How Much Do Online Surveys Pay? – SurveyPolice Blog

Disclaimer I want to thank everyone for the gilds, replies and suggestions. I just do not have time to reply to everyone, but I am reading everything. I am not sure how much bigger the thread can be, I already typed this but it vanished so I think I'm at the limit. I will try to keep updating, but I don't expect the thread to be up top for much longer and will likely vanish soon, so if you need anything save it.
Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it.
Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions:
For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month!
For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k.
I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device.
Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers

Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
Now TV (I believe it's 7 days)
Disney+
Britbox
Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder

If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system.
Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section.
Completely free TV

If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox.
Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like.
Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird.
Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device.
For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV.
Anime
If you are into Anime there is

The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two.
PC Centric software
If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design

Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12.
Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development.
The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals.
Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap.
Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam.
**BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however.
IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff.
Game Store Fronts

Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
Games with Gold Bleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.

Gaming Subscriptions
Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months

Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.

There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that.
Audiobooks & Ebooks

Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
Marvel Unlimited No experience with this. ItFuckingWont wanted me to add it. A subscription service for Marvel.

Education

Sign Language BSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
BBC's Bitesize here is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.

If you need some spare change
Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. These are NOT a quick way to make a fortune. These are small things you can do over time for a bit of pocket change

If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the details According to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."

That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment.
Hope it helps someone at least
PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year
fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75!
tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books
Learning Language
Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments:
Togtogtog Gives a lot of links for Spanish

Duolingo Numerous people have suggested this So I haven't used myself. Thanks to OhHiGCHQ StephanieMecredy & Allorie_95

Board & Tabletop games
Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games
ilyemco suggested these
HEALTH
I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix.
Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7.
If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery.
HELP & ADVICE
The lockdown Rules.
Reasons to leave home include:

Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
Communal religious worship
Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house

I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)

To flee the threat of harm or violence.*
CoronaVirus Symptoms
CoronaVirus government site You can check your location and how many cases here.
Worldometers Shows cases around the world.
Interactive UK Map Another easy to read map with cases in counties and local area's.
World Health Organisation

Support

FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THE ROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
_riotingpacifist wanted these links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:

Update:
Digital Art
These are Free

Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.

You can pick up a drawing tablet on Amazon quite cheap these days! Small ones that are just a black slate such as the wacom ones are good but takes some practice to get use to, but very worth it if you can't afford a dedicated drawing tablet with a screen.
Office suit software
A couple of free applications for word processing, spreadsheets etc.

LibreOffice This has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.

Music Making
I'm going to direct to matthewharris806 for some links as all the programs I've used like Reason are expensive, or cheaper stuff in bundles such as Magix software.
Games development
D_Dad_Default gives some links for that here

Why Dogecoin to $1 is Only a Matter of Time

Why Dogecoin to $1 is Only a Matter of Time

The Bubble
It’s February of 2021, and let’s be completely honest: We’re in a bubble. It’s kind of like 1999 but not the same. In 1999, interest rates were much higher. Today, they are nearly zero. In some countries, they are even negative. From a long-term perspective, this is very bad.
The Federal Reserve is completely to blame for this. Their policies are entirely reckless, and officials refuse to acknowledge what is going on here. The Coronavirus hysteria caused by the media and enabled by officials made the crash last summer the worst man-made disaster in the history of our financial system. The Great Depression was caused by over-speculation and a lack of regulation in an emerging financial system. The Great Recession was caused by greed and fraud (strangely, no one is in jail for this). This market collapse was caused by elected officials and the fed, who got trigger-happy and cut rates to zero back in the spring of 2020.
Whatever we wind up calling the burst of this bubble is to be determined. It will, however, be entirely manmade because the fed refuses to acknowledge the speculative behavior currently going on in SPACs, Cryptos, Penny Stocks, and anything else that serves as a legal Ponzi scheme for inflating the bubble. Even real, dividend-paying stocks have gotten way overvalued in some sectors. Also, since the fed has no plans of raising rates within the next two years (so they say for now, at least), if you’re searching for yield, you have nowhere else to look than the equities markets or one of these legalized forms of Ponzi schemes. It’s extremely unfair to conservative or retired investors looking for an honest return on their savings. This all is actually why it is a great time to look at Dogecoin, as I will get to in a moment. So long as rates are near zero, the bubble will continue to go on for longer and longer. And while it continues, people will constantly look for the next big thing.
For How Long?
Now, this may sound all doom and gloom, but that’s not my point. One day the bubble will burst, but I’m not making a prediction of when that will happen. Anyone making up dates for when the bubble will burst is either clueless or a con artist. No one knows when this bubble will burst. It could be weeks, months, or even years. One thing is for sure, the bubble will not burst just because things are overvalued. That’s not how bubbles work.
There needs to be a catalyst to burst the bubble. A major military conflict. An unexpected move or comment by the fed (raising rates, calling out the bubble for what it is, etc.). Another nationwide lockdown. I can go on with examples, but a little selloff here and there (August 2020) that causes the financial media to lose its mind is not enough. Just because you claim the bubble is bursting isn’t enough either. If you follow the media, you will get burned over and over again. That’s how it works. They want you to go to their sponsors for help, and once they burn you (sell you gold, overcharge you for poor investments, etc), you’ll come back to them hoping to figure things out. It’s a shell game. When the bubble burst, it will happen extremely fast and unexpectedly. There’s nothing wrong with playing the bubble, but you need to be mindful of when it ends because once the music stops, there will be a mad rush for the exits. You don’t want to be stuck holding the bag because everything will get crushed when the bubble burst. Even the blue-chip stocks that pay solid dividends will get hammered.
Fundamentals Don’t Matter (For Now)
In this bubble environment, fundamentals don’t make sense and, quite frankly, they don’t matter. You can argue back and forth all day long about whether something has a practical future or whether something is overvalued. I’m not here to do that about Dogecoin, Bitcoin, or any other crypto. The same could be said about Penny Stocks right now. (Hint: virtually all of these companies are way overvalued). You can find tons of articles of that nature, and I’m not likely to change your preconceived notions anyway. If we look at all the irrational bubbles that have occurred lately, you are a complete fool if you believe that TSLA or BTC is worth nearly a trillion dollars. It’s worth nowhere near that valuation.
How do I determine what something is worth, and who do I mean? It is called the market cap. In layman’s terms, that is where you take all the stock shares and multiply it by the share price. And I’m not recommending buying or selling TSLA or BTC, I’m just pointing out that these valuations are absurd. Does that mean they will not pass 1 trillion dollars? Of course not. There’s a very reasonable chance they do pass a $1 trillion market cap. That sounds absurd to write but it’s true. When the bubble bursts, you better believe fundamentals will be back in play. This disconnect can’t last forever. But it can go on for a while. And while it lasts, we all want to make some money
A Quick Word About ALL Cryptos
While I don’t believe Cryptocurrencies are going anywhere (as in, people will always buy and sell them), I also do not see any APPLICABLE future in them other than trading with other people. In fact, the biggest use I see of Cryptocurrencies is for illegal and untraceable transactions. The government will do all they can over the next several years to bring in lost tax revenue and track transactions better, but that’s the extent to which Cryptos will have relevance. How do I know this? Because the federal reserve, which is backed by the taxing authority of the US Government and the might of the US military, isn’t about to let some alternative currency usurp the US dollar. How do you think we can afford to provide all this government stimulus to fight Covid? If you think about this, you will see why other countries are much worse off. They must play by our rules, while we get to export our inflation to other countries because they must use the USD to buy commodities on the international exchanges (look at what happened when Saddam tried to circumvent this). If they print more money, their currency gets devalued. That’s why as bad as things look, relatively speaking, the US isn’t in terrible shape compared to the rest of the world.
If your financial future is so married to Bitcoin, ask yourself this: what happens if your account gets hacked? Who will you call? Who will make you whole again? If you have a brokerage account with legitimate stocks, there are regulations in place. There is the SIPC which protects again brokerage failure. With Bitcoin, you are completely gambling. This lack of regulation and lack of price stability means that there is no viable path to Bitcoin being a legitimate currency. Does it mean people can buy and sell it? Of course. But if you are in the cult of believing that Bitcoin is the future world reserve currency, you need to get your head examined.
Gold and Silver con artists have been trying for decades for people to get on this alternative currency train. At least gold and silver have some practical industrial applications. And hundreds of years of history on its side. Crypto isn’t anything but something people agree upon as having value. Why do I point this out? Because the one thing you need to do is separate yourself from what you think you know about Crypto and Blockchain, etc. While it all sounds cool and revolutionary, it really doesn’t matter. The US government could easily create their own form of Crypto that gives them more control. The decentralized part just doesn’t jive with our current global hegemony. If you don’t understand this, you should think more and read less. Once you accept this, you can start to see all Crypto as fundamentally worth the same: virtually nothing. The technicals, however, are why we want to look at Dogecoin.
Relative Valuation of Dogecoin
Now that you understand a little more background into where we are, I believe Dogecoin is extremely undervalued. Why? It’s simple. Relative valuation. This is one of the easiest and most efficient ways to compare investments. Ok, so maybe this isn’t really investing anymore; it’s gambling. Still, we can apply the same concept. Imagine two companies: they are in the same industry and have similar margins, earnings, growth prospects, etc. One company is valued at $50 billion and costs $120 per share, and one is valued at $85 billion and costs $80 per share. Which one would you invest in? Of course, you would invest in the one that is worth $50 billion at $120 per share. The cost per share means absolutely nothing. It is psychological.
Now, you say Dogecoin isn’t on par with Bitcoin and that where I’m going with this isn’t a fair comparison. Go back and read the last section. That’s why I wrote about the practical applications of Cryptocurrencies in general. None of that matters. The only thing that matters is the general sentiments shared by people that buy and believe in Cryptocurrency. So, let’s look at the current valuations:
Bitcoin – Price $40,500, Market Cap $755B (estimated as of 2-6-21)
Dogecoin – Price $.05, Market Cap $4.4B (estimated as of 2-6-21)
(Source: Yahoo Finance)
Now, I’m not saying Dogecoin is worth what Bitcoin is. I’m not even saying it's worth half or a third of Bitcoin. Who really knows? No one does. You certainly cannot say for certain that one is better than another. One is more “established” and has more name recognition. What I am saying is this: if Dogecoin goes to $1, it will have a market cap of just over $85 billion. Even at Bitcoin’s current market cap, that’s just over 1/10 of its value. And that isn’t even pricing in more appreciation of Bitcoin’s value over time. This means I see tons of room for Dogecoin to run. (I know some will mention dilution via minting of new coins, but that’s another discussion and not entirely relevant to the points I am trying to make in this piece.)
Could Dogecoin match Bitcoin? That sounds absurd, but let’s look just for fun: if Dogecoin were to have the same market cap as Bitcoin, that means it would have a current price of $8.55. So, what am I saying here? You must know the range of possibilities (within reason, if that even exists anymore) before you start thinking about price targets. To say Dogecoin is going to $100 is just absurd; things need to be put in the proper context.
Why Dogecoin?
Using relative valuation, I believe you could make a case for any Crypto. Will they all run to Bitcoin’s level? Of course not. The last question is why Dogecoin? This is the most important one that we have to answer before deciding on buying Dogecoin. The answer is simple: hype and name recognition. If I look at the most valuable cryptocurrencies by market cap, Dogecoin is number 12. I have taken an informal survey of probably 100 people over the last two weeks. I showed them the top 15 Cryptocurrencies by market cap to see which they were familiar with: Stellar, Binance Coin, Cardano, Polkadot, XRP . . . almost all of these were completely unheard of. But, somehow, they have valuations of 2-3 times Dogecoin.
Dogecoin has a few things going for it. First, hype. Elon Musk and many other prominent celebrities are pilling in. Mark Cuban has said he’d buy it over a lottery ticket. That alone can help aid a very quick lift off. Second, the name Dogecoin is very easy to remember and a trendy thing. What the heck is Cardano anyway? XRP? I mistakenly called it XPR before I edited this piece. And if you are still hung up on the practical use of Dogecoin or other Cryptos, you are missing the point of this piece entirely. Look at the story behind Bitcoin. An anonymous person online created a decentralized platform for money movement or something like that. What? How in the world did that idea ever take traction? It’s just like people online arguing over which Penny Stock is the next big thing. Neither person is right, but the perception is really all that matters.
Third, stimulus checks will be hitting within weeks or months. This naturally promotes price inflation when people have more dollars chasing few goods. People will inevitably pile into whatever they think is the next great thing. Dogecoin has momentum right now. And this brings me to number four.
Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, FOMO is very powerful right now. There are people all over the world that know people who have won big money in this bubble. Penny stocks, GameStop, Bitcoin, and many others that you can name. How many people do you personally know that have won big in the lottery? Probably none. This is a unique time in history. People have won big in this market and are looking for the next thing.
Dogecoin is something that could pick up steam quickly. It could blow up overnight. It may not, and that is the risk you take. At the end of the day, it’s just money that you can always make more of. Life-changing money is worth the risk when you find the right risk-reward ratio.
Do your due diligence, but also think ahead to a scenario that you could imagine. Would you be that surprised if Dogecoin reached $1? And if it did, would you be surprised if it started running towards multiple dollars? $1 is a psychological number that typically leads to a further breakout. The current market cap suggests this is all very possible. Now imagine getting in at four or five cents.
Disclosure: Long Dogecoin with Diamond Hands. No positions in any other things mentioned. -BJ

Does porn affect the modern world dynamics between men and women and destroys the sexual development of kids and teens?

Original Post
Where I found it
Includes mentions of rape, abuse, violence, racism, misogyny, homophobia, child sex abuse, pedophilia, etc.
Porn use:
There are over 420 million pages of pornographic material online worldwide. (IFR)
72 million searches for porn are logged monthly. (IFR)
25% of all daily search engine requests are for pornography (68 million searches daily) (IFR)
42.7% of internet users view porn (IFR)
100,000-plus websites are devoted to child pornography. There are over 116,000 daily requests for this material. (IFR)
20% of men admit to accessing pornography at work (IFR)
35% of those purchasing online porn make $75,000-plus annually. (IFR)
The United States is the top producer of pornographic web pages with 244,661,900, or 89 percent (IFR)
Worldwide revenue from mobile phone pornography is $1 billion-plus and growing (Bryan-Low, Cassel and Pringle, David. “Sex Cells: Wireless Operators Find That Racy Cellphone Video Drives Surge in Broadband Use.” The Wall Street Journal, May 12, 2005)
Ex-porn star testimonies:
Corina Taylor: ”When I arrived to the set I expected to do a vaginal girl boy scene. But during the scene with a male porn star, he forced himself anally into me and would not stop. I yelled at him to stop and screamed ‘No’ over and over but he would not stop. The pain became too much and I was in shock and my body went limp.”
Jenna Jameson: ”Most girls get their first experience in gonzo films – in which they’re taken to a crappy studio apartment in Mission Hills and penetrated in every hole possible by some abusive asshole who thinks her name is Bitch.”
Alexa James: ”The first shoot I did was with a man who was probably 40 and he was as thick as a soda can. He held me down and shoved it in me with no lube tearing my vagina. When I started to tear up and cry he flipped me over and continued from behind be so they wouldn’t get me crying on film. He pulled my hair and choked me over and over again even when I told him it hurt and I could barely breathe.”
Linda Lovelace: ”My initiation into prostitution was a gang rape by five men, arranged by Mr. Traynor. It was the turning point in my life. He threatened to shoot me with the pistol if I didn’t go through with it. I had never experienced anal sex before and it ripped me apart. They treated me like an inflatable plastic doll, picking me up and moving me here and there. They spread my legs this way and that, shoving their things at me and into me, they were playing musical chairs with parts of my body. I have never been so frightened and disgraced and humiliated in my life. I felt like garbage. I engaged in sex acts for pornography against my will to avoid being killed.The lives of my family were threatened.”
Andi Anderson: ”After a year or so of that so-called “glamorous” life, I sadly discovered that drugs and drinking were a part of the lifestyle. I began to drink and party out of control! Cocaine, alcohol and ecstasy were my favorites. Before long, I turned into a person I did not want to be. After doing so many hardcore scenes I couldn’t do it anymore. I just remember being in horrible situations and experiencing extreme depression and being alone and sad.”
Alexa Milano: ”My first movie I was treated very rough by 3 guys. They pounded on me, gagged me with their penises, and tossed me around like I was a ball! I was sore, hurting and could barely walk. My insides burned and hurt so badly. I could barely pee and to try to have a bowel movement was out of the question. I was hurting so bad from the physical abuse from these 3 male porn stars.”
Jessie Jewels: ”People in the porn industry are numb to real life and are like zombies walking around. The abuse that goes on in this industry is completely ridiculous. The way these young ladies are treated is totally sick and brainwashing. I left due to the trauma I experienced even though I was there only a short time.”
Genevieve: ”I had bodily fluids all over my face that had to stay on my face for ten minutes. The abuse and degradation was rough. I sweated and was in deep pain. On top of the horrifying experience, my whole body ached, and I was irritable the whole day. The director didn’t really care how I felt; he only wanted to finish the video.”
Jersey Jaxin: ”Guys punching you in the face. You have semen from many guys all over your face, in your eyes. You get ripped. Your insides can come out of you. It’s never ending.”
Elizabeth Rollings: ”I didn’t want to feel the pain of penetration from an over average sized man, being told to freeze in a position until the camera man was happy with his shots was very painful. I had peoples body fluids forced on my face or anywhere else the producer pleased and I had to accept it or else no pay. Sometimes you would get to a gig and the producer would change what the scene was supposed to be to something more intense and again if you didn’t like it, too bad, you did it or no pay.”
Lucky Starr: ”I was worried about my first anal scene for quite a few days … then the big moment arrived. It REALLY hurt! I almost quit and said, “I can’t do this”. When it was all over, I was so happy and relieved I was able to do it…”
Ashlyn Brooke: ”I honestly felt that if I had to have another strange man in my face, his hands (God knows where they’ve been all over me) him calling me his baby and having to exude some sort of forged passion for the world to see, I probably would have exploded. And what would have been stuck to the walls would have probably been nothing, just pieces of skin, bone, the brain of a robot, and what would have been left of what would have existed once as a huge and warm heart.”
Roxy: ”After only 30 movies I caught two sexually transmitted diseases. Herpes, a non-curable disease and HPV, which led to cervical cancer where I had to have half of my cervix removed. Porn destroyed my life.”
Anita Cannibal: ”Yeah, there are a lot of cover-ups going on. There is a lot of tragedy. There are a lot of horrible things.”
Tamra Toryn: ”As for myself, I ended up paying the price from working in the porn industry. In 2006, not even 9 months in, I caught a moderate form of dysplasia of the cervix (which is a form of HPV, a sexually transmitted disease) and later that day, I also found out I was pregnant. I had only 1 choice which was to abort the baby during my first month. It was extremely painful emotionally and physically. When it was all over, I cried my eyes out.”
Jessi Summers: ”I also did a scene where I was put with male talent that was on my no list. I wanted to please them so I did it. He put his foot on my head and stepped on it while he was doing me from behind. I freaked out and started balling; they stopped filming and sent me home with reduced pay since they got some shot but not the whole scene.
porn trends:
“teen” is the most commonly searched porn term
child pornography is one of the fastest growing businesses online.
how pornographers feel about women:
“I’d like to really show what I believe the men want to see: violence against women. I firmly believe that we [pornographers] serve a purpose by showing that. The most violent we can get is the cum shot in the face. Men get off behind that, because they get even with the women they can’t have. We try to inundate the world with orgasms in the face.” - Bill Margold, porn industry veteran, quoted in Robert J. Stoller and I. S. Levine, Coming Attractions: The Making of an X-rated video; 1993.
“There’s nothing I love more than when a girl insists to me that she won’t take a cock in her ass, because — oh yes she will!” -Max Hardcore, interviewed in Hustler (June 1995).
“My whole reason for being in this Industry is to satisfy the desire of the men in the world who basically don’t much care for women and want to see the men in my Industry getting even with the women they couldn’t have when they were growing up. I strongly believe this… so we come on a woman’s face or somewhat brutalize her sexually: we’re getting even for their lost dreams. I believe this. I’ve heard audiences cheer me when I do something foul on screen. When I’ve strangled a person or sodomized a person, or brutalized a person, the audience is cheering my action, and then when I’ve fulfilled my warped desire, the audience applauds.” - Bill Margold, porn industry veteran and Free Speech Coalition board member.
“It might promote violence against women in the United States, but I say, ‘Good.’ I hate those bitches. They’re out of line and that’s one of the reasons I want to do this … I’m going through a divorce right now. … I hate American women.” - What pornographers really think of women (Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 14 October 1999)
2010 study on popular porn films:
88% of scenes contained physical aggression, including spanking, gagging, and slapping. Women were overwhelmingly the targets of aggressive acts, and men the perpetrators. Following instances of aggression towards women, in 95% of cases the women expressed pleasure or neutrality.
cases of porn leading children to commit sexual assualt IN THE UK ALONE:
February 2014: A 13-year-old boy told a UK court that he raped his 8-year-old sister after viewing pornography at his friend’s house. The teenager told police he “decided to try it out” on his sister because she was small and “couldn’t remember stuff,” reported the Lancashire Telegraph.
November 2013: A different 13-year old UK boy pleaded guilty to raping an eight-year old girlwhen he was 10. A pornography addiction since age 9 was said to have played a significant role in his crimes.
March 2013: Two boys aged 14 and 15 admitted to a British court that they were re-enacting scenes witnessed in violent online pornography when they beat, brutalized, then raped a 14-year-old girl they had tied to a chair.
March 2013: A UK report found that thousands of British children had committed sexual offenses. In all, 4,562 minors – some as young as five – committed 5,028 sexual offenses over a three year period from 2009-2012. Experts blamed “easy access to sexual material.”
January 2012: Children’s aid and sex abuse organizations in Australia largely blamed 414 cases of children sexually abusing other children on the explosion of pornography made accessible to children.
August 2012: A 13-year-old Canadian boy pleaded guilty to repeatedly raping a 4-year-old boy who lived in his foster home. The boy said the idea came from watching “gay porn” on his foster parents’ home computer.
April 2012: A child therapist reported a case of a 13-year-old boy who raped his 5-year-old sisterafter developing a “complex fantasy world” warped by “two years of constant porn use.”
racism in porn:
Latinos and Hispanics: Pornography tends to stereotype Hispanic women as feisty, “hot and spicy Latinas”, sexy Señoritas, with a high sex drive and low impulse control. Many are portrayed as maids, illegal immigrants to the United States, or unfaithful wives. Since Latinos and Hispanics can be of any race (many are white Hispanic Americans, Mestizos etc.), cultural characteristics are sometimes portrayed via iconic items like South and Central American national costumes, sombreros, maracas, or Mexican dresses.
Asian women: Are viewed as sexually willing or submissive. Asian men are hardly portrayed in pairing with white women and not as common compared to white men with asian women porn. Asian women are mainly portrayed as the: “Dragon Ladies”, as servile “Lotus Blossom Babies”, “Innocent School Girls” in private school uniforms, “China dolls”, “Geisha girls”, war brides, or prostitutes. Japanese media have also at times sensationalistically promoted the stereotype of Japanese women overseas as “yellow cabs”.
Black performers: Large penis size in Black men is consistently emphasized in pornography, often by exclusively casting actors with larger than average penises such as Lexington Steele, Kid Bengala, Jack Napier and Mandingo. Men are often treated to stereotypes of gang affiliation, working class labor, and are overrepresented in gang rape fetish films. Also, they are represented as overly aggressive and demanding, and are performing with white women. Similarly, black women are often portrayed with large breast and buttocks, or ‘booty’. They normally play a submissive role while performing with a white male.
Kid’s access to pornography:
Youth who look at violent x-rated material are six times more likely to report forcing someone to do something sexual online or in-person versus youth not exposed to x-rated material. [12]
Middle-school aged boys who view X-rated content are almost three times more likely to report oral sex and sexual intercourse than boys who do not use sexually explicit material[13]
A study in the southeastern U.S. found that 53 percent of boys and 28 percent of girls (ages 12-15) reported use of sexually explicit media. The Internet was the most popular forum for viewing. [14]
The words “sex” and “porn” rank fourth and sixth among the top ten most popular search terms. [15] Roughly two-thirds (67 percent) of young men and one-half (49 percent) of young women agree that viewing pornography is acceptable.[7]
Nearly 9 out of 10 (87 percent) young men and 1 out of 3 (31 percent) young women report using pornography.[8]
Experts have warned that the rise in the viewing of pornography was implicated in a variety of problems, including a rise in the levels of STDs and teenage pregnancies. Additionally, males aged between 12 and 17 who regularly viewed pornography had sex at an earlier stage in life and were more likely to initiate oral sex, apparently imitating what they had seen. [9] [10]
Internet pornography was blamed for a 20 percent increase in sexual attacks by children over three years.[6]
One out of three youth who viewed pornography, viewed the pornography intentionally.[1]
Seven out of ten youth have accidentally come across pornography online.[2]
Nearly 80 percent of unwanted exposure to pornography is taking place in the home (79 percent occurs in the home; 9 percent occurs at school; 7 percent otheunknown; 5 percent at a friend’s home).[3]
Kids experience unwanted exposure to sexual material via:[4] A link came up as a result of an innocent word search (40 percent), Clicking on a link in another site (17 percent), A pop-up (14 percent), Other (13 percent), Misspelled web address (12 percent), Don’t know (4 percent), Pictures involving animals or other strange things (10 percent)
Type of material youth encounter when unwanted exposure to pornography occurs:[5] Naked people (86 percent), People having sex (37 percent), Violent pictures (13 percent)
Nearly 74 percent of pornography websites surveyed display adult content on their homepage (accessible to anyone) before asking if the viewers are of legal age. [11]
American children begin consuming hardcore pronography at an average age of 11 Four out of five 16 year-olds regularly access pornography online
Findings from the Youth Internet Safety Survey indicate that 15% of 12-17 year olds have purposefully looked at x-rated material online.
Data from the PEW Internet and American Life Project suggest that 70% of 15-17 year old internet users accidently view pornography “very” or “Somewhat” often.
Child Pornography:
Child pornography is a $3-billion industry. (Top Ten Reviews)
Child pornography is one of the fastest growing businesses online, and the content is becoming much worse. (Internet Watch Foundation) Internet Watch Foundation confirmed 1536 child abuse domains in 2008.
The fastest growing demand in commercial websites for child abuse is for images depicting the worst type of abuse, including penetrative sexual activity involving children and adults and sadism or penetration by an animal. 58% of child sexual abuse images depict this level of abuse. (IWF, 2008) 69% of all victims in child abuse images are between the ages of 0 and 10 years old. (IWF, 2008)
In a study of arrested child pornography possessors, 40 percent had both sexually victimized children and were in possession of child pornography. Of those arrested between 2000 and 2001, 83 percent had images involving children between the ages 6 and 12; 39 percent had images of children between ages 3 and 5; and 19% had images of infants and toddlers under age 3 (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, Child Pornography Possessors Arrested in Internet-Related Crimes: Findings fro the National Juvenile Online Victimization Study. 2005)
Your brain on porn:
further decline in dopamine levels
further decline in opioids and endorphins
drop-off in GABA, which is an anti-anxiety
neurotransmitter
rise in brain stress hormones CRF and norepinephrine
elevated dynorphin which inhibits dopamine and lowers your pleasure response
one week after quitting the reward center sprouts new nerve cell branches, which correlate with cravings to use
More sources on addiction to porn
Common porn addiction withdrawal symptoms include:
Anxiety
Restlessness
Irritability
Insomnia
Fatigue
Headaches
Poor concentration
Depression
Social isolation
Loss of libido (Can take days to manifest, and last a long time)
Adult (>18 years old) exposure to pornographic media is connected with:
Believing a rape victim enjoyed rape
Believing women suffer less from rape
Believing women in general enjoy rape
Believing a rape victim experienced pleasure and “got what she wanted”
Believing women make false accusations of rape
Believing rapist deserve less jail time
More acceptance of the rape myth
More acceptance of violence against women
More likely to go to a prostitute and to go more frequently
Increasing their estimates of how often people engage in sex with violence
More self-reported likelihood of forcing a women sexually
More self-reported likelihood of rape
Creating more sexually violent fantasies to get aroused
Engaging in more sexual harassment behaviors
More likelihood of forcing a woman sexually
More likelihood of future rape
Using physical coercion to have sex
Using verbal coercion to have sex
Using drugs and alcohol to sexually coerce women
Having engaged in rape
Having engaged in date rape
Having engaged in marital rape
Being an adult sex offender
Being a child molester
Being an incest offender
Engaging in sexual abuse of a battered spouse
More willingness to have sex with 13-14 year olds
More sexual attraction to children
Having sexually abused children
Life and death of a porn star:
all the women who don’t make money from the porn industry.
the women who are kidnapped, tortured, and forced into snuff films.
the skeletons that NAFTA keeps hidden in cobweb-ridden closets on the U.S.-Mexican border: their average career length is 3 months.

What do you think of this?Are deviant acts getting more mainstream? Is the number of soft porn and act sexy attitude on places like Instagram a result of the hiperstimulus ? Are men and women to blame? Should we have more control over access to porn? Does it affect deeply relationships and expectations over bodies and ideal people?

Lockdown, things to do, help & advice.

Disclaimer I am posting this here because I got a message from the mods asking me to. I'm not from London so links aren't London centric (but hopefully still of help) and the main post is here so any updates will likely be there (I will try here but it's hard to keep up with the amount of suggestions)
Thanks.
Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it.
Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions:
For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month!
For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k.
I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device.
Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers

Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
Now TV (I believe it's 7 days)
Disney+
Britbox
Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder

Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
Games with Gold Bleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.

Gaming Subscriptions
Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months

Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.

There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that.
Audiobooks & Ebooks

Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
Marvel Unlimited No experience with this. ItFuckingWont wanted me to add it. A subscription service for Marvel.

Education

Sign Language BSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
BBC's Bitesize here is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.

If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the details According to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."

Duolingo Numerous people have suggested this So I haven't used myself. Thanks to OhHiGCHQ StephanieMecredy & Allorie_95

Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
Communal religious worship
Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house

I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)

To flee the threat of harm or violence.*
CoronaVirus Symptoms
CoronaVirus government site You can check your location and how many cases here.
Worldometers Shows cases around the world.
Interactive UK Map Another easy to read map with cases in counties and local area's.
World Health Organisation

Support

FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THE ROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
_riotingpacifist wanted this links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:

Update:
Digital Art
These are Free

Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.

LibreOffice This has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.

Taking up a traditional musical instrument to play sea shanties and sea songs (for total novices or experienced musicians)

What with the current fascination with sea shanties and sea songs, I figured that some folks might be interested in trying out the musical instruments of Western sailors of the 1800s and early 1900s. While a classic shanty tended to be sung just with vocals, sailors played a variety of musical instruments popular in their eras, and in the Folk Revivals of the mid 1900s, lots of musicians did fine work adding instrumentation to the old tunes.
Maybe you’re an experienced musician looking to try a new sound after discovering sea songs, or maybe you’ve never played a note and hearing these great old tunes has inspired you to learn. In whatever case, in this little write-up I’m going to lay out some of the traditional instruments of the era which were favored by sailors, and explain for each how affordable and easy to learn they can be, and link you in some examples to listen to and places to learn more about each instrument.
I’m not a PhD musicologist, but I do have a lot of research background, been playing traditional music for over 30 years, and have a general handle on the scene and the era. And I have for over a decade done little projects online to encourage people to push their boundaries and break away from the mainstream by trying musical instruments beyond the most common ones. Being entranced by a new genre of music is a fine time to further expand your horizons by taking up an instrument and making music yourself.

WINDS * Tinwhistle * Flute (and piccolo and fife) * Trumpet
STRINGS * Guitar * Banjo (and banjo ukulele) * Fiddle * Mandolin * Ukulele
FREE REEDS * Harmonica * Concertina * Melodeon/Button Accordion * (Toy Accordion/Melodeon)
PERCUSSION * Drums * (Bodhrán)
NOT TRADITIONAL SAILOR INSTRUMENTS, BUT WOULD SOUND AWESOME WITH SHANTIES * Appalachian/Mountain dulcimer * Udu or Ibo drum * Bagpipe * Electronic Instruments
I will note before we begin, especially in the budget category, there are some real bargains but plenty of junk, so please use this article as a starting point, but read up a little on best buys. Don’t just say “oh, I dig Irish flute, and I see a new one on eBay for $50, sounds like a bargain!” and buy it without doing a little research, or you’ll get stuck wasting time and money on unplayable junk. All the more so for used instruments, which can offer great savings, but you really want to buy from a reputable dealer or a musician, or have an ironclad strategy for DIY repair, lest you get something too out of whack to learn on and too pricey to repair. Plenty of bargains, just don’t get impulsive, do just a little research before each purchase and you’ll be glad you did. There are online communities full of geeks like me for each of these instruments, who'd be happy to chat with you about choosing a good one for your money, and how you can best learn to play.
We’re looking largely at the instruments of seafaring European (and diaspora) folk of the 1800s and early 1900s, which you can note largely resembled the instruments of the working class on land, farmers and city laborers, just with an eye towards durability and portability at sea. Fortunately, many of these instruments are relatively affordable, intuitive to learn (they had to be, to catch on with a largely illiterate population that just wanted to get to playing music without fuss), and often rugged and compact for travel. I realized after I finished this article that all these instruments can be learned by ear and video without formal written study, and (with the exception of fiddle) beginner tutorials for them are written in “tablature” (numbers that say where your fingers go) rather than sheet music, making them even easier to learn for total novices.
WINDS
Wind instruments had the huge advantage of being relatively compact, simple, and affordable, and some of them had a dual purpose for signaling or for military music, or just being heard above the noise of work and waves to keep a rhythm for work or dancing.
Tinwhistle
A tinwhistle is a small metal pipe with six finger-holes, and a whistle-like mouthpiece that directs the breath onto a sharp edge that produces the note. Like a referee’s whistle but with control of the notes.
The great thing about tinwhistle is you can get a totally serviceable instrument for literally $9 or so; they’re just that cheap to make. There are professional Irish musicians who spend decades playing $9 whistles (often doing a little fine-tuning on their own to smooth them out), so they’re by no means just toys. Even if you aren’t in a hurry to learn, honestly at that price you might as well pick one up next time you’re shopping online, and give it a whirl. An instrument you could own for life for the price of a decent 6-pack. The subreddit tinwhistle can provide advice and resources, and off-Reddit there’s the specialized Chiff and Fipple Forum.
If you buy a tinwhistle as a beginner, absolutely get one in the Key of D (the most common key), because 99% of teaching materials are for D, the common key for Irish music. (You'll notice an Irish crossover trend in much of this advice). There are some tutorials for shanties online, but honestly best bet would be to use some of the tutorials for Irish tunes just to learn the basics, and then you’ll swiftly be able to transition to learning other genres by ear.
"Drunken Sailor" tinwhistle duet with concertina
Flute (including piccolo and fife)
The flute is of course a tube where you blow across a hole to make a note. Most of us have seen the classical flute in videos, silver with all those fancy mechanical keys, but the flutes of the 1800s were largely wooden and had few or no keys, just open finger-holes like the tinwhistle. In the modern day, such “simple flutes” are largely associated with folk music, especially Irish, so there are plenty on the market, including affordable ones made of synthetic materials or metals. Just don't be seduced by import "rosewood" cheapies, they're junk, one made of PVC pipe by an actual musician would be a better buy than those wall-hangers.
I made a post on Chiff and Fipple asking about affordable flutes and fifes, and got some good options under $50 for some really simple plastic tube instruments of decent make, and some finer Irish flutes turned from synthetics around $250. Flutes come in a variety of sizes, but like tinwhistles the easiest way to learn is using Irish music tutorials and then adding nautical repertoire once you have the basics down, so again probably get Key of D.
You can get a Low D flute about 2 feet long, or a High D flute (known as a fife or piccolo, or band flute) an octave above, the same rough size and pitch as a tinwhistle, just different method of blowing. The Low D instruments are pretty similar to each other, but for High D ("fife/piccolo/band flute") note some are "true fifes" made to play best at very high pitches for fife and drum music, others are meant to play smoothly at their lowest register, identical in range to a tinwhistle. So mind that distinction and ask the experts if you aren't sure which model suits your vision.
Dixon Irish flute duet with cittern (large mandolin cousin)
Modern high-quality Irish keyless piccolo
Trumpet
In my poring over old engravings and photographs, I was struck by how many showed sailors playing various trumpet-type instruments in the late 1800s, which kind of makes sense given the cultural crossover with military Naval traditions, and the volume of a trumpet which helps cut through wind and noise for signaling or dance music. I’m sure there are a zillion good write-ups on buying a basic trumpet (from $100-300), so I’ll leave you go google those or visit Trumpet.
But personally reading up for this article got even me thinking about trying my hand at a little brass. I'm honestly torn between getting one of the novel plastic "brass" instruments made for learners like pTrumpet or jHorn (around $100) because I like innovative design, or carefully buying an okay-quality used brass instrument (after consulting experts) for similar price. But I bet a whaler would've loved a plastic one if they'd been available in 1863.
"Wellerman" on trumpet
STRINGS
Guitar
In my survey of period imagery, I did indeed find some images of men at sea playing guitar, but do bear in mind that guitar in the 1800s and early 1900s was nowhere near as omnipresent as it is today, and in different forms. Plenty of other instruments were far more popular, up until the mid-1900s where guitar really became a go-to choice in the West. Note too that steel strings on guitars, as well as larger body sizes, didn’t show up much until the early 1900s, so for much of this period those who played guitar played smaller body instruments, with gut strings (nowadays nylon strings sound almost like gut but are massively more durable and affordable).
That said, tons of musicians in the Folk Revivals of the 1900s played a modern large guitar with steel strings and sounded great, so it really depends what tradition and sound you want to imitate. Again there are thousands of write-ups on taking up guitar, and plethora of new and used models, steel strings or nylon, all sizes, so I’ll leave that to you to Google or hit up LearnGuitar.
But I would encourage you to keep an open mind to guitar types to get a little more unusual flair in your musical stylings, break away from the crowd a bit. If you’re an experienced strings player, if you want to get that droning and modal sound you hear in shanties, try tuning your current guitar to the Drop D or DADGAD tunings (see DADGAD), also popular in Irish music, and I think you’ll like your results.
And if you’re a novice considering starting on guitar, I’m one of those people who believes that 2 months on a $50 ukulele and then four months on a guitar gets you further ahead than 6 months on a guitar alone, because uke is just so much more accessible for the total beginner. (Plus you’ll end up having a spare uke to carry where your guitar is inconvenient and left at home.) So if you’re considering guitar, check ukulele and ponder whether a uke of some sort could be an affordable and easy initial stage to launch your studies.
Irish jig on guitar in DADGAD tuning
"Drunken Sailor" on nylon-strung guitar
Banjo
The banjo is an instrument developed by American enslaved people, inspired by related instruments they’d known in Africa. By the mid 1800s, the banjo had crossed demographic lines and become hugely popular with European-Americans and spread to other countries, far more popular than the guitar was at the time. It was the go-to plucked string instrument for much of the 1800s.
If you’re looking to take up banjo, know that the banjos of this period had a different sound and playing style than the modern bluegrass instrument, so set aside your stereotypes and listen to some recordings of “Old Time” banjo rather than the bluegrass and country licks you’re used to hearing in soundtracks. These banjos were less piercing, mellower, and a more languid style. And much like on guitars, steel strings were less common, gut being typical and having a much softer sound (today we have nylon options). So when you go reading up “how to choose a banjo” articles or visiting Banjo (or BanjoHangout.com), look for an “open back” banjo rather than one with the heavy metal ring around the head (“resonator”) which makes it louder and sharper for bluegrass.
If you want to get really traditional, and sound softer and be easier on your fingers, spend $9 to get nylon (imitating gut) strings for a much less cliché and smoother sound. (Just note nylon strings stretch like crazy for a few days until they break in and stabilize, be patient.) Speaking of sound, absolutely don’t fall into trying to learn the modern “three-finger” or “Scruggs” style of play, which is a post-WWII styling, but read up on the old “clawhammer” or “frailing” style of play, which sounds entirely different and may pleasantly surprise you if you thought you don’t like banjo.
"Wellerman" on 5-string banjo, played clawhammer style
Nylon strings on a fretless banjo, just to show a very different sound
I will briefly mention some banjo variants other than the 5-string type we’re mostly familiar with. There is also the “tenor banjo” which has four strings, lacking that shortened fifth string off to the side on the currently popular banjos. A tenor banjo is tuned differently: depending on what strings you’re using (and you can swap the strings out for about $10) it’s tuned either like a violin/mandolin, or like a guitaukulele, so those skills cross over well, and is slightly shorter than the common 5-string.
Three Irish reels on a tenor banjo
And if you want a banjo that to one degree isn’t as historically associated with sailors, but to the other is actually surprisingly similar to the smaller and mellower banjos of the early 1800s, there’s the “banjo ukulele” hybrid which is quite affordable and easy to learn.
Frankly, if this is your first instrument and you want banjo, I’d get a banjo ukulele first rather than a 5-string, because they’re just so affordable (decent ones start around $100 new) and handy and easy to learn, and very mellow, not like the cliché sound you’d expect. And though they lack the fifth string, in the last decade or so a ton of YouTube uke experts have been developing the “clawhammer ukulele” style of play. It works impressively well on ukulele or banjo ukulele (which are played the exact same way, same online tutorials apply, they just have a different body and thus sound).
"Leave Her Johnny, Leave Her" on banjo ukulele, clawhammer style
Fiddle
The “fiddle” is physically basically the same as a violin, just played in a folk rather than classical style. There are probably millions of violins bouncing around the world, including plenty of used deals, but you really want to read up on how to find a good deal on a new or used one, because violins are a little finicky. I would also say that unless you’re extremely motivated or getting a Zoom teacher, I wouldn’t advise fiddle as your very first instrument. Because they lack frets and learning to use a bow is its own distinct skill, they have a bit of a steep initial learning curve. So you maybe want to learn a little ukulele or mandolin (which has the same fingering as fiddle) before jumping in. But that said, if you just love fiddle and are ambitious, or already have a little strings background, by all means dive on in. Learn it in standard tuning, but once you get the basics down, try "open tunings" for shanties and the like. Hit up Fiddle for advice.
The fiddle was a hugely popular instrument from the 1700s up to the mid-1900s before falling off sharply heading into the rock ‘n’ roll era. With fiddle you can cover a huge variety of historical musical traditions.
"Blow Boys Blow" on fiddle, while singing (something you don’t see classical violinists do)
Mandolin
This originally Italian instrument took on a wider popularity in the Western world around the late 1800s and early 1900s, again being more popular than guitar in many areas during that period. A mandolin has the chording ability of the guitar but the melodic dexterity of a fiddle, is nice and compact especially compared to a large modern guitar, and can be bought in a passable starter model as low as ~$99. Though if you can stretch to a budget of more like $300, you’ll really appreciate the improvement.
Plenty of used ones floating around, though buy those from a musician or reputable dealer, not from randos on eBay with something they pulled out of a closet from ages ago. Mandolins are under very high tension, and older ones that are low quality or mistreated can be warped or cracked in ways a novice can’t easily notice, but that make them unsuitable to be played. Don't jump on the first "bargain" you see, mando is common enough that you'll see bargains every other day, don't get impulsive, get advice from mandolin players online.
I will note that although mandolin had a narrower time and place of popularity than banjo or especially fiddle, it closely resembles even earlier instruments like the “English guitar”, “cittern” and “Portuguese guitar” that were more widespread, so can serve as a partial stand-in for a number of centuries and locales. Plenty of good information at mandolin awaits you if you want to take up mando.
Beginner mandolins are pretty affordable, and it's not too hard to learn, but it will take time for your hands to adjust and toughen up your finger pads. If you want to try mandolin tuning on an even more affordable instrument and with less string tension, you can get a basic starter ukulele and get Aquila's "Fifths" strings for ukulele (make sure to get the size that corresponds to the size of your uke) for $5-10 and string it in GDAE or CGDA, and then the fingerings would cross directly over to mandolin or mandola.
"Salt Water Shanty" tune on the mandolin
An example of the related "Portuguese guitar", shared between England and Portugal by the sea trade, played on the docks of Lisbon for "fado" music
"Bach 1st Cello Suite" on a ukulele re-strung to CGDA
Ukulele
The ukulele is based on traditional Portuguese small guitar-like instruments, and was introduced to the Hawaiian Islands in 1879 when the SS Ravenscrag brought over Portuguese immigrants in 1879. The instrument caught the imaginations of the local Hawaiians, and some Portuguse woodworkers who'd just arrived capitalized on that trend and began producing a local version. So certainly sailors coming and going from Hawaiian ports had a chance to become familiar with the instrument.
The ukulele is one of the easiest string instruments to play, and the skills cross directly over to guitar and other instruments. If you're new to strings I would highly suggest getting a $50-99 ukulele first to get used to strings, and then decide your best move. As noted above, a uke can be an excellent stand-in for guitar, banjo, or mandolin (especially if restrung in fifths).
"Wellerman" on a regular $40 ukulele, conventional strumming and sounding awesome
"5 Sea Shanties on Ukulele", a really great and crystal-clear tutorial for noobs by Destiny Guerra
Ukulele has a shanty contest recently, might want to check out the submissions by other Redditors of shanties on ukulele
FREE REEDS
The name “free reeds” might sound confusing, but it basically just means things like the accordion and harmonica (which despite looking so different, are close cousins). On common reed instruments like saxophone or oboe, the air tube has one reed (a flexible tongue that produces a note as it vibrates when air flows over it) that makes the core pitch, and by opening holes to change the functional length of the tube you change the note. In contrast, with free reeds, you have an array of individual reeds that always make the same note, and you choose which note(s) to play by directing air over them with a button (accordion) or by moving it against your mouth (harmonica)
Harmonica
I think most folks are familiar with the basic concept of a harmonica, so I’ll just note there are a harmonicas at every price range, all kinds of keys (and ones in minor scales and such), and a lot of harmonica players own a whole stack of them to have a variety. While there are playable ones for like $10, aim for about $25-35 or more for your first one, if able, rather than going totally cheap, just so you aren’t held back as you’re trying to learn. There are a ton of free harmonica tutorials online, and books you can buy, and harmonica to advise, so you can’t go too wrong.
The modern harmonica was invented in the 1800s (based in concept on centuries-old instruments of Southeast Asia encountered by travelers). Hohner started mass-producing barge-fulls of them in Germany shortly after the American Civil War, and exporting them to the US. While maybe we don’t think of harmonicas as a sailor thing, they were an omnipresent affordable and pocket-sized instruments, surely familiar to sailors of the period.
"Drunken Sailor" on a less-common minor-key harmonica
"Wellerman" tutorial on standard harmonica
Concertina
The association between sailors and concertina is so strong as to be almost cliché, due in large part to Hollywood portrayal, like sea shanty concertinist Alf Edwards cameoing in 1965’s “Moby Dick". The concertina is basically like a small hexagonal accordion, but a simpler and less raucous sound due to (usually) only one reed per note, and every button is an individual note rather than some buttons being chords.
Concertina is pretty intuitive to play, and there are some good free tutorials online. For a novice interested in sea shanties you probably want the “Anglo” style (different notes on push and pull, like a harmonica or melodeon). Commonly people buy the 30-button Anglo, because most concertina buyers play Irish music and you want 30 for that. But for shanties and other simple folk, you can do well with a 20-button (which can also play most Irish), which tend to be a little cheaper. I would really give a pass to the $150-200 China-made ones on Amazon and eBay, and go for at least $299 or so for a new 20b or used 30b. (Or hit up Cnet's sales subforum to ask if anyone has a bargain 20b for a noob).
While Anglo is hands-down the traditional choice of sailors, in the Folk Revivals, for whatever reason (lots of them cheap in pawnshops?) a lot of folk musicians took up the English-system concertina. The English externally looks similar but has the same note on push and pull of the bellows, so totally different playing style. Some of the most famous shanty players of the 1960s-1970s (like the fantastic Alf Edwards mentioned above) played English, which in the actual sailing days was the instrument of the wealthy, not laborers.
But y’all are in luck, because I’m a mod at Concertina and have written a pretty comprehensive Concertina FAQ and Buying Guide for novices, the sub itself can help advise with any questions, and for serious experts or to shop an active buy/sell forum for bargains, visit Concertina.net Forums.
Note for both concertina and melodeon (button accordion), “Appcordions” produces free or cheap apps for your phone or tablet which emulate concertina (Anglo, English, or Duet fingering systems) or button accordion. The apps take a little getting used to, but are fun to try out the concept before committing. Read the instructions or watch a tutorial for each to understand how to emulate bellows direction changes on an app, and they're better on tablet than phone, but passable on phone.
Modern shanty "Grogg Mayles" played on Anglo concertina (note the constant back-forth to change notes)
A. L. Lloyd singing “Off to Sea Once More” backed up by Alf Edwards on English concertina (Lloyd is my favorite shantyman of all time, and Edwards so gorgeous on English that I forgive him the heresy of passing up Anglo)
Melodeon (Button Accordion)
When modern people think “accordion” they tend to think the huge ones with a piano keyboard, such as played by Weird Al. But for much of the 1800s and early 1900s, the dominant accordion was the “melodeon” (Americans tend to call them a “button accordion”) which is generally smaller, and has one, two, or three rows of buttons instead of a piano keyboard. Like the Anglo concertina or the harmonica, a given melodeon button produces a different note when you change air direction, which means that notes that make a chord line up together, making it very intuitive to play.
There are hordes of melodeons on the used market, but ones hauled out of a closet after 40 years of no play can need hundreds of dollars of refurbishment by a skilled technician. So again don’t go buying from randos on eBay, but buy from an actual player, or reputable dealer (many of whom buy the tore-up rando ones cheap on eBay, fix them up and flip them at reasonable prices). Figuring out the good deals can be daunting to a novice, so I went to Melodeon.net and got a detailed discussion going resulting in somewhat of a novice buyer’s guide for sea shanties that you might find easier to digest.
With some hunting around the various reputable dealers, and Melodeon.net’s sales section, you can find a decent melodeon as low as $250-350 (easier still in the UK or EU where melodeon is more common). Also check out the small sub Melodeon (we may add a sticky or wicki to link dealers of affordable refurbished button accordions). Fortunately shanty players are less picky about specific keys and models, so can get some good deals on less-fashionable variants other musicians are slow to buy.
High Barbary on 2.5-row melodeon, voice and fiddle
"Bully in the Alley" tutorial on 2-row D/G melodeon
Addendum: “Toy” Accordions (Melodeons)
I will address one kind of intriguing and highly affordable option for learning the basics on melodeon. There’s a little 7-button job called a “toy accordion” made in China (the button kind, not piano kind), sold on all the major online retailers. It isn’t so much really a "toy" as it is a small functional instrument but of kinda middling materials and iffy quality control, but it is a genuine musical instrument. Funnily enough, a small and shoddy mass-produced melodeon was exactly what laborers and sailors of the mid to late 1800s played, churned out of factories in Germany at prices so low they were practically disposable. Ironically the “toy” is arguably the historically authentic option, in spirit.
I don’t want to sound like I’m shilling for Amazon, I don’t even have affiliate links to them on my YouTube channel (maybe someday), but I’m telling you now that Amazon or equivalent is a good place to get a toy accordion. That way you can buy a model and from a seller with the best reviews, and (this is vital) one with “free returns”. The QC on these is iffy, so if you get a lemon it’s great to be able to put it right back in the box, click “return” on the app, and it gets picked up off your porch or you drop it off at a local business that processes Amazon returns. And if you like you can even just re-order it with your refund until they get it right.
These “toys” run about $20-40 (I just bought an EastaMugig, and it seems pretty decent and ready to tweak), so just pick one with good reviews, ensure it has free returns, and give it a whirl. Or if you really want to cut to the chase, there are accordion “fettlers” (repairers) who will just gut a toy for you and put quality reeds in it. Currently Smythe’s Accordions is the main shop I know of doing this in the US, and will put in quality reeds in the key of your choice, into a Russian toy accordion (better quality), if you want to spend $200.
Now, if you get one into your paws that plays okay and you want to keep it, I suggest immediately opening it up and making some minor tweaks. This is one of those things all the melodeon folks casually mention and afaik nobody has bothered to make a proper tutorial on (I hope to shortly for my YouTube channel), but you can make these substantially better with very little skill. Basically put, you got seven buttons, with two notes per button, and two reeds per note to give it a tremolo/echo effect. The issue is those doubled reeds use up a lot of air, and your bellows are small, and one reed will always be more in-tune than the other. So you get some really basic tools and masking tape, pour a beer or soda, carefully open it (they’re pretty sturdy if you get a good one) and identify the two reeds for each note, lay down masking tape along one to silence it. While you’re in there, if you can identify any reeds that aren’t sounding properly, they’re probably clogged with dust, and you can google up how to carefully slide something thin like a dollar bill under the tongue to knock the dust loose and allow it to sound. Tape off one of each pair, assemble it and try it, and if a given note (now one reed per note) sounds off, make a note of which, disassemble and switch the tape from the other reed and see if the other one sounds better.
It’ll take some futzing, but no major skill and no permanent changes (do it carefully so you can still return it if it just won’t shape up). If you get it right, now it’ll be using half as much air so way easier to play, and if you like there are many other little tweaks to adjust button play, fix bellows leaks, and all that, all pretty low-skill. But fundamentally for $20-40 you can have a kinda shoddy yet effective little melodeon, much like the sailors of old, on which you can accompany sea songs.
Drunken Sailor on a decent yet stock toy accordion
Irish polkas on a toy accordion that’s been fitted with quality reeds
PERCUSSION
Looking at old sailor imagery, you generally see small snare drums and bass drums, and there seems to be a large crossover between those on civilian ships and similar ones played in the British and American navies of the era. If you’re a real stickler you can get “rope-tuned” old-school wooden snare and small bass drums (sold for fife and drum reenactors), or make do with modern used marching-band instruments.
I do want to note there is one kind of drum that’s relatively recent in tradition and wouldn’t really have been played by shanty-era sailors, but sounds absolutely amazing with shanties if you aren’t a stickler: the Irish bodhrán. It’s a relatively shallow circular shell with one drum head, held in one hand and the other hands holds a double-headed stick (like a little kayak paddle) and virtuosically skips it off the drum head in rhythmic patterns. It's pretty cool, but if you get one, learn it proper because eager noobs not bothering to learn skill and just whacking on it are a cliche in the Irish trad scene. Bodhran is tiny but has some good links, and you can always ask and see who answers.
Daniel Payne of Newfoundland sings “Wind Through the Window” while backing himself on bodhrán
NOT TRADITIONAL SAILOR INSTRUMENTS, BUT WOULD SOUND AWESOME WITH SHANTIES
I want to briefly discuss one instrument from each category that aren’t strictly historical to seafarers, but really fit in with the spirit of shanties. These would be great retcons, and one very modern wildcard at the end.
Appalachian/Mountain dulcimer
The dulcimer was likely a French or German instrument acquired by the rural folks in the Appalachian mountains of the US, and worked into the local tradition due to its simplicity. It’s a long wooden box played in the lap, tuned to open tunings, with only partial fretting, which makes it ridiculously easy to learn and accompany yourself on. I like to joke that it's the "Celtic sitar."
I taught quite a few workshops on the dulcimer for groups, and it’s about one of the easiest fretted string instruments to learn. They’re pretty affordable (you can get cardboard-bodied [seriously, they work] ones around $50, basic wooden ones around $100, ask around at dulcimer) and they have that droning and dark sound that would go great with shanties.
"Skye Boat Song" on dulcimer
Udu or Ibo drum
This percussion instrument, originating in West Africa, is a clay pot (some modern makers use synthetics) that is drummed upon, and capable of some really cool percussive sounds. Can produce a surprising number of tonal effects, I think of it as the "African tabla." Runs about $100+ for the basic synthetic models by Meinl, which are lighter and more durable than ceramic. LP makes durable ceramic ones from about $75. See the very tiny sub Udu for more info, or ask the larger community at drums.
Udu/Ibo drum solo
Bagpipe
Check your stereotypes, the Great Highland bagpipe associated with marching around in kilts (which is awesome in its own way) is only one of about 100 kinds of bagpipes, from Ireland to India and Sweden down to Libya. The Highland Pipe is loud and piercing, so not really great vocal accompaniment, but among the many other pipes are several which play at an indoor volume and lower pitch.
Among the ones I’d most recommend to someone starting pipes, in terms of affordability (roughly around $400-$500 for basic ones of these three, some bargains come in lower), availability, volume, compactness, versatility, etc. would be the Scottish Smallpipes (quieter and a full octave deeper in pitch than Highland), the Swedish bagpipes, and the German hümmelchen.
More than any other instrument on this list, for bagpipes I urge you to beware "too good to be true" deals. The reason is there is one specific outfit in Pakistan that has been turning out virtually unplayable bagpipes for export for decades, and they're all over Amazon and eBay for $100-200. They are not "well, I'll try a cheapie first and see if I want to get a nice one", they are total garbage, and the company is run by jerks because they could make a serviceable pipe in Pakistan by paying their workers 10% more and instead opt to turn hopeful noobies off piping forever with a "maybe it's a good starter" that's just trash. There are definitely good deals in piping (mainly some innovators working in synthetics, and some craftsmen in Eastern Europe with low costs of living), but the specific Pakistan pipes exported by a certain cynical company are omnipresent and a total waste. But the good news is with the slightest research you can avoid them and get some good starter pipes at reasonable price.
Give those three types of bagpipes (or others too) a listen, see what jumps out at you, drop by Bagpipes to discuss.
"Mingulay Boat Song" on Scottish smallpipes (bellows blown so the piper has breath to sing)
"Polska efter Nedergårds Lars" on Swedish bagpipes
"A Cascarexa" (Galician waltz) on hümmelchen
Electronic Instruments (maybe on your tablet or even phone to be cheap)
I’m sure many of you have seen techno remixes of "Wellerman" and whatnot, so though clearly in history those far post-date the shanty era, they do sound awfully cool (in some cases). So don’t be too shy to lay down some drum and bass lines and sing over them. There are various electronic boxes and knobs you can buy to do so, but these days a lot of what used to be $500 of fancy electronics are now emulated on your phone or tablet. Go mess with the free music apps, or read reviews and pay $10 for a good one, and get some beats going.
If you want to try out a free iOS app that's pretty intuitive for making beats, as a total novice in electronic music I've enjoyed the free phone app Figure.
Korg iKaossilator laying down drum and bass lines

I am 27 years old, make ~$43k, live in rural California, and work as a forester.

Hi. Asian female born/raised in NYC. I wanted to post something from the environmental field and from a lower-income standpoint. Certain positions in this field can be quite transient, and this definitely reflects in my savings. It took a while to find my first FT job, and I thought it would be interesting to share and reflect. I know my finances aren’t the greatest (I have negative net worth due to student loans and not the greatest savings compared to seemingly everyone else on this subreddit). But I don’t feel poor, and maybe that’s what counts. Really, I'm the richest I've ever been.
I live with my partner of five years (T) and our dog (D). Our incomes are not combined, but we split rent, bills, and pet-associated costs. He makes the same $ as I do.
Section One: Assets and Debt
Retirement Balance: ~6k in a Roth TSP. I’ve contributed 5% since I started this job last year since the feds match the first 3% and 0.5% for the next two. Once I get my grade increase in March, I’d like to increase this to ~10%.
Equity: N/A.
Savings account balance: 6k in HYSA.
Checking account balance: 2k.
Credit card debt: 0, paid off in full every month.
Student loan debt: 19k total (6k from undergraduate, and 13k for graduate). My parents partially paid for my undergraduate and graduate degrees, and I worked as a TA and other jobs to supplement my income during grad school.
Section Two: Income Income/Job Progression:
This is my first full-time job. I started off working in wildlife rehabilitation and progressed into seasonal biological work (varying from $11 to $15/hr, or just room+board). This is across five years, during and after college. I worked mostly with birds -- banding, nest monitoring, breeding surveys, etc. I lived and worked in some beautiful and remote places. I love this work, but I consistently met others who worked seasonally well into their 30s (including my current partner), and this did not appeal to me. There is a lot of uncertainty involved: applying to positions every year, finding work during the off-season, moving cross-country or internationally, relationships are hard to maintain, etc. That uncertainty is expensive, both financially and mentally. “Home” can be hard to define, and the loss of purpose after the end of a season is hard to deal with sometimes. I have a lot of complicated feelings about seasonal jobs re: privileges associated with seasonal work, white people vs. minorities in conservation, treatment of seasonals (esp. wildland firefighters).
Ultimately, I went to graduate school so I could get a permanent job with the feds. I wanted to stop relying on my parents for shelter when I didn’t have a job, and actually have more than a few thousand dollars to my name lol (obviously still working on this latter bit). Forestry still involves being outside (yay) but is less competitive than being a Biologist™. I still grapple with this change though. Turns out the job title is important to me. Sometimes forestry can be seriously male-dominated and that scares me. But I’m very lucky with a great supervisor and coworkers. Our office also considers a lot of wildlife and habitat aspects in our forestry practices, which is very important to me.
My position tops out at a GS-11, and I’m due for a grade increase next month (+10k/yr approximately). My current level/income (GS-7) is low considering my education, but I accepted the job knowing I’d have job security and a few years of fast salary increases. Eventually, I’d like to move into a forest ecologist role. We’ll see if that’s possible lol.
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $1974
Side Gig Monthly Take Home: N/A.
Do your parents pitch in monthly? Do you withdraw from a trust? Do you withdraw from your own savings regularly for whatever reason? Please specify here. No. My parents supported me through college and graduate school, and always gave me a roof over my head when I needed it. It’s time for them to take care of themselves and not worry about me.
Section Three: Expenses
Rent: 350/mo (700 split with T).
Renters insurance: 6/mo.
Retirement contribution: 5% towards Roth TSP (counted in monthly take home).
Savings contribution: ~500/mo. Sometimes this is less.
Investment contribution: N/A outside of my Roth TSP account. This is something I hope to educate myself in and change this year.
Debt payments: 200/mo for student loans. On hold for now.
Donations: 100/yr to the animal shelter we adopted our dog at.
Electric: 25/mo.
Watesewage: 50/mo.
Wifi: 20/mo.
Cellphone: 30/mo.
Subscriptions: Spotify 10/mo. T pays for Disney+ and Peacock, and we mooch off others for Netflix/Amazon Prime.
Pet expenses: ~400/yr for food, heartworm meds, lepto/other vaccines, etc.
Car insurance: 760/yr.
Day 1 (Sunday)
morning
There’s a soccer game going on, so T. is very invested in waking up and watching it. I laze around bed and get up around halftime to make coffee and watch the rest of the game. It’s cold af but I don’t make a fire because we will never leave the house if I do. Or at least, I never will. The wood stove’s our only source of heat (by choice) and is probably my second-favorite part of the house.
We decide to go to town for groceries, art supplies, and a general walkabout. The area we live in isn’t the best for food shopping. There’s a gas mart, a small grocery store, and a supermarket where the meat’s gray and half the aisles are alcohol. These choices aren’t really viable for stocking up on food, outside of small things we run out of sometimes.
afternoon
Arrival! The drive is always pretty, and we’re lucky that the snow has melted off the road. It still lingers on the trees though, and the snow sparkles in the sun. There’s not a “downtown” where we live, and even the closer towns are pretty barren. I really miss seeing people walk around, window shopping, and wandering around.
*We’re wearing our masks inside all stores and outside as we’re walking too.
I head into a houseplant store while T. takes the dog for a walk around the block. They’re only allowing four people in at a time, and it’s just me and another customer. I pick up a calathea beauty star, a replacement sansevieria bantel’s sensation (I killed my previous one with cold damage oops), and a new pot ($83.60).
I’ve been eying a nail polish brand/color online (Palate Polish Jawbreaker lol) that is stocked in one of the small stores. I pop in and buy it ($14.00). I am a lifetime nail biter trying to quit, and painting my nails helps me lol.
We walk around and look through the shop windows. D. is especially enjoying all the smells. We drive to the supermarket and pick up tofu, chips and dip, beer, kefir, toilet paper, cookies, and other things I’m not remembering ($51.88). We head to the asian food store and stock up on ramen packs, thai chili peppers, instant thai iced tea, and various sauces. To be honest, I always just black out and buy anything I want because we go here so rarely. ($42.44)
Before heading out, we stop by an art supplies shop. I pick up a new sketchbook, a watercolor pad, and two watercolor palettes ($106.52). A wildfire ripped through the town last summer, and there are remnants of cars and buildings just across the street. It’s sad, bizarre, and scary.
night
We head home. It’s late, and we’re all ready to be back. The dog rubs his face into the carpet and sofa as we bring things in. We eat leftover chicken pot pie for dinner and draw and play with my new watercolors for a while.
Daily Total: $298.34
Day 2 (Monday)
morning
It’s MLK day, and we have the day off. I make a fire and drink coffee while looking through reddit and other nonsensical internet things. I watch old Jenna Marbles videos while finishing the last of the pie for breakfast.
afternoon
Still on the couch. We put on the Great Lebowski and crack open the white russian-inspired stouts we picked up yesterday. I’m not really a fan of the movie and fall asleep halfway through.
I wake up an hour later, and we decide to go on a walk on some nearby forest service land. A different wildfire went through here last summer, and part of the area is closed. We recall good memories of the place when we were visitors and not residents: camping in ice-covered tents, singing meadowlarks, frozen pea soup. It’s quiet, and we keep our eyes peeled for potential owls as the sun sets.
night
I make a vat of tom yum soup, aka my favorite soup in the world. I also make a chocolate coffee swiss roll while the soup bubbles away. I like to eat well and eat what I want to eat lol. It definitely drives up my grocery bill, while my partner can eat pb&j and mac & cheese for days.
We watch season 6 of the Great British Bake-off while we eat, and head to bed soon after.
Daily Total: $0
Day 3 (Tuesday)
morning
Look over the weekend’s emails and skim the study manual for the week’s training. An hour later, I’m in the training meeting, which goes all morning. I feel shy and don’t participate much, but resolve to participate more tomorrow. I finish off the rest of the swiss roll with my coffee.
afternoon
Speak to some people about working on wildfires for this year’s season. I don’t think I’m physically strong enough to keep up on the fireline, but I’m interested in working as a GIS specialist. I have a certificate in GIS and would like to keep developing those skills. I’m meeting some roadblocks for a necessary class, and that disappoints me. Lunch is the last of the soup. Yum!
T. decides to buy some frames for a few art prints we have. I split the difference ($50). Expensive, but probably better than rolled up in storage.
night
Make some chicken and roasted potatoes and asparagus for dinner. T. and I have a minor fight, but we make up a few hours later. I think WFH is making us spend too much time in the same space, and it’s hard for us to get alone time to refresh. We watch the finale of season 6 GBBO (Tamal, I love you), and I skip ahead to watch Kim Joy’s season again lol.
Daily total: $50
Day 4 (Wednesday)
morning
Inauguration day! Excited and hopeful that nothing goes awry. I read some responses on my GIS inquiry, and there’s nothing definitive. My training’s in an hour, so I look over the break-out tasks so I can have something to input. I still feel new even after nearly a year, and I don’t want to look stupid lol. Graduate school induced a lot of imposter syndrome and anxiety that lingers to this day.
I actually speak today; it’s kind of dumb, but that makes me feel good and happy.
afternoon
My training’s finished, and it’s lunchtime. I go for a run -- it’s week three of my 5k training. T. gifted me a Garmin watch for Christmas, and I’m actually getting into it (shout-out to C25k for the most supportive people ever). I sporadically tried running in the past few years, but never made it past week one. I take D. with me off-leash. I do my walk/run intervals, and he runs about a million miles lol. It’s so fun to see him zoom around.
Eat yesterday’s dinner leftovers for lunch. I seriously crave chicken and crispy chicken skin all the time. I get out some frozen hamburger buns and black bean patties to thaw out for dinner.
Work on some Excel sheet things and catch up on one of our timber sale contracts until it’s time to sign off.
night
Make some thumbprint cookies with apricot jam while T. makes the burgers. Binge through GBBO while T. finishes up some work documents. This show is just comforting to me, and I definitely lean into a lot of comforting habits.
Daily total: $0
Thursday (Day Five)
morning
T. goes to the field today, and I kind of relish being alone in the house. I make coffee, a fire, and look over some NEPA docs. I text T. to bring home milk and half and half (we don’t split small trips to the store, so $0 for me). I don’t get much reading done before it’s time for our training.
afternoon
Another run day today. D. comes with and sniffs coyote poop along the trail. There are giant flocks of red-winged blackbirds foraging about, and the sound of them taking off reminds me of the ocean. I eat the remains of chicken dinner from Tuesday. I’m still hungry and eat some chips and a tangerine too. While eating, I catch up on the news -- Biden extends student loan forbearance! AOC skips inauguration day to support the Hunts Points Market Strike (yes to that fucking dollar raise!)! Bernie huddled in those mittens! I love it all. In the meantime, a package arrives. It’s this month’s coffee subscription that we were gifted for Christmas!
Finish reviewing the NEPA docs from earlier and work on some maps for another contract. My boss emails. We had a question about a likely mistake in our handbook, and he has an answer from the state office. He compliments me for catching it, but I don’t feel like I deserve it because he was the one who told me to look into it! I spend twenty minutes agonizing over how to respond before writing a short reply back.
Take out a pack of homemade basil pesto to defrost. We grew a shit ton of basil in the summer and made batches of pesto to eat in the winter. We’re like goddamn squirrels caching.
night
I call my parents because it’s been a while. They’re still in NYC, and I worry about my dad since he’s a bus driver. He says buses have been pretty empty, but he hasn’t gotten the vaccine yet because apparently they ran out. My mom is working from home, and she says she’s going crazy. We talk for almost an hour -- about work, Chinese New Year, and she makes fun of my dad about things. She’s funny and direct about a lot of things, and it makes me laugh so much. T. arrives home soon after.
T. makes pesto pasta and washes the dishes while I laze around and catch up with a friend from NY. We’ve been friends for almost six years, and that’s probably one of my oldest friendships! I’m grateful to still be friends.
Daily total: $0
Day 6 (Friday)
morning
Coffee, fire, sign onto work. I’m tired and feeling very ready for the weekend. I’m hungry and eat some crackers. It’s the last day of training!
afternoon
No run today. T. checks the mail, and we have a package from his parents! They sent us reading material: The Best of Me by David Sedaris (one of my favorite authors) for me, and a seed catalog for T. so he can start planning out this year’s garden (lol). Turkey sandwiches for lunch! Take out some chicken to thaw out. Work ends in a blur between Excel sheets and making plans for next week.
night
I make some noodle soup with chicken and chinese vegetables. The dog watches me the whole time, hopeful from the smell of chicken. We rewatch Monsters Inc. because I am a child. I have some wine because who cares anymore.
Daily total: $0
Day 7 (Saturday)
morning
Did not sleep well. T. goes for a 10 mile run with the pup while I try to sleep a little more. I crawl out of bed around 10 to make coffee and watch youtube videos. Eat some leftover noodle soup for breakfast.
T. and the dog return! I have a run scheduled today, but it’s thankfully not 10 miles. We watch a soccer game while finishing coffee.
afternoon
I go on my run so I don’t have to think about it later. I’m supposed to run 1.5 miles today, and I break my PR for a mile! 11:28 minutes is slow compared to a lot of people, but T. says at least I’m doing it and getting out the door. So that’s nice. The dog and I also ran past some dead geese, and that makes me somewhat sad. We ran out of greens and vegetable staples, so we head into town for groceries and the dog park. We should’ve planned our grocery trip last Sunday better. On the way out, we check our mailbox. I have a postcard from a friend who recently moved to DC! It’s of cats reading books, and she says it reminded her of me. This makes me very giddy, and I plan to send her one back.
There’s no one in the park, but D. likes sniffing around anyway. We head to the grocery store for vegetables and things ($37.60 for my half). We head home.
night
T. makes chicken burritos for dinner, and I have some wine too. We do a New Yorker crossword while eating. This reminds me to text my friend in Philly if he wants to do a crossword together tomorrow.
We put on Monsters University for background noise. I sketch different angles of D. from pictures I’ve taken. I’m not very good, but it’s fun to mess around. We stay up too late, but it’s nice to do and think about nothing in particular.
Daily total: $37.60
Totals
Food + Drink: $131.92
Fun / Entertainment: $190.12
Home + Health: $50
Clothes + Beauty: $14
Transport: N/A.
Other: N/A.
Weekly Total: $386.04
Lastly, reflect on your diary! How do you feel about your spending? Was this a normal week for you? Has this inspired you to make changes or has it given you a “wow I’m doing pretty good” confidence boost? Is there anything you’re actively working on? No need to answer any or all these questions but just use this space to write any thoughts you have! This was above average for me. We usually don’t spend that much grocery shopping, but we ran out of a lot of frozen and preserved foods this week. I also don’t buy art supplies or houseplants every week, but would probably spend some money on a treat like nail polish. I guess part of it is not going to that town very often, and also just feeling like supporting those small stores. I spent a lot on things I don’t need, so I know I was irresponsible there. I also think I need a therapist for my anxiety. But anyway, I hope this was an okay read and please be kind <3 Thanks if you made it this far!

I am 26 years old, make $304k in the SF Bay Area, and work as a Software Engineer

Section One: Assets and Debt
Ever since I started working in 2016, I've received my company's full 401k match, which is this year is $9750 employer contribution to match $19,500 employee contribution. I've done the backdoor Roth since 2017 and the mega backdoor Roth since 2018. Every year I speak with a retirement advisor for free through my 401k, and we draw up a plan together to invest my money in passive index funds that I implement and rebalance myself to avoid advisor fees.

Account	Balance	Comments
401k	360k	Pre-tax, employer match, megaback door Roth (after-tax convert into Roth 401k)
Roth IRA	36k	backdoor Roth
HSA	23k	Used for some reimbursement, do not plan to do that going forward
Stocks	182k	Compensation in vested company stock
Down payment	250k	Parked in HYSA, planning to buy house in 2021
Savings Account	5k	Emergency fund
Checking Account	10k	Planning to open taxable brokerage account, usually I keep <1k in here
Credit card debt	0k	I pay this off multiple times a month
Student loan debt	0k	Parents paid for my education
Total Net Worth	$866K

Section Two: Income
I’ll describe my income in terms of how much I made pre-tax, not in terms of offer letters. Bonus numbers reflect yearly bonuses as well as unanticipated bonuses from launches and oncall, and equity reflects price at grant time. I’ve been at the same company since graduating from college.

Year	Comments	Salary	Bonus	Equity	Total
2021	Equity is projected due to market fluctuations	168k	31k	105k	304k
2020	Changed teams within company	161k	35k	96k	292k
2019	Lots of oncall	144k	41k	69k	254k
2018	Got promoted	125k	16k	67k	208k
2017	Got promoted	101k	30k	0	131k
2016	Started working mid year	42k	8k	0	50k

Main Job Monthly Take Home:
I front load my 401k and HSA contributions with my bonus and paycheck, so I don’t get a paycheck for the first few months of the year. But when I do, my monthly take home pay is $8600/mo.
Section Three: Expenses
I have 2 housemates so rent and utilities are split 3 ways. All expenses are monthly except for ones marked with *, which denotes an annual expense. Some things I do to keep my expenses low include borrowing books from the library, growing some food myself, and getting things for free from online forums.

Expense	Cost	Comments
Rent	$1156
Utilities	$64	Includes water, gas, electric, trash
Cell phone	$60	I pay for family’s plan
Fitness app	$4	Usually paid with survey credits
Groceries	$100	I only buy groceries that are < $1/lb, and I grow some food
Gas	$30	I drive to see my parents, otherwise I usually walk to grocery stores
Renter’s insurance	$0	Come at me, natural disaster
Dining out	$0	I visit my parents once a week to break the food monotony
Streaming service	$0	I use Peacock and YouTube
Dental insurance	$8	Before tax
Vision insurance	$4	Before tax
Medical insurance	$0	Work covers
Short term disability insurance	$0	Work covers
Long term disability insurance	$0	Work covers
Life insurance	$0	Work covers
Car Insurance*	$444	Never got into an accident
Car Registration*	$138
Credit Card fee*	$450	Between the $150 retention credit, $300 grocery credit, and $60 DoorDash credit, I make money off the Chase Sapphire Reserve

Section Four: Background
Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
My parents are Asian immigrants who stressed the importance of education even though they themselves never finished high school. As a first-generation college student, I got my bachelors degree at an Ivy-League university my parents paid for b/c we didn’t qualify for financial aid.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
Growing up, my parents didn’t talk to me about money but it was understood we were frugal. They taught me how to balance a checkbook, helped me get my first credit card, and how to beeline to the back of the store for the clearance rack.
What was your first job and why did you get it?
My first job was being a math tutor in high school b/c I was very good at math. My teacher recommended I tutor my classmate, and I charged his parents $20 per hour session.
Did you worry about money growing up?
I didn’t worry about money even though we were lower-middle class for our area b/c we could afford things like my extracurricular fees. Both my parents had stable jobs throughout my childhood.
Do you worry about money now?
I worry if I am doing the “right” things with my money, which manifests itself when I’m investing or spending money. I also worry if the golden handcuffs of my job are preventing me from pursuing more fulfilling or lucrative opportunities.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
I became financially responsible for myself when I got my current job, but my parents helped me financially as I lived with them (paying subsidized rent) for the first 3 years of my working life. My safety net is my parents but I would greatly prefer not to move back home as we do not make good housemates.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
I have never received inherited income as my grandparents’ assets transferred to their kids (my parents, aunts, and uncles) upon their deaths. My parents paid for all my expenses in high school and college.
Section Five: The Diary
Day 1 - Total: $0
8:00AM - I wake up after 8 hours of rest and spend 10 mins enjoying my warm covers before getting out of bed. I grab my phone that’s been charging in the living room to prevent me from scrolling late at night and bring it back to my bed for a 5 minute guided meditation. I brush my teeth, eat a breakfast of French bread soaked in milk, then get dressed for the day. My bedroom has served as my office since work from home started in March 2020, so I settle into my chair to catch up on emails. I currently have 2 high-level system designs I’m working on, so I dive into writing and researching one of those, since I only have 2 meetings this morning!
12:30PM - 30 minutes before my next meeting, I microwave leftover soy sauce chicken fried rice and miso tofu for lunch. During the meeting and with my video on but audio off, I nibble on 2 honeycrisp apple slices, a banana, and a date. I speak up a good amount in the meeting and come out of it with action items. I review written feedback my manager gave me and am a little unhappy; he doesn’t think I’m ready for promotion, which is true, but part of the problem is he doesn’t know my work well enough. I spend the rest of the day distracting myself from my unhappiness by reviewing and commenting on other people’s documents.
5:30PM - With the work day over, I immediately change into workout gear to do the workout my fitness app prescribes. Today is Abs & Arms, but I’m not sore at all. After the workout, I get dressed to go for a walk, only to realize it’s raining outside! Instead, I heat up soy sauce chicken fried rice for dinner and top it off with an orange slice, half a baked yam, and strawberry yogurt. I shower and apply a basic lotion to my face; I unfortunately have retinization from using too much retinol on my face too fast, so it’s back to basics until my face recovers.
8:00PM - Rain has given way to a storm, so I spend my evening getting my steps inside my house. I check the grocery circulars and am very excited to find $.97/lb chicken breast, $.99/lb pork chops, and $.99/lb whole chicken in the papers; I’ve never seen pork chops for <$1/lb. I ask a friend who’s offering to drop off baked goods if she’d like fresh-picked fruit from my backyard, since her place doesn’t have a yard. I find a knitting pattern for a hand towel and start it on my needles. Watching a YouTube video about COVID and the economy makes me sad, so I chat with friends online until 1AM.
Day 2 - Total: $0
8:45AM - I wake up naturally because I don’t have any meetings -- that is, until I check my phone! Without changing, eating, or brushing my teeth, I hurriedly turn on my work computer after realizing I’m 15 minutes late to an important meeting with senior engineers on my broader team, making sure to mute the video so they don’t see my messy hair. Thankfully, I didn’t miss much out of the hour-long meeting, I was able to hold my own during the discussion, and in between talking I sneak off to the kitchen to bring my breakfast of bread and apple slices to my room. After the meeting, I chat with 1 person from the meeting to gripe about the project timeline before he needs to go to their next meeting. Finally alone, I brush my teeth, get changed, check my email, and submit 3 code changes.
11:30AM - After a very short meeting with a colleague, I’m done with meetings for the day! I heat up the last of my soy sauce chicken fried rice and finish the meal with 2 dates, peach yogurt and a baked yam. The rest of the day I’m on a roll! I’m buildcop for my team this week, which means if any of our automated tests are flaky (fail sporadically when they are supposed to consistently pass), I’m on the hook to fix them. I deal with 3 buildcop issues then spend the rest of the day working on my design for the project discussed during the morning meeting.
6:00PM - With the work day over, I turn off my computer and exercise with my fitness app. I take a quick shower since I have a 6:30PM video call with a friend. We’re taking a virtual self-paced course together and meet weekly for a 1 hour discussion. It’s a great excuse to get together to grip about work and talk about life. This week we talk about the course, but also about work, dating, and religion.
8:30PM - After an enjoyable discussion, it’s time to sign off and make food. I make a lot since my refrigerator is looking empty: rice, tomato and onion stir fry, roasted potatoes, and overnight oats (for breakfast tomorrow). I eat some of the first 3 for dinner with plenty left over. After dinner, I call a friend while pacing around the house as it is raining outside again. I spend the rest of the night knitting the hand towel and go to bed around 1AM again.
Day 3 - Total: $1.68
8:00AM - I wake up after 7 hours of sleep, and it’s feeling like a slow day. I meditate in bed, brush my teeth, put on some basic lotion, then have overnight oats, 2 dates, and 2 fresh pancakes for breakfast. I spend the rest of the morning clearing my email and resolving buildcop bugs. I journal too; the rain and lack of sleep is putting me in a sad funk. On the bright side, the rain means I don’t need to water my plants!
12:00PM - For lunch, I eat rice and tomato and onion stir fry, roasted potatoes with ketchup, and a pancake. After lunch I have 2 meetings, a 1:1 with my tech lead and a sync for a project I’m part of. In the 1:1, I give my tech lead a status update in my projects, then he gives me much-appreciated advice on how to lead a project confidently. In the sync, I provide clear and helpful updates on my part of the project, which is wrapping up. For the rest of the day I address comments on my design, then for the last hour of the work day I tune into a team social video call where we gossip about the Gamestop and Robinhood debacle.
5:00PM - With the workday over and sun still out, I take advantage of the small break from rain to walk to Grocery N. I’m so happy; this is the first time in 2 days I’ve left my house! Grocery N advertised the $.97/lb chicken breast, but they are sold out! I’m devastated, but the worker I ask says they might have more Saturday. I buy a bunch of bananas for $.58/lb and quickly walk back home, since the sky is full of grey clouds again. $1.68
6:00PM - I’m very fortunate that I left the store when I did, as the skies opened up and poured 5 minutes after I made it home. My housemate is cooking dinner, so to avoid kitchen traffic I work out in my room. After an hour workout, I take a shower then make spicy green beans and tofu for dinner. The tofu goes well with my rice and tomato and onion stir fry. I spend the evening knitting and watching Bachelor Nation YouTube clips, and finally sleep at 1AM.
Day 4 - Total: $17.25
8:00AM - I wake up after 7 hours of sleep, but it’s sunny all day so my mood is positive. I brush my teeth and eat a pancake, milk, and a date for breakfast while checking my email. I have no meetings, so I spend 2 hours closing obsolete buildcop issues and addressing comments on my design docs. After getting to a natural starting point, I take a 30 minute break to clean up my room, the kitchen, and make rice for lunch.
11:30AM - For lunch, I have tomato and onion stir fry and spicy green beans and tofu with rice. I end the meal with a Fuji apple. In the afternoon I have 1 meeting for each of the 2 projects I’m working on. The meeting I lead goes very well; we do updates, discuss controversial points of the design, and end with clear action items. The other meeting went overtime and involved a lot of unnecessary bikeshedding. I work more on my design docs and make sure to send them to reviewers before the day is over; they are still drafts, but better to get feedback early.
5:00PM - With the workday over, I finally check my phone and see that my parents invited me to venture to shop with them! I quickly decide to go since I have some things I need to give them anyways. I load up the car and drive 20 minutes to their place. We pile into a single car and drive to Store D, where I get beauty face masks, disposable heat packs, tapestry needles, petroleum jelly, a fly swatter, a bottle opener (for my parents), and a kitchen oil dispenser for $11.47. From there, we walk across the plaza to Grocery M to buy 2 5-packs of udon noodles for $5.78, 1 for me and 1 for my parents. $17.25
9:00PM - We finally get back to my parents’ places, and I’m famished. I stay for dinner, and we have leftovers since we want something quick: noodle soup, curry with rice, and food I brought over to give them (tomato and onion stir fry and spicy green beans and tofu). I drive home after dinner, stopping by Grocery S to see if they have the $.99/lb pork chops and $.99/lb whole chicken, but they are out. I get home, shower, and spend my evening writing a card to a friend who is feeling lonely from the pandemic lockdown. The card takes way longer than expected, and I sleep at 3AM.
Day 5 - Total: $26.55
10:00AM - It’s the weekend, yet I still wake up after only 7 hours of sleep. I meditate, brush my teeth, eat a small breakfast of pancakes and milk in bed, and knit while watching Harry Potter & The Sorcerer’s Stone. Halfway through, I get a call from my parents to pick up food from their house. They’re part of a church that is a distribution site for the Farmers to Families Food Box Program, and they took 2 boxes home. I struggle a bit since I know the program is for those in need and most people would not consider me in need, but as a taxpayer and to help alleviate my parents’ refrigerator, I head out to go pick it up.
12:30PM - On the way there, I stop by Grocery S to see if they have the $.99/lb pork chops and $.99/lb whole chicken in stock. I luckily arrive in time to buy the last 2 packs of pork chops! I also get 2 whole chickens so the total comes out to $20.45. I give 1 pack of pork chops and 1 whole chicken to my parents, and they give me a Farmers to Families Food Box. We chat for a little about recipes and vaccines while I nibble on a corn on the cob for lunch. $20.45
3:00PM - On the drive home, I stop by Grocery N, which has the $.97/lb chicken breast in stock, so I buy a pack for $6.10. Back at home, I portion out the pork chops and chicken breast before storing them in the freezer. I unpack the Farmers to Families Food Box; in it are 1 gallon of low-fat milk, 1 tub of vanilla yogurt, 2 containers of sour cream, 1 pound of Monterey Jack cheese, a bag of potatoes, a bag of oranges, and a pack of 15 pre-cooked frozen drumsticks. I start making chicken and spaghetti squash soup and while it simmers for 1.5 hours, I do a TON. I put laundry in the wash, make waffle batter, toast the squash seeds, sprinkling bird feed on the lawn, pick fruit from my backyard for my friend who is coming to give me homemade baked goods, clean my room, clean the restroom, clean the kitchen, and take a shower. $6.10
5:00PM - Turns out my friend is not coming since the baked goods were a bust. While finishing Harry Potter & The Sorcerer’s Stone, I eat a dinner of rice with chicken and spaghetti squash soup and have a date and half an orange for dessert. I make a ton of waffles and nibble on them as I watch Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets by signing up for Peacock’s free 7-day trial (they have every Harry Potter) that I have plan to cancel in 6 days. Once full, I knit while finishing the movie until I’m out of yarn. I brush my teeth and turn in at 1AM.
Day 6 - Total: $9.09
8:00AM - I wake up after 7 hours of sleep and am happy that it’s sunny today! I eat a breakfast of waffles, milk, and a date. I brush my teeth, get dressed, and walk to Store T while chatting on the phone with a friend. At Store T, I get many dried spices (basil leaves, chives, oregano, sage), kitchen gloves, white vinegar, apple cider vinegar, vegetable oil, and a can of smoked oysters for $9.09. I walk home and start another pot of soup to dilute yesterday’s soup: 3 cups of the broth from yesterday’s soup, 3 cups of water, half a cup of lentils, a potato, a chayote, half an onion, half a head of cabbage, and one bok choy. I put everything in but the last two ingredients to boil for an hour while I put the things I bought away and scan all my receipts from the week to get credits I’ll use to pay for my fitness app subscription. $9.09
12:30PM - I put the leafy vegetables into the soup and once it’s ready, I have it for lunch while watching Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban. This soup tastes so much better than the one I made yesterday! After watching Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban, I vacuum my room and take a shower. I start a new scarf knitting project and work on that while watching last night’s SNL episode and videos for the virtual self-paced course. Throughout this, I drink water and snack on waffles, apple slices, and orange slices.
6:30PM - It’s dinner time, so I heat up another bowl of soup from lunch, adding in rice for more heartiness. After dinner, I meditate, fill in my Jan budget tracker, reflect on the past month, and set some February goals. I call Chase to follow up on an unauthorized charge claim on my credit card statement and the new credit card they're supposed to send me, but the claim is still processing. I coordinate with people to pick up free yarn from them next weekend. I spent the rest of the evening knitting and chatting with a friend, finally brushing my teeth and going to bed at a reasonable hour of 11:30PM.
Day 7 - Total: $0
7:30AM - I wake up after 8 hours of rest and have time to meditate, exercise, make my bed, brush my teeth, water my plants, and eat a breakfast of 2 waffles, 1 date, 1 banana, overnight oats, and milk before my first meeting. I have a whopping 4 meetings this morning! For 2, I’m a spectator, and for the 2 others, I’m an active participant. I actually was supposed to have a 5th meeting, but it overlapped with another meeting so I asked the person leading the 5th meeting to give my update for me. In the meetings I’m spectating, I listen while checking my email, checking the news, drinking water, journaling, and knitting. I find knitting helps me focus the best.
12:00PM - Today I have a lunch meeting with my mentor during which I eat the last of the soup that I made yesterday and a banana. We talk about the culture, decision-making process, and knowledge-sharing channels of the organization we’re in, and it’s clear there is room for improvement. After lunch, I have 2 more meetings, 1 that is uneventful and 1 that is me teaching a more junior engineer what I know. After my meetings are over, I submit 2 code changes and watch a recording of a design review that I missed. I end the workday with reviewing a design doc, reviewing a deck, replying to an important email thread, and referring a friend to the company.
4:30PM - After the workday is over, I call my parents to catch up while harvesting tomatoes from my backyard. I pick, wash, and eat 2 cherry tomatoes off my plant; they tastes great! I check my mail and an organization has asked me to give a virtual talk on being a software engineer. I did the same talk for the same organization last year, so I agree to do it again this year. They also want speakers from other industries, so I send some messages to people in my network.
5:30PM - I work out hard with my housemate, stretch, then wash my hair. I make a stew of chicken, spaghetti squash, potatoes, chayote, rice, and bok choy. While it simmers, I call a friend and pace around the house to get steps. When the soup is ready, I serve myself 2 bowls while watching Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire. I stop halfway to brush my teeth and go to sleep at 1AM.

Category	Cost
Food + Drink	$43.10
Fun / Entertainment	$0
Home + Health	$11.47
Clothes + Beauty	$0
Transport	$0
Other	$0
Total	$54.57

Lastly, reflect on your diary! How do you feel about your spending? Was this a normal week for you? Has this inspired you to make changes or has it given you a “wow I’m doing pretty good” confidence boost? Is there anything you’re actively working on? No need to answer any or all these questions but just use this space to write any thoughts you have!
While visiting my parents twice in a week and watching 3.5 movies is not standard, the spending was standard. I save wherever I can, and I don’t spend much b/c buying things sometimes stresses me out. My relationship with money has improved, but I’m still trying to figure out the line between frugal and self-destructive. Looking back, the thing I really want to change is my investment asset allocation. My 401k, Roth IRA, and HSA are all appropriately diversified, but my stock is not diversified, I should make progress on buying a house, and I should open a taxable brokerage account.

do online surveys really pay money video

Although like many things on the internet, the world of online surveys is awash in shysters, it is perfectly possible to earn money with surveys. In fact, there are millions of people around the world doing it. Expect to earn a few dollars per hour taking surveys for legitimate market research companies. Paid survey scams! Market research is a huge industry ($44.35 billion to be exact,) and while there are legit market research companies that conduct online surveys and actually pay panelists for their participation, there are also scammers out there who don’t mind ripping you off.Sadly, a lot of people do fall for these get-rich-quick scams. How much do online surveys pay? You’ve probably seen places online where they are claiming you can make big money with surveys. I saw one post claiming you can earn $4000+ a month just by taking surveys. No way. Those types of promotions have been happening for so long, that even if it’s true that people do earn from surveys, who would ... Conclusion: How Much Do Online Surveys Pay? Most survey panels don’t claim to give you a full-time income. Those that do probably aren’t legitimate. Surveys should be used as a form of extra cash. A little more spending money than you had before. Don’t let the raw numbers from your earnings fool you either. There are many factors that affect your earnings when taking online surveys, like how many you complete, how consistent you are, and your demographic information. Most surveys pay between $0.50 and $3 for 10 to 20 minutes of your time. There are surveys that pay up to $50, but those are rare. How much money you can make on online surveys in Canada. Like we said, you’ll never get rich off of doing online surveys – and you likely won’t even make a living. Online survey sites will likely pay you a handful of cents for most surveys, though it always varies based on things like the survey itself and if you were the target demographic. Do paid surveys really work? Yes, they do. Gift cards and cold cash via PayPal are the two primary ways in which survey sites pay you taking online surveys. Try all of the free sites before you pay for anything. You will most probably find that you will not need to pay anyone a thing to make money with paid surveys. Do Your Due Diligence. Finding the right paid surveys online takes some homework. There are definitely those paid survey sites that are not up to par with the others. RE :Do online surveys really pay you ? my sister used to do them and make money but she dont remember where she found them at what are some good ones. 2 following 9 answers. Source(s): For Credit and finance solutions I recommend this website where you can find all the solutions. Yes, you do really get paid for online surveys. But here’s the kicker, most people go about online surveys all wrong. They end up wasting their time, being frustrated, and with little to no money to show for it. Let me share with you some tips about how to go about it the better way so you end up with some change in your pocket…

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