📓 Dear Friend, here comes deoptimized summer
It’s bad out there, you guys!
Dear Friend,
Hey there, how’s it going?
So I was reviewing my budget tracker, and my monthly gas spending went from $70 a month pre-February to $150+ this past month. (BuT aT LEasT i’M FrE3!) Everything is too expensive AND the job market sucks, and can I just say I’m tired, like all the time? Meanwhile, an email from The Atlantic crashed into my inbox the other day, asking finger-pointing why Americans refuse to be happy about the economy (article), basically gaslighting readers about how we’re actually doing great if we just stop insisting otherwise. Well, they can go fuck right off; it’s bad out there, you guys!
But all that is to say, with money tight, inflation high, and all the recession indicators going off, I want to share with you ten things that I've been enjoying! Because I deserve at least that much, that much being ten things. A few of these do indeed cost money (or ideally they should), but many of them are free.
1. House cleaning
Let’s get the paid one out of the way. With my knuckles all chapped and eczema flaring up due to work stress, we have decided to finally get some professional help and splurged on a home cleaner. There was definitely a sense of guilt to outsource labor on something we should be doing ourselves, but the end results blew my little privileged mind off. Not only did she wash the walls, she scrubbed the oven door and I kid you not, the stove was sparkling by the time she left the apartment hours later.
When I told my trusted coworker about the experience, he reminded me that money is well spent when the service (or quality) is for something you cannot do yourself — whether it’s a car mechanic, a tax advisor, or in this case a house cleaner. He helped me justify this purchase, sure, but it seriously questioned some other things I currently pay for that I don’t get nearly the same value or joy for — fast food, coffee shops, and subscriptions be damned.
The next few are free but really ought to be supported monetarily. Starting with Newsletters!
2. Installer
I've previously mentioned this but part of my original idea of these emails was to provide helpful recommendations to inspire you. Kind of like Facebook link sharing, except you know, not. Then Installer came along and it’s much better than what I realistically can, given my time and expertise. Every week David Pierce provides a quick news roundup on the latest tech/app releases, followed by a screenshot of a phone's home screen from someone far more interesting than me for inspo and vibes.
3. Low Poly Mess
As cheap as I am, I truly ought to start chipping in on this one seeing how much I adore this newsletter. I don’t really know the author — Tom Orry — just that he was laid off from Eurogamer and now he writes a weekly newsletter on mostly non-video game things, like his family vacations or his washing machine. Each issue is oh so very good and I save (to re-read) them all in my RSS app. Oh fucking fine, I'll start chipping in.
4. Podcasts, or specifically NPR+
I’ve been hiding from the news for a while now (since important headlines tend to find me anyways), but my work commute has lately been filled with news-adjacent podcasts. My mainstays are KQED’s Bay Curious, NPR’s It’s Been a Minute (also available on YouTube as Videos!) and How to Do Everything, and lately Roman Mars’s collab with BBC on A History of the United States in 100 Objects. You don't have to pay for any of them, but the $8 / month to NPR+ is well worth it to skip all the ads. Considering how much I get out of them, I think it's worth more than most video subscriptions.
Now on to the free stuff!
5. Reduce Screen Time
I’ve been trying hard to cut down my screen time on my devices. It’s actually not that bad at all — around three hours per day across all my iDevices (excluding the TV and my work laptop) — but I still hate it every time I lose myself to doomscrolling. The worst part of doomscrolling is I can’t even tell you any of the reel/shorts I watched the day before.
So I’m adapting this new rule where I more or less limit one app per device. Banking apps can live on the iPad or my iPhone, but not both. Since adapting this mindset, there's a clearer swim lane (ugh) for which device does what. Reading, banking, and the few gaming apps goes to the iPad, whereas music and my watch/workout apps live on the phone. The fact that I'm still ride-or-die with my iPhone 13 mini actually helps, since the tiny screen practically begs you to not use it.
Ultimately, I want to go even further and just start going back to single-purpose devices — cameras, iPods, physical books. I’m not there yet, but maybe?
6. Fire Emblem: Three Houses
We may be living in the age of RAMmageddon, but a good way to stave off unnecessary purchases is to (re-)visit my backlog of unplayed games. Fans of the series long considered Fire Emblem: Three Houses to be the best in the series, though the battle/monastery system was so complex I gave up even after 30 hours into the game (and apparently I was still in “Part one” of the story line.) Earlier this month I started a brand new file, and I'm doing much better (thanks to the dozens of YouTube tutorials). Add to that my usual Animal Crossing fix and I can almost tune out reality, at least for a little bit.
7. Go for a run
Being able to go for a run at my nearby track has been my highlight for some time now, especially in the summer when school’s out. It sounds so silly, to spend an hour each time just running around the circle… but in the morning light and with a gentle breeze, the wide open field is such a wonderful place to spend time to be away from the screens and focusing on yourself, even if I am just running in a circle. Plus, it’s a really nice place to people watch — kids practicing soccer with their hot dads, seniors with their radios blasting on full volume, middle-aged women in big ass hats plus full-face visors, you know the drill…
8. Morning Pages
Lately I’ve been brain dumping my rambling thoughts in either the Journal app or into my BuJo itself. Known as Morning Pages, I’m far from consistent since it’s not yet formed into a habit, though every time I do it it does wake up my dormant habits from my old blogging days. Morning pages is more private since I’m just writing for myself, and the actual content is mostly run-on sentences and always non-sensical. But the practice does help clear my mind since my typing speed is one of the few things that can actually keep pace with — if not outrun — my running thoughts. If I keep at this maybe I can eventually turn some of them into actual blog posts.
9. Daydream
Aside from running my thoughts into the ground through Morning Pages, another way is just to give my overthinking a place to land. It’s actually another reason I love my weekly runs — though it’s not limited to that activity — where I get to just zone out and allow simmering thoughts to rise to the top. Whether it be the order of the music playlist I’m compiling at the time (ie: 2025, 2026 - WIP), how to problem solve for things at work, how to optimize my personal finance, or literally to daydream completely hypothetical situations… like what business I would start if I had a free retail space?
(Btw, one of the recent ideas is "Launch Day” where I would sell different things that are released that day, coupled with a release party type experiential event. That's daydreaming baby, ideas that are fun to ponder and not economically sound at all!)
10. The Planet Money Book
Lastly, I’ve been reading The Planet Money book and there’s this chapter on how grueling it can be for people to escape poverty, even with help and opportunities to do so. The chapter also called out that these economic studies with less than ideal results do not account for the generation gap, that is, once these families move to a better neighborhood, their next generation usually fares a lot better.
That helped me recall my own childhood (as well as friends who grew up with me), how my dad used to work weekends and go on week-long business trips while mom did literally everything — all to make ends meet and to eventually move out to the 'burbs, and to get my B- ass to a private university. How that, through one way or another, got me bouncing from city to city and job to job to eventually landing my current job at Apple. Some of this is from our direct hard work, sure, but much more of it is from our parents, doing whatever they can to provide the best environments for us to survive and thrive. Mother’s and Father’s Day come and go, but it's never too late to say thank you.
And here's the rest of it…
Thanks for reading this and being with me on this journey. Reply or comment and let me know what’s going on in your world! (Hit me up on Bluesky)! You can also check out past issues of Dear Friend, here.
What do you get most out of Dear Friend,?
Here’s the rest of it:
- The photos I took this month
- Interesting enough to share but not enough to write about:
- Don't forget, I’m on Bluesky! DM me there!
— Love wins
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