Even cellulose and paper bags were tested and had plastics in the glues and binders in the material. Unfortunately you need to look for manufacturers that explicitly say they’re plastic-free or buy loose leaf. I have a bunch of bagged tea I bought before I knew, and I’ve been ripping open the bags and dumping the tea in my infuser.

Not everyone handles sleep deprivation the same. Not every baby sleeps the same amount or at regular intervals. Some babies just never seem to sleep or have weird needs that require exhausting accommodations. It’s terrible, but new babies are so vulnerable and there are so many chances for failure at the same time parents are at their most compromised. I have sympathy for the stupid, addled, forgetful mistakes anyone could make under constant, chronic exhaustion.

We were never meant to do it alone, the nuclear family is a myth.

Yes, the first one is goofy but it did the whole “what would an actually average person do with superhero powers” shtick before it was cool, and managed to make it funny and pretty sweet too.

This scenario would mean major negligence on their part, as they had been with Cloudflare for years. When it was clear their services were costing more than the business plan paid for, that’s when they should have been contacted with clear numbers and a sheepish admission that “unlimited” doesn’t actually mean unlimited. It certainly seems shady to me that they attempted to make it about a TOS violation, that there’s no public information about enterprise level and pricing, and that the second they said they were talking to a competitor they had their data purged. It sounds like a failed attempt at extortion to me.

Processed food is usually more expensive per portion than the ingredients alone. The farther you get from the raw ingredients the more expensive it gets. Plus, you’re eating all sorts of junk ingredients.

I had about ten years of experience with a very tight food budget to learn what was good value for effort/ingredients.

Good:

Flour, sugar, canned tomatoes, spices, frozen veggies, fresh produce

Bad:

Presliced or pre-grated cheeses, at least in my experience, are marked up 1.5x to 2x the cost per pound of a block. Another commenter said that wasn’t the case in their store, but check and see if that is true for you and if the cheeses you got are available in blocks. You can even go to a place with a deli counter and they will slice cheese for you for free, and you will get exactly how much you want with less waste (yes it’s an interaction with another human, it’ll be alright).

Uncrustables/swiss rolls/mac and cheese… it’s not for me to judge what someone chooses for an indulgence, maybe those things are what get you through your day, but you can definitely do better value wise. Mac and cheese from a box is cheaper than those individual cups, and homemade mac and cheese from scratch is even better and extremely easy if you have any kitchen experience. Uncrustables will always be more expensive than just making the sandwich yourself. The swiss rolls… well you know they’re a treat. In my opinion if you’re going to treat yourself to something unhealthy spend the extra dollar and get something luxurious.

Breads and muffins, again if you could learn how to make them yourself you might be impressed with the results. Bread can be a tricky balance of time, effort and cost of ingredients, and homemade fresh baked bread is incredible, but if you’re short on time there’s nothing wrong with buying it. Muffins are a quick bread though that you could make at home in under an hour with a mixing bowl and a cupcake pan, and then you could control exactly how much sugar went into them and have hot, fresh muffins. It’s worth making them yourself at least once to see if it’s something you can add to your routine, you can get a cupcake pan for cheap from a thrift store if you don’t have one.

Sauces and dips, as other people have said, they are a lot simpler than you might think to make yourself. In my experience they are one of those things you should challenge yourself to make at least once or twice and see how much effort and time it takes you, and then re-evaluate the jarred/canned stuff. Maybe after making it you realize it is worth the extra dollar or so to save yourself the effort, but maybe you realize it’s not that hard and you’re able to save money in the long run and have more control over the quality and ingredients.

All this stuff is incremental, and any one thing isn’t going to magically fix food costs. Plus as the amount of time in your life to spend on meal prep fluctuates you might find it’s worth it to spend the extra money on convenience. However it’s important to at least get some experience with the alternatives so you understand what amount of time and effort you are buying by getting those processed foods. Good luck :)

Celestial Seasonings and PG tips are good grocery store brands with paper bags, but for loose leaf it’s worth seeing if you have a local tea shop. If there’s nowhere nearby, there’s some great online sellers. I’m a fan of Adagio and David’s tea.

I’m compromising on those things right now with a phone that’s ten (!!) years old now. If I could get one running a current OS, that was between 120-150mm with a replaceable battery, headphone jack, usb c, and the ability to take a 1TB micro sd along with a physical sim, I would take that upgrade.

Yeah the older android version is what killed it for me really, as I would have even kept using it as a wireless device. I couldn’t install my preferred browser, email app, reddit is fun etc on it after enough years. I even rooted it and looked into installing a new version of Android on it but couldn’t haha. It was compact, comfortable to hold, but big enough to browse and read text or to use an onscreen keyboard without much trouble. I was really disappointed to learn that there just were no phones compatible with 4G/LTE running Android 8 or higher that size, not even cheapie ones.

I’m a staunch and unyielding small phone user and this does, admittedly, describe me. I used my LG Optimus (4.75" or 120mm) for something like 6 or 7 years and I loved it. I don’t use my phone for games or video and just want something I can always tuck in a pocket (on women’s clothes this means tiny). It was the perfect size for my hand. When it stopped working because of the 3G/4G change over I upgraded to the smallest, most decent phone I could find: a Samsung Galaxy S7. I am still using it something like 5 years later and I would never go bigger than this, it fits comfortably in one hand, is light, and the battery is replaceable and lasts me all day. It sticks out of pants pockets but fits in a coat or jacket pocket. I would be willing to pay a higher up front cost to get a new phone if it was exactly what I wanted though, about 5" with no bloatware, replaceable battery, headphone jack, and a great camera.