6/5/25 - Wet Phones, Unhelpful Hacks, and Costly Pets
- bribriny
- Jun 5
- 4 min read
Thursday 6/5/25
Celebrate:
Apple II Day
Festival of Popular Delusions Day
Hot Air Balloon Day
National Attitude Day
National Gingerbread Day
National Ketchup Day
National Moonshine Day
National Veggie Burger Day
Sausage Roll Day
World Environment Day
--
Have you ever tried any of these "hacks" and regretted it? Someone asked frugal people on Reddit to name "money-saving" tricks that can actually cost you more.
1. Driving to the cheaper gas station across town. Unless it's a lot cheaper, you don't have to drive far before it's not worth it anymore.
2. D.I.Y. repairs unless you know what you're doing. Especially with big projects, like renovating a bathroom.
3. Trying to make something for cheaper than you can buy it. It's hard to do now that everything's mass produced.
4. Buying stuff just because it's on sale. If it's something you'd need next week or next month, great. Just don't do it with stuff you MIGHT need.
5. Meal kit services like Hello Fresh. You think you'll order less take-out, but a lot of people still don't cook and just waste half the food. If you want to cook to save money, find some recipes and go to the store.
6. Buying the cheapest option. Sometimes it's fine. But with stuff like shoes and clothes, quality tends to last longer.
7. Growing your own food. Having a garden is great, but it's easy to end up spending more than you would just buying organic. Same applies for raising chickens to save on eggs.
Here's the Reddit thread
–
A Chinese newspaper called "Beijing Youth Daily" did a story on how young people in China are paying $5 a day to pretend they have a job.
You go to a shared office but don't do any actual work. It's all a ruse, so you don't have to tell your friends and family you're unemployed.
Not everyone is pretending. A lot of the customers are just people who freelance and need a co-working space. But for the ones who don't, you're paying for a desk, Wi-Fi, coffee, and theatrics.
They'll assign you fake tasks. So if anyone asks what you did at work today, maybe you'd show them an email and say, "They just put me on this big project, so I'm buried in paperwork."
Some places even have fake bosses, and you can pay extra for fake fights with them.
It sounds like most customers use their time to search for real jobs, but it's become a long-term strategy for some. One woman who's been doing it for months said it's cheaper than sitting at a coffee shop all day.
--
A new study found owning a pet costs WAY more than most people think, and the price tag keeps going up.
People were asked how much they THINK it costs to care for a cat or dog for 15 years. For cats, the average answer was $5,735. And for dogs, $8,158.
But the real numbers are more like three times that, maybe more. It depends on the type of food you buy, whether you get lucky with vet bills, and how much you spoil them.
Caring for a cat now costs anywhere from $20,000 to $47,000 of the course of their life. And for dogs, it's $22,000 to just under $61,000.
That's an average of at least $1,300 a year for cats, and $1,500 for dogs. They say even something like a rabbit can easily cost over $1,000 annually.
–
Summer on the horizon means lots of pool days, beach days . . . and potentially wet cell phones. Have you ever accidentally hopped in a pool with your phone in your pocket? And is it really not a big deal anymore?
We've seen tons of stories about people's iPhones being submerged in water and working just fine. But that might not mean they are fine.
The website "The Conversation" just did a list of wet cell phone myths. Here are four of them to be aware of.
Myth #1: My phone turned back on, so it's fine. It's obviously a good sign, but it doesn't always mean you're in the clear. Any moisture inside your phone can cause corrosion. It can take days, weeks, or months to see the effects.
Myth #2: But my phone is "waterproof." No, it isn't. Most phones now are "water resistant." But how resistant they are depends on the model. The term "waterproof" isn't used much, because phones generally AREN'T completely safe from water damage.
Myth #3: My warranty will cover it. Most out-of-the-box warranties don't cover water damage. You have to buy an additional warranty, and even those have limitations.
Myth #4: The rice hack. Don't put your phone in a bag of rice to soak up the moisture. It doesn't work very well, and particles from the rice can get in your phone and cause even more damage.
You're better off powering down your phone, removing the battery if you can, and letting it dry out overnight.
–
A kid in Florida found a message in a bottle that two kids in Hawaii tossed in the ocean seven years ago. 11-year-old Josie Law of Michigan was vacationing with her family when she spotted it in the water near Bradenton.
The note was from a 13-year-old and 8-year-old, dated August 17th, 2018. And if it really did start in Hawaii, it went a VERY long way to get there.
Ocean currents mean it would have had to float down around the tip of South America . . . up the coast of Africa . . . and back across the Atlantic Ocean to the Florida coast.
--
Today's Useless Fact of the Day - The Secret Service was originally created in 1865 to deal with rampant counterfeiting, to stabilize America's financial system. By the end of the Civil War, nearly one-third of all currency in circulation was counterfeit.
–
Comments