#full odds shiny number 29

[estsolcity]

visuals. interactions. pinterest.

( megan pete/megan thee stallion, 29, woman, she/her ) — Look who it is! If you take a look at our database, you’ll find that KALANI AMARA MIREILLE is a a SCAVENGER that works in SECTOR 1. According to the file, they’re a mutant with the power of BUTTERFLY PHYSIOLOGY. That must be why they’re RESOURCEFUL and STUBBORN. If you ask me, they remind me of suncatchers, remembering life is beautiful in a dull moment, wanting to live in the forest, thinking you can tame any animal. They are affiliated with THE UNBURDENED.

✕ ⸻ BASICS

⸻ FULL NAME: Kalani Amara Mireille ⸻ BIRTHDAY: ??? ⸻ ZODIAC: ??? ⸻ AGE: 29 years old ⸻ GENDER: cis female ⸻ PETS: Echo (description below) ⸻ PRONOUNS: she/her ⸻ SEXUAL & ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: bisexual & biromantic ⸻ SCARS / TATTOOS / PIERCINGS: scars from wastelands horrors ⸻ OCCUPATION: Scavenger of sector 1   ⸻ MUTATION STATUS: Generation 2 Mutant (butterfly physiology)

✕ ⸻ BIO

to be updated & perfected more in the future

Kalani's origins are shrouded in mystery. She was discovered at the age of ten by a group of scavengers in the treacherous wastelands outside Sol City. The group had been hunted by an indescribable creature, losing half of their number before nightfall. Unbeknownst to them, Kalani had been living in the wastelands, using her butterfly physiology to survive the harsh environment, flitting unnoticed as a butterfly. When the danger subsided, Kalani revealed herself to the remaining scavengers and led them to safety, guiding them back to Sol City. Taken in by one of the survivors, Kalani grew up in a scavenger’s family, adapting to a new life.

Now, at 29, she’s a scavenger herself, carrying the resilience of her past and the agility of her unique abilities.

✕ ⸻ WANTED CONNECTIONS

scavenger who found her (40-50+)

open to anything

✕ ⸻ HEADCANONS

Wasteland Superstitions: Kalani believes that certain areas of the wasteland are "alive" with unseen forces, especially where she’s seen strange patterns in the sand or encountered inexplicable sounds. She has a habit of leaving small offerings—like stones or scraps of metal—in these areas to "keep the peace." She doesn’t fully believe in it, but she’s seen enough strange things not to take chances.

The Power of Symbols: The symbols carved into her knife aren’t random; she believes that each one serves a purpose—protection, strength, or direction. She plans to add more as she learns new things or faces challenges, thinking each new carving imbues the blade with energy from her experiences.

Lucky Trinkets: Kalani has a quirky belief that carrying a variety of small, seemingly useless trinkets can attract good fortune. She has a collection of odd items—like a bent paperclip, a shiny button, and a piece of colorful glass—that she keeps in her pocket. Each item holds a story or memory, and she thinks they act as talismans, bringing her luck on her scavenging trips. Whenever she feels uncertain, she’ll take one of them out, give it a little rub, and trust that it will help her find something valuable or keep her safe from danger.

The Color of Survival: Kalani believes that wearing certain colors can affect her luck and energy while scavenging. She has a small selection of worn-out clothing in various shades—earthy tones for camouflage, bright colors for confidence, and dark hues for stealth. Before heading out, she chooses her outfit based on her gut feeling about the day ahead, convinced that the right color can enhance her mood or even deter danger. This quirky habit often leads her to mix and match unexpected outfits, creating her own unique style that reflects her resourcefulness and creativity.

The "One Good Luck" Rule: Kalani believes everyone only has a limited number of "lucky" moments, so she’s careful about when she relies on chance. If something goes her way in a situation, she mentally counts it as one of her "good luck" moments and tries not to waste the next one too soon.

Respect for Sol City's "Lost Corners": Kalani feels certain corners and alleys in Sol City hold the memories of people who lived rough lives, particularly areas where she’s found evidence of past struggles or forgotten items. She treats these places with respect, moving quietly and leaving small tokens like an old coin or a piece of scrap metal as a nod to those who came before her.

✕ ⸻ QUESTIONNARE

how do they feel about living in sol city? have they always lived there or did they travel from another settlement?

Kalani has mixed feelings about living in Sol City. On one hand, it offers a level of stability and security that the wastelands could never provide. The city has resources, a semblance of order, and connections to other people, which have allowed her to grow in ways that life in the wastelands never could. She appreciates having a place to call home and a network of people she can rely on—a stark contrast to the isolation she felt surviving as a young girl in the wilderness. However, Sol City can also feel confining, both physically and socially. She’s never quite felt like she belongs entirely in the city's structured environment, given her survivalist roots and independence. The rules and routines of city life occasionally clash with her instincts to fend for herself and remain cautious of others. Sol City’s bustling nature, along with its bureaucracy and authority figures, sometimes feels at odds with the freedom she experienced in the wastelands.

Kalani didn’t grow up in Sol City but arrived at the age of ten, after leading a group of scavengers there for safety. Having come from the barren, unforgiving environment of the wastelands, the transition to city life was significant, filled with challenges as she learned to adapt. Over time, Sol City has become her home, but a part of her still feels tethered to the wastelands, occasionally pulling her to explore or venture beyond the city’s borders when she feels the need to reconnect with that part of herself.

do they trust the council’s leadership?why or why not?

Kalani is wary of the Council’s leadership in Sol City, and she approaches their decisions with a sense of cautious skepticism. Her mistrust stems from both her upbringing in the wastelands—where survival was often a personal endeavor rather than a communal one—and her firsthand experience with the bureaucratic nature of Sol City. She has seen the Council’s tendency to prioritize the city’s elite and protect its own interests, often leaving the marginalized, like scavengers, to fend for themselves with limited support or protection. From Kalani’s perspective, the Council seems distant and out of touch with the realities of life outside the city’s borders. Their policies may work within Sol City’s structured environment, but they fail to address the harsher needs of those who come from, or operate in, the wastelands. Kalani resents the Council’s strict regulations, especially when they impose limitations that make scavenging or survival more challenging. That said, she respects individual Council members who show genuine concern for the well-being of all citizens, but she believes the leadership as a whole often sacrifices practicality for control. In her view, true leadership listens to the people and adapts to real needs, rather than enforcing top-down orders. Kalani tends to keep a low profile and avoid direct confrontation with the Council, but she’s not afraid to push back or work around their rules when they clash with her own sense of survival and fairness.

if they chose their sector and profession, why did they make that choice? if they didn’t, why not? were they happy with their assignment or not?

Kalani didn’t exactly choose her sector or profession. Her role as a scavenger was more a matter of survival than preference. From the moment she was brought to Sol City, her skills were already suited to the life of a scavenger. Having spent years in the wastelands, she possessed unique survival instincts, resourcefulness, and an intimate understanding of the dangerous terrain outside the city. These qualities made her a natural fit for scavenging, especially since few others had the same resilience or adaptability to thrive in such conditions. While the Council likely assigned her to this sector due to her wasteland origins, Kalani accepted the role because it allowed her a level of autonomy and freedom she knew she wouldn’t have in other professions. Scavenging also offered her the chance to escape the confinement of city life regularly and reconnect with the wilderness. It became more than a job—it was a means of staying connected to the environment that shaped her and a way to leverage her unique skills. Although she sometimes resents the danger and isolation that come with the work, she’s largely content with her assignment. The independence of scavenging suits her well, allowing her to remain self-reliant and keep a certain distance from the structured life of Sol City. So while she didn’t necessarily choose scavenging in the traditional sense, Kalani has found fulfillment in it, recognizing it as a path that allows her to stay true to herself and her origins.

what’s one object that they always keep on their person?

Kalani carries a small knife gifted to her by the scavenger who took her in when she was a child. The knife is compact but sturdy, with a handle carved from dark wood and reinforced with strips of metal for added durability. Over time, she’s personalized it with small carvings along the hilt—symbols she picked up from old relics in the wastelands and stories her adoptive family told her, representing protection, resilience, and guidance. The blade itself, though weathered, remains sharp, a testament to the quality of its steel and the care she’s given it over the years. Along one side of the blade is a faint engraving: an inscription that her adoptive father told her was meant to keep the wielder safe from harm. The knife’s well-worn grip and weight in her hand are both familiar and reassuring. To Kalani, it’s more than a tool; it’s a symbol of her survival, a piece of her past, and a reminder of the person who believed in her potential.

what is your character’s ability (or abilities)?

Kalani possesses butterfly physiology as her primary ability, which grants her several unique traits and enhancements: Enhanced agility and reflexes, butterfly wings & shapeshifting, color/camouflage manipulation, enhanced healing, & enhanced sensory perception. Her wings are always present. When she shifts into a butterfly, she is a Paolo Verdes Blue butterfly.

what can your character do? what are their strengths?

Enhanced Agility and Reflexes: Kalani’s body mimics the grace and speed of a butterfly, allowing her to move with exceptional agility. She can dart quickly and make sharp turns, which aids her in navigating the treacherous terrain of the wastelands and evading danger.

Wings of Flight: While Kalani doesn’t have fully formed wings like a typical butterfly, she has small, ethereal wing-like structures that emerge from her back when she exerts herself or is in danger. These structures allow her to glide short distances, providing her with an advantage when escaping threats or reaching high places. When she shifts into a butterfly, she is a Paolo Verdes Blue butterfly.

Color Manipulation: Kalani has the ability to change the colors of her skin to blend in with her surroundings, similar to the camouflage of certain butterfly species. This adaptive trait helps her remain hidden from predators and enemies, making her an adept scavenger.

Enhanced Sensory Perception: Her physiology grants her heightened senses, especially sight and smell. Kalani can detect subtle changes in her environment, which helps her locate resources, avoid dangers, and navigate through the wastelands more effectively.

Healing Properties: Like some butterflies, Kalani has accelerated healing abilities. Minor wounds and injuries tend to heal faster than usual, allowing her to recover quickly from scrapes and bruises sustained during scavenging or encounters with threats.

what can’t they do? what are their weaknesses?

Limited Strength: Kalani's butterfly physiology emphasizes agility and speed over brute strength. In physical confrontations or when lifting heavy objects, she can struggle compared to others, making her vulnerable in situations where sheer power is required. She does work out, just doesn't have enhanced strength.

Sensitivity to Environmental Conditions: Kalani is particularly sensitive to extreme temperatures and weather conditions. Intense heat can drain her energy, while cold can affect her agility and make her sluggish. This sensitivity can hinder her ability to navigate the wastelands effectively during harsh conditions.

Fragile Wing Structures: The wing-like structures that emerge when she exerts herself are delicate and can be easily damaged. If they sustain injury during a fight or while escaping danger, she may lose her ability to glide and her enhanced agility until they heal, putting her at a significant disadvantage.

Reliance on Camouflage: While her color manipulation is advantageous for stealth, it requires a focus of mental energy and concentration. If she is distracted, stressed, or overwhelmed, she may struggle to adapt her colors effectively, exposing her to danger.

Weakness to Certain Chemicals: As a result of her unique physiology, Kalani has a heightened sensitivity to certain chemicals, toxins, and pollutants found in the wastelands. Exposure can leave her disoriented or cause physical ailments, limiting her ability to scavenge effectively in those areas.

Emotional Overload: Kalani’s heightened sensory perception can be a double-edged sword. Overstimulation from loud noises, strong scents, or chaotic environments can lead to anxiety or disorientation, making it difficult for her to think clearly and respond quickly in critical situations.

is there anything else you’d like to specify about them?

Mirai is a deeply complicated character, torn between her desire to be a good mother and her fear of the damage she’s capable of. She’s hardened by her past but softened by her children, and she desperately wants to create a better life for them, even if she doesn’t fully believe she deserves it.

✕ ⸻ ECHO

Kalani's three-headed dog is named Echo. Echo, being a miniature version of Cerberus, stands at about 2.7 feet (82.3 cm) tall at the shoulder—around the size of a large dog, like a mastiff. His muscular, well-built frame gives him a sturdy appearance, and he weighs approximately 150 pounds (about 68 kg). Despite his size and intimidating look, Echo is agile and moves with surprising ease, well-suited for the rugged terrain of the wastelands where he and Kalani often venture.

Echo is fiercely loyal to Kalani and has been her steadfast companion since she found him as a pup, abandoned and shivering in the wastelands. Their story is a slow burn to building trust & companionship. He is a three-headed dog (similar to Cerberus); one head is black with red/fawn streaks & red eyes, one is white with purple eyes, & the other is multi-coloured with light brown eyes. The black head on the left looks similar to a Groenendael/Belgian Sheepdog, the white head in the middle looks similar to a Borzoi, & the grey head on the right looks similar to an Australian Shepherd.

Echo’s body is muscular and well-built, combining power with agility—perfect for navigating the rugged, unforgiving terrain of the wastelands. His coat is thick and dense, with fur that’s both protective and adaptable, ideal for enduring the harsh climate. The texture varies slightly across his body: the fur on his neck and back is a bit longer, adding a mane-like quality, especially around his heads, while his sides and legs are covered in shorter, sleek fur that enhances his mobility. His three tails are long and bushy, with a plume of fur that matches the varied textures of his body, giving him a striking, wolf-like silhouette. The tails serve as a balance aid when he’s running or maneuvering quickly and also acts as an additional expressive feature, often giving away his mood. When he’s alert, they tise with a slight curve, while in relaxed moments with Kalani, falls lower and may even give a gentle wag. Each tail matches the colour of each head. One black, one white, & one grey. Echo’s overall appearance combines a rugged, almost mythical look with the athleticism of a true wasteland survivor.

Echo has a unified personality that combines fierce loyalty, playfulness, & a strong protective instinct. Despite having three heads, Echo acts as one cohesive unit, responding to Kalani’s cues with remarkable attentiveness and obedience. Her loyal & protective companion, Echo guards Kalani with unwavering dedication, always positioning himself between her and any perceived threats. His three heads allow him to keep a vigilant watch in multiple directions, making him especially effective in keeping Kalani safe during their scavenging trips, in public, & their home. While Echo is protective, he’s also inquisitive, often sniffing around for new scents and investigating interesting sounds in the wastelands & Sol City. His curiosity keeps both him & Kalani on alert for potential dangers or hidden resources that others might overlook. Despite his formidable appearance, Echo has a gentle side that only Kalani, & Max, sees. He’s affectionate and attentive to her moods, resting his heads on her lap when she’s tired or nudging her hand for comfort. His loyalty & warmth provide Kalani with a rare sense of companionship & peace, no matter how harsh their surroundings. Echo’s presence brings Kalani both protection and a deep, comforting bond, making him more than just a guard dog—he’s family.

Echo is naturally wary of new people, adopting a cautious yet observant stance when someone unfamiliar approaches. His three heads allow him to watch from multiple angles, which can be intimidating to strangers, especially given his unique appearance. Typically, Echo will stand close to Kalani, keeping himself between her and the newcomer, his heads watching in unison, ready to react if necessary. However, if Kalani seems comfortable around the person or signals that they’re trustworthy, Echo will gradually relax. He won’t immediately warm up to new people but may lower his guard a bit—allowing for tentative sniffing or observing from a closer distance. It’s only after consistent exposure and positive interactions that Echo shows his gentler side, accepting the new person as a potential friend. If a stranger shows any signs of aggression or raises their voice, though, Echo is quick to react with a low, united growl. His protective instincts kick in immediately, reminding others that Kalani is under his guard, & any perceived threat will be met with fierce loyalty.

[pikachumaniac10]

FULL ODDS SHINY NUMBER 29 HAS JUST FLEW IN!! This is also my second shiny tailow on pokemon go.

While this shiny did not come from a incense, it did show up while I had one going to complete the limited research that is ongoing due to the sustainability event ongoing on pokemon go rn.

This event releases shiny thrubbish as well so if you like thrubbish or its shiny i wish you luck on getting it!

Today's question:

What shiny have you caught during the event so far?

[thedesignair]

Today saw the official arrival of the British Airways A350. The aircraft which was meant to arrive on Friday was delayed due to the air traffic control and weather issues at Heathrow. However, today saw no sign of either of those. Under perfectly blue skies, British Airways wheeled out the new aircraft which in reality arrived to Heathrow two days prior.

In front of the media, the airline opened the doors for the first official time, with a full compliment of crew descending the stairs to greet the arrival party.

Once the crew, who brought the aircraft from Toulouse departed, we were allowed onboard this very shiny new aircraft with a small group of journalists.

Economy ‘World Traveller’

Situated across two cabins, the economy cabin features 219 Recaro seats in a 3 x 3 x 3 configuration, with the best seats in the house being the front row of the first cabin which have just 2 seats by the window and 4 in the middle with heaps of legroom.

The cabin features a sea of blue seats which mirror those found on the 787 and upgraded 777s with a bi-fold table and gate-to-gate IFE, with the system powered by Panasonic Aerospace. There is Wi-Fi Connectivity on board too for those who need to be connected at 35,000ft.

Another hidden bonus on the A350 is that every single seat has a window. There are no missing windows throughout the entire aircraft meaning that no one will be tweeting this window view of a wall anymore.

Premium Economy ‘World Traveller Plus’

The A350 has 56 World Traveller Plus premium economy seats in a 2 x 4 x 2 configuration, which mirrors the same narrower Premium Economy seats found in Virgin’s A350 Premium Economy.

These seats feature calf rests across the entire cabin, with full leg rests found on the front row. The seats are incredibly comfortable, with a deep recline and sturdy headrest that cradles the head during sleep.

Once again the front row is certainly the best, offering the largest legroom and hard literature pockets that will quickly become the foot rest of choice for the long-haul flights the A350 will eventually fly.

The seats also feature large TV screens, a really deep recline and cocktail tables, which will be a beneficial upgrade on the World Traveller product, but unlike other carriers, British Airways still doesn’t offer some of the ground product enhancements that this cabin class is given by other carriers, such as priority airport services, lounge access and priority boarding.

The seats are situated in a smart, grey bulkheaded cabin which has a hard partition between it and both economy and the new Club Suite cabins which makes it feel a lot more private, but with it comes one drawback. The cabin doesn’t benefit from its own toilets, meaning they are shared with the rest of the economy cabin situated towards the rear of the aircraft.

The New Club World Suite

However at the front of the aircraft, things are very different. For the first time in two decades the airline has brought a totally new Business Class product to the skies. The enhanced Super Diamond seat, featuring privacy door means the carrier for the first time is offering a competitive business class product, matching the expectations of an international business class passenger.

Let us get our first and only gripe out of the way. It’s sad to see British Airways – that used to invest heavily into a bespoke inflight hard product – take the route of an off-the-shelf product, and taking many years to come to this conclusion, instead of investing in a bespoke, new product that truly showcases and celebrates Britain’s craftsmanship when it comes to the aviation sphere.

The cabin, featuring 56 seats in a 1 x 2 x 1 configuration is bright and airy, but the airline has opted for the centre overhead bins, a savvy decision considering the airline’s demographic. There have been countless times we’ve seen business class travellers utilising the carry on bag allowance to allow them to get through the airport quicker even on short stopovers on long-haul routes.

The seat on first impressions is lightyears ahead of its previous incarnation, and anyone who has flown on several business class cabins have probably already enjoyed the same hard product (with it already appearing on the likes of China Airlines, Air Canada and even American Airlines.

This seat however, features a door for added privacy. It doesn’t really offer any privacy to anyone walking past, but from those seated, it’s certainly an added bit of seclusion that mirrors the current Club World product.

The added benefit is that the seat is cocooned by a felt fabric which helps towards noise cancelling, making the cabin that little bit quieter. Although how this fabric performs through frequent use will be proved over the coming months.

In comparison to the press photos there is a clear ‘cooler’ and blue-er tone to the cabin, with a distinct, slate colour running throughout the seats, carpet and surfaces.

The seat features the Super diamond’s traditional slide-down table which allows for a bi-fold table and an intermediate table position, great for holding drinks or snacks pre or post a full dining service, while allowing for better egress.

The seat also features both hard button and touchscreen seat controls as well as an 18 inch Panasonic touchscreen monitor, supported by a handheld controller, found in one of the storage holes.

Perhaps one of the biggest changes from the pre-existing Club World seats is the addition of a footwell, which may not please every passenger, but the overwhelming benefits far outweigh this simple and easy-to-live-with compromise.

Other nice design touches include the mirror in the side storage unit, seat numbering by the door and dividing screens between the centre pairs, although the use of the older striped-pattern BA brand palette seems at odds with an otherwise modern interior.

Another great addition, separating the two Club World cabins, is a walk up Club World bar, which allows for a small self-service galley, perfect for a quick snack or drink between services. Although, we question how much this will be used, considering, for at least a little while, the seclusion, and privacy will mean most passengers will enjoy settling in to their private cocoons for the majority of their flight.

Well done BA, on a modern aircraft product which can hold its own through the international market, however it would have been great to see just a little more innovation and personalisation of an otherwise tried-and-tested industry standard Business Class product. The question is what does this man for First. As we’ve been told, both this, and the existing First Class cabin will be on retro-fitted 777s and 787-10s that will enter in to service soon.

The Big BA Picture

LONDON, UK: British Airways A350 at London Heathrow on 29 July 2019 (Picture by Nick Morrish/British Airways)

LONDON, UK: British Airways A350 at London Heathrow on 29 July 2019 (Picture by Nick Morrish/British Airways)

LONDON, UK: British Airways A350 at London Heathrow on 29 July 2019 (Picture by Nick Morrish/British Airways)

LONDON, UK: British Airways A350 at London Heathrow on 29 July 2019 (Picture by Nick Morrish/British Airways)

LONDON, UK: British Airways A350 at London Heathrow on 29 July 2019 (Picture by Nick Morrish/British Airways)

LONDON, UK: British Airways A350 at London Heathrow on 29 July 2019 (Picture by Nick Morrish/British Airways)

LONDON, UK: British Airways A350 at London Heathrow on 29 July 2019 (Picture by Nick Morrish/British Airways)

  British Airways receives its first A350. But is it all it's cracked up to be? We take a closer exclusive look... Today saw the official arrival of the British Airways A350. The aircraft which was meant to arrive on Friday was delayed due to the air traffic control and weather issues at Heathrow.

[thfrustration]

Stjarnavetr - Part II - Chapter 40

TITLE OF STORY: Stjarnavetr

CHAPTER NUMBER: Part II – Chapter 40

AUTHOR: renlem

WHICH TOM/CHARACTER: Loki

STORY GENRE: Angst, Erotica, Drama

STORY SUMMARY, PART II: Things have gone well for Loki and Stjarnavetr these past five centuries, but it cannot remain so. When Loki unexpectedly betrays those closest to him, Stjarnavetr’s world falls apart. Painful secrets and dark pasts will come to light, love will be tried to the breaking point, and Stjarnavetr must come to terms with the fact that the man she loves is not the man she thought she knew. Through it all, both Loki and Stjarnavetr will come to realize just how far they will go for one another and the sacrifices they will make, no matter the cost.

STORY RATING: Explicit (for strong language, strong sexual content, and graphic violence)

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

CHAPTER WARNINGS/TRIGGERS:

PREVIOUS CHAPTERS (PART I & ONE SHOTS)

Part II: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39

__

CHAPTER 40

Loki

Helheim

“Nice try, Mannadr!” I smirked, slicing the stale air with Laevateinn, the sword Angrboda had commissioned for me.

Four palace guards stood opposite of me, weapons drawn and poised. Before them lay their comrade whom they had likely known for centuries, whom I had just decapitated and whose black blood was pouring thickly out onto the dusty ground, and whose unfortunate fate simultaneously did not faze them at all.

I was training again—for what, I knew not, only to pass the time, I suppose—and I greatly enjoyed it. It took my mind off other matters, anyway.

I always instructed the guards I happened to train with that day to attack me as if they truly wished to kill me, queen’s father or no. Of course they mechanically obeyed and a few times I had ended up with some rather nasty wounds. Luckily, unlike them, I could heal myself even here and did not have to spend the rest of eternity with half my guts exposed or fallen out.

Many of the guards I had killed this way. Hel once told me that even though we were all dead here, it was possible to die a second time, and there was no coming back from it. By that logic, I suspected it was once again possible to return to life, but Hel had always remained rather tight-lipped on the subject, only fueling my suspicion.

But as of late I had not spoken much to Hel if I could help it.

It was an interesting sight when one of them died. The guard would collapse onto the ground and a few seconds later their bodies would slowly disintegrate into an ashen mound, which would eventually disperse in the dry wind. I would have felt odd killing palace guards simply for my own amusement, but Hel had assured me long ago that the guards were not as the other dead in Helheim; they were mindless and followed orders blindly. There was nothing left over of them from their previous life, save their physical appearance, and there was certainly no shortage of them.

“Try me again!” I shouted at the next biggest one, a gnarly brute called Mannadr who had survived my spars for quite some time. He currently was my ultimate goal.

He came at me, sword raised, feet pounding loudly on the hard-packed earth. He swung, aiming for my head, but I dodged the blow and dropped hard to one knee, bringing my sword around in an arc towards his right leg.

  The blade did not meet flesh, however, for he swiftly dodged my blow. I gritted my teeth, leaping to my feet as he turned and attempted once again to decapitate me, likely in some blind revenge for his fallen comrade.

Ultimately, he did not succeed, and like his unfortunate friends before him, lay dying his second death upon the ground. I grinned triumphantly to myself, staring into his eyes as the dullness there became duller and his jaw went slack and his mouth fell open to reveal the blackened stumps of his teeth and whatever shriveled flesh remained of his tongue. I withdrew my sword from his chest just as his skin began to crack and turn greyer.

As soon as I finished wiping his blood on the bottom of my boot, a shout drew my attention.

“My lord!”

It was Ganglati, Hel’s slow-moving manservant and occasional fuck toy.

“What?” I barked.

“Her Majesty requests your presence.”

“Tell her I’m busy,” I replied flatly, turning away and wiping my brow. I would avoid her if I could, and it wasn’t as if Ganglati could do anything.

“It is urgent,” he insisted, though his voice was bland as always. “The queen demands it.”

I rolled my eyes, but did not further acknowledge him. I went to begin another spar, but before I could shout at one of the remaining guards, suddenly I felt Ganglati’s hand around my arm and I turned, shocked to see him standing right next to me.

“The queen demands it,” he repeated, insipid gaze focused on me.

“Alright, alright,” I snapped unnervingly, not wanting to ask how he had gotten across the training yard so quickly.

I handed my sword to the guard by the weapon rack and headed towards the palace. I was annoyed at being summoned. The next meeting was not for another four days and I knew not why Hel would need to speak with me like this so suddenly.

After everything had come to light months ago—or whatever I assumed to be months with the changing of the light in the sky, it could have been much longer or shorter—I had grown an aversion to Hel, likely much to the delight of her mother and my lover, Angrboda. It was not that I hated Hel, but it was that I almost felt sorry for her and did not wish to further complicate things between us by being around her often.

“Where is Hel?” I demanded as Ganglati trailed far behind me, despite his show of sudden dexterity minutes before.

“Her chambers, my lord,” he called out.

I was there in minutes. I went past her guards, threw the doors open, and found Hel standing by her large window. She turned and smiled, which she had not done to me in so long.

“Father.”

“What is it?” I asked, somewhat shortly.

“I have a gift for you,” she answered, suspiciously cheerful.

Her words caught me off guard. Immediately I was wary.

“I was just in the training yard—”

Hel breezed up to me, took my hand, and turned to lead me towards her bedchamber.

“Did you kill any guards?”

My skin crawled at her touch. After learning of Hel’s rather iniquitous feelings for me, I felt uneasy at her proximity.

“Yes, two.”

“Wonderful,” she said brightly, in her normal gritty rasp.

Now she stopped at the closed doors and turned to face me, withdrawing her hand and abruptly appearing remorseful.

“Before we proceed, I would like to say that I am sorry if I have offended you in any way,” she admitted. “I did not mean for things to change so between us. I do not like how we have been lately and hope we may overcome this.”

“Er…”

“I hope sincerely that this will make it up to you,” she continued with a blossoming smile, pushing the doors open and leading me inside.

“Hel—”

“Look what I have for you, Father.”

My eyes were drawn immediately across the room towards the fireplace, and I was surprised to see a woman standing there in a faded white dress with her back to us. At the sound of Hel’s voice, however, the woman turned, and something like a jolt went through me.

She was very beautiful, with pale grey eyes and full lips. Her hair was a lovely light gold and fell in pretty waves over her shoulders and down to her waist, which was cinched with a thin, plain brown belt. She tilted her head ever so slightly, lips twitching upwards in a small smile of what appeared to strangely be apperception.

I stared at her for a long, bewildering moment, searching her eyes, oblivious now to Hel’s idiotic grin. There was something in the back of my mind suddenly, clawing its way to the forefront, screaming to be recognized, and when it hit me the useless breath left my lungs and the darkness in my mind receded and I knew her.

I was across the room in seconds, a warmth like I had not felt in so long blooming inside me, filling my stomach and chest and limbs as I enfolded her into my arms, heard my name fall from her now trembling lips followed by a sob of what I recognized as happiness.

I tangled my fingers in her hair, pulling so I could see her face, her lovely, wonderful, beautiful face, the most beautiful face I had ever seen, and I was kissing her lips, her nose, her forehead and eyelids and chin, anywhere I could reach.

She smiled and pulled me close as I buried my face into her neck, breathing her in. She did not smell like she always had, but then again could I even remember? She only smelled cold, if cold had a smell—even her hair did not smell like anything.

“Stjarna,” I said, grinning widely, feeling my own eyes sting with tears. I could not think to stammer anything but her name, her name which to my eternal regret I had almost forgotten. “Stjarna, Stjarna…”

I pulled back to look at her again and saw tears streaming down her face, and it was only then when I finally registered the deadly pallor of her skin. My brows furrowed in concern as I gently ran my thumb over her cool, wet cheek.

“Stjarna?”

I turned to Hel, anger rising suddenly in me like a wave.

“Why is she here?” I demanded furiously. It was a leap, but with how shrewdly Hel had been smirking, presenting Stjarna to me as a “gift,” led me to believe she’d had something to do with this.

Hel quirked an eyebrow. “She died, obviously.”

I stared at her.

“No, Loki,” Stjarna said, and her voice sent a rivulet of pleasure through me, momentarily quelling the anger inside me. She took my face in her hands and I couldn’t tear my eyes from hers, shiny with tears. “I was in Vanaheim—”

“Vanaheim? Why were you in Vanaheim?”

“I…” she faltered, appearing almost pained. “After you killed Freyja, Valdrlund demanded recompense. Thor had no choice…”

“I don’t understand…”

Her lips trembled. “I was… I was the recompense, Loki…”

“Thor gave you to him?” I growled, gritting my teeth.

“He had to,” she said sadly. “I did not want to go, but there was nothing to be done. Valdrlund threatened war.”

Suddenly, something awful took form in my mind, banishing this warmth inside and filling me instead with this cold dread.

“Did he… what did he…” I placed my hands on hers on my cheeks, staring at her in worry.

“I did it, Loki,” Stjarna said, managing a quivering smile. “I killed him.”

My lips parted in surprise.

“We were… we were…” she glanced down now, reluctant to speak. “He insulted you and I grew so angry, Loki, for all he had done and I… I…”

“Oh, Stjarna,” I breathed, closing my eyes and pressing my forehead to hers, worry churning sickeningly inside me. “Did they hurt you?”

“No. They were going to execute me, but…” Stjarna’s large grey eyes flickered over to Hel, who tilted her head and shrewdly curtsied when acknowledged.

“Hel?”

“I paid her a little visit in prison,” Hel explained nonchalantly. “It was no trouble.”

So that was where Hel had been this morning.

I turned back to Stjarna, knowing not whether to feel rage for her having died by the hands of my daughter, or joy for her standing here with me.

“You may go,” Hel said, not bothering to mask her arrogant smile, as I took Stjarna’s hand and led her out. “I’m sure you two have a lot to catch up on.”

Her harsh laughter rang out as the doors closed resoundingly behind us.

__

I could not stop looking at her, even as I led her slowly and aimlessly around Eljudnir.

I was remembering every aspect of her features, both saddened and upset with myself that I could have dared to forget any part of her. Her laugh, her smile, the way her hand felt against me or lips upon mine.

It was as if something had opened up inside me, something I could not explain, and every waking moment from then on I needed to be with her, to remind me of the light and love I had lost and so desperately wanted back, everything I had forgotten and wanted to remember.

I had Stjarna recount to me everything that had happened since my death, which I learned had been less than two years ago. Stjarna possessed a much heartier memory than I had when I had come here, but I suspected it had something to do with the way she had died and Hel being the one to have personally brought her here to Helheim.

As she spoke I studied her face, the way her lips formed every syllable, her hand movements, and I was conjuring memories I believed to have been permanently buried or even gone. The tiniest details began to emerge from my subconscious with every word and I wanted to be angry for all that had transpired after my death to my beloved Vana, and that we should be reunited in such a dreadful place, but I could hardly evoke the emotion with her standing so real in front of me, all smiles and void of any negativity.

She was here now, and we were together again.

“Tell me of this place,” Stjarna said as we walked around the edge of the palace, lacing her fingers with mine. “Hel did not say much.”

And so I told her of Helheim, a bleak and lonely realm divided into nine regions where the dead resided, domed by a sky that wasn’t a sky, but still by some magic gave the appearance of night and day. I spoke of our life here, and much in the same way Hel had explained everything to me when I had come here.

How these forms we possessed were not our actual bodies, but what was left of our souls manifested physically here. We still behaved like the living—eating, drinking, carousing, and even breathing, despite the fact we did not need to.

I laughed when Stjarna tried it and was startled upon realizing she did not have to actually breathe, but preferred to like the rest of us to retain some semblance of our life.

Inevitably, she inquired about Hel and Angrboda.

At that point we were headed back to my chambers, having inadvertently explored most of the grounds.

“Hel is queen here.”

“And she is your daughter.”

“Yes.”

“By Angrboda?”

“Yes.”

Stjarna was quiet for a long moment.

“Hel told me Angrboda was here, as well.”

I nodded, not really wanting to speak of Angrboda for the shame coursing through me now. Could I bear to tell her I had taken up with my giantess again? But of course I could not stay with Angrboda.

I did not speak on it.

“These are my chambers,” I announced when we finally reached them. I opened the door, praying Angrboda was elsewhere.

Stjarna entered and I shut the door behind me and quietly locked it, in case Angrboda decided to drop in any time soon. I’d have to find her later, tell her we were done. I almost found it surprising, how entirely I had devoted myself to her, and seemingly felt nothing now that Stjarna was here. Angrboda would not be pleased with my fleeting emotions.

Stjarna walked around, quietly studying my rooms.

“It is similar to your chambers on Asgard,” she remarked softly.

My eyes followed her as she continued her slow, investigatory procession around the room, touching various things. I was surprised somewhat at her comment, that here she should remember so trivial a fact, though it was strangely comforting to hear those words.

“Some things are different, though it is much the same,” she observed, wandering out to the balcony. “I will get used to it, though.”

“You will, as did I,” I answered, coming up behind her to wrap my arms around her waist.

“Are you happy here, Loki?”

“I am now,” I replied, kissing her cheek from behind.

“It almost does not seem real,” she mused somberly, leaning into me. “I did not think I would ever see you again.”

I only kissed her, hopefully offering some comfort, and unwilling to admit I had nearly forgotten her. I wondered if I had ever been this ashamed in my previous life. I doubted it.

“I am glad Hel brought me here, though,” Stjarna continued, turning in my arms to face me. She cupped my face and lifted up on her toes to gently kiss my lips. “It matters not where I am, as long as I am with you.”

I grinned, soaking up her words, and did not think I could wait any longer.

Stjarna giggled knowingly as I pulled her backwards into my chambers, drawing her tight against me so I could rain kisses eagerly across her face. She just as fervently returned my affections, and we lay together for the first time in seemingly forever, and in the end it was as if nothing had changed between us, save for the ceasing of our hearts.

My Stjarna was so different from Angrboda. There was something in her kisses not present in Angrboda’s, warmth in her eyes instead of cold pitilessness, the way she gasped my name so filled with reverence, clutching at me as if I was the source of her existence, and how afterwards when we lay breathless, still entwined, she enfolded herself into me and told me how much she loved me.

Since neither of us wished to be anywhere but here with the other, Stjarna and I remained in my chambers the rest of the afternoon and all through the evening and night—talking, joking, reminiscing and making love. It was the happiest I had been since I could remember, and in those moments could not imagine what possibly might come next. But for now, I hardly cared.

__

Some days passed, all of them in a haze.

I came to peace quite quickly with Stjarna’s arrival. Of course I was delighted to have her with me again, but initially had hardly known who to be furious with. Valdrlund for daring to claim her and abuse her, or Thor for sending her off to Vanaheim in the first place; Hel for bringing Stjarna here, or Stjarna for being more than happy to die to be with me again.

Stjarna assured me repeatedly that all was well and she was happy, when I began to think of it and would grow angry all over again. Eventually, I tried to not think of it like that, and only considered the fact that Stjarna was here with me again.

Hel thought it all quite amusing, commenting laughingly that she would never have expected me to behave in such a manner. I cared not, though—Stjarna was here and was all I could think of. We spent every waking moment together.

One day I was strolling around the grounds with Stjarna. A dry breeze was blowing, occasionally whipping up the dusty ground.

“Loki?”

“Hmm?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Yes, anything.”

Stjarna appeared reluctant and we stopped.

“Is Valdrlund here?”

I was silent for a moment.

“Hel explained it to me like this. All are equal here, no matter what we were in our past life. He is here, but he likely does not remember any of his past life. If he does, he will soon forget it.”

“Why do I not?” she asked curiously. “I have heard this, but I remember everything.”

I looked up, thinking.

“Perhaps it was the way you died. I will admit, Stjarna, I was forgetting much of my life until you came here. Oddly enough you being with me now reminds me of much of it.”

She smiled. “That is a good thing?”

I grinned at her and took her hand in mine, continuing to walk. “That is a very good thing.”

“My parents are here, aren’t they?”

“Yes, as are mine.”

I had thought of them, Frigga and Odin. Sometimes it pained me to think they were here, that though we might be so close, I might never see them, and they might not even remember me. It seemed amazing how drastically things had changed, and how much initially I had forgotten even of them. I knew in my life I had loved and revered Odin, and at one time reviled him, but nothing seemed so important anymore. I knew if I could, I might embrace him again if I saw him, and my mother…

“I wonder if they found one another here,” Stjarna wondered. “I wonder if they are happy.”

I knew not how to reply to that, and Stjarna appeared saddened.

By now we had reached the training grounds. There was not a soul in sight, but then again there never was unless I was training.

“Is there war here?” Stjarna asked, gazing inquisitively at a weapon rack.

“No. The most conflict in this place is between individuals.”

“So why did you build this?”

“I was bored.”

Stjarna laughed. “Well, I am glad there is a library. I never thought there would be a library in the realm of the dead.”

I smiled, but Stjarna wasn’t looking at me anymore. I followed her suddenly somber gaze across the training yard and my guts immediately tightened.

Standing serenely by herself on the path on the other side of the yard, and staring at us, was Angrboda.

I highly doubted she had been strolling around Eljudnir by herself and just so happened to end up at the training ground the same time as us.

“Is that Angrboda?” Stjarna asked softly.

I looked at her, almost not wishing to admit it.

“Yes.”

Stjarna gave a small nod and did not resist as I hooked her arm with mine and turned us to continue our walk in the direction we had just come from.

Having them speak was the last thing I wanted, if only to spare Stjarna the sordid details I knew Angrboda would only be too happy to divulge.

__

A few days later, there was a meeting of representatives.

I slipped out of bed, readied, and kissed Stjarna before leaving. She stretched, smiling at me as I told her I would be gone for a few hours, but I would be back soon.

The meeting was boring, as usual. Nothing of interest, though Hel did snap at Gaumr when he interrupted her and spoke a little too sharply to another representative.

Afterwards, I headed back to my chambers, eager to slip back into bed with Stjarna.

I rounded a corner and was only momentarily surprised to see Angrboda leaning against a column, obviously waiting for me.

“Good morning,” she purred, eyes locked on me. By her expression it did not appear to truly be a good morning.

“Angrboda,” I coolly acknowledged.

“This might be a bit of a leap, Loki, but… I do think you’ve been avoiding me.”

“You’re just now noticing that?” I dismissed, going to brush past her.

“Busy with that new plaything of yours?”

I stopped, unable to help the smile that spread involuntarily across my face.

“Are you jealous, darling?” I smirked, turning with somewhat of an arrogant flourish.

The corner of her lips twitched, but then she returned my smile and sauntered deliberately up to me.

“Why would I be jealous, Loki? I know she cannot possibly satisfy you as I did.”

I laughed, amused at the notion, when Angrboda stepped closer and placed her hand on my chest.

“You don’t look at her like you do me, I see it.”

“Then you are blind as well as ignorant,” I retorted. “There is no one I look at as I do you, but it is not with what you want, Angrboda.”

“So what were all of those heated declarations, Loki? When you told me you loved me and I was all there was?”

“Chalk it up to my being drunk on death, darling,” I replied tautly.

Angrboda was not amused.

“Would she see it as such?” she asked, running her fingers down my arm.

I pulled away, vaguely annoyed.

“You do not love her as you do me.”

“You’re right,” I replied, attempting somewhat to mask my true emotion. It almost pained me to admit it, but some part of me loved Angrboda. I had admitted it to myself long ago, and to her multiple times, in the dark of the night and clouded in lust and headiness, but it was not the type of love I held for Stjarna. It was a love I was more than willing to leave to die.

“Why do you partake in this foolishness?” she demanded, suddenly heated, when I went to turn, realizing she was losing whatever was left of this useless conversation. “Why do you waste your time on that Vana wench?”

“I am not wasting my time,” I retorted. “But you are. You and I, we’re through.”

Angrboda’s brows slightly lifted, but other than that there was nothing else to betray her emotion.

“You spurn me for her?”

“It was always her, Angrboda,” I replied, somewhat exasperated. “I—”

“You think Hel did you a favor, Loki?” Angrboda snarled, baring her sharpened teeth. “You think she did this out of love?”

“Absolutely not,” I responded immediately, unwilling to fall into Angrboda’s baiting. “Whatever manifests itself in Hel is not love.”

I had not spoken much to Hel since Stjarna’s arrival here in Helheim, but then again had been pretty much taken up with Stjarna and been able to think of little else. I did not dismiss Angrboda’s accusation, though. I had no doubt Hel had done this simply to spite her mother, whom she hated.

“Of course she killed your lover only to torment me.”

“What, can you not to stand to lose me, Angrboda?” I laughed. “It is almost comical. You finally have me after so long, and now I’m snatched away again.”

That must’ve been the wrong thing to say to an angry giantess; I did not flinch or recoil as she came quickly forward and roughly took a fistful of my tunic in her hands, pulling me close.

“Are you spited, love?” I taunted.

She pressed her lips together, black eyes narrowed dangerously.

“You think me jealous of that her, Loki? She is naught more than a distraction.”

“From what?” I goaded.

“Your true purpose.”

I chuckled, realizing. Angrboda believed Hel had given Stjarna to me to prevent Angrboda’s grand scheme for me, one of the reasons she had gifted me the sword Laevantinn. Occupied these past days with Stjarna, I had practically forgotten Angrboda’s lust for me to go to war for her against the world, to lead an army of the dead against those who had wronged her.

“You laugh, but you cannot see,” she spat.

“And what is it that I do not see?” I asked tightly, reaching to disentangle her fingers from my tunic.

“Your destiny,” Angrboda growled. “Fucking her will not stop it.”

“The only destiny you hope for me will never come to be,” I said firmly. “And whatever there is left of it, you are no longer a part of it.”

I turned to leave, but before I could make it even a step, abruptly I felt Angrboda’s iron grip on my shoulder and she jerked me backwards and spun me around to confront her fury.

“You will not spurn me for that Vana whore!”

“Do not touch me, Angrboda,” I bit out, any semblance of restraint vanished with her hostility towards Stjarna.

“Do not think that I won’t—”

But before Angrboda could spit another word out, my hand was around her throat and her back to the wall. I dug my fingers into her neck, pressing the length of my forearm firmly against her front to keep her still.

“You will stay away from her,” I growled, staring fixedly into the angry, inky blackness of her eyes. “If you dare to touch her, I will kill you, and not even our daughter will be able to save you.”

Her gaze was cold, wrathful.

“Only for you, lover.”

I remained motionless, debating on whether to describe to her in lurid detail the endless agony I might inflict on her if she were to carry out any harm against Stjarna, but then I had no doubt Angrboda already had some idea what might befall her if she were to proceed with any part of her vengeful deliberations.

I roughly released her, turned on my heel, and returned to my chambers, where I found Stjarna still sleeping peacefully.

__

A few days later, Stjarna and I were relaxing in my chambers.

We had spent nearly the entire morning in bed before requesting for food to be brought. The remains of our little midday meal lay on my table. I lounged in bed, finishing a glass of dark red wine. For the realm of the dead, Helheim’s vineyard produced remarkably delicious wines.

Stjarna was standing at the open window, a fairly sheer robe wrapped around her, hands poised lightly on the sill. Soon after Stjarna’s arrival, I had requested of Hel a wardrobe made for Stjarna. I would not have my lover dressed here forever in her death shroud. She was staring outside, watching the rain fall and turning the already barren landscape even greyer.

“It rains here,” Stjarna murmured.

“Yes, I believe there is some enchantment over this place,” I replied from the bed. “It certainly does help with the monotony.”

“I’m glad it rains,” she said. In her voice I detected a hint of sadness, so I set the glass of wine on the bedside table and got up to stand behind her. I wrapped my arms around Stjarna and she melted into my embrace.

“Why do you like that it rains?” I inquired.

She shrugged.

“It is just something else like up there.”

“Ah,” I said, somewhat uncertainly. Then, tentatively, masking the tinge of worry, “Are you unhappy here?”

“No,” she replied, turning in my arms. She cupped my face in her hands and offered me a small, reassuring smile. “I am simply thinking about my family.”

“Konavefr and Dreyma and the boys?” I offered. I suspected Stjarna’s step-mother and sister-in-law and nephews still resided in Asgard.

She nodded. “I wonder if they… if they know…”

I kissed her forehead. “There’s no way to tell, but I’d suspect not.”

She gave a little nod and let her hands fall slowly to my chest. “It is almost comforting to know that.”

“I am sorry,” I murmured.

“It cannot be helped,” she replied with a small smile. “I am only grateful we are together again.”

I placed a gentle kiss on her lips, then her nose, and swallowed.

“Stjarna?”

“Hmm?” She murmured, leaning into me and moving her hands around my sides to my back.

I hesitated.

Shortly after Stjarna had arrived here in Helheim, and we had begun reminiscing over all that happened, I had recalled that shortly before my death, I had asked Stjarna to marry me. I had not spoken of it, but constantly it was nagging at the back of my mind.

But I could remember now Stjarna’s reaction in Asgard, and did not hesitate now.

“Will you marry me?”

There was a brief silence, then she pulled back to stare at me. Her lips were parted in surprise and I grinned amusedly, moving to grab her hands and lace her fingers with mine.

“We were not able to get quite that far, if you remember…”

“I remember,” she whispered, lips curling into a smile. “You still want to marry me?”

At that, I burst into laughter.

“What kind of question is that? Of course I still want to marry you, Stjarna. I always wanted to, I was just too stupid to realize it for most of the time.”

Stjarna echoed my laughter and it was music to my ears.

“Yes, Loki, I will marry you.”

[savageleewriting]

My brain, my mouth, my belly, and my butt all have different ideas about what the best food is. Making them compromise is tricky. 

I was so excited to eat some new chips. I walked a longer way home to stop by a specific 7/11 (the one that hasn’t been shut down yet), and paid the extra high price to get a bag of the shiny new flavour. 

Which is currently eating at the inside of my stomach like some sort of specialized flesh-devouring disease. 

The only 7/11 around in a few blocks, at 10PM on a Thursday, is a strange place. I saw a trio of guys hanging out by the door, watching lottery numbers go by. I felt bad for them; at least one of them was a specifically edgy, dangerous seeming individual, and he had his eyes on the prize; that mythical lottery win.

I wondered if they played the odds because the human mind couldn’t really conceive of such numbers. Maybe if you could print out the twenty-eight million other tickets, and laid them all out, and said, “you have a one-in-all-of-this chance of winning,” they would see the flaw in their strategy. If you had a truck that held 29 million grains of sand, and said, “pick the winning fragment of rock.” 

Maybe they were fools, for spending their money on dreams that couldn’t be achieved. Maybe I was a fool for spending my money on a snack-food that makes me feel like my guts are full of broken glass.

Maybe we’re all fools, just fooling ourselves in a constant attempt to get by. 

[faejilly]

.tagged by @servantofclio & @sekritjay... tagging idk, anyone who wants and didn’t get tagged the last time this wandered around? No pressure tagging: @darthfruitbasket @balyhane @hornkerling @lemonsharks @hobovampire @fragilespark

Nicknames: jilly, which much like clio is only for people who knew me online first Gender/pronouns: She/her. Star sign: Taurus. I am also a metal monkey Height: 5′5″ Time:  1000-ish Birthday: April 29 Favorite bands: that’s impossible. The last one I listened to was Neon Jungle Favorite solo artist: also cruel. Most recently listened to: Gin Wigmore, Barns Courtney,  Song stuck in your head: Tick, Tick, Boom Last movie you watched?: The Lego Ninjago movie (it is not nearly as good as the Batman movie or the Ninjago TV show, but it does have a nice cast) Last show?: Lucifer (this is mostly @tarysande‘s fault, like. It was vaguely on the tbw list, and then she fell for it, and now I’m halfway through season 2? It’s kinda slow going ‘cause I’m actually watching with the husband and we can only get an episode or two in on a day if we’re lucky.)

Why did you create your blog?: I followed @rosewaterhag into this abyss What do you post?: writing, bioware, leverage, things that I think are shiny? There isn’t really a plan? (Where’s that text post about NO SIDEBLOGS HERE WE CRAM OUR 8 MILLION SHIFTING INTERESTS ONTO ONE BLOG? That’s this.)

Last thing you googled?: Uh. I have no idea? Google thinks it was “Heroes, Covert Affairs” because I couldn’t for the life of me remember Sendhil Ramamurthy’s name for my CoR thing yesterday. Other blogs: I also have a dreamwidth I never use. I keep trying to figure out social media somewhere besides here ‘cause it does get a bit... circle-wank-y to just stay in one place all the time, but I haven’t managed it yet AO3: jillyfae: http://archiveofourown.org/users/jillyfae

Do you get asks?: Sometimes. More would be nice, but I’m not terribly good at sending them myself, so I know how it goes. How did you get the idea for your URL?: jill-of-all-trades & faeries. It’s an aspirational sort of name, I think. (Also I was reading McCaffrey’s Doona books and Sandman about the time I needed to make up a new screen-name, and I always felt for Nuala.) I follow: I fluctuate between 75 - 125 depending on my mood and spoons Followers: tumblr thinks 675-ish, but obviously there’s no telling how much of that is actual people who are actively looking at the thing Average hours of sleep: I have nothing resembling a consistent sleep schedule. I shoot for the 7-8 range because I am way happier and healthier when I manage it Lucky number: I like 9 and 13, but that’s not quite the same thing. Instruments: None atm, but I have (historically?) played piano and flute and alto sax What are you wearing?: yoga-pants, betty-boop t-shirt, hoodie, slipper socks (I am still in my pj’s... see “sick again” from that last post) Dream job: Pathologist. Free-lance game and short-story author? idk. Something that makes me leave the house and talk to people sometimes? I do better with some external structure, I miss working. Dream trip: I want to take like five years and do one of those full-service world-cruise things?  Favorite food: Mac & cheese. Brownies. Pesto anything.  Significant other?: did you know I have been married over fifteen years? I feel old.  Last book I read: UM. Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart. (sp?) It was not as good as I’d remembered it from twenty-odd years ago, but it was still quite good and I got all teary at the end, as one should. Top 3 fictional universes: UM. I have some strong hopeful feels for what will be @darthkrzysztof‘s Argent? Fallout, from a distance, as I have never managed to play it but I do enjoy the setting. Themyscira

[secondgame00-blog]

WORKSHOP UPDATE … AND A FEW WORDS ON FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY

A few seats left

A first, wonderful early spring workshop is behind us and I must say it’s nice to be back on track, preparing meals, sharing our kitchen, our table, our region. Getting started has prompted me to get organised, to look at the registrations for the upcoming workshops, contact people etc. After doing the math and receiving response from a few people with tentative status, here are the workshops with some (usually very limited) availability this year.

Next week we are headed to Piemonte for a very exciting workshop which is full of lovely people, some returning. So no spaces there.

After that we have the Basque workshop which is pretty full but I had one person postpone so I could add 1-2 people to that workshop. May 16-18

Next is the Summer Wine – some reservations have confirmed they couldn’t come this time so we still have a bit of space there. May 30 – June 1

Then there is the Summer Abundance workshop which was so enormously popular that we added a second, identical workshop the following week. I had turned a lot of people away but then, when the requests kept pouring in we added the second one and some people from the first one even switched dates. So now we have two, quite evenly booked Summer abundance workshops and while I’d be perfectly happy to keep the numbers how they are right now I could still add 1-2 people to each. June 20-22 & June 27-29

There are still some spaces in the Piemonte Photography and wine workshop on September 27 – 29

The Fall Harvest workshop is one of the all time most booked so that one is impossible – we could have filled it up 3 times. I’ve been trying to look at possibilities to add a second one but right now I just can’t find the time for it. October 10-12

The Autumn wine is less booked so close to full but not quite October 24-26

Additionally I’ve been getting many requests for the dates in 2019 so we are looking at that right now and I expect to announce in May or early June.

For all information please email me at [email protected]

Looking forward to hearing from you

Mimi xx

Over to my husband who has a few things to say … about cabbage, onions & co.

Tuesday vegetables and other things

Although Mimi and I both love to eat fresh vegetables we have a distinctively different relationship with them. At the market she’s searching for inspiration, something that catches her eye, something she can bring home and slice up, boil, steam or grill and ultimately make it into something much more delicious than it was in the beginning. It’s a gut feeling – literally. My sole vegetable hunts, which are very frequent are more like casting sessions but practical ones – without a fault the freshest vegetables are also the most eye-catching, what’s in season stands out. I try to look for the really interesting “faces”, not just the shiny rows of monotone soldiers, but the odd fellows, the slightly deformed – the organic boys.

Our vegetable symphony marches on in perfect harmony, the house is always full to the rafters of the freshest produce, from local growers, and in summer, from our garden. The tricky day is Tuesday. Mimi will have cooked all the stuff she bought at the weekend but a lot of mine is still sitting there, getting less pretty by the minute. I often tell people that while I’m most probably a photographer by profession my real job is arranging vegetables. And most of that never gets photographed. I use the word “arrange” loosely as “throw them in” would be more in the spirit of what I do. I don’t believe in over-styling but I do subscribe to elements like chance and luck. Let the carrots fall where they may.

This brings us back to Tuesday. Last Tuesday to be exact. We had some lovely gentlemen coming down from Paris for lunch – they will be our “leather partners” in items such as aprons, dog leashes etc. It’s taken a long time to find the right people – Joseph Bonnie. We were late as we always are and after walking the dogs I had to choose between a shower or my vegetables. They were sitting there in crates, slowly going in the wrong direction of aesthetic pulchritude. The light would not be better later. Tomorrow these veggies would be over the hill of photographable beauty. Certain flowers and vegetables age well. Roses are like that. Tulips are not, not in my opinion anyway. The stalks fade to a yellowish-green that I find unbearable. Apples dry up, lemons (if they’re not radio-active) turn to a powderish green. Celery fades, carrots limp, asparagus shrivels and cherries ferment in rather a beautiful but not in the “I want to eat them” sort of way.

So a long story cut short I threw it all on a table and shot it, even brougth out a camera rather than a phone. The result is not magnificent but it’s fine. Fine enough for Mimi to say “my love (once again I inserted that), I’m giving some workshop updates on the blog – why don’t we post these and perhaps you can write something about them”. So now, while she’s on the roof, looking lovely in a bikini, I’m down here in the green room typing away – I type fast, a result of going to commercial college – they also taught book-keeping but I must have slept through that. Yes, typing away with a Negroni in front of me. Right now it’s about two-thirds down but I’m not even half-finished which is a terrifying though for any “writer”.

There is Champagne in the freezer though, a nice blanc de noirs (meaning white from black, only red grapes, pinot noir or pinot meunier). Yes, freezer because contrary to some wise guy sommeliers who’d love to serve the Champagne almost luke warm so it can properly “express itself” I fervently believe that Champagne should be served ice-cold. For those who’d like it a few degrees warmer, they can just wait a bit, but no Champagne ever got colder by sitting in a glass. The only exception is, that if you have a truly exceptional Champagne, something old, something from a single vineyard that’s hard to get, something so expensive that it feels like a bullet through the heart when the cork shoots through the air. Then, just maybe then, should you not put it in a freezer. And this is just my theory, not a fact – examples of really good Champagnes if you can find them are the ´99 Winston Churchill from Pol Roger, the single vineyards from Jacquesson, Salon is beautiful (but too expensive), anything from Selosse, Egly Ouriet, especially the blanc de noirs I’m in love with – Drappier Brut Nature might be the best buy on the planet – Ulysse Collin is hard to find but worth the search and out of the very big houses I favor Bollinger over anybody. As did James Bond. Like everybody I love Krug but you can find the same quality for less. And yes, Dom Perignon is actually very good. As is Cristal – I love the 2002.

Sorry – got carried away here. We were talking about vegetables. And my brief was food photography. Maybe we should go back to the beginning. My father bought me a good camera when I was about 14, my family is academic and arts were considered a … past time. Lawyers, doctors etc – that what you do for a living. I started law school, well enough I might add (important for my ego to leave that in). But then I realised it wasn’t for me. Some comparative literature (just lovely – Chekhov particularly), jobs in magazines, advertising and ultimately photography. For me it’s always been about the visuals. But I was always interested in people. In portraits. Then I met Mimi who is, as you know, interested in food. Some people might call it an obsession. A healthy one. One day we were having a fairly good coq-au-vin (which is getting to be a rarity in Parisian restaurants), then a crème caramel. We were supposed to shoot the place and I took an overhead shot which in those days was not nearly as fashionable as it is now in the days of iPhones. It’s not a perfect shot but somehow it’s got all the element that define what I do. It’s classic. There’s a trace of the coq-au-vin pot. It’s simple and stylish. The floor is good, there’s a white napkin. I didn’t realize it then but that will always be the most important food picture I’ll ever take. And my style hasn’t changed much since or, which may be regrettable, improved. But none of that really matters, to me what matters is instinct.

I’ve been reading a fine book about my favorite painter, Breakfast with Lucian. It demonstrates that he’s not introspective (which is comical given his family and famous name) but instinctive. Which is what I am too (and it’s very dangerous comparing yourself to a genius because it implies I’m putting us in the same category but I’m not … not yet anyway ha ha – just because I might say I like Champagne Pol Roger like Winston Churchill doesn’t necessarily imply that I think we’re cut from the same cloth, just that a small amount of our tastes and sensiblities are aligned). To me photography is instinct. Which is why I adore dogs. That, however, is another matter and a much longer story.

I’ve included, for your amusement (hopefully) a few other images that in one way or other depict the relationship between people and food. They are from the same time as the overhead food shot of the crème caramel. Food is nothing if nobody ever eats it – the most horrible concept is food photography where the food goes cold and ends up in the bin, maybe with some glossy, inedible oil that was put there for aesthetic purposes. My wife loves a good food picture, but she believes it could be and should be created in the short space between piping hot out of the oven and still hot enough to eat. As a good, Icelandic, soldier I consider it my duty to perfom.

Negroni is gone, even with my best efforts of restraint it just couldn’t hang in there any longer, while I have much to say on this subject, and would love to – my priority is that bottle in the freezer.

Enjoy your weekend, ours will be hot, full of food & wine and most importantly, family and friends.

Source: http://mimithorisson.com/2018/04/20/workshop-update-and-a-few-words-on-food-photography/

[princiepuppy]

1: Ask my girlfriend

2: Its blue and shiny

3: Any dream involving cheating on or losing my girlfriend

4: Do I wanna know if this feeling goes both ways

5: No unless I'm having ocd

6: Odd

7: I'm not sure honestly, the song despacito?

8: S V C

9: What

10: Yes

11: Poohs heffalump movie

12: Uh rap I guess

13: Nope

14: Rapist, a bathtub full of small insects, murderer

15: fire or slow torture

16: If my ocd habits count, checking the lock on my door a thousand times

17: ☠

18: Fell on laptop

19: Nope

20: hahahaha no

21: Suicide

22: The royal white stallion can be found near Safula hill/Take a picture of the striped marlin

23: Blue

24: I think innocent but my friends might say otherwise

25: yes

26: No but my lucky number is 11

27: I do not know

28: Drinking fleas

29: Murders/Pet killers

30: 31 but it won't let me delete them so

31: People who abuse animals

32: Hide

33: Probably my girlfriend XD but it's okay I love her so much <3

34: Ocd

35: My girlfriend trying for me/my dog

36: No

37: Idk if people would describe me as one but I sure think I am

38: A shoe store

39: Not really

40: bowtie

41: My dog

42: playing

43: outside

44: in summer

45: because Its hot

46: In the pool

47: stuffed animals

48: 2:00

49: Horse

50: If it was to save my girlfriend or best friends yes depending on circumstance

51: What did the pony say when she tripped? Help I've fallen and I can't giddy up.

52: serutaerc lufituaeb era hsiF

53: Yes

54: I love cuddling with my girlfriend or daughter

55: Anyone who's unfair or judge others

56: A thousand honestly

57: Probably not

58: Yes

59: Its dark, there could be rapists or murderers

60: Anything about my fish

@myestrangedcoma @lunaspiritsoul @savannahwolf1316 @cloakky

Normal ask meme

Nothing odd here, just some normal asks.

1. Where did you hide the body?

2. Favorite rock?

3. Worst dream you ever had?

4. Answer this with a lyric from the first song that comes to your mind

5. Does blood make you uncomfortable?

6. Even numbers or Odd numbers?

7. Something you hate that you love?

8. The first initial of someone you hate?

9. Make up an Acrostic for the word “Exsanguinate”

10. Do you enjoy corndogs?

11. Favorite movie from the year 2005?

12. Least favorite music genre?

13. Have any terrible restaurant experiences?

14. Three things that you would never want to come near you?

15. What is the worst way for you to die? (In your opinion)

16. any unsual habits?

17. One emoji that you probably have never used?

18. Write a three sentence horror story about a gatorade bottle.

19. Do you know what old bay is?

20. Can you dance?

21. What first comes to mind when you see rope?

22. Make an obscure reference

23. What is your favorite color for a balloon?

24. If you were ever to got court, would you most likely be innocent or guilty?

25. Are you hungry?

26. Do you have an unlucky number?

27. What does “JMD” stand for?

28. Random Inside joke?

29. What sends chills up your spine?

30. How many questions are currently in your inbox?

31. Someone (real) who scares you? 

32. Run or Hide?

33. Who is the last person who made you angry?

34. What’s going on in your head?

35. One little thing that makes you smile?

36. Are you a decisive person?

37. Would people describe you as a paranoid person?

38. What store would you be the least likely to be found in?

39. Do you like hats? If so, what’s your favorite type?

40. Bowties or Ties?

41. Who?

42. What?

43. Where?

44. When?

45. Why?

46. How?

47. Do you collect anything?

48. What time is it?

49. Favorite mode of transportation?

50. Would you ever kill someone to save someone else?

51. Make a joke

52. .eserver ni gnihtemos etirW

53. Would your dash be considered SFW?

54. Do you like to cuddle?

55. What makes you angry?

56. How many voices are in your head?

57. Do you consider yourself mentally stable?

58. Are you easily offended?

59. What’s wrong with taking the backstreets?

60. Any questions you want people to ask you?

[pikachumaniac10]

It's been a bit but the 29th full odds shiny and my second shiny venonat of pokemon go has arrived!

Its like super late (like 5:44 am EST) and should be in bed, but im having too much fun with the new pokemon snap, and it appears RNG has decided to reward me lol!

Just hopped on to check on things before going to bed and thank goodness I did lol, would have missed the shiny!

Today's question:

Do you plan on playing the new pokemon snap?

[junker-town]

J.D. Martinez is the best hitter on the free agent market

The best hitter of the 2017-2018 free agent class is available to sign, and all your team needs to do is spend.

No one will remember this, but there was a time this year when no one cared about J.D. Martinez. The trade deadline was approaching, the Tigers knew they had to deal him, and the response from the baseball world was a booming, echoing “Meh.” With, like, seven “h”s. He was off to a great start, but all of the contenders had full outfields. No one could make room, and it allowed the Diamondbacks to swoop in with an underwhelming trade package.

Then Martinez hit 29 home runs in 62 games. He hit more homers after joining the Diamondbacks on July 19 than anyone on the Giants, Phillies, Red Sox, or Cardinals hit all year. He was one of the greatest deadline acquisitions in history, joining a pantheon that includes CC Sabathia, Randy Johnson, Carlos Beltran, and Marco Scutaro. Even though the Diamondbacks were eliminated in the NLDS, the undeniable excitement and electricity Martinez brought to Chase Field, even for a couple months, made him one of the best trade acquisitions in franchise history.

Martinez probably had a lot of fun in Arizona. But if you’re thinking he’s willing to cut them a deal, check out the timing on this move:

Prize free agent J.D. Martinez has switched agencies, is now a client of Scott Boras

— Rob Bradford (@bradfo) November 1, 2017

The DAY before free agency, Martinez went into a phone booth and emerged with a cape shaped like Scott Boras. There is no clearer sign in the universe that a player is interested for the best deal for himself and his family. Boras’ pitch was that he got $161 million for Chris Davis, who was an inferior player. It’s an easy pitch, and now Martinez is looking for a contract that will make you stop what you’re doing, walk down to the corner store, pay for a drink, take a sip, and spit it out.

If a team is going to do that, I hope they’re not expecting Diamondbacks J.D. Martinez. Because, friends, it’s probably a touch unlikely for Martinez to hit 77 home runs in a full season, which was the pace he swatted them for his new team. Pay for Martinez to be the hitter he was before the trade.

Before the trade, he was pretty freaking good, of course.

We’re four seasons into the idea that J.D. Martinez is a really, really, really good hitter. More than that, a complete hitter. Hits for average. Takes a walk. Hits for power. He’s not exactly a tortoise on the bases, either. It’s always jarring to remember that Martinez is good enough to compete for a batting title one day, mostly because it’s so easy to conflate high strikeout totals with poor contact.

Let’s forget about his time with the Diamondbacks as much as possible, then, and focus on what he’s likeliest to do based on the rest of his career. Baseball-Reference has projections up, and they’re not based on someone’s secret computer algorithms. They’re based on nothing more than his last three years, with a little bit of an adjustment for age built in.

PA: 496 BA: .290 OBP: .358 SLG: .570 HR: 31

Reasonable. Very, very reasonable. Very, very reasonable and ultra-desirable, but those aren’t the numbers that Boras is using for his expected contract. He probably already has a three-ring binder titled “WHY J.D. MARTINEZ IS GOING TO BUILD THE WHOLE AIRPLANE OUT OF SECOND HALVES,” and he narrates the audiobook himself.

Now we get to the elephant in the room: Martinez’s defense. More like the elephant in the outfield, ha ha, just a little fielding humor, folks, but, seriously, Martinez’s numbers are ugly. It’s how a player with 46 homers in just 119 games can be worth just a little more than Dee Gordon last year, according to WAR. If you’re looking for a good breakdown of what’s wrong, Mike Petriello looked at the relevant data before last season. The range isn’t there, and the arm allows teams to run wild on him. Boras claims that the defensive stats aren’t accurate, but it’s not like the eyeballs tell a different story.

And don’t ignore the fact that he wears his sunglasses on the back of his head when he’s indoors, like a monster.

One year, $3 million. Final offer.

Anyway, our job here today is to look for which team makes the most sense, and which team is the logical favorite. Who is leading the J.D. Martinez sweepstakes?

The Ideal Fit

Maybe instead of ditching prospects and taking on an extra $100 million, the Giants could just, I don’t know, sign Martinez? As long as they’re looking to make a huge splash (pun definitely intended, considering that Martinez is one of the few right-handed hitters alive who could actually get a ball into the water), they should just spend the money on the dingers instead of trade and spend money on them. Won’t even cost them a draft pick.

Except the Giants want a better defender. They also have a rough time luring free agent hitters to play at AT&T Park on purpose. The Giants are also concerned with box-office appeal right now, as they’ve stopped selling every game out for the first time in years, which isn’t necessarily something that Martinez helps with. And while it seems like Giancarlo Stanton being 28 next year isn’t a big deal compared to Martinez’s 30, those are two prime years that come along with the huge contract, which makes a difference for a team that’s not really sure what their window really looks like right now. Stanton might help a team reset in 2022. Martinez is less likely to.

No, the ideal team is the Diamondbacks, who kinda got used to Martinez. If they have any hopes of chasing the Dodgers in the NL West, a full season of Goldschmidt and Martinez would help. Holy heck, is that a middle-of-the-order gauntlet.

Alas, with Zack Greinke’s contract and Goldschmidt’s impending free agency, it would appear that the Diamondbacks have less money to spend than any other team. If he would have chilled out and hit half as many homers, it probably would have helped them more for 2018, which is an odd twist.

The Likely

The Red Sox come up a lot here, and for good reason. That hypothetical question up there about the Giants — why trade for Stanton when Martinez costs nothing but money? — applies doubly so for the Red Sox. Not only do they have more shiny things that the Marlins might perseverate on in trade talks, but Stanton’s no-trade clause could make a deal a non-starter from the beginning. Better to dive into the deep end of the Boras lagoon and start doing laps.

The Cardinals might be an even better fit, though, if Stanton really does want to play on a coast. They have a little money to spend, and while they’re eternally developing outfielders who can hit .281/.347/.460 (not hyperbole), they don’t have anyone with that kind of power. If they’re interested in spending money, there isn’t a better fit than Martinez.

I’m always against the idea of the teams that are constantly linked to a single free agent, though. Everyone has linked Martinez to the Red Sox so much, the idea has lost some of its oomph. It’s like when we ranked Super Mario games last week. After about the fourth one, the word “super” looked like it was made up. Sooper. Soup her. Storpor. It lost all meaning. So it goes with rumors.

I’m looking at the FanGraphs post linked above about teams with payroll room, and I keep stopping on the Dodgers. Once they moved Chris Taylor to center and soured on Joc Pederson, the future of their outfield alignment took shape. They might try Pederson again, and they might hope that Andrew Toles takes some of the pressure off him. Or they might try to melt the offseason into a puddle of goo and then lap the goo up like a doberman. Getting to a Game 7 and losing it will do funny things for a team that spends a billion dollars on payroll every four years.

Prediction

Dodgers. Six years, $188 million. I know they’re looking to spend a little less in preparation of Clayton Kershaw opting out and Bryce Harper and Manny Machado becoming available, but the Seager/Bellinger/Taylor core is going to let them afford a whole lot of luxuries in the future. They’re just taking an advance on those luxuries now.

The Dodgers already had a fearsome lineup in the postseason. They’ll have no problem spending to get fearsomer.

[heliosfinance]

10 #Money Tips For Ya

Y’all asked for more real-life stories like our #money motivations from last week, so today we deliver up another plate full :)

Only this time around, we focus on money #tips. (Why do I keep #hashtagging everything?)

I always keep a folder of great ideas when I see them in comments or emails, so here’s a smattering of them all for your perusal today. Share your own down in the comments below, and maybe we’ll make you famous in the next round!

Always be learning, baby…

******

The Rounder-Upper

I use a spreadsheet and write down every time I spend, but instead of writing $135.77, I write $150. I like round numbers, and these little rounding ups cause me to always have more money in my account than I think I do =)

— Tessa C.

******

The Coin Scatterer

When I was four or five years old I had a hack for saving my allowance. I would get my allowance in coins and I would scatter the coins in my underwear drawer, then mix everything up. Whenever I wanted to buy something I would go searching through my underwear drawer.

Finding the coins would take some doing (and I never knew if not finding any meant that they were all gone or I just hadn’t looked hard enough!), and as a result how much I searched depended on how badly I wanted whatever I was thinking of buying.

If I couldn’t find enough money, I would toss it all back and mix it up again! This not only made saving (sort of) automatic, but it also helped me set my priorities.

— Les

******

The Store Walk-Arounder

My way to get over buying stuff is that I pick up what I like in a store, and then I walk around the store with it. In my mind I am convincing myself that it’s already purchased and it’s now mine.

Usually if I walk around with it for about 15 minutes or so, it looses its grip it has on me and suddenly I don’t like it as much anymore.

It is the feeling of owning something, the feeling of “this is mine” that makes me lose interest in the item. The same way that when we buy an item and bring it home, it is suddenly not as important and it ends up sitting in a corner without much attention after a day or so.

So, I just come to this feeling first without having to buy the item, just by walking around the store with it for a while.

— Sandy

******

The Inheritance Preserver

(written from an “old-school, New England WASP family money” perspective)

In my family for generations (and I’m talking about family going back to the mid 1800’s, with trusts still in place based on handwritten wills), inheritance is to be preserved and passed down to the next generation. Live it up with the investment income but make sure the principal is preserved and keeps up with inflation so it can be passed down intact to the next generation.

This means no debt payment, no going wild and buying anything the first year, no funding Roths or IRA, etc. Your daily life is to be funded from your own generated salary. It means investing the entire inheritance and using the investment income ONLY for the rest of your life, where you then pass it down the family chain.

(My ancestors are probably rolling in their graves, btw, at the fact that I am publicly discussing money! It is uncouth and “just not done!”)

— Libby

******

The Library Fine Hacker

Check with your library and see if they have a program called something like “Read Down Your Fines”. My library system lets you and your family come into the library and sit and read (together or alone) and they take off something like $5/hour from your fines. It’s to encourage families not to stop using the library if they forget to return some books once a while!

— Samantha

******

The Hail Capitalizer

Hail storms present excellent car buying opportunities if you care more about mechanical integrity than cosmetics. I picked up an ’07 Accord with low miles for about 40% off ($5,500 vs just over $9,000 blue book at the time, paid off over an 18-month 0% credit card promotion to maintain a cash buffer for maintenance).

The car was ‘totaled’ by the insurance company and has a salvage title solely because of the hail damage, which is noticeable only when the car is clean and shiny (a rarity in New England). I brought it to my mechanic for the pre-purchase inspection (probably the most important part of buying any used vehicle, anywhere) and learned he too drives hail-damaged, salvage-titled cars exclusively. In fact, his wife drives a late model Porsche Cayenne with a few hail dings they picked up at an insurance auction!

We tell people the golf ball motif improves gas mileage, and I am now considering the license plate ‘HAIL-YEA’. I pay lots of attention to the vehicle’s mechanical bits, and have been pleasantly surprised by how refreshing it is to not care about the appearance. It’s a tool to get from A to B and save a bunch of money in the process.

— k.Jam

******

The Odd Day Avoider

I use the ‘odd days off’ rule (no spending on odd days of the month!) and it has made a big difference. Not just on my budget, but on the way I view money overall. I was surprised at how often I *needed* to run to the store for something, when I was really just bored.

— Felicia

******

The Anti-Budget Budgeter

I’m a big fan of the Anti-Budget that Paula Pant talks about. Save your desired percentage off the top, and don’t fret so much about where the rest gets spent. If I spend $200 on groceries or $200 on restaurants, who cares? It was allocated to be spent anyway!

— Jover

******

The Money Comparer

One of my favorite lines is, “What else can I buy with this money?”

If the purse is $2,000, that’s $2,000 that could’ve purchased 20 pairs of shoes, 111 shares of Under Armour stock, 200 burrito bowls from Chipotle (plus guac) or $8,000 towards your child’s college education ($2k x 7% rate of return x 20 years).

After this quick analysis, I usually find that I would be happier holding onto my money and using it elsewhere.

— Anonymous

******

The Lazy Saver

I think it’s about time I comment and thank you for pointing me to Digit! I still have a lot of work to do when it comes to my finances, but using this app has given me the confidence to at least start. I’ve save almost $3,000 in seven months! I think that’s more than I’ve EVER had in savings.

— Johnna

(Editor’s note: as of January of this year the total amount saved from readers of this blog using Digit was exactly $4,608,568.32. As of yesterday it was $7,472,406.78!)  

So there you have it! Our community is the smartest people in the world ;)

If you already knew of all these hacks (and that wouldn’t surprise me, again, smarty pants!), here are 46 more to sink your wallet into…

11 Awesome Money Ideas

6 Great $$$ Ideas

29 Quick Money Tricks

Get. That. Money!!

10 #Money Tips For Ya published first on http://ift.tt/2ljLF4B

[fesahaawit]

10 #Money Tips For Ya

Y’all asked for more real-life stories like our #money motivations from last week, so today we deliver up another plate full :)

Only this time around, we focus on money #tips. (Why do I keep #hashtagging everything?)

I always keep a folder of great ideas when I see them in comments or emails, so here’s a smattering of them all for your perusal today. Share your own down in the comments below, and maybe we’ll make you famous in the next round!

Always be learning, baby…

******

The Rounder-Upper

I use a spreadsheet and write down every time I spend, but instead of writing $135.77, I write $150. I like round numbers, and these little rounding ups cause me to always have more money in my account than I think I do =)

— Tessa C.

******

The Coin Scatterer

When I was four or five years old I had a hack for saving my allowance. I would get my allowance in coins and I would scatter the coins in my underwear drawer, then mix everything up. Whenever I wanted to buy something I would go searching through my underwear drawer.

Finding the coins would take some doing (and I never knew if not finding any meant that they were all gone or I just hadn’t looked hard enough!), and as a result how much I searched depended on how badly I wanted whatever I was thinking of buying.

If I couldn’t find enough money, I would toss it all back and mix it up again! This not only made saving (sort of) automatic, but it also helped me set my priorities.

— Les

******

The Store Walk-Arounder

My way to get over buying stuff is that I pick up what I like in a store, and then I walk around the store with it. In my mind I am convincing myself that it’s already purchased and it’s now mine.

Usually if I walk around with it for about 15 minutes or so, it looses its grip it has on me and suddenly I don’t like it as much anymore.

It is the feeling of owning something, the feeling of “this is mine” that makes me lose interest in the item. The same way that when we buy an item and bring it home, it is suddenly not as important and it ends up sitting in a corner without much attention after a day or so.

So, I just come to this feeling first without having to buy the item, just by walking around the store with it for a while.

— Sandy

******

The Inheritance Preserver

(written from an “old-school, New England WASP family money” perspective)

In my family for generations (and I’m talking about family going back to the mid 1800’s, with trusts still in place based on handwritten wills), inheritance is to be preserved and passed down to the next generation. Live it up with the investment income but make sure the principal is preserved and keeps up with inflation so it can be passed down intact to the next generation.

This means no debt payment, no going wild and buying anything the first year, no funding Roths or IRA, etc. Your daily life is to be funded from your own generated salary. It means investing the entire inheritance and using the investment income ONLY for the rest of your life, where you then pass it down the family chain.

(My ancestors are probably rolling in their graves, btw, at the fact that I am publicly discussing money! It is uncouth and “just not done!”)

— Libby

******

The Library Fine Hacker

Check with your library and see if they have a program called something like “Read Down Your Fines”. My library system lets you and your family come into the library and sit and read (together or alone) and they take off something like $5/hour from your fines. It’s to encourage families not to stop using the library if they forget to return some books once a while!

— Samantha

******

The Hail Capitalizer

Hail storms present excellent car buying opportunities if you care more about mechanical integrity than cosmetics. I picked up an ’07 Accord with low miles for about 40% off ($5,500 vs just over $9,000 blue book at the time, paid off over an 18-month 0% credit card promotion to maintain a cash buffer for maintenance).

The car was ‘totaled’ by the insurance company and has a salvage title solely because of the hail damage, which is noticeable only when the car is clean and shiny (a rarity in New England). I brought it to my mechanic for the pre-purchase inspection (probably the most important part of buying any used vehicle, anywhere) and learned he too drives hail-damaged, salvage-titled cars exclusively. In fact, his wife drives a late model Porsche Cayenne with a few hail dings they picked up at an insurance auction!

We tell people the golf ball motif improves gas mileage, and I am now considering the license plate ‘HAIL-YEA’. I pay lots of attention to the vehicle’s mechanical bits, and have been pleasantly surprised by how refreshing it is to not care about the appearance. It’s a tool to get from A to B and save a bunch of money in the process.

— k.Jam

******

The Odd Day Avoider

I use the ‘odd days off’ rule (no spending on odd days of the month!) and it has made a big difference. Not just on my budget, but on the way I view money overall. I was surprised at how often I *needed* to run to the store for something, when I was really just bored.

— Felicia

******

The Anti-Budget Budgeter

I’m a big fan of the Anti-Budget that Paula Pant talks about. Save your desired percentage off the top, and don’t fret so much about where the rest gets spent. If I spend $200 on groceries or $200 on restaurants, who cares? It was allocated to be spent anyway!

— Jover

******

The Money Comparer

One of my favorite lines is, “What else can I buy with this money?”

If the purse is $2,000, that’s $2,000 that could’ve purchased 20 pairs of shoes, 111 shares of Under Armour stock, 200 burrito bowls from Chipotle (plus guac) or $8,000 towards your child’s college education ($2k x 7% rate of return x 20 years).

After this quick analysis, I usually find that I would be happier holding onto my money and using it elsewhere.

— Anonymous

******

The Lazy Saver

I think it’s about time I comment and thank you for pointing me to Digit! I still have a lot of work to do when it comes to my finances, but using this app has given me the confidence to at least start. I’ve save almost $3,000 in seven months! I think that’s more than I’ve EVER had in savings.

— Johnna

(Editor’s note: as of January of this year the total amount saved from readers of this blog using Digit was exactly $4,608,568.32. As of yesterday it was $7,472,406.78!)  

So there you have it! Our community is the smartest people in the world ;)

If you already knew of all these hacks (and that wouldn’t surprise me, again, smarty pants!), here are 46 more to sink your wallet into…

11 Awesome Money Ideas

6 Great $$$ Ideas

29 Quick Money Tricks

Get. That. Money!!

10 #Money Tips For Ya posted first on http://ift.tt/2lnwIdQ

[heliosfinance]

10 #Money Tips For Ya

Y’all asked for more real-life stories like our #money motivations from last week, so today we deliver up another plate full :)

Only this time around, we focus on money #tips. (Why do I keep #hashtagging everything?)

I always keep a folder of great ideas when I see them in comments or emails, so here’s a smattering of them all for your perusal today. Share your own down in the comments below, and maybe we’ll make you famous in the next round!

Always be learning, baby…

******

The Rounder-Upper

I use a spreadsheet and write down every time I spend, but instead of writing $135.77, I write $150. I like round numbers, and these little rounding ups cause me to always have more money in my account than I think I do =)

— Tessa C.

******

The Coin Scatterer

When I was four or five years old I had a hack for saving my allowance. I would get my allowance in coins and I would scatter the coins in my underwear drawer, then mix everything up. Whenever I wanted to buy something I would go searching through my underwear drawer.

Finding the coins would take some doing (and I never knew if not finding any meant that they were all gone or I just hadn’t looked hard enough!), and as a result how much I searched depended on how badly I wanted whatever I was thinking of buying.

If I couldn’t find enough money, I would toss it all back and mix it up again! This not only made saving (sort of) automatic, but it also helped me set my priorities.

— Les

******

The Store Walk-Arounder

My way to get over buying stuff is that I pick up what I like in a store, and then I walk around the store with it. In my mind I am convincing myself that it’s already purchased and it’s now mine.

Usually if I walk around with it for about 15 minutes or so, it looses its grip it has on me and suddenly I don’t like it as much anymore.

It is the feeling of owning something, the feeling of “this is mine” that makes me lose interest in the item. The same way that when we buy an item and bring it home, it is suddenly not as important and it ends up sitting in a corner without much attention after a day or so.

So, I just come to this feeling first without having to buy the item, just by walking around the store with it for a while.

— Sandy

******

The Inheritance Preserver

(written from an “old-school, New England WASP family money” perspective)

In my family for generations (and I’m talking about family going back to the mid 1800’s, with trusts still in place based on handwritten wills), inheritance is to be preserved and passed down to the next generation. Live it up with the investment income but make sure the principal is preserved and keeps up with inflation so it can be passed down intact to the next generation.

This means no debt payment, no going wild and buying anything the first year, no funding Roths or IRA, etc. Your daily life is to be funded from your own generated salary. It means investing the entire inheritance and using the investment income ONLY for the rest of your life, where you then pass it down the family chain.

(My ancestors are probably rolling in their graves, btw, at the fact that I am publicly discussing money! It is uncouth and “just not done!”)

— Libby

******

The Library Fine Hacker

Check with your library and see if they have a program called something like “Read Down Your Fines”. My library system lets you and your family come into the library and sit and read (together or alone) and they take off something like $5/hour from your fines. It’s to encourage families not to stop using the library if they forget to return some books once a while!

— Samantha

******

The Hail Capitalizer

Hail storms present excellent car buying opportunities if you care more about mechanical integrity than cosmetics. I picked up an ’07 Accord with low miles for about 40% off ($5,500 vs just over $9,000 blue book at the time, paid off over an 18-month 0% credit card promotion to maintain a cash buffer for maintenance).

The car was ‘totaled’ by the insurance company and has a salvage title solely because of the hail damage, which is noticeable only when the car is clean and shiny (a rarity in New England). I brought it to my mechanic for the pre-purchase inspection (probably the most important part of buying any used vehicle, anywhere) and learned he too drives hail-damaged, salvage-titled cars exclusively. In fact, his wife drives a late model Porsche Cayenne with a few hail dings they picked up at an insurance auction!

We tell people the golf ball motif improves gas mileage, and I am now considering the license plate ‘HAIL-YEA’. I pay lots of attention to the vehicle’s mechanical bits, and have been pleasantly surprised by how refreshing it is to not care about the appearance. It’s a tool to get from A to B and save a bunch of money in the process.

— k.Jam

******

The Odd Day Avoider

I use the ‘odd days off’ rule (no spending on odd days of the month!) and it has made a big difference. Not just on my budget, but on the way I view money overall. I was surprised at how often I *needed* to run to the store for something, when I was really just bored.

— Felicia

******

The Anti-Budget Budgeter

I’m a big fan of the Anti-Budget that Paula Pant talks about. Save your desired percentage off the top, and don’t fret so much about where the rest gets spent. If I spend $200 on groceries or $200 on restaurants, who cares? It was allocated to be spent anyway!

— Jover

******

The Money Comparer

One of my favorite lines is, “What else can I buy with this money?”

If the purse is $2,000, that’s $2,000 that could’ve purchased 20 pairs of shoes, 111 shares of Under Armour stock, 200 burrito bowls from Chipotle (plus guac) or $8,000 towards your child’s college education ($2k x 7% rate of return x 20 years).

After this quick analysis, I usually find that I would be happier holding onto my money and using it elsewhere.

— Anonymous

******

The Lazy Saver

I think it’s about time I comment and thank you for pointing me to Digit! I still have a lot of work to do when it comes to my finances, but using this app has given me the confidence to at least start. I’ve save almost $3,000 in seven months! I think that’s more than I’ve EVER had in savings.

— Johnna

(Editor’s note: as of January of this year the total amount saved from readers of this blog using Digit was exactly $4,608,568.32. As of yesterday it was $7,472,406.78!)  

So there you have it! Our community is the smartest people in the world ;)

If you already knew of all these hacks (and that wouldn’t surprise me, again, smarty pants!), here are 46 more to sink your wallet into…

11 Awesome Money Ideas

6 Great $$$ Ideas

29 Quick Money Tricks

Get. That. Money!!

10 #Money Tips For Ya published first on http://ift.tt/2ljLF4B

[heliosfinance]

10 #Money Tips For Ya

Y’all asked for more real-life stories like our #money motivations from last week, so today we deliver up another plate full :)

Only this time around, we focus on money #tips. (Why do I keep #hashtagging everything?)

I always keep a folder of great ideas when I see them in comments or emails, so here’s a smattering of them all for your perusal today. Share your own down in the comments below, and maybe we’ll make you famous in the next round!

Always be learning, baby…

******

The Rounder-Upper

I use a spreadsheet and write down every time I spend, but instead of writing $135.77, I write $150. I like round numbers, and these little rounding ups cause me to always have more money in my account than I think I do =)

— Tessa C.

******

The Coin Scatterer

When I was four or five years old I had a hack for saving my allowance. I would get my allowance in coins and I would scatter the coins in my underwear drawer, then mix everything up. Whenever I wanted to buy something I would go searching through my underwear drawer.

Finding the coins would take some doing (and I never knew if not finding any meant that they were all gone or I just hadn’t looked hard enough!), and as a result how much I searched depended on how badly I wanted whatever I was thinking of buying.

If I couldn’t find enough money, I would toss it all back and mix it up again! This not only made saving (sort of) automatic, but it also helped me set my priorities.

— Les

******

The Store Walk-Arounder

My way to get over buying stuff is that I pick up what I like in a store, and then I walk around the store with it. In my mind I am convincing myself that it’s already purchased and it’s now mine.

Usually if I walk around with it for about 15 minutes or so, it looses its grip it has on me and suddenly I don’t like it as much anymore.

It is the feeling of owning something, the feeling of “this is mine” that makes me lose interest in the item. The same way that when we buy an item and bring it home, it is suddenly not as important and it ends up sitting in a corner without much attention after a day or so.

So, I just come to this feeling first without having to buy the item, just by walking around the store with it for a while.

— Sandy

******

The Inheritance Preserver

(written from an “old-school, New England WASP family money” perspective)

In my family for generations (and I’m talking about family going back to the mid 1800’s, with trusts still in place based on handwritten wills), inheritance is to be preserved and passed down to the next generation. Live it up with the investment income but make sure the principal is preserved and keeps up with inflation so it can be passed down intact to the next generation.

This means no debt payment, no going wild and buying anything the first year, no funding Roths or IRA, etc. Your daily life is to be funded from your own generated salary. It means investing the entire inheritance and using the investment income ONLY for the rest of your life, where you then pass it down the family chain.

(My ancestors are probably rolling in their graves, btw, at the fact that I am publicly discussing money! It is uncouth and “just not done!”)

— Libby

******

The Library Fine Hacker

Check with your library and see if they have a program called something like “Read Down Your Fines”. My library system lets you and your family come into the library and sit and read (together or alone) and they take off something like $5/hour from your fines. It’s to encourage families not to stop using the library if they forget to return some books once a while!

— Samantha

******

The Hail Capitalizer

Hail storms present excellent car buying opportunities if you care more about mechanical integrity than cosmetics. I picked up an ’07 Accord with low miles for about 40% off ($5,500 vs just over $9,000 blue book at the time, paid off over an 18-month 0% credit card promotion to maintain a cash buffer for maintenance).

The car was ‘totaled’ by the insurance company and has a salvage title solely because of the hail damage, which is noticeable only when the car is clean and shiny (a rarity in New England). I brought it to my mechanic for the pre-purchase inspection (probably the most important part of buying any used vehicle, anywhere) and learned he too drives hail-damaged, salvage-titled cars exclusively. In fact, his wife drives a late model Porsche Cayenne with a few hail dings they picked up at an insurance auction!

We tell people the golf ball motif improves gas mileage, and I am now considering the license plate ‘HAIL-YEA’. I pay lots of attention to the vehicle’s mechanical bits, and have been pleasantly surprised by how refreshing it is to not care about the appearance. It’s a tool to get from A to B and save a bunch of money in the process.

— k.Jam

******

The Odd Day Avoider

I use the ‘odd days off’ rule (no spending on odd days of the month!) and it has made a big difference. Not just on my budget, but on the way I view money overall. I was surprised at how often I *needed* to run to the store for something, when I was really just bored.

— Felicia

******

The Anti-Budget Budgeter

I’m a big fan of the Anti-Budget that Paula Pant talks about. Save your desired percentage off the top, and don’t fret so much about where the rest gets spent. If I spend $200 on groceries or $200 on restaurants, who cares? It was allocated to be spent anyway!

— Jover

******

The Money Comparer

One of my favorite lines is, “What else can I buy with this money?”

If the purse is $2,000, that’s $2,000 that could’ve purchased 20 pairs of shoes, 111 shares of Under Armour stock, 200 burrito bowls from Chipotle (plus guac) or $8,000 towards your child’s college education ($2k x 7% rate of return x 20 years).

After this quick analysis, I usually find that I would be happier holding onto my money and using it elsewhere.

— Anonymous

******

The Lazy Saver

I think it’s about time I comment and thank you for pointing me to Digit! I still have a lot of work to do when it comes to my finances, but using this app has given me the confidence to at least start. I’ve save almost $3,000 in seven months! I think that’s more than I’ve EVER had in savings.

— Johnna

(Editor’s note: as of January of this year the total amount saved from readers of this blog using Digit was exactly $4,608,568.32. As of yesterday it was 7,472,406.78 (!!!).)  

So there you have it! Our community is the smartest people in the world ;)

If you already knew of all these hacks (and that wouldn’t surprise me, again, smarty pants!), here are 46 more to sink your wallet into…

11 Awesome Money Ideas

6 Great $$$ Ideas

29 Quick Money Tricks

Get. That. Money!!

10 #Money Tips For Ya published first on http://ift.tt/2ljLF4B

[fesahaawit]

10 #Money Tips For Ya

Y’all asked for more real-life stories like our #money motivations from last week, so today we deliver up another plate full :)

Only this time around, we focus on money #tips. (Why do I keep #hashtagging everything?)

I always keep a folder of great ideas when I see them in comments or emails, so here’s a smattering of them all for your perusal today. Share your own down in the comments below, and maybe we’ll make you famous in the next round!

Always be learning, baby…

******

The Rounder-Upper

I use a spreadsheet and write down every time I spend, but instead of writing $135.77, I write $150. I like round numbers, and these little rounding ups cause me to always have more money in my account than I think I do =)

— Tessa C.

******

The Coin Scatterer

When I was four or five years old I had a hack for saving my allowance. I would get my allowance in coins and I would scatter the coins in my underwear drawer, then mix everything up. Whenever I wanted to buy something I would go searching through my underwear drawer.

Finding the coins would take some doing (and I never knew if not finding any meant that they were all gone or I just hadn’t looked hard enough!), and as a result how much I searched depended on how badly I wanted whatever I was thinking of buying.

If I couldn’t find enough money, I would toss it all back and mix it up again! This not only made saving (sort of) automatic, but it also helped me set my priorities.

— Les

******

The Store Walk-Arounder

My way to get over buying stuff is that I pick up what I like in a store, and then I walk around the store with it. In my mind I am convincing myself that it’s already purchased and it’s now mine.

Usually if I walk around with it for about 15 minutes or so, it looses its grip it has on me and suddenly I don’t like it as much anymore.

It is the feeling of owning something, the feeling of “this is mine” that makes me lose interest in the item. The same way that when we buy an item and bring it home, it is suddenly not as important and it ends up sitting in a corner without much attention after a day or so.

So, I just come to this feeling first without having to buy the item, just by walking around the store with it for a while.

— Sandy

******

The Inheritance Preserver

(written from an “old-school, New England WASP family money” perspective)

In my family for generations (and I’m talking about family going back to the mid 1800’s, with trusts still in place based on handwritten wills), inheritance is to be preserved and passed down to the next generation. Live it up with the investment income but make sure the principal is preserved and keeps up with inflation so it can be passed down intact to the next generation.

This means no debt payment, no going wild and buying anything the first year, no funding Roths or IRA, etc. Your daily life is to be funded from your own generated salary. It means investing the entire inheritance and using the investment income ONLY for the rest of your life, where you then pass it down the family chain.

(My ancestors are probably rolling in their graves, btw, at the fact that I am publicly discussing money! It is uncouth and “just not done!”)

— Libby

******

The Library Fine Hacker

Check with your library and see if they have a program called something like “Read Down Your Fines”. My library system lets you and your family come into the library and sit and read (together or alone) and they take off something like $5/hour from your fines. It’s to encourage families not to stop using the library if they forget to return some books once a while!

— Samantha

******

The Hail Capitalizer

Hail storms present excellent car buying opportunities if you care more about mechanical integrity than cosmetics. I picked up an ’07 Accord with low miles for about 40% off ($5,500 vs just over $9,000 blue book at the time, paid off over an 18-month 0% credit card promotion to maintain a cash buffer for maintenance).

The car was ‘totaled’ by the insurance company and has a salvage title solely because of the hail damage, which is noticeable only when the car is clean and shiny (a rarity in New England). I brought it to my mechanic for the pre-purchase inspection (probably the most important part of buying any used vehicle, anywhere) and learned he too drives hail-damaged, salvage-titled cars exclusively. In fact, his wife drives a late model Porsche Cayenne with a few hail dings they picked up at an insurance auction!

We tell people the golf ball motif improves gas mileage, and I am now considering the license plate ‘HAIL-YEA’. I pay lots of attention to the vehicle’s mechanical bits, and have been pleasantly surprised by how refreshing it is to not care about the appearance. It’s a tool to get from A to B and save a bunch of money in the process.

— k.Jam

******

The Odd Day Avoider

I use the ‘odd days off’ rule (no spending on odd days of the month!) and it has made a big difference. Not just on my budget, but on the way I view money overall. I was surprised at how often I *needed* to run to the store for something, when I was really just bored.

— Felicia

******

The Anti-Budget Budgeter

I’m a big fan of the Anti-Budget that Paula Pant talks about. Save your desired percentage off the top, and don’t fret so much about where the rest gets spent. If I spend $200 on groceries or $200 on restaurants, who cares? It was allocated to be spent anyway!

— Jover

******

The Money Comparer

One of my favorite lines is, “What else can I buy with this money?”

If the purse is $2,000, that’s $2,000 that could’ve purchased 20 pairs of shoes, 111 shares of Under Armour stock, 200 burrito bowls from Chipotle (plus guac) or $8,000 towards your child’s college education ($2k x 7% rate of return x 20 years).

After this quick analysis, I usually find that I would be happier holding onto my money and using it elsewhere.

— Anonymous

******

The Lazy Saver

I think it’s about time I comment and thank you for pointing me to Digit! I still have a lot of work to do when it comes to my finances, but using this app has given me the confidence to at least start. I’ve save almost $3,000 in seven months! I think that’s more than I’ve EVER had in savings.

— Johnna

(Editor’s note: as of January of this year the total amount saved from readers of this blog using Digit was exactly $4,608,568.32. Pretty wild.)  

So there you have it! Our community is the smartest people in the world ;)

If you already knew of all these hacks (and that wouldn’t surprise me, again, smarty pants!), here are 46 more to sink your wallet into…

11 Awesome Money Ideas

6 Great $$$ Ideas

29 Quick Money Tricks

Get. That. Money!!

10 #Money Tips For Ya posted first on http://ift.tt/2lnwIdQ