What Are You Waiting For In Your Thirties?

April 26, 2016 By laurasomewherelse in Grab Bag, Health and Wellness Tags: anticipation, anxiety, friendship, fun, future, Happiness, happy, mentality, now, Portland, stress, thirties, Thirty, waiting, worry Leave a comment

Sorry for the long post delay. I feel like I’ve waited way too long- which is the theme of this post.

Do you ever feel like you’re waiting around for that day when your life will get much better? For that moment you are finally in the shape of your life? For the year you can quit your job and retire? For that future time period when you can travel the world? And then you can be happy?

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Sometimes I catch myself waiting in this way. But what I’ve learned this year is that it’s almost impossible to be happy later if you can’t be happy now. I feel like I’ve spent a lot of my life worrying- it’s my go to habit. I can feel myself clenching up sometimes, preparing for the worst. I guess I’ve always felt like somehow my anxiety helps me to get things done.

However, lately, when I focus on manually taking down my anxiety levels and allowing myself to be happy now, I still get things done. I don’t fall into a valley of hedonism like I’ve been afraid of doing. Nothing falls apart because- god forbid- I haven’t worried about it today. My anxiety hasn’t seemed to be necessary to have a productive day.

This lack-of-waiting-to- be-happy mentality brought up thoughts of another trip with Jane. We haven’t taken a trip together just for fun in over seven years. Last time we went to Austin, so this time we picked the equally bizarre city of Portland, and it was wonderful.

Jane’s new friend

My new friend and his new friend

At first it felt weird planning a trip purely for fun, but why wait?And why not? We just got back yesterday night, and we were so happy we’d made the leap, took the trip, and didn’t wait for some ‘better time’ in the future.

First night in Portland!

You are allowed to enjoy life right now. Choose happiness right this moment. Of course you will feel sad and anxious sometimes, and that’s absolutely okay and actually good and normal. But anxiety doesn’t need to be the status quo. You can feel all the feels. But you don’t have to stay miserable..or anxiously await a better time.The future is uncertain. Choose to be happy now. What are you waiting for?

Blue Star Donuts!

Voodoo!

Indulgent, yes. Regrets, no.

Post brunch feels

Portland Love!

Togetherness and Continuing to Find Yourself In Your Thirties

April 11, 2016 By laurasomewherelse in Career, Friendships, Relationships Tags: best friends, cancelled, Duplass, finding yourself, friendship, HBO, marriage, siblings, thirties, thirty something, Togetherness 5 Comments

One of my favorite new HBO shows, Togetherness, just got cancelled a few weeks ago. It’s a darn tragedy, because the show was brilliant and touching and all about the thirties.

Togetherness features four thirty-somethings all in unique places in their romantic and career lives. Two of them are a married couple with a house and kids. The other two are single, with one’s career (as an actor) taking off and the other’s (as the bringer of blow up castles to parties (really) ) stalling.

Throughout the two season series, the marriage of the main couple shows some slow-building cracks and begins to fall apart. The husband quits his job as a sound designer for movies and starts driving an Uber. The wife adds a volunteer job of starting a charter school to her stay-at-home-mom life and finds some happiness and power in doing that. Hook ups happen, cheating happens, drugs happen, moments of intense clarity happen, kick the can in the park happens, characters grow into new jobs, characters find new parts of themselves, characters find new friends, characters fight, characters crash on couches, characters crash cars. Basically, a lot of the tumult and highs and lows and crazy and silly of the twenties happens here… in a more…grown up way? It’s hard to explain it except that I recognize it, and it’s amazing how this show has managed to capture it. Characters have already grown into themselves, but they’re growing into themselves again and again and again in their thirties.

What this show captures is what Jane and I have been trying to figure out here on this blog, but haven’t ever completely been able to pin down: that feeling of starting to know who you are and then using that knowledge to go with the new version of yourself that’s already begun to develop and will develop differently again and again. There’s a fluidity to a thirty-something that grows out of a solid foundation already built earlier. Meaning: you’ve already found a lot of yourself during or right before your thirties, but that self changes and grows and shifts and then is found over and over again. The thirties are about recognizing, from the self that you’ve already found, the changes that are happening to you. A thriving thirties decade is also about being able to communicate those changes with both yourself and with others. Also it’s about recognizing that you can’t compare your life with the lives of your friends and relatives- some people will have their careers laid out, some people will be switching around. Some people will have kids, some will stay single, some will get divorced. Your road is your own.

What makes the characters in Togetherness amazing is their ability to communicate with each other (eventually) throughout the series. Sometimes it takes a complete breakdown in communication, but the ‘togetherness’ of Togetherness stems from each fiercely independent character equally fiercely wanting to reach out to one another. The early marriage breakdown in the show stemmed from very slow communication breakdowns- nothing huge or obvious, just slow cracks. The show begins with shedding light on the cracks, which have to be revealed in order to be repaired. I feel like a lot of finding yourself in your thirties is about shedding light on slow cracks that have built up, tending to them, and rebuilding again and again.

Hopefully, there will be other shows this good at capturing the thirties decade. Meanwhile, if you haven’t seen Togetherness, what are you waiting for? Go watch it and enjoy!

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How to Balance a Checkbook in Your Thirties

April 4, 2016 By laurasomewherelse in Money Tags: account, balance, balance a checkbook, bank account, checkbook, checking account, finance, finances, Money, overdraft, payment, receipts, spending, thirties 2 Comments

I was on a break from work yesterday, and I simultaneously shoved forkfuls of salad into my mouth while I stared as my coworker meticulously copied each number from every receipt in her purse into her checkbook. I was stunned, transfixed by the preciseness of it all.

Neither my high school nor college classes ever taught me how to balance a checkbook. I opened a checking account somewhere around junior year of high school, but after that, and all through my twenties, I solely kept my accounts in order on a wing and a prayer

In my thirties, I have a higher checking account balance across the board that I’m more aware of and I love logging in to chase.com and making sure everything is in order (but that’s just me). I also use credit cards a lot of the time (Should You Use Lots of Credit Cards in Your Thirties?), and then pay them off every month, so I don’t think much about overdrafts.

However, I still really dislike budgeting, which I write about here in Budgeting in Your Thirties When You Hate Budgeting, and I’ve never learned how to balance a checkbook. The whole checkbook balancing thing just seems so quaint and old fashioned, but I think it’s actually helpful to know. So I went on a google search and landed at dummies.com, where I clicked on How to Balance a Checkbook.

I’ll dumb the whole process down even more than dummies.com, since I like topics- especially financial topics- to be in the most basic lamens terms for me. So balancing a checkbook is kind of like making a budget backwards. When you make a budget, you are laying out the future of your money. When you balance a checkbook, you are documenting the past.

So, to balance a checkbook, simply:

Write down, at the end of the day, the total money that was in your bank account at the end of yesterday.
Write down, in the little tiny spreadsheet in the back of your checkbook, every single cent you spent today. Go through your receipts in order to know what you’ve spent.
Write down every cent you autodebited from your account today- you may not have a receipt for that, so keep track of autodebits (such as rent, student loan payment, credit card payment, amazon.com subscriptions) somewhere.
Subtract ALL the money spent today from the total money that was in your account yesterday.
If your total is now below zero, you have an overdraft, and that is bad. Try not to let that happen again, by creating a budget for next time.

That seems to be the gist of it. If it sounds tedious, you can probably avoid the whole thing by making a solid budget and sticking to it. Also, check your bank balance regularly, and try to keep a higher balance in your account if you can. I know that’s a bit vague and imprecise, but the times where you’re most in danger of an overdraft are when you stray from your normal spending routine, such as if you lose your job, or when you’re traveling, or when you move, or if you have to make a major emergency purchase- like paying a sudden hospital bill. So be extra vigilant with your account during times like those.

That’s all I got on balancing a checkbook. What do you guys think? Any of you balance a checkbook yourself and have some helpful hints?

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Baby Fever in Your Thirties

March 26, 2016 By laurasomewherelse in children, Family, Grab Bag, Relationships Tags: adorable, baby, baby animal, baby fever, baby human, bunnies, cute, family, photos, pigs, thirties, Thirty 1 Comment

I’ve always been a fan of cute things.

I love little animals, especially baby animals, and can watch cute cat videos for quite awhile- sometimes over and over again. When people talk to me about their dog or cat or any cuddly pet really, I always want to see a picture. Or two. Or three.

And I think I’ve always kinda loved really cute babies too. Cute human ones, I mean. But although I’ve always found some human babies cute, I’m quite particular, and I never really liked kids, even when I was one myself.

Lately though, I’ve noticed my love of cute little things increasing even more. I’ve always loved cute animals, but now I’m absolutely obsessed with them. I squee out loud when I see an adorable puppy in a sweater, and photos of baby pigs and pandas can bring happy tears to my eyes.

Today at work I saw an adorable baby with tufts of crazy hair sticking out everywhere. He/she made me really happy. I pointed him/her out to my coworker, a male in his late thirties, and he said ‘awww, so cute’ and then asked, ‘Do you have baby fever?’

I immediately said no, and felt embarrassed and even ashamed, weirded out by that question, especially from a guy. Baby fever seems like such a cliche in your thirties. But then he informed me that he thought HE was having baby fever- not only noticing cute kids way more, but getting obsessed with his nieces and nephews like never before.

So that was shocking. Maybe baby fever isn’t just a cliche woman thing, but can happen to guys too. He’s in his late thirties, so perhaps it happens to guys a bit later? Is baby fever even a real thing? Does being in your thirties cause this for some people?

I don’t know if I have baby fever, really. At least, I won’t admit it just yet. But I love cute things, for sure.

And so I conclude with a video of a cat building an igloo in the snow. And just in time for easter: some of my favorite very cute bunnies. And all of their friends. 🙂

30 Women Around the Globe Reflect on Life at 30

March 16, 2016 By laurasomewherelse in Career, Friendships, Relationships Tags: 30, career, children, FOMO, global, international, international women's day, married, single, Stay at home mom, Stylist, Stylist Magazine, thirties, Thirty Leave a comment

International Women’s Day was just last week- March 8th. In honor of that day, Stylist magazine interviewed 30 women, all age 30, from all over the world. Here’s the link to that article: This is what 30 looks like: women across the world share their experiences.

The women talked about their careers right now, whether they were single, married, or in a relationship, whether or not they had children, whether they were where they thought they’d be at 30, and more.

The biggest thing I noticed about the article was the discrepancy in the experiences and the voices. Every woman was at a different point in their life- some were 30 and worried about being single, some were 30 with 3 kids. Some were 30 and stay at home moms, some were 30 and running their own business. Some were 30 and worried about money. Some were 30 and worried about going outside at night because in their country they might be raped or killed. “Women aren’t safe. I can’t walk the streets for fear of being killed or raped; this is the product of patriarchy in my country.” – Sandra de la Cruz, Lima Peru.

Some were super happy with their lives while single, some super happy while married with kids. Some seemed unsatisfied while single, some seemed unsatisfied married with 3 kids. I feel like reading about all these different experiences for women at 30 really fights the FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) issue that I sometimes have. I want to do everything at once. I want to experience life with my own business, and also maybe have a life learning at another company. I want to experience being pregnant and having a child, but also experience being happily married into my fifties and sixties without a child interrupting, and without the life-changing responsibilities of a child.

It’s hard to want everything at once, and to want everyone else’s experiences too. This happens to me sometimes- I’m in a happy vacuum alone, enjoying my time, but then someone will tell me about something they’ve done, and I’ll want to do it too.

The article really brought home how different experiences can all be valid and happy-making, and there’s no one portrait of what a thirty-something’s life should be like. Follow your own happiness and make your own life and you won’t miss out on anything.

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Happy 34th Birthday, Jane!!! (And All About the Magical Number 34)

March 7, 2016 By laurasomewherelse in Friendships, Grab Bag Tags: 34, Birthday, dave matthews, Fibonacci, happy birthday, magic square, number 34, numerology, symbolism Leave a comment

It’s after midnight, which means it’s officially the New York birthday of one of my absolute favorite people in the world: my strong, beautiful, talented, and amazing co-blogger and best friend- Jane Miller!

Jane is one of the most kind, fun, creative, and exciting people I know, and I’m proud to call her my friend for more than 16 years now! The thirties have only continued to bring us both new adventures and growth, and each year we explore something unique and different- I’m excited for the new joys and wild discoveries that this year will bring.

In tribute to Jane’s 34th birthday, I’m gonna list some of the coolest, wackiest and most interesting meanings, uses and symbolism for the number 34:

The Magic Constant of a 4×4 magic square is always 34
34 is the 9th Fibonacci number
The Internet rule #34 is: “If it exists, there is porn of it.” Hmmm, interesting…
Dave Matthews has a pretty relaxing song called #34.
34th street in Manhattan is “Herald Square”- a very famous and busy area of New York.
34 is the atomic number of selenium.
There are 34 islands in the Mediterranean (hint, hint, might be birthday trip time).
34 in numerology represents strength gained through experience, as well as growth obtained from observation of both people and things.
Also according to numerology, 34 symbolizes inner wisdom and intuition. The essence of 34 in this realm is:
- Introspection
- Analysis
- Creative self-expression
- Optimism
- Spirituality
- Pragmatism
The biggest numerological symbolism of 34 is knowledge of self and accumulation of wisdom.
3.4 is internet slang for “all the time” or “constantly”..this is derived from the term 24/7 turned into its decimal equivalent, 3.4. Jane is constantly awesome.
34 is a heptagonal number– a mathematical term meaning that it’s a figurate number that represents a heptagon- a figure that has 7 sides. And 7 is the best single digit.
Most importantly, 34 means HAPPY BIRTHDAY JANE!!! I love you so much!!!

Happy Birthday, Jane!!!! Woohoo, New Year!

Can You Get More Introverted As You Get Older?

February 29, 2016 By laurasomewherelse in Health and Wellness Tags: age, anxiety, calm, extrovert, introvert, outgoing, recovery, shy, sleep, Theater, thirties, Thirty, tired Leave a comment

I just got back from my theater company’s writers workshop and I feel seriously drained. To be fair, I’m already running on less than adequate sleep, but my energy is super low when it’s usually super high after an awesome and creative theater meeting.

Part of me feels like I haven’t fully recovered from working a major auto show in Chicago- I returned from the show a full week ago- last Monday- but it kind of seems like yesterday. My days back in New York have flown by. I spent a good amount of my time back home working on taxes and projects that needed to get done, and other days catching up with people I really wanted to see.

For whatever reason, I just want to crawl up and be alone and do nothing all day for the next few days (don’t we all, sometimes, especially us introverts?) but I have to travel out of town again tomorrow for another show. And the sensation of wanting to be alone and do nothing for days and days in order to recharge is stronger than ever.

So I just googled ‘does introversion increase with age?’ and found mixed opinions. I know that it’s my introverted nature that makes me need alone time to recharge, but I usually love socializing, especially one on one, and don’t feel as drained as I do now by not getting enough time alone. The google search results were a mixed bag, generally not stating that introversion increases with age, but a ton of people had also asked this question, making me think that it’s common even if undiagnosed.

If introversion doesn’t actually increase with age, perhaps we’re just more aware of it as we get into our thirties- we’re more aware of what we want and who we really are. I know that I’m less willing to push myself to the point of burnout, and am much more conscious of my feelings and opinions. So this newfound awareness of how I feel and where my limits are may make me feel like I’m getting more introverted as I get older when in fact I’m just more aware of what I need.

Actually, writing this is making me feel better. I’m playing classical music and I just made tea and am gonna take a hot shower and I’m writing to you guys and you guys are great. And I’m blissfully, blissfully alone. Le sigh…

But a good le sigh.

The Bowling Ball Leaning Dilemma, or Trying to Control the Uncontrollable

February 19, 2016 By laurasomewherelse in Health and Wellness Tags: anxiety, bowling, Habits, Happiness, instinct, joy, lean, thirties, worry 2 Comments

It’s been awhile since I’ve last gone bowling, but it’s been barely any time since I’ve worried about something. Both of these things are connected by a bad habit.

You see, I have a ridiculously useless habit when I go bowling. I throw the ball down the lane (and I seriously mean throw, as I have no technique. I only go bowling for fun or birthday parties). Once I’ve thrown the ball, I watch its trajectory down the lane, and then, very predictably, I lean my entire body in the direction I want the ball to go.

This crazy-looking full body lean is sometimes accompanied by arm waving, pushing an imaginary force that connects me to the ball and will accomplish a strike by telepathy. Astonishingly, my leaning telepathy has zero effectiveness in getting the ball to change course. All the leaning does is scratch my itch to DO something.

Lately, I’ve decided to pay attention to the hum of worry that naturally clouds my mind from the moment I wake up. I vaguely worry that I’ll do something wrong and wind up with people mad at me, or lose friends. I worry that I’ll forget all of the tasks I must do later that day or “some day soon.” I worry that when I’m happy for no reason I’m not being ‘reasonable’ or ‘down to earth enough.’ I worry about being happy in general, because if I’m happy now, then I must have settled.

Take a look at your own life- is there a sheen of mild to medium worry coursing through your moments? Worry might have become so habitual in your life that you barely notice it anymore. Maybe you feel like worry helps you accomplish something by keeping tasks in the forefront of your mind. On the contrary, think of worry as the equivalent of that bowling lean, where your best effort will always be completely useless. Sometimes when you feel like something is helping, your instincts are actually fooling you.

Being Single on Valentines Day in Your Thirties

February 14, 2016 By laurasomewherelse in Grab Bag Leave a comment

Happy Valentines Day to all of you! This is from last year, but I think it’s still relevant.

OMG I'm Thirty

This is the first time in 8 years that I’ll be single on Valentines Day.

And now I’m 30- an age where I watch many of my friends not only go out with their significant other for V-Day, but also get married and have (multiple) babies. I watch relationships bloom all around me, like the red rose bouquets popping up everywhere this time of year.

Is this familiar to you? Are you in your thirties and single and wondering what this holiday means for you..if anything? Are you single on what Hallmark and others call ‘the most romantic day of the year?’

Last Valentines Day, if you told me I’d be single this year, on this day, I might have cried. Correction- I would have most definitely cried. I would have wailed. I would have said ‘oh god, what am I going to do? What’s wrong with me? How…

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Do I Need An Estate Plan in My Thirties?

February 11, 2016 By laurasomewherelse in Health and Wellness, Money Tags: durable power of attorney, empire, estate, Estate Plan Inc, estate planning, learnvest, Leslie Daff, living revocable trust, living trust, power of attorney, Randy Gardner, thirties, will Leave a comment

I read an article earlier on LearnVest about Estate Planning. It was only vaguely interesting to me, because I figured that I was too young to do any kind of estate planning- also, isn’t that for really wealthy people who’ve built some kind of empire? Right now, my student loans negate my empire, don’t they?

After all, don’t you need an estate to do estate planning?

Apparently, you don’t need much of anything to begin estate planning, you just need to be over 18. Randy Gardner and Leslie Daff of Estate Plan Inc- the husband and wife team of attorneys consulted in the Learnvest article, say that it’s never too early to start planning- once you turn 18, your parents can’t make legal decisions for you anymore. They also say that you don’t need to have an empire of wealth for your ‘estate’ to go through probate (an un-fun court process needed to settle your affairs if you die without an estate plan in place)- an ‘estate’ of more than $20,000 can end up going through probate.

So how to start planning? The article is already helpful, but here are some of the top easiest tips I took away:

If you have money stashed somewhere (an IRA, 401k, etc) make sure your beneficiaries are up to date. In my research, I read about a recently married couple where the husband died and never updated his beneficiaries to include his wife. His parents got the money and for reasons beyond me didn’t give the wife anything at all.)
Perhaps setting up a Durable Power of Attorney is a good idea- though it seems slightly complicated. This is basically someone who is appointed (your spouse, a family member, a friend) to make healthcare and/or financial decisions for you if you are incapacitated or otherwise can’t handle your affairs. This article explains it a bit– as well as how to set one up.
If you have children, setting up estate plans becomes even more necessary. You don’t want to have no plans in place if something unexpectedly happens to you. Look into setting up a Living Revocable Trust and make sure you have a will in place.

This stuff isn’t at all fun to think about, and we’re still young. But it’s kind of like having car insurance or rental insurance- you should always have a plan in place, especially when you have something to lose. Then you’ll be free to continue happily building your empire in peace.

A Beautiful Frustum In Your Thirties

February 3, 2016 By laurasomewherelse in Career Tags: 1%, amazon, digital, dream, Fame, Frustum, Geometry, growth, Happiness, Job, lady gaga, math, novelist, Seth Godin, stephen king, Success, thirties, Thirty 1 Comment

Seth Godin, one of my favorite business bloggers, recently wrote a blog about pyramids without a top. In geometry, these types of shapes are called frustums.

We spend our career lives trying to get to the top of our pyramid- we want to be the career elite, the famous, the special, the 1%. And why not? Fantastic career success is a big and beautiful possibility.

However, with the advent of the digital age, more and more of us will find it easier than ever to get our work out there in some form, but harder and harder to gain the fame and well-known 1% type of success (because everyone else is getting their work out too). For example, it’s easier than ever for anyone to publish a book all by themselves, but now there are more books available than ever before. Instead of waiting to get a book published, you can publish your book and sell it on Amazon or multiple other internet sources completely free. You can do the same with music and web tv (webisodes)- you can quickly and easily get your music or webseries online and direct to users all by yourself and for almost no cost.

Will you be the next Taylor Swift or Lady Gaga? The next Stephen King or Tina Fey? Maybe. Maybe not. But can you be a success and make good money and have a powerful, impactful, positive life without being a headliner like the above names? Absolutely.

The hard part isn’t in being in a frustum of an industry- where there’s no real peak, just more and more opportunity for entry- the hard part is in accepting the frustum and knowing you can still make a great life. There’s lots of room in frustums for lots of people to be successes- it’s just a different kind of success.

Even when you’re not well-known or at what you think is the peak of your career pyramid, you can still be a pretty damn good school teacher or time-share seller or yoga instructor or animal shelter manager. You can write amazingly good books or make insanely gorgeous music and get it all out into the world easier than ever because the base of the frustum is wider than ever. If you can accept this shapeshifted new world change, you may just realize that you’re more successful (and happier) than you ever dreamed you could be.

Are Your Problems Caused By Being Tired and Sleep Deprived?

January 30, 2016 By laurasomewherelse in Health and Wellness Tags: early bird, energy, hours, night owl, partying, priorities, problems, sleep, sleep deprivation, sleeping, thirties, tired, work 6 Comments

For the past few months, I’ve been getting glorious sleep. Like, incredible, way more than just adequate sleep. I’ve been getting indulgent, 9-13 hour a night sleep. I’ve been prioritizing sleep heavily. More than socializing and partying and exercising and work. And it’s been amazing.

With over 8.5 hours of sleep a night, my mind is clearer, my thoughts flow easier, I remember people’s names, facts stick with me, and I have much more positive energy and a way calmer outlook. Sleeping more is like eating 5 pounds of broccoli and exercising for 3 hours and working for 4 extra hours and going to a spa and getting a massage and a facial and a PhD all rolled up in one. Well, maybe not the PhD part exactly. But close.

I never realized that I needed more than nine hours of sleep before, because most people never get that, and it’s not known as ‘normal.’ And most of my life I’m pretty sure I’ve been walking around in a sleep deprived haze. Everything can seem a little harder to process when you’re sleep deprived- my feelings always felt a bit ‘gray.’ My thoughts always felt a bit duller when lacking sleep, and it was much harder hard to remember things or be infused with any kind of positive energy when running on less than eight sleep-filled hours.

My friend and fellow thirty-something coworker, Natasha, who I wrote all about in Playing Dress Up In Your Thirties, is one of my sleep inspirations. She sometimes races back to our hotel after work in order to get to sleep even faster- she claims she needs ‘instant sleep’ in order to get her necessary ten plus hours of sleep in before the next early workday and has no shame about grabbing the hours she needs. It’s pretty amazing to watch someone brag about making sure they get lots of sleep as opposed to bragging about being soooo busy all the time. It’s extremely refreshing to see someone prioritize such an important but seldom-respected part of a healthy lifestyle.

I’ve been getting a lot less sleep in the past few days because of my crazy work schedule in an exciting new city (St Louis), where I’ve really enjoyed spending every waking moment (pun intended) exploring. I haven’t been able to always race back to my hotel and get my much-needed sleep. And I can feel an extreme difference in my thought patterns. It’s been worth it to explore the city, but it’s still not a great feeling.

I intend to prioritize sleep once again, and stop staying up so late. Starting now. And soon I will get back to my amazing nine to thirteen hours in bed. Goodnight!

Should I Play the Lottery In My Thirties?

January 25, 2016 By laurasomewherelse in Friendships, Money Tags: dream, finance, gambling, investment, lottery, lotto, Money, powerball, Ramit Sethi, Savings, thirties, thrity, tools Leave a comment

Last week the Powerball jackpot was 1.5 billion dollars. A bunch of my friends bought tickets and a few of them even won…four whole dollars.

When one of my friends first told me he went and bought a bunch of tickets, I’ll be honest, I was little upset with the idea. He asked me if I was going to buy any myself, and I replied with a haughty, ‘no, I think I’m going to invest my money and save it, thank you very much.’

I kinda felt amazingly proud of myself- the lottery (and gambling in general) are things that I can easily control my response to and I value that about myself. I have insane self-control when it comes to spending money on things that I consider wasteful. I don’t know if I’ve ever purchased a lottery ticket- maybe I bought some for an ex many years ago.

However, something about my own response bugged me- was it really so bad to buy lotto tickets? That same week, I received an email newsletter from a writer I love, Ramit Sethi. He was talking about how silly it is to discourage people from buying lotto tickets, because, in a way, you’re discouraging them from dreaming. Ironically, he was actually writing in response to bloggers who scoffed at people who bought lotto tickets. He said:

Their articles [finance bloggers] reflect a total lack of understanding about WHY people buy lottery tickets. Hint: People who buy lottery tickets don’t really expect to win. People know the odds are astronomically, cosmically against them. So why would they do it?

The answer: They’re buying permission to dream about winning it.

If you think about it, $2 for a dream is well worth it. If you live a life where you’re counting pennies, isn’t it worth paying $2 for the dream of becoming fabulously wealthy — even if just for an hour? Hell, if you live a humdrum life of $60,000/year with 2% annual raises and one 2-day vacation a year, you can see why people would crave an escape.

By the way, there are a LOT of other ways we pay for an escape: Movies, fancy clothes, and so many more things. Isn’t it funny how lottery tickets cost less, but incur more wrath from judgmental people? It’s fun. It makes you feel good, and that’s a great reason to spend $2. OF COURSE lottery tickets are mathematically stupid. So is going to a bar to meet someone…but we do it anyway.

I never really thought about lotto tickets that way, but they’re a tiny price to pay to dream about something way bigger and more exciting in your life. Sure, we can all visualize and meditate and dream for free, but any tool that helps you feel happier and more passionate about life, is harmless, and only costs a couple of dollars, is absolutely, totally worth it. Use the tools that you discover- little indulgences here and there can help you feel better and dream exponentially bigger. Make the ‘silly’ choice sometimes.

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Online Dating In Your Thirties

January 18, 2016 By laurasomewherelse in Relationships Tags: Apps, Bumble, dating, Essays, hinge, okcupid, online dating, Profile, relationships, single, Swipes, Swiping, thirties, Thirty, Tinder, Whitney Wolfe 1 Comment

Online dating in your thirties is awesome. It’s also terrifying. I know some people who hate online dating and others who swear by it. I’ve gone to weddings of friends who met their significant others online, and have also listened to multiple friends tell me that they’d never go on an online date again.

If you’re single in your thirties and have never given it a go, I urge you to try. Obviously, stay safe and meet in public places and all that good stuff- but otherwise, be open to new experiences. If you want to be single for awhile, that’s awesome and perfectly okay, but if you’re trying to meet someone and don’t want to do online dating because it seems scary or ‘not genuine,’ I think you’re potentially missing out. I know that some of you may swear that you only want to meet your special someone IRL (In Real Life), but I feel like online dating only increases the number of people you end up meeting, and helps you connect with people who you might have had a hard time finding otherwise.

You’re busy and have a lot of things going on in your life and career- it’s hard to meet people, especially in big cities where everyone’s busy and rushing around. You probably don’t want to limit yourself to guys/ladies you meet at bars, or solely date your coworkers. Sure I know a few couples who’ve met in one of those ways, but I believe that dating is actually kind of a numbers game, and online dating exponentially increases the number of people you can meet. And meeting new people can be fun in its own right– even if you don’t find your soulmate right away.

So without further ado, here are some free online dating sites and apps to try:

OkCupid– okcupid.com

OkCupid is probably one of the most tried and true free dating apps out there. It’s been around for a long time- it launched in 2004- so it has a lot of users, which is good. It’s both a website and an app, so this is a good one if you don’t want to be online dating on your smartphone only. OkCupid is one of the most writing intensive of the online dating sites- it requires you to fill out a bunch of question and answer statements (what they call ‘essays’, but they’re not essays). It’s a great app for sheer breadth of people you can meet, and, if you’re a stickler for grammar, it really showcases whether someone is a good writer or not.

Tinder– gotinder.com

Tinder is a swiping app only, and is not a website. You swipe people either left or right depending if you like them or not- so Tinder is the opposite of OkCupid, in that it’s not writing based- solely looks based. Tinder is known more as a hookup site, but isn’t limited to that…so it can be a bit on the hazy side in terms of what people want from being on the app. The swipes on this app are unlimited, so it’s known to become an addictive habit. Most people who hate online dating are Tinder users, so I don’t recommend it for beginners to the online dating world. I’m also not a big fan of Tinder anyway, because of their semi-icky nature and ageist policies.

Hinge– hinge.co

Most people don’t know Hinge, but it’s slowly becoming an online dating fan favorite. It works by connecting you to friends of friends on Facebook, so it’s kind of like being introduced to your friends’ friends’ friends without the trouble of an introduction. You don’t have to do much to set it up, because, as it works through Facebook, it’s able to pull a lot of your data from your FB profile- so you don’t have to upload any new photos or write that much at all. The Hinge profile is a profile you can create in minutes. Also, although Hinge, like Tinder, is also swiping app, it limits your swipes to only a couple of people a day, so you can put down your phone, stop the madness, and have a life outside of the app. Hinge is a great app for online dating beginners since it’s easy and user-friendly, especially if you have a good amount of Facebook friends (the more FB friends you have, the more recommendation possibilities for the app).

Bumble– bumble.com

Bumble is a swiping app, like Tinder and Hinge. However, there are a few major differences. One– it isn’t known to be a hookup only app the way Tinder is. Two– It doesn’t go through Facebook. Three (and most importantly)– It only allows women to message first. That’s the Bumble catch. So if you “match” with someone (you both swipe right= “yes”to liking each other), then only the woman can say the first hello. If she doesn’t, the match disappears within 24 hours and you’ll never speak again (on the app at least). Make of Bumble what you will, but I think it’s a neat and different little marketing concept. Bumble also has unlimited swiping- a la Tinder- so it can be addicting. And Bumble was actually started by Whitney Wolfe, one of the cofounders of Tinder. And Jane actually wrote about Bumble here before.

So go enjoy! Don’t be ashamed to be single in your thirties! You may never get to have this amazing time again, and some of your married friends may even be quite a good bit jealous of you. So go date, online date, and live it up!

How Do You Deduct Tips You Pay In Cash While Traveling (To the Bellboy, Cab Driver, Housekeeping, etc) on your Taxes?

January 13, 2016 By laurasomewherelse in Money Tags: business travel, cash, cash tips, deductions, Detroit, self-employed, tax write off, taxes, tipping, tips, travel, write off Leave a comment

I’m currently working in Detroit and just was thinking about when I’d have some time to change a twenty for a bunch of ones when a friend of mine posted on Facebook asking about how, for her taxes, she can deduct cash tips she paid out while traveling.

I realized that I didn’t exactly know the answer to this except that my usual way of deducting the tips I pay out to people in cash is mild guesswork. I know that when I travel for work I almost always tip housekeeping about $2-$3 a day. I rarely use a bellboy to bring my suitcases anywhere, but maybe would use one approximately 4 times a year in order to help me carry something or other up, and tip $2-$3 each time. I’d tip a shuttle driver about $3 about 8 or 9 times a year. Etc, etc.

Make sure you deduct your cash tips to hotel or transportation staff anytime you travel for work. The tips are actual valid deductions. If you’re self-employed, these are no-brainer bona fide travel expenses. But even if you’re not self-employed, if you end up traveling for work, the tips you pay in cash while traveling can absolutely be deducted if you’re itemizing deductions.

The deduction would be under ‘business travel expenses’ and the way you would note them in your records would be to write the tip amount on some form of receipt related to the trip in question. So, for example, if you tipped housekeeping and the bellman during a business trip to Detroit, you would get the hotel receipt (even if it was $0.00 because your company paid for the hotel) and write the cash amount paid on the sheet of paper. Then you would keep that for your records.

This may seem like nickel and dimeing, but these deductions are valid and can really add up, so you might as well take them if you travel a lot for work and are itemizing your expenses.

In our thirties, we should try our darndest to get better at doing our taxes the best we can, so we can keep the most money. We might as well- why lose the money you’ve worked so hard to earn?

View from my hotel in Detroit. I’m here for 16 days, and a lot of tipping happens in all that time.

Food For Thought- Do You Think Differently in Your Thirties?

January 5, 2016 By laurasomewherelse in Grab Bag Tags: CES, Consumer Electronics SHow, looks, maturity, thirties, thought processes 5 Comments

I saw an acquaintance of mine yesterday who I hadn’t seen in over 3 years. She congratulated me on this blog and told me that she wanted to talk about how different things started feeling now that she’s in her late thirties- 36 to be exact.

She does what I do- she’s a presenter and product specialist. In our industry, it’s your job to look young and healthy, so she told me that she’s always told that she looks younger than thirty. However, it’s not her looks that necessarily felt different (although we both admitted that we do feel like we look different than we did in our twenties..what’s interesting about that is that even if you look good and young in your thirties, there’s a more mature quality about your looks too..or at least that’s what we concurred on.)

What felt different to her about the thirties was an almost invisible quality- she said that she was thinking differently. We didn’t get to talk about this in too much detail, but I feel like I definitely think differently in my thirties as well. It’s not just the obvious possible fear thoughts that women in their thirties may have – ‘will I ever get married?’ ‘Is there more to life than having children?’ ‘Why am I not at the top of my career yet?’ There’s a certain degree of experience that makes itself known in my thoughts as a thirty-something. I know my likes and dislikes more. I’ve been burned a few times, and I don’t trust as easily. There’s a certain ‘here we go again’ thought process that occurs lately that wasn’t there before. Sometimes it’s great- like when I start work on a project and can navigate its pitfalls like a pro. Sometimes it’s not so great- like when I meet a new person and red flags go off from the first conversation.

I don’t exactly know what to make of these new thought processes in my thirties. Somehow I always thought that I’d be exactly the same as I was in my twenties- but I don’t know why I thought that. The thirties have changed things.

What do you guys think? Is there a been there, done that feeling in your thirties? People that set off old alarms? Less naiveté? Let us know your thoughts.

Today, at 31 years old, training day for CES (Consumer Electronics Show) and thinking back on all the CES’s from my twenties. Am I super different now?