Life Tips Daily

Most cities are alive with festivals, especially in the summer. If you usually ignore mention of the latest festival that is happening in your town, city or a neighbouring area, you may want to make time to attend a festival or two. Here are some great reasons to check out a local festival:

You may discover someone or something new
If it is a music festival, you are sometimes offered fantastic deals if you buy tickets for the duration of the entire festival, instead of buying individual tickets for the shows you want to see. Take advantage of your all access pass to check out talent that you ordinarily wouldn’t see–you may find something you like!

If the festival involves other cultures, you may be introduced a new form of dance, or a new food, for example. Why not try it? You may discover something that you make a part of your everyday life.

Cure boredom
Despite waiting all winter for summer to arrive, it can sometimes be a bit of a letdown, especially if one doesn’t have many plans for the summer months. Checking out a festival might be just what is needed to cure the case of boredom troubling you.

Meet new people
If you attend a festival that is centered around a specific thing, you’re bound to meet people–in your own city!–who share this interest. Embrace the chance to make new friends.

Contribute to the economy
After gorging on popcorn and cotton candy, and fresh squeezed lemonade that costs a fortune, you may return home and curse all the money you spent. Instead of thinking of that, think of all the others who may have come from out of town to spend their money, and think of how much you are helping out the economy!

festivals, attend festivals, reasons to attend festivals, attend a festival

Don’t miss an entry! Please subscribe to Life Tips Daily today.

A friend of mine mentioned an issue that I have been experiencing at work lately too.

When a coworker gets a new job, has a baby or gets married, it is natural to want to celebrate. This involves some people (in the case of my office it is the group responsible for social events) requesting that staff members donate whatever they wish to buy a gift for the celebrant.

In my first month at my current job, I was asked for two donations and while I was happy to donate, a part of me thought it was a bit presumptuous to ask somebody who hasn’t even gotten to know her coworkers, and who is starting her first real career job since graduating from university, for a donation. It put me in a strange situation: as a new employee who is trying to impress, I did not want my coworkers to think I was uncaring or cheap so even had I not wanted to contribute, I would have.

While it has been stressed, especially lately, that everybody should donate only what they want and if they want, there is a feeling (perhaps only within me?) that I must give every time.

How do you handle the office collections and the politics of giving to a collection?
- - -
If you have a real life dilemma that you’d like to be featured on the Friday feature, please send it to jummy.lifetipsdaily@gmail.com.

coworker gift giving, work, donating cash, donating money

Don’t miss an entry! Please subscribe to Life Tips Daily today.

Do you have some bad habits that are taking over? It’s time for some new, better habits to rule your roost. The following are five things that you can phase out of your home or life in order to improve your quality of life. You may enjoy how you feel without them so much that you keep them banished forever.

Cola (pop, soda)
How can one drink cause so much turmoil? Surely something that bubbles and fizzes can’t be bad? The sad truth is it is, and you probably already know it. It has been reported in various places that one can of pop (355ml) contains at least 9 teaspoons of sugar (source 1, source 2, source 3), not to mention the calories these drinks have.

Sneaky cheat: switch to a diet version of your favourite fizzy drinks en route to getting to pop-free status.

Whole milk
Don’t worry, parents of young children, I’m not talking to you. Milk in Canada is sold according to the percentage of milk fat it contains. “Whole” milk contains 3.25% milk fat, and there is 2%, 1% and 0% (skim) milk fat milk sold too. My family has moved from 3.25% milk to 1% milk and I can’t remember either transition (it was gradual, though, and happened over a number of years: from 3.25% to 2%, then from 2% to 1%). While 1% and 2% milk are both still opaque, skim (or 0%) milk looks more watery and this is one of the reasons I have not yet made the transition. However, it is possible.

Sneaky cheat: get somebody else in the household to make the switch without telling you. I bet you won’t notice it as much as you may think!

Ordering takeout (often)
This is a good switch to make for your wallet if you find that nights when you “just don’t feel like cooking” happen far more often than nights when you actually cook. By ordering less, and cooking more, you get to develop your culinary flair, control the contents of your meal, including calories, amount of fat, and how the food is prepared, and don’t forget the savings that you’ll see in your wallet too: ordering in less often generally means that you’ll be able to save more money.

Sneaky cheat: buy partially prepared foods in the grocery store to help you out–pre-chopped vegetables, cheese that is already grated and bags of washed and tosses salad are all great ways to save yourself some time without getting something unhealthy and expensive to eat.

Junk food
Self explanatory–eating junk food is like treating your body like a garbage can. The effects of an unhealthy diet not only result in extra pounds (or tens of pounds if we’re honest) on your body, but your skin reflects what goes in: acne or other skin imperfections are often signs of a poor diet, and don’t forget how sluggish unhealthy food can make you feel.

Sneaky cheat: look for low fat and low calorie versions of your favourite treats as you phase out the junk food items completely.

Hours upon hours of television watching
While imitating the couch potato, you will turn into a potato! If you ever catch yourself watching a show because the tv is still on after the last (seven) shows that you watched, it’s time to make a change! Set a limit for the amount of television that you “must” watch. When the show(s) is(are) over, turn off the television. Instead of sitting on the couch, mourning the end of your tv viewing, do something else–go for a walk, organize your junk drawer, call up a friend, write a letter. Your time in front of the tv will seem so wasteful when you see all that you can accomplish–you may even voluntarily cut your tv time further!

Sneaky cheat: get rid of cable television! By limiting the number of channels you have access to, you’re sure to find the shows now available to you boring and you may even turn off the television voluntarily.

bad habits, better habits, break bad habits, quality of life

There are things that you can afford to wait before buying, wait until it goes on sale, or buy the least expensive version of without much if any recourse: casual or ‘play’ clothing for children, junk food like cola (pop), candies and cookies, or even the compressed air for your computer. But every now and then, you come across something that is worth paying full price for, or, when given a choice, it’s worth buying the more expensive and/or reputable brand.

A good example is shoes.

As a longtime wearer of shoes that aren’t too expensive, this is a difficult point to argue, especially in the summer time. In the summer, ladies esepcially get to show off pedicures in sandals and as a result must buy as many sandals as humanly possible (this is a cardinal rule among some it seems)–dressy sandals, casual sandals, sports sandals, walking sandals–you get the point. If you are going to have 15 pairs of summer shoes, then, it hardly makes financial sense to buy shoes that cost you several hundreds of dollars per pair. Instead, you will go for value, perhaps taking advantage of a particular store’s BOGO offer.

However, your feet are not just a body part that should be dressed up, they carry the weight of your entire body and work with your other body parts to keep you upright. As a result, your feet not only require the benefits of a foot soak or pedicure every now and then, but also the investment in one or two good pairs of shoes. Take the time to go to a shoe store and get your feet measured (bet you haven’t done that since you were a child!) and invest in shoes that best fit your foot’s arch. If you have any foot problems that make finding or fitting shoes difficult, you may want to go see a podiatrist, who is qualified to diagnose and treat foot problems.

If, like me, you’ve been blessed with feet that aren’t too picky, and will only whine if you insist on wearing high heels for a long period of time, you may think it’s a waste of money to invest so much in shoes when your feet are generally fine. However, the concept of investing today for the future is not limited to money only. By putting foot health on your list of priorities, you’re ensuring that you’ll be striding right, right into your later years.

If you have to close your eyes when you hand over your payment, so be it.

feet, foot, foot health, podiatrist, healthy feet

Don’t miss an entry! Please subscribe to Life Tips Daily today.

If you own a computer and the internet is part of every day, then you may suffer from password overload. Between remembering passwords for email accounts, social networking sites, forums that address your varied interests, bank accounts (for online banking), your library account and your own blog(s) or website(s), you must have at least ten passwords (and don’t forget your usernames too!) bouncing around in your brain (and this is a conservative estimate).

I forget where I read it but using your brain to remember things like phone numbers, usernames and passwords is not supposed to be the best use of your brain, and writing these things down, or having a place where you can refer to them is a better idea, as it frees your brain to do other things, like keeping a running tally of the number of calories in every piece of food that crosses your lips.

The best way I have of keeping track of all my passwords is a simple spreadsheet. I organize my passwords (and usernames) by the categories above, and try to remind myself to update the file as my passwords increase and change. This helps me keep track of my various accounts, and I can’t deny being shocked every time I look at the file and see all the things I’ve signed up for, forgotten about or gotten bored with.

(I must admit that I still try to memorize all my usernames and passwords though to save the step of opening the file)

How do you keep track of your usernames and passwords?

password, password overload, username, remembering passwords, keeping track of passwords

Don’t miss an entry! Please subscribe to Life Tips Daily today.

Many Canadians spent yesterday, July 1, at a barbecue or with family or friends (or both) in celebration of Canada Day. Some people had to delay their festivities until today, however, because they had to work. I’m not talking about emergency workers, policemen, or gas station attendants but people who work in the retail sector.

That’s right: many local malls were open on Sunday for Canada Day. According to the federal Holidays Act, when Canada Day falls on a Sunday, the next day is designated Canada Day, which means business may be open on July 1. The problem is few people seemed to be aware of this fact: most treated yesterday as Canada Day and it was celebrated as such, and not many seemed to know that Monday was the national holiday.

I work in the retail sector part time and as a result, I worked yesterday. I was surprised by the number of people who were out shopping and not celebrating, or relaxing at home (though granted, their plans may have been later in the day). Many customers expressed sympathy that I had to work “on Canada Day”. My reply to them was to inform them that the number of customers shopping proved to the mall that it is certainly worthwhile to be open. In response, a couple of customers sheepishly tried to explain why they were out shopping but the point is people like to shop and if the stores are open, they will shop.

I can’t deny I wish we could go back to the days where stores were closed on Sundays.

Canada Day, open Canada Day, shopping on Canada Day

Don’t miss an entry! Please subscribe to Life Tips Daily today.