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.
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…
Pop culture is like a disturbing science fiction movie this week. Young people are intentionally styling themselves as nightmarish quasi-humans, having their eyes burned at weird parties in Hong Kong, and sharing the trailer for a new Mean Girls movie.
When you learn and use a studying method, you’re making it easier for your brain to synthesize new information. Great! Now think of how much more you could learn and retain if you could double up on the methods you’re using. You can do that. It’s called “dual coding” and it’s a popular teaching and studying technique…
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.
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…
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…
Your résumé will get you in the door for a job, but your interviews are where you’ll get to show off who you are and what makes you stand out. It will also give you the opportunity to make a great impression with your recruiter. And that’s hugely important: Having someone rooting for you within the company can help…
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.
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.
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…
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.
Money is weird. Almost everyone in America thinks they’re middle class, which obviously can’t be true—but that underscores how broke most people are, even people who ostensibly make a good living. The fact is, 58% of Americans say they live paycheck to paycheck, which is bad, and 53% say they have exactly zero dollars…
Out on the surface of the sun, a huge geomagnetic storm raged this weekend, causing Coronal Mass Ejections (that is, solar flares) to hit earth. There’s nothing to worry about (yet) according to scientists—solar flares hit earth all the time—but the strength of this rare event will provide many in relatively southern…
It’s almost time to fall back for Daylight Saving Time, but who came up with this bizarre practice? And why? If you just answered “Benjamin Franklin” and “to help farmers,” you don’t know the real history.
The Department of the Treasury announced last week that the new rate for I bonds issued between November 2023 and April 2024 is 5.27%. This number includes a fixed rate of 1.30%. With inflation causing concerns for your investments across the board, U.S. savings bonds are considered a safe bet, since they’re fully…
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 holiday season seems to start around June, and Christmas movies have become a mostly cozy preoccupation through much of the year. Though there’s still a bit of variety in seasonal fare, gone are the days when you watched one Christmas movie a year, and it was either about a guy trying to jump off of a bridge or a…
ARE WE THERE YET? The first line of today’s puzzle was thematically appropriate. I kept thinking I had solved the tricky purple category, only to find there must be something trickier still waiting for me. If you’re looking for the Connections answer for Friday, November 3, 2023, read on—I’ll share some clues, tips,…
Cold weather means more salt on the roads and sidewalks—and your floors, tracked in on your shoes and boots and leaving salty streaks all over your home. Salt is great for dealing with ice outside—but it is terrible for your floors. Even if you’re very much on top of making people remove their shoes when they enter…
Law enforcement officers and agents will hide who they are for all kinds of reasons, from catching speeders to infiltrating extremist political groups to preventing the kidnappings of state governors. It’s often hard to recognize undercover cops, but there are some tells, so here’s a rough guide to recognizing cops…
Leftover cornbread is a sad, dusty thing. It’s hard to believe it could ever even be left over—the stuff is so exquisite when fresh—but Thanksgiving leads to leftover everything. Whether you made too much for your famous stuffing, or the cornbread muffins were forgotten at dinner, there’s a way you can give stale…
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…
Hot water heaters might seem too complicated and intimidating to fix. They have plumbing and electrical components—two things that usually signal that hiring a pro is the best choice when you need help. While this is true for bigger problems, there are some common maintenance and repair tasks that you can do yourself…
Is the internet dead? Proponents of the Dead Internet Theory believe that the internet, as we understand it, doesn’t exist. It died around 2016, and since then, everything we see online, from Instagram pictures to this post on Lifehacker, has been generated by artificial intelligence and fed to consumers by a shadowy…
For the best use of your paid time off this year, I’m here to suggest that you take a day off on Jan. 8.
Apple Arcade might not be as cheap as it used to be, but at least Apple isn’t neglecting it. Quite the contrary: The company continues to refresh the service with new games every month. Between now and Dec. 5, you can expect eight new titles to hit the platform.
No one likes first-date jitters, but pretty much everyone likes masturbation. So how about using masturbation to quell your anxiety before your date? According to experts (and science), masturbation can be the ultimate stress buster and confidencebooster, which is exactly what you need before you meet your date for…
If you’re looking for the Connections answer for Wednesday, November 1, 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 and we’ll learn how everything fits together. Beware, there are spoilers…
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…
If you haven’t heard yet, early Black Friday deals are it this year—you should be shopping pre-Black Friday deals already. Some major retailers that have already been churning out deals include Best Buy and Amazon, and most recently, Target has been added their own sales to the mix.
Much of the U.S. is entering freeze season—and I’m not talking a light morning frost, but a full-on freeze, which is a transformative event for your garden. While ideally we’d all be planting natives that are well-accustumed to our local climate, it’s not always realistic. We like what we like and are often willing to…
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.
As the temperature starts to drop and you turn your heat on for the first time, don’t ignore your ceiling fans. You can use them to your advantage throughout the winter to warm your space and save on energy—as long as they’re spinning in the correct direction.
Last year, my advice was to ignore early Black Friday deals. This made sense at the time, given economic conditions—in 2022, many retailers were overstocked due to slower spending by consumers amid an inflation-battered year and retailers looking to offload their excess supply with gradually more aggressive deals as…
Making a cake is never easy. With all the bowls, whisks, and measuring cups involved, it can feel a lot more like a chemistry experiment than a celebratory snack. “One bowl” recipes can make the process less of a chore, but all I really want to do is just dump everything in a dish and bake it. Turns out I’ve been in…
In addition to visible signs of wear, pieces of leather furniture that are frequently in use—like a living room couch or office chair—may start to wrinkle over time. Known as “comfort wrinkles,” they can range from gentle rippling, to larger creases, and probably aren’t the look you were going for when you decided to…
Hot chicken has foodie virality at the moment, but it isn’t a passing fad. This spicy fried poultry has been searing the taste buds off of Nashvillians for generations. You can give large chicken cuts the hot chicken treatment, or shrink it down to party snack size. Bring a tiny piece of Nashville into your home with…
When you think of pegging, what comes to mind? OK, stop thinking about that. Start thinking about ways to improve your memory instead, you pervert. There’s a technique you can use called “peg lists” to remember big chunks of information in order, so you should start pegging before big tests or presentations.
Before the 1950s, filmmakers didn’t think about teenagers as anything other than adults-in-waiting—accessories to the adult characters in films. That changed circa the release of Nicholas Ray’s 1955 James Dean star vehicle Rebel Without a Cause, the success of which made studios realize that teens were driving around…
The method of loci (or the loci technique) is a mnemonic memorization trickwith a number of uses, from helping people with mild cognitive impairment learn and remember information to getting someone ready to give a speech. You can use it, too—for whatever you need to remember.
If you want to know how to clean an air fryer, don’t look to TikTok. You can look there for other hacks, sure, but for sprucing up the air fryer, you need better sourcing. The information on the video-sharing app is pretty misguided and you’ll regret attempting it, but if you follow the tried-and-true methods outlined…
Picture perfect apples are tumbling into grocery stores with no sign of stopping. Make the most of this bounty by cooking up one of the more concentrated iterations of apple—apple butter, with a twist. It’s always been a dippable, spreadable, velvety smooth fall favorite, but take it a step further with a dose of…
No one wants to screw over the cable companies over more than me. When Comcast almost doubled my rate a few years ago I decided it was time to ditch the box and try something else, which led me to digital antennas.
Paramount+ has a handful of original titles worth watching in November. On one end is Lawmen: Bass Reeves (November 5), a Wild West drama starring David Oyelowo as the real-life Bass Reeves, the first Black deputy U.S. marshal to work west of the Mississippi. On the other is Colin From Accounts (November 9), an…
Vines climbing the side of a house can look totally charming; something about them implies there is a roaring fire inside that house and a plentiful supply of tea and biscuits. They’re also a way of merging with the natural world around you, even if your house is located in a suburban subdivision. And climbing vines…
Time to cozy up indoors: Netflix is dropping several anticipated dramas in November. At the beginning of the month, there’s the four-part miniseries All The Light We Cannot See (November 2), an adaptation of Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. Set during WWII, the story follows a blind…
This month on Prime Video brings the second season of the animated adult superhero series Invincible. Based on Robert Kirkman’s graphic novel, the first half of the season will stream on November 3, while the second is expected sometime in 2024.
Choosing an ethernet cable for your home network seems straightforward, but there’s more to it than you might think, especially if you don’t know what all the different names and numbers mean. If you just go with the highest numbers, you could end up spending too much money on something you don’t really need.…