spent
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Celina Tolbert, 31, a social media manager from North Carolina who is based in Paris. This piece has been edited for length and clarity.It started off as a joke. I’m not rich, so I didn’t think I’d be able to afford…
A few weeks ago, a friend dropped a link in our mom text group asking if anyone wanted to take an afternoon off and see a matinee on Broadway together.My first thoughts were: absolutely not. I have a job. It’s the most hectic time of the school year. I’m a…
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Astha Chaturvedi, 38, the founder of Mouri Living. Her words have been edited for length and clarity.After a decade in Big Tech and at McKinsey, I was working at Ripple in San Francisco when I decided to build my own startup.I…
As a New Yorker who’s rented several cramped apartments over the years, tiny homes inspire me.Making the most of a minimal square footage requires some creativity. I often book fun-sized accommodations when I travel, hoping to discover new space-saving hacks to make the most of my own little dwelling.From Florida, Maryland, and…
When I graduated from college in 2021, all I cared about was moving abroad.As a Spanish and communications student, I was supposed to spend a full year studying abroad in Seville, Spain — something I had looked forward to for years.Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, though, I had to leave…
With two nights on the California Zephyr and two beds to choose from, I picked both.In February 2026, I took the Amtrak sleeper train’s full route from Chicago to Emeryville, California. For the 53-hour train journey, I booked a $2,200 bedroom with a foldout couch and an upper bunk. As…
Growing up in a big Italian family, I always enjoyed Sunday afternoons filled with bowls of spaghetti and meatballs cooked by my nana. Winters meant my dad would grind meat in the basement to make soppressata, or “soupy.”Throughout middle school, high school, and college, I took six years of Italian,…
There were so many things I couldn’t have predicted about sleeper train travel before taking my own night rides.I slept on an Amtrak overnight train for the first time in October 2021. I booked a round-trip ride between New York City and Miami. Each ride was 30 hours.On the way…
New York just got goopier.Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop Kitchen is built for a Los Angeles crowd. It is health-pilled, vegetable-forward, and full of avocado. Indeed, the shop opened nine locations in LA and four more in the Bay Area, ripe for biohacking tech bros.In April, Goop Kitchen officially hopped coasts. The…
The year was 2006. Pluto had just been downgraded to a dwarf planet. I was obsessed with my Motorola Pebl flip phone and iPod. It was also the year I started paying down my student loan balance after completing my MBA. Loading audio narration… For 20 years, this student loan…
