My uncle's $20 junk drawer advice actually saved me from a late fee disaster

My uncle, who's been a landlord forever, told me to keep a spare set of keys in my glovebox next to a $20 bill for emergencies. I brushed him off because it sounded like something from a 1980s dad manual. Last week I locked myself out of my apartment at 9 PM in Minneapolis with my phone dead and no money on me. That spare key and the cash got me a rideshare to grab a copy, and I was back inside before the locksmith's $150 fee even mattered. Has anyone else had family advice that sounded dumb but turned out to be bulletproof?

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johnson.jesse11d ago

My buddy Steve has this same thing with his dad's advice about always packing a sweatshirt even in July, and we used to make fun of him until we got caught in that surprise hail storm at a Twins game last year. The whole joke of old people telling you to be ready for stuff is that they've already lived through the moment where they weren't, so they're just trying to save you the pain. It's like how every seasoned traveler I know keeps a power bank in their carry-on, not because they use it every trip, but because the one time they didn't have it their phone died at baggage claim and they missed their ride. These little habits are basically insurance against the universe being inconvenient, and the older I get the more I realize the junk drawer in my brain is full of these dumb-sounding tips that somehow always come in clutch. Your uncle's $20 trick is just the modern version of the old "keep a quarter for a payphone" move, but the logic is bulletproof: always have a backup plan that costs less than the emergency itself.