Surviving adulting: tips and tricks

Hi @miso_soup 

Thanks for sharing this thread! 💜

Something that I have been learning or teaching myself is to stray away from supporting fast fashion and business models that do not support their workers or cause damage to society. Here’s how I’ve approached it:

- Educating Myself: I spend time researching companies to understand their practices and ensure they align with my personal values

- Mindful Shopping: Instead of making impulse purchases, I now carefully consider my purchases to support ethical and sustainable brands. This has definitely allowed me to save more money as I used to do a lot of impulse shopping! 🛍

- Avoid Fast Fashion: With fast fashion being so convenient, making conscious choices has empowered me to feel more in control of my impact on society and the environment 🌎

This approach has significantly changed my shopping habits and made me feel more powerful and responsible as a consumer! I hope it can do the same for someone else 

Best,  
Watermelon_Stegosaurus

Hello @miso_soup thank you so much for taking the time to create this fantastic list! 

I love the points you have shared, especially about money and budgeting, I will definitely check out that app. 

My tip is also regarding budgeting and a useful way to save money as a young adult. Something I have been doing for a while now is creating an Excel sheet containing all my monthly expenses. Although I don't live independently, I work and contribute money towards my car (e.g., fuel, rego, etc.) and other costs. I have found it so easy to save money by compiling my monthly expenses in an Excel sheet and reviewing at the end of each month to see how much I've saved in comparison to the previous month.

In Excel, I can get a good visual image of my daily expenses and it also helps me identify costs that I can reduce, such as decreasing my urge to online shop (I go a little crazy sometimes, but don't we all?).

I really hope this tip is helpful for anyone out there hoping to save money. As an adult, I believe it's TIME to become financially responsible because the world is getting expensive. 

hey @miso_soup thanks for this list of adulting things. I'm 20 and I still don't know what I'm doing 😬

I've found that I'm really good at saving money, but sometimes I have to remind myself that it is ok to spend my money from time to time on things that I need and things that I want to buy for myself to make my life better.

Learning to say no is also a big one I agree on. If there's something you dont want to do, or something has bad vibes, say no 🙂. Sometimes, as an adult, I forget that I have free will and I can control what I do/don't do.

Cooking and meal prep is also something I've recently had to start doing, as I spend time at my partner's house a few days/nights a week and have to come up with some dinner/lunch ideas. I was also left alone for a few weeks by my parents, who went on holiday, and had to cook for myself. I discovered I make killer nachos, the best I've ever had, so that's something!

Hi @miso_soup 

I love this post! And as a fellow adult I will definitely be applying your advice to my everyday living hehe. Also amazing job on changing your first lightbulb!!

A specific piece of advice I have for cooking/meal prepping is that blending veggies into tomato pasta sauce is a hella good way to get some veggies in! Especially if you don't like the taste of veggies. I personally like to blend some carrot and celery into a big batch of sauce, it's a great way to get some nutrition in!
Also do not be afraid to use canned or frozen veggies!!!!! They can be way more convenient and easier to prepare depending on what your cooking. For example, I love adding spinach to my smoothies for extra nutrients (sounds gross but you can barely taste it) however fresh spinach goes off really quickly. So I switched to frozen spinach and it's way more convenient and reduces food waste! 

If I can think of any moree tips I'll be sure to add it when I think of them😊

Hi @miso_soup thank you sharing these tips! I especially love the 'learn to say no' because that is so important, and I am really happy to see that you've been consciously working on setting your boundaries.

I love routines so one of my biggest tips is to set aside 1 day every week (for me it's every Monday) dedicated to home maintainence, such as washing my sheets and towels, vacuuming, washing my hair, cleaning my hairbrush and cleaning the bathroom. I have ADHD so I'm pretty forgetful and this way helps me to stay on top of tasks that aren't necessarily done every day but still need to be done on a regular basis. I found that putting these tasks into my calendar to repeat weekly was super helpful too. On top of this, tasks that are even less frequent (such as rotating my mattress, washing the car, etc) I put in my calendar to repeat every month because otherwise I would 100% forget to do these.

I am also conscious about setting aside time to just be a couch potato (without guilt!) I have chronic fatigue so this is pretty essential for my general health, but I recommend this for everybody. For example, after work I always set aside an hour to lie down and watch some TV as it lets me turn my brain off and rest my body. I know this can be difficult with a busy schedule, but I think it's so important that it should be a priority in everybody's planning!

Those are my only two tips that I can think of now but I hope this helps others! Best of luck adulting everybody 😅

@miso_soup thank you so much for sharing your knowledge 🙇🏻‍♀️.

Adulting is a difficult task that the world does not really prepare us for does it.

While I haven't moved out completely, those tips are so helpful!

Also, I'm very proud of you for changing your first lightbulb. I am yet to figure that one out.

Agreed with knowing when to say no. More, knowing your own capacity and what you can and cannot do is super important. For maintaining your mental health, but also helps maintain all areas of your life so you don't let one fall away. 

Regarding money, what I do is have 3 separate accounts. One for transactions, another for the big savings, and then yes another for emergencies, where you can take money out without consequence. 

I also like having weekly reset day, where I can clean and plan the upcoming week. Really helps me keep up with life haha.

If I have any other tips I'll be sure to add!

Looking forward to what you all have to share too 🙂

@miso_soup This is an amazing idea!! Thankyou for all your tips! - i'm new to adulting and will definitely be taking notes from this post 😂.

I definitely second your tip about meal prepping - i've been doing this over the past few months too. I love making big batches and then freezing it for the next few weeks, it's amazing how well food can reheat! I also love cooking so it feels like a bit of me time in the sense that I get to do something I like as well as doing something to nourish my body. One of my current faves it any kind of pasta tray bake - i normally throw any veggies I have in there for nutritional value since apparently adulting includes voluntarily trying to increase veggie intake 😁

This one is kind of adjacent to your tip re learning to say no - one thing which i've been finding helpful lately is being super diligent with my planning and scheduling! That is, making sure that I allocate enough time to fit in all the things! Things I want to do but don't need to as well as things I need to do but don't necessarily want to. I'm finding that it's really important to make sure I don't overschedule so that I have not just the time, but also energy to do important things. It's definitely a skill to be able to know when your plate is full for the time being!