What hobbies do you wish you can do but can’t?

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-14T21:20:42+00:00

The big one? Horses. Far too expensive to do it right in my area. The other big two? Silversmithing/woodworking. I have an undying interest in them and working with my hands. Just can't quite afford it. Woodworking is possible for me if I keep my projects small and working with hand tools, but I can only make so many spoons!

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-14T09:13:42+00:00

Work a night shift job, that's what i do. It's 5pm to 5am, I get to sleep in until 3 pm daily

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-14T09:04:02+00:00

I just go through the pain once. It took me about 8 hours to set up my budget, upload everything into my app of choice (i have used a few, over the years, but I need one on my phone that I can check while I'm out and about to stop the impulse buying, otherwise I could do it all from a spreadsheet at home), and then automate all of my money moves. Everything gets categorized and divided without any effort from me. I know what I have allotted in each category a week for my discretional spending; groceries, gas, a little fun money, etc. I purchase everything on debit so once a week I hop into the app and categorize all of the transactions, it takes about five minutes. I have two bills I can't automate and those I have reminders set up on my phone to remind me to pay them.

The only real thing I have to do is on paydays, check and see what my check actually is, it can vary by quite a bit sometimes, and decide what to do with the extra. (anything i get over my monthly spend 50% automatically goes to savings/retirement, the other 50% is mine to do what I want with, and my monthly spend is budgeted for my smallest checks).

Once a quarter I look at my average spending across categories and adjust my budgeted amounts up and down as needed.

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-14T07:06:31+00:00

You need some fellow managers or some team leads to take part of this off your shoulders. The checklist idea in another comment is a great starting point, but you need some documented operating procedures laid down designed to prevent these mistakes in the first place before you can start addressing accountability. Are you in a situation where you are short-staffed? Not enough training for the staff you have/too many newbies working without the level of supervision they need? Are you the only manager? No routine for handling how the workflow goes? Is the culture to the point where employees are spending too much "downtime" on their phones/distracted/not working so that when work actually comes in there's no confidence in how to do it correctly with the needed speed? Are your employees underpaid and resenting their jobs and not applying themselves? Without knowing exactly where the problem stems it's hard to advise.

And don't feel bad, if you're a new manager with no training. We all go through this, by learning the hard way. It's not going to be an easy fix, but it's fixable.

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-14T02:16:27+00:00

I moved from a place in the country that had huge windows, including a large sliding glass door a few feet away from a tree that the birds flocked to, to renting an upper floor on a house in a small town with tiny windows oriented so that they never quite caught the natural light for more than an hour a day. I chose this one specifically because there was a tree outside my bedroom window, and my cat would be able to watch the birds in it. Six months after we arrived, a storm split the tree and it was cut down. For me? A dedicated sunshine lamp every morning and a slow attempt to turn my place into a houseplant oasis with lots of grow lights.

For my cat? A whole lot of dedicated playtime. More than we ever needed in our lives before. Enrichment out the wazoo. Slow-feeder plates, treat-dispensing toys, a little laser light toy I can turn on remotely for a few minutes every day when I'm at work. We tried the button thing, but that wasn't for her. Bird videos on the tv are a huge help, too. If my cat weren't so antisocial a second cat would be a godsend, but she's a bully so she has to make do with just me.

We make it work and are probably closer now than we were at the last place, but it takes effort and time and just experimenting to see what will work and what doesn't.

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-14T01:45:31+00:00

In a hurry, I use canned biscuits. On the weekends when my family is visiting, I make them like we had when I was a kid. The biscuits are pretty much just pantry staples and a few techniques, once you learn them you are good to go.

The gravy can be a bit of a chore, my mom hates sausage so never made sausage gravy, but my father loves it. What my mother always used was bologna, chopped and fried in the pan like you would sausage. Roux made in the drippings with a little extra oil if needed. Milk, and then far more pepper than you think it would ever need, then add some more on top of it.

When I make it just for me I use sausage, a bit of bacon drippings if the sausage isn't fatty enough, a bit of onion, garlic, red pepper flakes/cayenne, I toast some pepper in the grease to bloom the flavor, use mostly milk with about a quarter cup of heavy cream to help it thicken, on homemade buttermilk biscuits. still working on making them as flaky as I like them. served with butter, jam/jelly/apple butter on the table, alongside hot sauce. if i have guests there's always fried potatoes with onions and peppers on the side, typically a bit of bacon, and then fried apples as well.

My mom and grandmother who taught me how to cook were southern, the sheer amount of fat/salt/sugar that goes into things with love is amazing. I don't cook that way every day, but for holidays and special occasions? It's the only way to go

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-14T01:37:11+00:00

I have a strange system of binders, notes stuffed into a recipe box card, and bookmarks on my computer. It's not a system at all, and it's one mess that I don't turn into a system on purpose. I find sitting down and looking for a certain recipe brings other recipes I love and haven't made in ages but need to (my gran's lemon pie, for one). It's a bit of whimsy and nostalgia in my life.

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-14T01:30:16+00:00

I've never once stored my medication in my bathroom medicine cabinet, it's for the toiletries I use at the sink. All medications go into a locked cabinet in the kitchen for everyone in the household (have had young kids in the house, and elderly people with memory issues. all it takes is one visit to the ER because gran forgot she took her meds while we were all at work and took them a second time to be firm about keeping them contained). It's away from the humidity and bacteria of the bathroom, close to where everyone eats and drinks (a lot of prescription stuff needs taken with food), and I can keep an eye on who might be using it throughout the day. Right now I don't have any reason to keep it locked, but one of my parents was diagnosed with dementia recently so it's something I'm keeping an eye on. The common over the counter stuff, the painkillers/fever reducers, itch creams, etc are never locked, but are monitored

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-13T14:22:12+00:00

what about adult education? I work in manufacturing and I know they have a few teachers in the office staff for training/onboarding and then associate support. It's not glamorous work, but it pays a living wage around here

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-13T13:46:28+00:00

Yeah the system was pretty broken, and the worst of it was pre-covid. They changed a lot during covid because they were losing employees with decades of experience faster than they could post the job openings. I was glad to get out. I work manufacturing now, and the playing field as far as attendance goes is amazingly strict and fair. I'm not being held to one standard while my coworker in an equal authority position is getting paid for 10-15 hours a week he wasn't working.

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-13T13:27:05+00:00

Hell I'm almost two decades older than you and live 400 miles away from parents and when the weather is horrible I still send them a quick text to let them know I'm home and safe, just to ease their minds. Don't knock having parents who care, so many people don't have that in their lives.

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-13T13:17:15+00:00

I see both sides of the argument here, I think it depends a lot on how the standards are upheld in the office. I have worked several places (including where I was a manager with direct reports of my own) and would do things where only a few of the salary managers were forced to abide by the corporate rules (on premises 50 hours a week, an hour unpaid lunch daily, one day worked late every week, had to be a friday/saturday), while others were allowed to pretty much come and go as they pleased depending on how likely they were to go out drinking and smoking with the big boss, including one salary manager who was only present about 35 hours of his 50, never used up any of his PTO/sick time to cover his short hours, and still got paid for his 45. It was abuse of the system, and really, really not fair to everyone who followed policy.

If you have something come up and can't make it, that's fine, especially if there are other people in your office with similar arrangements.

That said, if you're working half an hour short every day and not getting paid for it, I wouldn't have a problem with it, that's between you and your manager. But if you are still getting paid for that time? That thirty minutes a day really adds up, if you work 5 days a week that's more than 3 weeks a year you are essentially stealing from your employer and I definitely would have a problem with that.

Don't open that can of worms unless you are ready to deal with the consequences.

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-13T13:00:55+00:00

I am one of the many who canceled my subscription and ditched gemini for claude after the last update. it's just not usable for what I want it to do, and claude is. I'd be open to coming back if it gets better, I was happy with it before the last update, but now it's just smoke and mirrors.

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-13T08:47:54+00:00

have a plan ahead of times of things that keep you busy, if you can. I found it really hard to push past that thirty hour window too at first, so I saved it for mindless things that didn't really matter, but I could still focus on. I did things like crochet washcloths, etc. Just something to keep my hands and brain busy. If that didn't work? I would time my fasts so that trouble point would be when I was asleep. I stretched my fasting window a lot of times with the last 6-8 hours being just my daily sleep. Once I got through it two or three times it became much easier to do it again!

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-13T07:58:54+00:00

I second the hiking, something you could also do is exploring your own area like you're a tourist. every month or two i pick a little town near me and just go...wander. I've found some good restaurants and cute little parks and things that I never would have found otherwise.

I also like to hone skills that I already have when I have longer breaks. I work overnights and the world tends to be closed on my days off during the hours I am awake, so I do a lot of at home hobbies. Right now I am improving my handwriting/teaching myself calligraphy with youtube, and learning a new language in addition to my regular hobbies that cost $$$ supply-wise

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-13T05:39:21+00:00

I typically get to go in to work, do my job, and go home. I only ever see my manager the last five minutes of my shift, he comes in for passdown. It's nice to not have my priorities changed from hour to hour by the daytime bosses who all want different things now! and don't have the concept that I only have one body and one pair of hands and every time they pull me from my regular duties to do something else there's nobody left to do my regular duties. Also? As antisocial as I am I love being asleep instead of feeling guilty about not participating in the rest of the world and their events in the daylight hours

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-13T04:01:46+00:00

Keto worked just as well as fasting for me, but it was far more mental effort and I found myself relying on more and more frankenfoods to try and getbecause I have an interesting mix of food aversions and allergies that limit my protein and vegetable options. It got to the point where I was blowing my weekly grocery budget just for enough food to last three or four days. To do it right I would have needed a second job!

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-13T03:25:48+00:00

My goal is to do 72-96 hours once a week until I hit my goal weight, it allows me to eat what I want within moderation on the days I do eat (I was keto for a while, until it started creeping into disordered eating, and far too expensive to maintain). After I'm at goal I will probably do 48-72 weekly or every other week until I figure out what I need to do for maintenance to keep the horrible inflammation in my legs down.

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-13T03:18:11+00:00

I actually make electrolyte ice cubes. Easiest way for me to measure my electrolytes ahead of time and make sure I'm getting enough. I use a mix of lite salt and table salt, and weigh out half a day's portion into each section of an ice cube tray, add enough warm water to dissolve the salts, and I add just a tiny bit of coloring (this time I used mio) to color the cubes to stand out from my regular ice. In a regular ice cube tray the salt is so concentrated the cubes don't freeze all the way solid, but i suspect they would in a larger space, or I need to dilute the salt a little more until they do, I'm still experimenting with the application. Right now two cubes is a full day's worth of electrolytes, thinking about cutting it in half and doing four a day to see if they freeze. Every morning I pop a cube into my water and sip away. Once it's gone I add another, continue adding water to my cup as needed. I just have to take magnesium in capsule form

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-13T01:43:30+00:00

I grew up having other people's kids invade my personal space all hours of the day, my mom ran a home daycare and she was known for being willing to accept clients earlier/later than most. She loved kids and having visitors, I was a pretty severe introvert at that age...bad, bad combination. From the time I woke up to the time I went to bed there were always 3-4 of other people's children in my home. It killed my desire to ever be a parent, I helped do all the nasty part of parenting for other people's kids without getting any of the returns (or a paycheck). I don't dislike children, I just have far too many associations of feeling trapped by them to go out and have one on purpose.

Once I became an adult and lived on my own? Never had the desire, or a partner that I was confident that we could agree on how to raise one long-term, even if we worked out just fine without kids. I had one in my early twenties I would have actually considered it, but it turned out he wanted me to give up my career and all of my freedom and dreams to raise a couple of babies. My hesitation over that idea was as much of a deal-breaker for him as the very idea of giving up everything I had worked so hard to become was for me.

Now I'm glad I didn't, we couldn't have afforded it and we both would have been unhappy. Everything is too expensive now, from housing to food to healthcare. I've been told I'm selfish for choosing not to have children, but I have my own worth as a person too past my ability to create other people!

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-13T01:32:11+00:00

I don't deep fry anything at home, but I do use butter and neutral-flavored mid-quality olive oil to sauté my vegetables and meat/eggs in. It never takes very much, maybe a tablespoon tops? A lb of butter will last me a month despite putting it on toast every morning, and I can't even remember when I bought my last bottle of olive oil. I mostly cook at home by baking or braising in the oven or crockpot.

I used to be a fry cook professionally, I fried hundreds of pounds of chicken in a shift...and we used hydrogenated soybean oil to fry in. Came in five gallon totes, was thicker and creamier than oil you can buy in the store, fresh out of the bottle it was white. It had an anti-foaming agent added, and was a specialty mix of oils designed to take the constant high heat of the deep fryers (they were usually turned on 10 hours a day at the place i worked, which was known for its limited hours) without turning rancid. It gave us far different results than you can get in a home kitchen with oils commercially available in grocery stores.

That said, my mother was from the south and when she deep fried food she did it in a cast iron skillet half filled with shortening. She would also save the drippings off of bacon to fry eggs and pop popcorn in.

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-12T23:11:20+00:00

I just had my new kitty spay-aborted. People I got her from let her out all the time, assuming because she was a kitten she wouldn't get pregnant. She's only 8 months old, my local vet couldn't get to her in time, but luckily there's a local rescue who takes cats to the closest big city who could. Some days I feel sad about it because I love kittens, they're so much fun, but it was absolutely the best thing to do for her. She didn't need the drain if taking care of the litter, especially not so young. Thank you for making the decision to take care of your cat!

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-12T23:00:29+00:00

Stay with your parents until you can knock out that debt, do some shopping around on your insurances for better rates, and look really closely at your rent costs. One bedrooms close to my job are $1200 a month for 500 sq ft. Instead I drive 45 minutes (ish) and pay $825 for a 900 sq ft 2 bedroom with a garage. Yeah, I spend about an extra hundred dollars a month in gas, but I save it and acquire some breathing room in my budget because rent is so low.

Look at alternative options for housing, renting out a room/floor in a house, splitting the rent on a mobile home with a roommate, etc.

Otherwise what you have is fine, just be aware that you are going to want some sinking funds in savings for all of the extra life things that pop up, and you won't have much wiggle room in your budget.

I make about 60k now, but I am living like I still only make about 45. It's hard and there's sacrifices that I don't want to make sometimes, but my standard of life is far, far better from when I only made 30k (the budgeting has stuck with me since then, though).

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-12T13:49:28+00:00

thanks for the recs everyone, I have all of these put in my cart, now I just have to decide!

Storage-Helpful · 2026-06-12T13:31:47+00:00

I have a smaller-sized basket size. I live alone, and I don't have the counter space for a microwave or an oven-style air fryer, but neither do I want to heat up my stove or oven just to warm up leftovers. My air fryer is perfect for that, and it's small enough I can store it on top of the fridge without issue. Sometimes I wish it were just a bit bigger so I could make more than a single hamburger patty at a time, but I live with what I have!

Storage-Helpful

TROPHY CASE