POSHVICE

A few entries back, I mentioned that I tended to use a separate savings account when I’m saving for big purchases. I started doing this a few years back, when I was still living check to check, because the way most bank accounts set up their online access makes it WAY too easy to transfer money back and forth between your checking and savings. This is, of course, a good and convenient thing if you have a need to dip into your savings on a frequent/spur of the moment basis, but I find I’m much more successful when it comes to long-term savings if I use the “out of sight, out of mind” technique.

The way I do this is by starting a completely separate savings account, completely unattached to my primary checking account. This way, withdrawing any money from the special account becomes enough of a hassle that I won’t impulsively withdraw some of my nest egg because I really want a new video game or something. Also, because of my forgetful nature, having an account that isn’t in my face every time that I log into my main checking account’s online control panel means that I’m somewhat likely to completely forget about the money I’ve tucked away until I’ve saved up enough for whatever my original purpose was, or I’m in dire straits and really need the extra cash.

This works pretty well for me, but like I said, a lot of it relies on the way I shop and think and my ability to forget things that aren’t in my face (which is a blessing AND a curse). What sort of tricks do you employ to help with your finances?

There seems to be a recent trend (or at least, I’ve recently noticed, it’s entirely possible that it’s a more long-standing phenomenon) towards precious stones and metals being used in acne products. Most of it seems to center around something called “ions”, which I previously only really associated with chemistry and hair-dryers and… Tales Of The Abyss, I guess.

I think the two biggest examples that stuck out in my brain are the Asso Gold Cleansing Bar (what an awful name), that retails for $125 per bar (though I’ve found it for $24 online, here) and has 24k gold particles in it. The makers claim that the pricey soap is really big in Asia for its ability to “kill acne at the source”. Who knows if there’s any truth to those claims - personally, I’m curious as to how EXACTLY gold is supposed to heal acne - but hey, if it works, it works.

The other product that caught me off-guard was a toner by MAC Cosmetics called “Charged Water”, that’s supposed to be “infused with ions from diamonds” or something. It only retails for $19, so I guess it’s not a terrible choice if you want to try this trend of precious ions in your skincare, but to be honest - if the toner works at all, I’d be more apt to credit the fact that it has green tea in it. I use a green tea based cleanser and LOVE it.

If you see any other crazy skincare products pop up with super-pricey ingredients, please hit me up and let me know about them… I’m completely fascinated by this whole trend.

Lately, the television in our living room has been giving warning signs of an impending collapse. The picture has been going slightly blurry at times, and the speakers emit a low whine if the volume is turned up higher than normal. In other words, it’s time that I begin shopping around for a new big-screen television.

I’m particularly envious of my friend’s large (almost wall-sized, really) plasma TV that she recently got - unfortunately, she bought it at a local electronics store on impulse and will probably be making payments on it for years to come, which isn’t really my style. I’d rather do some research, get an idea about the price range of the size/type of television I’m interested in, and start a separate savings account just for squirreling money away for the “new, nice TV” fund.

Does anyone have any particular brands that they recommend, or, conversely, recommend that I stay AWAY from? To be honest, this will be the first television that I really invest in - most of the televisions that we have in our house are older, inherited from parents when they upgraded their TVs, or just cheap $100-200 things we got at Target for dorm rooms past. So any ideas or ratings are very welcome!

Although I remain childless - and plan on staying that way probably forever - a good amount of my friends have kids in the 2-6 year old range. One of my closer friends from high school actually has a little girl about to begin kindergarten next month! It’s amazing how fast time flies.

Anyhow, point being, this kind of rules for me because while I’m not into the idea of ever having my own children, I’ve always liked helping my friends shop for toys for their kids -most likely because one of my favorite things (if not THE favorite thing) about gift-giving is the reaction, and children are naturally more honest and enthusiastic about whatever you’ve picked out for them.

One of my favorite places to help my friends e-shop for their kids is definitely the Buy.com toys section. They’ve got just about anything that you (or your child, niece, grandkids, toy-collecting adult friend, whatever) could possibly want!

One of my absolute favorite topics to read about (or think about, or talk about, or… you get the picture) would definitely have to be skincare. I’ve always had rather, shall we say, temperamental skin, and products that work wonders for me one day will somehow stop working for me in a few months, forcing me to be on the constant lookout for new products, supplements, and skincare regimes to try and whip my oily-yet-sensitive skin into shape.

After looking around the web in search of the current best acne treatment, I found this website - getacnetreatments.com - that is definite bookmark-worthy if you’re at all interested in shopping online for skincare. They have brutally honest reviews & descriptions of every brand out there, from Proactiv to Murad, and they keep records of not only each product’s retail price, but also the best price to be found via eBay or other webstores. All in all, VERY helpful, and worth a read if you’re looking for to-the-point, concise reviews and price listings on skincare products.

Okay, maybe I’m just a total child at heart, because recently I’ve become kind of fixated on the idea of adding swing sets to my backyard. I don’t have kids (and really don’t plan on ever having any, to be completely honest), so yes, this would be a completely selfish purchase and totally just for me. It’s just that I had gotten into a recent discussion with my boyfriend about all the crazy, elaborate backyard toys that you see nowadays (especially when watching one of my more guilty pleasures, The Fabulous Life Of… on VH1), and he asked me what childhood toy - out of all the extravagant things that can be found today - I would want to spoil myself with. And honestly? The only answer that I could come up with was a good, old fashioned wooden swing set. I like the idea of having my dogs running around the backyard while I relax on the swings, enjoying the (at least in my daydreams) nice weather. This small, relaxing fantasy of mine has completely made me dead set on making it come true someday… I WILL have a swing set. You can’t stop me, adulthood!

When I was younger, I was probably one of the messiest people that you could ever meet - and living in a room or apartment that consistently looked like it had been hit by a hurricane did not bother me at all! However, things have changed - I have noticed that recently, I find myself driven to distraction by messes, clutter, or having too much furniture in too small of a space.

My current home office is right on the precipice of falling into that last “too crowded” category, even when it’s perfectly clean. In order to fix this and make me feel a little less claustrophobic & crazy when I’m trying to get some work down, I’ve been looking into ways to sort of condense all my electronics and furniture, by way of home entertainment centers (you know, with all the nice cupboards and such) and a TV wall mount to clear up space even further.

Does anyone have any organizational or space-saving tips that I should know about?

The Fourth of July has come and gone, and with its passing, summer is in full swing. Unfortunately for me, that’s a mixed blessing - while I love the longer days and warm weather, summer also forces me to confront my lifelong nemesis; one that respawns itself every year solely to torment me. That’s right, it’s mosquito season again.

While I once read that somewhere out there exists a small percentage of people who actually get enjoyment out of mosquito bites (um…), I am so not even CLOSE to being one of them. First off, they seem to single me out - I can be hanging outside with 5 other people, and somehow none of them will get even one bit; whereas I’ll be eaten alive within 15 minutes. And not to be disgusting, but I think I must be mildy allergic to mosquito saliva or something - any bites on me immediately swell to half-dollar proportions at the smallest. So you can see why the return of these evil, evil insects is something I dread completely.

However… this year, it seems that salvation may emerge from the unlikeliest of places: cattle supplies. The Macro Fly Manager Dispenser, to be exact. From what I can tell, it’s like one of those air fresheners that sprays scent every half hour or so - except this sprays mosquito (and general bug) repellent. I’m thinking of ordering one and installing it on my balcony, because having a constant source of insect control without having to keep an eye on citronella candles or slathering bug spray all over myself every five seconds sounds like a REALLY nice idea. Thanks, cows, who knew you’d end up saving my skin (literally)?

I don’t know about where everyone reading this lives, but where I am, the weather has been pretty nasty. Around 90-95 degrees every day, with INSANE humidity because we’ve had a nightly thunderstorm every day for the past week and a half. And of course, probably because this weather is working it to its limit, this is when the A/C unit decides to start screwing up. I mean, it’s running, but hardly - it’s not uncommon for it to reach 90 degrees INSIDE our apartment this past week.

With a base of 90 degrees, I’m sure you can image how bad my home office has gotten - considering that having the computer on boosts the heat as well as the fact that there’s a TV and an Xbox 360 in this room as well… yeah, it gets gross in here.

I found two things on my beloved ThinkGeek.com
that I ordered today in hopes of making my workspace a bit more cool & livable: the Desktop Personal Air Conditioner ($22.99) - which is powered by water! - and the newly discounted USB LED Beverage Cooler ($14.99), basically a USB-powered mini-fridge to keep your drinks cool even in hot weather.

I’m totally excited for the UPS man to bring my deliciously cold goodies, and I’ll be sure to let everyone know how they work out. If you don’t want to wait for my feedback and feel that you need some relief from the summer heat as well, use coupon code 8CBB
for $5 off any order of $25 or more, or $10 off any order of $50 or more. Knock yourselves out!

If you’ve talked to me at all in the past few weeks, you’ll know that I’ve been increasingly unhappy with my current cable/internet service (yeah, Time Warner Cable, I’m calling you out for being shitty). I’m paying $130 a month for internet and cable TV with DVR, and it feels like the service pops in and out daily, sometimes leaving us without internet access for hours, or even days. And don’t get me started on the whole fiasco that happened when we moved - they sent out some mentally deficient tech who tried to hook our cable up to the DirectTV ports without realizing it, and then told us our cable was just irreparably broken and that we’d have to wait 2-3 weeks for a contractor to come and reroute the entire building. When said contractor got her, suffice to say he was pretty pissed at having to drive all the way out here because Time Warner can’t employ competent techs. ANYHOW.

Point being, is that I finally had enough after the internet went out for multiple hours EVERY SINGLE DAY THIS WEEK. I made the call to a different cable provider and made an appointment to switch on Wednesday, but here’s the interesting part: most of the equipment is being mailed to me and they’ll be walking me through the installation over the phone. Apparently it’s part of how they keep their costs down (by not having to send someone out for each installation) - and it works, because with them I’ll be getting cable, internet, AND home phone for $70. Assuming that their service is good (or at least better than Time Warner’s), that’s completely awesome.

But yeah, in preparation I’m looking into the sort of cables and such I’ll need - like CAT6 cables - and while it’s a bit over my head, I’m starting to get it a little bit. Oh well, they promised it would be easy, so here’s hoping I do it right!

Okay, some of you know that I was COMPLETELY addicted to this season of Bravo’s Top Chef - the competitors were just SO good this time around (um, with the exception of Lisa… ew, ew, ew). I wonder if Gordon Ramsay ever got jealous that his current Hell’s Kitchen crew seem to ALL be no-talent hacks who can’t even fry eggs, while Bravo’s pulling in past Iron Chef contestants. I bet he cries at night about it. I would, especially once it hit my that the executive chef position at my restaurant was going to one of the total failures that make up the remaining players.

ANYWAY, POINT BEING. The winner of this season’s Top Chef was Stephanie, who was one of my top three (alongside Richard and Dale), and she happens to be based in Chicago. I believe she already has a restaurant there, and she’s working on opening a second with her prize winnings, so the logical conclusion I came to after watching the finale was: Let’s go to Chicago and eat Stephanie’s food! So I’ve been looking through Chicago travel guides & websites, and it seems pretty promising - I only live two states over so it’s probably one of the cheaper weekend getaways that I could take. But yeah, if anyone else has suggestions for where to eat/stay/visit while in Chicago, let me know!

I love being self-employed, and from time to time I’ve fantasized about either opening my own store or getting a franchise of some cool, underrated chain (Three Dog Bakery, hello), but I never really knew where to look for information about these kinds of opportunities.

Enter Franchise Gator, a website with a totally weird name but a very useful purpose. Essentially, it lets you browse available franchises by location, the amount of liquid capital you need, and industry/sub-industry. Very cool.

For example, I’m looking through Ohio listings right now, and some tech place called NERD FORCE! is looking for franchisers. It would be better if it was Nerd Herd, though, right (Chuck needs to come back with its new season already)?

Baskin-Robbins also needs franchisers… and I sorely hope someone with $100,000 in liquid capital will jump on this, because Columbus sorely needs one! Seriously, I don’t know of any Baskin-Robbins in this state, even. It sucks.

For the record, the cheapest franchises looking for Ohioans are vending machine companies at around $9,000 required LC; the most expensive is something called Austin Grill, needing $500,000. I’m so amused by looking through these listings for some reason!

I have a desktop computer, and while I definitely prefer it that way (owning laptops has never worked out well for me - they either get stolen or break in some exclusive-to-laptops way, or… both - yes, i’ve had a busted laptop stolen, haha) I can’t deny the irrefutable fact that sometimes, laptops are just handier. For vacations, when you’re moving large distances and your desktop is all packed, or any other set of circumstances that pop up that require you to have a computer or internet access without having your normal, at-home computer at the ready.

So I thought it was really clever when I came across this website offering laptop rentals (though they offer quite a bit more - desktops are also available, as is a lot of various audiovisual equipment, flat screen/big screen televisions for the big game (a WAY better idea than buying one on credit and returning one the next day, which I’ve seen some people do… ew) and even VIDEO WALLS and computer kiosks). You have to fill out a form with valid contact info to get a quote, and since I don’t actually need to rent a laptop right this moment, I didn’t want to waste their time, so I’m not exactly sure of the prices… but I still thought it was a really cool, useful idea & service that some people might be interested in. If anyone does rent from them, shoot me a comment here and let me know how it went.

I’m pretty sure that I’ve mentioned it on here before, but after a bunch of life changes took me from a size two who worked out for at least two hours almost every single day to a gimpy girl rocking a broken foot and a new job that required being glued to my desk chair for hours on end… well, let’s just say that I’ve definitely noticed that I’ve put on a few pounds.

And what’s worse is that it seems like my metabolism chose this particular time to just completely slow to a snail’s pace - literally, it seems like even though I’ve started dieting and working out again, I’m not losing weight - I almost feel like I’m still gaining weight, even though mathematically that DOESN’T MAKE SENSE. Taking in only 1200-1500 calories a day + hitting the treadmill for 3-4 miles each day = weight gain? What? Okay, obviously I need some outside help - and that’s where diet pills come into play.

It’s more than a little overwhelming, considering the vast amount of choices - which formula is right for me? Are they safe? Do they actually work? Is there a difference between the name brands and knockoffs…. and so on and so forth. I’ve tried a few already with various levels of luck - don’t worry, I’ll write about them all someday - but I’m looking to you, my readers, for any personal recommendations or stories you may have. Help me out here!

I’ve always been a complete & total sucker when it comes to snazzy new gadgets - I pretty much worship all those online shops & mall stores that sell them, even when they’re admittedly kinda gimmicky. I mean, for example, I have a USB-powered plasma ball - betcha didn’t think anyone still was entertained by those, huh?

But recently I stumbled on something so incredibly cool that it managed to evoke my classic OMG MUST HAVE WANT BUY BUY instinct without setting off any silly/tacky/pointless alarms. Ladies and gentlemen, I am now lusting over a digital frame. If you haven’t seen them before, they’re basically dynamic photo frames - you can display any image from your computer or digital camera on a what is essentially a LCD monitor styled to look like a classic white picture frame. This means that you can change the image whenever you want without any fuss - and most of all, it just looks so effing cool. I want one SO bad.

I know that ankle bracelets aren’t as trendy as they used to be, but come summer every year I still do see a few girls rocking them. I’m not a huge jewelery person (I don’t even have my ears pierced - mostly because I know it’d be pointless as I NEVER remember to even wear what jewelery I do own, and the holes would probably close right up anyhow…), but I have to admit, there is something that I find kind of classically young and summery about a thin gold anklet when the weather gets warm. Silver is okay, too, and I usually prefer it over gold, but in this one instance I always notice myself favoring gold - maybe it’s because I associate the warm tone with summer, which, to me, is anklet season? Who knows.

Is anyone out there wearing an ankle bracelet this summer? What kind? Do you prefer thick or thin, gold or silver, plain or bejeweled? I just realized I hadn’t even THOUGHT about anklets for ages until I saw a girl wearing one at the store today, and it got me wondering.

One of the most stressful shopping seasons for many women is right before summer - when it becomes time to start looking for new swimwear. Body insecurity issues aside, there’s an overwhelming amount of suits, styles, colors & shapes to choose from - and it can take hours of hanging out in the womens swimwear department before you even find ONE suit that manages to be both attractive and flattering.

The most common problem that I personally have when shopping for swimsuits (and tops in general, really) is that I’m - ahem - very well-endowed in the bust area, and most clothing that fits my chest is really baggy everywhere else; while things that fit the rest of me are too tight in the chest. I’ve actually been browsing plus-size lines like Christina swim suits in hopes that maybe I can find a swim top that I like there (since retailers seem to assume that if you have big boobs, the rest of you has to be big as well) and then a cute bottom from a place that stocks “straight” sizes (weird terminology, I know), like Ocean Pacific, or something.

Though if anyone knows of any stores that cater to my body type, I’m open to suggestions.