I don't find it worthwhile to spend mental energy thinking about food, so I eat the same things constantly (though I occasionally change the menu). My wife doesn't like eating the same thing more than a couple of times in a row, so she always wants to make something different, but is constantly stressing about what to plan for meals. She reinforces my view that food planning is not worth mental energy.
I'm going to go with pancakes. They're simple, quick and you almost always have the ingredients on hand. And somehow, people are always genuinely happy to be served good pancakes. If you want to spice things up, you can branch out to crepes and waffles. Crepes are even easier than pancakes, but you have to have something to go in them. Our standard is strawberries, nutella, walnuts, and whipped cream, but I also love savory crepes (I don't make them though).
I'm also debt averse after 20 years of paying off student loans, car loans, and periodic credit card debt. At this point, if I had enough money in my brokerage account to pay off my mortgage, I would probably do so, even though the interest rate is low.
Also, be sure to include taxes when comparing rates. For example, last year I took a loan to buy a car at 5% interest and was also receiving 5% interest on cash in my brokerage account. It looks like a wash, but I have to pay tax on the the money market interest, so I was actually better off paying off the loan (which I did last week).
I haven't tried it yet, but A Little to the Left looks like a fun organizing game. It was just added to Game Pass if you have that. I also see my daughter playing Power Washer Simulator sometimes, which I haven't tried, but it looks like it could be satisfying to play.
I'm a big fan of Don't Nod games (Life is Strange, Tell Me Why) for atmospheric storytelling. Life is Strange: True Colors is from Deck Nine games, but falls in the same category. Detroit: Become Human is also kind of similar, but it occasionally throws in sections where you have to quickly react with button pushing that I don't enjoy. One thing I find interesting about all of these is that you can play them more than once with different choices to get different paths, but so far I haven't replayed any of them because I felt like the path I took was meaningful and I don't want to change my story yet.
An MMO could be a good way to go. My wife isn't really into gaming, but we played WoW together on and off for years. I haven't played them much, but if I were to recommend one to start with now I'd probably check out Final Fantasy 14 or Elder Scrolls Online.
My regret is buying a grinder with a timer instead of a scale. For a while I got consistent results from it, but now I get wildly different quantities from day to day. I want to replace it with one that works better, but haven't been able to justify the cost yet.
I run a heavily modded Skyrim on my deck and it plays fine offline, but the launcher won't work offline for some reason. So, I can play it as much as I want, so long as I don't completely exit the game. Its probably a solvable problem, but I'm rarely without a connection or at least the ability to use my phone as a hotspot just to run the launcher.
This is essentially the same way that my employer sets pay ranges.
They send a list of job titles and descriptions to an outside company along with the number of employees and how much each of those employees are paid. Lots of other employers send their info and the outside company tries to match up all the job descriptions and then sends back to all of the employers what the "market range" is for every job.
My employer then decides where in that range they think is "competitive" (hint: its near the bottom). That's the amount HR and Finance are willing to approve when hiring someone into a role, regardless of experience. The wages are only "competitive" if every other employer goes along with the scheme and offers the same amount.
I agree with this recommendation. After taxes, paying off the loan is probably slightly more profitable and improves your monthly cash flow.
Its only temporary, those employees will be eliminated later under more lax labor laws.
For my company, layoff season is traditionally Q4. I assume they do that so they can load all the expense in the year ending as a "one time" charge that they then subtract from the adjusted earnings, as if it never happened. And then do it again every year.
Unfortunately, starting last year in Q2, we seem to have moved to rolling layoffs. There's a high likelihood that my team will be reorganized twice in 9 months (while still implementing the last round). That will also be the 3rd round of layoffs in 9 months. My boss thinks I'm safe in the next round, but I'm doubtful.
My plan is to move to the EU and I assume I will want to get a local account to handle local transactions. I would not necessarily need a local brokerage account if I can keep my investments in the US, I would just need to work out the reporting requirements for local taxes.
A lot of the details will depend on my work situation at the time (local employment, US remote, or retired). I've started a list of things I will need to figure out, but am mostly just adding to the list right now since any potential move is still several yeats away (at best).
That's funny! Next they should face a heatwave of climate lawsuits...