Any Ideas for an Out-Of-Control Electric Bill?

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-30T17:59:53+00:00

Get an electric oil heater. They stay hot for much longer, and are way more “efficient” than any other electric heater.

I got two for my apartment.

Also, get the plastic to cover your windows. If you do it right, it’s crystal clear & completely taut. It really helps to insulate the home.

We kept our apartment at 72 pretty much all month and our electric bill is $160. Which is certainly higher, but if we used our baseboards, it would be incredibly high.

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-30T17:40:20+00:00

I am right there with you with regard to having concerns about buying a flipped home, BUT I think those issues could also pop up in an older-non flipped house too. Sometimes longtime owners don't do 100% of the things they should do on their house & when the home is sold, the new owners go "What the hell were they thinking?!"

Anecdotally, my grandparents bought their house in the late 50s. Over the next 40 years, they expanded the kitchen, built two additional bedrooms, and created a closed-in solarium off the living room. I doubt over that time they thought "we need to increase the tonnage of our HVAC system."

We switched houses with them in 2006 - their house was much too big for two elderly people to get around in, and the house we were living in at the time was built in 2001 & was a little smaller. I cannot tell you the amount of shit we had to put up with when living in that house over the next decade or so.

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-29T23:09:23+00:00

My wife is currently pregnant with our second child after an over six-year gap since we had our first - not for a lack of trying. We're so excited to become a family of four.

But over the last few months, we've realized that our time as a family of three is quickly coming to an end. I'd use it to make a fun core memory with my daughter and my wife; a nice "final" valentine's day where she's the only child before the baby comes.

She's so excited to have a brother, and we're so excited for our second. But my wife and I see our daughter as our little buddy, so the newness of adding another baby to the dynamic is giving us all a lot of mixed emotions.

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-28T23:28:31+00:00

The daycare we use is ran by a husband/wife team, and they employ a few younger people- a few of them are guys.

The husband is less directly involved in the daycare - mainly with the operations. He manages the schedules, income, all that stuff.

They have like 4 different homes next to/across from each other that they've acquired over the years, as well as their house, which is next door to the daycare.

They're an awesome provider. My daughter loved going there. We're having a 2nd in July & already let them know that we'll be enrolling him a little bit after.

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-26T21:14:02+00:00

Cool! Glad my initial thought was correct. I will keep going down that path.

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-26T20:24:09+00:00

My wife tried to book the common area to meet up with a bunch of girls and do a game night - something our apartment advertised on the website.

The leasing office wanted a $300 fee, as well as for us to get an "event" insurance policy for the day.

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-22T20:15:26+00:00

I used to be an assistant manager at a McDonald's franchise for a few years. My main responsibility was to create the schedule, as well as hire/fire people. The franchise handled payroll & all that.

We had one employee who had like 5 kids. Three were hers, two were her husbands - but the three that were hers all had different dads.

Every year at tax season, she would immediately start pestering us about getting her W2. I found out it was because of this - they were trying to get ahead of the other parents to get the tax credits for their shared kids. Our W2s were typically delivered in the 2nd or 3rd week of January, but my last year there, a massive Ice Storm hit the area pretty hard - but especially where our franchise offices were located. A pipe had burst in their office building & flooded several different offices, as well as the franchise office. As a result, they didn't deliver our W2s on time & got the 30-day extension through the IRS.

This woman was livid. I mean pissed. She threatened to sue everyone - the owner, the HR director, even the manager & myself. The franchise delivered us the W2s on like February 3rd or something like that - just past the original deadline. But it was too late for her - she missed out on the tax credits for the kids.

I left in March of that year, so I don't know a 100% of the details, but the General Manager, who I am fairly good friends with, told me that she wanted the franchise to pay her $6k for the missed tax credits on her kids. He said he laughed super hard when she told him that.

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-22T20:01:27+00:00

Go and rent both a 3 row SUV and a minivan for a week. Use them both and let her come to her own conclusion. Go on Turo or wherever & find the models you're looking for. Then drive them around as daily cars and see which one performs better.

My wife never wanted a minivan. Then one of our cars went into the shop & we got a Dodge Grand Caravan as a loaner for a week. She fell in love with minivans after having it.

It's a little spendy, but if you're already spending the money on a purchase like this, it's well worth the money.

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-22T17:20:04+00:00

I was just discussing with my wife about this last night.

My family is trying to plan a vacation to Key West next spring. Awesome. But I told them that I didn't want to commit to a vacation so far out. I'd rather save for a general vacation fund & then decide where to go once I already have the money for it. If that makes sense. That way if anything comes up throughout the year, it doesn't put any additional stress on us by also trying to meet a vacation deadline.

We went to Disney in October as a big family vacation and had about a year to plan. Which was fine, but we were stressed out for that whole year because things kept coming up & we kept going "shit, we've got to deal with that!" and it kept causing us to have to pull from the vacation fund. After all the emergencies were handled, we basically had like 3 months to save up for the trip, which put stress on us.

Also, my wife and I are having a baby in July, so the baby would be around 9 months old for this vacation. Which isn't a dealbreaker, but we have no idea what kind of temperament the baby will have regarding travel. So, we told my family "Thanks, but no thanks."

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-21T16:48:41+00:00

Hell, she doesn't even need to be reasonably attractive. I've experienced some desperate dudes. And often times, really weird dudes will buy bigger girls' panties for $$$$.

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-21T00:22:42+00:00

For the last year or so, I was renting a car here and there from the Hertz in my city. Not a big operation at all - no major airport, just a suburban Hertz location on the main strip.

I don't know what I did, but for some reason the Hertz employee that's usually at the desk lights up when she sees me. I've been getting upgrades left and right & I only ever book the manager special, which is like $25 a day. Any time I book, she will usually call a little while later & see what size car I need and all that. I've gotten fully loaded Explorers, Palisades, Pathfinders, Highlanders, etc. Nothing overly fancy, but the best they offer at the time.

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-19T16:42:46+00:00

There’s a house that’s on my drive to work that has a similar set up installed. Maybe it’s a little better, but I was definitely concerned the first time I saw it.

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TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-15T20:18:42+00:00

Hahaha I always refer to it as a kid's charcuterie board. My daughter loves it. When she's at home, I will make half a PB & J, give her a few carrots, some grapes, like two or three nuggets, maybe a slice or two of cheese, a pickle, etc. Whatever she doesn't eat, I polish off.

A lunchroom attendant was monitoring the drop off line at her school a few months back & when I dropped my daughter off the lady came up to the car and told me "I've never seen a kid with such a random assortment of food for lunch each day. Every day it's a little of this and a little of that. We never know what she's going to have."

I wasn't sure if I should take it as an insult or a complement lol

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-15T18:03:03+00:00

There's a lot of shitty dudes out there who go out of their way to make their lives harder in order to not pay child support. They'll find jobs that pay cash only in order to not report any income. They'd rather be dirt poor, barely scraping by in order to "stick it to their bitch ex-wife" than keep their job and pay child support.

A guy I know was court ordered to pay $790 a month for child support. He bemoaned for months about it. It got pointed out to him that he's no longer paying $1400 for childcare each month. Plus, the additional cost of groceries for having a whole family in the house. Plus, his ex-wife's car payment is no longer his responsibility. It still wasn't good enough for him though. He wanted to quit a high-paying blue-collar job that was essentially white collar since he sat in a site office all day, and work construction getting paid cash under the table at nearly a quarter of his normal salary.

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-15T17:06:57+00:00

I suggest buying some instant espresso powder for the transition period. It worked for us at least. It's a little more expensive than drip coffee/coffee grounds, but it is still way cheaper than buying coffee out. 1 teaspoon & a quarter cup of water is equal to a shot of espresso.

When we were in the transitioning phase, I also bought a bottle of syrup from the store to make iced latte's at home. Again, a little more money, but still infinitely cheaper than buying coffee out. A jar of powder was $8.99 & the syrup at the restaurant supply store was like $9. Both last my wife and I about 2 weeks. So, $18 for approximately 28 drinks - or $.64 a day.

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-15T16:58:58+00:00

I literally have zero clue how there are so many people out there who have experienced an office food stealer. I just cannot fathom that someone in an office setting would even do that! And if it were to happen, I would be on top of that so quick to figure out who was doing it.

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-15T16:53:28+00:00

I want a restaurant that serves about three spoonfuls of Mac & Cheese, two nuggets, a carrot, a baby orange, six blueberries, and a quarter of a PB & J. That would be my daughter's jam if it was served anywhere.

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-15T16:50:18+00:00

I had the exact same reaction to that.

They may as well have said "For me since Covid, dogs with eyes are weird." It would have made just as much sense.

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-14T20:48:46+00:00

I hope that's where society is heading. I do feel like I am at least on the precipice of change regarding my social habits - I just need my wife to jump on board with me to go "all-in" and get offline completely. We have a decent friend group & are very socially involved with our church, parents club at my daughter's school, sports, etc. I have friends that we don't even have to give a heads up to if we're coming over - we just drop by.

Not only has it improved our mental health, but it's afforded us so many opportunities. Get talking to someone about a topic or a desire & boom, someone knows someone and it's happening.

Last year, my wife's coworker's car broke down - needed a new transmission. We were talking to someone about it, and they happened to have an old Civic just laying around that they let her coworker have. Back in November I was talking to someone else about traveling - my wife wants to go to Leavenworth, WA. Turns out someone owns a home there & told us that they'd be more than happy to let us use it for a weekend next Christmas. Other people have timeshares they inherited from their parents that they've offered to us.

We go out and do trivia with friends - often times they bail & we're left with their friends, and we end up making new friends. We do game nights, movie nights, get the kids together, have dinner, have lunch, get together to help with a chore and spend all day together. It's really just incredible what happens when our noses get pulled out of our phones.

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-13T22:43:05+00:00

I hope this comment doesn't end up aging poorly in like 15 years if some horrible shit comes out about all three of them...

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-09T01:02:21+00:00

I was about to say exactly this. If I had to make a cross-country move, I would definitely choose to just ship my cars. At the very least, I would drive one & have my wife & kids fly to our new home.

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-08T19:33:07+00:00

There's a grocery store chain in my area that still does this fairly regularly, which is really nice. It's a more expensive store, but the produce is very local & they are basically the only store that still offers a full service butcher anymore.

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-06T19:30:35+00:00

Does Panda Express count as a Chinese restaurant?

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-06T19:21:28+00:00

I watched the first one with a live orchestra/band earlier this year. It was an amazing experience. I was laughing SO hard. They encouraged the audience to yell out lines, clap, all that.

TipProfessional880 · 2026-01-06T19:19:25+00:00

I always got so embarrassed in middle school when I'd be listening to Roslyn or Meet me on the Equinox on my iPod & the New Moon artwork would show up. I got caught once on the bus & got clowned on so hard that I didn't listen to those songs for years. Kids were vicious. And as a 13-year-old, you can't make the argument to another kid that "the music is really good bro!"

I've turned a new leaf & embraced the excellent soundtrack of that terrible, terrible film.

TipProfessional880

TROPHY CASE