I know my parents didn’t think the world was stable when the Korean war and then Vietnam were going on plus Cold War, acid rain, ozone depletion and women had very few rights. Blacks couldn’t vote in the USA so that caused spillover problems in Canada. When I was your age it was a recession, gas had been horrendously expensive, interest rates were high teens or 20s, recent university grads were going on to second degrees because there was no work to be had - although post secondary debt wasn’t as high as now because you literally couldn’t borrow that much money unless your parents were rich and could afford to pay it.
What I’m saying is that very rarely does anyone in your age group feel like the world is going their way. Figure what you able to do, a combination of your talents and your likes, and figure out the cheapest way to learn how to do it if it means post secondary education or trades or your own time. Most people cannot find something they LOVE to do that will also pay the bills. Or even if you do love it, making it pay the bills is a good way to eventually hate it. In regards to bills, what life do you, not your parents/friends, want to live? Your needs might be less or more than anothers. One person can have a great life on $50K and another “needs” $200K. Where do you need to live? Many people get stuck on staying where they grew up but if you look to previous generations, many had to move to get to where their job and their life aligned. There are probably many, many jobs that you have never heard of and therefore haven’t considered. Career counselling can help.

Quite a bit of our kitchen stuff: Braun stick blender from the 1980s, Cuisinart from the early 1990s, my mother’s osterizer and electric frying pan from who knows when. I’m sure there are more. Until very recently, my husband had his coffee maker from since he started uni in 1979. Had 2 or 3 replacement carafs but it still brewed a pot until recently. My sewing machine is from the 1980s. A few outdoor and garage tools have made it a long time as well. The hedge trimmer has be 40+ yo. Ditto for the table saw. The oldest is a waffle maker from the 1940s. We have a couple Texas Instrument calcs from the 80s. Makes one sad when you realize how long those items keep working versus most things today that are toast after a year or two.

Sounds like my life in my 20s (minus the LGBTQ). Unlike the current pile that we all had like so easy. What happened is that we eventually paired up so two people were paying the bills and we eventually got paid more and built equity and now 40 years later retirement is looking like a viable option. Certainly didn’t feel that way 40 years ago.

I think people answering need to state where they are. I know some people are doing badly around here, southern BC, but most are doing the same as they were. Everyone is nervous about how Trump is going to fuck things up next. Rich are still rich. Impoverished are still impoverished and the in-between still run a spectrum of how they are doing. Not everyone is honest. One family member alternately crows about how well his stocks are doing, while saying everything is going to hell, while vacationing (expensively) for 6 months of the year. An Albertan relative is complaining of being in the poor house although he just drove his family all around Western Canada in a 350 pulling a big trailer - that was $1000s in fuel alone. Meanwhile a recently divorced friend thinks she’s living the life on $70K income because she no longer has to support deadbeat alcoholic husband. My kids are Millenials and they and their friends are getting married, having kids, buying townhouses or sometimes even houses. How people are doing is very subjective. How they feel they are doing is often a measure of how anxious they are about their future. However the median of the population isn’t getting better. Incomes are only rising for a small percentage. Remember that in the good old days big businesses and their owners - not mom and pop operations - paid taxes that contributed to society’s needs. Since Reagan this has disappeared, not just in the US but also Canada in order to compete. The average person’s income has paid the price. All to create the billionaire class who see all workers as an expense to get rid of. I’m all right financially, not rich but not poor, but I worry alot about how others are going to make it through.

The US was settled by several Christian versions of the Taliban. They still seek to control by religious edict while not living it themselves. Nudity, sex, women as people are all problematic for them.

I find I am skipping more and more places. Even if I don’t have to sign up for an account, I’m not doing the reject cookies bit any more either. I’m just skipping on by. I walked out of a QR code restaurant earlier today because it required a sign in to see the menu.

I know people who had them or similar versions. Not a single person carried them around. They took them from their house to their car to their office. Sometimes then never left the car. They didn’t get moved around like a current cellphone.

I’m guessing you no longer want to have friends?

Why are you abusing the local wildlife?

I know this is a joke, but, no it is your job as a driver to know how fast you are going. It is one of the basic rules of having the privilege to drive. Of course the fact that so many drivers seem to think this is some kind of infringement is why there are so many fatal accidents. Which wouldn’t be so bad if they only maimed and killed the speeders & drunks.

Ditto but I’m neurotypical.

I thought it was American Evangelicals that thought sinful liberals deserved it.

My husband has wanted to dispose of out record, cassette and cd collections many times and I have stopped him. He is finally coming around to the wisdom of going old-school and physically owning our collection.

Like Karen Carpenter. So sad to see in happen but not much that can be done by fans.

See your doctor. This is not normal aging. Getting a Hypothyroid diagnosis can take years if you are one of the people for whom the blood test is garbage. Insist that your doctor get the full T4, T3 testing done. Sleep apnea is also one that can be hard to diagnose but leave you feeling fatigued.
You don’t have a husband or live in partner that might be drugging you? In this day and age, it isn’t as far fetched an idea as it once was.

Change out the carpet, fine, but why that God awful laminate?Update the cushions, great. Paint the beams and fireplace, short term thinking to destroy something that will now forever need work and updating. I hope you drywalled over the wall panels and didn’t just slap paint on them. It is a current “look”. Will be out of date/trend in a couple years - far shorter than the other look that took 30 years to be dated and now would be retro.

Enough to take the edge off, not so often it interfers with your life. The number will be different for every person and different at every stage of life for a person.

I don’t know that it would help. The longer Americans keep Trump in power, the more their former allies realize that it isn’t “just Trump”.

Vinyls don’t corrode over time. We have vinyl from 80 years ago. Still good. We have CDs from 90s that no longer play. And itunes that have completely disappeared unless than 20years.

Colin James - Fuse