KnowYard Community

Groceries are where I feel it the most. Same cart that cost $120 two years ago is $170 now. And the shrinkflation is real — everything is smaller.

Solar panels with battery backup. Not cheap but after 2 summers of anxiety I made the investment. When ERCOT asks me to conserve, I just switch to battery. Independence from this grid is priceless.

Dog park if you have a dog. I've made more friends through my dog in 6 months than I made on my own in a year. Dogs are social lubricant.

Hot take: Texas drivers are aggressive but predictable. They're going fast and they expect you to keep up. Northeast drivers are passive-aggressive which is somehow worse.

The merge thing is the real danger. Who taught people to merge at 40mph onto a 75mph highway? That's how accidents happen.

Early morning on weekdays is the cheat code for popular parks. I go at 7am on a Tuesday and have the whole trail to myself. Same trail on a Saturday at 10am has 200 people.

Volunteering. Pick something you care about, show up regularly, and you'll meet good people. Food banks, habitat builds, trail cleanups. Shared purpose builds bonds faster than shared drinks.

Brazilian jiu jitsu gym. I know it sounds random but hear me out — you train with the same people 3-4 times a week, you suffer together, and the community is insanely tight. Changed my social life.

Got dashcam footage that could fill a YouTube channel. Front and rear cameras are mandatory equipment in this state as far as I'm concerned.

Skip ADT. The equipment is overpriced, the contracts are 3 years, and the cancellation process is a nightmare. There's a reason they need door-to-door salespeople.

The "no income tax" thing is a trap. They get you with property tax, sales tax, and toll roads. You end up paying the same or more than a lot of income tax states.

Rain + Texas drivers = absolute chaos. The first rain after a dry spell might as well be an ice storm based on how people react. Either 25mph in the left lane or 80mph tailgating. No in between.

I will say this: Texas drivers are aggressive but they commit. It's the hesitant drivers from other states merging at 40mph who cause the real accidents.

Enforcement is basically nonexistent unless you're going 95+ or visibly drunk. I drive the same highway every day and haven't seen a speed trap in months.

The joke is that Texas has two seasons: summer and construction. And somehow they overlap perfectly to make everything worse.

Check on your elderly neighbors during heat waves. Seriously. Heat stroke can kill and not everyone has working AC or the ability to get to a cooling center.

SimpliSafe. No contract, $17/month monitoring, easy DIY install. Had it 3 years and it's triggered twice from actual incidents — both times the monitoring center called within 30 seconds. Would buy again.

Be the one who initiates. "We should hang out sometime" means nothing. "Want to grab tacos Saturday at 1pm?" is a plan. Most people want friends but nobody wants to be the one to plan things.

If you're lucky enough to have a Gold's Gym nearby, that's still the gold standard for serious lifting. Some locations are better than others though.

I genuinely think some of these projects are designed to never finish so the contracts keep paying out. Call me cynical but 3 years for a highway widening is insane.

Property taxes are the real killer. No income tax sounds great until you realize you pay 2.5% of your home value every year. That adds up FAST on a 400k house.

Ring Alarm Pro with the cameras. If you're already in the Ring ecosystem it just works. $20/month for monitoring and cloud storage for all cameras. The integration is the selling point.

Unpopular opinion: corn tortilla breakfast tacos are superior. Flour gets soggy too fast if you're taking them to go.

Paper plates = no insurance and possibly no registration. And they drive like it because they know they can't be traced. Biggest problem on Texas roads right now.

It depends where you came from. My friends in California still pay double what I pay for everything. Texas is expensive compared to 2019 Texas, but cheap compared to a lot of other places.