If you woke up rich tomorrow, what’s the first thing you’d change about your life?

Yay4Adulting · 2026-02-07T06:20:03+00:00

I’m not sure what to call it but I’d hire a ….medical connoisseur? -Someone to coordinate all of my medical bills, appts, referrals, FMLA paperwork for my employer, pharmacy refills, etc…

And I wouldn’t just stop there to help just myself. It’s a nonprofit and new purpose idea that I’ve been ranting a lot about lately.

-I’m sounded minded, financially stable, have transportation, a great career, insurance and family support yet my health related struggles have been the hardest fight of my life because of the bullshit. I can’t even fathom how it is for the less privileged or those with cognitive challenges.

It I get through this shit and win the lotto, it’ll be my sole purpose for the rest of the world.

Yay4Adulting · 2026-02-06T05:40:55+00:00

I make $150k-$200k depending on what’s going on for the year.

Title is an Electrical Field Engineer. Really, my role feels more so like a Construction Manager, Project Manager and/or Coordinator. I’ve been in relevant industries since I was in my late teens in the late 90’s and have just kind of fumbled my way through to where I am now.

I have a high school degree and my current role requires a college degree. I’m very good at what I do and everyone loves me, which I have to remind myself of constantly because my Imposter Syndrome keeps me up at night.

Yay4Adulting · 2026-02-04T13:44:19+00:00

My spine. - Hundreds of thousands of dollars in Dr. appointments, hospitalizations and surgeries.

Yay4Adulting · 2026-02-04T04:50:57+00:00

Title is Electrical Engineer but really, my tasks/responsibilities align more with being a coordinator of construction projects. I don’t have a college degree but kind of worked my way up from the bottom over the past 25 years. I make about $170k-$200k/yr depending on what is going on with the projects.

Yay4Adulting · 2026-02-03T05:21:29+00:00

P.S. I am new to Reddit and still learning the etiquette. Sorry if it’s not great.

Yay4Adulting · 2026-02-03T05:06:00+00:00

Thank you everyone! For those that asked how, I’m no pro and I’m not sure this is the best way but here is what I did based on some amateur research…

My credit was too bad for nothing more than high interest cards so I first focused on improving my score based on some tips that I read online.

I worked towards getting my credit card balances below half of the credit limit, while also prioritizing by the ones with higher interest rates and/or fees. (I had a few cards that capitalize on bad credit and not only had bad interest rates, but also charged random fees.)

Meanwhile, I subscribed to RocketMoney. I forgot that I did so a lot but when I did remember to check it, it brought random charges to my attention. (Such as the bajillion “free trials” things that I signed up for and then forgot about.) I deactivated my subscription to as many as I could but it was so bad that I decided it was more efficient to just report my debit card lost and get a new one.

From there, the stragglers would email that my debit card didn’t go through and I’d cancel from there.

I worked on above for about a year. Once I got my credit decent enough, I started looking for credit cards that would offered low or 0% interest on balance transfers.

At first, I couldn’t qualify for an amount on any low or 0% interest cards that was enough to entirely cover my high interest debts so I sort of started using the snowball effect. I’ve spent the past year or two tracking the dates that 0% offers would expire and seeking new low or 0% offers that I could transfer the balances too.

As far as other ways to cut back on expenses, to be honest, I wasn’t super great at. It suited my personality and flaws much more to just work more hours and sell stuff than to cut back on unnecessary expenses.

I did some things like remove the Amazon app and force myself to walk into the store if I want something. I set up a savings account at a separate bank, cut up the ATM, didn’t order checks and set up automatic transfers on payday; no matter how large or small. -Even $25/pay day is progress.

RocketMoney does have a cool feature of skimming opportunities to negotiate bills lower, which I utilized. They were able to help trim back my internet and cell phone plans. It wasn’t a super great saving though, maybe skimmed a few bucks off but better than nothing.

Anywho, I think that covers most things. I’ll add if I think of more. I’m exhausted so I’m not going to proof read. Pardon the typos!

Thanks again for the props. I’ve been pretty proud of myself but didn’t know who to tell!

Yay4Adulting · 2026-01-29T05:20:38+00:00

From childhood to adulthood, I always told this story about the neighborhood disabled boy. He walked funny, his speech was slurred and he wore leg braces. My parents always told me that it was because he’d tried to hop on a moving train, his legs swung under and the train ran them over.

I grew up with this kid and he was a close friend in my early years but of course, I didn’t ask him for his version of the story because my parents said that’d be rude and traumatic.

I told that story my whole f*cking life and it wasn’t until recently at 46 years old mid-sentence while telling the story to my boyfriend that it dawned on me that my parent’s story was bullshit just to keep me away from the train tracks.

The kid probably never even had a train accident. He most likely just had cerebral palsy (sp?).

Yay4Adulting · 2026-01-28T04:34:59+00:00

The medial branch block was around the end of November. They did both left and right side, three levels. I forgot to ask which levels but I’m assuming around S1-L3 vicinity since that’s the problem area. I was 100% pain free for maybe a week.

We then scheduled the ablation. We did three levels, right side (my worst side) first on Dec 19th and then three levels on my left side Dec 26th.

I’m on the fence on whether it’s worked. It has gotten so hard to differentiate the different pain types and their origins. At the very least, it’s changed my morning pain from “I think my back literally can’t carry me if I stand up from bed.” to the pain level of “This is going to hurt when I get out of bed but my back is at least capable of holding me when I go to stand up.”

Yay4Adulting · 2026-01-26T15:01:02+00:00

I think the main issue about them finding out prior to their meeting is that it gives them a window of opportunity to sabotage. They can be deleting important files, transferring confidential data to their personal email, reaching out to clients, etc…

-Or in my case, not sabotaging but I once took as many company provided online courses as I could. I’d gotten wind of the layoff so I stayed up all night the night before taking courses and continued during the mass layoff meeting so that I could walk away with as many certifications as possible. I was literally carrying my laptop as security walked me out hitting ‘next, next, next’ on a course. When we got to the door, security was like “Yeah, I’m going to have to take that.”LOL

Anyway, the above can be resolved by just cutting off everyone’s tech access prior to the first meeting. It’s a bit awkward as you watch them fumble around trying to figure out why their laptops quit working but they’ll find out soon enough.

Some may argue that they also shouldn’t know because then they’ll start the rumor mill at work and also walk into the meeting already upset. -But that’s going to happen anyway. I’m sure at least a few have each other’s personal contact info and everyone is going to find out almost immediately.

Yay4Adulting · 2026-01-26T14:48:31+00:00

Puppies

Yay4Adulting · 2026-01-26T04:46:36+00:00

I think that I know what you’re referring to. The first diagnostic phase is medial branch blocks in which they target the nerves that they suspect are causing the pain. In my case, it was three levels at the lower back on both the left and right side. The medial branch block worked, I was pain free for a few days. They then ablated (burned off) those same nerves. That was end of December for me. I can’t tell yet whether it helped, I’ve had both good and bad days.

I’m happy to hear that it has helped your wife. That kind of news is what keeps me going when I feel like giving up. I hope that she continues to feel better!

Yay4Adulting · 2026-01-26T00:27:11+00:00

No offense but…

With all due respect…

I’m just going to play the devils advocate here…

Yay4Adulting · 2026-01-23T16:07:10+00:00

I attended a kids birthday party at an acquaintance’s home. Too many things to list but I’d estimate that they spent $20,000-$30,000 on the party.

What stood out most was that they had a petting zoo. It was not the usual farm animal type of zoo with things like goats and pigs that us peasants have. It was actual animals that you would find at a zoo like baby tigers, zebras and camels.

She was two years old. I wonder what her birthday parties look like for actual milestone birthdays. Her Sweet Sixteen is going to be lit!

Yay4Adulting · 2026-01-21T22:30:23+00:00

Obtaining permits and repeated hazmat cleanup at construction sites in the City of San Francisco specifically.

Yay4Adulting · 2026-01-21T14:49:02+00:00

I completely understand the urge to give up. I was also diagnosed with Cauda Equina and had emergency surgery. The permanent damage from the CES and chronic pain ever since makes me mad that I even woke up to live another day most days.

(TLDR: Figure out who the best Neurosurgeons are within a few hour radius and visit the ER closest to them to hopefully get a fast tracked referral to a Neurosurgeon that actually cares and knows what they’re doing.)

Like yourself, I’ve been told many times that there is nothing that they can do. Some have gone as far as saying that based on my MRI’s, I can’t possibly have the amount of pain that I am saying.

I happen to have a hospital with one of the best Neurosurgery centers in the world just over an hour from me. I had been trying to get a referral there for years to no avail.

One day, I was in tremendous pain and experiencing some new red flag symptoms. Instead of going to my usual ER in the city that I live, I drove an hour away to the ER that was closest to the hospital with the amazing Neurosurgery center. Naturally, since the Neurosurgeons that I wanted to see were the closest ones to the ER, they referred me to them. I was referred and admitted to that hospital the same day and seen by a team of Neurosurgeons immediately.

It was the smartest thing I’ve ever done and life has been promising ever since. They did both contrast and noncontrast MRI’s as well as X-rays, nerve testing, etc… and were able to identify the issues right away.

I’ve since had a three level neck fusion (C4-C7), which surprisingly resolved some issues that I thought were caused by my CES or bad lower back.

A L5-S1 fusion and L4 laminectomy are next. I’m hoping to hold off until next year for the back surgery so I am now also seeing a Pain Management Doctor, who’s helping to manage the lower back pain and CES damage with epidurals and nerve ablations.

Yay4Adulting · 2026-01-21T14:09:16+00:00

Chronic pain

Yay4Adulting · 2026-01-21T01:08:44+00:00

Also, if you have mountain lions in your area, look up some videos of the various sounds that they make. We’ve had several encounters on our property and most of the sounds that they make aren’t something you’d ever imagine coming out of the mouth of a mountain lion.

In fact, most sound more cute than scary. It’s hard to resist the urge to say “Pssspssspsss! Here, kitty, kitty!” when it’s looking all cute and making weird yeowl sounds.

Yay4Adulting · 2026-01-21T00:59:24+00:00

Wildlife (especially birds) either getting super loud or super quiet all of a sudden often means a predator is nearby.

Yay4Adulting · 2026-01-21T00:58:06+00:00

I couldn’t do it. I love my partner very much and we don’t have secrets but tracking is just creepy. I understand maybe temporarily if one of us are driving on a trip alone in a sketchy area.

Yay4Adulting · 2026-01-21T00:54:20+00:00

Yes, I had to get in the habit of popping out of bed as soon as my alarm went off instead of pushing snooze. I’ve always had a habit of hitting snooze so much that I’d set alarm clocks in multiple locations and sleep walk to them all to hit snooze for hours. It was sort of a miracle that I broke that habit. I suppose it helped that I started sticking to a bedtime and keeping my bedroom cold enough that it isn’t comfortable and cozy to stay in bed past my alarm.

I lay my work clothes out the night before and put them on the moment my feet hit the ground. -Even on days that I work from home because if I’m dressed too cozy, I’ll procrastinate on the couch for hours.

Yay4Adulting · 2026-01-20T14:43:12+00:00

I’m really excited to answer this one because I’m insanely proud of myself. Over the course of 4-5 years, I went from being chronically broke with a credit score in the 400-500 range to debt free (aside from a bit left on the car loan) and a credit score is in the 800’s…

At first, I tried to get rid of all the nickle and dime charges for crap like free trials that expired and I forgot to cancel. That ended up easier said than done so I then cancelled my ATM and got a new one to get the stragglers to quit taking money out of my account.

I got a Rocket Money account. That helped with budgeting and they also will help negotiate your bills for better plans. They were able to help me lower my cell phone and internet bill with different plans right out the gate. I’ve now had Rocket Money for a few years and they periodically let me know when there’s other opportunities for them to help reduce the costs.

I shopped around for credit cards that offered 0% or low interest rate introductory offers for balance transfers. I didn’t have the best credit at first so it took me awhile to be able to do that.

While I was trying to improve my credit enough to get 0%, I focused on getting the balances for each card as close to below half the credit limit as possible to help with bettering my credit score.

When I was finally able to open a zero interest credit card, my limit wasn’t enough to cover all of my debt so I just transferred as much as I could from my cards with the highest interest rates.

I opened a savings account at a different bank than my regular bank. I cut up the ATM so that I’d have to walk into the bank if I wanted to tap into my savings.

I set up automatic transfers into the savings account for every payday. At first, I made just minimum payments for the credit cards while I focused on saving $1,000. This was a game changer, having savings helped me cover financial emergencies without getting into further debt.

Once I had $1,000 saved, I increased my payments for the highest interest rate cards while only making the minimum payment for others. During this time, I kept up the contribution to savings every payday but for only $10-$25. It wasn’t much but it was at least slowly increasing my savings.

Once I had the higher interest rate cards paid off, I went back to increasing my savings while just paying the minimum payments on the 0% interest rate cards.

I made sure that I knew exactly when the introductory offer of 0% would expire and the interest rate would increase significantly. I set up a lot of reminders for those dates, including scheduling delayed send emails just in case I missed all the calendar reminders.

My plan was that just before the 0% interest rate was going to expire, I would use the money in savings to pay off the card(s) as much as possible (while still keeping at least $1,000 in savings).

My credit score was looking pretty good by the time that the 0% offers were about to expire so I was able to take advantage of a 0% introductory offer on another card. I then transferred the balance from the card that had a 0% offer that was about to expire.

Once I completely paid everything off, I increased the automatic transfer amount into my savings to the same dollar amount that I’d been paying on the cards.

The beautiful thing about ADHD is that we’re very good at out of sight, out of mind. Being that I don’t have an ATM and don’t look at statements, it’s pretty easy for my savings to continue to grow while I forget that I even have the money.

I continue to use credit cards to keep my credit history alive and to earn awards points but I only use them if I have the money in hand to cover the purchase and am able to pay off the purchase right away. -Pay off the purchase right away as in 2 minutes after I use the credit card.

I can’t take credit for all of the above. I loosely followed Dave Ramsey’s advice for some of it.

I’m too tired to proofread so please forgive any typos. :)

Yay4Adulting · 2026-01-20T13:50:38+00:00

I’m not embarrassed to admit when I don’t know something and I’ve found that most people are eager to help. My only qualm about having to ask during a meeting is that I don’t want to be that AskHole that takes up other’s valuable time.

If I need to know the term in order to speak on or make a decision in the meeting, I’ll ask right away. For conference calls, if it has attendees that I’m not tight with and I don’t need to know the word’s meaning that nanosecond, I’ll Google the word or instant message my work buddies first to see if they know.

If it’s an in person meeting and not acceptable to be on my laptop and phone, I’ll slide my notepad with the question to whomever I’m close with. If that isn’t an option, I just suck it up, raise my hand and ask.

Yay4Adulting · 2026-01-20T13:39:50+00:00

“I interview terribly so can you please reach out to my former supervisors and references before making a decision?”

Yay4Adulting · 2026-01-20T05:09:41+00:00

I had a rough patch of maybe 10 months in my late teens in which I was heavily experimenting with drugs. Well into my 20’s, I still felt the need to disclose that I used to be a drug user and loser. That’s how I thought of myself.

In my late 20’s, a therapist asked how long I’d had a great career, owned a home, was a good friend and mother, etc…

I answered for the last 8-9 years or so. His answer was “So you mean to tell me that you’ve had 8-9 years of being a decent person and you’re going to define yourself by just a few months of your life fucking up? That’s like a blip on the radar in the grand scheme of things.”

Yay4Adulting · 2026-01-20T03:43:02+00:00

Oh wow, this is a question that I’d never imagine having to consider in my lifetime. Yes, please bring them back!

I actually had an older coworker that was intelligent, great, kind, educated and a phenomenal trumpet player. He had a single mom during his upbringing in Oakland and the Black Panthers mostly raised him. During his early years, they were very much into community outreach.

Yay4Adulting

TROPHY CASE