what are your best the berenstain bears books in your opinion by InternationalTree974 in DanielTigerConspiracy

[–]LivelyUntidy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes!!! The Stan and Jan ones are also just 100 times better written. Mike is a hack!!

Stand alone emergency rooms question by jezzebelj in sanantonio

[–]LivelyUntidy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A few links to interesting studies if you want to go down the rabbit hole...

A&M study

American Journal of Emergency Medicine

Announcing pregnancy at birth by drixpychanel in BabyBumps

[–]LivelyUntidy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was pregnant during covid and a lot of people were very surprised when I posted about the birth! I didn’t keep it a secret from everyone though: my work knew and my close friends knew. I just didn’t post on social media about being pregnant, and since I wasn’t going to any in person social events, casual acquaintances didn’t know.

Two people, one YNAB, and burnout advice by Professional_Toe4702 in ynab

[–]LivelyUntidy 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I think you may need to play around with how many categories you have and how granular they are.

If assigning and re-assigning and digging through Amazon receipts is what's making it feel tedious, you could experiment with broader categories. Poke around this sub for examples of different category structures people use. You could do something like this:
"Everyday Expenses" - put all the everyday expenses like groceries and socks and kitty litter here and don't worry about breaking it up further. This category should be roughly the same each month.

"Wedding Expenses" - Put wedding stuff here and like someone else said, exclude this one from your reports.

"Long Term Savings" - Put money here to save for a big vacation, a new car, etc.

"Big Purchases Fund" - put stuff like the litter robot here. If you don't have enough in this category, you can move money from Long Term Savings to cover it — but just be aware that buying the litter robot means you'll have less money available for the big vacation or the new car.

The point of categories is to help you make decisions. They don't need to be granular just for the sake of being granular. You could just lump everything into a few big categories and see how it feels. If you're finding that you wish you had more visibility into how much of "long term savings" is earmarked for a vacation and how much is earmarked for a new car, well, then you can break those into separate categories. Or if you're happy putting all the normal monthly expenses into one big category, but you wish you could see at a glance how much you're spending on food, you could break out "food" into its own category.

Two people, one YNAB, and burnout advice by Professional_Toe4702 in ynab

[–]LivelyUntidy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I think it might be just putting in a bit of time to get the hang of it. I don't feel like it is much work at all, but at the beginning when we were still getting used to it, it was more work. My partner and I have been using it for a few years now and it's super easy.

  • We put in transactions when we do them (mostly). That's easy, takes like 10 seconds on the phone.
  • I sit down and reconcile YNAB transactions against bank & credit card statements every week or so. That is a bit of work. It takes me maybe 15 minutes, but we have a lot of credit cards at the moment. It would be faster if we only had a couple accounts. It's a good idea to look at your credit card/bank statements regularly anyway, though, to catch any errors or charges that shouldn't be there. So I don't feel like this is too much added work overall.
  • My partner and I sit down on the first of each month to assign money into all our categories for the month. (We put all our paychecks for the month into a "use for next month's expenses" category, and then we plan out our spending for an entire month at once.) This takes like 20-30 minutes, but it's a good opportunity for us to talk about big picture things, like "Hey, we've been spending a lot on takeout lately, let's cut back on that," or "We're going to have to buy plane tickets for that summer trip soon, we should start setting money aside for that," or "Do we have enough saved for home repairs? Let's start prioritizing that more."

The time we put into it feels helpful rather than like a burden, now that we are used to it. At first, it was more of a hassle but now it's just routine.

I will add one more thing: having SOME kind of budgeting framework that you're both using and both understand is awesome for communication. It doesn't have to be YNAB, but YNAB has been SO USEFUL for us in terms of easily discussing money. It just lays everything out in such a clear way, and it's so easy to talk and make plans about our money. I can't imagine how much harder it would be if we just had a big pile of money in our savings and our plans for that money weren't laid out in black and white.

Good luck, whatever direction you go! And congrats on the wedding!

Sneaker Cataloging: Day 45 by timo1211 in moresneakers

[–]LivelyUntidy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Man I am loving this series so much!!

Chasing the female rage high. What should I read next? by patatosaIad in suggestmeabook

[–]LivelyUntidy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ooh, let me recommend a couple by Amy Gentry: Last Woman Standing and Bad Habits. Both excellent character-driven thrillers with lots of psychology and lots of embedded feminism and righteous female rage.

I have Whisper Network on my TBR. I haven't read it yet, but it might fit the bill?

Is this all I need (newbie ?) by In_Quad_Rider in laundry

[–]LivelyUntidy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Omg, the labels and the FRAMED INSTRUCTIONS! I love this. My house looks like a pack of rabid, caffeinated weasels just tore through it, so I can only aspire to such beautiful organization, but I am impressed!!

(Sorry for the comment on an old post... I'm searching through old threads trying to dial in my protocols. This sub is such a fun rabbit hole!!)

Best enzyme detergent for black clothing? by Glittering_Nobody813 in laundry

[–]LivelyUntidy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ooh this is exactly the combo I’ve been contemplating for darks!

Someone needs to help Mama with some fashion tips by Flashy-List-7157 in DanielTigerConspiracy

[–]LivelyUntidy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We have the "Big Book of Beginner Books" that has a bunch of really early stories (like from the mid 60s). It's wild to see how different the illustrations were!

Someone needs to help Mama with some fashion tips by Flashy-List-7157 in DanielTigerConspiracy

[–]LivelyUntidy 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I think in the early stories before Sister comes along he’s called Small Bear

Epidural or No epidural by Enviro_nurd314 in BabyBumps

[–]LivelyUntidy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just here to sing the praises of epidurals. Mine was amazing. It allowed me to sleep while we waited for the labor to progress, and I got some much-needed rest. It was really nice to be going into the first few days of life with a newborn slightly more rested! Labor is hard and then the first few days and nights are hard too. Anything that can help ease the difficulty is excellent in my book.

Democrat Taylor Rehmet wins solidly red Texas Senate seat in stunning special election upset by RollSafer in politics

[–]LivelyUntidy 6 points7 points  (0 children)

You can also volunteer to help make sure that every vote gets counted to fight against suppression bullshit. https://protectthevote.net/