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cost of living

Mel Robbins at the TEDx San Francisco event.

There are a lot of reasons for people to get discouraged these days. The cost of living is through the roof. We’ve entered the early phases of an election year that Americans of all political stripes are dreading and an increasing number of people are dealing with mental health issues.

That’s why we’re sharing a simple piece of advice from Mel Robbins that can hopefully uplift those feeling down by providing them with a simple tool to help when they feel hopeless.

Mel Robbins is a popular podcast host, author, motivational speaker and former lawyer who caught the public’s attention with her 2011 Ted Talk, “How to Stop Screwing Yourself Over.”

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Democracy

This Map Reveals The True Value Of $100 In Each State

Your purchasing power can swing by 30% from state to state.

Image by Tax Foundation.

Map represents the value of 100 dollars.

As the cost of living in large cities continues to rise, more and more people are realizing that the value of a dollar in the United States is a very relative concept. For decades, cost of living indices have sought to address and benchmark the inconsistencies in what money will buy, but they are often so specific as to prevent a holistic picture or the ability to "browse" the data based on geographic location.

The Tax Foundation addressed many of these shortcomings using the most recent (2015) Bureau of Economic Analysis data to provide a familiar map of the United States overlaid with the relative value of what $100 is "worth" in each state. Granted, going state-by-state still introduces a fair amount of "smoothing" into the process — $100 will go farther in Los Angeles than in Fresno, for instance — but it does provide insight into where the value lies.

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Family

'This isn't how it's supposed to be': Family with ‘good jobs’ lives paycheck-to-paycheck

“Go to college, get a degree, work to support your family. Here we are. Did that. Now what?”

A mom in Pennsylvania is having a hard time getting by even though she has a good job.

There’s a specific trait that exists deep in the American collective psyche that suggests that one’s financial well-being is somehow a reflection of their moral compass. Many people assume that if someone struggles to get by, they don’t work hard enough or make poor choices.

But that knee-jerk reaction couldn’t be farther from the truth. There are countless reasons why hard-working people struggle, especially these days with historically high inflation. Just about everything costs an arm and a leg.

For many, the sharp increase and costs forced them to go from being comfortable to getting by paycheck to paycheck. In addition to the financial stress, many feel stigmatized because of their struggles.

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Pop Culture

Woman who lives on a cruise ship for free shares the 4 things she can’t do

Living on a ship isn’t perfect. It’s just close to perfect.

A beautiful ocean liner

Upworthy has covered a few stories about people who decided to live permanently on cruise ships because it's cheaper than living on land or in a nursing home. These stories have connected with millions because they say a lot about the modern cost of living but are also aspirational.

Christine Kesteloo has become popular on TikTok with over 680,000 followers because she shares what living on a cruise ship is really like. Kesteloo is the wife of the ship’s Staff Chief Engineer, so she gets to live on the boat for free. She only has to pay for alcohol and soda, which she gets for half off.

“I live on a cruise ship for half the year with my husband, and it's often as glamorous as it sounds,” she told Insider. “After all, I don't cook, clean, make my bed, do laundry or pay for food.“

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