“Timestamped Pictures”: 50 Random Things People Did That Really Saved Them Later

Started taking photos of my apartment during the final walkthrough when moving in. Landlord tried charging me for preexisting damage when I moved out but those timestamped pictures saved me $2,000 in bogus fees.

Got a blood test done in 8th grade at the insistence of my math teacher. I'd been leaving class every 30 minutes to use the restroom and he'd had it, and told my mom to go rule out a kidney infection or something since I insisted I wasn't leaving to skip class. The doctor told us I seemed fine but we did it anyway since I was there.

They called us back at almost midnight and told me my blood sugar was 926 and to get to the hospital before I went comatose. Diabetes is so fun.

This didn’t save my life, but it could’ve saved others had they also done it …

I camped A LOT in my teens through Boy Scouts and took the first aid and emergency prep aspects very seriously. In my early 20’s I went out camping with some friends and supplied the bulk of the gear we used. A small river ran through the park we were at and all of them wanted to set up next to it, so they could go swimming easier.

I pushed back HARD. The river was obviously already sitting a bit h**h and they wanted to set up shop in an area next to it that looked like a regular flood plain. In the end, after a lot of back and forth, I essentially told them “My gear, my choice. Walk down if you want to go swim. The tent and camp will be up here.”

Fast forward 2-3 weeks and a flash flood pushes through that river in the middle of the night, sweeping over that area where they’d wanted to camp. A few people ended up dying, seemingly being caught off guard in their sleep and getting trapped in their tents.

Don’t f**k around with water.

I’ve mentioned this one in a similar post before, but it still lingers in my brain

I was babysitting my toddler nephew and he’d managed to find a colorful metal straw somewhere in my house. He was just waving it around like a wand and tapping things, but I remembered a Reddit post I’d seen just that week of a woman who fell while using a metal straw and f****d her whole face up. I took the metal one away from kiddo and gave him a soft silicone one to play with instead.

Less than five minutes later he takes off running, falls, smushes the silicone straw directly into the side of his face. I don’t think I could breathe properly for like 30 mins after that.

Early 2000s, I would packrat paperwork and receipts, but ADHD so none of it is organized just stuff shoved in random places.

Stationed in Germany, landlord came around after two years claiming I never paid the deposit or first months rent. I’m like what, military housing office said I had to pay it and was no help, bank (military branch of Bank of America ran by a shady German woman) claimed they had no record and said I never paid it.

Dug thru my random piles to see if I had that money transfer receipt somewhere. Ended up finding it in a baggie in some drawer.

Saved me around $6000.

I took out salary continuance insurance until I was 65 instead of just the 2 years I was originally thinking. I was only 35 when I did that. The next year I was in a serious workplace accident and 20 years later and still unable to work full time, I am still getting 85% of my salary. I cannot imagine what my life would have been like if I didn't have that money coming in each month.

Not me but my mother. My mom bought the travel insurance on her Disneyworld trip because she is bipolar and thought if she had a bad day they would get a refund. Turns out it absolutely doesn’t cover that (shocker,) but what it did cover was my dad having a heart attack on property. He ended up needing to be life flighted, we had to get a hotel near the hospital, the whole thing. Insurance covered basically everything. Unfortunately, my father ended up dying, but we didn’t come home with a huge bill on top of the tragedy.

Kept a hidden account from ex to put in birthday cash etc and kept a go bag hidden in my car. Pretty sure to this day it saved my life.

Shaved my whole head after 2 separate doctors told me the tiny lump on my scalp was nothing to be worried about and went to a 3rd doctor just to be sure.
Surprise surprise it turned out to be a form of skin cancer and it was caught early enough to not be much of an issue

PSA: Get regular skin checks and if you know something is wrong with your body, whatever it may be, stay adamant because it could save your life.

I always keep a fire extinguisher in my jeep. One night while cooking dinner, I smelled smoke and saw flames coming from behind my oven. I grabbed the extinguisher from the pantry, pphhff. It was dead. I grabbed the extinguisher kept next to the fireplace, pphhff. Dead. I ran out to my jeep and grabbed that extinguisher and putout the fire (that had already spread to the cabinets above the stove. I replaced all 3 fire extinguishers the next day. About a month later, on the interstate, I noticed a car up ahead of me suddenly start smoking badly and made its way to the exit lane. I pulled in behind when I saw flames coming from underneath. I grabbed the extinguisher and started spraying under the car as the driver got out. I got her to pop the hood and put out the rest of the fire. It looked like a fuel line broke or came loose. Turns out, she was from out of state and had borrowed the car to bring her baby home from Children’s Hospital. The baby was in the back seat!! Always Jeep a fire extinguisher handy and check and replace them when the gauge gets out of the green.

This was years ago. I decided to change phone providers and get a new phone with a new number. The store clerk wrote down my new number on what seemed like an empty business card where they would write any customer’s new number on it. I knew you could look up your own number on your phone but I decided to stick the card in my wallet so I could just pull the card out and look at the number quicker that way.
Fast forward a few years to a concert I went to, I lost my wallet and didn’t realize until later in the night. Boy did that suck, at the time Apple Pay was just starting to be a thing but I didn’t have it registered and could only Uber back to my place, but no food or souvenirs from the concert. My night was ruined, and I was devastated. The next morning I get a call from a number I don’t have saved, “Hello, I have your wallet”. I think I teared up when I heard him but I asked how he has my number, and he told me it was in my wallet. I had no clue what he meant by that because I only remember having my IDs and debit/credit cards. We plan a meet up and when he shows me the card with my number I then remembered the clerk that wrote down my new number on the card.
Till this day I carry a laminated card in my wallet, with my name and a message saying if found please call xxx-number. What a life saver that card was.

Installed some water alarm sensors under boiler, washing machine, dishwasher, WC, etc. Got them just because „you never know“, they use the same system as my smart smoke detectors, and they were discounted.

First night, 2AM, alarm in the whole house goes off, I wake up, look at my phone „Water leak in basement“. First thought: yeah, no way, the f£$%ing new sensor must be faulty. Go downstairs to find a broken water pipe and water spraying out of it. Without the cheap sensor, I would have woken up in the morning to find out that my basement has turned into r/poolrooms.

Edit: Wow, 1000 upvotes. I‘ve never had more than 150 or so. :).

My abusive partner at the time and I were staying with some of my friends and I had to get up extremely early (like 3am early) for work the following day. I had asked my partner to plug in my phone when he was done using it before he fell asleep. Which of course, he didn't. I woke up the next morning to a nearly dead phone and nudes from another woman on his snapchat account. Thankfully, he was still dead asleep so I packed up everything I needed in a bag and left for work and never looked back. He tried many times to reach out to me, always just trying to reconcile so he had control over me, but I have never seen him since and never will again. Thank God.

I was looking up some minor random symptoms and one website said they could in very rare cases be a sign of testicular cancer. I gave the boys a check and sure enough lefty felt wrong. I lost a testicle but caught it before it spread so no need for chemo.

Bought the optional flood cover on our investment property, for just $30. Almost didn’t, as it was only $30. Two months later it flooded, and the repair bill was $380k.

My mother convinced me to take a physical map with me on a roadtrip, just in case, even though I was convinced I would be fine with my Google Maps. Taking the scenic route, I got stuck at a road closure in a dead zone where my Google Maps refused to load. I thought my only option would be to double back about 30 miles to the last turnoff to the highway from this road. That was, until I consulted the physical map that showed a cut through pass only five miles back. Turned out to lead up some windy mountain path and weirdly enough, through a military base, but it was still a legit civilian road that saved me from adding hours to my trip.

One time I was sanding some pieces from my 3D printer using a rotary t**l and suddenly got the idea that I should be wearing safety glasses. Only I didn't own any, so I drive my a*s to Walmart and got a cheap pair. Came home, went right back to sanding. Not even 2 minutes into it, a sharp piece of plastic flew up at me and hit me right in the goggle. I felt good about my decision that day.

When my mom went into labor with me, she was going to go to the local hospital to have me. My dad, on the other hand, knew that the local one didn’t keep the surgical room prepped. Therefore, he suggested going to a hospital a bit farther away that had the surgical room ready, should something go wrong. Long story short, mom ended up abrupting a few minutes before she got to the hospital and needed an emergency C-section. If she had gone to the local hospital, there was a strong chance that she would have lost me. Sooo something that my dad did ended up saving my a*s.

“There’s no reason for me to keep wondering around anymore. I should go back to the hotel room” — Me at 2am on Bourbon Street on NY 2025. (The attack was at 3am).

The other 3rd grade teachers and I held a parent night in the cafeteria. The parents and kids were at different stations doing little simple experiments. I left my area clean and ready to go, because I’m human. The others couldn’t care less. At the end of the night I happen to video the aftermath and my section. I had a gut feeling. The next day the custodian complained that a mess was left and the older teachers literally blamed me for a lack of organization. The weak principal was going to also put it all on me when I presented the video and shut down any discussion. TLDR: I had proof I cleaned up after myself.