that's going on right now but the tablet I ordered wasn't on sale, yet u/Epic-Hamster found it (same specs different seller) at sale at an even better price than the Black Friday sale! I ordered it, it went through this time, and I'm so happy and excited!
Thank you, from all of my heart to everyone. I'm still going to reply to all of you, even if it's going to take me all night. Happy holidays for all of you!
Edit: it seems like I can't reply to you guys anymore sadly but if you want to you can send me a pm, I don't think I'll sleep this night anyway

FAQ

(Now I really get why these are called frequently asked questions)
• This account I have to have because of my Uni, but I'm going to make dad the overseer and also open an account at another bank (a normal one) and transfer the money in small amounts to that one so I don't bother dad with it
• Also considering asking him just to be for form and the app to be on my phone so I'll be my own overseer
• I am an adult in my country, I'm 20, going to be 21 in April. The law asks my parents to support me until I finish my studies or at least until I'm 26, but I plan on moving out sooner
• I'll do gift my sister and dad, they have nothing to do with the incident and I love them lots
• I love mom too but can't put up with her attitude any longer
• Regarding what I'll give her, not sure yet but there are some amazing ideas in the comments
• She didn't react like that because she got me the tablet already, it's not her character to get me something she can't use.
• Regarding the gift dad's planning on and which she'll claim is from both of them, dad is going to build a bigger enclosure for my lizard.
• I may wrap my lizard's old branches nice and gift those to mom, as per Christmas traditions regarding naughty kids. And she doesn't like my scaly boy at all so double points I guess
• People saying that a drawing tablet is useless, thanks for your input but the question was if I was an A for the way I reacted and my decision to not give her a gift anymore. As it's my money I literary can do whatever I wish with it and a display drawing tablet is incredible useful for an aspiring digital artist as myself.
Thank you all who commented, I'll really try to reply to you all but you're so many! Thank you lots!
Edit number I lost count: Glad so many people like the bread shadow! It's a regional Romanian idiom! Would you eat some beans for us on 1st Dec? It's our national day, traditionally celebrated by eating beans with meat but if you're not okay with the meat that's okay too. I love you all!
submitted by JustAnonymWolf to AmItheAsshole [link] [comments]

I've taken 566 outfit photos over 4 years (my style from mid-20s to 30)

I just turned 30.
This is not a story of a fashion epiphany, but one of a slow, if self-indulgent and expensive burn (also, of reading my comment history lol).
From November 2016 to January 2021, I have taken 566 outfit photos. These are my fave outfits of each year.
I was 25 when I first posted in FFA - Posted on 6 November 2016, this was my first ever WAYWT post, just a bit over 4 years ago. FFA has changed a lot since then, and so have I. I used to post religiously, however, I’ve been on and off over the last couple of years, which is not unlike my relationship with fashion.
In that time I have moved countries, developed a horrifying shopping habit and then dropped it, had a few different hairstyles (always messy), travelled, gained and lost weight, and now a pandemic with numerous lockdowns (yay, UK). All of this has had an impact on how I dress and how I feel towards fashion.
2016 - 2017 (26 & 27 years old)
2018 (27 - 28 years old)
2019 (28 - 29 years old)
2020 (29 - 30 years old)
Some things remained unchanged, such as I’ve always enjoyed both short and midi lengths, I love a cinched in waist, I like playing around with texture, I obviously love a good turtleneck, my hair was almost always messy and I still enjoy Isabel Marant.
4 years doesn’t seem like a lot, but it sure looks like a lot when I see how I used to dress versus now, my mindset related to that and lessons learnt.
(If it wasn’t obvious, this is mostly tongue in cheek, and it’s very much based on myself).
​
Lesson 1: You’re Very Dumb When You’re Young (But Who Isn’t?)
First of all, this happens to so many people.
I had just started my first full time job that year. Ever since I left high school I’ve always loved clothes (I even had a short-lived blog in the early 2010s), and now suddenly having more disposable income than ever that I could spend on my biggest passion (fashion, if you didn’t already realise after clicking on this post while on this subreddit), my already high consumption went positively exospheric. How much I was wearing was not in line with how much I was spending, aka a fucking excess of clothes.
It started with expanding a work wardrobe, which was innocent enough. Previously, I only went to uni a few times a week where didn’t see the same people all the time, and I worked part-time jobs requiring uniforms. Buying extra clothes was reasonable. Then I discovered how easy online shopping was, and how addictive pressing ‘checkout’ was, which then led me onto re-sell designer sites like The RealReal and Vestiaire, and suddenly previous designers I’d always dreamed of wearing were now attainable…to me?! I’m an adult, who makes money, and now I wear designer.
Looking bad, it’s not like I didn’t look good. I rate a lot of my outfits and for the time and place I consider them stylish. But looking at what I used to wear before 2020, the thing that sticks out most isn’t how nice a colour looked on me, or how well I wore a leather mini skirt. The thing that sticks out the most is how completely unsatisfied I always felt after that moment of that ‘new clothes thrill’ wore off - I always thought I could look better, which, of course, meant I needed to buy something else to make sure I did. I used to think about my next purchase immediately after buying something, like someone looking for the next hit. It sounds unhealthy because it is unhealthy.
There were so many items of clothes that I only wore for 1 season. And then there were the clothes I wore just once or twice. This snowballed for the next almost 2 years, and season after season I was virtually buying a new wardrobe because my old clothes seemed too ‘boring’ and ‘old’. The number of times I posted on the weekly Recent Purchases thread is actually appalling thinking about it. Instead of actually thinking of the versatility or functionality of clothes (can this be worn for numerous occasions/seasons? Does this go with enough of what I already own?) I was instead buying clothes in terms of creating specific looks - and if that meant buying a whole outfit, worth it (it’s not, FYI. Ever.) And the thought of re-wearing an outfit? Not a chance.
The amount I dropped on clothing I barely wore during this time is most likely the equivalent of putting down a sizeable deposit on a flat in a decent area of a major city. And when you come to that realisation years later, it will make your stomach drop.
And as another aside, get rid of this habit before you move out. It will save you a lot of stress. And it can take years to drop this habit.
​
Lesson 2: Unlike What That Guy Says on Hinge, Don’t Be Spontaneous
There isn’t anything wrong with being spontaneous - Like any healthy habits, in moderation it’s not harmful. The thing is, when spontaneous is all the time there’s another way to phrase that. A Really Bad Addiction.
That’s not to say every purchase has to be thought out meticulously to an analytical degree (seriously, that would be stressful in itself) - I genuinely have had some great impulse buys. But these have either been sentimental or have made me feel so amazing in that moment as if that piece of clothing had been made only for me. A kimono-esque robe I bought on sale in Tokyo, a vintage silk midi dress that paved the way for a style that I wear years later, a leather jacket that feels as great as it looks, a sweater that’s both basic but not really, a dress I joke is my wedding dress (I’m not actually joking).
But these sort of spontaneous purchases can only exist as good buys when you otherwise think practically about what you buy. The impulse items mentioned continue to work for me because the rest of my wardrobe is thought out, versatile and thus, those impulse items can be worn again and again with the rest of my wardrobe.
A spontaneous purchase only because you have a discount code, or you need to meet a minimum order, or because it was on sale or because you feel like you have nothing else to wear or to chase a thrill will usually end up as a regret.
Continually impulse buying is just bad consumption, pure and simple.
​
Lesson 3: If You Love Fashion, Don’t Work in Corporate Retail
I’m half kidding. However, there is a good chance you’ll become disillusioned with anything related to fashion the longer you work for retail companies (both on the floor and in corporate). Especially for big companies.
It started off positive - I was surrounded by clothes and by people talking about clothes. I found similar-minded people who felt the same way about fashion as I did.
I had people to discuss the things we wanted to buy, the designers and labels we loved, Paris/New York/London/Melbourne fashion shows, the sample sales coming up, outfits to gush over (consisting of new purchases, naturally). It was 9-5 of just fashion.
It was also 9-5 of tiring. Especially when I’m discussing how to make people buy more, to consume more, to waste more. Then the stress involved when deliveries miss deadlines due to awful circumstances and senior management are freaking out (a ship capsized and the crew are MIA, but where is the product?), working for companies that churn out clothes every week, for companies that stock problematic brands, for companies that thrive on shopping tourists.
And then there are those moments, like when someone senior comments that the Paris bombing will be good for the company because no one will want to shop in Paris.
You see the ugliest side to the retail industry and there are times when you truly hate fashion.
(FYI, you absolutely can have a fulfilling career in corporate retail, however, I find the people that do are the people who can separate their personal views on clothing and consumerism from their work. I couldn’t.)
​
Lesson 4: Instagram is Aspiration, Not Inspiration
You are the product. Emily from London and Olivia from Melbourne might seem like your style twin and you just seem like the exact same things, but the reason they listed every brand on their aspirational outfit photo isn’t to help you out - it’s to help them out.
I was so obsessed with consuming anything fashion related on Instagram. I felt like I had to be aware of every single high street brand that existed, follow every popular British influencer (I just felt like British style was Exactly My Vibe, you know?), look like I myself would be the type of person who could post on Instagram.
Nothing I’ve bought because I saw it on an influencer I have kept. No style I modelled off someone who’s taller, skinnier, boobier, blonder than me I have retained. The only thing I got out of looking on social media for fashion inspiration were mountains of garbage bags of donations, moments of feeling shit because it didn’t look the same on me and a lean bank account (remember, I could have bought a flat by now).
Instagram is an amazing platform to express whatever you want. But don’t ever use it as a tool to copy something or someone because no good can come from that.
I look at what I wore in 2017-2018, which are the years I consider the eruption in my Fiery Spending Volcano, and I know I based my outfits on certain influencers thinking, ‘Yes, this is an outfit [insert whoever] would wear,’ or specific items I bought because I saw it on someone. The thing is, I honestly can’t remember who these people were. I genuinely don’t feel a connection to a lot of those outfits, as if it wasn’t actually me wearing it. Now I look at what I’ve worn end of 2019 to now and I know exactly who my outfits were influenced by. Me…I’m influenced by me.
I no longer have Instagram.
(And Nanny Fine will always be the only acceptable influencer.)
​
Lesson 5: Labels Should Only Come From a Label Maker
Boho chic.
French girl.
LA vibes.
Timeless.
Off duty model.
It’s meaningless. Don’t box yourself in. That’s all.
​
Lesson 6: Size Absolutely Does Not Matter (in This Case)
Capsule wardrobes are not for me. I need options
An entire room stuffed with clothing is also not for me. I don’t need that many options.
I used to have the mindset I had to have every kind of variation of an item. Take the white t-shirt for example - I needed a cropped white tee, a longline tee, a v-neck, a crew neck, a scoop neck, a dressy tee. Outerwear also used to be a huge problem for me. I mostly live in Australia…I don’t need that many outerwear options because I legitimately will not be able to wear all of them. Variety is nice until it becomes hoarding.
I credit travelling with helping me realise I can easily survive on a smaller wardrobe. I look at what I wore when I went to the UK/EU in 2018 and still love those outfits. I had so much fun in Japan dressing with the 17 items of clothes I packed (braids certainly helped too). Dressing just became easy and I didn’t often have that ‘I have nothing to wear’ feeling because I had purposely packed both clothing that I loved and were versatile. A smaller wardrobe has actually made me feel more creative when putting outfits together. No amount of buying new clothes will ever match the feeling of discovering a new way to wear an old thing.
Not to mention, the fact that I used to think repeating outfits was the biggest fashion crime is as fucking ridiculous as you’re thinking it sounds. If an outfit made me feel so amazing the first time I wore it, why wouldn’t I want to experience that feeling again?
Nowadays I get a lot of comments on how much I re-wear and re-use my clothes and it’s genuinely a great compliment. How much I can see myself re-wearing something is a major factor in my shopping habits. This doesn’t mean I aim to have a classic, timeless style (I personally believe no clothing is truly timeless) nor do I completely avoid trends, but I aim to have clothes that easily go multiple seasons and years. I’ve learnt to become patient with shopping and now routinely wait at least 3 weeks from the first time I see something to gauge how I really feel about it. More often than not, I don’t follow through with purchasing. This also works well for me, as by waiting I then have a chance of purchasing it second-hand, which has become something I do more and more these days beyond just shopping vintage.
Also, no one actually knows nor cares if you repeat outfits. No one is that special that people remember every outfit that person ever wore. They will probably repeat compliments though (because you definitely repeated a great outfit).
​
My relationship with fashion has been messy. I’ve been obsessed, I’ve been frustrated, I’ve been ambivalent. Now, I’ve calmed down. I used to let my shopping habit define my style, whereas now I’m at a stage when it’s the reverse - It’s no longer a case of ‘I’ll make this purchase work’, but ‘this purchase needs to work for me’. I now consume less fashion news, have a smaller wardrobe, but am probably the most satisfied with the way I dress than I ever have been.
​
EDIT: It appears this has resonated with a lot of people, which I'm pretty chuffed with as it's things I've increasingly been thinking about over the last year or so. I'm glad people have learnt similar lessons and that people will come to learn similar lessons. To everyone who's already made the step to being a better consumer, keep going, and to those who want to start doing so, it doesn't happen overnight and that's okay. We may not all become the perfect, cleanest consumer, but there are numerous little steps we can take to be better than we were before.
submitted by full_boyle to femalefashionadvice [link] [comments]

Why aren't big cities using indoor gardens skyscrapers to reduce cost of social programs and improve air quality in a sustainable way? (LONG)

So I ran across something that talked about how grow enough food for a family of four for a year in 550 sq ft (~51sq m) with indoor gardens. That got me thinking, why don't large cities build large indoor gardens the size of sky scrapers?
New York City has 274 buildings over 150m tall according to Wikipedia. I'll use the Silver Towers (ranked 99th in height at 199m) for math. On their website, they state it is 1.2 million sq ft in residential and common areas plus 20K in parking. So let's say 1.3M sq ftThe (120,773.952 sq m) overall. Each tower is 60 stories tall (ignoring how some sections are lower). Total construction cost was $20M. I'm going to use 2016 Public Welfare Financial Condition Report for SNAP information.
THE TOWER
So, New York builds a top 100 tallest building modified with things like:
Applying this to Silver Tower's 60 floors, excluding one floor as roof, one floor for things like delivery docks, collection chutes from upper floors, and/or employee cafeteria, and another for administrative areas, storage, ect.
Assuming 550/51 is actually accurate, that would be enough to feed just over 6,400 people a year. That may not sound like much to the 356,350 that are currently on SNAP in New York City. But consider if New York City built 100? That's 36.5% more buildings over 150m but could feed almost TWICE the number of the people on SNAP with fresh produce. Evenly spaced around the city, that'd be a produce tower every 3 miles or so (based on city area being 302.6 sq mi).
​
THE PROGRAM
SNAP
  1. NYC could be responsible for creating an online program similar to Walmart+ or Instacart. Staff would be required for keeping the website up and protected, as well as sorters to prepare the packages for pickup. If delivery is included, drivers or a third party contractor company such as DoorDash would need to be sourced.
  2. 'Standard' boxes could be prepared. This would be less labor intensive than on-demand/changing boxes.
  3. A floor could be given up to open a "store" to SNAP participants. Sorters would now be replaced with cashiers and stockers. Participants shop their own groceries like normal but since there is no middle man between production and sale, the prices would be much cheaper.
In the long run, this also reduces Medicaid costs (because people who are on SNAP are likely eligible for Medicaid) are healthier. Additionally, the tower could be used as a preparation/cooking area for local schools or Meals on Wheels, reducing costs in both those programs while increasing health of individuals in that program.
STAFFING
THE COST AND POTENTIAL SAVINGS
If the construction cost matched Silver Towers, that'd be $2B in taxpayer money. Let's say it's split between 10 years, so $200M per year. The link earlier stated 3.8% increase in SNAP lead to $50M more used that year. If 10 towers are built per year, and it saves NYC 4.2% per 10 towers, that is $58.38M. The savings increase exponentially every year.
In 5 years, they can almost fully cover SNAP recipients with fresh produce. The SNAP program costs NYC $1.39B per year. Very little will need to be given for processed foods, if NYC does not also build a processing areas such as juicing for oranges and apples. They are saving In another 5, they could cover Citymeal's 50,000 homebound elderly and still feed over 300,000 children in NYC schools.
If they continued that trend, say to a tower per 1.5 miles instead of 3, schools could rely more heavily on these towers to reduce food costs, which could lead to more funds being available for technology upgrades and teacher salary increases. A tower every 1.5 miles would equal 200 towers generating enough produce to feed 1.44M people a year. There are 1.1M students in NYC public schools, meaning it could almost fully cover all SNAP recipients' AND public student meal's produce needs.
I guess TL;DR I believe that large cities should be using skyscraper sized towers to improve the lives of the local community. If NYC built 100- 60 floor buildings specially designed to allow natural light to produce fresh, local produce, I believe it would lead to higher quality of living by improving air and water quality, reducing crime, improving education, creating jobs, increasing access to & the consumption of produce, and increasing average health while also freeing up funds to assist other programs (such as creating a free feminine hygiene product program), reducing reliance on fossil fuels, reducing water pollution caused by farming and reducing the amount of flat land needed for produce farming.
Edit: Some of the links immediately didn't work. Sorry about that!
Edit 2: Thank you so much everyone for all the insight and counter arguments that have been provided! When I thought of this last night, I never expected it to grow like this. I did not update "cost and potential savings" because I am waiting for new info! I tried to update at least the arguments now. I will try to keep updating!
submitted by AbjectSociety to sustainability [link] [comments]

where can i make extra money online video

10 WEBSITES TO MAKE $100 PER DAY IN 2019 - YouTube How to Make Extra Money with a Full Time job Work From ... 10 Websites To Make Money Online For FREE In 2020 💰 (No ... 4 Ways I ACTUALLY Make Money Online - YouTube BEST WAY TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE AS A BROKE BEGINNER (WORKING ... 8 Ways To MAKE EXTRA MONEY AT HOME in 2020 Online Jobs ... Best Way To Make Money Online As A Broke Beginner! (2020) 12 Websites To Make Money Online In 2021 ($200 A DAY ... 7 Ways To Make Extra Money From Home (Make $100+ Per Day!) 10 Websites You Can Make $100 A Day From Online! (No ...

You can make money online on sites like these: Problogger; Craigslist; Blogging Pro; Freelance Writing; Media Bistro; Flex Jobs; Be a Freelance Blogger; 12. Create Side Gigs. Side gigs can help you make money online while you keep your full-time job. If you’re looking to make an extra couple hundred dollars per month, this is a great idea. If you want to earn extra cash, turn to these money-making websites. By Geoff Williams , Contributor June 8, 2020 By Geoff Williams , Contributor June 8, 2020, at 11:42 a.m. Top Picks to Make Extra Money. Bluehost: Blogging is my favorite means to make earn cash.I personally used Bluehost to build a blog that makes over $10k/month. Claim FREE Domain Name; Doordash: Doordash is the best option for delivering food to earn money in the gig economy.You make your own hours, earn $10-$14 per hour and get to keep 100% of the tips. If you’re going to use your spare time to make extra money online, tracking where that money goes will ensure the effort is worth the reward. Related: 38 Creative Ways to Make Money Fast . 4005 shares. Author. Megan Robinson. Hi! I'm Megan. I'm a personal finance enthusiast on a mission to help millennial men and women understand and make If you’re a teen interested in earning some extra money, you’re not alone. I mean, there are things to buy like clothes, entertainment, and electronics. Plus, it is also good to save up for stuff like cars, college and other big purchases. There are a ton of ways that you can make money as a teenager. If you have a fondness and talent for taking pictures you can make extra money online by becoming a stock photographer and selling your images to a stock photo company like ShutterStock or iStockPhoto. You’ll get royalties every time someone licenses an image you’ve submitted. If you only have a few minutes here and there, you can still use that free time to make extra money right from your smartphone. Here are some free apps that pay you just for using them. 15. Get Paid to Watch Online Videos. Sites like Swagbucks offer ways to make extra money beyond just taking paid surveys. Companies need to test video ads and Need Easy Extra $300+/Month for Free? InboxDollars: Paid over $57 Million to members to watch videos, take surveys, shop and more.Join InboxDollars Now and Get $5 Instantly! Panda Research: Earn up to $50 per survey or offer completed.Join Panda Research Today! Swagbucks: Get paid to watch videos, shop online, take surveys and more.Join Swagbucks Now & Get a $5 Instantly! This Money Saving Expert guide lists 36 legit ways to earn extra cash on the web using the top paying websites and apps. You can get paid to do surveys, write, search the web, create YouTube videos, upload your photos and much more. You could earn £1,000s/year at home on your sofa, with no special skills needed. There are legitimate ways to make money online. The problem is that the real ways to make money aren’t “get rich quick” schemes. Most of them require a lot of work and sometimes a lot of dedication before seeing a return on your time. But if you really want to make money online, work from home or turn an idea into a business, you can do it

where can i make extra money online top

[index] [4118] [8590] [7524] [7772] [2054] [1034] [6795] [8184] [4396] [7566]

10 WEBSITES TO MAKE $100 PER DAY IN 2019 - YouTube

BEST WAY TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE AS A BROKE BEGINNER (WORKING 2020) // In this video I’m going to tell you how you can make money online RIGHT NOW, Fast and Eas... Here are some awesome websites to make money online in 2019All of these websites are way to earn an income online.My #1 Recommendation To Make A Full-Time In... Best Websites To Make Money Online 2021. Welcome to this best web sites to make money fast video. This video shows you how to make money online in 2021 and t... My # 1 Way On How To Make Money Online is Here http://6figuresormore.com SUBSCRIBE HERE http://bit.ly/SubscribeHereJayBrownSign up for Yoonla here ht... Work From Home And Make Extra Money With Affiliate Marketing! Join My FREE Training: https://affiliatemarketingmastery.com/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=yout... Use these 10 websites to make money online for FREE in 2020 - no credit card required! FREE EBOOK: http://wholesaleted.com/4-step MY PRINT ON DEMAND COUR... How to make money online for FREE as a broke beginner! This will help you get started! Smash that LIKE button if you want to earn online! Full Affiliate Trai... How to make some extra money from home, and it doesn’t matter if you're in school or have a 9-5 job.Don’t forget, side hustles make you money and hobbies tak... I used to make money online 10 different ways... now I've narrowed it down to just the 4 most profitable ways to make money online. In today's video, I share... Hey friends! In this video, I talk about 8 ideas and examples of some ways to make money online through jobs and side hustles that you can start today. If yo...

where can i make extra money online

Copyright © 2024 top100.playrealmoneygames.xyz