Canceled Netflix because they finally kicked my friends off, might get it again for 1 month at a time, here and there. I get Disney for a few months for my brother’s bday, we catch up on whatever came out in the past year. My mom shares her Peacock with me. I got a year sub to Dropout, and share it with 2-3 friends. We stay subbed to Hulu and HBO pretty much all the time, and we get Paramount a couple months a year. We have Prime, but I’m probably going to cancel it soon.

I use bluetooth earbuds for work - I used wired buds up until this job, but I ended up constantly ripping them out of my ear by accident, UUUUGGGGHHHHHH. But I would still be using wired if I could. My husband also uses wireless earbuds at work, but needs a headphone jack to play music through his ancient work truck. He had an adapter while he had a phone w/o a jack, but then he couldn’t charge his phone while listening to music. I know there are splitters out there, but we didn’t end up buying one, and he just replaced his phone with a new one that includes a headphone jack.

Reading more books during breaks at work! It’s easier to focus on reading books when I don’t have reddit on my phone. I like Lemmy, but I mostly use it for 15min at a time. Since I joined Lemmy/stopped using reddit mobile, I’ve read 5 books! :)

Thrift stores, basically. I worked in various thrift stores for 5 years and mostly furnished my home that way. Just be thorough when you’re inspecting it before you buy it! Check for bugs, broken/missing pieces, wiggly legs, cosmetic damage. We’ve gotten some really cool stuff in great condition for actually reasonable prices. My favorite is an ancient La-Z-Boy for $12, in decent shape.

If there’s a Re-Store near you, they’re great too! We got an adorable coffee hutch for $65, a decent couch for $80, a couple nightstands for $10-20 each, a solid, heavy duty coffee table for $30. It requires patience to find what you might be looking for, and it helps if you already know which thrift stores tend to get better quality items. Antique stores are worth a shot too, if you’re ok with spending on the upper end of cheap? You can get some really well built, old, beautiful furniture. Or see if there’s a furniture consignment store around you!

I think things like IKEA or Target are fine too, as long as you take care of your furniture. I’ve never had any problems with anything from IKEA, even when I buy used, but it probably helps I don’t have kids, lol.

I still use reddit for specific communities, but only on desktop. I wasn’t intending to 100% quit reddit anyway though, just to primarily use Lemmy (or whatever alternative I liked best, which is Lemmy so far)

Pokémon Gold, when I was 8, got it for Christmas. Technically my first game was Battleship, which I opened first, but I probably spent thousands of hours playing Pokémon Gold. :) I’ve played almost every Pokémon game since, up until Scarlet/Violet, which I haven’t gotten yet, but maybe I will eventually.

I have a few Kindles - got the first couple from a thrift store, then I upgraded to a Paperwhite. I like them! I don’t usually have time to go to the library and get paper books, so it’s really convenient for library books, almost everything I’ve looked for has been on Libby. I do still buy paper books, I love paper books, but I think I prefer reading on Kindle (or my phone) because I can change the font, and it’s super light, fits in all of my bags. I also have problems with my hands sometimes, and holding a kindle is easier on them than holding a book. Lately I’ve just been reading on my phone though lol.

They got rid of my whole team to get rid of me? Lol, I don’t think so. The job was mortgage related, and the work volume tanked in 2022, after blowing up in 2020. I was just a barely above minimum wage minion, with no team members under me. I honestly think that along with there not being enough work for all of us, they wanted to eliminate WFH teams.

Yup. At my last job, I did my best to produce quality work, I got an award for making zero errors in a year, and I was one of the go-to people for new employees to ask for advice. I trained new team members, even while I was still a temp myself. Eventually got told that I was joining the team that dealt with all the escalation emails. I only knew how to work on 2 of the many types of products that went into that folder, but it was mandatory to work every single email that went into that box, 2 hour shift, every email had to be answered by the end of the 2hrs. I also only had a single 30min super quick “training” on how to even answer the emails (really complicated template system, which I still did not understand by the end of it)

I told my manager I wasn’t comfortable working in that box, considering they never trained me to work on most of the other products, but she ignored me and said I’d figure it out. Luckily, I only had to do it once, then they delayed my actual start date for that task, until I got laid off (along with most of the rest of my team) 3 months later. YAAAAAAY. :|

My husband got us a Zojirushi rice cooker for my birthday one year, and I love it so much! We had an old $15 Oster one previously, which was also pretty nice to have, but oh boy. I’m spoiled by Zojirushi now. We could make a cake in it! I haven’t yet… But I could! Lol.