Thinking about our healthcare system gets me so worked up, I need to take a hit from the inhaler that I can barely afford. Although I’m lucky to be employed and (mostly) healthy, budgeting for healthcare is still a nightmare. Unexpected health expenses can take a devastating bite out of your budget if you don’t plan…
A health savings account (HSA) is a smart way to store away extra cash, tax free, to pay for approved medical expenses. Essentially, it’s a personal savings account that can be used only for medical expenses. While the option to open an HSA is typically offered by your employer, you still have options even if you…
There’s a new COVID booster at pharmacies, and the simple thing to say about it is this: It’s good, it’s free, and you should get it. Unfortunately, the process of getting one of these shots isn’t going smoothly for everyone, with some people being told they’ll need to pay for it, and some having appointments canceled…
Your phone is about to get loud this week.
There’s an important difference between looking at porn and being addicted to porn. A “porn addiction” involves an emotional dependence on pornography. Looking at porn can be a totally healthy form of sexual expression; it becomes an addiction when it begins to interfere with other parts of your daily life, like work…
Open enrollment for the next U.S. healthcare plan year kicks off Nov. 1—and the process can be overwhelming, to say the least. As you review your employer-provided health insurance options, it’s easy to make mistakes that could negatively impact your coverage and costs for the next year. Even if you consider yourself…
No matter how dedicated you are to responding to and archiving all your emails, there will always be one villainous monster preventing you from hitting true inbox zero: mailing lists. These horrors come in at all hours of the day, clogging things up and making it harder to spot the truly important messages—and it’s…
When I hear kids talk these days, it’s like a foreign language! The hell is “locktober?” Why are they talking about “mind goblins?” What happened to speaking American, like we used to back in the good old days? The world is going to hell, I tells ya, with the kids all wearing their pants sagging down their butts and…
Switching to grayscale mode is one of the most effective ways to reduce your screen time. It’s easy to enable on your smartphone, and when all the bright colors are gone, you’ll notice that it’s much easier to put your phone away. I’ve found this hack to be very effective, but I’ve always ended up disabling grayscale…
You’ve probably gotten a call like this a dozen times: An authoritative voice announces: “I’m calling on behalf of the [YOUR TOWN] Fraternal Order of Police…” followed by a heartstring-pulling beg for donations to help the families of injured or killed police or firefighters, as well as a suggestion of special…
People with disordered eating and body image issues can often trace their experience to an early childhood doctor’s appointment when their weight or size was characterized as a problem to solve. And whether you were prescribed diets as a child or not, you are right to want to protect your own children from the shame…
There are many ways to watch YouTube ad-free (I highly recommend YouTube Premium). But even if you shell out $13.99 per month to remove autoplay ads on YouTube, you still can’t get rid of sponsorship ads. No matter how you watch YouTube, a popular creator may still place an ad read in the middle of a video with no…
The Roth IRA is a powerful retirement savings tool. For young people especially, it’s the best way to take full advantage of compound interest while minimizing your tax exposure. The money you contribute grows tax-free, and most people can withdraw funds in retirement tax-free, too. However, make some wrong moves…
It’s tough to use the internet without being tracked, but it’s not impossible. Companies are starting to hand us tools to help, such as Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature and DuckDuckGo’s App Tracking Protection. Even Meta, the company that makes its living on data collection, is now offering you a way to…
Apple’s Focus feature lets you reduce distractions on your iPhone when you need to, well, focus. A Focus can be used to block notifications from everyone except your significant other, or to automatically enable Do Not Disturb (DND) the moment it’s bedtime. And you can use “Share Focus Status” to make this feature…
Being self-employed gives you the freedom and flexibility to be your own boss. However, one major drawback of being your own boss is securing your own affordable health insurance.
Halloween is our darkest holiday, so it naturally spawns dark misinformation, whether it’s the famous razor-blade-in-the-apple myth, the persistent rumors about black-cat butchery, or the specter of “mischief night” arsonists. At the risk of dampening the mystique of Halloween, here are four things people are getting…
I have plenty of ideas for useful features for X (formerly known as Twitter), but audio and video calls aren’t on my list. Unfortunately, they seem to be on Elon Musk’s, as the app now allows users to call one another for some reason. Yay?
If multiple people in your household use your Apple Music account, chances are your recommendations are all messed up. Since Apple Music’s algorithms use your listening history to suggest music you might like, other people can easily “corrupt” your history by bringing their preferences into your account.
Welcome to Evil Week, our annual dive into all the slightly sketchy hacks we’d usually refrain from recommending. Want to weasel your way into free drinks, play elaborate mind games, or, er, launder some money? We’ve got all the info you need to be successfully unsavory.
Welcome to Evil Week, our annual dive into all the slightly sketchy hacks we’d usually refrain from recommending. Want to weasel your way into free drinks, play elaborate mind games, or, er, launder some money? We’ve got all the info you need to be successfully unsavory.
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) determines your eligibility for need-based financial aid for college. In previous years, the FAFSA asked families about the amount they contributed to employer-sponsored retirement accounts like 401(k)s each year, and factored it into households’ overall yearly…
November is National Adoption Month, and a great time to highlight stories from adoptees, adoptive parents, or people who want to better understand what it’s like to be involved in the adoption process.
Good news for savers: The IRS announced yesterday that next year’s contribution limits for 401(k)s and other tax-advantaged retirement plans are being increased to account for inflation. Since it’s always a good idea to max out your retirement contributions, let’s take a look at what these new limits are for the 2024…
AdGuard is an ad-blocker with built-in privacy and digital safety protections—and a lifetime subscription to their family plan is now on sale for $16.97 (reg. $129.99) through Nov. 9. The family plan covers nine devices and works on iOS, Android, Mac, and Windows.
There’s so much to consume online, from the millions of pieces of content shared, sent, and watched on social media platforms every minute to the endless stream of news, data, and commentary being published. We are constantly faced with choices of what to watch and read, which leads to information overload, decision…
There are a lot of apps on the Play Store, and it’s easy to download any that grab your attention on a whim. However, your Android’s storage isn’t limitless, so at some point, you’ll be looking to clean things up. Here are a few ways to delete apps from your Android.
Even though it’s owned by the data-hungry company Meta, WhatsApp is known for its secure messaging. That’s because the app has long offered end-to-end encryption in both texting and calling, so no one other than the parties involved can access the contents of a chat.
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…