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

Added a $4/mo health insurance option that covered like 8 weird things. Turns out my wife indeed needed one of those 8 things (vertebral arthroplasty). Saved us over $100K or a $30k trip to Spain to have it done.

In 2020 my husband and I bought new cars for the first time (we were both driving hand-me-downs previously). We had gotten married in 2014 but I was slow about changing my name on everything, and as we were getting ready to buy new cars I realized my current car's registration still had my maiden name on it.

I had done all of the research, negotiating, etc. so by the time we were ready to go in and buy, I had a binder full of stuff to make sure no one tried to pull anything sketchy (emails with offers in writing, our trade-in offers from Carmax, etc.). I also threw in a copy of our marriage license just in case.

When we said we wanted to trade in our current vehicles (for which Carmax had already offered us 3k each), first they tried to tell us that KBB values for them were like, $500 and $800 respectively, so we said we'd just sell to Carmax instead. They asked for those offers and we handed them over and they went back to the back. Then a bit later they came out and said they were having a problem with the trade because my car was still in my maiden name, and did I have anything that could prove I was the same person? So I said, "Like our marriage license?" and whipped it out of my binder, and their jaw nearly hit the floor. They couldn't believe I had thought that far ahead, lol.

I'm still so proud of that car-buying binder. It was also one of those situations where the salesman kept trying to ask my husband stuff, despite him being fully pushed back from the desk and playing on his phone while I had the binder full of info on my lap.

I purchased renter's insurance and had no memory of it. When hurricane Florence came through, I was living in a coastal town in North Carolina, and it was coming straight for us. We had to evacuate, and I thought we were screwed. I called my insurance company and asked if it was too late to buy renter's insurance with the storm being so close, and they informed me that I had purchased the insurance years prior. It really paid off because our house flooded, and we lost a lot of our stuff. They were also very helpful and seemingly gave us $500 every couple of days for lodging, groceries, gas, anything needed while we waited out the storm.

Went on a ski outing organized by my h**h school, and they made helmets mandatory. I had been skiing multiple times in my life and felt comfortable, and complained the whole trip to the resort about the helmets. On one of my last runs, I did some stupid s**t and wrecked hard going crazy fast, slid down the slope on my head long enough to think “damn, I’m glad I’m wearing this helmet” as I felt the hard-packed snow grinding against it at probably 20mph.
Wear your helmets, ya’ll. It’s worth it.

Got a baseline mammogram at 35 at my gyno's suggestion (for comparison purposes when I would turn 40)

Long story short I had breast cancer. No family history or signs.

Making sure the gas alarm chirps wasn't going off just from old batteries and driving down to a gas station to get in new batteries at 2am...... Alarm continues. It was a real gas leak in the middle of the night, glad I didn't ignore that.

Old furnace was replaced immediatly and its wonderful, and costs so much less every month compared to the old rickety furnace.


As I drove down to the gas station I ran over a screwdriver in the middle of the road--it punctured a gas line on my truck, which died as I was pulling into the gas station. A policeman was inside, so I told him what was going on--I bought the batteries and he gave me a ride home--it was a very lucky or UNlucky night depending on how you look at it.

Had an orbital xray 'just in case' before an MRI because I misunderstood one of the questions they asked and they ticked the wrong box. Honestly thought I was wasting their time and almost cancelled it.

Turns out there are metal fragments in one of my eye sockets and the MRI would have superheated it/pulled it out via the quickest route (I wouldn't have that eye anymore).

I was browsing for cat supplies online and ended up looking at cat insurance. I didn’t think I needed it but after a few weeks I ended up purchasing it for my two cats. About 2 months later one cat has a urine blockage which was about a $4k emergency vet visit, insurance covered 80% and paid for 6 months of their new prescription food. About 8 months later my other cat had a stomach issue and ended up costing about $1k in vet visits and medications which insurance covered 80% and another 6 months of their new prescription food.

I kept a spreadsheet of how much I spent in premiums, how much the vet bills were, how much insurance covered and right now insurance has paid out about $3300 more than I have paid them and my part of the vet bills.

Saw a weird blip on the horizon as a kid while playing in waist-deep calm water with my little brother and told my brother to get out of the water. We went and sat up on a grassy hill. The blip turned into a huge rogue wave that injured almost everyone who was still in the water.

On holiday inn Gambia (on a resort); after a day or 2 I noticed you could lock the bathroom door from the outside. I showed my girlfriend, we both thought it was strange, but since the lock was there, why not use it as we were on our way out. When we came back the bathroom window was forced open and they had tried to enter the apartment.

Copied my boss’s boss on an email that showed I was doing my job, and my boss wasn’t.

I keep a folded $20 bill in my phone case. It has been both convenient and has saved me a lot of hassle.


I taught my kids to do this and it has saved them too.

A $100 bill I keep inside my hat saved me from being stranded far from home. Got ditched by some "friends" after a house party because they didn't feel like giving me a ride home after they told me they would prior.

Stay in the city for finals rather than driving from the village I lived in.

I was a mature student studying at a university about 35 miles away. Usually I’d drop the kids off at day care and then drive in. For my finals I decided to crash at a friend’s place who lived near my uni. No idea why I decided to do this as it meant finding someone to take my kids for 3 days, which was difficult.

On the second day a plane overshoot the runway of a small regional airport and landed on the motorway next to the airport, blocking it for most of the day. If I had driven in I would have been caught in the resulting traffic jam, missed my exam and would have had to repeat the year.

I keep a sort of "emergency overnight kit" in my car at all times. A few travel-sized soaps, extra pair of shoes, change of clothes, a pillow, blanket, toothbrush, bit of cash, old pair of glasses, etc. Doesn't take up much trunk space (about the size of a shoe box) but it's saved my a*s more times that I care to admit.

It makes it much easier to just jump in the car and go anywhere spontaneously with zero notice, and also helps if you get stuck somewhere overnight and can't drive home. Being able to wake up in the morning, take a good shower, and then put on a fresh set of clothes really helps you get over whatever got you stuck in the first place. Weather, road closures, too tired to drive, being intoxicated, car broke down, whatever. Just having that available helps you feel better in the morning!

I traveled for almost year, with a couple of weeks break in my hometown about halfway through. I'd given up my apartment and crashed on a friend's couch. Now, before my trip, I'd checked all the mandatory vaccinations, and yellow fever wasn't on there, though it was recommended for Kenya. But travelling from my home country, I didn't *need* it for any of the countries. My doc said: your insurance covers it, yellow fever is a b***h, and the side effects of the live vaccine are vastly exaggerated, you should get it. So I got it.

The day I left for Africa I piled up all my important documents I didn't need to bring on my friend's desk, thinking I'd leave them with her so I won't lose them. Literally as I was leaving, backpack already on, I saw my vaccine card on the top of the pile and remembered that this friend lost not one, but two of my library cards, so I grabbed the card and shoved it into my backpack.

Well, couple weeks later, after a chunk of time spent pretty far from civilization in Kenya, I was at the airport at some ungodly hour, honestly a wreck, checking in for my flight to Johannesburg, and the lady goes: vaccination card?
Turns out if you enter south Africa from Kenya, a yellow fever vaccine is mandatory. Thank f**k I took the card just in case my friend buries it in empty coffee cups.

Current house: Locked the basement door into my kitchen and then found a homeless man living in my basement later when he had come in through ANOTHER door. He probably wouldn’t have come upstairs and just wanted a place to squat for some days but you never know 🤷🏻‍♀️

Old house: called the gas company because I smelled gas and felt weirdly lightheaded but felt silly because I was like’ “surely, I’m being dramatic”. They came and found 3 gas leaks 😵‍💫.

Back in 2021 I got put on a PIP, a “performance improvement plan”, at my first job that I had been with for 5 years. Long story short is my boss was new and incompetent, saddled me with the work of an entire team and I was being scapegoated for a bunch of missed deadlines despite my being able to show that I wasn’t the bottleneck. They promised up and down that it was just a formality triggered by a low performance review score, that my performance had already improved, and that it was nothing to worry about.

About a month into the 3 month PIP process I wasn’t getting a good feeling about it, so I chose to decline to resign my expensive apartment lease in the city in favor of moving home onto my parent’s farm about 2 hours away. It felt like a major step back to move back in with my parents, and I was stressed that my girlfriend (now wife) would think I was a l***r and break up with me, but I couldn’t justify resigning with what felt like a metaphorical axe hanging over my head. Things were fully remote due to COVID so I decided to move.

I’m lucky I did that, because about a month later I was tasked with developing and planning the entire 2022 marketing calendar for the game that I was working on (this was a video game studio I was working at). Keep in mind, I’m about 25 years old, first job out of school, studied game development and computer science NOT marketing, and my boss is giving me 0% help or effort because it turns out he’s never done marketing before either and doesn’t know what to do himself. Just being told to do the whole thing with no other support and have it ready in a week. After staying up for 72 hours straight to work on it, I dozed off in a Friday company wide meeting on Zoom and was fired the following Monday as soon as the day started. They used me falling asleep as reason to deny my unemployment because I was fired “for cause”.

So yeah, even though it felt like s**t to have to move back in with my parents it was objectively the right move and saved my a*s big time. And secondly, deciding to get a second major in Computer Science saved my a*s again when I went looking for jobs and decided there was no way in h**l I’d subject myself to the video game industry again. Being able to fall back into a corporate software development job has improved my life 10x.

When I was a young helper I tied off a ladder that was up on a fire escape. The guy in charge told me I was being ridiculous. Well, the wind blew it over and we found it dangling off the side of the thing. Could’ve easily k**led someone.

Had to deliver invites to everyone for a lunch party at work. I made a point to tell my employee with paranoid delusions first.

Next day he told HR he was the only one not invited.
I hope he finds a therapist, but as his boss I couldn't say that legally.
🙄.