less money, mo' problems

I've decided I’m going to try to educate you donkeys on saving money, because I've lost a lot of time listening to people complain about how little money they have.  

Here we go:

1. Stop eating out every night – this is a no-brainer, but it’s ridiculous how many people disobey this rule.  What’s hilarious is people who spend $300 on a grocery bill and then grab McDonald’s for supper on the way home. COME ON.  A night at Boston Pizza is $30 even without the fancy drinks.  Doing that even once a week is really going to hurt your piggy bank.

2. Say no to online shopping – I am a huge disobeyer of this rule (is that even a word?).  Online shopping is a money racket.  You can’t try anything on, so the chances of getting something that doesn’t fit are very high; you don’t really notice how much you’re adding to your cart until your total is in the triple digits, but then you convince yourself that there’s nothing you can get rid of; shipping costs alone are enough to rob you blind.

3. Cut out your frivolous daily spending – I know most people claim they are “addicted” to their coffee and they “need” their daily Tim’s fix or else they won’t get through the day, but the $2 you’re spending every day on your morning coffee is really adding up.  If you stopped buying a coffee everyday and you started putting that $2 away, in a year and a half you’d have over $1000.  If you can’t live without your morning coffee, buy a coffee maker.  And stop being so stupid.

4.  Stop accumulating interest – Most people have a savings account, which is super, but if you have a savings account and you have credit card debt, you’re throwing your friggin’ money away.  Do yourself a favor and use your savings to pay off your credit card.  Don’t pay the credit card companies any more than you have to.  They’re assholes.

5.  Don’t buy things you can’t afford – DUH.  Seems painfully obvious, but people end up doing this because they think of their credit card as free money.  If you want to buy something but you’re lacking funds, yeah, you can put it on your credit card… but if you can’t pay off the full balance with your next paycheck, you probably shouldn’t be buying it.

6.  Save money on banking fees – Man, to withdraw money from an ATM of a different bank you need to pay a $3 transaction fee.  THAT’S LUDICROUS.  That costs more than your morning coffee.  Do yourself another favor and only withdraw money from your own bank.

7.  Don’t buy stuff you don’t need – another no-brainer.  But, I guess most people have no brains, because I see this happening a lot.  If you’re not going to want it in a few days, or you already have a hundred of them (girls, I’m talking to you.  Stop buying lip gloss), then don’t waste your money.

8. Don’t grocery shop when you’re hungry – this one is on every money-saving list, I know, but that’s because it’s important.  If you’re starving when you go grocery shopping, you’re going to be so amped up when you see pizza pockets on sale that you’re going to buy ten boxes of them, and then you’re going to convince yourself that you’re going to eat them all when you go home.  And then a week later you’ll open your freezer and remember that you hate pizza pockets.  But now you have ten boxes.

9.  Stop paying for cell phone/internet overages – If you’re like me, your electronic devices consume a lot of data, and that’s fine.  Just make sure you have a data plan that allows you to consume a lot of data, otherwise you’ll be paying out of your ass for it.  For example, if you use about 100 gigabytes of data a month (through Netflix, downloading movies, whatever), but your plan only allots for 60 gigabytes, and the next plan up is 120 gigabytes but you figure, you don’t want to pay for the extra 20 gigs you won’t use, then you’re stupid.  For argument’s sake, let’s say a 60 gig plan costs $50 a month and an 120 gig plan costs $100, and your Internet company charges you $2 for every gig you go over (which is standard), for the 100 gigs you’re using, you’re paying $130.  For $100, you could have a data plan with 20 extra gigs.  You could be a total badass and download movies you don’t even want to watch.

10. Stop paying for memberships/subscriptions you don’t use – obviously, gym membership is the big one.  But there are others – magazine subscriptions, sample subscriptions, etc.  Companies know exactly what they’re doing by offering memberships. I spent months trying to get myself taken off a VIP list of a lingerie site that I didn’t even sign up for – the way the membership worked was that they had my credit card on file and every month they’d charge me $39.95 that they called a “credit” and I could use this “credit” toward a bra set of my choosing.  As I understand it, if I’m paying for it myself, it’s not a credit.  But in any case, you need to unsubscribe from or cancel any memberships that you don’t use.  The only thing that gets a workout from paying for a gym membership that you don’t use is your wallet.

how to

I’m going to draw on personal experience to formulate another list. The following is a list of annoying habits possessed by my coworkers.  If you don’t want to be a source of displeasure in your office, avoid doing the following things:

10 WAYS TO ANNOY COWORKERS

1.  Constantly update everyone in the office about the weather.  I have eyes, okay?  I can look out the window and see that it’s snowing.  Unless I’m going to have a snow day tomorrow, I don’t give a shit about the weather.

2.  Bathe in perfume.  Firstly, everybody knows that offices are scent-free environments nowadays.  I don’t have any allergies or reactions to scented products, but I do have a gag reflex.  Hosing yourself down with Chanel No. 5 isn’t going to hide the smell of cigarette smoke following you around.  It’s just going to merge with it to create an even more unpleasant smell, stupid.

3.  Give frequent news updates.  The only thing worse than constantly being updated on the weather is constantly being updated on the news.  For real.

4. Talk about family members that I’ve never even heard of before.  A lot of the women in my office have a habit of telling me stories about people that I’ve never met.  Even worse, they don’t explain who these people are. “I gotta pick up a present for little Johnny’s graduation, do you have any idea what I can get him?  I got Betty Sue a gift card for her graduation, but Anne Marie would kill me if I got little Johnny a gift card.  Maybe I can ask Bill Bob what I should get for him.  He and Kelly Ann are always good at picking out gifts.”  Yeah, I seriously have no idea who or what you’re talking about.  Please stop.

5.  Come up to my desk and say “knock knock”.  Seriously, knock it off. 

6.  Complain about the photocopier.  I don’t work for Xerox.  I don’t know any more about fixing the copier than anyone else.  If I’ve ever fixed an issue with the copier, it was through basic problem solving.  Don’t tell me you can’t figure out why your spreadsheet won’t print when the screen clearly says “need paper”. COME ON.

7.  Bring in a smelly lunch.  Look, I don’t mind if you want to bring in a but of salmon for your lunch every once in a while.  But for the love of cheesus, don’t constantly bring in curry, tuna, egg salad, garlic noodles, etc for your lunch.  And if you’re going to make popcorn, DON’T BURN IT.

8.  Call me to ask if I got your e-mail.  What is this, 1995?

9.  Constantly adjust the thermostat.  If you’re cold, put on a sweater.  Stop trying to cremate me.

10.  Burp.  This actually happens more than you would think. There are a few people in my office who just sit at their desk, burpin’ away. Maybe they think I don’t notice it, but I do.  Or maybe they just don’t give a shit. At least have the common decency to excuse yourself, weirdo.

here, kitty kitty

I love cats.  Cats are super awesome.  If you don't love them too, then you're really dumb.  Here's why cats are so friggin' fantastic:

1.  First of all, they’re painfully adorable.  Have you ever seen an ugly cat? No. Because they don’t exist.  They’re little and furry and have the biggest, cutest eyes EVER.

2.  They don’t shit on the floor.  Just give them a box and throw some sand in it. DONE.

3.  They don’t need to be walked.  Open the door; boot them out; sit back on the couch. Easiest.

4.  They’re quiet.  They don’t bark when somebody rings the doorbell, they don’t whine at you when they can see food on the table… they probably meow if they want to get outside or something, but who cares? That’s adorable.

5.  They bathe themselves.  Self-cleaning oven, self-cleaning toilet, self-cleaning pet.  Got it made.

6.  Abraham Lincoln loved cats. C’mon, Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves.  You’re basically a racist if you don’t love cats.

7.   Hitler hated cats. Dude. No-brainer.

8.  They can fit through almost space.  If the cat’s head can fit through it, they can squeeze their body through too. SO COOL.

9.  They can see in the dark.  Cats can see at one-sixth the light level required for human vision.  How badass is that?!

10.  They are hilarious.  Everyone has seen those videos on YouTube featuring cat’s being ridiculously hilarious. They are bigger [and smarter] celebrities than half of the people on the Internet.

If you don’t own a cat, go get one.  Or two.  Or watch this video of my cats cleaning each other.

let's go

I don’t know if it’s my generation or if it’s just the way the world is nowadays, but nobody wants to do anything anymore.

I know as you get older you have a job and school and all that lame shit that takes up most of your time, but where does the rest of your time go? To your TV.  Or to sleep.  You can sleep when you’re dead.

You never see anyone on How I Met Your Mother or Friends saying they’re too lazy to go get a beer or grab a coffee.  And yes, I know they’re TV shows, but they’re TV shows that help me prove my point.

 

Nobody’s up for anything anymore.  Plans get passed up because people would rather nap. Here’s a tip for ya: don’t stay up until 4am watching The Big Bang Theory and you won’t be so tired the next day. Stupid.

Take advantage of being young.  When you grow up and get married and have kids (y’know, if you’re into that) you really won’t have time for anything.

I’m not saying you have to stay out partying til dawn every night, but don’t come home from work and hove off in front of the television just because you have to go back to work the next day.  Go out and LIVE, b’y.

Call me up.  I’ll do anything.  Egg houses, I don’t care.  Let’s go.

let's make a list

Why do people need to announce that it’s Monday? I know it’s Monday. Don’t wish me happy Monday. Don’t ask me if I have a case of the Mondays. Just don’t talk to me.

…

I made an observation over the weekend that I’m going to share. 

Not unlike most people my age, I’ve been to my share of house parties.  I’ve come to the conclusion that there are 10 different kinds of [annoying] drunk people.

Let’s make a list:

1.   The one who drinks everything in sight – I’ve encountered this type of drunk many times before and it never really bothered me until last Saturday, when I saw my drink in their hand. GTFO.

2.   The one who is tone deaf but will sing/shout along to every song - I don’t mind if you can’t sing and you still want to, just don’t do it in my face… to every song that comes on… even the ones you don’t know the words to...  If you truly are that invested in singing… maybe take a lesson or two.

3.   The crying drunk chick – apparently, girl + alcohol = tears. There’s always at least one girl who has a breakdown (usually over nothing) and wakes up the next morning not having a clue what she was upset about.

4.   The fighting couple – they’ll spend most of the night separate from each other and then one of them will have a lapse in logic and decide to pick a fight so they’ll either get into a screaming match in the porch or lock themselves in the bathroom. Always a good time.

5.   The one who climbs on furniture - pretty self explanatory.  Stop standing on the couch…

6.   The one who can’t hold their liquor - this person will have been to lots of parties before but will STILL be unaware of how much liquor their body can handle, so they will end up headfirst in the toilet before the night is out.

7.   The one who thinks they are the life of the party - there’s one person in every group of friends who believes that they are the reason parties are held. When they get drunk, their delusions of grandeur really become apparent [and it makes you want to smack them.]

8.   The clumsy one – do not lay your drink down.  They will knock it over. 

9.   The one who insists on being the DJ - there’s always that person who needs to get at the iTunes every five minutes and put on their favorite song.  Total buzzkill.  Listen, just make a playlist and leave it the frig alone.

10. The one who requests a song and then continuously asks you when it’s going to come on - it’s usually one of those songs that are on the radio forty-three times a day, but they want you to play it anyway… and they want to know exactly when it’s going to come on.

If you’re unfortunate enough to know anybody who falls under more than one of the aforementioned categories, leave them off your next guest list.