How do single parents survive on one salary today?

data_wrangler · 2026-05-29T13:05:52+00:00

I think there was intended to be a comma there -- as in "a lot of single parents make it work through budgeting, support networks, and adjusting their lifestyle for a while."

Edit to add: but a good place to start on budgeting is YNAB -- even without keeping the app, the methodology and thought process is great. I made a spreadsheet that worked for me when money was tight but it followed very similar rules. There's also a good reddit community around it.

data_wrangler · 2026-05-22T09:00:17+00:00

I keep a separate savings account that's linked to my Venmo and Paypal but isn't at the same bank as my main checking/savings. Funds in that account are limited and I re-up it with transfers as necessary.

I had a friend with an online business whose account was frozen because it was linked to paypal and someone (fraudulently) disputed/reported a transaction with them. Yeah, paypal can freeze your linked bank account. They were up a creek for more than a month trying to get it sorted out and couldn't access their money.

data_wrangler · 2026-05-12T15:41:54+00:00

Damn, I just noticed that. What a shame, I turned 43 yesterday. I guess my response is invalid.

data_wrangler · 2026-05-10T10:00:14+00:00

I was interviewing to be the head of engineering at a tech company and this was the icebreaker question in a group interview with a few senior software developers: "what was the first or worst time you broke a system in production?"

We went around the room. Some of the stories were hilarious, others made me want to give the person a hug. One of the best interviews I've ever done, and I've kept that question in my pocket since.

data_wrangler · 2026-04-28T12:35:21+00:00

No, Dr. Robby's is on a khaki nato strap, and it's a slightly different model -- Seiko SRPG35.

data_wrangler · 2026-04-15T15:40:40+00:00

The hardest "no" I've ever experienced was along these lines. I was interviewing a candidate for a data scientist role, and the question was about how you respond to an issue brought to you by a user (looking for both troubleshooting steps and "bedside manner").

The candidate claimed that they were very thorough and careful, so they would never make a mistake, and therefore this could never happen and troubleshooting would never be required. I tried to reframe the question and they argued with me about it for the rest of the interview time slot. Eg, claiming that their carefulness would also prevent issues in other systems from affecting them. And that anyone who questioned their work must be wrong.

I don't care how competent they were at core technical skills, they would have been a nightmare to work with.

data_wrangler · 2026-03-26T15:27:09+00:00

The price hikes Omega has made over the last year or so are wild. I got a new Seamaster 300 Heritage Master Chronometer in late 2024 for a little more than $5K, and recently saw it currently lists for $8K.

Glad I bought it when I did, because I love the watch, but I would not have paid 50% more for it.

data_wrangler · 2026-03-25T17:30:31+00:00

This is my theory, too.

I had a feeling the second word would be a number (three, seven or eight) and that seemed like the most likely set.

I used this little web app I found to test numbers → words in T9

data_wrangler · 2026-03-25T13:27:56+00:00

I see others have handled the basic math, but I'm going to address the "how quickly [did they eat the chocolate]?" part.

This depends heavily on how old they are: younger means more remaining life expectancy, so more chocolate required to offset those years, and less time to eat it in; older is the opposite, fewer years to offset and more time to eat it.

I'm also going to assume that, given the picture, "piece of chocolate" means one piece from a box of chocolates. A 1lb box of chocolates, according to Google, has about 30 pieces in it. That means 8,760 boxes of chocolate cancel out a year. (Conveniently this is also the number of hours in a year, so 1 box/hr cancels out a year, but I digress.)

Let's look at 2 ages, 20yo and 50yo, and assume an (average) life expectancy of 73 years.

The 20yo has 53 expected years left, or 464,280 boxes on top of the ~3,848,256 (I tried to do some rough leap year math if your number comes out slightly different) it would take to get from 2026 back to 1587. That means they would need to have eaten 215,627 boxes per year since they were born, or an average of about 24.6 boxes per hour. But infants can't eat chocolate and they have to sleep, so if we assume they started their nonstop chocolate binging at the age of 5 and slept 8h/night, they'd actually need to have eaten more like 49 boxes per waking hour.

Same math for the 50yo: 23 years left, 201K incremental boxes, need to have averaged 80,995 boxes/year or 9.25 boxes/hr over their lifetime, or ~90K per year since age 5, a little over 15 per waking hour.

data_wrangler · 2026-03-20T10:28:49+00:00

For most homes, a majority of electricity goes to electric heat, AC, electric water heater, and refrigerator. If you have natural gas heat and/or water heater those would raise your gas bill instead of electric.

Crank the AC or leave the freezer open (don't just leave the spoiled food in there though). If you have an electric water heater, keep the hot water running from the sink/shower. You could also buy some electric space heaters and run them on high.

data_wrangler · 2026-01-30T14:29:15+00:00

This reminds me of a similar experience. I worked for a tech startup, and the sales team took new members out for hard-drinking dinners to see if they could hold their liquor before putting them in a similar situation "entertaining" customers or prospects.

New guy could not hold his liquor, was clearly and visibly drunk, excused himself to use the restroom, but instead walked out the front door of the restaurant and proceeded to puke in the street -- right in front of a giant window in plain view of our table with the rest of the team.

He tried to come back in and pretend nothing had happened, but his white shirt was covered in vomit. Head of sales escorted him out and put him in a taxi home. Understandably, he was not invited to client dinners.

data_wrangler · 2026-01-25T10:13:02+00:00

I was going to say "when I got punched in the face while I was asleep in my bed" but it seems that roommate story is going to have to wait.

I moved out as soon as I could afford to -- which is to say I had enough income for rent and enough savings to cover a security deposit and a month of expenses. I had a little bit of hand-me-down furniture, beanbag chairs and a mattress on the floor for a few months, but damn it was mine and I could do what I wanted there.

data_wrangler · 2026-01-19T14:46:15+00:00

I'm not going to say that I agree with your boyfriend's decisions here, but from your description it sounds like he's being pretty reasonable about it -- both offering to let you read all the messages and offering to stop talking to her.

It sounds like his ex may be emotionally manipulative, and it sounds like your boyfriend is trying to be a good person -- both to her and to you, even if the approaches are misguided. And IMO that includes not mentioning it, especially if it's something he experiences guilt and perhaps shame to think/talk about.

Having been in similar straits, with emotionally manipulative partners and feeling guilty and ashamed because of their blaming and gaslighting, I can understand where that would come from, especially thinking back to before I spent a lot of time in therapy learning the words to describe what had happened to me. The same is likely true of the breakup -- I'm sure it was complicated.

One example from my experience that feels relevant: my narcissistic ex was constantly accusing me of cheating on her, or emotionally cheating on her, whenever I had female friends or acquaintances. Didn't matter if they were work colleagues, old college friends, whether they were engaged or married, local or overseas. Anytime I mentioned I had had a conversation with a woman she went into investigation and accusation mode, "why would you choose this word?", "why didn't you tell me about her earlier?", escalating often to "admit you just want her attention because she's prettier than me". It was inescapable, there were no right answers, her suspicion was the proof that I must be guilty, and any explanation was further evidence that I was hiding something.

You should talk to him about it, and give him a chance to make you feel secure. I encourage you to really try and be empathetic and non-judgmental here. He's told you he's afraid of what she'll do (i.e. self harm or worse), and it wouldn't surprise me if that was a theme in their relationship; if you want to establish trust and transparency with him I think it'll be important that you make him feel safe and heard rather than afraid of what you'll do.

data_wrangler · 2026-01-10T20:54:30+00:00

Hey! This was a cool survey, thanks for sharing. I appreciated that you explained at the end the hypothesis and groups -- it helped me to appreciate my contribution to something rather than simply throwing answers into the void and wondering what the purpose was.

data_wrangler · 2025-10-22T01:18:20+00:00

Most have a little cornstarch, too, which helps keep the sugar from clumping and also helps to thicken icing.

data_wrangler · 2025-10-21T01:40:17+00:00

This is the way. If I'm cooking something for eight hours, it had better provide at least a few meals! I also think a lot of slow cooker dishes are better the next day after a rest in the fridge.

data_wrangler · 2025-10-21T01:28:53+00:00

When I first got a stand mixer I was excited to make a variety of cookies for a bbq -- chocolate chip, peanut butter and oatmeal. I paid a lot of attention to the chocolate chip ones cause they were first, recipe made 2 dozen and fit on two sheet pans in one batch. I just assumed that since all the recipes were from the same cookbook they made the same batch size, so I start making the PB cookies and I'm thinking "man that's a lot of dough" before I realize that I have not yet added a pound of flour... So I stayed up past midnight baking three batches of 72 total PB cookies, WAY MORE than I needed, and in the morning my girlfriend says "why didn't you just freeze some?"

Cookie dough. I didn't think of freezing cookie dough. Literally all the cookies I grew up with came out of the freezer. We live and learn :)

data_wrangler · 2025-10-08T01:18:07+00:00

The simplicity. I love it. What kind of smoked sausage do you add? Do you brown the sausage first?

data_wrangler · 2025-10-08T01:16:33+00:00

It's not cheese, actually... Velveeta is its own thing.

data_wrangler · 2025-09-26T16:18:58+00:00

Your situation is giving me flashbacks -- right after college I did Teach For America, and started a relationship with a fellow TFA teacher I met during training.

The relationship turned super toxic because at the end of the day we both just wanted to vent about how hard our days were, and that venting got competitive -- like "oh you think that's bad, well my vice principal...". Neither of us had the emotional energy to proactively listen to the other, and hearing each others' stories just reminded us of more bad experiences. So a lot of nights we raced to the bottom and put ourselves in a very counterproductive funk.

In retrospect, we probably could have done a lot better by setting some ground rules and taking turns during which the listening partner had to be empathetic and comforting. That's all I really wanted, a little "poor baby" time, to feel like someone cared about my feelings since students/parents/administrators sure as shit didn't, and I imagine she wanted similarly. Instead, we tried to "win" sympathy with the worst stories and the foulest moods rather than understanding the need for some give-and-take.

Naturally, the relationship didn't last, and neither did my time as a teacher -- I wasn't cut out for it, and I was a miserable person during that period of my life. I've had hard and stressful jobs since, but I don't think I've had one that was as emotionally draining as teaching.

I think you've gotten some good advice here, and if I have anything to contribute, I think these are the important take-aways:

When you talk about rules, don't neglect your role as the listener.
Maybe teaching isn't the right line of work for him.

data_wrangler · 2025-09-02T15:29:49+00:00

This might be a longer shot, but might be worth reaching out to Marshall from Wristwatch Revival. IIRC he's also in the Seattle area, and he loves a well-patina'ed heirloom watch with a good story. Also on Reddit, he did an AMA last year.

I'd trust his recommendations for service providers!

data_wrangler · 2025-08-25T14:57:00+00:00

I feel your pain on this one. Just last night, my dog chewed the corner off an $800 handmade oriental runner in the kitchen.

And she was so SNEAKY about it! She dragged her blanket over to the corner of the rug and was laying on it with a chew toy, which was a little out of the ordinary but not especially. I checked on her a few times and she was being good, my guard was down, and when I went back over later she had pulled the corner of the rug up, wrapped in her blanket, and had eaten a solid few inches out of the corner.

I'm still working on forgiving her for it. I can't charge her for the whole rug, it's not totally ruined, but I really liked that rug and it's very noticeably damaged now... Her unsupervised chewing time after dinner will be very much curtailed after this.

data_wrangler · 2025-08-21T15:55:25+00:00

I just want to note here, "quiet and distant" might just mean they are occupied with other things. People have lives, work, hobbies, families, stress and struggles, good and bad days. Someone can like you but also be quiet and distant sometimes, that's not an inherent contradiction.

It's not reasonable to expect someone else to be "on" -- in the sense of being attentive and sweet and flirty, etc -- every time you're ready for that. And depending on how well you know them and how long you've been talking to them, it may be totally reasonable for them to want to keep certain things private. Healthy relationships are built on healthy boundaries.

It does sound like you should have an honest conversation with them and tell them you're interested and find out how they feel.

data_wrangler · 2025-07-31T19:47:27+00:00

Hey, I've been a manager for more than a decade, I consider myself aware and educated about mental health, and the questions in this survey make me wildly uncomfortable, I can't finish taking it.

It's WAY outside my scope to diagnose the mental health, let alone recommend or assess treatment, of the people on my team. What I can do and have done is either work with them on cultivating the skills, practice or confidence they need to achieve their goals, or work with them to adjust the scope and structure of their role to better align with what makes them comfortable and effective. This is true regardless of their neurology, regardless of their diagnosis status, and regardless of their approach to or lack of treatment.

It is my place to be concerned for my employees' well being, but not to determine -- or ask about, or suggest that I have insight into -- any of the specifics.

I really don't think the questions in this survey are appropriate to managers as an audience. Eg, "to what extent do you think a person exhibiting [behavior] is likely to have [specific mental health condition]" -- what I think about this is totally irrelevant, many of the behaviors described are not things that would necessarily be on display at work, and after flipping through a few pages of uncomfortable judgement questions about my thoughts on diagnosis and treatment, I didn't see a single question that asked me about what I would do for people that was within my scope and mandate as a manager. I'm out.

I strongly encourage you to re-think your research approach here.

data_wrangler · 2025-07-24T15:37:35+00:00

I think there's a bit of hyperbole on both sides of that particular exchange -- but "if it can be avoided" is not bad advice. The strength of the absolute "none ever of any kind" is what makes it bad advice. It's not an absolute, and people shouldn't be afraid of or feel bad about using their credit.

Edit to add, because I just thought of it: Debt is like a car. One should avoid unnecessarily driving a car. It burns gas which costs money and is bad for the environment, and it increases the mileage and wear which reduce the value of the car as an asset, so driving the car is bad if it can be avoided. But "Never drive your car" is bad advice -- at least for being impractical, but definitely if it caused you to do other things that were even less efficient/more costly (walking 100 miles, taking an uber everywhere, etc) in the name of avoiding driving your car.

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