- Adulting tips from an adult who doesn’t adult good:
- Keep two separate dirty clothes bins. One for clothes. One for towels. That way you won’t have to dig out towels from a mountain of clothes you can just wash a load when you are desperate.
- Anything with “pet deodorizer” in the cleaning label can be poured down the sink to kill bad odors kill gnats.
- Try to change your sheets twice a month. Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t.
- Start a decent first aid/OTC pharmacy when you have some money left over. Disinfectant, aspirin, allergy meds, Etc. You never know when A) you can’t afford a doc atm or B) you can’t get yourself to go to the doc or C) both or D) your idiot friend just decided to snowboard off your roof. This doesn’t have to be a priority.
- At some point you’ll have to buy a thermometer. Don’t buy the cheapest one, it won’t last past the second cold of the year.
- Get a clock that runs on batteries because lol you will lose power at some point.
- On that note, if you have room, get some kind of ice chest/cooler because you will lose power at some point, and while your freezer will remain nice and cold for a day or so, your fridge will not so the ice chest will come in handy because you can always replace the ice but your milk will go sour.
- Also on this note: buy a flash light and slowly and surely never throw away a candle. Ever. Ever. Ever. Unless it’s done and then you have my permission. The first time you have to take a shower without power in the dark you’ll thank me.
- Also bic lighters are cheap and easy and jfc you have to light candles somehow.
- Be on the look out for: cheap blankets, fans, and space heaters. Buy whenever possible. They will save your life.
- Bananas go bad quick. Eat them. They are good for you.
- If you have a car, keep the following things in it: a towel, a blanket, a change of socks, some cash, a flashlight, and some kind of food like a granola bar. If you have an old cell phone, keep it in there too. While old cell phones won’t have service providers, most (newer) cell phones still allow you to dial 911 despite not being connected to a service.
- If you have the space (I have a garage that’s too small for my truck so I use that) and you have a in-home washer/dryer, hang clothes to dry. A) easier on clothes so clothes last longer B) less electricity = less money & less energy usage.
- Dryer sheets + rugs = getting out pet hair
- Dryer sheets + hair = gets rid of fly-a-ways. (Scented dryer sheets = makes ur hair smell good.)
- Towel on a cookie baking sheet = ironing board (I’ve also heated up a skillet and used it as an iron in a frantic last minute freak out)
- Keep extra toilet paper within arms reach of the toilet
to hell with adulting, most of this is awesome advice for surviving hurricane season in florida
Also, something that came to me with years of adulting and saved me nice cash throughout these years:
- cheap doesn’t mean bad (!!!!!!!)
- buy good food, because good food is good for you, but there’s no point in cashing out a pack of Always’ every month, girls, when the store brand pads cost a quid-a-pack and work exactly the same. I buy mine at Sainsbury’s and usually my period doesn’t cost me more than 2£.
- same with tampons. also, buy tampons with paper applicators – they’re eco friendly and in a disastrous situation when a disposal bin is not available, they have a bigger chance of not clogging the toilet (applicators, not the cotton part)=_=
- same applies to kitchen towels, floor cleaning products (because they go on your freaking FLOOR) and generally cleaning stuff. buy cheapest and buy in bulk. your spilled soup won’t snub you if you wipe it up with a brandless paper!
- overall, scout bottom shelfs of every isle, treasures hide in there.
- get as much herbs as you can fir in your cupboard and learn to spice stuff. even the cheapest, blandest canned soup can be saved with a liberal measure of basil.
- FOLLOW MEASUREMENT DIRECTIONS I know it’s tempting to put just one more cork of that fabric freshener into the wash so your sheets smell like AXE commercial, but stop. one measure per full load. it will last longer.
- walk around your ‘hood, check out supermarkets and see which ones do good ‘brandless’ appliances. I mean, ALL my kitchen appliances are Lidl-brand and they’ve been preforming faultlessly for the last 3 years. The myth that the “brands will work longer/better” is unfounded in my experience.
- same with pots and pans. I’m not Gordon Fucking Ramsey, I can boil my fucking milk in a 1£ saucepan just fine.
- about pans – use wooden utensils on anything Teflon! you want them to last, ey?
- a strong vinegar is known to remove stubborn stains, try it. it can also clean your toilet. (I have a bottle of 80% lithuanian vinegar that I firmly believe was extracted from the Alien’s spit)
- get. yourself. a knife. sharpener. god.
- scissors in the kitchen cupboard. don’t question. put them there.
- good food is not hard to find! go to the supermarket in the evening, some of the bigger ones discount their produce then! it’s still perfectly good stuff, but stores have ridiculously short use dates on raw stuff and you can use that. same with breads.
- you tired of waiting for your fruit to ripen enough that you can bite it and not leave your teeth behind? If you live in England, locate your nearest Halal store and go crazy, because, apart from some nice cuts of meat, they have the best ripest freaking fruit I’ve ever seen*_* Watermelons the size of your youngest child, plums big as a fist, bananas as big and curved as your boyfriend’s… well, THEY HAVE IT ALL Don’t be afraid of the bearded dudes either, they’re perfectly cool.
- you can keep root veggies (potatoes, carrots, onion, beets, etc) in a cupboard instead of a fridge. make sure it’s dry and dark and you have yourself veggies for longer.
- keep fruit out of direct sunlight for it to last longer too.
- take your veg/fruit out of the plastic packaging as soon as you get home. they get all ‘sweaty’ and rot at the speed of light if you let them in. even if they’re being kept in the fridge. paper bags ftw.
- whatever you don’t use, you can freeze. like, everything is freezable. even water. can’t finish this soup? reduce it and then freeze it. you can finish it in a month. that block of cheese you see going dry? pack the sucker in the bag and it will go on a pizza two weeks from now.
- buy a water filtering jug. why drink bad tea when you can have good tea?
- stock on grains – rice, grits, barley, and beans. one cup will get you a long way with these.
- if you want to make some beans from dry, a night before put them in a pot with water, so they soak it up and on the next day they’ll cook faster:)
- no rice cooker and saving electricity? boil rice, swathe the covered pot in a layer of newspapers and stuff it into your bed for an hour or two. rice will come out nice and soft. works with grits and barley too.
- buy. milk. in. smaller. jugs. american scientists discovered that you rarely need as much milk as you think you’ll need. no point in throwing it out. unless you have kids. then buy as much milk as you think you need.
- let’s be honest, store-brand Coke tastes exactly as bad as the real deal so why pay more?
- have a needle and threads (at least in black and white color); I needed them two days after moving into dormitory and I was very grateful my roommate had a needle and black thread,
- you made enough soup to feed whole army but your freezer is full? put it into the fridge once the pot is cold and the next day pour cold soup into different pot – heating whole pot of soup and then putting it back to the fridge is risky; this way one pot with soup can last about 5 days in a fridge and you heat only amount you think you’ll eat;
- blood stains on your clothes? pour some salt on them and wash it in COLD water;
- having lighter is good but a few box of matches won’t hurt;
- when you have spare money buy cereal, potatoes and frozen vegies/fruits – you never know when you suddenly will be without money (speaking from experience: you can live a week on cereal),
- have a cloth to polish your shoes; it’s not something anyone really thinks about till they need it,
kind of less important : light-bulbs! trust me on this and buy the ones that imitate sunlight especially when your room is dark – mine is very dark (under the roof) and buying a light-bulb with cold, white light was the best idea,more adulting advice!
And yes, the needle and thread are good to have!