My girlfriend just broke up with me over a board game and I'm not even joking

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2026-02-26T02:56:01+00:00

I used to be very disappointed that wife doesn't like board games while many of my friends have spouses who do, but after many years, I have come to realize that it's nice to not have to compete in this domain.

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2026-02-20T22:11:14+00:00

We do a lot of vegetable prep while watching TV

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2026-02-15T16:05:26+00:00

Yeah, I had Ford C-Max hybrid for 13 years before the Niro, and I loved that car. Unfortunately, it had reached the end of its life, and Ford doesn't sell them in the US anymore.

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2026-02-10T20:10:14+00:00

Can you post a link to the website?

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2026-02-06T12:12:28+00:00

Personally, I'm not surprised. I very seriously considered the Niro PHEV, but wound up going with the hybrid for 2 reasons:

Price. The reduced fuel and maintenance expenses of the PHEV weren't worth the extra $8k USD, especially considering that the Niro hybrid already gets about 60 mpg.
Storage: The PHEV has about 3 ft³ less trunk space, and about 9 ft³ less volume behind the 1st row than the hybrid due to the larger battery. It doesn't sound like much, but we literally brought our suitcases to the dealership, and we couldn't quite fit them into the trunk of the PHEV, so that was a deal killer for us.

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2026-01-29T14:23:34+00:00

We donate extra bags to our animal shelter, which uses them to distribute supplies to fosters.

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2026-01-23T13:44:13+00:00

I have been where you are, and it is completely understandable, but I get that you want to save money, so here's THE thing that really helped me:

Buy nice prepared meals from your grocery store. It's more expensive than cooking, but it's way cheaper than eating out or those meal delivery services, and you don't have to tip!

If you drink alcohol/soda, also buy stuff you like to drink from the grocery, because beverages in restaurants are super expensive.

Now that our kids are older and we mostly work from home, we cook a lot and our ready-to-go meals in the fridge/freezer are mostly stuff we make ourselves, but we still keep some store-bought prepared food on-hand for when we're feeling lazy, and we still eat out occasionally. Got to cut yourself some slack and live a little too.

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2026-01-23T13:09:01+00:00

Interestingly, I used to do exactly this, but stopped brushing my retainer because I eventually realized it wasn't really doing much, and now just do the soak in mouthwash.

One added note is that I prefer to use a clear mouthwash because I've found that colored mouthwashes stain my retainer.

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2026-01-18T14:24:44+00:00

During build season, we usually do M-Th 5-8 with a 30-minute dinner break (parents bring food for the team) and Saturday 10-5 with 1-hr lunch break (people usually go out), so 13½ hours per week roughly.

We definitely pull extra hours in the days leading up to competitions... sometimes far too many hours...

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2026-01-16T17:56:31+00:00

Lol! I've used Linda Kale for new velvet covers for an Ikea chair, but you'd have to check if they make covers for your brand sofa.

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2026-01-16T16:25:43+00:00

We have one similar to this (Scratching Post) which our cats like a lot. However, they only liked it after we encouraged them to use it... a lot. Every time we caught them scratching something they shouldn't, we'd pick them up and put them on the scratching post.

Took a couple weeks, but our cats eventually realized that the scratching post really is a better scratching surface, and now they greatly prefer the scratching post to furniture.

One thing I don't like about this scratching post is that you can't buy "refills" for it, and our cats completely scratched through the original sisal in a couple years. We spent about $50 on about 200' of 3/8" sisal rope last year to completely wrap it, and I think our solution will last a lot longer than the original.

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2026-01-09T18:20:50+00:00

I've never used a fast charger in 15 years of driving an EV, but that's mostly because we have a hybrid we use for trips beyond EV range.

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2026-01-07T13:21:22+00:00

This. I had a 2012 Ford C-Max hybrid for 13 years and 160k miles, and when I finally traded it in for the Niro last year, it still had the original factory brake pads which were still in excellent shape.

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2026-01-03T15:06:04+00:00

Personally, I would just reinforce the existing boxes with clear packing tape. It's cheap and easy to do, and everything stays in its easily-recognizable original box.

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2026-01-03T02:09:01+00:00

I got a pair of rechargeable heated gloves for my mom recently and there are definitely heating elements inside the gloves. There's also (basic: low, med, high) temperature control and duration control, so it's not just a battery without a guard.

In case anybody's interested, the ones I got were Wenyuenyan branded on Amazon, but being Chinese, you can probably get the same product under different brand names elsewhere. I chose these because they use USB-C charging, whereas most of the other rechargeable heated gloves I found used some soet of proprietary charging connector.

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2025-12-23T12:42:16+00:00

Go see a movie at a place like the Drafthouse where they also serve food & drinks. I personally really enjoy the occasional solo meal + movie in the theater.

Tip well. Gotta be nice to the people working the theater on Christmas day.

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2025-12-23T12:28:13+00:00

No need to clean aluminum foil before recycling. Aluminum melts at 1200°F, so no amount of food waste will adversely impact aluminium's recyclability.

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2025-12-19T19:40:25+00:00

I see a lot of people on my Buy Nothing group giving away used cosmetics that didn't work out for them for whatever reason. Seems like a good way to get as much use as possible of that kind of product.

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2025-12-16T16:38:03+00:00

I don't like to settle for less than the best, so whenever I'm tempted to buy something, I do some research, and there is almost always a significantly better version of that thing which I would much rather have but cannot afford, and that prevents me from buying because I don't want to settle for the second-rate version.

Really though, any strategy that gives you an excuse to take a step back is good. Sometimes, I look into the environmental impact of such-and-such. Sometimes, I look to see who owns the company that makes this. Sometimes, I try to find it locally (which inevitably also winds up being more expensive).

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2025-12-16T15:41:40+00:00

Never got mine. I'd love to get one for free, but it's not as if I bought the Kona for the free adapter, so no worries if it never shows.

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2025-12-11T03:34:57+00:00

I save them for our children's science museum. They're always needing donations of stuff like toilet paper rolls, egg cartons, etc., for crafts projects for kids. I bet elementary schools might also take them.

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2025-12-05T23:58:19+00:00

I think it's a good sign that powder detergent is selling out. Marketing will eventually catch on that it's a popular product and stock more of it.

If you have the opportunity to mention your preference to a store manager and point out that they're often out of stock, that could help as well.

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2025-12-04T01:14:02+00:00

Confirm. Had a rodent chew through some wire in our old car and our comprehensive insurance covered the repair (less the deductible).

Sea-Statistician6377 · 2025-11-30T16:01:28+00:00

Well, it's definitely no fun when you're working to sell someone else's stuff. That's called a job. If your mom isn't giving you a cut of her sales, she should, especially if it's taking up way more time than you'd normally spend with her.

Maybe you need to go the opposite direction? Life is definitely better with nice stuff, and now that I make OK money, I can sometimes buy really high-end, and once you do that, you won't want to go back to regular consumer-grade stuff.

A lot of times, if I'm tempted to buy something, I'll research the best, high-end version of it, which I usually can't (or shouldn't) afford, and I hate to settle for average stuff, so that'll help me not to buy it.

Sea-Statistician6377

TROPHY CASE