My spacebar keeps getting stuck today for some reason, sorry if the text looks a bit weird in some spots. Let’s just get right into it.

Fat types: a quick refresher

Just to make sure we are on the exact same page before diving in:

• Trans fats: Used to be in hydrogenated oils, but they are so awful that most countries just banned them entirely.
• Saturated fats: Found in coconut oil, butter, and ice cream.
• Monounsaturated fats (MUFA): Olive oil, avocados, almonds.
• Polyunsaturated fats (PUFA): Omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. Salmon, walnuts, flaxseed, and sunflower seeds fall in this group.

Cut down on saturated fat

Eating less saturated fat lowers LDL. That is just a known fact at this point. If an average person cuts 100 calories of pure saturated fat (about what you get in a buttery pastry) from their diet, their LDL can drop anywhere from 6.5 to 10.5 points. It just depends on what they replace it with.

Swapping it out for PUFA gives you the absolute best results, but MUFA and carbs work too. Protein hasn’t been directly studied for this, but the Omni Heart research hints that protein could be pretty helpful as a replacement.

Huge warning here: None of these studies swap saturated fat for complete garbage. Sugary drinks and gummy bears don’t have saturated fat, but they definitely don’t protect you from heart disease. Weight gain, metabolic syndrome, and diabetes are directly tied to high LDL and cardiovascular risk. What you use as a replacement matters heavily.

Watch out for hidden saturated fat sources

When you hear saturated fat, you instantly think of fatty meat, butter, and cheese. But you really have to watch out for sugary snacks.

• A large iced coffee can pack up to 21 grams of saturated fat. That is literally the equivalent of 16 slices of bacon.
• Coconut oil gets marketed as a miracle health food, but gram for gram, it has way more saturated fat than butter. You usually find it hiding in plant-based desserts or fancy popcorn.

Bottom line: Fat isn’t the enemy. But if you want to drop your LDL, eat less saturated fat and definitely don’t swap it for refined sugars, starches, or ultra-processed junk.

Change how you brew your coffee?

How you make your coffee has a massive impact on your LDL. A natural compound in coffee called cafestol messes with your liver’s ability to clear LDL from your bloodstream. Any coffee that skips a paper filter is loaded with cafestol.

The absolute worst method is boiled coffee like Turkish coffee, followed closely by espresso and French press. A review of six randomized trials found that simply using a paper filter drops LDL by an average of 15 points. A crazy impressive result just for making a tiny tweak to your morning routine.

Rethink dietary cholesterol

Social media is totally split on eating direct cholesterol like eggs. One side calls it poison, the other says eat ten a day. The truth is, genetic differences make it completely impossible to generalize.

An average person absorbs about 50% of the free cholesterol that hits their small intestine. But some people absorb 90% and others absorb almost zero. Sadly, there is no routine test to show how much your specific body absorbs.

Randomized trials show that eating one egg a day bumps LDL up by about 5 points for an average person. So the impact is pretty tiny. If you reach for a boiled egg instead of a candy bar, it is obviously a net win. The American Heart Association even says one egg yolk a day is completely fine for most healthy people with normal LDL.

But even if your cholesterol is normal, it isn’t an all-you-can-eat pass. If you want to drop your LDL, cutting back on eggs and other dietary cholesterol sources is a smart move. The size of the drop you get will heavily depend on your genetics. I mean… it’s complicated.

The biggest thing to remember: Just because a food has zero cholesterol doesn’t mean it is a smart choice. Always look at the saturated fat content; it almost always hits your LDL way harder.

Bump up your fiber intake

When it comes to cholesterol, you are looking for soluble fiber—the kind that dissolves in water and turns into a thick gel. If you’ve ever soaked chia seeds in water, you’ve seen that gel. That is soluble fiber doing its job.

To understand this, you need to know how cholesterol leaves your body. Your liver pulls LDL from your blood and dumps it into your small intestine as bile. Normally, you reabsorb about 50% of this, but again, huge personal differences here. Soluble fiber traps that cholesterol in its thick gel so you just flush it out in the bathroom.

As a general rule, every 1 gram of soluble fiber drops your LDL by about 2 points. Tons of natural foods are packed with it:

• Oats
• Barley
• Legumes
• Chia seeds
• Fruits and vegetables

If you want to max this out, you can throw in a psyllium-based supplement like Metamucil. Studies show taking a tablespoon of Metamucil twice a day drops LDL by a solid 13 points. The powder usually works better than the gel or pill forms, but just experiment to see what your body handles best.

Plant sterols and stanols

Phytosterols are the plant equivalent of cholesterol. There are two types: plant sterols and stanols, and both drop LDL exactly the same way.

Studies show a 2-gram daily dose knocks LDL down by about 5-10%. But getting that much from regular food is borderline impossible, so you have to hunt for fortified foods or supplements.

Just a quick warning: some people over-absorb sterols, and taking massive doses can randomly spike your cardiovascular risk. Because of that, you should tread carefully with sterol supplements. But since most medical guidelines still recommend them, they made the list.

Swap animal protein for plant protein

Trading animal meat for plant proteins like nuts, seeds, and legumes is another solid strategy. A massive review of 108 studies showed that swapping animal protein for plant protein drops LDL by an average of 0.16 mmol/L, which is roughly 6 points.

Plant proteins have zero cholesterol and are usually incredibly low in saturated fat. The cherry on top? You get a bunch of extra soluble fiber, phytosterols, and healthy fats thrown in for free.

Does exercise impact LDL?

People just assume working out fixes everything, including high cholesterol. But a lot of lipid experts believe exercise does next to nothing for LDL.

That being said, a recent meta-analysis showed that doing cardio four times a week drops LDL by about 5-6 points. Throwing in two weight lifting sessions on top of that can push the drop to 11 points. If that motivates you to hit the gym, awesome. But you get the idea. Exercise is critical for your overall health and your heart, regardless of what the scale or your LDL number says.

Sustainable weight loss

If you are starting out with a high body mass index, losing weight and keeping it off is a great way to lower your LDL. A recent meta-analysis shows that if you keep the weight off for at least 12 months, you drop your LDL by about 1.3 points for every single kilogram you lose.

Probiotics: promising but lack proof

Probiotics aren’t featured in standard medical guidelines yet, but some early research is looking pretty good. Taking probiotics for 2 to 12 weeks has been shown to drop LDL by about 8 points. The problem is we just don’t have enough solid proof on exactly which bacteria strains or doses work best. So taking a supplement strictly for this isn’t super convincing yet.

Still, it is a fantastic excuse to add some natural probiotic foods to your meals:

• Miso
• Kimchi
• Sauerkraut
• Yogurt
• Kefir

Sustainable diets instead of micromanaging

Trying to track all these tiny details will drive you insane. That is exactly why major medical guidelines are backing away from micromanaging saturated fat, PUFA, cholesterol, and fiber intake one by one. They emphasize healthy eating patterns instead. Pick a good diet, and most of this stuff just balances out naturally.

The Mediterranean diet, DASH diet, and plant-based diets are three approaches heavily proven to drop LDL and slash cardiovascular risk. Here is what they all have in common:

• They push you to eat whole fruits, colorful vegetables, and whole grains.
• They limit ultra-processed junk, refined sugars, animal fats, and tropical oils like coconut and palm oil.

There is no one-size-fits-all diet. Just take these baseline rules and find a rhythm you can stick to long-term.

Two supplements to absolutely avoid

A lot of people turn to popular supplements to lower their LDL, but two of these carry terrifying health risks.

Red yeast rice

Red yeast rice lowers LDL exactly like a statin because it packs something called monacolin K. This is the exact same active ingredient found in the drug lovastatin. Statins are safe and effective, but the massive issue here is that red yeast rice contains a mycotoxin called citrinin. Every single red yeast rice supplement on the market has this stuff in it, even the ones desperately marketed as “citrinin-free.”

Just last year in Japan, over 500 people were hospitalized and almost 80 people died from kidney failure after taking red yeast rice supplements. If you want a statin effect, grabbing a clean, regulated, properly dosed prescription statin makes infinitely more sense.

Green tea extract

Green tea extract is loaded with a specific group of chemicals called catechins. These were huge in sketchy weight loss pills back in the early 2000s. Some research shows this stuff can drop LDL, but even at normal recommended doses, it can trigger severe liver damage.

Just stay far away from these extracts. You can still drink normal green tea all you want, just know it won’t do much for your LDL numbers.

Final thoughts

You have a ton of natural options to pull your LDL numbers down:

• Cut back on saturated fat
• Use a paper filter for your coffee
• Watch your dietary cholesterol
• Eat way more soluble fiber
• Consider phytosterols
• Swap animal protein for plant protein
• Exercise regularly
• Lose weight sustainably
• Eat probiotic-rich foods

Even if your LDL doesn’t drop as drastically as you hoped, these tweaks have massive, far-reaching benefits for your body that go way beyond cholesterol. It is not an all-or-nothing game; every little step helps.

I am not going to sit here and argue about the pros and cons of AI today. Instead, I will show you step-by-step how to revert back to the old, classic search results. This method works perfectly on Chrome for both Windows and Mac. My spacebar keeps getting stuck again today, so sorry if the formatting looks a bit messy. Let’s get into it.

What is wrong with AI Overview?

Let’s say you search for something simple like “how to install a ceiling fan”. You immediately get hit with this massive AI summary. It seems like Google knows this is getting annoying, because they added a little filter area right above the results now.

Whenever you search, the default tab is set to All, which triggers that AI box. But if you click over to the Web tab, you get those old-school, classic search results that are genuinely useful.

Here is the annoying part though. When you search directly from the Google homepage or your browser address bar—like pretty much everyone does—the system just forces you back to the “All” tab and the AI stuff pops right back up. I mean… it’s just frustrating.

How to disable AI Overview permanently in Chrome?

To fix this permanently, just follow these steps:

• Click the three dots icon up in the top right corner of Chrome.
• Jump into the Settings menu.
• Click on the Search engine section on the side.
• Look for a tiny arrow icon in this section. It is kind of hidden, so you have to look closely. Click that arrow to open up more options.
• Scroll down until you hit the Site search section and click the Add button.

Create a new search engine entry

A little window pops up. Here is what you need to fill out:

• Name: You can type whatever you want here, it is just for your own reference. Something like “Google uncluttered” works fine.
• Shortcut: You have to type google.com here. This part is super important.
• URL: For this box, you need to copy and paste the special text string I shared in the video description. Just make sure you copy it exactly.

Once you fill all that out, hit Add and it will show up in your list.

Make your new entry default

For the final step, click the three dots right next to that new entry you just made and select Make default. That pushes it right to the top of the list.

After you do this, any search you type into your address bar will automatically force the Web tab. The AI results are completely gone. You get the idea.

How to go back to old settings?

If you try this and decide you hate it, there is an easy way back. Just go right back into those Search engine settings. That original default Google entry is still sitting there in the list. Just click the three dots next to it and hit Make default again. Your custom entry steps down, and you can just delete it from the list entirely if you want.

Bonus: Filter TikTok junk out of video searches

Besides the AI stuff, another thing that drives me crazy is getting awful, low-quality TikTok clips showing up in the Videos tab. There is a fix for this too.

When you are pasting that special text string into the URL box like we talked about earlier, just add a space, a minus sign (-), and then tiktok.com right at the very end of it.

Setting it up like this means when you click the Videos tab, you still get all the useful YouTube videos, but it completely nukes all the TikTok garbage from your results. A nice cherry on top for cleaning up your searches.

Note for mobile devices

Just a quick heads-up. This method only works on the Chrome desktop browser for Windows and Mac. Trying to get rid of AI results on your phone is a whole different beast involving different browser settings. You will probably have to do some of your own digging on that one.

Key factors messing with your insurance rate

Don’t assume one giant company is cheapest

Even if you have amazing credit, the gap between the cheapest and most expensive quote can be around $100 a month. If your credit is a bit weak? That gap can jump to $200 a month. Just because a specific company was the cheapest for your buddy doesn’t mean it will be for you. Plus, it changes wildly from state to state. The cheapest option in one state could easily be the most expensive in another.

Don’t ignore local and regional companies

Stop just looking at the massive brands with the funny TV commercials. You really need to check out local insurance agencies. Some of these smaller-looking companies operate in dozens of states and work with multiple carriers. Instead of getting locked into one brand, a local agent can shop around and throw multiple offers on the table for you.

Your credit score plays a massive role

Unless you live in places like Hawaii, California, or Massachusetts where they banned this, companies use an “insurance score” based heavily on your credit history. They link bad credit to a higher risk of claims. If you want to fix it:

• Pay your credit cards and loans on time
• Keep your credit card balance under half of your limit
• Stop applying for random new accounts and racking up inquiries
• Keep your total amount of debt in check

Calculate insurance before buying a car

People always forget this part. They buy a car, see the insurance bill is just as high as their car payment, and have to return the vehicle. A standard station wagon versus a sports car can easily be a $100 a month difference. Call your agent and check the quotes on a few different models before you sign any paperwork at the dealership.

You absolutely have to hunt for discounts

Being a homeowner, being married, having multiple cars, or getting added to your parents’ policy… these all trigger discounts. Credit unions, banks, and random membership programs open doors too. I’ll drop a massive list of 15 specific discounts further down.

Drop full coverage on older beaters?

If your car is super old, you really need to look at what you are paying for comprehensive and collision coverage. Here is a quick math trick: multiply what you pay for those two coverages for the year by 4 (assuming you have zero accidents). If that number is higher than what your car is worth, just drop them. It makes no sense to keep paying it.

Just raise your deductible

If your monthly bill is choking you, raise your deductible (the amount you pay out of pocket if you crash). Bump it to $500, $1,000, or even $1,500. For high-end luxury cars, you can go up to $2,500, but the savings usually drop off after that. If you do this, make sure you stash that exact deductible amount in a savings account so you aren’t broke if you happen to hit something.

Try usage-based tracking?

If you barely drive, those telematics programs can slash your bill by 10% to 25%. They track how you drive and give you a discount if you aren’t driving like a maniac. You can just ask your insurance company directly if they share that data with anyone if you are worried about your privacy.

Where you live changes everything

You have to tell your insurance company when you move, because your new zip code changes the price completely. They price things based on the average claims in that specific area. Move to a neighborhood with a high claim rate, your price goes up.

Keep your driving record clean

Some states will penalize you for an accident even if it wasn’t your fault. I mean… it’s completely unfair, but it happens. For tiny things like a cracked windshield, just pay out of pocket instead of filing a claim. Every single claim pushes you into a higher risk bracket and ruins your future rates.

Your payment method changes the price

Paying monthly usually comes with sneaky processing fees, especially if you use a credit card. If you can pay the whole chunk upfront (like every 6 or 12 months), it is almost always cheaper. Some companies will hand you a discount of up to $300 to $400 a year just for paying in full.

15 solid discounts you need to ask about

Besides the basic stuff, you need to aggressively ask your agent if you qualify for any of these:

• Group discounts (like being in a credit union)
• Military or veteran discount
• Engineer profession discount
• Teacher profession discount
• College grad / alumni discount
• Motorcycle club or other random club memberships
• 50+ age programs (like AARP)
• Defensive driving course completion
• Pay in full discount
• Alarm / security system discount
• Anti-theft (immobilizer) discount
• Vehicle tracking / recovery system discount
• Job-based discounts (some job titles just get cheaper rates)
• Multi-car policy discount
• Homeowner discount

Practical hacks from real drivers

Here are some tried-and-true tricks from people who figured out how to game the system a bit. Just a huge warning: do not lie to your insurance company. None of this is about committing fraud; it is just about presenting your info in the smartest, most accurate way possible.

Clear your search history and cookies

When you bounce around comparison sites, they track your searches and slowly bump the prices up every time you refresh or run a new quote. Clear your browser history and cookies before you start searching to stop this.

Add an experienced driver as main?

If you are the primary driver, listing an older, experienced driver as the main and yourself as a secondary can drop the price. But seriously: if you are the one driving it every day, you have to declare that. Lying about who the main driver is will cause a massive headache and they might deny your claim if you crash.

Install a dash cam

Throwing a dash cam on your windshield and telling your insurance company about it usually gets you a slightly better quote.

Tweak your job title legally

Different job titles spit out different risk profiles. A “teacher” might get a different rate than a “professor” even if they do very similar work. Play around with alternative titles that are 100% truthful to what you do, but might trigger a cheaper bracket.

Add a family member or roommate

Adding someone with a spotless driving record (like a parent or a roommate who occasionally uses the car) to your policy can drag the overall price down.

Use multiple comparison sites

Different sites have exclusive deals with different insurers. Don’t just rely on one website. Cast a wide net to find the best numbers.

Delay your start date

Starting your policy a few weeks in the future usually gives you a cheaper annual rate than demanding a policy that starts today. If you buy a car, let it sit in the driveway for a bit, and start the policy later, you can take advantage of this.

Raise deductible and get excess protection

Bump your deductible high to lower the premium, but then buy excess protection on the side to cover that out-of-pocket cost if you crash. The premium discount you get is usually way bigger than what the protection policy costs. It is a nice little loophole.

Keep your mileage estimate realistic but low

Your annual mileage estimate hits your price hard. Don’t exaggerate. If you realistically only drive 3,000 miles a year, put that down. But don’t lie and give a crazy low number, because they will cancel your policy if they find out you are driving 15,000 miles a year.

Look into leasing

If you are a young driver, some leasing companies bundle the insurance right into the monthly car payment. You just pay for gas, and the cherry on top is not having to deal with setting up insurance yourself.

Use a fresh email address

Even if you clear your cookies, typing in your usual email can pull up your old searches and higher quotes in their system. Just use a burner email when you are hunting for the final price. You get the idea.

Pass Plus courses aren’t worth it anymore?

Back in the day, taking extra driving courses saved you a ton of money. Now? The course usually costs more than the discount you end up getting. Do the math before paying out of pocket for one of these.

Pick cars in low insurance groups

Cars are graded by risk. Low-risk cars include:

• Fiat Panda
• Ford KA
• Hyundai i10
• Kia Picanto
• Nissan Micra
• Seat Mii
• Skoda Fabia
• Smart ForFour
• VW Polo, Up, Fox
• Citroën C1 / C2

On the flip side, avoid the highest risk groups if you want cheap insurance:

• Audi A6, R8
• Bentley Flying Spur
• BMW i8
• Corvette Stingray
• Jaguar XE
• Lotus Evora
• Alfa Romeo Stelvio

If you are a new driver, sticking to a boring, low-group car will save you an insane amount of money every single year.

Install a security system

Alarms, immobilizers, or trackers make you look way less risky. Companies absolutely love systems that are Thatcham approved.

Join groups and associations

Military, healthcare workers, emergency services, or random driving safety clubs usually get exclusive discounts from certain carriers.

Annual payments beat monthly

The monthly payment always looks smaller on paper, but when you add it all up at the end of the year, it is almost always more expensive due to fees. Pay the whole year upfront if you can swing it.

My keyboard is doing this weird double-spacing thing today, so sorry if the text looks a bit messy in some spots. Let’s just get into it.

When to start your search?

Timing is everything when you hunt for business class deals. The golden rule here is to start looking the exact second you lock down your travel dates. Ideally, you want to start searching at least 6 months before your flight. This gives you plenty of room to track price drops and jump on a good deal the moment it pops up. Sometimes you get super lucky and find a crazy price on your very first search, but yeah… that doesn’t happen often.

Where to hunt for flights?

If you are just an average traveler trying to add some luxury to your trip, or you just desperately want to escape the back pain of economy, Google Flights is your best starting point. It is ridiculously easy to use:

• Punch in your route
• Set your dates
• Swap the cabin class from economy to business

If the numbers look good, grab it right then and there. But most of the time, the prices will look awful at first glance. That is when you use Google Flights’ best feature: price alerts.

Set up broad alerts

When you set these up, you want to track both specific routes and broader searches. Even if you have to fly a very specific path, always try to throw in some broad alerts whenever possible. You get the idea. It just opens up the widest possible net for catching a random business class deal.

Layovers might save you cash

Here is something you need to keep in mind: business class tickets with a layover are almost always cheaper than flying direct. You just have to ask yourself how much you value a direct flight.

• If surviving economy on a long-haul flight is absolute torture for you, paying extra for a direct flight makes sense.
• But if you just want to taste that premium cabin life and score the absolute best deal, layover routes are a goldmine.

Since a business ticket gets you free lounge access anyway, a layover isn’t even a bad thing. That annoying wait time just turns into an excuse to hop between different lounges and experience premium cabins on multiple different planes.

Think about paid upgrades

Sometimes buying a business class ticket straight up is just a bad deal. But there is a backdoor. You can buy a cheap economy ticket and still end up up front. A lot of airlines will let you pay cash to bump yourself up to a higher class later on.

• On transatlantic flights, these paid upgrades can drop as low as 300 dollars.
• For shorter hops, I have seen it drop under 100 dollars.

I mean… short flights in business aren’t really as mind-blowing as long-haul ones, but still, you have to keep your expectations realistic. Sometimes they don’t offer an upgrade at all, or they do and the price is a total joke. So always compare the price gap between regular economy and business when you first book, versus what the upgrade costs later. Airlines also run random upgrade promos, so keep an eye out for those.

Track down newsletters and socials

Keep tabs on the current offers from the airlines you fly the most. The easiest way to catch flash sales is to subscribe to their newsletters and follow their social media accounts.

Airlines end up with a ton of empty business class seats during dead travel seasons. But they only broadcast those massive price drops to their email list or followers. Google Alerts helps catch some of this, but airlines hand out their own promo codes that completely bypass Google Flights. So you really need to do both to get the cherry on top.

Fly economy for part of trip

Another solid way to save cash is to just mix and match. Don’t book the entire itinerary in business. It requires a little compromise, but you can fly lie-flat on the brutal long-haul segment and just deal with economy on the short flight. It saves a ridiculous amount of money.

Grab feeder flights

When you try this, poke around a few different spots:

• Look at nearby airports you wouldn’t normally fly out of.
• Check airports in neighboring regions or even neighboring countries.

If flying business out of a different airport is 1,000 dollars cheaper, and a quick flight to get to that airport costs way less than that… you just saved a ton of money. This depends heavily on where you live, but a super popular trick is booking a cheap round-trip economy ticket to an airport where business class sales are happening. We call these feeder flights. You can do the exact same thing for your destination airport too.

For example, if a premium ticket to Seoul, South Korea is 2,000 dollars cheaper than flying to Japan, but you really want to go to Japan? Just fly to Seoul, enjoy a day there, and book a dirt-cheap economy hopper over to Japan.

Just book one way in business

Sometimes it is way smarter to only fly business class in one direction. Let’s say you just want to actually sleep on a red-eye flight from North America to Europe. Depending on price and what seats are open, you can build an itinerary like this:

• Fly economy or premium economy on the daylight trip back from Europe to North America.
• Fly business class on the overnight trip going there.

Doing this can easily chop your costs in half compared to booking business both ways.

Always book direct

Whenever you pull the trigger on a flight, book it straight through the airline’s website. It just gives you way better customer support and flexibility. If you book through a random third-party site, you are begging for a headache if a flight gets canceled or changed. Reaching an airline directly is usually painless, but dealing with third-party customer service is a nightmare. Use those other sites to hunt for the deals, but always book direct.

Points and miles: absolute game changer

You can save serious cash using everything I mentioned above, but there is one method even seasoned travelers ignore: booking with miles and points.

This is exactly how you can snag a business class seat on Qantas and Japan Airlines from Melbourne, Australia to Japan for 66 bucks. All you have to do is drop 40,000 American Airlines miles on it. And while you earn those miles, you easily rack up an extra 20,000 miles on the side. If you paid cash for those exact same flights, it would have cost at least 2,000 dollars.

Using points or miles is hands down the ultimate cheat code for dodging those insane premium price tags.

Buy Robux directly?

This is the easiest route. But honestly, it is kind of a waste of money. I had a random $2.13 gift card balance lying around on my account, so I just converted that. Got 235 Robux out of it.

Build a Roblox game

This is definitely the ultimate way to get rich on Roblox. Some of those front-page games pull in billions. But… I have absolutely zero knowledge about coding, designing, or building. So I had to improvise.

Game idea and creation process

I went with a super simple “cart ride” concept using free models. To make it popular, I threw in a trending “brainrot” character (that 67 guy). Here is how I put it together:

• Dropped in a cart ride mechanic from the free models
• Slapped the brainrot character onto the stage
• Built a tiny map with some carts and a winner area
• Decorated the spawn point
• Put some little figures holding “you won” signs at the finish line

I made a massive rookie mistake though. I forgot to anchor the ground, so the whole game just fell apart immediately. My keyboard also completely froze while I was trying to fix the script, which was incredibly annoying. But once I anchored the base, everything worked fine.

Add game passes

To squeeze some Robux out of this, I set up two game passes:

• Rainbow carpet: Lets you fly around the map
• Fling all button: Costs 20 Robux and, yeah, it works perfectly when you press it

Publish and run ads

I named the game “cart ride into 67 brain rot”. For the icon and thumbnail, I just grabbed some stock images, blurred the background, and added a shadow effect. Then I fired up an ad campaign and let it run for a whole day.

Results for my game

When the ad campaign finished, here are the final numbers:

• 41,000 impressions
• 298 plays
• 702 clicks
• 1.7% click-through rate
• 349 visits

Total payout? 76 Robux. Honestly, way better than I expected for a thrown-together game.

Design Roblox clothes

Some groups make millions just selling virtual shirts. So I gave this a shot. I stuck with the brainrot theme and made two things:

• A brainrot themed t-shirt
• A hoodie version of the same design

I uploaded both and priced them super cheap at 5 Robux. I figured anything higher would just kill the sales immediately.

Final sales

I left them up for a full day without running any ads. Result? Zero sales. Crickets.

Trade limited items for profit?

Trading limiteds can be insanely lucrative if you know what you are doing. Some people start with under a thousand Robux and flip their way to hundreds of thousands.

My trade history was sitting at 153,000 Robux about a month and a half ago, and it’s up to 176,000 now.

My trade process

• I jumped into a Trade Hangout server
• Sent an offer for a guy’s “skate 14er” item
• Offered up a “builders club” hat for it
• Someone accepted one of my trades and I got an item called “smalls”

Because of the holding period (you can’t sell stuff right away), I could only list one item for sale that day.

Sales and profit

The market price was around 1,000 Robux, so I listed it for 979 Robux to get a quick flip. It sold super fast. After Roblox took their cut, I walked away with a clean 685 Robux profit.

Beg in donation games

People make crazy money in games like “Please donate”. I used an alt account for this so nobody would recognize my main, and tested it for about 30 minutes.

My begging strategy

I hopped on voice chat and just started asking people for donations. A few things I noticed:

• Being active and entertaining on voice chat gets you way more donations
• You can squeeze out tiny donations if you promise to promote their Discord server
• Having quick reactions and good timing is everything

Donation results

After a little over half an hour, I pulled in 245 Robux. Using voice chat is the cherry on top for these games, it makes a massive difference in how much people give you.

Microsoft Rewards points

I tested Microsoft Rewards, which gives you points for just searching stuff on their browser. I have been using this account for a year and only had 9,000 points sitting there.

A 400 Robux gift card costs 6,750 points. I cashed them in. It took about 30 minutes for the code to hit my email.

I pasted the code into the “redeem codes” page and boom, 400 Robux added to my balance.

Play free Robux games?

Roblox is flooded with games promising “beat the game, get free Robux”. I searched “free robux” to see if any of them were legit.

Games I found

• A glass bridge game claiming you win 100,000. It just spams you with pop-ups begging for donations. It showed they raised 500,000 Robux somehow.
• A Mr. Beast themed obstacle course. It had 150 stages, incredibly messy visuals, and claimed to have raised 471,000 Robux.

Neither of these games pay out a single cent. They are just giant traps designed to milk donations from players. I mean… who even falls for these anymore? Complete scam. I didn’t waste any more time on them.

Which method pays the most?

After running all these tests, here is the final breakdown:

Total profit: 1,641 Robux

For this specific test, trading brought in the most cash. But if you look at the big picture, the smartest long-term play is just building a genuinely high-quality game. A carefully designed game has a way higher earning potential than the trashy free-model cart ride I threw together. You get the idea.

Traditional burp method fails

We have been doing the exact same thing for years: throw the baby over your shoulder and whack their back. But this usually just ends up with the baby spitting up or vomiting all over your shirt. It is like we are all completely programmed to think, “You just have to put them on your shoulder and pat.”

How this weird trick was discovered?

This whole method was a total accident. A mom just didn’t want her kid throwing up in her long, untied hair right after nursing. So, instead of tossing the baby on her shoulder, she just held the baby straight up so she could tie her hair back. Right at that exact second, the baby burped.

The big takeaway here is that right after a feed, you just need to give them a minute. Let them decide on their own if they even need to burp. My spacebar is acting up again, sorry if the text looks a bit messy today.

Step by step burp guide

Step 1: Wait and support chest

When the feed is done, do not rush them to your shoulder. Just hold them upright, supporting their chest, and wait a solid minute. This just gives them time to figure out if a burp is coming up.

Step 2: Lean forward and pat

If nothing happens, gently lean them forward and give their back a light pat. You want to work with gravity here. Give it a few taps, but never force it.

Step 3: Hold upright again

After a few pats, bring them back up straight. If they get super fussy right here, it means there is trapped gas or pressure inside. If that happens, just give them another minute and lean them forward again.

Watch out for these when leaning them forward:

• Lean them onto a soft surface
• Do not grab them by the chin
• You are working with the esophagus and trachea, so be careful
• No pressure on their front side
• Pat right in the middle of their back

Just repeat this loop until you hear that burp. For the final step, hold them upright, support under the chest to relax them, wait a quick second, and lift them straight up one last time.

What to do when baby has head control?

If your kid has strong head control and sits up well, just make sure their head doesn’t flop back when you lean them forward. Also, some babies tend to pull hard to one side of their body. If they do that, just adjust your patting angle to match their weird posture. You get the idea.

Is this mandatory for everyone?

If your baby burps fine on your shoulder and stays healthy, just skip this. But if the shoulder thing is a nightmare, this technique steps in. It is a massive lifesaver taught constantly for babies dealing with gas and reflux.

Sometimes, trying to force a burp on your shoulder just shoves the gas further down. That just leads to a screaming baby a few hours later. If that happens, just run through this technique again to clear it out.

Vomit versus burp

Sometimes it looks like they are completely throwing up instead of just burping. Honestly, vomiting is just a type of burp, but it comes out way faster and in a bigger puddle. This happens because the gas gets trapped underneath everything. When a baby overeats, all that excess milk just rides the gas wave out. They aren’t emptying their whole stomach, it is just the extra stuff coming up.

Traditional 9-to-5s are dying out fast, and the data proves online gigs are taking over. It looks like a super crowded space at first, but teenagers have a massive upper hand here. You guys just get the digital world better than anyone else. It is almost a built-in instinct at this point. I put together a list of the most profitable online jobs for teens with real-life examples. Plus, a step-by-step guide for anyone between 13 and 18 who wants to completely dominate their finances.

My spacebar keeps getting stuck today for some reason, sorry if the formatting looks a bit messy. Let’s just get into it.

8 most profitable online jobs for teenagers

Brand deal broker

Teens doing this pull in anywhere from $1,000 to $120,000 a year.

So, a guy buys a Tesla Model 3 and wants to earn the money back. He thinks about wrapping it like a race car and selling ad space. Right around then, a teenager named Christian sends a cold email saying he can find a sponsor for a flat 30% cut. Christian brings a massive $30,000 deal to the table. If they took it, the kid would have made $9,000 just for playing matchmaker. They ended up going with public.com instead, but Christian closes deals like this all the time.

His secret? Making friends in all the right places. He says it is like swinging through a jungle—one branch just leads to the next. Once you land a massive brand, it is way easier to use them as proof you know what you are doing.

Here is how his workflow looks:

• Scrapes influencer emails using random software
• Spams them until someone finally replies
• Figures out what the responding clients really need
• Flips the script and pitches brands on behalf of the influencer

It is just a modern spin on Dale Carnegie’s advice of writing letters to powerful people. The takeaway here is that the power of relationships and a good reference always works. Just do your absolute best work because you never know where a single email will lead.

Web3 Discord community manager

These guys can easily clear $70,000+ a year if they are good at multitasking.

Gen Z marketing relies entirely on community. Every brand wants a cult following. If you use Discord, you have definitely seen a community manager. They are the glue holding the entire chat together.

Employers will gladly drop over $2,000 a week for someone who reps the brand perfectly. If you can juggle things well, nothing is stopping you from modding three or four different projects at once. I mean… you get the idea. That money adds up fast.

Your daily tasks look like this:

• Telling the story of the brand
• Doing heavy customer support
• Being a shoulder to cry on when members have a rough day
• Keeping an eye on global trends
• Staying flexible so you are around when people need you

You operate as the voice of the CEO, even if you aren’t running the company yourself.

Scriptwriting for content creators

Depending on your niche and experience, you can pull way past $100,000.

Words are crazy powerful. Used right, they make you look like a genius. Used wrong, it is a disaster. That is exactly why businesses hire copywriters. They are just written sales reps. Good ones charge $500 an hour, and some demand $50,000 just to write a single landing page.

Sounds insane, right? But if your writing bumps a company’s monthly profit from $200k to $400k, that fee is a total bargain. That is where leverage kicks in—making rich clients even richer and grabbing your slice of the pie.

It is not just for websites. TikTok scripts, Twitter threads… content is king, and the writer is the wizard pulling the strings.

One guy started out writing travel blogs for passive income and eventually leveled up to writing scripts for giant influencers. Same strategy as before: one client always leads to the next. His advice?

• Always offer a service that makes you different from your competitors
• Someone is always willing to work cheaper, but premium talent is incredibly rare
• Find the client willing to pay a premium and deliver a world-class experience

SaaS developer

Devs in this space easily make $60,000 to $80,000 a year.

You can build a multi-million dollar empire without ever starting a traditional brick-and-mortar business. You just build a SaaS (Software as a Service) company instead. Tools we use every day like Notion, MailChimp, or Photoshop fall into this bucket. You build it once, and almost everything after that is pure profit.

Traditional businesses suck because the margins hit rock bottom when too many people sell the exact same thing. People start businesses to buy freedom but end up as slaves to their own store. So you want an inventory-free, infinitely scalable model. You just need a solid coder and some marketing magic.

The formula is simple:

• Research problems that businesses hate dealing with
• Have a programmer code the ultimate fix for it
• Make sure your tool solves it better than whatever garbage they are currently using

Teens can jump in by either coding the tool themselves or pitching the genius idea to a partner.

Content repurposing editor

This gig pulls in around $120,000 to $150,000 a year.

This idea blew up at some influencer summit. Instead of filming your own stuff, you just rip existing long YouTube videos or podcasts and chop them into punchy short-form clips for TikTok and Instagram. It helps big creators hit a massive new audience without filming anything new.

We call this content repurposing. It is just digital recycling. It doesn’t even take that long, but huge creators are way too lazy to edit everything themselves. As you land more clients, you just hire a team to edit for you and watch the revenue scale.

Website developer

Teens building sites are averaging $80,000 to $150,000 a year.

A website is the front door of a business, so they want it looking incredibly sharp. One developer based in Italy decided to focus strictly on building marketing funnels for the e-learning space.

He shared a massive secret: lock clients into a monthly subscription to make minor tweaks. It generates complete passive income. Think of it like the Netflix model—building a subscription business that just keeps printing recurring revenue.

The best business requires very little maintenance. Lock them in, and you are set. He lives in places like Thailand spending under $1,000 a month. The ultimate goal isn’t hoarding cash; it is buying freedom.

Twitter manager

This side hustle makes about $60,000 to $80,000 a year.

After Elon Musk took over, Twitter blew up again. One college dropout decided to turn scrolling into a full-time job. You have to study top creators—not just their recent posts, but the old viral stuff that put them on the map.

The two fastest ways to blow up on Twitter are writing threads and hosting spaces. Grabbing attention with very few words takes a ton of practice, but it is a highly prized skill. Managers usually juggle multiple clients on retainers, similar to a subscription.

Executive assistant

I’ll throw this one in as a bonus because it turns into way more than just an online job. Teens doing this make $90,000 to $110,000 a year.

You handle everything from scheduling calls to making tiny daily decisions for someone else. The secret sauce is making yourself completely indispensable. Plus, the cherry on top is that you often get to travel the world for free with the influencers you work for.

Again, connections are everything. The digital world is wide open right now. Find a way to offer value, shoot out some emails, and let everyone know exactly what you do.

Financial freedom roadmap by age: what to do from 13 to 18

The single most important factor in investing is time in the market. The earlier you throw your money in, the better chance it has to snowball into an absolute avalanche.

Age 13: Time to start investing?

You can’t legally invest on your own at 13. You have to annoy a parent or guardian into opening a custodial account for you. This is an account an adult manages for a minor until they come of age.

The names change depending on where you live:

• In the UK: Junior Stocks and Shares ISA — parents can drop up to £9,000 a year into it.
• In the US: UGMA and UTMA accounts — no contribution limits, but anything over $18,000 in a year might trigger a gift tax. UTMA is cool because you can invest in real estate and fine art too.

With a Junior ISA, you get control at 16 and can withdraw the cash at 18. Set these up through massive, low-fee brokers like Vanguard.

Age 14: Time to try out different things?

You don’t have to worry about rent or light bills right now. It is the perfect time to test different ways to make money without stressing over a steady paycheck. Wash cars, play competitive sports, do whatever.

The goal isn’t even to get rich yet. It is about building discipline for later. A lot of teens whine about having “no talent,” but they haven’t even tried three different hobbies. You can’t find your talent if you don’t experiment:

• If something completely fails, just move to the next thing.
• When you find something you are naturally good at or enjoy grinding at, double down.
• Aim to be one of the absolute best in that specific niche.

Age 15: Stack cash and apply for permit

Stop asking for shoes or video games and start asking for cash for your birthdays. Getting a weekend job—even a boring retail one—is a great move. You earn extra cash and learn how to talk to real human beings.

I prefer the word “stack” over “save.” Most teens save up for three months and blow it all on a PlayStation or a theme park trip. Have fun, obviously, but treat your stacked cash as a springboard to make more money. Starting a business from absolute zero is brutal. Even having 100 bucks makes everything way smoother.

Also, apply for your provisional license (or learner’s permit). In the UK, you can do this at 15 and 9 months.

Age 16: Skill building time

You only have a two-year window before the real world hits you in the face. Think seriously about what skills you want to stack on top of each other.

Here is the game plan:

• Stop buying fake guru courses. Stick to a few high-quality, proven resources.
• Join a community where you can chat and learn from people.
• Dump most of your cash into equipment.

For example, use your part-time job money to buy your first PC. Teach yourself video editing and Photoshop on it. Stacking these skills before you hit 18 means you enter the workforce offering real value. Bosses love it because they don’t have to train you from scratch.

Age 17: Ready for a driver’s license?

Passing your driving test is massive. Even if you don’t need to commute immediately, get it done. Some US states let you do this at 16 anyway.

Not being able to drive is a massive bottleneck for starting a side hustle. If a client lives 30 minutes away and you have to rely on a bus that’s always late… it makes you look totally unreliable and you lose the deal.

My golden rule: Early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable. Once you get your license, use your stacked cash to buy a cheap starter car. It removes so many roadblocks.

Age 18: Stepping into adulthood checklist

The world completely opens up at 18. If you want to pull ahead financially, you need to knock out this 7-step checklist:

1. Open your own bank accounts

Set up two different accounts:

• Checking account: The main hub where money flows in and out.
• High-yield savings account: Where you dump a 3-6 month emergency fund.

Avoid banks with stupid fees. Using two entirely different banks is a smart trick because it makes it way harder to impulsively spend your savings. In the UK, use a challenger bank like Monzo for checking, and Chase for savings since they hand out 4.1% interest. In the US, Ally Bank or Bank of America are solid picks for low fees and good apps.

2. Get a credit card

People think avoiding debt completely gives you a perfect credit score. It’s a myth. Grabbing a credit card at 18 is the best way to build your score. Just do this:

• Pay for stuff you were going to buy with cash anyway (like gas) using the card.
• Pay the card off in full every single month.

You never pay a dime in interest, but your credit score skyrockets. Banks use this score to decide if they should loan you money and what interest rate to slap on it. Having a fat credit score early on makes getting a mortgage way cheaper later.

3. Open an investment account

Picking the right account type is critical:

• US: Roth IRA
• UK: Stocks and Shares ISA
• Canada: TFSA
• Australia: Super

These accounts shield your investments from taxes, but they have limits. It is ridiculously easy to open these on your phone now. Plus, you can buy fractional shares. So instead of dropping $220 for one Apple share, you can literally start investing with just 1 dollar.

4. Evaluate college carefully

Is university a scam? Yes and no. I mean… it’s complicated.

• If you want to be a doctor, nurse, or teacher… yes, it is absolutely necessary.
• If you want to do entrepreneurship, tech, or trades (like plumbing)… a degree is useless. It is all about hands-on experience and attitude.

If you have no clue what to do, look into an apprenticeship. You literally get paid to learn, and they are blowing up in popularity right now. Before you commit to college, think really hard about whether you want $60,000 to $100,000 in student debt suffocating you for decades.

5. Avoid bad debt

Debt usually acts like a heavy anchor dragging you down, but you can weaponize it:

• Taking a mortgage for real estate is smart leverage because the property value usually climbs.
• Borrowing to fund a business can bring in massive profits if you scale right.

But you have to avoid consumer debt like the plague. If you can’t pay cash for something that doesn’t build wealth, do not buy it. Car loans are a classic trap. In the UK alone, 2.2 million drivers finance their cars, and most of them are stuck in a massive money pit.

6. Start a side hustle

Everyone tells 18-year-olds to “go get a job,” which just makes life sound miserable. Instead, build a service-based side hustle using the skills you stacked earlier. You barely need any startup capital for things like:

• Copywriting
• Video editing
• Videography
• Web development
• Community management

If you don’t have a high-income skill, learn one tonight. Whatever job you take, use it as leverage. Turn the skills and cash you earn into a springboard for way bigger goals.

7. Invest long term

Compound interest is a literal cheat code. You don’t just earn interest on your cash; you earn interest on your interest. It creates that snowball effect I mentioned earlier.

Look at this math:

• An 18-year-old tossing $250 a month into the market at an 8% return hits about $1.5 million (tax-free) by age 65.
• Someone doing the exact same thing but starting at 28 only hits around $679,000 by 65.

That 10-year delay literally slices your final net worth in half. Starting early takes advantage of time and your currently low tax bracket, since you probably aren’t making much right now anyway.

If you combine all these steps, you are going to be so far ahead of everyone else by your twenties. Just don’t skip steps. Start wherever you are right now and grind through the list.

What is SQL Server Reporting Services?

Here is what you get out of this tool:

• You can build paginated reports. These are highly optimized for making documents and printing.
• It gives you a modern web portal that you can open in pretty much any normal web browser.
• You manage all the reports sitting on your server right through that portal.
• You can publish those paginated reports to the web server so other people can download, view, or print them out.
• It hooks straight into your SQL Server in the background.

System requirements you need

Before we start pulling files from the web, make sure you check these boxes:

• Supported OS: Windows Server 2019 up to 2022
• .NET Framework 4.8 or newer
• You absolutely need the SQL Server database engine already on your machine.

Since I already have the SQL Server Developer Edition running on my setup, I am just linking Reporting Services directly to it.

Where to find Reporting Services?

Grabbing the files is super easy:

1. Just type “SQL reporting services download” into your search bar and hit Enter.
2. Click the very first link that says “Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services”.
3. Scroll down a bit and pick your language. My mouse wheel is squeaking today, it is driving me crazy. Anyway…
4. Before you smash that download button, you can quickly check the version, release date, and file size.
5. The system requirements are listed on that same page too.
6. Just click the Download button and wait for the file.

Once it finishes, hit Open to run the setup file.

Steps to set it up

When you open the file, a welcome screen pops up. Just follow these steps to get through it:

1. Pick the free edition from the dropdown menu. I highly recommend picking the Developer version here, otherwise your license just dies after 180 days.
2. Hit Next.
3. Check the I accept the license terms box and click Next again.
4. Choose Install Reporting Services only and hit Next.
5. Just leave the default directory path alone. It is usually the safest bet. Then click Install.
6. Windows will throw an admin permission pop-up at you. Just click Yes.

Boom, you are done with the main setup.

Configure with Report Server Configuration Manager

Right after the setup finishes, you will see a “Configure manually” option and a button that says “Configure Report Server”. Click that, say Yes to the prompt, and we move into the configuration phase.

Server connection

Since SQL Server is already on the system, the server name just pops up automatically. Select your SSRS Report Server instance and hit Connect. Like I mentioned earlier, you need SQL Server installed before doing this or it won’t connect to anything.

Once you are in, the screen shows you a few things:

• The status of the report server (started or stopped)
• Your product version and edition (like SQL Server Developer)
• Your Instance ID (SSRS)

Service account tweak

In the Service Account menu, just leave it on the default “Use built-in account” (virtual service account). No need to touch it.

Web Service URL settings

Next up is the Web Service URL tab.

• The virtual directory name defaults to “ReportServer”. You can change it if you want.
• For the IP address, just leave it on “All Assigned”.
• Leave the HTTPS certificate setting on default too.

Once you click Apply, the system builds the virtual directory and the URL goes live.

Database config

When you jump to the Database menu, the server name, database name, and report server mode are completely blank. So you have to hit the “Change Database” button. You get two options here: choose an existing report server database, or create a new report server database.

We are doing a fresh one, so follow this:

1. Click Next.
2. Double-check your server name.
3. For Authentication type, just use “Current User – Integrated Security”.
4. Hit Test Connection. If it works, click OK and then Next.
5. Confirm the database name where your reports will live and hit Next.
6. Pick “Service Credentials” for the Authentication type and click Next.
7. When it finishes doing its thing, hit Finish.

And that is it, the database is fully configured.

Web portal URL

In the Web Portal URL menu, you will see the virtual directory (“Reports”) we set up earlier. Just click Apply and this URL goes live too.

Other random settings

You will see a few other menus on the side. Honestly, you can skip most of them for a basic setup.

• Email Settings – just leave it on default.
• Execution Account – skip it.
• Encryption Keys – leave as is.
• Subscription Settings – leave blank.
• Scale-out Deployment – we don’t need this for our setup.

Access and use web portal

Once everything is dialed in, click on that Web Portal URL and it opens the SQL Server Reporting Services page in your browser. Just a heads up… it takes a while to load the very first time. I mean, I thought my browser froze for a second.

Here is what you are looking at on the main dashboard:

• Home: The main page where your favorite reports sit.
• Browse: This acts like a file manager. You can create a new folder, KPI page, paginated report, dataset, and data source from here. You can also upload an SSRS report you already built somewhere else.
• Publish: Where you go to push reports out.
• Tiles/List view: Changes how your reports look on the screen. You can hide items too.
• Manage Folders: This is where you handle access permissions. If you hit Edit, you’ll see different roles like browse, publisher, and report builder.
• Settings: Manage your subscriptions and site settings. The download help section is hiding in here too.
• You have a search box and your user profile up in the top right corner.

Make a new folder

Making a new folder on the web portal is super easy.

1. On the Home page, hit the New button.
2. Type in a folder name (something like “Finance Reports”).
3. Click Create.

You can double-click that folder to open it, dump your finance reports in there, and just share the URL with whoever needs to see them. You get the idea.

Source: SQL.solutions

My spacebar is acting up today, sorry if the text looks a bit messy in some spots. Let’s get into it.

Why do online tracking systems exist?

Immigration agencies set these online systems up to give applicants some transparency and, honestly, to stop millions of people from flooding their phone lines. These platforms give you almost real-time updates from the second they receive your application all the way to the final decision. It just helps you figure out exactly where you stand.

Steps to check application status

Find right official website

First, you have to hunt down the correct immigration website for the country you applied to. For example:

• For United States, you go to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
• For Canada, you use Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)

Look for status check section

Once you are on the site, you need to look for a specific section labeled something like Check Your Application Status or Case Status.

Type in your application number

At this stage, you just need to type in your unique application reference number or your client ID number that they gave you when you first submitted your paperwork. You get the idea.

What do status messages mean?

Reading these status messages correctly is pretty crucial. You might run into a few different ones like:

• Application Received
• In Process
• Decision Made
• Request for More Information

What to do if your status stays stuck?

If your status just sits there frozen for a really long time, or if you suddenly need to update your contact info, these online portals usually have options to reach out to the agency directly. You can usually contact them through:

• A secure messaging system
• Over the phone… but seriously, make sure you double-check your online status thoroughly before you resort to calling them.

Things to know about processing times

Keep in mind that processing times can fluctuate wildly depending on the type of application and how massive their backlog is right now. So being patient is key, but checking in regularly is just a good proactive habit.

Perks of linking your account

A lot of these systems let you link your application straight to a personal online account. Doing this just makes things so much better:

• Tracking becomes way easier
• You get important notifications directly

The cherry on top? Just make sure the contact info on your file is always up to date. If the agency needs to reach out for extra documents, you really don’t want any delays just because of an old email address.

Source: crystalbutton.com

My spacebar is acting up today, sorry if the text looks a bit messy in some spots. Let’s get into it.

Why do online tracking systems exist?

Immigration agencies set these online systems up to give applicants some transparency and, honestly, to stop millions of people from flooding their phone lines. These platforms give you almost real-time updates from the second they receive your application all the way to the final decision. It just helps you figure out exactly where you stand.

Steps to check application status

Find right official website

First, you have to hunt down the correct immigration website for the country you applied to. For example:

• For United States, you go to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
• For Canada, you use Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)

Look for status check section

Once you are on the site, you need to look for a specific section labeled something like Check Your Application Status or Case Status.

Type in your application number

At this stage, you just need to type in your unique application reference number or your client ID number that they gave you when you first submitted your paperwork. You get the idea.

What do status messages mean?

Reading these status messages correctly is pretty crucial. You might run into a few different ones like:

• Application Received
• In Process
• Decision Made
• Request for More Information

What to do if your status stays stuck?

If your status just sits there frozen for a really long time, or if you suddenly need to update your contact info, these online portals usually have options to reach out to the agency directly. You can usually contact them through:

• A secure messaging system
• Over the phone… but seriously, make sure you double-check your online status thoroughly before you resort to calling them.

Things to know about processing times

Keep in mind that processing times can fluctuate wildly depending on the type of application and how massive their backlog is right now. So being patient is key, but checking in regularly is just a good proactive habit.

Perks of linking your account

A lot of these systems let you link your application straight to a personal online account. Doing this just makes things so much better:

• Tracking becomes way easier
• You get important notifications directly

The cherry on top? Just make sure the contact info on your file is always up to date. If the agency needs to reach out for extra documents, you really don’t want any delays just because of an old email address.