How to budget, make a phone call, and other important life skills you should know.
When Genevieve Bellaire graduated from law school in 2015 at 26 years old, she had acquired ample knowledge of case law, but didn’t really understand the deal with health insurance, taxes, or how to find an apartment. What were all these forms she was being asked to complete at her new job? How do you set up a 401(k)? “I found that I just really didn’t have the answer,” Bellaire says, “and oftentimes, didn’t even know the question to ask to make smart decisions.”
Bellaire realized many young people were similarly ill-equipped to deal with the realities of adulthood. According to a 2021 survey of recent US college grads, 81 percent wished they were taught more life skills before they graduated. After years of following a syllabus, there are few instructions for how to get your act together outside the confines of a classroom or your parents’ home, she thought. In 2021, Bellaire launched Realworld, an app designed to answer those same adulting questions for its user base of over 100,000.
The responsibilities newly independent adults face are vast, and range from hard skills, like budgeting, to soft skills, like relationship deftness. Everyone’s experience on the road to adulthood won’t mirror Bellaire’s exactly — maybe you’ve been working full time since before leaving home; maybe you didn’t pursue higher education; maybe you’re the primary caregiver for your parents, siblings, or children. Regardless of your situation, there are common responsibilities and skills that can be mystifying if you’ve never heard of them before or were never taught. You don’t need to be an expert in all aspects of adulting (and many of these topics are expansive and complicated), but experts say having some baseline knowledge about key subjects will help make the transition into self-reliance a little smoother.
These tips are meant as a general framework rather than a purely prescriptive guide, since so much of how you approach finances and relationships depends on your situation — so come up with systems that work for you.
Budgeting and finances
Realworld users are consistently most concerned about budgeting, Bellaire says. Surveys show Gen Z Americans are anxious about their finances yet don’t know how much they spend in a given month.
Budgeting doesn’t need to be complicated. First, determine how much money you take home every month. This is the amount of money you earn after taxes, social security, health insurance, and retirement are taken from your paycheck. This is easier to calculate if you have a salary or work a set amount of hours each week, and your employer already removes these deductions. If you’re a freelancer or contract employee, set aside 20 to 30 percent of your earnings for taxes.
Next, tally up your expenses. This includes rent or mortgage, utility bills, student loans, health insurance premiums (if you pay for health insurance independently), food, transportation, car insurance, child care, and any other bills.
From there, you’ll need to figure out how you’re going to allocate your income to cover your expenses and beyond. Bellaire is a proponent of the 50/30/20 budget, in which 50 percent of your income goes to needs (housing, food, transportation, child care, utilities), 30 percent goes to wants (streaming subscriptions, dining out, concerts, entertainment), and 20 percent goes to yourself (savings account, retirement account, paying off debt). These breakdowns won’t work for everyone’s circumstances, especially if you financially support other people, but you should have a general idea of how much you’re spending versus bringing in.
It’s also worth incorporating some buffer money, says Alyssa Mairanz, founder of the online platform and e-course Adulting In The Real World. “Not every month is going to be the exact same expenses,” she says. “Things come out of the blue.”
You can track your budget in a spreadsheet, a budgeting app or go old-school with a notebook.
If you can, start saving for retirement, Bellaire says. Read through any materials given to you by your employer if you’re enrolling in their 401(k) plan. Mairanz suggests seeking out a financial adviser who can offer financial advice and can help with retirement planning. (Just be aware of how they get paid: through a fee or commission.)
Young adults should also know their credit score, Bellaire says. Your credit score measures your trustworthiness as a consumer and the likelihood of you paying back a loan. “We like to call it the GPA of the real world,” Bellaire says. “It’s the most important three-digit number that can have a big impact on your ability to rent an apartment, to buy a house, buy a car, even get a job.” Yes, the calculation for determining a credit score is discriminatory and arbitrary, but it’s still a figure worth having in your back pocket. You can check your credit report online to keep tabs on your credit score.
Young people may not have credit and will need to build it in order to get a loan or rent an apartment. You can build credit by getting a credit card, or becoming an authorized user on your parents’ card, and setting up automatic payments. Sometimes, putting a major expense, like a medical bill, on a credit card is unavoidable, but if you can, try to avoid making major purchases on a credit card. Try to pay back your credit card bills in full if you can; interest will accrue quickly and you don’t want to struggle for years with paying off credit card debt.
Health insurance
Young people can stay on their parents’ health insurance until they’re 26, but may choose to get their own insurance if their parents are not insured, they prefer to join their company plan, or they purchase their own insurance through HealthCare.gov, the health insurance marketplace. (Open enrollment through the marketplace is November 1, 2022, through January 15, 2023.)
If you’re covered under your workplace plan, double check the dates for open enrollment and if you need to reelect coverage each year. If you lost coverage, got married, or had a baby and need to change your coverage during the year, you qualify for a special enrollment period and can make those changes.
When you’re shopping for plans or making selections on your company plan, you’re going to need to learn some lingo. “People need to understand deductibles,” Mairanz says. A deductible is what you pay when you see a doctor who is covered by your insurance before your insurance starts to pay. If your deductible is $2,000, you’ll need to pay for $2,000 worth of services by an in-network provider. After you hit your deductible, you’ll pay a copay or coinsurance for covered services and the insurance company will pay the rest. Most health insurance plans cover preventive services, like shots and screenings, for free before you’ve met your deductible.
If you’ve met your deductible and have continued paying copayments until you’ve reached your out-of-pocket maximum, you won’t have to pay for anything else after that; your insurance plan will. Another term worth knowing is premium, the amount you pay every month for health insurance coverage.
Always remember to check if a doctor is covered by your insurance before you make an appointment. If you go to an out-of-network provider you may be responsible for paying the full amount of the service or other costs. Should you receive a massive medical bill by surprise, Elise, co-host of the podcast Kinda Adulting, suggests calling your medical provider and requesting a payment plan instead of paying the large sum at once — or worse, not paying it at all. “Because it will get to collections,” says Elise, who, along with her co-hosts, Jordan and Simone, asked that their last names not be used in order to avoid conflicts with their employers. Also, she says, make sure you have your health insurance card ready when dealing with doctors’ offices and billing departments.
Cooking basics
A major part of living away from your parents is knowing how to feed yourself. Mairanz suggests always keeping your kitchen stocked with the basics of your typical diet. (Meaning, if you’re gluten-intolerant or dairy-free, you won’t want to stock up on bread or milk even if they are considered staples.) This can include eggs, pasta, chicken, and frozen veggies. Make sure you have the appropriate tools to make these foods, too: frying pan, pots, microwave, baking tray.
Beyond having the necessary equipment, think about your lifestyle and what kind of cooking habits you’ll have. If you work two jobs and only have time to pick up a bite on the go, you might be better suited allocating your food budget for takeout, premade meals, or kits. If you genuinely enjoy cooking and food shopping, your dollars will go further at the grocery store. “A lot of it gets back to budgeting to where you’re putting your dollar and your time budget as well,” Bellaire says.
Accustomed to grocery shopping with her family, Jordan, of the Kinda Adulting podcast, had to learn to shop and cook for one once she moved out on her own. Buying in bulk and storing copious leftovers occupies precious space in what may be a small apartment and refrigerator, so only buy what you need to feed yourself for the week. “Look on YouTube so you can see how people are preparing things if you don’t have somebody that you can learn from in person,” Jordan says. Elise frequently uses HelloFresh recipes for inspiration, since they’re often portioned for a single diner, and then purchases the ingredients on her own.
Making a phone call
A popular topic in Mairanz’s adulting course is how to make a phone call. “We’re in more of a digital age and with online booking and texting, people talk on the phone less,” she says, “but there are times that this is something that has to be done.” From doctors’ appointments to customer service requests, feeling comfortable talking to another human on the phone is a must.
Mairanz suggests writing down the main points you want to discuss in the call ahead of time and to be prepared for either talking to another person or leaving a voicemail. Your script can be as simple as “Hi, I’m a customer and I just received a bill that I think is incorrect. Could I speak to someone who can review and explain my bill?” Be prepared with your account information and questions about next steps.
For voicemails, Elise suggests leaving your full name, repeating your phone number twice, your email address, and the reason for your call.
Build new structure
If you’ve been living at home for a significant chunk of time, you’ve developed set patterns and dynamics. Maybe your parents always bought the groceries and did your laundry; there were expectations and standards. On your own, you’re going to need to rebuild these frameworks.
Regardless if you’re living with roommates, a partner, or solo, have a discussion both with your housemates and with yourself about how your home is going to operate, says clinical psychologist Jamie Goldstein, author of How to Adult, A Practical Guide: Advice on Living, Loving, Working, and Spending Like a Grown-Up. When are cleaning days? When will you go food shopping? What day are you doing laundry? What guests are able to visit and how long are you comfortable with them staying? “That structure can then follow you out into the world of other dynamics that you’re navigating,” she says.
Setting these home boundaries with yourself and others lays the foundation for maintaining limits in other relationships, like work and romance.
Interpersonal skills
Early adulthood comes with many new faces and responsibilities. For those first moving out of their parents’ house, they’re navigating living with new people. Professional environments place people of different ages, experience levels, and backgrounds in one place. Dating as an adult is rife with interpersonal misfires. One of the greatest skills young people can have is learning how to navigate these relationships, Goldstein says.
Two keys to navigating the murky waters of real-world conversations, Goldstein says, are to engage with curiosity and learning to deal with discomfort. Some conversations will be hard, but she advises entering them not by accusing another person, but by hearing them out and learning from their experience. “The world of ‘adulting’ can be a really uncomfortable place to be, and you’re navigating all of these relationships and situations that bring you a heck of a lot of discomfort,” she says. “Discomfort of figuring out your budget, discomfort of how am I going to split groceries with roommates, discomfort of these dishes have to get done, but they’re not my dishes, and how do we deal with that and talk about that?”
Goldstein is also a proponent of running your errands in person instead of shopping online, to get the benefit of interacting with others. There’s value in feeling confident approaching an employee at a store to ask if they have a shirt in your size or if there’s a restroom available. You’re practicing asking questions and potentially hearing “no” and troubleshooting from there.
When you’re engaging with store employees or customer service reps, maintain your composure even if you’re frustrated and feel like your requests are not being met, says Simone, another co-host of Kinda Adulting. “My mom always tells me to ignore attitudes,” Simone says. “I just keep going on with what I have to do. That’s a part of adulting: you’re dealing with [customer] service all the time, and a lot of times it’s not the best and you have something to accomplish.”
These skills aren’t as easily Google-able as budgeting spreadsheets, but are equally as important to living a successful adult life. Because these conversations and relationships are so difficult, you might stumble and say something you regret, or act in a way that exacerbates the problem. Be kind to yourself and others when these missteps occur (because they will). Another thing they don’t teach you in school: even in adulthood, everyone’s still learning.
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6 questions about the biggest political event of the year.
The biggest political event of the year is happening this weekend — and it’s not an election.
Beginning on October 16, some 2,300 delegates from around China will assemble in Tiananmen Square’s Great Hall of the People for the Chinese Communist Party’s week-long Party Congress. After much behind-the-scenes deliberations among party elites, the choices for China’s top leadership for the next five years will be presented to the country. The party will also review last term’s progress and set out its domestic and foreign policy goals for the next one. Decisions on both policy and personnel will be finalized officially in the spring.
The stakes of what happens during this Congress for China and the rest of the world will probably be the most momentous in decades. President Xi Jinping, who has more personal power over China than any leader since Mao Zedong, is expected to be confirmed to serve an unprecedented third term.
“The question is: How elevated will Xi Jinping be?” said Michael Swaine, the director of the East Asia program and an expert on Chinese defense and foreign policy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “There’s going to be a lot of continuity with a probable strengthening of his position.”
China has changed dramatically under Xi’s now decade-long rule. Xi will likely laud his administration’s success on ending extreme poverty, tackling climate change, curbing corruption, and, at least until recently, growing the economy. Despite its initial missteps in containing the virus, China’s zero-Covid guidelines succeeded at limiting mortality from Covid-19 compared to many other countries, though that success has come with serious economic and political side effects. China also transformed its foreign policy and became the world’s largest creditor with the Belt and Road Initiative, a massive global infrastructure and development program.
During Xi’s time in power, however, China has also become more nationalist, authoritarian, and repressive. The government has engaged in what many critics, including the United States, have called genocide toward the Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minority groups in Western China and crushed any semblance of autonomy in Hong Kong. Abroad, China has become more assertive of territorial claims in the East and South China Seas, engaged in border skirmishes with India, and most notably, ratcheted up military action and threatening to use force to bring Taiwan under its control.
Given that all of the major policy and personnel decisions have already been made behind the scenes, the best way to think about the Party Congress is as a weather forecast for China and the world. Internally, China is dealing with significant economic issues, partly as a consequence of its strict zero-Covid policies and a real estate crisis. It’s also facing more climate catastrophes and a looming demographic collapse as its population appears to have begun to decline. Externally, China finds itself with frostier relations with the US and European Union — its largest trading partners — while the Global North’s public opinion of China has soured because of its pandemic response.
This year’s Party Congress will begin to make clear whether and how Xi and the Chinese government will reframe their approach to a world that has hugely changed since the last Party Congress five years ago. Xi “still recognizes that China must remain an international player in many, many different ways in order to succeed,” Swaine said. “He cannot isolate China and turn it into a sort of self-contained entity.”
To learn more about the future of China, I spoke with Swaine about what to expect and how Xi views the current geopolitical moment. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Muizz Akhtar
What does a third term for Xi Jinping mean? Why is it such a big deal?
Michael Swaine
Under normal circumstances, at least in recent decades, Xi Jinping would be stepping down, but of course, he will not. What this means is that Xi Jinping is truly a very powerful, dominant figure within the Chinese Communist Party. He will likely continue to exercise that dominance over the next five years, at least. He may even stay in power until 2035, which is one big milestone or benchmark that the party has put in its development plans. What that really does suggest is that he’s continuing to make and remake the party in some ways in his own image, but also put his supporters in positions of power. That’s really the critical other issue: to what extent will people seen as very loyal and beholden to him be put even more so in positions of power through the Party Congress?
This is not just a question of Xi Jinping having removed any possible opponents to himself and put in his own supporters. Large numbers of the party leadership support the general thrust of Xi Jinping’s direction and his governance. His whole role has been to strengthen party leadership and party control within China to correct the corruption, the backsliding, and the confusion that emerged over recent decades as to what the party’s role is in society, the economy, in politics, and foreign policy. His whole tenure has really been focused on strengthening the party and leading China into the 21st century.
Muizz Akhtar
So it sounds pretty much like we know what’s going to happen — at least the top line. Can we expect any surprises? Is there anything we should be watching out for?
Michael Swaine
There aren’t really any individuals in the leadership who you can say are opposing factions. He has essentially eliminated those kinds of potential leaders, like Bo Xilai and other people from the past, who might have been able to challenge him in any really significant way.
What people look for in terms of changes are individuals who are perhaps not so closely tied to Xi Jinping, who are more in the realm of technocrats or reformers, who are interested in [the question of]: “How do we really try to maintain market incentives and China’s role in the global trading system while we’re sort of increasing party control?”
Today, it’s really all about your stance toward specific policy questions, issues of economic reform, how much success you’re having in your policies at home and overseas. So Xi Jinping’s future rests more with his policy failure or success than it does with his power relationships with other factions.
Muizz Akhtar
How has Xi maintained his support in the CCP in spite of the domestic crises that have come about? I’m thinking about the economic problems, real estate bubble, and fallout from the zero-Covid policies.
Michael Swaine
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that everybody moves in lockstep, and nobody’s unhappy and there’s no grumbling going on in the ranks or among some fairly high leaders. China is encountering increasing numbers of both domestic and foreign problems, in part because of Xi Jinping’s policies. Over time, if these continue and they worsen — say, zero-Covid, which I think the Party Congress will continue to back, continues to grate a lot of people in the country, and it expands in nature — these things could rebound against Xi Jinping over time. But I would not say that at this point in time, that there is a movement afoot, let’s say, to sort of challenge Xi Jinping on policy issues.
It’s a qualified leadership. His leadership is strong, and is likely to get stronger in many ways if the policies don’t fall apart. And there’s all sorts of arguments as to whether the economy is going to tank or whether relations with the West are becoming so strained that it creates problems for China domestically. But if that doesn’t happen, you’re still probably going to get Xi Jinping ruling, but the policy questions will remain.
Muizz Akhtar
Why does what happens at this Party Congress matter to China’s broader population? What will tell us about China’s domestic trajectory under Xi?
Michael Swaine
There are several issues. The first one is that Xi Jinping is connected to very specific types of policies and visions for China’s future. Like the grand rejuvenation of China, which he hopes to achieve by 2049, the elimination of inequality so that you have a more just society, corruption, etc. All of those things are going to be continued under Xi Jinping. And those have important consequences for Chinese society.
It also involves a very strong role for the party. There’s greater effort to try to control the activities of interest groups in China and the activities of institutions. All of this is something that does grate up against what some people regard as the importance of some level of free communication and some level of market-based activity.
Muizz Akhtar
What does this mean for China’s relationship with the United States and the world more broadly?
Michael Swaine
You’ll see continuity with what’s been established under Xi Jinping already, which is that China is fully committed to engaging the world, and pursuing “win-win” outcomes. It wants to invest more in the world and be a part of the world community. At the same time, it wants to see changes in some of the norms and standards that have governed in certain areas in the direction of greater justice as defined by the Chinese, which means justice for developing societies and developing countries, and justice for China’s own influence — in other words, giving China greater say at the seat of the table.
Alongside that, you’ll have the desire to preserve and protect China against what is seen now as efforts by the United States to contain the development of the People’s Republic of China. The Communist Party will define US policy as not just anti-party but anti-China.
So the Chinese government under Xi Jinping will continue to try to guard against greater levels of US pressure because they see the US struggling with its own problems internally, and in other ways, China’s leadership sees the United States as potentially more dangerous. Which is exactly the same kind of argument that people [in the US] project against China’s leadership. I think both of those arguments are overblown, but they do get some traction within the leaderships of both of these governments. And so the competition between the US and China will deepen and the danger of continuing down this route is that it really does pose some serious dangers, particularly over Taiwan.
Muizz Akhtar
What do you think the media gets wrong about the 20th Party Congress and political succession in China?
Michael Swaine
The media often tends to take a very sort of one-dimensional and simplistic look at the way the party exists and how it operates in China. Yes, the Party Congress is kind of a showcase more than it is a deliberative body. But the party in China is nearly 100 million people. This is not a small elite group of power-hungry people at the top of the system who are keeping everybody down; it is deeply infused in Chinese society in many ways that are in some respects seen by ordinary Chinese as good and beneficial. This is no doubt a one-party dictatorship — there’s no question about it. They do not tolerate dissent, either in words or inactions.
However, the policies of the party, that representation at local levels, how they interact with this Chinese society at the root level, is much more complex than that simple narrative of a dictatorial one-party, top-down system. The media needs to appreciate that complexity more and understand that the party is, in many ways, serving the interests of Chinese society, while at the same time in some ways threatening the future of China because of this heavy-handedness that is exercised under Xi Jinping.
Despite his antics, Walker outperformed low expectations.
In a debate punctuated as much by theatrics as real issues, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) faced off against first-time senate candidate and former professional football player Herschel Walker, highlighting the crucial role Georgia plays in the struggle over control in the Senate — which seems to be slipping out of Democrats’ grasp.
For months leading up to the debate, it was unclear whether Walker, a frequently nonsensical public speaker prone to promoting lies related to the 2020 election, his business ventures, and on Friday night, his connections with law enforcement agencies would even debate Warnock, the Savannah-born pastor of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, as Politico’s Natalie Allison reported.
However, Walker outperformed low expectations on the debate stage in Savannah, mainly opting to repeatedly tie Warnock to President Joe Biden by emphasizing Warnock’s voting record, and by attempting to call into question Warnock’s spiritual bona fides. Warnock focused on Walker’s repeated lies, about everything from whether he had asked a former girlfriend to have an abortion to Walker’s claims that he was an FBI agent and worked for the Cobb County Police Department, despite there being no record of him working there.
Raphael Warnock: “One thing I have not done — I have never pretended to be a police officer. And I’ve never threatened a shootout with the police.”
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) October 14, 2022
Herschel Walker: [pulling out a badge prop, in violation of debate rules] “I am work with many police officers.”#GASenDebate pic.twitter.com/pyUzXkw7yT