My intention is to post a Thoughtful Thursday column each week and share some of the insights I have learned in the past week. It has been a while. Here are some of the things I’ve learned this week:
Life Kit – Fruit flies don’t appear out of nowhere. Here’s how to get rid of them.
- Fruit flies are attracted to primarily fruit. Though they seem to appear out of thin air, you’re probably letting them in through the front door or bringing them in on your produce.
- When you bring home fruit, wash it with water to remove any eggs and then put the fruit in a brown paper bag to ripen.
- Get rid of fruit flies by building a simple trap. Fruit flies are attracted to vinegar. Red wine vinegar mixed with a bit of dish soap and water makes a great trap for fruit flies. The soap traps them. Having a small opening is even better (ex: using bottles instead of bowls or jars)
- Fruit flies might be coming from the drain of your kitchen sink. Pour boiling water down the drain. Then fill your sink with boiling water and leave it overnight.
- Put fruit in a small brown paper bag to ripen it without attracting fruit flies.
This product has also worked for us!
Real Simple Tips – 6 Foods You Should Never Store on the Counter
- Eggs from a grocery store
- Potatoes (avoid placing in sunlight on the counter)
- Onions (avoid placing in sunlight on the counter)
- Cucumbers
- Peaches, bananas, avocados (put ripened produce in fridge to extend shelf life)
- Pre-cut produce
Life Kit – How tech experts recommend organizing your photos
- Commit to starting in the first place.
- Whittle down the rubbish. Remove images you don’t need anymore (receipts, screenshots, duplicates, etc.)
- Keep a regular photo maintenance routine. Do monthly organization.
- Organize photos by date and do the tedious work of tagging to search and sort going forward. Add key words – vacation, friends, food, pet, etc.
- Lean into machine learning and search functions to fill the gaps in your organization.
- Back up, back up, back up. You should have three copies on two different medias and one off-site. A cloud service counts as off-site (Google Photos, Amazon Prime backup, ICloud, BackBlaze). Also have photos on your computer and a hard drive.
- Share the photos. Make slideshows occasionally and share them with others.
NerdWallet’s Smart Money Podcast – Why Experts Criticize “No Tax on Tips” and What It Means for Your Wallet
- 2.5% of the entire workforce in the United States are tipped workers.
- Most states have a minimum wage above the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. 36 states still have minimum wages for tipped workers below the federal minimum wage.
- Cash tips are often unreported. Credit card tips are reported.
- Former President Trump, Kamala Harris, and President Biden have endorsed the “no tax on tips” idea.
Currently, tax tips are supposed to be reported but often go unreported, so this proposed policy wouldn’t change anything for many tipped employees. However, personally, it can be hard to accept that people in non-tipped positions are taxed on all income, whereas some tipped employees do not report cash tips and can therefore bring home more income than those in non-tipped positions.
Criticisms by tax experts:
Tax advantage would only go to a sliver of the already small, tipped worker population because 1/3 of the workers don’t earn enough to owe federal income taxes anyway
By not taxing tips, employees lose access to other taxed benefits – payroll tax to fund Social Security and Medicare – Earned Income Tax Credit and Childcare Tax Credit
Could fuel resentment among other workers and consumers. Tipping backlash/tipping fatigue – unfair – may tip less than they already do as a result.
Other proposed solutions: eliminating the sub-minimum wage and raising the minimum wage and expanding income supports (Child Tax Credit, Earned Tax Credit, and Medicaid)
I enjoyed this post from Seth’s Blog this week:
“The steep part of the mountain
The end of the trail is usually difficult, but without the long and winding approach, there isn’t much of a mountain.
The greatest hits reel and the stunning photographs leave out most of the hard work.
There’s a lot to be said for showing up, one foot in front of the other. In fact, those are the only people who make it to the steep part in the first place.”
I can definitely relate to this. While I was away, my husband and I went hiking at Sequoia, Kings Canyon, and Yosemite National Parks. We went on strenuous hikes, and at times, I thought I didn’t have it in me to make it to the top. However, turning around and going back seemed like more of a challenge because we had a different (easier) route planned on the way back (once we reached the top). In my photos, I appear happy and content. What you don’t see are the many challenges and doubts I encountered to make it there. Sample photo:
I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!
Read Learn Share 