• Brenna Lasky, 34, spent eight years working in recruiting for Meta, Google, and Salesforce.
• Lasky now has a career coaching business and shares insights for applicants struggling to land jobs.
• She suggests fixes for applicants struggling to get past certain stages of the application process.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with 34-year-old Brenna Lasky, who worked in recruiting at Google, Meta, and Salesforce. Her identity and employment have been verified. This story has been edited for length and clarity.

I spent eight years recruiting for tech companies, including Meta, Salesforce, and Google. I learned a ton about what hiring managers are looking for.

Prior to working in Big Tech, I really struggled with my own job search process and received rejections. I was mass-applying. I was playing a numbers game. I wasn't revising my resume. With each application, I was just sending it out and hoping for the best.

I launched a career coaching business in September to help job seekers understand where they might be missing the mark and how they can get into Big Tech. My goal is to help demystify the job search process and understand what it takes to get into companies.

If you're applying to roles but find yourself getting stuck at one of these points in the application process, I would encourage you to take a step back to understand where you may need to make adjustments.

If you're not getting interviews

Usually, if you're not getting interviews, it's related to your résumé because your résumé is the first step in the process. I would check to see if your résumé a laundry list of everything you've ever done or if you're doing a good job of showing the relevant skills and how your past experience directly relates to the role that you're applying to.

Also, if you're mass-applying and not tailoring your résumé, there's a good chance you might not be hitting all of those minimum qualifications.

The reason why people say to tailor your résumé or make sure that you include keywords is not necessarily because there's this evil applicant tracking system that is going to auto-reject your résumé. It's instead because recruiters are comparing résumés against the minimum qualifications.

Obviously, it's super time-consuming to change your résumé every single time if you're doing tons of applications. So something that I always like to recommend to my clients is having a baseline résumé. If you're a program manager, have your program manager résumé. Then, based on each job that you apply for, go through those minimum qualifications and feel free to add small tweaks here and there.

I also always suggest to clients that I work with, if you do know someone who works at a company that you want to work with, definitely reach out to them. If you can get a referral, especially in Big Tech, that will help you. That being said, referrals aren't a guarantee for getting a job. Your referral isn't going to be there holding your hand or doing actual interviews with you.

If you're not getting past the screening call

Each team has a different individual process, but as a general rule of thumb, you'll always start with a recruiter screen. That'll be around 30 minutes. It's really just a quick pulse check on whether the person did what their résumé claims and if they are able to potentially do the job at hand. Having really solid answers where you can come into the interview and feel confident is worth the extra time it takes.

There's pretty much a guarantee that there are four common questions that you'll be asked in recruiter screens:

Tell me about yourself.

Why are you interested in this position or company?

Why are you looking for a new role?

What are your salary expectations?

Rather than simply relaying your experience, connect the dots for your recruiter on why you're a good fit for the role and why they should move your application forward. A mistake a lot of people make is they rely too much on their past experience. I always recommend that applicants speak to the job that they want to have.

If you're not making it to the final round

After the screening call, you'll typically do a 30-to-45 minute hiring manager screen. They'll give you the goals of the team and what they're looking for. Then, that hiring manager will decide if this is someone they want to move forward with.

Once you meet with the team, you'll typically meet with two to four decision-makers with whom you'd work daily. Those interviews are typically geared toward behavioral questions and technical skills.

I always suggest coming up with five to six stories that highlight your impact and achievements as evidence as to why you're a great fit for the role. I like this number because it gives you a broad enough range to pull from depending on the questions, but it's not so overwhelming that when you're on the spot, you panic and try to go through 20 different examples.

To understand what examples to speak to, I would suggest going back to the job description and looking at the bullet points or the minimum qualifications. For each one of those bullet points, come up with an example of how you were able to help solve that problem.

• When my therapist suggested decluttering might ease my anxiety and OCD symptoms, I was skeptical.
• I decided to try it and started looking for a method that might help me with the process.
• It became easier when I focused on what to keep rather than what to get rid of.

Anxiety and OCD had been manipulating my life like puppet masters for almost two years when my occupational therapist recommended trying decluttering to help ease my symptoms. At that point, though I'd noticed some improvements from a year in therapy, I'd also been struggling with a few health conditions, including long COVID, and felt like I was trudging along.

Over time, I'd become afraid of leaving my own home as I was petrified of getting sick again. My life often felt meaningless and unrecognizable. I couldn't see how getting rid of some belongings could help. Despite my skepticism, I was desperate to feel like myself again. I yearned for my home to no longer resemble an obstacle course.

My therapist helped me see why the clutter was such an issue

My apartment was already cluttered and stressing me out, and then my mom moved; everything I had stored in her garage was suddenly in my living room. My son and I had to create pathways among the boxes to move from one room to another.

"You're repeatedly having to step over your past — you're being reminded of it every day," my occupational therapist said. He had summarized in one sentence exactly why I'd been unable to move forwards. I started decluttering immediately after that appointment.

I tried a few different decluttering methods

I looked for a system to help me along the way. The KonMari method caught my eye first, but my sentimental nature decided that everything sparked joy — even a bag of rocks. I'd spent decades giving objects the same sentimental value as the memories they represented, and now, it was hard to get rid of them.

The four-box method — sorting items into boxes labeled keep, donate/sell, storage, and trash — also didn't work for me. When indecisiveness caused by my anxiety took over, almost everything ended up in the storage box, which I basically saw as a "maybe" box. All I ended up doing was pushing it around the apartment. I worried I might regret getting rid of something, so I decided it was safest to get rid of nothing.

However, through working with my occupational therapist, I realized guilt played a part in my holding onto some things — as though getting rid of an item would also mean getting rid of that memory. So, I took a deep breath and prepared to be ruthless.

Reframing the process of decluttering helped me tackle it

The next method involved deciding what to keep instead of what to get rid of. This mindset shift made the decluttering process more enjoyable; it was easier to focus on items I treasured than those I would get rid of, even if the end goal was the same. Inspired by decluttering blogs, I also considered whether I would buy the item now if I didn't already own it to help me decide how much I wanted anything I wasn't sure about.

Whenever I struggled with indecisiveness (which was often), I remembered that my home should — and could — be a place where I relax, rather than a cluster of clutter and unmade decisions.

With each carload donated to charity, the stress began to leave my body. The catharsis of releasing my grip on each box as I handed it over gave me the calmness and clarity I craved. I was giving myself permission to move on — permission to stop letting my past rule my present and future.

It wasn't totally smooth sailing, but I eventually got it done

I hadn't been prepared for when OCD tried to control the situation, though. After a few weeks, I began to feel on edge if I didn't declutter a certain amount of items each day. When I realized what was happening, I forced myself not to declutter for a few days, so I could calm the OCD and return with the right mindset.

A few months into the process, as I continued to declutter my apartment, my sleep improved, and my energy levels increased. I experienced fewer anxious thoughts, and when they did occur, I had the energy to rationalize most of them.

I was untangling myself from the burdens of my past as I removed their physical manifestations from my apartment, freeing up the space in my home so I could finally relax, and giving myself something to focus on other than my spiraling thoughts.

After decluttering, I feel relieved

Although I don't believe decluttering opened up a magic portal to my recovery, I have no doubt it helped tremendously. I managed to declutter most of my belongings in what felt like an act of liberation. I've only kept things that I either need or treasure.

My home isn't picture-perfect, and neither is my mental health. But I'm happy. It took me 21 months to finish decluttering my home — I had to pace myself as I couldn't do it every day, or for hours at a time. I finished completely about nine months ago. And in the time since I first started, I've gone from having severe anxiety and being incapable of leaving my home without prior planning, to living a life I can honestly say I adore.

By working with my therapist, reading self-help books, decluttering, going for daily walks, meditating, journaling, and rediscovering the things that bring me joy, the symptoms caused by my anxiety have lessened. I also received support from loved ones, improved my food choices, and developed a morning routine that gives me a feeling of purpose again.

Although anxiety and OCD are still unpaying tenants in my mind, they don't have the level of control they did before. By getting rid of the things that brought me anxiety, I've created space for the things that bring me joy.

My home and mind are no longer caverns of chaos.

• 10 Goldman Sachs partners shared the books, speeches, and plays that inspired them this year.
• President John Waldron recommended a book about Dwight Eisenhower that taught him about leadership.
• See what 9 other Goldman execs said made them better leaders, industry experts, and humans in 2024.

Goldman Sachs' top brass are revered as some of the sharpest minds on Wall Street — but staying on top of your game takes work.

As 2024 comes to a close, Business Insider asked 10 senior officials of the powerhouse global investment bank — a leader in M&A dealmaking and advice — to share at least one thing they read, watched, or listened to that made them smarter and better at their jobs over the last year.

One Goldman partner recommended a play that helped her think about the long-term impact of her actions. Another partner touted a lecture by a famous philosopher on the importance of organizational trust that can be streamed from Spotify.

As Carey Halio, Goldman's global treasurer, put it, learning is an "endless" pursuit for leaders of the bank, which ranked No. 1 in M&A volumes last year, according to deal tracker LSEG.

"The more you can expand your knowledge base, the better you will be at your core function, the more you will be able to connect the dots and the more effective you will be as a leader," Halio told BI.

Here's what top Goldman executives like President John Waldron, Vice Chair Rob Kaplan, and M&A cohead Stephan Feldgoise shared as their top recommendations from 2024. The responses all come from Goldman partners, the bank's highest rank outside the C-suite. They are in the partners' own words, edited only for length and clarity, and are organized alphabetically by last name.

• China is readying forces that could seize Taiwan in a future attack, analysts and officials say.
• Any military operation is likely to rely partly on China's militarized police.
• The People's Armed Police has been training in a wide range of conditions, including water.

China is preparing its militarized police for kinds of combat that would play a key role in any invasion of Taiwan.

A September report from China Central Television shows what appears to be the People's Armed Police Force, or PAP, simulating attacks from inflatable boats.

Footage and pictures from Chinese state-run outlets show the extent of the combat training and battlefield simulation — blockade breakthroughs, grenade throwing, battlefield rescue, and group tactics in cold, hot, and high-altitude conditions.

This training indicates PAP soldiers "are getting ready" for a takeover of Taiwan, said Lyle Goldstein, director of Asia Engagement at the Defense Priorities think tank in Washington, DC.

Clandestine movement by water would be an essential capability to quell resistance in Taiwan's populated areas near the coast and rivers.

"From my observation, they train hard; they are well equipped and disciplined, and they're given stringent ideological training for the reason that they are probably, in my view, the primary reserve force for section invasion," Goldstein said.

"If they went forward with a full-up invasion, I think an amphibious assault is not just conceivable but is quite a possibility," he added.

Urban training

Since its founding in 1982, China's PAP has been firmly placed under the country's military.

These armed police are a shock force in China's vast state security apparatus. The force plays a key internal security role, mostly in law enforcement, counterterrorism, disaster response, and maritime rights protection.

Beijing also regularly uses them for propaganda. One likely goal of publicizing the recent training was to intimidate Taiwan and its backers.

Alessio Patalano, a professor of war and strategy in East Asia at King's College London, said the PAP's inclusion in any takeover of Taiwan would make sense given their urban training.

He told BI the PAP keeps "highly skilled" special forces at hand who are involved in surgical operations to capture strategic goals where mobility, speed, and familiarity with operating in urban areas are key.

PAP special forces maintained security at Beijing Olympic venues in 2008, conducted drills in Shenzhen near Hong Kong in 2019, and have engaged in multiple counter-terrorism operations in China's Xinjiang region over the years, according to Chinese state-run media.

"To that extent, whether in decapitation scenarios or early stages of operations to seize key port and airport infrastructures, the use of PAP should be regarded as a viable, if not preferable, option," Patalano said.

A supporting role

It's unlikely that the PAP would participate in the first stages of any island landing.

"That is the purview of the PLA," said Joel Wuthnow, a senior research fellow at the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs at the National Defense University in DC. The PLA is China's main military — the People's Liberation Army.

He said that the PAP would instead initially participate in operations to firm up internal security in mainland China, including suppressing signs of social unrest, protecting critical infrastructure, and clearing out national highways to facilitate the delivery of supplies to regions near Taiwan.

Any attempt to seize Taiwan, a self-ruled island of 23 million that Beijing views as a breakaway province, would require warships, armored vehicles, and heavy firepower, to answer Taiwan's advanced missiles, tanks, and F-16 fighter jets.

However, if PLA's operations in Taiwan didn't go according to plan, and it faced a protracted campaign, Wuthnow said the PAP's Special Operation Forces could be mobilized to institute military governance through missions in urban areas like Taipei.

Another aspect of the PAP's response could involve China's Coast Guard, which it oversees.

The coast guard is already "very much" on the front lines of China's "coercive" campaign against Taiwan, Wuthnow said, and its role seems to be increasing.

Meanwhile, Taiwan's mountainous terrain, as well as its few major land routes and numerous river crossings, would make it difficult for any invading forces to move.

"If the population of Taiwan were not compliant with a PRC-led occupation authority, the period where the PRC would need to rely on their own police might be quite prolonged," said Philip Shetler-Jones, a senior research fellow in the International Security team at the UK's Royal United Services Institute, using the acronym for the People's Republic of China.

The more PAP forces can take over the "public order" task, the more it frees up combat troops, he added.

An imminent invasion

Military experts and defense officials see signs — like China's rapid modernization of its armed forces over the past two decades and drills around Taiwan — that suggest that China could take action within a few years.

But the form of that action is a matter of debate, from a blockade to a full-scale invasion.

During a 2021 hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Adm. Phil Davidson, then the US Indo-Pacific commander, said Taiwan was "clearly" one of China's "ambitions" and that he believed the threat would be "manifest" within the next six years.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping said in October, as part of the country's anniversary celebrations, that reunification with Taiwan was "where the greater national interest lies, and it is what the people desire."

"The wheel of history will not be stopped by any individual or any force," he added.

Goldstein of Defense Priorities, who described himself as a bit of an outlier, said he believes China is ready to take over Taiwan now "if they choose to," and that the PAP's Special Operation Forces would likely play a significant role.

They "will be in very high demand in a Taiwan scenario," he said.

He added that China regards Taiwan as internal security. "So, for them, the use of these forces is entirely legitimate."

From historic firsts in reusable rockets to commercial spacewalks, 2024 was a transformative year in exploring the cosmos.

Shirin Galili has shared a combination of techniques designed to help parents teach their kids without raising their voices.

The sporty 2024 Honda Civic Si works for the enthusiast with a family and cargo.

• The Mercedes-Benz CLE is all-new for 2024 and one of the brand's two remaining convertible models.
• I recently drove a 2024 Mercedes-Benz CLE450 with 4Matic all-wheel-drive.
• I enjoyed the CLE's mild-hybrid I6 engine, luxurious cabin, immersive tech, and quiet open-air ride.

The Mercedes-Benz CLE Cabriolet is all-new for 2024, replacing the C-Class and E-Class cabriolets in the brand's lineup.

The CLE and the SL Roadster are the only drop tops left in the Mercedes-Benz portfolio that has offered five convertibles in recent years.

I recently reviewed a 2024 Mercedes-Benz CLE450 4Matic Cabriolet with an as-test price of $84,140. I was impressed by its strong turbocharged six-cylinder engine, luxurious cabin, immersive tech, and quiet ride even with the top down.

My six-cylinder CLE450 4Matic Cabriolet test car starts at $73,850, but freight fees and optional extras like Nappa leather, blue metallic paint, and a driver-assistance package added $10,000 to the price tag.

Here are 14 features that show why the CLE450 Cabriolet is a world-class luxury convertible.

The Kremlin leader "apologized for the fact that the incident happened in Russian airspace" during a call with Azerbaijan's president.

About a decade ago, I loaded a couple of midsize suitcases, three large Ikea bags, a pair of 10-gallon Rubbermaid totes, a laundry basket, and two heavily sedated cats into a U-Haul and moved from Toronto to New York City. All my belongings fit neatly into my tiny new Brooklyn bedroom, with plenty of square footage to spare. Turns out, my relative lack of stuff was right on trend.

At the time, millennials like me were buying and owning less, purportedly breaking the mold of American consumerism. We Instagrammed our sparsely furnished, overly beige interiors. We eschewed car ownership and suburban McMansions in favor of bikes, car-share memberships, and big-city apartments with roommates. We were spending our money not on things but on experiences — and blogging about it, too.

"If the millennials are not quite a postdriving and postowning generation, they'll almost certainly be a less-­driving and less-­owning generation," declared a September 2012 article in The Atlantic titled "The Cheapest Generation." Our reputation quickly found a nifty shorthand: Millennials were a generation of minimalists.

As I write this from the same tiny Brooklyn bedroom, I can see my closet doors straining against the weight of a nearly bursting trash bag filled with cast-off clothing I keep meaning to recycle. The three Ikea bags are stacked full of dirty laundry, which my partner or I would probably get around to washing if we didn't have plenty of other stuff to wear. Our dresser top is strewn with impulse buys you'd find in a drugstore checkout line. I can think of a few descriptors for the state of my surroundings, but "minimalist" isn't one of them.

While my fellow 28- to 43-year-olds have yet to shake our association with less-is-more living, that old stereotype doesn't quite stand up to scrutiny anymore. Consumer-spending data suggests we have no trouble dropping our hard-earned cash on goods and services — experiences and things. As we've built careers and started families, our buying habits increasingly resemble those of Gen X and boomers when they were the age we are now.

Millennials haven't been minimalists in years. In fact, we may have never been minimalists at all.

---

The minimalist-millennial myth began in the early 2010s in the aftermath of the Great Recession. As the "next generation" of leaders, workers, and spenders, my contemporaries' behavior was of keen interest to marketers, business leaders, and economists. So when my generation, rattled by a catastrophic recession, wasn't buying as much as our predecessors, concern spread that our diminished purchasing power — or worse, our somehow radically different priorities and values — might signal the end of the consumer-spending spree that had powered the nation's economy since the end of World War II.

It affirmed the widely held suspicion that we were a generation of coddled Peter Pans who refused to put down the avocado toast; buy some cars, houses, and house-sized volumes of stuff; and just grow up already.

Throughout the decade, a breadcrumb trail of survey data seemed to back up these concerns. In a 2016 Harris Poll, 78% of millennials said they would rather pay for an experience than material goods, as opposed to 59% of baby boomers. A 2015 Nielsen survey similarly found that millennials went out to eat at nearly twice the rate of their parents — they would rather eat their riches than stockpile them. The 2014 English-language translation of Marie Kondo's "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" sold over 9 million copies, spawning a cottage industry of aspiring millennial declutterers.

The minimalist trend wasn't entirely bogus from a cultural standpoint. "The recession was a real force for people fetishizing simplicity and turning frugality into a virtue, making the best of what you have rather than prioritizing consuming more or consuming flashier things," said the writer Kyle Chayka, whose 2020 book "The Longing for Less" digs into the perennial appeal of a more pared-down way of living.

The postrecession era also saw the rise of smartphones, which ushered in digital sensory overload. Seemingly overnight, apartments and Instagram grids were awash in the clean lines and open spaces of midcentury-modern design (or, at least, Ikea's approximations of it). "There's so much chaos in our phones," Chayka said. "Why would you want more chaos in your physical surroundings?"

Millennials' minimalism became an economic-anxiety Rorschach test. Depending on the beholder, our perceived underconsumption might have signaled a virtuous departure from the poisoned cycle of production, purchase, and disposal. For others, it affirmed the widely held suspicion that we were a generation of coddled Peter Pans who refused to put down the avocado toast; buy some cars, houses, and house-sized volumes of stuff; and just grow up already. Though it was largely an aesthetic trend, the myth of millennial minimalism was so central to my cohort's cultural identity that it may as well have been real.

But in reality, this theory of arrested economic development was always a bit of a mirage. Throughout the 1950s and '60s, consumer spending accounted for roughly 60% of US GDP; since the early 2000s, despite millennials' purported lack of spending, it's held steady at just under 70%.

Take one of the most talked about large purchases that millennials were eschewing: cars. Automobile ownership has been a central tenet of the American dream since the '50s, when the health of the automobile industry became closely tied to the country's economic growth and prosperity. No longer needed for building tanks and munitions to ship overseas, factory assembly lines "newly renovated with Uncle Sam's dollars" were repurposed to build tens of thousands of new cars, which American consumers eagerly bought up, the Harvard historian Lizabeth Cohen wrote in her 2004 book, "A Consumers' Republic." Even now, demand for cars is looked at as a bellwether for consumer spending and the US economy more broadly.

It's no coincidence then that millennials' apparent resistance to car ownership, in particular, jumped out as evidence of our radically shifting consumer ethos. One widely circulated data point came from a 2010 CNW Group analysis, which reported that 21- to 34-year-olds in the US were responsible for just 27% of new-car purchases, down from a high of 38% in 1985. News outlets cited this data as proof that millennials, as a whole, were less interested in buying cars than their boomer parents or their older Gen X siblings. What they failed to consider was how present circumstances — such as the ripple effects of a then very recent economic crisis, especially among young adults just entering the workforce — might alter how people spent their money, especially on big-ticket items like brand-new cars.

In 2016, the Federal Reserve Board issued a report that sought to set the record straight by pointing out that the anti-car narrative about millennials didn't take the Great Recession into account. The report argued that the economic downturn almost certainly shaped people's spending as much or more than the technological and cultural changes that were happening at the same time. Proving the point, young adults were back to buying cars by the mid-2010s. Nowadays, millennials have fully caught up: Since 2020, we've accounted for almost 30% of the nation's new-vehicle registrations, a rate that's roughly on par with baby boomers and only slightly below that of Gen X, Experian research found. But by the time the Fed report was released, it was already too late. The truism of millennials as minimalists was entrenched.

---

So if millennials aren't minimalists, what exactly are we? Sociologists would likely tell you that's the wrong question to ask — people's behaviors and lifestyles change over time, as do societal norms and priorities. The question isn't how to best define millennials as consumers but whether millennials' young-adult spending was markedly different from that of prior generations.

For answers, we can turn to consumer-spending records. Since 1984, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been conducting its Consumer Expenditure Surveys to see how different American age cohorts spend money. Granted, the picture it paints is somewhat incomplete; by 1984, most boomers were well past their early 20s, making a direct comparison with millennials challenging. Still, it offers a useful baseline for comparing different age groups' spending over time. Sure enough, when adjusted for inflation, Americans under 25, between 25 and 34, and 35 to 44 have spent roughly similarly across most major consumer categories for the past four decades, with momentary dips overlaying periods of recession followed by bounce backs. While it's true that millennials are spending more of their budgets on airfare and vacation rentals than older generations did at the same age, the same can be said for Gen Zers, Gen Xers, and baby boomers — everyone is splurging on travel right now.

Because younger adults tend to have fewer family responsibilities and far less wealth than adults in their professional prime, they spend less overall. As their expenses and income accrue over time, they spend more — especially once kids enter the picture, bringing new mouths to feed, bodies to clothe, and hobbies to equip. Now that millennials have families of their own, they're even more overwhelmed by clutter than their boomer parents before them, buried under piles of ever-cheaper toys.

In other words, millennials' style of spending isn't special; it's cyclical.

To further the point, millennials now account for the largest share of homebuyers, making up 38% of the homebuying market, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors. Our tilt toward homeownership isn't new, either. We'd nearly caught up with our boomer parents way back in 2019, according to Freddie Mac; 43% of us owned homes, just shy of the 45% of baby boomers who were able to buy their first homes between 25 and 34. Whatever we weren't buying in our 20s, we are making up for in our 30s and 40s.

"There's the ongoing narrative that millennials can't afford housing or don't own houses, that they're renters, but when you look at the data, 25- to 34-year-olds are just as likely to be homeowners now as they were in 1993," said Bryan Rigg, a BLS economist who oversees Consumer Expenditure Survey microdata for public use. "Really, a lot of the expenditure patterns are similar." One major exception is that today's 20- and 30-somethings are a lot more comfortable taking on debt to buy things — like cars and homes — than in the past.

For better or worse, public memory is short. Many of today's young adults might not even be aware that the current crop of 30-somethings were ever considered minimalists in the first place. There's evidence that the rest of us are starting to forget, too. Maybe you've read about the new TikTok trend sweeping Gen Z: a mindful alternative to the "haul" culture that's grown around ultrafast fashion and ultracheap e-commerce platforms. It's a whole new approach to stuff. Some have said it might even slow down the economy. This time around, we're calling it "underconsumption core."

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Kelli María Korducki is a journalist whose work focuses on work, tech, and culture. She's based in New York City.

• Spotify added audiobooks last year. Paid subscribers get 15 hours worth each month.
• You can also get them through Amazon or your library — celebrity memoirs are great on audiobooks.
• I'd never cared one way or the other about Al Pacino until I listened to him read his audiobook.

You probably already know that Spotify offers audiobooks with its paid-tier subscriptions. (If not, now you do!)

You might even be confused as to why I'm mentioning this when the audiobook feature launched more than a year ago, in November 2023.

Well, I'm writing this because fairly often over the last year, when I'm talking to people and I mention that I've listened to a book on Spotify, they're surprised — they didn't notice the audiobook feature even if they're a regular Spotify music listener. Or maybe they didn't realize that the books were all included for free with their subscription.

So I am taking it upon myself, during this quiet dead time between the holidays to remind you all:

You can listen to books for free* on Spotify.

(*OK, technically, you get 15 hours a month for free with your subscription. That's typically one or two books. If you go over, you can purchase more books à la carte. For me, 15 hours is fine.)

On Amazon, the largest bookseller, you can go through its Audible subscription service, which charges a monthly fee in exchange for credits you can use to purchase audiobooks. Amazon Music is now doing something similar to Spotify — you get one free book to listen to a month with a paid subscription.

Of course, there are people who are extremely high-volume consumers of audiobooks — and one book a month isn't going to even come close to cutting it for them. On Reddit, some of these power listeners who burn through three to five books in a week discussed their strategies: mixing together Audible credits, the one free Amazon Music books, and Libby (the app for public libraries, which is great because it's unlimited and actually free, but it doesn't have everything and there can be long wait times for new releases or popular titles).

There's also a shady underworld to audiobooks: torrent sites, or YouTube brain rot-style videos where someone plays Minecraft over the audiobook narration for the entire "Lord of the Rings" series.

I don't condone any of that. Point is: With Spotify or Amazon Music, the audiobooks are a nice add-on. They could completely change your reading habits if you're now someone who really loves the feel of paper in your hands or likes to curl up with their Kindle.

If you've never listened to audiobooks, allow me to make the case for a specific genre that they're perfect for: celebrity memoirs, especially if the celebrities themselves read them.

Most recently, I listened to Al Pacino's autobiography, "Sonny Boy: A Memoir." Pacino reads it himself, and it's the perfect delivery — he's got all the strangely YELLED WORDS!!! and quiet asides. At points, I wondered if he was even going off-script, it sounded so natural.

I hadn't previously particularly cared much either way about Al Pacino, but I finished the book absolutely delighted by him and his commitment to leading an artistic life. But I truly think that I wouldn't have found the book as compelling if I had read it on paper — his reading of it added so much.

Celebrity autobiographies often aren't exactly hugely weighty or complicated tomes — you can listen as you would a podcast: while doing the dishes, grocery shopping, driving.

So here's my pitch: If you're already paying for Spotify, Amazon, or any other service, give an audiobook a try. It's usually free, there's nothing to lose — if you think the book stinks, just start a new one!

Democrats "must become a phenomenon," the progressive leader told Newsweek.

Gubernatorial elections and special house districts may be the most telling off-year elections in 2025.

After a tumultuous few years, Lake Powell maintained its levels in 2024, but much remains uncertain for the vital water source.

Newsweek has mapped the best places to ring in the new year, according to a recent study from WalletHub.

February 2025 will see the third anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Is Donald Trump about to end it?

• Mike Cavanagh bought a 10-foot-wide skinny house in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, in 2024
• It's a spite house because its developer decided to build what he could given city restrictions.
• Cavanagh said he's glad he bought the skinny house even though it attracts some curious onlookers.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Mike Cavanagh, a 51-year-old regional manager for a medical device company, who purchased a skinny house built out of spite in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, in 2024. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

I realized it was time to downsize once my kids got older and moved out.

In 2020, I sold my 3,700-square-foot home and moved into a townhouse. I spent about four years renting, hoping the market would adjust, but it never did. I eventually decided it was time to buy something.

In June, I called a real-estate agent friend in Jacksonville Beach and said, "Hey, I'd like to see a few properties." We toured three homes — one was a townhouse, and the other two were three-bedroom houses. None of them felt right.

Later, they called and said, "I've got something you need to see. It's really unique."

The moment I walked into the house, I turned to my real-estate agent and said, "I'll take it."

The home is 10 feet wide and 1,547 square feet, with two bedrooms and 2½ baths. Despite its narrow layout, the exterior has great curb appeal. Inside, it has a modern feel, with beautiful flooring and tile work throughout.

The same day I toured the home, I made an offer. It was accepted, and we closed in just 30 days. I purchased it in early June for just over $600,000.

The home feels like the right size for me

At first, I didn't know much about the home's history. What drew me in was the neighborhood — it was quiet and peaceful, which I liked. The house is also the perfect size for me since I'm single. If I were 40 with young kids, it wouldn't have worked.

Eventually, I met with the home's builder. He explained that he had owned the lot for a long time, and while neighbors wanted to buy it, he wasn't willing to sell.

Originally, he wanted to build a 15-foot-wide home, but the city said no. So, he decided to do it his way and make the home 10 feet wide. That's how its unique design came to be.

I've definitely acclimated to the home. It doesn't feel small; its bumped-out walls give the house an almost container-like feel, reminiscent of an RV from the outside.

One of the home's unique features is its built-in nooks. The upstairs bedroom has a built-in platform where my mattress sits, so I don't need a bed frame.

Another important feature of the home is its natural light. The builder did an excellent job positioning the windows to create a bright, inviting atmosphere.

I hired a local designer, and together we developed a vision for the space.

I do entertain sometimes, but I don't have massive dinner parties. I just wanted to create a great environment for working from home.

We added a built-in white oak couch in the living room with custom cushions. It was a bit pricey but totally worth it because it's incredibly comfortable and has an artsy vibe. By the TV, we also installed built-in shelving and cabinets made from white oak.

I think the skinny house is a good investment

I think the fact that my home was featured on Zillow Gone Wild and that there used to be a "For Sale" sign in the yard both drew a lot of attention.

It's more subdued now, but I occasionally notice random people driving by or walking past and making comments.

I still get jokes, too. Some friends introduce me socially as "the guy who bought the skinny house."

Sometimes, when I meet my neighbors, they mention that they thought the house would be bought and turned into an Airbnb since there are plenty around Jacksonville Beach.

Compared to other cities in Florida, Jacksonville Beach has been slow to develop, which helps keep it affordable — especially relative to other beach towns.

As more people discover it's a fantastic place to live, there's been an influx of movers from the Northeast, some from California, and many from the Midwest.

My real-estate agent and I agreed that the house wouldn't lose equity with Jacksonville Beach's population growing.

If I change jobs or decide to move, I'm confident my home will attract enough interest to sell quickly. I could also rent it out on Airbnb. So I have plenty of options for the home in the long term.

But I plan to continue living in the home. It's my only property, and my job is based in the area, for now at least.

Overall, I do think buying the home was a good decision. Smart people just don't buy real estate to make money; they buy to have a great place to live — and to avoid losing money.

This home was definitely a solid investment.

• Student-loan borrowers are entering the new year with uncertainty on their payments and debt relief.
• Ongoing litigation with the SAVE repayment plan makes it difficult for some borrowers to plan financially.
• Biden also officially withdrew his broad debt relief plans, and any future relief under Trump is unlikely.

Wade Burt, 67, is entering the new year without knowing when — or if — he'll be free of his nearly six-figure student-loan balance.

Burt first took out just under $20,000 in student loans for an associate degree in avionics that he earned in 1988. However, he had periods of unemployment through 1998, during which he could not afford student-loan payments. Over the years, the interest on his loans ballooned his balance.

He eventually earned a bachelor's degree in information systems management, which has allowed him to secure a well-paying job. Burt said he hopes to retire in a few years, but he doesn't see an easy route to getting a handle on the debt.

"I don't have any confidence that I'll pay the student loans beyond 72 because I just won't have that kind of income," Burt told Business Insider, saying that his Social Security checks won't be enough to help. "The reality is that I'm in the last third of my life, and I don't know if we will be able to make those student loans go away."

Millions of other Americans holding student loans are facing similar uncertainties. President-elect Donald Trump is taking office in less than a month, and he's made clear that he opposed President Joe Biden's efforts to enact incremental and broad student-loan forgiveness.

Plus, Biden's Education Department recently withdrew its unfinished broader debt relief rules, citing a limited amount of time to implement them before the end of Biden's term.

With Republican opposition to student-debt relief, some borrowers told BI they don't feel confident about significant balance reductions over the next four years.

"It feels like we're in a pretty hopeless situation," Burt said. "It's a weight on us, and we don't get very solid answers, so it's pretty hard to plan with all those conditions in place."

The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

'We're in this waiting game'

Aimee Cooper just wants to know when — and how much — her next monthly payment will be.

Cooper, 53, has been enrolled in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program since it started in 2007, which forgives student debt for government and nonprofit workers after 10 years of qualifying payments. She went back to school over the course of the 10-year period to earn two master's degrees, during which her loans were put on in-school deferment and pushed back her forgiveness timeline.

Her student-loan servicer estimated she's less than 10 payments away from reaching forgiveness through PSLF. But she's not sure when that will be achievable because the student-loan repayment plan she's enrolled in — the SAVE plan, created by Biden to make payments cheaper and shorten the timeline for borrowers to reach debt relief — is paused as a result of a GOP-led lawsuit to block the plan.

All borrowers enrolled in the SAVE plan have been placed on forbearance until a court issues a final decision, which means that even if Cooper does choose to make a payment during this time, it will not count toward her PSLF progress.

"We're just in limbo, wondering what's going to happen," Cooper told BI. "We're not asking for special favors, none of us are. We're just asking for someone to tell us what to do."

The Education Department recently reopened two income-driven repayment plans that would give borrowers the opportunity to switch from the SAVE plan and enroll in a new plan to make payments and get credit toward PSLF. Borrowers would likely see different, and possibly higher, payments on those plans, so some might choose to wait until the fate of SAVE is decided.

Malissa Williams, 40, has found herself in the same boat. Working as a nurse, Williams is also enrolled in PSLF, and through the SAVE plan, she was making steady progress toward forgiveness. She's now in forbearance due to the SAVE litigation, and she said she's attempted to contact her servicer's customer service representatives, but the long hold times have rendered it nearly impossible for her to get clear answers on what her next steps should be.

"I'm terrified because there's been the discussion of the income-driven repayment plans going away," Williams told BI. "And when I looked at what my payments could be, it was back up to almost a thousand dollars a month, and that would be a significant blow that would put my student loan payment almost at what my mortgage is."

Some higher education experts previously told BI that regardless of what a court decides on the SAVE plan, Trump's administration is unlikely to continue Biden's repayment and relief efforts. It's also possible that Trump could work to rescind existing regulations, but doing so through the rulemaking process could take at least a year. Trump has also previously suggested eliminating PSLF altogether, but that would require congressional approval, and there has not yet been sufficient support among lawmakers to make that happen.

The uncertainty with SAVE and the actions that Trump's administration might take leave borrowers in a bind as they try to plan for their financial futures.

"We're in this waiting game," Cooper said. "Who knows what's going to happen."

'It's a feeling of anxiety, but also defeat'

With Republicans holding control of both Congress and the White House, GOP-led higher education legislation has a greater chance of being signed into law over the next four years. A key bill, the College Cost Reduction Act, could benefit borrowers by requiring pricing transparency in college programs to limit the amount of debt students have to take on. It would also aim to limit the education secretary's authority to enact debt relief for borrowers outside existing repayment programs.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, the top Republican on the House education committee, said in a recent statement that Biden's debt relief efforts have tried to "foist student loan debt onto hardworking taxpayers."

"The result? A broken student loan program and false hope for millions of borrowers," Foxx said. "Thankfully, on January 20th, Americans will be able to trust the information that's coming from the White House again."

Molly Valentine Dierks, 44, said she's worried that ending relief programs would jeopardize her future investments. Dierks, a college teacher, is enrolled in the SAVE plan, and if the GOP litigation succeeds, she expects her payments to surge, and it would impact her ability to buy a house.

"There's reverberating effects for my financial future," Dierks said. She added that if it comes to it, she has the fortune of falling back on her family for financial support, but she's concerned for her students and other borrowers who don't have that as an option.

"It's a feeling of anxiety but also defeat," Dierks said. It's unclear what's in store for millions of federal student-loan borrowers in the new year. A court decision on SAVE is still pending, and it's unclear how Trump's education department will choose to manage existing repayment and forgiveness programs, including PSLF and the borrower defense to repayment for defrauded borrowers.

Burt, the 67-year-old borrower, said he hopes that the incoming administration will consider assistance for those who have made good-faith efforts to repay their student loans.

"There has to be some empathy for the person who went to school to get a degree to improve their life and never achieved what they expected that degree to achieve," Burt said.

• Engagement ring trends evolve year after year.
• Private jeweler Anna P. Jay said elongated stones and thicker bands will be popular in 2025.
• Colorful stones and personalized details are on the rise, too.

The holiday season is in full swing, which means engagement season is, too.

And as the first proposals of the year roll in, we'll get a peek at the engagement rings that will be big in the coming months.

Business Insider spoke to private jeweler and jewelry store owner Anna P. Jay about the engagement ring trends that will be everywhere in 2025.

After President-elect Trump reignited the decades-old debate over DST, Newsweek looks at how the end of daylight savings could impact the U.S.