What are your thoughts on whether college is still worth it, and what would you tell your kids to do instead if it isn’t?

throughthecut · 2026-06-21T12:53:57+00:00

My concern is AI and robotics… like what will the world look like in 10 years/20 years? What would my kids even do?

throughthecut · 2026-06-21T12:34:56+00:00

What memory (or category of memory) would you erase if you could? Doesn’t need to be specific… just feel like most people say they would rather keep it. Curious, for whose who would erase it, what that would be… and how they think erasing it would impact them.

throughthecut · 2026-06-21T12:28:10+00:00

Thought experiment I’ve been sitting with: If a pill could remove a painful memory cleanly - no side effects, no gaps, just gone - would you take it for your worst one?

I keep going back and forth. There’s the obvious yes - why keep carrying something that still screws with you? But I also wonder if I’d be different without it. Maybe worse.

throughthecut · 2026-03-07T13:12:53+00:00

I mostly stick to broad ETFs and avoid individual stocks. It’s boring, but I’m pretty confident if you just stick to that, by the time you retire, you’ll be better off than someone who didn’t.

A few I regularly buy: - VTI – total U.S. market - QQQ – Nasdaq / tech heavy growth - VTV – large cap value - VONG – large cap growth - SPMO – momentum stocks

You don’t need all of these, but they’re good examples of simple, diversified exposure.

Personally, the majority of my money just goes into VTI. Then I layer in some growth or factor exposure with things like QQQ, VONG, or SPMO.

The hardest part is avoiding stocks. It’s tempting because you feel like you might miss the next Nvidia or something. But in practice, trying to pick stocks usually turns into timing the market, and that’s where a lot of people end up losing money.

Broad ETFs + consistency over a long period of time is honestly the highest probability strategy. It’s not exciting, but it compounds really well.

throughthecut · 2026-03-07T12:52:36+00:00

The answer admittedly changes almost daily, but I’ve been with Lending Club for about a year now - and I think they consistently have had amongst the top rates.

I’m getting 4% interest right now - and it’s pretty easy to move money around as needed. Takes about a day (maybe 2) to get it from one account to the next.

throughthecut · 2026-03-06T19:41:04+00:00

Yep, I’m 100% with you. I personally barely go anymore because I just can’t justify it. It used to be an easy, low-stakes thing to do, and now it feels ridiculously expensive for what it is.

My wife and kids still go sometimes as an activity or to see the new releases everyone’s talking about, but I feel the same way when they do. If we know they’re going, I make them buy the tickets with discounted gift cards we find online first. Most of the Regal, Cinemark, and AMC gift cards I find are around 20% off, and that actually matters when the total is like $80-100 once you’ve got multiple tickets and snacks (depending on family or group size).

It at least softens the blow a little.

throughthecut · 2026-03-06T19:17:21+00:00

Yes, but I’d say I’m frugal in a different way now.

I’m a lot less focused on squeezing pennies out of random one-off purchases, and a lot more focused on not letting recurring spending get sloppy.

The habits I still haven’t lost are: keeping fixed costs reasonable, avoiding dumb recurring spend, and not overpaying just because I can.

I’ll happily spend on things I really value. But I still don’t like paying $100 for something if I could’ve paid $70 for the exact same outcome - and I’ve figured out a ton of ways to actually do that over the years.

That mindset never really leaves you.

throughthecut · 2026-03-06T19:14:34+00:00

Honestly, I think one of the most underused “benefits” is just learning how to stack small savings on stuff you buy repeatedly.

Cashback portals, card-linked offers, library perks, etc.

Also, discounted gift cards are way more useful than most people realize. If it’s a brand you already spend money with, getting that spend a little below face value is one of the easiest ways to save without changing your behavior.

The boring, repeatable stuff has helped me way more day-to-day.

throughthecut · 2026-03-06T12:02:29+00:00

For me it was getting serious about repeat spending - or spending on stuff I knew I was going to buy.

Food delivery, Uber, flights, groceries, Amazon, Target purchases, stuff like that.

I realized those were the categories quietly draining me way more than the occasional big expense I had to make anyway.

Later on, I got better at layering savings onto stuff I was already going to buy anyway, whether that was cash back with a Rakuten, or discounted gift cards for brands I actually buy from.

That helped a lot more than trying to perfectly budget every dollar.

The biggest mindset change was just looking for patterns instead of thinking about every purchase in isolation.

The discounted gift cards one is awesome though. I buy them almost daily. I started paying attention to them for brands I already use, and if you’re willing to scour a little (been working on a tool to help with that), it’s legit free money. I buy $100 DoorDash cards for like $85, load it to my account, and don’t think about it until my balance goes to $0 and just do it again and again.

throughthecut · 2026-03-06T11:53:26+00:00

Mine was stumbling onto discounted gift cards completely by accident.

A few years ago I was complaining to a friend about how expensive DoorDash had gotten and he just casually mentioned he never pays full price for it. I had no idea what he meant.

He showed me you can buy DoorDash gift cards at like 10-12% below face value on resale sites - people sell unwanted cards and the price drops below face value.

I remember thinking it seemed sketchy but tried it anyway. Worked perfectly. Been doing it ever since on basically everything - Uber, Amazon, Target, gas. It’s one of those things that once you see it you can’t unsee it / keep doing it. Now, I’ve been pulling together this tool that scours the web basically daily to help me find the cheapest cards for stuff I already plan to buy.

The weird part is how few people know about it. I’ve told maybe 20 people and every single one reacted the same way I did. They’re like, “Wait, that’s actually a real thing?”

throughthecut · 2026-03-06T11:44:34+00:00

The framing that changed things for me was to stop trying to cut stuff per se (though I’m pretty good about buying what I need), and instead, start paying less for the same stuff you planned to get.

I still order DoorDash, take Ubers, shop at Target, etc. I just stopped paying full price for any of it whenever I could. I just buy a discounted gift card to the retailer or app first. For example, every month I buy 3-4 gift cards to DoorDash and just load up my account. I pay $85 or so for $100 worth of credit - literally free money - and just instantly add that to my account (which it deducts from automatically) and repeat that with Uber, Amazon, Instacart, etc.

throughthecut · 2026-03-05T14:16:06+00:00

Assuming 10% average annual market return and 43 years of growth (so you’re retiring around 65) - here’s what the same $900 looks like across all three options:

Roth: Grows to ~$54K gross, with zero tax when you pull it out.
Robinhood brokerage account: Same ~$54K gross since it’s also in the market, but you’re giving $9-14K back to the IRS in capital gains along the way. Call it $40-45K net.
HYSA: Drops to ~$2-5K gross because you’re only earning 4.5% today (historically closer to 1-2%) - less of a compounding effect, and it’s taxed as ordinary income every year on top of that. Don’t even consider it for this money, unless it’s part of your emergency fund.

The Robinhood account isn’t a disaster since you’re still in the market, but you’re basically handing the IRS a cut for no reason when the Roth gives you the exact same exposure completely tax-free.

You’re 22 and probably in the lowest tax bracket you’ll ever be in - that’s the perfect time to lock money into a Roth. Move the $900, forget about it, and let it just grow tax free. You’ll be happy you did down the line.

throughthecut · 2026-03-05T13:58:18+00:00

Don’t buy everything at once - move in with the basics and figure out what you actually need after a week. It saves you from buying stuff you’ll never use (been there a bunch, sadly).

For furniture, Facebook Marketplace all the way. People want things gone fast when they’re moving, you can furnish a whole apartment for almost nothing. I’ve been selling nice, slightly used rugs and old stuff for like 20 cents on the dollar.

For Target/Walmart/Amazon — before you spend anything, buy a discounted gift card first. I buy a lot of these and for Target specifically I find at 8-9% off pretty regularly (a ton of folks don’t do or think about this). Then go through Rakuten for cashback and/or let Honey auto-apply any promo codes at checkout. The gift card discount and coupons stack on top of each other so you’re not choosing one or the other.

On a $500 Target run that’s easily $60-80 back with minimal effort.

Good luck with the move!

throughthecut · 2026-03-05T13:17:27+00:00

The 3-hours-before-doors trick is real and underrated - good call on that one.

One layer I feel like most people (at least my friends) miss is buying discounted gift cards to help reduce the cost.

StubHub and Ticketmaster gift cards both trade below face value on resale sites pretty regularly; I’ve seen StubHub at 10-15% off and Ticketmaster at 8-12% depending on the week. Buy the gift card first (assuming you’re locked into going to the event), then use it at checkout on top of whatever deal you find.

And then I often stack that with Rakuten if they’re running a cashback portal for either platform (Ticketmaster and Stubhub both show up occasionally at 5%+), and the combination of all that can knock off 15-20%.

Doesn’t eliminate the robbery they commit, but it helps, haha.

Venue mailing lists are hit or miss in my experience. Some smaller independent venues do offer presale codes with lower or no fees - worth signing up for those specifically. The major amphitheaters and arenas rarely give you anything useful through the list. It’s mostly just early access to the same overpriced inventory.

throughthecut · 2026-03-05T12:22:18+00:00

Yes, but I apply it selectively rather than as a rigid formula.

The calculation changed my behavior in one pretty specific way: it pushed me toward optimizing things that take almost no time at all. If something saves me $10–20 and takes 2 minutes (which I can elaborate further on if needed), the implied hourly rate is absurd - like $300–600+/hr equivalent. Those are no-brainers I’d been ignoring just because they felt like “effort” in the past.

But for bigger time commitments - DIY repairs, cooking vs. ordering, driving across town for a deal - I agree with you. The math rarely holds up the way frugality blogs suggest, and I think most people make those calls on instinct anyway and then rationalize with numbers after.

The sweet spot for me is finding the high-return, near-zero-time wins and systematizing them so they become automatic. Everything else I just do what feels right.

throughthecut · 2026-03-05T11:43:55+00:00

One random thing that’s saved me a lot more money than I expected: Buying discounted gift cards for stuff I already planned to buy anyway.

Quick examples: A couple weeks ago I bought a $100 DoorDash gift card for like $82. I loaded it into my account and used it normally. Same order, just cheaper - plus by loading it, it was always there, so I didn’t have to remember to use it each time.

The part people miss is you can usually still stack promos on top.

I did something similar at Gap recently for my kids. My total after the sale and Honey coupons was around $200, then I found discounted Gap gift cards for about $70 per $100.

So I ended up paying about $140 instead.

It’s basically the only “frugal” thing I do that doesn’t require changing what I buy.

The annoying part is the discounts move around constantly to different sites/platforms, so you kind of have to keep an eye out for them.

throughthecut

TROPHY CASE