The Marble Jar Channel

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today’s video, let’s talk about how to stay social during the Coronavirus lockdown.  My community has not been told to shelter in place yet, but we’ve all basically decided to do so.  As you know, what this means in practice is no going out except to pick up essentials like medicine or groceries and to have things delivered if at all possible.  This represents, as it does for everyone, a drastic difference in the amount of social contact that we all have — which is obviously the point!  But humans are social animals and we need human interaction to be emotionally healthy. So, it’s time to get creative about the ways that we interact during a quarantine.  I’m going to list all of the options from least intensive and interactive to most.  Group text chats I have several of these going in regular life, but they are even more important when you don’t see people regularly.   Make a bunch of group text c

Hi, everyone.  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll share my tips for successful distance learning during the Coronavirus outbreak.  These are unprecedented times.  People are sheltering in place, everyone who can is working from home, and college students who normally learn on campus are home on lockdown trying to figure out how to best learn online.  I've been in grad school in a distance learning program for the past couple of years, so I thought I'd share some of my tips on how to make it go as smoothly as possible.  First, let's talk about the differences between  Online vs. Classroom Learning In my experience, with online learning you basically teach yourself by doing the assigned readings or watching the assigned videos and then you use that newly gained knowledge to answer discussion questions either directly to your professor or in an interactive forum like a text-only Blackboard discussion board, a FlipG

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll show you how I use my wireless headphones with my TV with just a $20 online purchase. There are many reasons why you may want to send the sound from your TV to wireless headphones.  Maybe you have a spouse or baby who is easily awakened and you want to watch TV in the room where they are sleeping.  Maybe you have noise-sensitive roommates.   Maybe you watch TV a little louder than is comfortable for the people you live with.  My main reason is my daughter likes to do her homework in the same room where I am working, but she can't concentrate with my mindless murder mysteries or reality shows that I like to have on as background.  So rather than have absolute silence, I use this method to have the TV on, but have the sound sent to my wireless headphones. If you are someone who watches TV this way frequently, you may want to consider dedicated headphones, which start around $6

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar Channel and in today's video, I'll tell you why I use Google Photos as my main photo system. A couple of years ago, I did a 4-part series on how I organized and managed my digital photos -- using a combination of Picasa and Google Photos.  I've since abandoned that system -- mostly because my computer crashed and lost all of my hard storage data, but since I already had all of my photos stored in Google Photo's cloud, I just started using that full-time.   I've done some videos since then on how to free up space on your phone and how I use Google Photos, but I thought I'd restate my reasons for WHY I use Google Photos in the first place.  The first reason is to Free Up Space on My Phone I don't want every photo that I've ever taken stored on my phone.  I don't have unlimited data and I don't want to have to choose between deleting old photos or taking new ones.  Google Photos

Hi, everyone.  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll show you how I set up YNAB to work best for me as someone with maybe a non-standard profile: I'm debt-free and have money left over at the end of the month.   I'll admit that my profile looks different than most folks starting out with YNAB: we don't have any debt and we generally have money left over at the end of the month.  In addition, I'm a former Mint user and have that standard budgeting mindset, so the way I use YNAB reflects that a bit.  My hope in putting this out there is to provide some ideas to those who may have been really successful in reining things in with YNAB and also those (like me) who budget even when they don't absolutely need to just to keep things on track.  I've been keeping a budget religiously since I was in college.  Since I like financial data and reporting, I do it regardless of whether we really need it.  We've gone t

Hi, everyone.  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll show you a step by step process on how you can use YNAB to pay down debt, including credit card debt. This video is for folks who have already set up a budget in YNAB and have been using it, but haven't quite figured out how to make it work for them to start paying down debt.  I'm going to walk you through my step by step process to setting up YNAB to start this process.  I will say at the outset that there are lots of ways to do this in YNAB -- this is just one option. Commit to No New Debt - you need to make a commitment to yourself to not accumulate new debt.  Do whatever you can to stay on your budget and spend less than you bring in.  I know sometimes this isn't possible -- life happens -- but this commitment is important to stop the bleeding before you can start moving forward.  Next,  List Your Debts - The next step is to make a giant list of all your d