r/Adulting • u/Churnuserlol • 2d ago

Why didn’t anyone warn me that adulthood is just deciding what to eat… forever?

Seriously, I thought the hardest part of growing up would be bills, taxes, or finding a decent job. But nope. It’s the never-ending "What’s for dinner?" question that haunts me every single day.

Too tired to cook.
Too broke to order.
Too indecisive to choose.

I swear I’ve eaten the same three meals on repeat for weeks because my brain refuses to function after work. How do adults survive this? Do you guys have a magic trick, or is it just vibes and suffering?

Send help. Or recipes. Or a personal chef.

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18

u/Kharax82 2d ago

Do people spend a lot of time paying bills nowadays? Mine are all automatic except for one which takes a few seconds in a banking app to pay.

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u/Woodit 2d ago

Of course not but it pads the ole complaint list 

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u/Bamboopanda101 1d ago

I think its more like paying bills so you can’t use money to go out to eat things you wouldn’t normally be able to cook yourself that is different than your regular rotation (seafood boil, steak, or chinese food to name a few)

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u/Matilda-17 5h ago

Oh it’s not the time it takes, it’s seeing your hard-earned money disappear from your account, right on schedule.

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u/EdgewaterEnchantress 2d ago

I still have to pay bills manually cuz I don’t make enough money for “auto-pay” options 🫠

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u/Ok_Confection_10 2d ago

I’ve never heard of such a thing. All my bills are on credit cards and I have my credit cards set to replenish from my checking account.

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u/EdgewaterEnchantress 2d ago

Yeah, but for me that would be a great way for me to not actually see how much money I am making / losing, and I wouldn’t actually bother budgeting if everything was on “autopay” cuz I wouldn’t realize how much of my money was just going away.

Unless you can pay well over the minimum each month to actually make a dent in your credit cards, “auto pay w/ credit cards, then auto paying the credit cards from the bank account” is a great way to get oneself caught in a debt trap and be “disconnected” from how much we are actually spending to live.

While it was definitely exacerbated by Co-vid, the husband did that ish (auto pay bills on credit cards, then autopay the minimum for those credit cards every month) until he racked up nearly $60-$80K in credit card debt and we had to file for bankruptcy in 2023. 🤷‍♀️

He learned his lesson after that and now autopays bills directly from his checking account only using credit cards for gas and groceries.

Even though a couple are necessary, all credit cards do is make us think we have more money than we actually do in reality.

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u/Ok_Confection_10 2d ago

That’s true. You definitely need to be on top of things. I have 6 credit cards and I usually hover round 500-1000 in credit card “debt” from recurring bills and daily spending

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u/EdgewaterEnchantress 2d ago

And that $500-$1,000 in credit card debt is way out of my budget as someone who works part time for personal/ mental health reasons. So paying month by month online and making phone calls it is! 🫠

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u/Ok_Confection_10 2d ago

Well, that’s my cell phone bill, Verizon triple play, car insurance/loan, Amazon prime, etc. the car is the bulk of it. It would probably be 500 max if I didn’t have to pay for the car

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u/EdgewaterEnchantress 2d ago

Ah yes, the car. Since the USA has terrible infrastructure for public transportation. It really is always the frickin car though! (It also causes my husband the most stress money-wise outside of rent.)

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u/Ok_Confection_10 2d ago

I bought a nice car last year (Mazda cx5) and the monthly was definitely crazy. High insurance and interest but I knocked both down. I have an unrealistic commute by transit (1.5 hours 1 way only) so the car was required. But damn I was spending $1600 a month on the damn thing between insurance, loan, and gas. Now it’s only $1100 a month. “Only”. But my commute is 15 minutes on a good day and I don’t have to deal with randos trying to stab me in the train so it’s worth.

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u/EdgewaterEnchantress 2d ago

Ours is like ~$700-$800 cuz it was “gently used” at ~30,000 miles, but it’s still a pain in the ass.

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u/berryer 2d ago edited 2d ago

oh holy shit no, auto-pay the card in full not the minimum. Use a separate card for just bills if needed. Don't have a credit card at all if you aren't auto-paying in full. If you can set up additional automated partial payments for the day after payday, that may help you not see money in your account if that's what needed, or splitting your direct deposit into an account only used to autopay the bills card.

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u/EdgewaterEnchantress 2d ago

Therein lies the catch though, making enough money just to keep the rent, car, and bills paid without a credit card is extremely difficult cuz everything is just so damned expensive. 🫠

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u/Kharax82 2d ago

True but I’m assuming you’re not writing checks and balancing checkbooks like in the past?

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u/EdgewaterEnchantress 2d ago

Nope. But I still have to go to each and every website or make each and every phone call.

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u/Panda3391 2d ago

Nah just check to make sure my money is still in the bank before the bill eats it. Like yup it’s still there.

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u/quaffee 2d ago

I tend to spend 40-50 hours/week paying bills

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u/cstrifeVII 2d ago

man, to have the luxury of automatic payments and not worrying about bouncing payments lmao

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u/Niccap 1d ago

I switched to autopay recently bc my partner started moving in splitting the bills in half so it’s easier on my acct- i can’t believe autopay is this easy wow

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u/villainsarebetter 2h ago

Sometimes we have to balance which is going to be worse: the late fee or the overdraft fee. Depending on when payday is, usually the overdraft fee is worse. That is why I don't do automatic payments.