if you’re living in the united states and have a formal disability diagnosis—including autism spectrum disorder and maybe even ptsd—you’re likely eligible to open an ABLE Account.
it’s a tax-advantaged savings account that is also exempt from means-testing, meaning that anything you put in there can’t be counted against you for medicaid, SNAP, SSI, or SSDI.
you can pay for a lot out of an ABLE account, including basic living expenses (rent, utilities, transportation), medical expenses (whether or not they’re related to your disability), and education expenses. this account is likely going to enable me to pay for my own grs. please look into it!
even if you get along great with your family you will get along even better with them after moving out
generic is almost always just as good as name brand. But there are some things you never buy generic, including: peanut butter, ketchup, liquid NyQuil, Chips-Ahoy chewy chocolate chip cookies
just imagine the person on the other end of the phone hates talking on the phone as much as you do. Even a receptionist. I worked as one and I hate talking on the phone
at least once in your life you will go to Wal-mart to buy something under $20 like an ironing board or something and your debit card will get rejected. No one will judge. Everyone at some point in their lives has had $2.98 in their bank account.
thrift stores
everyone else is too busy panicking about everyone else noticing every tiny thing that could possibly be wrong about them to notice any tiny thing that could possibly be wrong about you
you will screw up. a lot. you live and you learn. and when you start to think too hard about that embarrassing thing that happened and how you wish you could change it, just tell yourself that what’s done is done. There’s no changing it, so just forget it and move on. It’s the only way to stay sane.
do the dishes before the sink grows its own ecosystem
you can’t put Dawn dishsoap in the dishwasher.
if you are the only one in the aisle at the grocery store, and you need to get from one end to the other without even looking at anything in that aisle, then you should totally cart-surf down the aisle. Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional. Hold on to the little things. They make all the difference.
never try to make cake from scratch at 3am. You end up with a topographical map of Middle Earth.
15% tip.
the best way to get money for food is to tell your grandparents about how you basically live on microwaved mac and cheese. Their horror may result in twenty bucks and orders to go out and get yourself “a real dinner”.
sometimes life sucks, and knowing that it might get better doesn’t always make it suck any less, but you’ll never get to the non-sucky days without enduring the suckiness.
no seriously, NEVER put Dawn in your dishwasher
Do not buy generic brand spaghetti sauce either.
Always check the type of light bulb that goes in lamps. A 60w is not interchangeable with a 40w.
Dollar store batteries work just as well as store brand.
Reward yourself from time to time when you do things that you needed to get done. It’s a good way to remind yourself to do them. Going out to pay a bill? Get Starbucks or something you don’t get often. Rewards don’t have to be huge, they can be small things like that.
Rice, pasta, flour, sugar, cheese, eggs, milk, a pack of chicken, a pack of frozen veggies and a well stocked spice cabinet go a long way food-wise. Splurge and get the biggest container of rice you can. You don’t have to go back and buy it again anytime soon and it makes a TON of meals in the meantime.
Rice can be cooked on the stove. You don’t need a fancy rice cooker. Two parts water to every one part rice (two cups water for one cup of rice for example). Get your water boiling, add rice, put a plate or lid on it, put it on low for 20 minutes. It should be done.
Keep a calendar on your pc of bill due dates. If your bills are set up at inconvenient times, like all of the services started on the first or something, then call up the company and find out if you can get your billing date switched to something more manageable. A lot of places do try to work with you.
There is no shame in calling a company and asking for an extension on a bill. Let them know what you can pay, pay that amount, and they arrange when the rest of the payment is required. This can stop you from having services shut off man. It shows responsibility on your part.
Take time to eat, even when you don’t feel like eating. Your body needs energy to live.
Wash or rinse your dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. It prevents gross caked on junk.
“The Works” is an excellent cheap toilet cleaner.
MAGIC. FUCKING. ERASERS. THEY WORK ON EVERYTHING JUST DON’T SCRUB HARD. I took the ring out of our bathtub with one. Also generic ones work just as well.
Keep some bleach around but if you use it for cleaning? Dillute it. There’s rarely ever a case where you need to pout straight bleach on anything. A cap full or two in a bucket of water works just fine.
DO NOT MIX CLEANERS. Chemical reactions are can be very dangerous. Here’s a good list. (Note that vinegar and baking soda can actually be a good combo for removing smells from things but it’s not very good at actually -cleaning-.)
If you drink? Don’t take meds at the same time it’s just not good.
Make sure you check the dosages on your pill bottles. No one wants to accidentally overdose on cough syrup or ibuprofen.
If you have a uterus make sure you have a heating pad and ibuprofen on hand for the pain. Hot baths also generally help and Ginger Tea is excellent for any nausea.
Buy a first aid kit. It’s worth it in the long run.
You can often do your taxes online at places like TurboTax.
Petroleum jelly (aka Vaseline) is good for chapped lips and you can get a decent sized tube or tub of it (generic brand version) for cheaper/same price as Chapstick.
KEEP TRIPLE ANTIBIOTIC OINTMENT IN YOUR HOUSE FOR CUTS AND SCRAPES AND SORES.
~~Medications~~
Over the counter medications (stuff you can buy right off the shelf no prescription needed) have a name brand and a generic name. ALWAYS buy generic if it’s available it is literally the same thing and way cheaper usually.
Some names to remember when you’re looking for meds!
Acetaminophen = Tylenol
Used to treat pain and reduce fever. Do not take with Ibuprofen.
Ibuprofen = Advil, Midol, Motrin
Used for pain and fever, is an anti-inflammtory. Is good for period cramps because it is an NSAID (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug).
Naproxen = Aleve, Naprosyn
Treats fever, pain, arthritis pain, gout, period cramps, tendinitis, headache, backache, and toothache. Is also an NSAID.
Acetaminophen + Asprin + Caffeine = Excedrin
Usually marketed as “Migraine Relief” as a generic.
Asprin = Bayer
Use for pain, fever, arthritis, and inflammation. Makes you bleed easily so should not be used for periods. Might reduce risk of heart attacks.\
Triple Antibiotic Ointment = Neosporin
Used on cuts, sores, and scrapes to reduce risk of infection and promote healing.
Also a general mutli-vitamin isn’t a bad idea and if you don’t get a lot of fruits or milk/sunshine in your diet you might want to get vitamins C and D specifically for daily use.
if you do accidentally lapse and put dawn in your dishwasher, run it empty and put hair conditioner where the detergent goes. that’ll clean it out (tip given to me by dorm custodian when roommate did the thing).
if you live off ramen, add stuff to it! add veggies you like, don’t use the whole flavor packet to cut down on sodium and msg or don’t use it at all and add your own spices.
if you’re making something with potatoes in it (beans, stew) potatoes are done when you can easily stab a fork through them.
you can microwave a hotdog as long as you put it in a microwave safe container of water. microwaves work by making water molecules vibrate. also, when reheating rice leftovers, add a small amount of water, like maybe a spoonfull, so it doesn’t get hard and crunchy.
the rice cooking advice above is for long grain rice. if you’re making short or medium grain rice, a 1:1 ratio (one cup water for one cup rice) is better, so the rice doesn’t come out too mushy.
buy a few cans of chicken. wholesale club stores like sam’s, costco, or bj’s tend to carry multipacks for a good price. they’re incredibly useful for when you forget to defrost meat.
buy meat on sale and put it in the freezer. buy vegetables on sale, and put them in the freezer. frozen veggies are often as flavorful and good as fresh ones, keep longer, and often come in microwaveable bags or with microwave directions.
soak ink stains in milk to help get them out or at least lighten them.
soak blood stains in water as soon as possible, with a bit of detergent or stain remover. scrub at them. use cold water, heat binds proteins to fabric. tbh, there’s no real need to change the washer from cold-cold setting unless the thing you’re washing says to wash in warm water.
acetone, found in most nail polish removers, dissolves super glue.
YOU’RE ALL DOING GOD’S WORK BLESS YOU
Takes pictures, have prints made and put them in photo albums. Be IN the pictures, have someone take pictures of you and your friends. Get over not looking perfect in thw picture. Someday that friend might be gone and those pictures might be all you’ll have, you will want to be in them. I made that mistake with my best friend, i always felt weird asking for a picture together… he died of cancer January of 2014 and now i have no pictures of us together. Its my only regret in life.
This is really helpful, thank you all!
I’m the newest of new adults but I’m gonna throw these little tips in there. IF YOU HAVE AN OLD CAR:
-coolant or water if your car overheats (coolant is preferable cause it won’t hurt the engine in the long run but hey i know money is tight)
-flashlight in case you break down at night and need to check under the hood and your phone is dead
-SPARE TIRE.
-jumper cables.you will at some point leave your lights on. you just will.
AAA or any other road side service is never a bad investment i swear. (try to mooch it off your parents as long as you can though)
Know how to change a tire. You’re going to need to do it at some point in time and you can’t always rely on someone else to do it for you.
Don’t be afraid to go to your local food bank. They are there for a reason.
Don’t be ashamed to ask for help period. Life is hard, everyone needs help occasionally.
You can put a LOWER wattage bulb in a lamp that says it’s for a higher one, but don’t put a HIGHER wattage bulb in. Also, watts refer to the amount of electricity used. LUMENS refers to the amount of light put out, and can vary quite a bit between brands, even though the wattage is the same. Look for the one with the highest lumens unless you actually want a slightly dimmer bulb in a certain location.
Those dollar store batteries? Fine if they’re alkaline. “Heavy-duty” batteries, however, won’t last nearly as long.
You can microwave a hot dog and bun simply by wrapping them in a toweling for a minute, less if you don’t want them scalding hot.
Reblogging to save lives.
Two adulting (kitchen-related) tips from me!
1. Buy a roll of parchment paper from the cooking shit aisle. A big roll will last you for-fucking-ever. Pretty much any time you’re using a baking pan you can line it with that stuff and save yourself A: food sticking to the pan and B: it’s a quick rinse and it’s clean.
2. Bread can get fucking expensive, so make your own. A bigass bag of flour and a bag of active dry yeast (store it in the friiiiidge!!!) works out a FUCK of a lot cheaper than buying bread at the store, and you can do so much more with it. Bread, pizza, rolls, cinnibuns, homemade pizza pockets. It seems intimidating but it’s stupid easy.
Seriously. It’s stupid simple to make, and most of the “3 hours” to make it is sitting around surfing the internet or doing whatever the fuck you want while the dough rises. If you have an afternoon free once a week to sit and play video games or surf the net, you have the time to make your own bread on the cheap. Here’s my simple-as-fuck recipe:
2 ¼ teaspoons active dry yeast (You can buy a bag of this stuff CHEAP in bulk stores, the little packets are hella stupid priced) 1 cup warm water (think a hot bath) 1 ½ teaspoons sugar 2 tablespoons oil (any kind works for the most part) 2 ¼ cups flour 1 teaspoon salt
1. Stir the yeast, water, sugar, and oil up in a bowl. Let it sit for about 10 minutes. It will foam up VERY high, this is the yeast getting happy! If it doesn’t get all foamy, the water may have been too hot or not hot enough. Remember, Yeast is alive! Treat it like a nice girlfriend!
2. Mix your flour, salt, and the yeast concoction up in a bowl.
3. Knead that shit for about 5 minutes. It will start sticky as heck, but will come together into a nice dough. If it’s still super sticky, toss in a bit more flour. Here’s how to knead it:
4. Put your dough in a covered, lightly oiled bowl and leave it someplace warmish for an hour. At that point it will have roughly doubled in size, give it a gentle punch to release the gasses that have built up inside. Cover it again and let it sit for a bit longer.
Boom. You have bread dough. Here are some baking times and uses for ya:
Optional egg-wash: Just crack an egg into a bowl, add a pinch of salt, and mix the bejeebus out of it with a fork. Brush (or if you’re like me, goop it on with said fork) that shit thinly on bread before baking for a nice crust.
Pizza: Stretch it on a pan, stab the fucker all over with a fork, add toppings, bake 425*F 15-20 minutes.
Bread Sticks: Make snake-shapes, let rest on pan 10-ish minutes, bake 400*F 10-20 minutes.
Dinner rolls: Make ball-sized (yes those balls) balls. Place on greased pan, let rest 10-20 minutes to rise. Egg-wash and bake 375*F 25 minutes.
Bread: Lightly score (cut) the top, let sit for 20-ish minutes on/in whatever you’re using to bake it, egg-wash, bake at 375*F for 20-ish minutes. It’s done when it sounds hollow if you knock on the bottom.
You bet your ass you can deep-fry this shit for cheapie yeast doughnuts. Roll that shit in sugar or dip it in whatever, it’s fucking tasty.
Bagels: YES. YOU. CAN. Form bagel-shapes out of the dough and boil them in salty water for about 2 minutes. Egg-wash them and bake them at 400*F for 10 minutes.
Cinnamon Rolls: Roll that shit out into a rectangle. Brush it with a mix of butter, cinnamon, sugar, and a pinch of salt (no exact amounts here, do it to your taste). Roll it up into a log, and cut it into discs. Let them sit 20 minutes in a pan and then bake at 375*F 15-17 minutes.
You can add whatever you want to the dough for some variety, just if it’s dried spices remember you really only need 1-ish tablespoons. I personally like making bread with about 1 tablespoon of dill in the dough. Roll it out flat, sprinkle it with cheddar, roll it into a log, squeeze the ends shut, and bake it like a regular loaf of bread. Cheesy dill bread OMNOMNOM.
*ahem* That got a bit long. But yeah. Bread’s expensive, yo. Save your wallet.
(Also it’s ridiculous amounts of therapeutic to bake, for me anyway)
Being able to bake your own bread is pretty awesome, if you got the time for it.
So, I was thinking about that one thing someone submitted to starspangledsprocket about how the reason Tony likes coffee so much is bc that one thing about how holding a warm cup or drinking a warm drink or something simulates human touch, but then, I remembered Tony drinking from his kitty mug in his suit, and like…
that got me thinking.
What if, when Tony’s feeling down, he’ll go seek his suit, and the rest of the team thinks it’s him going on the defensive or something but really it’s because the inside of it has a function that can warm him up and it’s like getting a whole body hug from JARVIS.
I COULDN’T HELP IT
–
It’s
been a long, unpleasant day so the first thing Tony does when he gets
home is head straight for the shop.
“Bad
day, sir?” JARVIS asks softly.
Tony
sighs and rubs the heel of one hand over the edge of the arc reactor
where his chest aches. “Yeah, J. Is the Mark LVI up?”
“Yes,
sir.”
“Great,
perfect. Can you brew some coffee?”
“Already
done, sir,” JARVIS replies and Tony smiles a little.
“Knew
I could count on you, buddy.”
As
promised, the Mark LVI is waiting for him in the center of the shop,
which smells like freshly brewed coffee. Tony inhales deeply and
feels it seep through him, the smell alone easing away some of his
tension. He digs his favorite mug out of the mess on the workbench
and fills it up, holding it with both hands so the heat seeps into
his palms and down his arms. He presses it against his chest too for
a second and lets out a silent sigh as it softens the ache of the
muscles.
Then,
reluctantly, he sets aside the mug long enough to step into the open
chassis of the Mark LVI. It’s already warm inside and Tony shivers as
it closes up around him; it’s like being hugged everywhere all at
once. He lets himself sag into it, trusting JARVIS to keep the suit
upright.
“I’m
sorry to hear about your day, sir,” JARVIS murmurs in his ear.
“Yeah,
J,” Tony sighs, “me too.” But he already feels better. He’ll
just stay here a few minutes, then he can do some work on those tacky
arrows he’s been thinking about.
“Tony?”
The
voice startles him and Tony jerks, coffee spilling over the gauntlet
as he whirls around to see—Steve.
The
movement catches Steve’s searching eye and a frown creases his face,
his eyes trailing from the helmet all the way to the boots. “Tony?
Did you get a call?”
“What?
No,” Tony blurts.
“Oh,”
Steve says, expression clearing. “You’re testing upgrades.”
“No,”
Tony blurts again and what the hell mouth, come on that was the
perfect out!
Steve’s
frown is back. “Then…then what are you doing?”
Tony
grimaces. He tries to press his fingers into the corners of his eyes,
but helmet, so he just raps
his knuckles on his forehead a few times to the mantra of stupid,
stupid, stupid.
“I’m
sorry, sir,” JARVIS murmurs, guilt thick in his voice. He learned
that. How to do it and how to apply it properly—for a second Tony’s
distracted by how proud he is. Then he remembers Steve who’s starting
to shift antsily at the lack of answer. Tony sighs. Well, at least he
doesn’t have to look Steve in the face and say it.
“I
was—getting a hug. From. JARVIS.” Wow, god, that sounds even more
idiotic out loud. “It was a long day, okay, I’m tired, he made me
coffee, the suit is warm, it’s nice okay.”
“I
didn’t say anything, Tony,” Steve says, but he’s staring.
Tony
rolls his eyes, his sharp edges coming back in force. “Yeah, no
need to, thanks—”
“Could
I— I mean, that is— Would you mind if I gave you a hug, too?”
“—I
can read between the lines wait, what?”
Steve
turns pink along his cheekbones and scratches at his forehead, eyes
darting down to the floor and then back up to Tony’s face. “If it’s
okay with you,” he says haltingly, “I’d like to give you a hug,
too. If I could.”
“Seriously?”
Tony says, damn his mouth.
Steve
just nods.
Tony
is still trying to get his brain wrapped around what he’s hearing
when the front of the suit opens up. He splutters, looking up at the
retracting faceplate. “Accept, sir,” JARVIS urges in an
undertone.
Steve’s
watching him with a kind of hopeful expression and Tony sure
as hell can’t resist that, so
he steps out of the warmth of the suit. Goosebumps crawl up the backs
of his arms, his heart starting to thump a little harder. “Um.
Okay.” Harder still when Steve steps toward him.
He
reaches out, hands curling around Tony’s elbows without touching him
and says seriously, “I’m sorry you had a rough day, Tony.”
“Yeah,
well,” he mutters, and his eyes are skipping around the workshop
when Steve moves in entirely and pulls Tony close.
Tony’s
breath catches. He’s big and warm and it’s not like the suit, he
can’t feel it all over, but there’s a stripe of heat down his front,
two more looped around his back. Steve’s just as solid as the suit,
but he’s softer, more welcoming, his body seeming to mold to fit
against Tony’s.
His
chest rises and falls shallowly against Tony and he finds himself
matching it, arms curling around Steve’s back where he digs his
fingers in, probably a little too hard, but god
it feels good, all the stress of the day just swirling away like
water down a drain.
He
forgets that it’s a person he’s holding on to, that they’ve probably
gone way past the point of awkward, but Steve doesn’t move. He
squeezes Tony tight enough to make him feel safe and drags one hand
in long, slow strokes over his back until it feels like his spine is
going to melt straight out of his body.
“I
know you’ve got JARVIS,” he murmurs finally, lips brushing Tony’s
temple, “but you can come to me. Anytime. If you need a hug
or—whatever.” Then Tony feels his mouth quirk up at the corner.
“Hell, I could use a few myself.”
Tony
grips him a little tighter. “Same. Whatever, whenever you need it,
Steve.”
Agents want to love your book. Hiring managers want you to be exactly the person they need. The person on the other end of that blind date is hoping beyond hope that you’re their huckleberry.
If you’re ever hungry and have no money, go to iHop and order a short stack of pancakes (I usually order as carryout). The receipt they print for you, has a URL and a phone number to a survey. Once you complete the survey, they’ll give you a code to get a free short stack of pancakes. You can apply it to your order.
