I know my posts about my finances (personal finances) have been a bit crappy this month due to the 2-hour limit on the internet each day.

So here’s something to make you laugh. A lot sexier than my budget, that’s for sure

I AM LOVING THIS DOCTOR!

Q: Doctor, I’ve heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life. Is this true?
A: Your heart is only good for so many beats, and that’s it… don’t waste them on exercise. Everything wears out eventually. Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer; that’s like saying you can extend the life of your car by driving it faster. Want to live longer? Take a nap.

Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables?
A: You must grasp logistical efficiencies. What does a cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So a steak is nothing more than an efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef is also a good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable). And a pork chop can give you 100% of your recommended daily allowance of vegetable products.

Q: Should I reduce my alcohol intake?
A: No, not at all. Wine is made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine, that means they take the water out of the fruity bit so you get even more of the goodness that way. Beer is also made out of grain. Bottoms up!

Q: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio?
A: Well, if you have a body and you have fat, your ratio is one to one. If you have two bodies, your ratio is two to one, etc.

Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?
A: Can’t think of a single one, sorry. My philosophy is: No Pain…Good!

Q: Aren’t fried foods bad for you?
A: YOU’RE NOT LISTENING!!! ….. Foods are fried these days in vegetable oil.
In fact, they’re permeated in it. How could getting more vegetables be bad for you?

Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle?
A: Definitely not! When you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger. You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach.

Q: Is chocolate bad for me?
A: Are you crazy? HELLO Cocoa beans ! Another vegetable!!! It’s the best feel-good food around!

Q: Is swimming good for your figure?
A: If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.

Q: Is getting in-shape important for my lifestyle?
A: Hey! ‘Round’ is a shape!

Well, I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets.

And remember:
‘Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention
of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body,
but rather to skid in sideways –
Chardonnay in one hand – chocolate in the other –
body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and
screaming ‘WOO HOO, What a Ride’

AND…..

For those of you who watch what you eat, here’s the final word on nutrition and health.
It’s a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies.

1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

3. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

5. The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

CONCLUSION

Eat and drink what you like.

Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

‘Today is a gift, that is why it is called The Present.’

LOVE IT!!

RELATED ARTICLES

• A comprehensive list of the “Best” foods to eat
• Making your own frozen dinners at home, on the cheap
• Water and its benefits
• Restaurants and their tricks
• Tricking yourself into drinking water

So we did really awesome this month.

BF chopped our bills down from $1000 to $500~ dollars. Here’s the quick breakdown:

Rent: $350 (thanks to the one month deal we got)
Food: $200
Other: $5 (our little trip to Toronto)
TOTAL: $555 for the entire month of June as living expenses

All in all, we didn’t pay for utilities (included in the rent), and the food was really mercilessly slashed by BF.

LAL asked me privately what triggered our fervour to chop our grocery bill down.. and to be honest, I have no idea. We just felt like it.

Er.. correction. BF felt like it, and I went along skeptically.

He started analyzing what we bought, why we bought it, when we bought it, checking prices, and visiting about 4 or 5 grocery stores.

Our grocery bill is down to $200 per person or $400 in total, but I felt the pinch a little this month.. so I think a reasonable $225/person or $450/month for groceries is a good balance for us to be at, considering we eat organic, etc.

And to think, at one point, we spent $1000/month on groceries!!!

In the end, what made the biggest difference was finding this gem of a grocery store that has REASONABLE prices and allowed us to chop back our budget by another whopping $100, while buying the SAME food, fruits and even snacks like cookies and ice cream.

We also shop on Wednesdays when the prices are the lowest in that grocery store.

As for what else made a big difference.. it was the gas and transportation. We didn’t drive more than 3 times this month, because we walked every single day (sometimes twice a day) to go grocery shopping downtown at this cheap store we found, and to get wifi, etc.

Moving into our new apartment for July, I expect our expenses to go up by another $50~ or so, due to having to pay for utilities ($12/month), gas ($20/month), and food ($25/month extra).

Net worth stayed about the same because my investments went up. Still around the $78,000 mark…

Tax returns (state and federal):

I am not sure about the U.S. as I’ve heard the IRS says you should keep everything you’ve ever filed, FOREVER.. but in Canada, I’ve heard from the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) that we should keep up to 7 years of returns.

That includes receipts for charitable contributions, mortgage interest and business expenses, and what may be smart is to grab your business credit card statement and use that to back up tax filings.

Some records, I am sure, require that you keep them for longer than 7 years. It’s best to check with the IRS and CRA.

Pay stubs:

I keep all of mine until I receive my T4, which I suppose is what you call a W2 in the States.

I keep my pay stubs so that I can see if it matches what I was supposed to have earned. I’ve never seen a mistake made yet, but better safe than sorry.

Receipts:

I only keep receipts that are business expenses or until their warranties expire.

Another reason to keep receipts would be if they were big ticket or big items.

You can actually use those in lieu of taking pictures and making a full notation of what you have in your home so you can claim it under home insurance if anything happens to your stuff.

Social security statements: Again, only the most recent ones.

Credit card statements: One year

Bank statements: One year

Canceled checks: One year

RRSP and 401(K) statements: I only keep the most recent ones, but I do have a tendency to scan in everything just in case, before I shred it. I just do. It’s compulsive.

Brokerage statements: I keep all of my retirement, brokerage and investment statements (scanned of course), until I sell them.

House records:

I don’t have a home, but I’ve heard that you should keep all records of home improvements, renovations, as well as the papers for when you buy or sell a home.

I’ve also kept rental agreements just to back up my tax statements and to remind me of all the addresses I’ve ever lived at in the past 5 years (something the government sometimes needs for security secret clearance).

The fun bit, is that if you keep all of those receipts that pertain to your home, you can add it to your original purchase price of your house and when you sell it you can save money by reducing your capital gains tax on any profit.

Insurance policies:

I keep all of my insurance papers. I scan most of them in, and keep the most recent ones, while shredding the old ones if they are renewable policies.

But for permanent life insurance policies for example, I keep them forever. But scanned, as a backup copy in case of a flood or fire.

This irritates me to no end. BAD email signatures.

I’ll keep it short & sweet.

THE BAD

• No phone numbers – What if I WANTED to call you?
• No email addresses - Sometimes you just don’t want to click on “details” and go through the hassle of finding it
• Who they are – Like their title and their full name and position and/or department. Something, Anything!
• No signatures at all
• Lots of Graphics and Logos – I hate downloading that crap
• Background Images – Some look so kiddy and cheesy then you can’t read what they’re saying
• Too many colours
• Juvenile fonts – It may be weird to call a font juvenile, but Comic Sans does that for me and is unprofessional
• Quotes of the Day
• Green messages like “Do you really need to print this?” - I’m green, but that is irritating

THE GOOD

• In plain text, not HTML
• No background – white is fine
• Black font – Times New Roman is inoffensive
• A header logo is fine but only if people don’t have to download any new images

This is what you should have in an email signature:

• Full Name & Title (and/or Department you work in)
• Email Address (just in case you have many)
• Company Name
• Web URL
• Office Number and/or Extension
• Cellphone Number (if used for business)

I’m not trying to say all women are pigs, but… as a woman myself, I am a bit disgusted that some of us don’t even know how to behave ourselves in public.

I don’t want to go back to the Victorian Ages, but c’mon a little decency would be appreciated.

Some of you may look like ladies, but some sure don’t act like one. I believe the British word is “chavs”? In North America, it’s being “ghetto”.

If you don’t act like a lady, or a gentleman, how do you expect others to treat you as such?

We as women, are trying so hard to climb the corporate ladder, earn a bigger bang for our $0.72 to a man’s $1.00, and we go and act in certain ways to prove that they are equal to men and to gain their respect as an equal but actually has an opposite effect.

I especially think it’s stupid when women complain and say things like “he’s never romantic any more!“, or “men are ALL pigs, they don’t even treat me like a lady *oink*“, or a whole host of other male-bashing epithets.

Far be it from me to criticize you without knowing your relationship but if you feel like there’s a problem and there wasn’t one before, I was told to look and examine myself before blaming others, because more often than not, problems are never entirely one person’s fault, but the fault of both in the relationship.

Simply put, we aren’t men and we will never become men.

We weren’t conferenced in on the day they had their Old Boys Club talk, so we’re at a slight disadvantage.

But why are we trying to be something we’re not? We should leverage what we are best at, and beat them at their own game while maintaining grace.

1. Don’t have public shouting matches & air dirty laundry in public

Unless he JUST admitted something absolutely heinous like he’s embezzled your life’s fortune, has had an affair from the day you were married, lost $100,00 gambling or something equally horrific, you are not allowed to scream at each other in public.

I understand if you are surprised, but just because he forgets to put his socks away, does not give you the right to scream at him in public, or nag him.

Public spaces include:

• Restaurants
• Retail Stores/Malls
• Grocery Stores
• Basically anywhere you can be heard

It hurts my ears. Shut up.

2. Immature noises and imitating bodily functions…

… are really to be kept in the home, in private company, and in the realm of 14-year old boys.

I don’t find it funny that you can intentionally let out a huge fart that shakes the street, or smells like goodness knows what.

I don’t find it amusing to hear you intentionally belch in a restaurant.*

It puts me off my meal.

*Unless it really slipped out without you meaning to and caught you off guard (happened to me once, I turned so red I thought my hair would too), and I was suitably mortified, and not happy about it.

3. Dressing inappropriately is also tasteless

I think I’ve said a lot about this in the past but clearly, those “ladies’ are not reading my blog, so it bears repeating.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate on women just because I am one.

When I am downtown, I truly admire women, marvel at their outfits and envy their ability to wear high heels.

I also think it’s great that some women take the time to dress appropriately or wear what their partner likes, like a certain colour, or a dress because he loves her shape in one.

I’d even go so far to say that if he LIKES skanky dressing, and you’re into that, then so be it…. but some, fall below the mark of what is appropriate in public.

Ground Rules

• Tights are not pants, and you better check in bright sunlight if I can see your underwear.. or lack thereof
• I don’t want to see your lady bits exposed, either up top or below
• No whale tails or plumbers’ cracks allowed
• Wear a bra if you need one, and believe me, you know if you need one
• Muffin tops make me queasy

4. Little courtesies matter

I don’t open the door just for my own sake.

I do it to be polite.

So if you want me to continue being polite to the general public, a Thank You, never hurt anyone.

Also, when others open the door for me, as a lady, I don’t scowl at them if they’re men because I think it’s a nice gesture as one person to another.

So don’t throw a hissy fit when someone is trying to be nice to you just because they’re male.

5. Swearing like a sailor is also in bad taste

I’m not a saint.

I swear a bit. Not a lot, but you can hear a smatter of it here and there occasionally.

I swear more when I’m really angry or frustrated, but generally I keep it to a very bare minimum, aiming for no swearing at all.

But when women talk like they grew up in the gutter, with every other word as a swear word, it’s really off putting.

I don’t like it when men do it either, and call me traditional but it sounds worse coming from a woman.