I think I left the teller at the bank genuinely disturbed when I told him that “If I can’t afford it, I just don’t buy it.” “What about a car? Do you drive a car?” he inquired, his voice toning on the edge of fear. I told him, “Yeah, I have a vehicle. I bought it used for under $3,000.” He looked physically pained. “What about if you want to buy some kind of new appliance? Or furniture?” he persisted. I stared at him blankly. “My couch was $5.00 at Goodwill. Like…I just buy shit cheap or I don’t buy it at all. The only thing in my life that I make payments on is my house, my bills, and my insurance, and that’s split five ways because I have housemates.” The young man looked horrified? Appalled? And somehow also awed? This guy couldn’t have been much older than me. But it seemed that he’d never even considered the option before of saving up for something to purchase it outright instead of using a credit card. Am I the only person in my general age group (just turned 26) who’s never owned a credit card, and who has forgone basic comforts in order to save up for items so you don’t owe money to anyone, like, ever?
If you’re living in the US without a credit card at 26, you’re playing with danger.
No credit is viewed as the same as bad credit. Which means you could be denied if you ever do need to rent an apartment or a car. Hospitals and clinics are also less likely to allow payment plan programs for people without good credit.
The best thing you could do at this point is apply for a credit card you’re eligible for and pay a few things (I do gas and groceries myself) with it each month. As long as you keep it to zero balance each month there is no interest and there will be proof of you not having debt (instead of just the absence of debt).
what.
This is legit how it works. The system requires records on you, or else. So you need a credit card and worse, you need to have a record of using it, even if you pay it off every single month. Unfortunately, the formulas used to determine credit score are secret, so we also have people suggesting that your credit rating is helped if every so often you do pay a bit of interest. The whole thing is a complete mess. If you don’t have a credit rating/history, then any loans you manage to get will be at extremely high interest and will require much more effort than they really should.
what
yeaah let me just go get a card that i can’t pay off because capitalism is shit, even if i literally only buy a pack of gum that’d go well
If you pay it off in full every month there is no interest. Do what OP is doing but put some of that on your credit card and pay it off every month, and soon you will have a very good credit rating.
you skipped right the fuck over the “can’t pay it off” part huh
like credit cards are just not a viable thing if you’re poor and have shit income
And I’m saying to literally not put anything on it if you can’t buy it in cash. And I’m aware that they fuck over poor people, but yeah, that’s the system that’s in place. This is advice for navigating it, which is how to obtain good credit which helps a lot.
Right like don’t make minimum payments, put your gas on your credit card then that same day pay the credit card company online then don’t worry about it for another month. It’s an absolutely shit system, but in the event of an emergency it’s good to have.
I have had to explain this to a lot of people in my life, but it’s true- no credit is the same as (or worse than!!!) bad credit. What having (and using) the card actually shows is that you are capable of (and actually follow through on) making regular payments: ie, it is proof of having a steady income (even if you do not actually have a steady income). It is showing you reliably can pay for things you purchase (you do the same thing with cash but there’s no record), and that if you borrow money you’re good for it when it comes time to repay, which is what your credit score is all about.
Think of it this way. You have a credit card, which is your credit tracking device. You use the card to tell someone “I will pay for this thing with borrowed money.” They agree to allow you to pay with borrowed money. You then turn around to your credit card company and say “Thank you for allowing me to borrow your money, I will now pay you back with my own money.” (which, if you repay them promptly enough, you can repay them the exact same amount you borrowed, rather than paying them more than you borrowed [which is what interest is])
The credit card company then recognizes that you successfully borrowed their money AND returned it safely, and they pass that information along to credit tracking companies. Each time you do this, you gain credibility. If you do this enough times, you are considered a credible borrower of money, so that if you ever are in a situation where you need to borrow a large sum of money (for example, a mortgage or a car or a hospital bill or whatever), companies with money will look at how well you have returned money in the past, and say Ah yes, this person repays their debts well, so we can lend them our money.
So like, do what the above folks are recommending. Get a credit card and use it to reasonably purchase things you already have to buy- put a batch of groceries on the card. Go home (or wherever you can use the internet), pay it off as if you had paid cash in the store for it. There is no extra fee or interest for doing this, and you are leveling up your credibility in case of emergency later on in life.
More shit in adult life they never tell you about in school
As someone who’s credit history was wiped to zero after an ex stole her identity.
Having no credit is significantly worse than having bad credit. I’ve been fortunate as of late and nothing bad has happened to me, and I’m set to inherit a house and the like. But, if say the furnace dies, or the hot water heater, or I get sick again (since my insurance company jacked my premiums to $1300/mo), I’m proper fucked.
One of the big suggestions my financial guy (I have some stocks and bonds, planning for retirement) suggested was, getting a secured credit card. Basically, it works like a normal credit card, but you put your own money down as a collateral/financing base (generally between $200-500), the financing bank/institution then puts their backing behind you. Secured cards have a near 100% approval rate for those of us with zero credit, whereas normal bank backed cards you are less likely to be approved.
I applied for one and got denied because I had low income…..
Shit I wish had been explained to me 10 years ago.
simple way to build credit: set up your monthly charges– cell, internet, Netflix, insurance– to be paid automatically on your credit card. Instead of paying each bill separately throughout the month, you pay off your one credit card bill.
My son just turned 18 (yesterday), we got him a credit card in his name that we are co-signers on. He’ll use it to get gas for the car we share and we’ll pay the bill each month. This way he can get a credit score.
If you have low income and can’t get a credit card on your own, see if you can get a co-signer. I co-signed on my sister’s first credit card, her first car loan, and her first 2 apartments.
All this. I have credit cards that I use as a 1-month delay-of-payment: I save up, buy it on my credit card (and get airline miles for the purchase!) and then pay for it at the end of the next month with the cash I’d saved beforehand. Ditto reoccurring fees – my monthly mobile and health care bills gets paid that way, automatically, so I never forget.
It takes a little bit of money management, in that you have to make sure the money STAYS PUT for that month, so you have it when needed, but it’s a way to play their game to your own benefit. You use their backing, but don’t pay them any interest on it.
(start with whatever POS card you can, then work your way up to one that offers rewards. they will eventually try to get you to increase your credit limits/offer you higher-term cards. Just Say No)
All of the “yes, get a fucking credit card and build your score” advice is good, as are the various plans to use it without incurring any hit to your actual cash flow, but I will offer one counterpoint to the lattermost bit of advice, and explain why you *want* to increase your credit limit.
One of the factors that goes into your score (it’s one of the biggest, depending on credit agency doing the reporting) is your debt-to-credit ratio; that is, if you have $500 in available credit, and a $100 balance (because you pay your electric and cell phone bills with it, for instance), your debt-to-credit ratio is 20% (100/500). If you talk to your credit company after you’ve been with them a while and say, “I’d like to see about increasing my credit limit,” and they see you’ve been on time with everything, they might bump you up tp $600, $750, or maybe even $1000…. if you keep that $100 monthly balance because your bills are consistent, will give you a ratio of 16.6%, 13.3%, or 10% – which makes your credit score go up, which means you can ask your credit card compaany to lower your interest rate, just in case you can’t pay your bill in full some month due to an emergency expense or whatever, so it’ll cost you less extra money if you have to do that.
There are a shitload of things that look at your credit score now that don’t necessarily have anything, overtly or obviously, to do with your ability to repay your debts. renting an apartment, especially from a management company rather than a local landlord – they’ll check it to see if you’re gonna be on time and pay in full. jobs in some sectors of the market – if you look like you’re hustling to make ends meet, that could be seen as leaving you vulnerable for bribes or potentially doing shady shit at work (yes, this is shitty, but yes, it’s the truth).
plus, having a strong credit history means you can get better terms when you buy a car or house or anything else of that nature – sparkling credit will literally cut your interest rate down by 60% or more compared to someone with bad credit… if that latter person can even get the loan at all.
This thread would have saved me a lot of money and stress at 17, and has new strategies i was not aware of but will now definitely implement at 37.
I never realized you could auto pay all your bills at once on a cc. I have no sense of time and i forget shit every month if I’m not careful.
If the ocean ever disappears DONT GO LOOKING FOR IT… go in the other direction
i know this sounds like a shitpost but isn’t this like, real advice regarding tsunamis
Yes this was about hurricane Irma it is not a shitpost
This is actually really good advice so let me elaborate a bit: if you notice the tide is retreating very quickly at a very odd time of day, get as far away from water and as high up as you can. I live along the ocean and a long time ago we had a small tsunami and a relative of mine tells me how her father saw the tides retreating so he just picked her up and just ran, which probably saved their lives.
So yeah DONT LOOK FOR THE MISSING OCEAN just run away
ocean not lost, ocean is actually winding up to kick you very hard in the nuts.
I appreciate how I wasnt sure at first if this was good advice, a Night Vale post, or a Stephen Universe post.
It’s about time someone got around to uncovering all the cheat codes for this “human being” software. It’s only been out for like 10,000 years.
?????????????
I’ve used this technique for about a year, and I can safely say that it has efficiently transformed my sleeping habits from several hours of struggle to fall asleep, to passing out in a matter of minutes.
It’s a form of Alexander Technique. It’s a technique that was designed for actors to keep their body in ready working condition and give it the best way to perform. This is the method used to calm, and center the body. Once the body is at that point it can perform anything you want it to.
Reblogging for later reference after I tried it earlier today to try to calm down. It actually does help a lot, not just for sleep but if you have problems with anxiety.
My default mental setting is “vibrating intensely in the background.” After doing this, I felt noticeably calm and relaxed – I wasn’t as fixated on my breathing, I wasn’t tense, my movements weren’t jerky and I didn’t feel like I had to be as tense as possible to be under control. 10/10 would recommend.
me gonna try it
dont wanna reblog but insomnia is a bitch for some ppl so heres for my mutuals having trouble sleeping.
So listen up y’all, nothing drives me crazier as both a writer and a scientist than seeing alien diseases that make no fuckin’ sense in a human body.
If you’re talking about alien diseases in a non-human character, you can ignore all this.
But as far as alien diseases in humans go, please remember:
DISEASE SYMPTOMS ARE AN IMMUNE RESPONSE.
Fever? A response to help your immune cells function faster and more efficiently to destroy invaders.
Sore/scratchy throat? An immune response. Diseases that latch onto the epithelium of the throat (the common cold, the flu) replicate there, and your body is like “uh no fuckin’ thanks” and starts to slough off those cells in order to stop the replication of new virus in its tracks. So when it feels like your throat is dying? guess what it literally is. And the white spots you see with more severe bacterial infections are pus accumulation, which is basically dead white blood cells, and the pus is a nice and disgusting way of getting that shit outta here.
(No one really knows why soreness and malaise happens, but some scientists guess that it’s a byproduct of immune response, and others suspect that it’s your body’s way of telling you to take it easy)
headache? usually sinus pressure (or dehydration, which isn’t an immune response but causes headaches by reducing blood volume and causing a general ruckus in your body, can be an unfortunate side effect of a fever) caused by mucous which is an immune response to flush that nasty viral shit outta your face.
Rashes? an inflammatory response. Your lymphocytes see a thing they don’t like and they’re like “hEY NOW” and release a bunch of chemicals that tell the cells that are supposed to kill it to come do that. Those chemicals cause inflammation, which causes redness, heat, and swelling. They itch because histamine is a bitch.
fatigue? your body is doing a lot–give it a break!
here is a fact:
during the Spanish 1918 Plague, a very strange age group succumbed to the illness. The very young and very old were fine, but people who were seemingly healthy and in the prime of life (young adults) did not survive. This is because that virus triggered an immune response called a cytokine storm, which basically killed everything in sight and caused horrific symptoms like tissue death, vasodilation and bleeding–basically a MASSIVE inflammatory response that lead to organ damage and death. Those with the strongest immune systems took the worst beating by their own immune responses, while those with weaker immune systems were fine.
So when you’re thinking of an alien disease, think through the immune response.
Where does this virus attack? Look up viruses that also attack there and understand what the immune system would do about it.
Understand symptoms that usually travel together–joint pain and fever, for example.
So please, please: no purple and green spotted diseases. No diseases that cause glamorous fainting spells and nothing else. No mystical eye-color/hair-color changing diseases. If you want these things to happen, use magic or some shit or alien physiology, but when it’s humans, it doesn’t make any fuckin’ sense.
This has been a rant and I apologize for that.
As a microbiologist, I think the main advice here is to take into account real diseases and conditions before you make up a fictional disease or condition.
Some bacteria have physical effects on the body that cause symptoms (EHEC varitype of E. coli ruptures cells at the site of infection, which is usually the large intestine, hence, you have bloody stools from it). If your alien or “made-up” bacteria or virus causes a certain symptom, find a real bacteria or virus that causes the same symptom. They need to behave in a similar fashion and have similar physical traits. Bacteria and viruses do not evolve functions because they’re cool. They evolve them because they’re useful.
There are also dietary issues, medications and chronic diseases that cause physical changes–copper toxicity can cause an orange ring around the iris, an eyelash lengthening “medicine” causes darkening and/or color change of the iris, hemochromatosis (sometimes known as “Bronze Diabetes”) causes darkening of the skin etc. If you want to use this sort of thing, again, find something real that causes it and work through things logically.
Play your cards right, do your research and you will have hordes of readers in the scientific and/or biological community cheering, screaming and crying because they love your work.
@biologyweeps, this feels up your speculative alley – anything to add?
Ohhh.
I’d like to add that the same goes for parasitic infections, more or less. If you want a certain trait for a diseases, cross reference with existing parasites to see what’s happening, and also make sure you check what happens if you put a parasite in a host it’s not meant for. We can sensibly assume that alien parasites that encounter a human would be ‘wtf’ and potentially cause complications that would never happen in the native species. Maybe in the native species it causes a cold like reaction at worst, but in a human the parasites may attempt to nest in a totally different tissue. Maybe that causes widespread tissue damage by the parasite itself as it tries to borrow in? Again, check existing cases to see what horrific things could happen.
While we’re on it, also check how your disease is communicated. One of the things that annoy me so much with zombie movies is that ‘biting’ is supposed to be a very effective way to spread it. It’s not. Anything that requires such intimate contact is actually kind of hard to communicate. Airborne things? Now there we are at potential ‘oh shit’ territory. So if you want your disease to sweep the country/planet/ship, pick something that’s easily communicable.
Also consider the incubation period. How long until someone shows symptoms? Are they already infectious to other people before showing symptoms or still after they stopped? As mentioned above, illness symptoms are in most part immune responses and the immune system needs time to get up and run. Give it that time.
And while we’re at it… there are symptoms that aren’t immune responses. For example the cramps that accompany tetanus are caused by a toxin the bacterium produces that damages/destroys nerve cells. Viruses can cause tissue damage when they insert in cells, replicate in there and destroy the cell on exit. Think of how HIV can wreak havoc on the human immune system by killing of a specific kind of cell. Depending on where your viruses likes to replicate it can massively impact the look of it. Something that destroys liver cells will look different (and if survived may come with different long term damage) than something that prefers skin or muscle cells. If it’s alien also consider how it might behave differently in its original host.
Fantastic post, I can relate to OP 100%. More points:
Nothing makes me groan harder than a made-up plague which gives anyone X diseases within seconds to MINUTES. I’m looking at you, most zombie movies. And if your alien/synthetic/sci-fi pathogen is at all like a virus (read: no metabolism of its own, just genetic material of some kind which it uses to reprogram host cells), then the rate at which it mupltiplies is limited to what normal human cells can do. Now, viruses can multiply pretty damn fast. But give you symptoms within MINUTES? Nope.
So long as we’re on the subject of epidemiology, and speed:
"Oh no, patient died less than a day after being infected! We’re all doomed!“ Wrong. While that SOUNDS scary, a plague that kills that quickly would not actually be that dangerous, and would be unlikely to have evolved to begin with. A disease needs to pass itself on to at least one other person, on average, before it kills its host, or it’s doomed to extinction. Any virus that kills its host before it has a decent chance of being passed on will basically quarantine itself. (Of course, you CAN do this if you handwave its origins as being made in a lab or whatever, just know it won’t realistically pose a truly terrifying threat on a population level.)
Mmore ideas for a realistically scary made-up plague:
– Long incubation period (say, a couple of weeks), making quarantine much more difficult, disruptive to everyday life, and unlikely to succeed.
– Infectious period != symptomatic period, i.e. someone can spread the disease before they appear sick. (Note: if this condition is met, then dying very rapidly after *manifesting symptoms* becomes plausible again, more plausible than dying quickly after being infected.)
– The possibility or relative prevalence of healthy carriers – think Typhoid Mary. I.e. rare people who skip the symptoms part entirely but are still infectious.
– The disease is transmitted through an animal that is hard to keep out, the definition of “hard to keep out” would depend on the setting here. Poor water sanitation means waterborne bacteria and microscopic parasites would be a huge danger. Insect or arachnid (e.g. tick) bites could be a danger in almost any setting..
– As an alternative to above point: the bacterial/viral/parasite/whatever can form spores that are fucking EVERYWHERE. (Read: the reason for both tetanus and botulinum poisoning.)
– The pathogen is both dangerous and impossible to fully exterminate through vaccination because it has a huge population of reservoir hosts. (Reservoir hosts are entire SPECIES that can carry and propagate the disease without being affected much by it.) Same way the Black Plague is still out there because a shitton of rodent species passively carry it.
And many more things if you do some research for inspiration! Pathogens are scary, fascinating things, and I really wish we had more realistic fictional representation of them than “virus which causes zombie behaviour in 3 seconds flat” (looking at you, 28 Days Later) and “virus which can MIND-CONTROL people who view the main carrier through a COMPUTER SCREEN” (wtf???) (looking at you, Jessica Jones).
Are you tired? I am so tired. I am too tired even to be funny about why you should call your Senator, (202) 224-3121, and tell them that this is a bad bill. So I will, as usual, link to Indivisible’s thorough, comprehensible explainer and call scripts.
YOU: Hello! My name is [ ] and I’m calling from [part of state]. Can you tell me how Senator [ ] will vote on the Graham-Cassidy health care bill if it comes up for a vote?
COMBATIVE STAFFER: The Senator hasn’t reviewed the text of the bill yet and hasn’t taken a position on it. There is no vote scheduled on that bill though.
YOU: I want Senator [ ] to oppose Graham-Cassidy. The bill is just like other TrumpCare bills in that it destroys Medicaid as we know it by turning Medicaid into a capped system. This hurts children with disabilities, seniors, and even victims of natural disasters like Harvey and Irma. It also takes away funding to help people afford health insurance through the marketplace, and it hurts states that have expanded Medicaid.
COMBATIVE STAFFER: Obamacare is a failure. The Senator believes we must stabilize the market and lower premiums.
YOU: If that’s what the Senator wants to do, then supporting the bipartisan, transparent process that Senators Alexander and Murray are leading through regular order would be a better option than supporting the Graham-Cassidy bill. I expect Senator [ ] to respect regular order and reject the Graham-Cassidy bill if it comes to a vote.
COMBATIVE STAFFER: I’ll let the Senator know your thoughts.
YOU: Yes, please do. I will be watching this vote closely and I expect Senator [ ] to oppose. Please take down my contact information so you can let me know what Senator [ ] decides to do.
If your Senator has already come out against the bill, please call them anyway and tell them you support their decision. This may feel pointless, but it isn’t, because it provides them with necessary political capital, and also, it is nice for the staffers to be thanked and appreciated.
YOU: Hi, my name is [ ] and I’m a constituent from [ ]. I’m calling to thank Senator [ ] for her opposition to Graham-Cassidy and to reiterate that I and my community stand behind her as she fights against it. And I also wanted to thank you and the rest of the Senator’s staff for all the hard work you guys are doing!
BELEAGUERED STAFFER: Thank you. I’ll pass your thoughts along to the Senator.
YOU: Thanks, please do. Hey, incidentally, do you ever feel like just screaming? Just screaming and screaming and all the time screaming and never not screaming? Because I’ve felt that way for months and I don’t even have to answer phones for Congress! Haha. Whew.
BELEAGUERED STAFFER: Uh, I –
YOU: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hahaha.
BELEAGUERED STAFFER: [nervous laughter] Well, thanks for your support, and –
I just discovered foodtimeline.org, which is exactly what it sounds like: centuries worth of information about FOOD. If you are writing something historical and you want a starting point for figuring out what people should be eating, this might be a good place?
CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY
this is awesome but the original link just turned into a redirect loop for me, here it is again (x)
Guys, the first images of Irma’s level of devastation are coming out of Barbuda and it’s heartbreaking. The President of Barbuda says that 90% of the island is uninhabitable, upwards of 60% of the TOTAL population are now homeless because the hurricane destroyed virtually every building and home on the island, and that the estimated damage is valued at no less than $200 million dollars. That’s money a small island like that doesn’t have. They’re saying it’s going to take years to rebuild and Hurricane Jose is right behind Irma on the same path which means they could be hit twice. This is just one of the islands being affected.
Please, show up for the Caribbean like you did for Houston. There is no safety net for any of these islands including mine. They’ll rely entirely on foreign aid. Find local charities or global trustworthy charities (NOT the Red Cross) and make a donation asking them to aid the Caribbean. There’s whole countries being turned into rubble with no financial means to repair their infrastructures. They’re going to need help.
For the hundreds of people replying or in my inbox asking “Why not the Red Cross?!”:
Seriously, guess where I found all of those in two solid minutes of searching? Google. Even better, they didn’t charge me a penny for it.
Stop wanting things to be spoonfed to you. While you waited for someone to link you to sources, you could’ve done it yourself and already donated to people who desperately need it.
Because people are also asking where to donate instead of the Red Cross:
Habitat For Humanity [83% rating on Charity Navigator // Because with islands like Barbuda 90% destroyed and French St. Martin said to be 95% destroyed then people are going to need homes built]
Catholic Relief Services [90% rating on Charity Navigator // For those who would want to donate to a religious organization]
If there is a note or comments section on their donation page please do let them know that you would want your money to go to their Caribbean relief efforts. Houston and Florida have the US government backing them in whatever they will need but these islands will have very little except for these charities to fall back if they have any hope of rebuilding what seems to be entire countries in some cases. For the people who lost everything even a few bucks will go a long way.
For the most part I would suggest staying away from privately launched GoFundMes unless you know the person directly. Ultimately, you just never know where those funds are going to end up and if your money will be used wisely. Sure, the same can be said for charity organizations but at least there is a better shot at possibly helping through them. The five listed above are world known and have been studied by charity oversight organizations. It’s as close to perfect as we’re going to get.
Please donate if you can! [ Here’s ] a list of essentials to donate.
This’ll be queued on repeat for the next few hours.
just moving along like everyone else 