We live in an apartment but use Costco to stock our freezer with meat and seafood. We also use it for gas, cat litter, eggs, and cheese (lasts a long time). Basically for perishables that only need to be stored so long.
We used to buy raspberries, blackberries, blueberries etc at Dollar Stores. They wouldn't last a week in the fridge which is why they were at the Dollar Store, but we were eating them same-day or next day so spoilage wasn't a concern. Really helped the berry budget with toddlers.
I feel the constant fighting with insurance isn't spoken to enough. I don't want insurance because I don't want to be both a billing department and a sick person. We went through the same mess when both of my parents were sick. We were already taking in an enormous amount of new information about their illnesses and then we were also having to try and learn how their insurance worked, what was covered, what wasn't, trying to vet what would happen in every appointment, which doctors would show up (bc what if one of the doctors is out-of-network), duking it out with insuance over prior authorizations, trying to tie each bill that came in to something that happened months ago and then vetting if the bill was correctly billed, correctly covered by insurance etc, and on and on and on. I'd rather have 0 insurance and just negotiate each bill as it came in with one single entity, the hospital.
> I'd rather have 0 insurance and just negotiate each bill as it came in with one single entity, the hospital.
That's not how it works, insurance or not. You won't get just one bill from a single entity, you'll get many bills from many different entities and will have to negotiate with each separately.
My peer set is opting to have babies in apartments even though we all grew up in single family homes because the homes we grew up in are out of sync with our wages and/or too far of a commute. We're running out of time to have kids, so it's now in apartments or never.
My parents home was a 45 min commute to the city when they bought it in '93, now it's 90+ min. Their home is worth $1.2M, which both of us being tech workers we could afford but if one of us lost our jobs the other can't float us for very long. A home, with that commute, is not worth the precariousness. All that money, all that time away from your kid (plus complicated logistics getting to / from day care that closes before our work day ends) it's not worth it.
So, babies in apartments. We actually love it. Everything is walkable, there are parks, playgrounds, pools, elevators for strollers, we walk to the market, the pediatrician, the library, daycare etc. BUT there are NO 3 BEDROOM APARTMENTS. They do not exist, whether for small families, young people starting out and splitting rent, couples with remote jobs who want separate offices. 3 BEDROOM APARTMENTS DO NOT EXIST so, there will be fewer children.
> BUT there are NO 3 BEDROOM APARTMENTS. They do not exist [...] 3 BEDROOM APARTMENTS DO NOT EXIST
I am not sure if you somehow mean something different, but 3 bedroom apartments absolutely do exist. I know for a fact that they exist in California, Texas and Florida. I don't have direct experience with them in other states however.
> 3 BEDROOM APARTMENTS DO NOT EXIST so, there will be fewer children
Idk where you are, but I grew up in a 3 bedroom apartment as a kid in the Bay Area in the 1990s and 2000s - we couldn't afford a house until I entered HS (nor did my parents want to take the risk until they had a GC, which itself took 12 years).
I also had friends who grew up in 4 person households with 2 bedrooms (also fairly common).
There were a lot of apartment complexes filled with us 1.5 gen immigrants, as our parents came from India, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Israel, and Russia on H1Bs, L1s, and EB1s.
Growing up in an apartment was a fairly common story for a large segment of us Californians of 1st and 1.5 gen immigrant descent.
The lack of large apartments in the US is at least partially caused by building codes requiring two means of fire egress (meaning two separate stairwells in taller buildings) which limits the size and layout of individual apartments.
Long story short though, modern fire mitigation techniques (materials, sprinklers, fire doors) greatly reduce the risk posed by having just one staircase, which would open up a wide array of apartment layouts.
I discussed that with a friend who does real estate project management. She previously worked for organizations doing low income housing projects.
I asked her why developers don't build 3-5 bedroom flats anymore. And got a bunch of answers. I said so this is basic failure of the free market to provide what society needs? And she said yes absolutely.
We saw it but only because our theater has discount movie tickets on Tuesdays, it's our cheap weekly date within walking distance. We were satisfied watching it for $8/per ticket. At that cost per ticket we don't mind taking a chance on a movie with mixed or poor reviews, and we don't mind seeing a movie outside of our core genres.
If/when we get to self-driving buses I'd like to see them with a security guard on board or someone like the train ticket guy. I wouldn't feel comfortable as a woman getting on driver-less bus with strangers without a bus representative there too. With existing buses, I've had bus drivers stop the bus and kick someone off who was creating a dangerous situation and I feel even just the presence of a bus driver kept some people's behavior in check.
