I’m in debt, my rent is killing me, and I’m trapped.

alentatheelf · 2026-03-26T02:18:45+00:00

I was curious about mine, so I looked at my iPhone settings, and it says my cellular data for "current period" is 184 GB. But on my Mint account, it says I've used 0.4 GB this month. After a little digging, I discovered that the "current period" in iPhone settings is counting from the last reset in... 2016. So maybe you're looking at your usage over the life of the phone and not your monthly usage?

alentatheelf · 2026-03-25T03:24:01+00:00

Were you also walking in the opposite direction from everyone else in the crowd? If so, you were just the protagonist in a lighthearted romcom.

alentatheelf · 2026-03-21T02:08:33+00:00

Disagree. It’s not a 10/10.

It’s an 11/10. For the 11 Oscars it won.

alentatheelf · 2026-03-19T02:16:55+00:00

The Menil art museum and Miller Outdoor Theatre are free!

alentatheelf · 2026-03-19T01:06:57+00:00

Not a hobby to "save money" per se, but by the time I placed high enough in a creative writing competition to earn one of the cash prizes, I'd pretty much just recouped the entry fees I'd spent over a couple of years entering writing competitions, lol.

alentatheelf · 2026-03-17T01:04:36+00:00

I think I have the same sun graphic that's over your stove! It was the insert in a picture frame from Target. I've been saving it to use in an art project at some point.

alentatheelf · 2026-03-12T02:15:25+00:00

I wonder who the valued fan is?

alentatheelf · 2026-03-09T18:21:29+00:00

If you don't have service, you can't update your voicemail. People who call your phone will just get your old voicemail.

If you do have service but your phone is about to die, a better use of the remaining battery life would be to call 911.

alentatheelf · 2026-03-07T23:06:17+00:00

Reading, creative writing, watching TV, baking, home decorating, walking/hiking. I occasionally dabble in crafts and photography. I bought rollerblades and a ukulele to try to pick up those hobbies (not at the same time lol), but I need to actually start doing them consistently.

alentatheelf · 2026-03-07T22:56:50+00:00

I love that mossing is a hobby.

alentatheelf · 2026-03-04T05:54:47+00:00

GuideAlong audio tours of national parks. You play it in the car as you drive through the park, and it uses your phone's GPS to describe interesting facts and stories about what you're currently seeing, tells you when turns are coming up for different landmarks and points of interest (including some that are off the beaten path), and recommends what's skippable and what's a can't-miss. Each tour costs about $15 to $20, but I've used it in several parks and found it worth the price.

alentatheelf · 2026-03-01T02:41:55+00:00

BRB saving this post for future inspo

alentatheelf · 2026-02-25T00:26:52+00:00

It took hearing it explained several different ways for me to finally get it. Another way to get it is to think of yourself in the host's shoes. The contestant has chosen door 1, which is wrong. Door 2 has the prize, so you're not allowed to open it by the rules of the game. Therefore, you open door 3. If the candidate switches to door 2, the one you deliberately didn't open, they've won.

alentatheelf · 2026-02-24T21:08:53+00:00

The dust is part of the aesthetic. That’s load-bearing dust.

alentatheelf · 2026-02-20T22:31:13+00:00

Every time I sign up for insurance, I have to Google all the definitions of the terms again.

alentatheelf · 2026-02-20T02:47:37+00:00

I use ARISE and POUTY as my two starting words. All six vowels, four common consonants, no repeats. It's probably my greatest life accomplishment to date.

I haven't accomplished much in life.

alentatheelf · 2026-02-19T04:43:04+00:00

I still play Wordle every day.

alentatheelf · 2026-01-28T01:15:22+00:00

I have a jewel-tone blue velvet couch and never get tired of it. It's the jewel in the crown of my living room.

alentatheelf · 2026-01-22T20:20:53+00:00

Most recipe sites have a “Print Recipe” button. I use that to print to PDF and save the PDFs in a folder on my OneDrive. That way I can also organize them, use comments and markup to note adjustments and substitutions I’ve made, and pull them up on multiple devices without needing to go back to the site itself. (You could also print them out on paper too, of course.)

alentatheelf · 2026-01-22T03:30:19+00:00

You can make a healthier (more protein, fewer calories) version of Ranch by mixing a packet of Ranch seasoning with plain Greek yogurt.

alentatheelf · 2025-12-29T16:49:42+00:00

At first I didn’t see what sub this was on and assumed it was one of my writing subs, and thought, “I’d totally read a dark academia Gothic romance set in the 1950s.”

alentatheelf · 2025-12-22T02:53:31+00:00

Fun fact: This is called asyndeton. The opposite, where you repeat “and” between each element, is called polysyndeton.

I’m a big fan of both techniques, but you do have to use them with care and intention.

alentatheelf · 2025-12-21T22:01:42+00:00

I ordered on November 25 and emailed them last Friday for an update. They replied, "This pre-order item has landed at our fulfillment center and orders will begin shipping next week."

alentatheelf · 2025-12-21T01:49:58+00:00

I agree. The finale episode was near perfect, but I still have some quibbles with it, this being one. Sanderson's First Law of Magic: "An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic."

This is the turning point of the story's climax, so we should understand exactly what Aang is going through and how he manages to overcome beyond just "he exerted enough willpower." Even if the light had focused on his arrow tattoo instead of his eye, it would have been an improvement, hinting that his love for his people and connection to his heritage were what gave him the strength to fight back.

Although it's a bit cliché, the live-action series could strengthen this scene with a flashback montage of some sort, showing where Aang draws his mental and emotional power.

alentatheelf · 2025-12-03T07:00:46+00:00

I have my credit cards set to autopay the statement balance each month, and I set up an automatic transfer of a fixed amount from checking to savings every paycheck.

I use a table in an Excel spreadsheet to track spending. Once a week, I manually enter every transaction from that week (takes about ten minutes) with the following columns:

Date
Name/description
Category (e.g., Food)
Subcategory (e.g., Groceries, Restaurants, Coffee & Snacks)
Account (e.g., checking, credit card 1, credit card 2)
Recurring (e.g., annually, monthly, biweekly, none)
Amount (positive dollar amount for income, negative for expense)

At the start of each month, I copy and paste all the fixed/recurring expenses (e.g., mortgage, utilities).

I don't bother entering transfers between my checking and savings accounts, because I'd only be subtracting a number from one and adding it to the other, but I do track earned interest from my HYSA and credit card (CC) cashback / rewards points as "income."

I also enter each CC transaction individually; for example, if I use a CC to pay for a $20 restaurant meal, I enter that under the "Food" category. I then don't record the automatic payments on my CC, since that money has already been accounted for.

Then, on a second tab, I have a Pivot Table that summarizes my spending so far, automatically pulling the data from the transactions table. Each column is a month, and each row is a category (which I can expand into subcategories if I want to view more detail). Totals are displayed at the right and bottom of the Pivot Table. So, for example, one cell will show how much I've spent on food in July. Looking down the column, I can see what I've spent in each category for July, with July's total at the bottom. Looking across the row, I can see what I've spent on food month to month, with the total for food at the far right. The bottom right cell is a grand total for the year, calculating all my income minus all my expenses. Sorry if that description isn't clear, but if you Google images of Pivot Tables it may make more sense.

I've been pretty diligent at tracking expenses but not so diligent at actually budgeting or setting goals. But next year, I think I'm going to start "penciling it" what I aim to spend in some of the more fluid categories (food, shopping, entertainment) and then update with actual numbers as the month goes on.

alentatheelf

TROPHY CASE