On Thursday, the IRS released its annual adjustments for the 2024 tax year, which include changes to income tax brackets and a higher standard deduction. These shifts happen every year to account for “bracket creep,” which causes people to pay more in taxes due to inflation without actually earning more income.
It’s so annoying when unwanted notifications interrupt your recording of your iPhone’s screen. It’s a telltale sign that the clip you’re watching online was just ripped off someone’s iPhone, and isn’t actually the video file itself. While the notifications can be innocent, they might be personal, and you’d rather…
Paper checks are going the way of the dinosaurs—and fast. Only about .05% of payments are made by check these days, and as you might imagine most of those are written by older folks, because habits die hard. Checks are dying so hard that 44% of Generation Z (the oldest of who are about 26 these days) don’t even…
While a basic roux and some decent stock will get you a good enough gravy, it’s the drippings that really make it chef’s-kiss worthy. Drippings are exactly what they sound like—as your protein is cooking, the fat and juices that cook off are intensely flavored. Unlike stock, they have a complexity and depth that…
There’s comfort viewing, and then there are movies in which the characters are comfortable. They’re not always the same thing. Some of these movies are comfy, cozy watches—though tastes vary wildly. For some, a Hallmark holiday movie is the gold standard to relax by. For others, a Scream movie will serve the same…
The Apple Watch is made to work with your iPhone, but you don’t need your iPhone to use your Apple Watch. OK, you do need an iPhone to pair and set up the device, but following that, your Apple Watch can function as a standalone device, at least for a variety of tasks—even if you have the wifi-dependent GPS model. No,…
A “new” dating hack trending on TikTok is for the birds—literally. In a recent TikTok video, content creator Lyss Lyss (@alyssacardib) shares how the“bird test” can predict if a couple’s relationship will last or not.
Most people don’t use their phone cameras to try to our express artistic visions; we just want cool pics of our vacations and family get-togethers. But most people’s casual, candid photographs are pretty bad. Luckily, it’s easy to up your snapshot game—it doesn’t take a serious study of the art of photography to…
Your washing machine cleans your clothes, therefore you should clean your washing machine. It’s a simple concept, but not one we think about too often. The washing machine doesn’t always strike me as a clean-able object or even one that needs to be spruced up, but in reality, it does get pretty grimy after pulling the…
Today’s is an easy one if you’re SHARP enough to notice a few things! If you’re looking for the Connections answer for Friday, November 10, read on—I’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solutions to all four categories. Along the way, I’ll explain the meanings of the trickier words and we’ll…
Tax day 2024 is not until Mon, Apr 15, 2024, and also right around the corner. The luxury of time doesn’t mean you should wait until the last minute to figure out how you’re going to file your 2023 taxes—especially when you can save some money if you plan ahead.
Early Black Friday deals are in full swing: Target, Best Buy, and Walmart all have their deals live already, and Amazon just put out their Black Friday plans (with some deals available now). But if you’re looking for even better deals on Blink and Ring security cameras—and some other Amazon devices—it’s Woot you want…
Combining multiple PDFs can be really stressful, mostly because the process isn’t clearly outlined in the programs you’re probably using to view the, and a lot of the third-party apps that offer the feature (like Adobe Acrobat) cost money. But if you want to combine PDFs together without paying anything extra, you…
This is Training Diaries, a Lifehacker series about my journey to the 2023 TCS New York City Marathon. This series will cover all the ups, downs, and hill repeats on my journey to the biggest marathon in the world. Leading up to race day on Sunday, Nov. 5, I’ll go over proper fueling, injuries and setbacks, treadmill…
Anyone who has experienced any sort of flooding in their home—whether it was a burst pipe, a storm-related incident, or a toilet that picked your vacation week to start leaking—knows that water is your home’s biggest enemy. Water damage is exponentially worse when it involves carpeting—and even worse if it’s carpet…
Target’s early Black Friday deals are already live, and one of their limited-time offers will be especially attractive to pint-size gamers (and their parents). The retailer is offering Roblox gift cards at 40% off for a very limited time—today only, in fact. From now until 2:59 a.m. ET on Friday, Nov. 10, Target is…
Got a long drive ahead of you? In a car with people full of various tastes? It’s road trip season, and if you need a podcast to binge in the car, this list has you covered. You can pop in and out of short stories about family drama and scams, or buckle in for real life sagas of catfishing, CIA conspiracies, and a…
While I really only enjoy Thanksgiving turkey in the hour after it comes out of the oven, it certainly seems the majority are in it for the sandwiches. Day-after turkey sammies are a legendary aspect of Thanksgiving not attributable to any religious, historical or cultural aspect of the day. So why bother with a…
Did you know that a significant percentage of the U.S. population has one of the less-efficient variants of the MTHFR gene? TikTokers love to say this, and it’s true. They’ll also claim that if you have a MTHFR variant, that you need special vitamins, and that the wrong vitamins (or even some medications) will be…
I found today’s puzzle to be an EXERCISE in patience, the kind where you know one of the groups from the first glance but have to wait until the very end to narrow down its members. If you’re looking for the Connections answer for Thursday, November 9, 2023, read on—I’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and…
Walmart’s early Black Friday deals are now live, with deals on smartwatches, laptops, TVs, and vacuums. They are the third major retailer after Target and Best Buy to kick off their Black Friday deals. Early Black Friday deals are actually good this year, and you should be checking them out if you haven’t already. One…
Laptops might not be as expensive as they used to be, but they can still be pricey. It makes sense to wait to buy a new one until the prices come down, whether that’s because a new model comes out, or when there’s a huge discount event happening.
Black Friday is starting early at Walmart this year. Online deals start today, Nov. 8, and in-store deals kick in Nov. 10 at 6 a.m. local. If you want to take advantage of these deals to pick up a new TV, there are a ton of options during this event. You can scroll through different makes and models, all in different…
Long past are the days when one simply had to set an absurdly early alarm on the day after Thanksgiving and head out into the chill air to stand in line at a big box retailer to take advantage of once-in-a-year sales and deals. In 2023, “Black Friday” has become a month-long affair, and you can already score great…
Mega-retailer Walmart is ringing in Black Friday early this year with some sweet bargains on vacuums, including serious savings on my personal favorite: the laser-equipped Dyson V12 Detect Slim.
The more you walk, the lower your risk of death from all causes and from cardiovascular disease, according to a new study—although the numbers they identified as being effective are all less than 10,000 steps.
Walmart’s early Black Friday deals are now live. They are the third major retailer after Target and Best Buy to kick off their Black Friday deals. Early Black Friday deals are actually good this year, and you should be checking them out if you haven’t already. Here are the best smartwatch deals from Walmart’s Black…
If you have an Apple Watch, you might have spent the last two months dealing with a bad watchOS 10 bug. That update launched with the new Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2, giving users access to “double tap” and NameDrop support. However, it also included a glitch that drains watch batteries abnormally…
Veterans can get quite a few deals on Veterans Day this Saturday, Nov. 11, but you have to know what they are in order to secure them. Here are a few places where veterans can get discounts or special treatment in honor of the holiday. Just be sure to have your military ID or VA discount card on you.
While there is no magic number of credit cards to hold in your name, I’ve repeatedly recommended trying to balance at least two or three of them to give your personal finances a boost. The advice to juggle multiple credit cards won’t work for everyone, though—after all, using a credit card comes with inherent risk—and…
SheetMagic integrates ChatGPT with Google Sheets, and you can get a lifetime subscription on sale for $48.99 right now (reg. $299). It uses your existing OpenAI account, whether you have the free or paid version.
Here’s a secret: If you order something online, then later find a better deal somewhere else, extended holiday return policies make it easy to return the original item. Not all stores offer such a policy, but plenty of the big stores do. If you know the policies ahead of time, you can shop to your heart’s content…
Your worst nightmare: It’s the day before Thanksgiving, and you still need to thaw your turkey. It doesn’t matter that multiple food websites have been yelling about turkey thaw times for days—if not weeks—now. There are always a few stragglers who wait until Wednesday or—much worse—Thursday morning.
You’ve heard of a to-do list, but what you might really need is a to-don’t list. Instead of focusing on all the tasks you have to get done, it could be beneficial for you to look at everything you don’t need to or even shouldn’t do. It sounds like a waste of time, but it’s actually not: Seeing clearly what shouldn’t…
Mashed potatoes are literal clouds of happiness. The potato, the butter, the cream, the salt. It’s like everything perfect in this world, in one fluffy form. A reasonable person wouldn’t eff around with such perfection, but I am not reasonable, so I’m here today to make a stand. You should make twice-baked potatoes…
The Geminos stacked dual 24-inch screen monitor puts two vertically aligned monitors on an adjustable mount that lets you change your viewing angle, and it’s on sale for $619.97 right now (reg. $799) by using the promo code GEMINOS. These dual monitors have a built-in 1080p webcam, speakers, and a USB hub with 100W…
Christmas movies have been a tradition for decades, but the days when we had to watch George Bailey try to jump off of a bridge year after year are well past us. Holiday movies are an industry in and of themselves, with dozens, if not hundreds of new seasonal offerings released starting around June. Most of them are…
Porchetta is perfect. Crackling crisp skin, self-basting pork roast and a magical mélange of fennel, pepper and lemon. It’s no surprise that at some point, someone thought to try and turn turkey (one of Mother Earth’s slights if there ever was one), into this heavenly treasure. But I was perplexed: Reasonable people…
We’re still a ways out from the winter holidays, but they’ll be here before you know it—so now is the time to mark your calendars so your gifts arrive on time. The major shipping services—USPS, UPS, and FedEx—each have deadlines for sending mail and packages if you want them to arrive ahead of Dec. 25.
Now that Google owns Fitbit, buying something like the Charge 6 officially puts you in the company’s ecosystem. But that doesn’t mean the Fitbit Charge 6 is the same as the Pixel Watch 2. In fact, the experience you’ll get on both of these wearables will be completely different. If you find yourself stuck choosing…
After Best Buy, Target, and Walmart shared their Black Friday plans, Amazon finally announced its own. Big retailers are rolling out their deals especially early this year, so if you plan to shop, you should take advantage of them.
New users can choose from three tiers of iBrave cloud web hosting on sale through Nov. 12. The most expensive plan ($70) is unlimited and gives access to as many subdomains and websites as you want; the mid-tier plan ($30) lets you host up to ten websites and have unlimited subdomains; and the cheapest plan ($15)…
Walmart is taking an early grab at holiday shoppers looking for video game bargains this year by rolling out a solid deal on a PlayStation 5 bundled with Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. The console, game, and single controller will be on sale for $499. That’s $60 off the price currently advertised by Target, GameStop, Best Buy…
My oldest son and I have a tradition every Sunday afternoon: we watch a movie that his younger brother isn’t old enough to see yet. We started with the Toho Godzilla series and moved to live-action Disney movies, free from language and intense violence.
Water: refreshing. Lemons: also refreshing. Combine the two, and you get a drinkable liquid with sprightly flavor. That is all you get. Not a detox elixir, and not a metabolism booster. Let me repeat: when you add lemons to water, you just get lemon water. (And if you also add sugar, you get lemonade.)
If you’ve been on TikTok lately (when you should have been studying…) you may have seen the “blurting” method of note-revision making the rounds. There are actually two ways to blurt when you’re studying, and both are helpful for retrieval practice and overall retention—but only if you’re doing them instead of…
The dark evenings of daylight saving are upon us, but if you’re wanting to keep up an active outdoor lifestyle in the dimmer hours of the day, Noxgear has a potential solution for you: Their entire line of LED vests, pet harnesses, and speakers are 50% off, now through Friday at midnight PT, according to a Noxgear…
All those rhyming words, and you know they can’t all be in the same category! If you’re looking for the Connections answer for Tuesday, November 7, 2023, read on—I’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solutions to all four categories. Along the way, I’ll explain the meanings of the trickier words…
Most of us do at least some (if not the majority of) our shopping online now, but there are things we give up for that convenience. You can’t actually hold the item in your hands to see if reality lives up to the product description, so we often rely on bot-infested or fake reviews. But if you consider where the item…
Cleaning can be anything from satisfying to boring to even anxiety-inducing for some, but if you put off sprucing your place up, it’ll only get dirtier and more overwhelming—a vicious cycle. While everyone is different and has their own way of getting the job done, some approaches are more decidedly more effective…