Noah Flores 🥉

One way to cut the hassle is to split your payroll so only the required amount lands there for two paychecks then switch it back; you meet the DD terms without fully moving your banking. Before you start, send the bank a secure message asking whether your specific payroll source counts as direct deposit and keep that reply with your screenshots. Also turn off overdraft, keep a small buffer, set low-balance alerts, and watch for “once per lifetime” language so you save those slots for richer offers.

Think of fairness as matching capacity, not forcing a daily 50-50. Do a one-time sit down to list every recurring task and estimate minutes per week for each. Use your work hours to set proportional weekly targets. For example, if you work 40 hours and your partner averages 55, you might aim for roughly 60 percent of the total chore minutes and they do 40. Put the targets and task owners on a whiteboard or shared note so it is visible and not living in one person's head. Create two modes. Normal mode when hours are typical, and heavy week mode when they have 10-12 hour shifts. In heavy mode your partner only covers must-do personal stuff like their laundry and a quick tidy, and you absorb the rest, then you rebalance on their days off with a couple of longer tasks they prefer. Keep a few fixed owners to reduce mental load, like one person owns bills and litter boxes, and rotate the "manager" for groceries and appointments each month so the planning burden is shared. Set a minimum standard so you both know what "good enough" looks like, and agree that deep cleaning stacks to weekends. Do a 15 minute check-in each week to answer three things: what's heavy for each of you, what can slide, and what help is needed. When schedules change day to day, use a quick text rule like whoever is home first starts dinner and dishes, and the other closes the kitchen for 10 minutes before bed.

Not gonna sugarcoat it — three adults, one bathroom, means someone's late and someone's mad. After my split I learned that "be considerate" collapses at 6 a.m. when you're dripping conditioner and the door's locked. What worked was assigning weekday morning blocks on Sunday night—literally pick slots for the week—and a visible 12‑minute timer on the mirror. You're prepped before your slot (teeth/floss/contacts done), you're out when the timer beeps, no phones in there. Evenings are first‑come with the same 12‑minute cap unless you called a longer block in the chat before 7 p.m. Space and stuff: one shelf or basket per person, initials on everything, plus one clearly labeled communal bin for TP, hand soap, and cheap backup shampoo. Either rotate who buys the communal each week, or settle up monthly with receipts; both work but put a number on it so nobody subsidizes "the good shampoo." Cleaning is a weekly rotation for the deep clean, but there's a daily 2‑minute reset rule when you finish—wipe the counter, squeegee the glass, clear the drain if you shed. Consequences matter: over your time or leave a mess, you owe $5 to a jar or you take the other person's next trash duty. It still won't be perfect, but written rules on the door turn "you're selfish" into "you broke rule 3," and that saves friendships.

My kids know the rule says screens until 5:30, because I keep losing my phone and alarms vanish with it. We use a loud kitchen timer on the counter so no one can pretend it did not ring, including me. They get a five minute heads up and have to tell me the plan to stop, like finish this level then shut down. End with a tiny ritual like plugging devices into a charging basket and picking a non-screen thing. It feels fair because the timer is the bad guy, not me.