Blessings of peace upon you all. 🕊️

For beverages there is the option of aluminum--Walmart.com carries the Brita brand of water in aluminum bottles, and there's also Canned Water 4 Kids. (Not that aluminum is entirely above suspicion.) I would like to nominate "Make money first, ask questions later shrug your shoulders when asked questions later" as America's official business motto.

I stopped answering and turned off the ringer. If people leave a message, I can call them back. It helped quite a bit, but DH for some reason still picks up if he's home, so that has made it harder to extinguish them entirely.

If it helps, my 16yo would've noped out of most, and likely all, of that. (The Tennesseans are clearly a very talented and very adventurous bunch.)

Calling and interrupting someone at work doesn't make him safer. She is being unreasonable. You don't need to do anything about that.

Power is still on here, but it's very windy and rainy. The puddle at the bottom of the driveway is as big as I've ever seen it, as best I can tell in the dark. I made muffins for breakfast tomorrow. We ate dinner early (veggie chili).

We're in power outage preparation mode. I was hoping the curbside grocery order would be ready super early (as it sometimes is) but it's not looking like it. Instacart wouldn't let me make the time any earlier even last night.

Gym class was 30 minutes once a week, recess every day but I wasn't very active. Jumped rope sometimes in nice weather, or played in the snow. (The first half of being 11, I was in 6th grade; we were the last 6th-graders to be in elementary school in that town, and then the junior high became a middle school. So in the autumn, no recess, but I think gym was every other day.) I preferred to be reading a book. Not much has changed!

I have a permanent cough since getting Covid in 2020 (even after getting our carpets torn out and removing blinds; inhalers were unhelpful). Astepro (azelastine spray) and levocetirizine (aka Xyzal, pill at night) help some. If you haven't tried anything along those lines, I'd see if they help before going for something expensive. We actually have to run a dehumidifier to keep it down to ~40%, so similar environment, just warmer. I hope you find a winner soon!

You could definitely get a senior picture done. Would she want a class of '24 t-shirt or something? Zazzle and Cafe Press have that sort of thing. You can plan a graduation party. What does she like? What's important to her in general?

Breakfast: Cold cereal like Fruity Pebbles or Honey Nut Cheerios and milk. Probably every day in the year except Easter and Christmas. ETA: Actually in winter sometimes I'd have two packets of flavored instant oatmeal instead. Either way, I was very hungry by lunch. Lunch: Peanut butter and marshmallow fluff on white bread, an apple, and probably some other snack like a baggie of chips. Carton of milk from school. Afternoon snack: Usually cookies (I liked Chips Ahoy), which my mom capped at three, and probably Kool-Aid. We didn't have apple juice until a little later (WIC qualification the following year). Dinner: Shake-and-bake chicken drumsticks or bone-in pork chops, Minute Rice, broccoli or another vegetable cooked from frozen; or spaghetti and meat sauce with garlic bread; sometimes homemade chicken stew. More milk. We lived on around half an acre in a New England suburb, but did not garden. We got pizza or Chinese food approximately once after each sibling was born; I don't even know where the restaurants were in that town. I'd spend one day each weekend with my dad, or if he'd already moved farther away every other weekend. So lunch was a cheeseburger Happy Meal from McDonald's unless we went to my grandparents' house, in which case it was something like beef with potatoes and carrots.

It's Monday! Why is January so willy_nilly? I'm looking forward to a low-key review week in mid-February.

Unfortunately, without electricity, tasks like seeking employment, completing homework, and maintaining body temperature in extreme weather are not necessarily possible; rare is the home built with a wood stove for cooking, the high school that expects only paper-based work that can be finished before the sun goes down, or the employer who wants people to just show up and fill out a paper application. Housing is indeed much bigger than it used to be--I currently live in a lot more square feet per person than I grew up in--but that means it's even harder for people to afford to buy a home. Houses built more recently have gotten bigger because developers want more out of each, not because everyone can afford them. (My house, just over 1600 s.f., was built in the mid-1980s and is considered an "older home" in my county, which has had a population boom; even when we were looking in 2005, houses any smaller were very rare on the market.) Even setting aside the cost of land to build on, most places near employment have building codes and zoning laws that make it virtually impossible to just hammer together a little cottage and expand as finances permit, as was done in the past. Health care is tricky to assess because a small percentage of the population needs a large percent of the care, because access and benefits vary dramatically, and because not having it affordable or effective sometimes kills people, so it eliminates their potential future spending--death or a cure having the same impact in that sense.

The average household is now expending 30% on rent, making the food budget tighter. (Average for both rent and food is probably less helpful than data by income quintile would be.) Deciding to live indoors with running water and electricity is, for many people, deciding to be as cheap as they know how with food. But USDA subsidies aren't going to the produce section; cheap ingredients are wheat, corn, soy, dairy, meat from animals raised on corn and soy. Salt is cheaper than herbs and spices.

Historically... Most meals were prepared and eaten at home--so even if there was a lot of butter or sugar in a dish, it was on purpose; Many people made little use of restaurants, with most families going once a month or less--an occasion rather than a habit; A higher percentage of the population lived on farms (about 40% in 1900) or had gardens; Grocery stores featured fresh ingredients plus, post-1950, some novelty foods like TV dinners and cold breakfast cereals; The female half of junior high and high school population was often required to take home ec, which was sexist but did make sure someone got the basics; The great medical (and government, particularly military) concern was lack of adequate calories, and programs were oriented to that. Now... 1/3 of US adults eat food from a restaurant on any given day, often fast food; Millions of Americans live in food deserts; The typical US grocery store contains over 30,000 SKUs (different products), most of them not really nutritious; The buying power of low-income households has not kept up with inflation, so people need the cheapest food available even if employed full-time (and with long commutes, prep time is at a premium); Children spend more time in structured activities after school, conflicting with meal preparation; Meal planning and cooking are often learned from the internet or not at all; Government and medical concern is adequate nutrition without excess calories (which often come from sugar and animal fats), and the ever-increasing burden of chronic disease. I personally eat a healthier and more varied diet than I did thirty years ago, but I also live in a higher-income household than I did then.

@Arctic Bunny It sounds right to me! You can also ask questions in the YNAB FB groups or ask support directly if you want.

Happy Sunday to you!

Set them up as tracking accounts so they're not counted in your budget.

My LFP primarily serves people who don't have access to a kitchen. Canned goods are okay. Bottled water is okay here, as it doesn't stay cold enough long enough to freeze them. I pack whole meals in oversized lunch bags that include things like... - a main dish: a curry packet and a Minute rice cup; or a pop-top can of low-sodium soup and packet of crackers, like Nabisco Fresh Stacks; or a TastyBite protein bowl or similar entree (look for sales); or a tuna and crackers-type kit. - appropriate utensils (I put out a call for unused, still-wrapped take-out utensils in my Buy Nothing group once in a while, and people are delighted to have a guilt-free way to be rid of them) - a fruit cup - a bean salad or veggie cup if I went with the tuna kits or something else without vegetables - a bottle of water - a granola bar - a paper napkin if possible - a card to the local center for day services. Hygiene items are always appreciated, too. Toothbrushes, tampons, etc.

Wasn't my turn to watch Prometheus. It's pouring rain here. I'm off for some volunteer training this morning.

https://www.healthcentral.com/slideshow/foods-to-avoid-with-high-blood-pressure

That's great!

One of the biggest sources of salt in Americans' diets is chicken, so you might swap some of it out (e.g., with no-salt-added chickpeas) and see if that helps.

Good morning! A very happy Friday to you.

Melissa, I'm sorry about the car, but I'm so glad your DH wasn't in a wreck because it failed. That would be terrible. I'm glad to have to pay so much attention to what we eat, even though it's expensive and time-consuming; I'll probably live longer for it, and it may even lead to a new career in a few years (considering going for an MS in nutrition and becoming an RD).