This is how you find the perfectly ripe avocado, every time.

Ah, avocados. So delicious and yet such a drain of all our valuable funds.

But avocados are something else, too – really bloody infuriating. Why is there such a small window of opportunity to eat them? And how do you know when they’re ready?

Living in Los Angeles last year, I pretty much survived on avocado and eggs on toast for dinner most nights. It was a glamorous time of my life. You’d think that over the period of a year, I would have mastered the art of shopping for and eating avocados. No. No, I did not.

The Mamamia Out Loud team discusses the perfect hack for finding out if an avocado is good enough to eat. Post continues below.

There have been many, many times when I’ve bought an avocado thinking it was good to go, only to get home, cut it open and find it was either still unripe or it was too ripe. Those were the nights I questioned my life choices.

And apparently I’m not alone either. According to the ABC, research shows that 97 percent of people pick up avocados at the supermarket and give them a good squeeze to test them out before buying them, which is something you definitely should not do, as squeezing them will leave them brown and bruised. Who knew, right?

“Ninety per cent of bruising that occurs is from retail and home. When they’re selecting an avocado, people squeeze them too hard,” Jennie Franceschi, an avocado packer, marketer and exporter told ABC News.

Thankfully, we've uncovered an easier and much gentler way of checking to see when an avocado is ripe enough to eat.

According to food blog Kitchn, all you have to do is peel back the stem. That's right, apparently that little brown knob at the top of your avocado holds all its secrets.

If it peels back easily and is a nice green colour underneath, congratulations - your avocado is ready to eat. But if you peel back the stem and find it's brown underneath, your avocado is overripe and you should abort the whole operation. A stem that doesn't come off means your avocado still needs some time to ripen up.

So there you have it, an avocado hack that will change your life. Or at least the way you consume avocados from this day forward.