Sports

Playing Sports as an Adult

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We all have friends who gather on their couches to watch the Super Bowl, Stanley Cup and World Series. I just finished watching a 15-inning game of college softball on ESPN. But how many people do you know who get off that couch and shoot some hoops on their own? There’s probably a handful, but for many of us, finding an adult community sports league can be intimidating.

Here are a few good reasons to join an adult sports league, even if you don’t consider yourself an athlete:

#1: Social Exercising

I don’t know what’s worse: the Freshman 15 or the College Degree’d 30. Whatever workout habit you may have had built into your class schedule, that luxury is gone. Now, you are on-the-go all the time. Eating from the drive-thru, or at your desk, or on your couch after 8 pm. Who wants to force themselves to dedicate time to exercising when you barely have time to breathe?

Recreational sports are an easy answer. Depending on the sport, the exercise can be vigorous or moderate, but you still get to meet new people no matter what level of play. Depending on the league you are in, you might even have practices with bonus exercise.

Additionally, you might find your company has a work league or work team. I can tell you right now, playing softball basically got me hired out of my internship and into my first big-person job. My soon-to-be boss and I warmed up and started chatting and, a year later, I graduated and had my first job (because they really needed my help in Center Field… I mean… in the office).

#2: Try something new!

Remember when we were little and your parents signed you up for things like soccer, tennis, basketball, theater camp, and piano? By the time you reached 14, you probably had to start specializing—pick one after-school activity or pick one sport.

But life isn’t over yet! Want to learn play golf? Sign up for a beginner’s course and bring some friends to the driving range. Did you always want to learn to play lacrosse but never could find a league as a kid? Ask your local league if they accommodate beginners. There are so many people who try new sports after they leave school, and it ends up being a center of their social life. I know people who have learned Ultimate Frisbee and Curling. Heck, go read Melissa’s article about Quidditch and tell me you don’t want to try it, too!

Don’t worry if you aren’t that good right away. If you like the league and team, you’ll get better with time

#3: Rekindle a love of sports. 

While my primary form of exercise is running, my first love will always be softball. I played in work leagues and slowpitch leagues, but it just wasn’t the same as the fastpitch I grew up playing.

But now, I play and manage two fastpitch teams and it’s my favorite hobby. It keeps me sane. Both my teams are in an 18+ women’s league with players at every level. I even got to go to a tournament in Las Vegas—seeing 12 teams from 4 different states compete against each other reminded me why I love this game.

Now a few tips to find a sporting league for you!

The two best places to find a league are through your work and through your city’s parks and recreation department. Many major corporations have company leagues or company teams sponsored through their employee activities program. Additionally, your city has adult sports leagues (mine varies from $40-90 per player per season), just like the ones for kids.

If you can’t find leagues through either of those, there are two private companies that run leagues across the United States: Zogsports and Planet Social Sports. Both these leagues generally offer multiple sports a year and usually make deals with local bars to host the athletes for post-game drinks. ZogSports also raises money for charity and offers volunteer opportunities to players in the league (it was founded in NYC in the wake of 9/11).

Lastly, if you are looking for an obscure sport, I highly recommend using Sportsvite or Meetup. Sportsville a Facebook-type community for sports lovers to find teams or find players for their teams.

Level of Competition

Make sure you join a team in the correct level of competition and find a patient manager. You don’t want to play on a team that plays to win if you are just there to have a good time! I can’t stress enough how important a good manager with the right vision can be to your experience. You don’t deserve to be screamed at for a simple mistake, especially when you are paying to play in this league. I know it sounds silly, but sometimes people don’t have the same priorities.

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Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Money

Not Going Broke, A How-To

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After vacationing in Japan, visiting New York, and moving in with my boyfriend, all within three months, I had a lot of debt and needed to have a plan to get rid of it. I have a decent job that sort of allows me to live comfortably, but the reality is that I needed to budget my spending and hold myself to it. Budgeting my way out of debt and into better savings sucks. It really does, but it’s part of being a responsible adult who maybe wants to buy a house, or get married, or take another big vacation abroad.

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Let’s take a look at how I try to set up my budget, which is generally applicable for a young working professional living in the major Bay Area. Please note that the cost of living can be scaled down (or up) depending on where you live.

How Much Money You Make

For salaried workers, this is pretty simple. How much do you get paid? How often do you get paid? Multiply accordingly to figure out about how much you make each month. For example, let’s say my annual income is $40,000–after taxes. It comes out to about $1,200 per paycheck twice a month. We’ll work with a baseline of $2,400 dollars each month, subtracting as we count our expenses.

Cash Flow: $2,400

How Much You Have to Spend

Car payments, rent, and insurance are some typical costs. These are required for not losing your car, your home, and your health (or maintaining any of the above), and as such, these are your priority payments each month. In addition, since you have to buy gas for your car, you should estimate the average cost of a tank and the number of times you fill up in a month. I generally go to a gas station about three times a month, give or take a week. There’s not really an opportunity for cost savings here, barring trading down your current car and moving back and forth.

Cash Flow: $2,400

Rent: -$700

Car Payment: -$306

Gasoline: -$120

Car / Renter’s Insurance: -$110

Cash Flow after Necessities: $1,164

How Much You Have for Food

Barring rent, food is where I spend the majority of my money each month. Cutting back from having sushi two to three times a week sucked, but I had to devise a plan for saving money where I usually spend the most.

First, I accounted for breakfast and work lunches. I normally don’t eat breakfast, but sometimes I do get coffee. Paying $4 three times a week for a coffee and snack comes to $12 per week for breakfast. For lunch, the cafeteria at my work tends to charge about $6 per meal, but I want a little breathing room to eat out with my co-workers once a week at about $15. A $6 cafeteria lunch four times a week, plus $15 for eating out once a week, comes to $39 per week for lunch. Next, we should account for dinners, desserts, and other snacks you would normally eat at home. I try to eat something of moderate size and of moderate price from the grocery store most nights of the week. This usually comes out to about $10 a day, sometimes serving for two or more.

To account for eating out, I let the cost savings roll over, and try to not binge on alcohol or appetizers. In order to calculate how much you’d spend each month, multiply your weekly costs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner by about 4.3 (the average number of weeks in a month). It isn’t an exact number, but it generally works out to be fairly accurate (and then I round up to the nearest whole dollar).

This part of the budget varies greatly from person to person, as some people care more about what they’re eating, how often they’re eating it, and if they can stand leftovers. I for one don’t mind leftovers, but hate monotony in the variety of my overall meals, so I spend a little more on some meals for bigger tastier foods.

Cash Flow after Necessities: $1,164

Breakfast: -$51

Lunch: -$168

Dinner: -$300

Cash Flow after Food: $645

How Much You Have for Fun

Shit gets tricky here. You have a finite amount of money left this month. You could spend it on drinking, a new pair of shoes, or a coffee table. I like all of these things, but my savings are more important to me. If you don’t have any, what happens when you run into trouble? I’m a bit proud and don’t really want to ask my mom and dad for help, so I put a small, but decent chunk directly into savings.

After that, it’s sort of like juggling. You can revise how much you spend each month on entertainment, such as movies or small trips. Or maybe, you want to spend more money on material things, and go shopping more often. These budgets are flexible because you still have money left over. I recommend that you put anything remaining from your cash flow into savings.

Cash Flow after Food: $645

Savings: -$200

Entertainment: -$120

Shopping: -$200

Cash Flow after Fun: $125

Getting Out of Debt

Above, there’s the basic outline of a budget, but you can see that at the end, there’s not a lot to pay back toward existing bills. Here’s where you look at all the things you’re spending money on and figure out where you can afford to cut back. For example, you don’t really need to spend $200 a month on shopping for new things. This could be cut down to $50 for new games or some new makeup, bringing your debt repayment funds up to $275. Furthermore, not everyone is like me and spends a lot of money on food. Some folks I know spend less than $200 a month on food, and that could be you too! Saving money to pay debt sucks, but it needs to be done if you want to be a financially responsible adult. Just learn to cut where it doesn’t hurt as bad.

Note that if you have long-standing credit card debt, you should try to pay it off first before putting a lot into savings. Your savings doesn’t accrue interest, while owing money to credit card companies costs you more in the long run. You should also aim to pay off your credit cards every month, making the bills in the long term much more manageable.

Making Everything Easier

Finally, work out your budget in Microsoft Excel or Google Spreadsheets: it’s an excellent way to have a copy that you can manipulate and track your progress. Alternatively, you can use a site such as Mint to have them track your spending. Such websites can pull records from your credit cards, bank statements, and other bills to better show much you’ve been spending, and usually they have great ways to analyze your spending or track your goals. You can use these to see where you’ve been putting all your hard-earned cash, so you can decide where you need to cut back.

Good luck with the budgets and the savings!

Transportation

Handling Public Transit

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Four years ago, I was in Singapore—arguably one of the safest countries in the world—when I found myself in the back of a stranger’s gray minivan heading back to what would (hopefully) be my hotel. After my friend and I left a bar and couldn’t find taxis, she had used her Mandarin to flag down the vehicle of a family driving back from an IT convention and convinced them to give us a ride home. We ended up getting dropped off at a chicken and rice restaurant because, well, priorities.

Photo by Sara Slattery

I vowed never to hitchhike again, until two years later, when I found myself in Buenos Aires on the back of a strange Argentine’s motorcycle, post New Year’s, heading to breakfast at 7 am because, again, priorities.

As I’ve gotten older and have traveled more, I understand that strangers’ vehicles do not really qualify as public transportation. Therefore, to safely explore a city, I have since opted to take the local tube, metro, or subway. Though it can be overwhelming, taking public transportation can give you the best insights into the nature and vibe of a town. Plus, it teaches you how weird people everywhere really are. While the train lines and the bus numbers change, there are some universal rules that I always follow when hopping aboard anything that moves faster than 2 miles per hour.

1. Always plan a second route.

When I was visiting London for a few days, I became a short-lived master of the specific routes of the Tube. However, one evening when I was rushing to get back to my hotel, the dreaded announcement of a technical difficulty came over the loudspeakers (I swear British English is its own language). The train was going to be parked at this random station indefinitely. Since I was in a rush, I jumped out at the station and came above ground. Realizing I only had a vague idea of where I was, I started walking down the street to find another Tube line and even attempted to navigate the bus system, both ending in utter failures. Annoyed, I tried to hail a cab but they were all taken. Just to add icing on my pathetic cake, it began to downpour because London sits under an everlasting cumulonimbus cloud. So, basically, I relived a horrible scene from an equally horrible Jennifer Aniston movie and walked five blocks in the rain to just turn around and go back on the original broken-down rail.

Side note: I later found out there was a direct bus to the street of my hotel right near the train stop.

2. During peak hours, work your way to the door well before your stop.

In Mumbai, India, the trains are packed sardine cans with bold and desperate commuters clinging onto the outsides while racing to their potential doom (or home, depending on what comes first or what you actually want). My good friend was one of the those unlucky souls packed so tightly in the middle of the car that he was unable to maneuver his way to the front in time for his stop; he watched the door close from within the train and he hurdled on to the next stop. This happened two or three more times on the same journey, with each stop bringing him significantly further away from his home. By the time he was able to battle his way off the train, he had traveled over 35 minutes away from his intended stop, forcing him to cross the platform and jump right back on the train and backtrack his route. This resulted in an extra hour-and-a-half commute back to his destination and a few veins bursting in his forehead.

3. Always have ample money on your bus pass or subway card; never let the amount run low.

If you are vacationing in a foreign city, look into investing in a day pass or something long-term instead of just a single ride. This way, you will save money in the long run if you plan on taking the trains a lot, and you won’t have to worry about the zones or specific costs of each stop. In addition, if you miss your stop, you won’t feel particularly wounded that you have to buy another ticket again. Save your dignity-reducing actions for later in the evening.

4. Do NOT make eye contact.

As a human, I understand the urge to people watch and casually observe, but when on public transport, staring at someone in a close proximity is extremely uncomfortable and can warrant some unnecessary responses. I generally get really into staring at the same smudged spot on the door or begin a highly detailed analysis of my nail cuticles.

My dear friend made the mistake of looking at a disheveled man sitting across from her on a New York subway, catching his gaze for a second too long. I’m not sure in which animal world a lingering gaze is a cue for self-pleasure, but the man was inspired to stand up, move closer to her, and stare at her while shoving his hands under his trench coat (they are always in trench coats!) and fondling his unmentionables. Utterly horrified, my friend sat paralyzed ‘til the next stop, where she immediately switched train cars. I’m not saying every time you look someone in the eye they masturbate, but I’m not NOT saying that either.

5. Exercise caution when taking out all your Apple products.

Fine, maybe Android for you heathens, but either way, I wouldn’t recommend carelessly waving your iPod, tablet, or smartphone around. The more you take public transit, the easier it is to let your guard down, but try to make it a point to really be aware of your surroundings. This sounds simple, but as an ardent breaker of this rule, I’m speaking on experience. When my friends and I were in Chicago taking the L back home around 9:30 pm, my friend was telling us a story, holding her brand new iPhone in her hand. Just as we were approaching a stop, a boy no older than 14 walked by us and immediately tried to snatch the phone from her hand and run out the door. Luckily, my friend had an iron grip on the phone and glass-shattering screams, and the boy ran off sans phone and sans hearing. Naturally, everyone else in the car pretended to be dead and didn’t bother to even blink at her screams.

So, whether you are a daily commuter in Boston or a novice navigating the trains of Bangkok, I suggest you follow these simple rules of public transit to ensure a stress-free ride.

Or you could take a ride on a South American’s Vespa for breakfast. I promise you, you won’t regret that, either.

Relationships

Expectations vs. Reality: Living in Sin

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“Ooooh, I guess things are gettin’ pretty serious, huh?”

If you are preparing to move in with your sig-o, get ready to hear that every day of your life for the foreseeable future.

But what the heck does that even mean… “Things are gettin’ pretty serious”? In the year 2013, what qualifies as a “serious enough relaysh” that you’d consider moving in together? Only you and your guy/gal can accurately answer that question. It’s different for everybody, so this won’t be a discussion about how to know if it’s the right move. But whether you’re gearing yourself up to put a ring on it or cruising along at a gentler pace, one thing remains constant: living together changes (almost) everything. You might not expect it to, especially if you’ve practically been living together the entire time you’ve been dating. But, as one half of a couple that just took a jaunty stroll down this road, here are a few realities of the situation that might differ a smidge from your expectations.

The actual physical moving of apartments was rather eye-opening for me. I think I’ll start with that. Moving day is about as relaxing as that moment when your best friend just became a zombie, and you must decide whether or not to blow his head off because in about five seconds he’s going to eat your face. Moving is a dangerous dance! It’s likely you’ve never seen your sig-o handle stress of this kind before. Our move went a little something like this: we decided to do it ourselves, with friends and a U-Haul. Except, in the end, only one super-dedicated friend actually stuck with us the whole day, the U-Haul rental place was far away and threw off our whole schedule, and we were not as well-packed as we thought we were. A mattress was thrown off a balcony. Things of a somewhat vile variety were uttered. So… my advice for the big day? Fork over the cash, and hire a moving company. Really. U-Haul often tacks on all kinds of extra fees anyway, so in the end it’s not that much cheaper. If you hire movers, you can focus on the excitement of your first awesome apartment together instead of: “Hey, Liz, please don’t hold that chair like you have 6-inch T-Rex arms, the legs are going to—!”“Uhh, do we have a hot glue gun? The legs of this chair all fell off.”

But if you do decide to DIY, take comfort in this: if your relationship comes out of moving day intact, it can probably survive anything!

Something else I wasn’t quite expecting was the fact that just because we liked each other, it would not necessarily mean we liked each other’s stuff. Once we got through the move and started putting things in their proper places, there were several instances of, “Oh… wait, we’re hanging that? On an actual wall in our actual home?” When we lived in our respective apartments with roommates, we always had our own rooms—spaces that were completely our own. But now, for the first time ever, the entire space was shared space. The solution in this case is simple, but it requires patience. Over time, invest in nice, new things that you both like. If you’re not lucky enough to have your tastes perfectly align, I recommend having a joint “cool new shit” fund. It doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg, either. Go to the flea market together and get an antique desk or a funky painting (then do as I do, and go home and watch Flea Market Flip for 3 hours and proclaim, with bloated self-confidence, “We could totally make that table, why aren’t we on this show?!”).

Which obviously leads me to this addendum: Definitely try to make some of this stuff if you’re crafty types! In the end, you might have to make a few concessions. But focus on getting new stuff together, instead of stewing over how much you know he/she loathes your antelope-shaped candelabra (yeah, that’s mine).

Also, speaking of joint purchasing ventures: maybe you were expecting the money questions to kind of answer themselves, or that you’d both be impeccable about splitting all household expenses evenly. But you need to chat about it. My philosophy is 50/50, all the way—on everything from the cable bill to groceries, no matter which person the food “belongs” to (so this means, yes, I spend just as much on his ground beef as he does on my veggie burgers and tofu). But definitely have an honest conversation about your finances before you move. If one of you is a little more solvent than the other, that’s okay. Maybe you agree on 70/30 or 60/40. But whatever you decide, have a mathematical layout and stick to it. It’s easy to get sloppy with that kind of thing, but it’s also the thing most couples wind up fighting about!

Another notable change is the sharing of people. Two-Buck-Chuck-Ladies-Night-In will take on a different form. As will five-hour Xbox/Chipotle-scarfing marathons. Your single-social behavior is going to change, which is weird, right? It’s not like either of you were “single” before this. But now, when you have friends over, even if you have the space for each person to operate independently, you may feel it’s necessary to try to include one another. And that’s great! I love when the important people in my life get to know one another better. My heart is easily warmed by everybody getting on like peanut butter and jelly. But I definitely wasn’t expecting this change in the social atmosphere. Now every friend visitation is pre-examined, case-by-case. If my best girlfriend needs to drink half a bottle of wine and give me a very graphic play-by-play of her latest sexcapade, I will suggest a trip to the bar instead of inviting her over, as was our usual M.O. when I was living alone.

This accomplishes two things: firstly, it stops you from inadvertently making your sig-o feel like they’re intruding just because they’re there. Sloppy secondly, it gets you the hell out of the apartment, which leads me to another unexpected possible side effect of co-habitation. “Co-Hermitation,” I like to call it. It happens to pretty much everybody. It’s totally normal. You’re together, so you’re being social even if you’re staying in. It’s a scientific fact. But if you can break the cycle now and then, have at it!

Now, here’s the thing that I think is the biggest expectation-buster of them all. And, a lot of the time, it could be an expectation that other people have imposed upon you because you made this decision. But here’s the thing: moving in together is an enormous sign of commitment. Yes. But there’s a reason you signed a lease instead of a marriage certificate. Living together might be a step in that direction, but if you ask me (which you sort of did because you continued to read up until this point!), moving in with someone you love should be treated as the ultimate personal experiment. You did it because you wanted to be 30000% sure that this is the right person for you, and there are certain things you’ll only understand about your relationship and the “rightness” of it if you’ve lived with this person. That’s what you needed, so that’s what you decided to do. Not everybody needs this “experiment.” Your parents may not have needed it (as they might endlessly point out to you). But this is the 21st century and, more often than not, this is how we roll as adult people who love each other.

However, let it be known that if this experiment does not meet your expectations, if something changes and this relationship no longer makes you happy, living together does not have to mean that you’re in-it-to-win-it for life. Try to make it work. Try and try again, dammit. Not every day is going to be a rollicking honeymoon. But in the end, if it’s just not meant to be, don’t let anyone guilt you into treating it like a divorce. You moved in with this person so you’d know what they’re really all about. And that’s exactly what you came out of it understanding. I SALUTE YOU if this is you presently or if it ever has been you.

Now, I don’t want to leave anyone feeling sad, because who would I be if I did that? Sheesh. So before I sign off, here are a few more hints, practical or otherwise, that you may or may not find useful in your newfound co-habitative bliss:

  • If you have pets, then guess what: your girlfriend/boyfriend also inherited said pets. You may have said things like, “I promise, the dog is mine, you don’t have to clean up after him or feed him or anything, he’s just gonna exist in the house.” But if you all exist in this household together, man and beast, it’s highly likely that that animal will become a greater shared entity than you expected, for better or worse. So, like… definitely make sure the dog isn’t keen on pooping in his/her shoes.
  • If the fact that she throws wet towels on the bed after a shower makes you rage, for the love of God, just tell her! She probably doesn’t even know she’s doing it, okay? Old habits die hard. It’s a hard knock life, living alone. Nobody tells you not to do this kind of stuff!
  • Same goes for cleaning in general. If you have a different definition of the word “clean,” you should probably come to grips with it and find a harmonious happy medium. People like slobs just about as much as they like that OCD 6 am vacuumer.
  • Two TVs or no TV. I’m so serious. One in the bedroom and one in the living room or none at all! I think everybody appreciates what I mean by this!
  • And one more thing, coming at you from the bed where I currently sit, battling a sore throat that I’m convinced is morphing into flu symptoms minute-by-minute: get familiar with each other’s sick day behavior. People usually treat sick people how they want to be treated when they’re ill, whether that’s with 24/7 doting or with a suck-it-up-hands-off approach. As I sit here contemplating whether or not I want to get up and make some honey-lemon tea, I wonder whether or not he knows that I might want somebody to make it for me. Hmmmm.

Stay tuned for next month’s article on how to maximize your sickness sympathy potential (a beginner’s guide).

Moving in w_your sig other square

Photo by Sara Slattery

Transportation

What to do if you are hit by a car

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Traffic accidents are zero fun. Whether yourself or another driver caused them, it inevitably leaves you feeling shaken and vulnerable. But fear not, because it is not the end of the world! Here are a few tips if your car is hit by another vehicle.

Photo by Sara Slattery

Traffic accidents can range from fender benders (which are minor and can sometimes be worked out between the drivers without insurance or police) to full-on impacts that leave cars totaled. Though, hopefully, this piece will help you with your situation, it is important to remember that every accident is different and some situations might differ significantly from what is stated here.

Keep Calm and Pull Over

First things first—when a car hits you, do not panic. This may seem like a hard thing to do, especially if airbags have been deployed, but it is important to remember that staying calm helps other passengers or drivers remain calm as well. Check and see if your passengers are okay. Then, if you can, pull over to the side of the road and put your hazards on. In some cases, it may not be wise to move your car, in case of further damage. Depending on where on the road you were hit, you can determine if it’s safe to pull over or not. (Never leave the scene of an accident without first consulting the other driver or people involved in the accident. If you do, and someone or something is damaged, you could face charges for a hit-and-run, which is much, much worse than any traffic accident).

If this is your first time in an accident, it may feel like the end of the world!  But believe this from someone who has been on the road for a while: as long as your car isn’t totaled, it will be fine (and might look even better than before!) after the insurance pays for it to be fixed up.

Check Out Your Car

The next step is to assess the damage to you and your car. If you don’t have any injuries, you can check your car next. Are there scratches that weren’t there before? What about a dent on the door? Are the mirrors still fully functioning? By running your eyes up and down your car and feeling the area of impact, you will be able to tell what kind of damage you are dealing with and how it affects your car overall. Many times, cars can fully function if it’s not a significant impact, but unless you are an automotive expert, it is better to be safe than sorry.

If you have a camera phone, it’s common to whip it out at this point and document the damage to both cars.

Get Their Digits

Next, exchange information with the other driver: name, phone number, email, address, license plate number, make and model of the car, and their insurance (if they have it). You will need all this information when you contact your insurance company to file a claim. You need to give your information to the other driver, so if you don’t know it off the top of your head it is wise to keep all this info in the passenger glove compartment. If you don’t carry a pen and a pad of paper in your glove compartment, use a camera to photograph their information, or type it into your phone. (And then throw a pen and a writing pad in your car for next time!)

You should also be aware of your state’s requirements: in California, even the victim of a fender bender can get a ticket if they are found without their insurance and registration in their car. To find out if it is required for you, just look on your state’s DMV website: they will give you an outline of requirements for owning your car.

Call the Police

After getting all the information, it’s time to call the police. It might feel weird actually dialing 9-1-1, but the police will be able to act as a mediator between you and the other driver. A police report will be filed with your information, too, which is always helpful when filing insurance claims. Officers are usually very nice when it comes to traffic accidents and will only ask one or two questions depending on the damage done. If your story is different from the other driver’s, don’t panic and stick to your story.

It is important to note here that it is wise to never admit fault to the other driver or the police until you talk to your insurance company or, if necessary, legal counsel. This might sound untruthful or wrong, but sometimes traffic accidents can be chaotic and it might not be evident whose fault the accident was. Just keep your cool, tell your story, and you’ll be fine.

Examine Your Witnesses

If you talk to any witnesses, get their information as well. If it is a significant accident, police will often do this job for you, but you might need the witnesses’ help if you have to proceed legally. Ask them what they saw and if they have witnessed other accidents in the same area before. Usually you won’t need witnesses unless there is significant damage done to you or your car, so it’s up to you whether you want their help or not.

File a Claim

Finally, it’s time to contact your insurance company. Call them and tell them exactly what happened, or go online and file a claim from their website. If you lie, you could be denied coverage in the future. This phone call is very easy, though tedious, but insurance workers are usually very helpful and specific about what they need from you. As long as you have all the necessary information for your car and from the other driver, it will be as simple and quick as possible.

If your accident is minor, then your insurance company should have the matter worked out within a couple of weeks. However, the more significant the damage to you or your car, the longer the matter can take to settle, so keep track of what’s happening! Keep any pictures of any injuries and damage to your car safe and organized. Get estimates of property damage, and cooperate with your insurance company. And be patient! Sometimes it takes a while for claims to be reported or settled. Your insurance company will be in contact with you when they need you.

Being hit by a car can be exhausting, tedious, and heartbreaking, depending on the damage. But as long as you and everyone else at the incident is okay, you will be able to get through it. And never buy a car unless you can also afford insurance: it could be what saves your life!

Style

The Perfect Lipstick

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Lipstick can be difficult. You’re going for a sultry pout or flirty hot pink, but according to the mirror at the end of the night, you look like a 6-year-old caught playing with mom’s make-up. Not cool!

Photo by Sara Slattery

Here are some step-by-step instructions to get long-lasting, even lip color. I’ve also included some product recommendations (focusing on affordable options, because $30 for one tube of lipstick usually isn’t exactly budget-friendly)!

This article is specifically for lipsticks. Lip glosses, stains, balms, and translucent lip colors will probably not get the best results. But, if you want to try it, go ahead! We’d love to hear your results in the comment section.

Warning: Please spot-test before trying new products, because you never know how your skin will react to them! Put a dab of a new product on your inner forearm and wait a few minutes to see how you react. For people with sensitive skin, it may be wiser to wait a full 24 hours. If you’re allergic to anything, always read the labels!

1. Exfoliate

Exfoliating clears your lips of dead skin that can catch on to lipsticks, making them bleed or flake. This can be easily done with stuff you have at home: mix equal parts oil and brown sugar until you get a paste, then scrub your lips! You can use coconut oil, olive oil, jojoba oil, or any kind of oil you might use on your skin. Wait a minute to let the oil sink in to your lips before moving on to step two. Rinse off with water, and voila! If you don’t have brown sugar, you can also scrub your lips with a bit of oil on a clean toothbrush or washcloth.

You can also buy lip scrubs, but they can be costly. Try not to use a body scrub, as they are harsher and can tear the skin on your lips! This could lead to flaking or infections.

Check out some popular lip scrubs from Sephora, Fresh Sugar, and Lush.

1a. Prime (Optional):

If you’re feeling extra fancy, you can use a lip primer or a foundation to even out your skin tone. Primer can be used under or instead of lip liner.

Some great primers can be found at Eyes Lips Face and Urban Decay.

2. Line

Using a lip liner, fill in your entire lip. Yes, your entire lip: not just the edges! This gives your lipstick more staying power. If you wanted to make your lips appear fuller, now would be the time to line slightly outside the line of your lips.

The liner will even out your lips. If you have visible veins or dark lips, use a beige or lighter colored liner, especially under bright lipsticks. This will help your lipstick look more opaque. You can also match the liner to the color of your lips or to your lipstick itself for slightly different looks.

Popular lip liners are sold by Wet ‘n Wild, Maybelline, Rimmel and MAC.

3.  Moisturize

Because it sticks to your skin so well, lip liner can be drying. If you have particularly dry skin or your lips start to flake, try a simple balm over your liner. Anything you get at the drugstore works, but make sure it’s clear and not tinted!

Much-loved moisturizers are available from Burt’s Bees, NIVEA, and Chapstick.

4. Color

Time for lipstick! Carefully apply the lipstick. Do a few layers, and then rub your lips together.

Picking out lipsticks can be fun! L’Oréal is a classic drugstore brand, while MAC is very popular but more expensive. Wet ‘n Wild is a great way to try different colors on the cheap. Revlon has popular matte lipstick and moisturizing, buildable lip butter.

5. Blot

Take a clean washcloth or tissue and carefully press it to your lips, as if you’re giving a kiss. Just once! This creates a deeper stain.

5a. Powder (Optional)

If you want really long-lasting color, you can apply translucent powder to your lips at this point. I don’t particularly like what this does to the texture of my lips, but it does work! With a finger, press a small amount of powder all the way around your lip. Let it set for a minute. Remember, only use translucent powder—a skin-toned powder will take away from the lipstick’s color!

New York Color and Sally Beauty offer translucent powders.

6. Brush

This is where lip brushes come in! Transfer color from the lipstick palette or tube to your lips with a lip brush, making small, even strokes parallel to your lips. For some reason, the staying power using a brush is much longer than swiping it on, so this is definitely worth your time!

Eyes Lips Face has a lip defining brush and retractable lip brush, and Ecotools offers a detailed lip brush and multipurpose brushes. Both are affordable, quality options.

6a. Matte, Glossy, or Full? (Optional)

If your lipstick isn’t matte already and you are going for a matte look, blot your lipstick again.

If you want glossy lips, you can apply gloss over your finished lipstick. This looks especially nice with creme finishes, because pearl and frost finishes already have some shine to them.

To make lips look fuller, apply a gloss or a lipstick one shade brighter to the center of your lips. Blend outwards with your finger or by rubbing your lips together.

7. Clean-Up

You’re probably in front of a mirror, so check your teeth to make sure you didn’t get any lipstick on them! If you are re-applying your lipstick on the go, you can stick your index finger in your mouth past your teeth, and then pull it out against your lips, like eating a Popsicle. This takes color off your teeth and the inside of your lips, guaranteeing a smudge-free smile.

Sports

Get off the Couch! A Couch to 10K Guide

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So you want to run? You want the wind in your hair, the asphalt under your feet, and the feeling of accomplishing a physical milestone? Welcome! Let’s get you off the couch and into the world of early mornings, aches and pains, and numbing ice baths.

First, a little something about me: I have never been a runner. Throughout my childhood, I participated in many sports but didn’t love running. But then I grew up, became an adult, and realized that I needed to create an active lifestyle for myself. So I joined up with Team In Training (more about that later) and have since run 2 half-marathons and a handful of 5Ks and 10Ks, along with close to 500 miles in training.

So maybe you’re asking, “Why is this article titled ‘Couch to 10K’ and not ‘5K’”? Because all of the information I’m about to drop is valuable for building up to running longer races. Running 5Ks is a wonderful and admirable goal, but a 10K requires a bit more information; so this article will give you a guidance system for eventually doing those longer races. Because, hey! You’ll be crossing those finish lines in no time.

There is an entire world of running and you can get in pretty deep, but today I’ll cover training and conditioning, clothing, and nutrition.

Training and Conditioning

There are a few methods by which elite runners train. “What, you mean you don’t just go out and run?” Well, yes, of course you can just do that. However, there are some other training methods that have become popular recently in the running world: one of which is called interval training.  

Interval training (also known as the “Run/Walk Method”) can be implemented in many ways while running. My training consisted of running for five minutes and then walking for one minute. A friend of mine would run for the length of three songs and then walk for one. The basic principle is that you give your muscles a chance to cool down while running instead of after. This allows your muscles to recover more quickly, allowing less soreness. For more in-depth information, check out what famed runner Jeff Galloway has to say on the subject. I encourage you to explore his site for everything from running tips to training schedules.

In addition to finding your perfect training method, conditioning is very important. Do you have to be in pristine shape to run a 10K? No, you don’t. But, you do need to work yourself up to the distance via cardio training. I’m a girl who likes to do “Just Dance” on the Wii for 45 minutes. Do what works for you! But make sure you add in some other form of workout (cardio or cross training) in between your midweek runs.

Speaking of midweek runs… you need to do them! Running 3-4 times per week will put you on the perfect track for your 10K. One run per week should be a longer distance, working your way up to 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). But it’s great to go out for shorter midweek runs to build your endurance. Find a friend, make it a before-work social event, and have fun with it. And make sure you stretch! Here’s some information on dynamic stretching (which is better than static stretching) for before and after your runs.

Clothing

Maybe what you wear isn’t the most important thing in your training, but it will be more comfortable if you wear certain items made out of certain materials.

If you go to an active-wear store or Target or wherever, you will see “moisture wicking” on many of their items. Those are what you want! Please, please, please don’t wear cotton (this includes socks and undergarments)! Cotton traps moisture, making your clothes heavier, making you heavier, making running harder. Okay, maybe it’s not that dramatic, but you’ll thank me later for the moisture wicking.

There are tons of options in terms of styles of clothing. Shorts, capris, leggings, short sleeve tops, long sleeve, no shirt—these are all available to you! Some pants have places for your keys; some have pockets to carry nutrition with you. Some bottoms have built in underwear, some don’t. (Trust me, you don’t want to be too sweaty in your nether regions, so perhaps invest in some sports underwear.) But most importantly, wear what you want. It’s not a fashion show. Just make sure to dress for the weather where you live.

Nutrition

“Wait, I need to eat something while running?” Yes, but only during longer runs. After about forty-five minutes of running (sometimes sixty, depending on body weight) your body seriously depletes in calorie levels. So it’s time to load up! This is your time to try out what works for you. As with everything else I’ve talked about, there are many, many options for what you can eat.

My favorite treats include Clif Shot Bloks and shell-less sunflower seeds. The Shot Bloks have a high calorie count and the sunflower seeds offer salt, which you lose while running (yay, sweat!). You’ll notice that right after you eat these mid-run snacks, your energy kicks back in to high gear and you feel ready to run more. Again, try out a few things to see what you like, what doesn’t upset your stomach, or what is easiest to carry. You’ll find your favorites soon enough.

Along with consuming calories, make sure you drink water or an electrolyte-enhanced drink! You really don’t want to get dehydrated during or after your runs. Check out this Runner’s World Article on eating and drinking before, during and after your runs. I love their suggestion of drinking chocolate milk—yum!

Time to Run

So, now that you have all of the information you need, it’s time to get out and run! Just do it. You’ll feel amazing afterwards and as soon as you cross the finish line, you’ll have reached an incredible personal goal.

If you want more help with training, I would suggest looking in to a few different groups that offer coaching while you give back to charitable organizations. Remember that I mentioned Team In Training (TNT)? TNT offers coaching assistance with a large group of people in your neighborhood, all while supporting and benefiting the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS). I ran both my half marathons with TNT, and I couldn’t be happier with the results. Not only can I pass all of my learned information on to you fine folks, but I also had an extremely gratifying experience raising money for LLS. I have never been prouder to call myself a runner.

Now, it’s your turn. Sign up for your first 5K or 10K and let us know how the training went, what worked, and what didn’t in the comments section below! The first time crossing the finish line is always the best. Here’s to more firsts!

Running Square

Photo by Sara Slattery

Transportation

Successfully Disputing a Ticket (aka Beating The Man)

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This is a story about having a vigorous—some might say pathological—need to fight a broken system. In case you didn’t notice the article’s title, I’ll tell you right off the bat that I ultimately won this months-long dispute with the New York MTA. And you can, too! The easiest thing to do, of course, is to not to get a ticket in the first place—this is not a how-to for criminals. But sometimes, these things are unavoidable.

Photo by Sara Slattery

My story begins on a relatively mundane evening in January. I was rushing out of my office—a startup in Chelsea—so I could get home for a scheduled work call. I headed to my regular subway station, where I pulled out the creased monthly MetroCard I’d been trying to iron out (mostly by putting it between two credit cards and sitting on it). The first time I swiped it, the turnstile told me to “Please swipe again.” The second time: “Just used,” with the smirkiest of smirks on its mischievous nonexistent face. It wouldn’t let me in.

This is not an infrequent occurrence, as I’m sure New Yorkers can attest; generally when this happens, one shouts some brief exasperated explanation to the station attendant, who then unlocks the emergency door. At that particular station, though, there is no attendant; and a rush-hour crowd of straphangers (doesn’t that sound like an old-timey sex term? Straphangers. Straphangers.) amassed behind me, their irritation palpable. So, I stepped over the turnstile. Whatever. And I was immediately greeted by a plainclothes cop—which is fine: it’s their job, after all. I explained the scenario, not thinking that it would necessarily end with us laughing over a couple of beerskies, but at least expecting him to let me go with a warning! It must have been quota day, though, because I got no sympathy from the cop, who issued me a $100 ticket.

I asked him, “Sir, I know you saw what you thought was me flouting the laws of this city and you were required to take action, but do you understand why, as a civilian, this feels very unfair? For me to purchase a MetroCard every month, never deceive the system [which is true, by the way], be in a rush to get home to continue my workday, and be punished for that?” To which he repeated some stuff about being a “Police Officer of the City of New York” that clearly indicated he was not about to toe the blue line for me. So, furiously, I got on the next train, commiserating with a bike messenger who noted the yellow slip in my hands with a knowing smile and was immediately subjected to my blustering all the way to Essex/Delancey.

I don’t consider myself an angry person—“excessively vengeful” may be a better term for it. I knew, on principle, there was no way I was going to pay $100; also, I’d told the cop in the heat of my excessive vengeance that I would “absolutely fight!” the ticket, and I felt obligated to follow through.

So I called the wrongdoers’ hotline on the back of my ticket, found out where the Transit Adjudication Bureau is (Brooklyn Heights) and the best time to go (8:30 am, preferably not Mondays or Fridays), and began the long slog of disputing the ticket.

A few mornings later, I found myself in a large room at the TAB waiting to be called for my hearing. I had no idea what to expect—behind that metal door, were there a bunch of little courtrooms? Where would I sit in the little court? Would I be held in contempt if I texted a photo to my boyfriend? What about my parents? What if I just took a photo and didn’t text it until I left the premises?

As it turned out, I was seen by only one hearing officer, a very nice lady, in a small room with a tape recorder on the table. After verifying on the record that I was telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me Oprah, I explained the scenario (see above). She sent me back to the waiting area while she deliberated. After a few minutes, my name was called again and a man behind a very thick glass window told me the case had been adjourned until I could get a record of that dastardly MetroCard’s activity on January 10.

Now, here’s where it gets really fun: I sent the necessary paperwork to an MTA vortex, including handwritten requested dates. The adjournment was through April 30, which seemed like plenty of time, except that an entire month passed before I got a report back from the MTA. The report indicated that my request was processed on February 14, and attached was a list of the MetroCard’s full activity… on January 14. Which was completely useless except perhaps as a nice walk down Recent Memory Lane, because, as I mentioned, the incident occurred on January 10. Excessively vengeful words were uttered. I thought about just giving up and mailing in a $100 check, but at this point, I was too invested in probing the bureaucratic inner-workings.

A few mornings later, I found myself in a long line at some MTA building in the Financial District—incidentally, also where you can go if you lose your MetroCard, as I found out from the 60 people in front of me who had all suffered that plight. I was eventually seen by a clerk who seemed very angry, presumably because he was going for the company record in MetroCards-replaced-per-hour and my unrelated request was slowing him down. After scanning the first activity report and the ticket, he finally agreed to re-process. Off I went to wait some more… another month, in fact.

Version 2.0 of the MetroCard activity report finally came and I opened it with my heart pounding, like someone receiving their STI test results. Success! No MetroCard swipe was registered on the evening of January 10, but the swipe number jumped from #13 on the morning of January 10 to #15 on January 11. Glitch! Don’t get too excited, I told myself. Just because you had a nice hearing officer the first time doesn’t mean some jerk won’t throw this report aside and say that you should still pay a fine for setting a bad example. Good point, self.

Again, a few mornings later, I was back at TAB. I greeted the security guards on my way in, now old friends. After a brief wait, my name was called by a different hearing officer (thankfully, another nice lady) and the process was much the same as the first, except this time with Exhibit B. The officer reviewed the report, raising an eyebrow at the missing swipe number just as I’d dreamed she would, and twenty minutes later the clerk behind the thick glass told me with a smile that my case was dismissed! “You’re a free woman,” he said, in my imagination. I left the building with my head held high, and spent $10 of my hard-kept money on an extravagant breakfast. Take that, somebody!

Health

Remotivation: Jumping Back on the Health Bandwagon

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It’s 11 pm. You stand in front of the open refrigerator, rub your distended belly and wonder what just happened to the fifteen Darth Maul cookies left over from your boyfriend’s “May the Fourth Be With You” Star Wars party. Oh yeah, you just ate them all, despite your determined declaration just last Monday that “It’s time to start fresh!” They somehow found their way into your mouth, and on the fourth day in a row of not working out, too. What bad luck! Evil cookies!

If you have ever tried to begin living a healthy lifestyle, you are probably familiar with one of the two following scenarios. One is to say “Screw it, I’ll start next month” and throw out your entire health plan (so you might as well cram in that last cupcake, too). The other is to spiral into a fit of self-loathing and overcompensation, involving weird cleanses with exotic spices and citrus and two hours every day on the elliptical.

Stop! There is a healthier way! Stop binging or purging (or a combination of both) and follow this easy, healthy method to remotivate yourself in the days immediately following a slip-up. And if you’ve never tried to live a healthy lifestyle for the first time, you can apply these same principles to begin in an appropriate, non-Nicole-Richie way!

That Night

Don’t beat yourself up. You are human, and humans make mistakes. Don’t make yourself throw up (or even try) and don’t continue to binge—you know you’re uncomfortable anyway. Take that food baby to bed and get a good night’s sleep.

And stop doing jumping jacks; it’s just going to give you cramps. You’ll know it’s futile when you have to stop after three of them.

The Next Morning

First of all, I’d like to reiterate last night’s message: don’t beat yourself up. Realize that one day of overeating (or even a couple of days) isn’t going to morph you into Jabba the Hut. That being said, it doesn’t give you a pass to keep screwing up. Those calories count, and so do calories for the rest of that week, and all those extras add up quickly. This is a new day, a day to forgive yourself and start out with fresh determination.

With all of that in mind, start with a healthy breakfast. I know you might still feel kind of bloated and gross from the night before, and eating might be the last thing you want to do, but starting your day with a light but nourishing meal will give you energy, keep your metabolism going, avoid the 3 pm hunger attack, and remind you that food is not of the devil. If you don’t usually eat breakfast, now is a good time to start. Most people think that they will lose weight by cutting calories earlier in the day; however, most people who skip breakfast end up making up those calories later in the day, and often even more than usual because starvation leads to very poor choices later on. Intense hunger pangs tend to make you go for the fastest food option. Keep driving past that McDonald’s, and don’t you dare stop!

Make sure your breakfast includes a lean protein, which will help keep you full, and a complex carbohydrate (any whole grain or fibrous fruit or vegetable), which will slow your digestion, keep you full, and create a slow-release energy that will hold you over ‘til lunchtime. Some great examples are:

  • Nonfat Greek yogurt, with a handful of berries (I use frozen for convenience), a sprinkling of granola, and a drizzle of honey.
  • Two whole grain toaster waffles spread with a tablespoon of peanut butter and sliced banana.
  • Scrambled egg whites with mixed vegetables and a slice of whole wheat toast.

Also, get a workout in! It’ll boost your endorphins, and even a light morning walk will remind you that food is fuel and that calories don’t have to stick if you don’t want them to! Plus, you’ll feel much better and get a self-esteem boost if you tend to be hard on yourself.

The Rest of That Day

There are two things you need to do before the day is over. One is to make a plan for the rest of the week, including your dinners and workouts. The best way to combat a future slip-up is to have a plan and treat it as a non-negotiable appointment. At the same time, keep your expectations realistic. Know thyself, and give yourself goals that you know you can accomplish. For instance, if you work an 80-hour workweek starting at 9 am and you come home exhausted every day, don’t expect to work out after your workday—you’ll never get it done. Instead, plan to suck it up and set your alarm for an hour earlier. Get your workout in before work when you still have a ton of energy, or plan a lunchtime workout. Having your plan in front of you, on paper (or smartphone), will assure you that it’s doable. Look, you have time for it! You scheduled it in: it’s in your schedule right there!

The other task is to get rid of whatever triggered your slip-up in the first place. I know it sucks to throw out food, especially if that food happens to be leftover nachos (they crisp up great in the oven!), but just close your eyes and get it done. In fact, this might be a great time to go through your cupboard and throw out problem foods in general. Giant jar of mayonnaise? Get rid of it. Double-stuff Oreos lurking in your pantry? Bid it farewell. Cooking lard? What are you, crazy? Banish it from thy sight!

This is one I have trouble with. My pantry is pretty well-behaved in general, but if there is leftover brownie cheesecake from a party, my logic says, “Well, I don’t want it to go to waste, but I don’t want it tempting me all week. I’ll just… eat it all now! That way, it won’t be a problem later and I’ll only have been really bad for one day, instead of slightly bad for seven days! Genius!”

What? Don’t raise your eyebrows at me. No one is perfect. Let’s move on.

The Rest of That Week

Stick to your plan. Recognize that treat days are perfectly acceptable within the structure of a healthy lifestyle, but the best way to distribute them is to wait for a treat day (or, preferably, just one treat meal) on a special occasion when you really won’t care, such as a family dinner, birthday party, or holiday. A good way to look at it is the 90/10 rule: eat well 90% of the time, and don’t worry about the other 10%.

Do your research. Find healthy alternatives for cooking methods, ingredients, or your favorite treats. For example, sauté vegetables in chicken broth instead of butter, or replace an after-dinner serving of ice cream or cake with a bowl of sliced apples, sprinkled with cinnamon, oats, and honey heated in the microwave. Voilà, healthy apple crumble. Once you’ve done your research, do your grocery shopping and begin incorporating these substitutes into your diet!

Have a rule for your workouts: never, ever, go more than two days in a row without exercise. Any kind of exercise. If you’re on a trip, find the hotel gym or go jogging. Visiting friends? Go out for a walk or hike, and let them show you the town. If you’re in space, I don’t know… bounce off the walls in zero gravity or something! Just make it a priority to keep active and keep it in the forefront of your mind. With this rule, you will never wake up one morning and realize it’s been two months since you’ve worked out, and you will get a decent number of workouts in per week.

The Rest of your Life

Remember, a healthy lifestyle is just that… a lifestyle. Whatever you plan to do, you have to see yourself doing it for the rest of your life. There is no magic diet that will help you reach your ideal Hugh Jackman/Gwyneth Paltrow proportions, and then let you go back to eating whatever garbage you want without gaining it all back.

This also may mean letting go of some unrealistic expectations. If the only way you’ll ever look like Gwyneth Paltrow (who, honestly, I don’t think is that hot anyway) is by starving yourself, then you aren’t meant to look like Gwyneth Paltrow (who, again… is not that hot). Learn to love your body for what it is! The human body is an extraordinary thing, and can do extraordinary things if you treat it well and let it try. Often, exercise is a doorway to this frame of mind; once you see what your body can do given the chance, you’ll stop punishing it and start taking good care of it.

And finally, I’d like to leave you with this final note on the nature of food. Food can be the best medicine in the world or a slow, agonizing poison, but food is not evil. It isn’t trying to trip you up, and that burger honestly does not have it out for you. There is great joy to be found in our food. Treats can be enjoyed in moderation, but you need to find the balance for yourself. Good, healthy, and nutritious food can have beautiful tastes, textures, and color, and above all, it will nourish and enrich your life and fuel your amazing body. Make the right choices, find the love and richness that can be found through good health, and make that your healthy lifestyle.

It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it, and I promise you will thank yourself.

remotivation

Money

Things You’d be a Sucker to Buy New or Full Price

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As a millennial managing my personal finances in the wake of The Great Recession, I have had to find creative ways to cut back that I otherwise might not have. This includes buying used things when, in more prosperous times, I may have bought the item brand new. On this pauper’s pilgrimage, I’ve discovered that if you can find what you’re looking for secondhand, you’d be an idiot to buy it for the full price.

Thrifting Square

Photo by Sara Slattery

Tools, books, cheap sunglasses, furniture, stylish clothing… These are all on my list of things you should never buy new, because you can find them used on Amazon, eBay, at thrift stores/flea markets, or used bookstores, from half price to pennies on the dollar. More importantly, you can feel rich for a couple of hours while directly supporting your local economy! Got twenty dollars in your pocket? Well, well, well—look at Mr./Ms. Fancypants-Highroller!

There’s a reason why the word cheap has such a bad connotation: being cheap means that only the bottom-line dollar amount matters. If that’s the case for you, you might as well stop reading. However, being frugal means extracting a high amount of value relative to the amount of money invested. Who doesn’t want good quality stuff without breaking the bank?

Enriching the Local Economy

With relatively few exceptions, new goods are sourced globally from giant corporations. Putting aside the typical ranting against them, this means that rather than enriching your friends and neighbors, your money supports factory labor thousands of miles away and mostly enriches several hundred institutional shareholders.

Buying used and in secondary markets usually entails going to a local thrift store, which often is family owned (like one of my favorites: Lost and Found in Sunnyvale, CA), or buying from individuals at flea markets. The further your money travels, the less stimulating it’s going to be to your community. Generally speaking, it’s more responsible to spend locally.

Only Got 20 Dallaz in My Pocket

Thrifting is also a fun, inexpensive activity! Half the fun is going with friends to look at all the awful stuff that’s there—like I do (shameless plug). Also, sometimes you will see things at the flea market that were obviously shoplifted and are now being fenced for sale. Some might view this as participating in a legal wrong—cool, keep walking to the next stall. Personally, I play too much Skyrim, so I like think that I’m acting like a member of the Thieves’ Guild or the Ragged Flagon, reveling in the cloak-and-dagger nature of a ‘black market’ (when really its mostly just razor heads and Similac). It’s nerdily exhilarating, and I get a kick from it. Plus, I don’t really know for sure if it’s been stolen, and I can’t exactly go around lobbing accusations. Since the presumption of innocence is the bedrock of American justice, shop away, moral relativists! Besides, what’s more immoral: benefitting from shoplifting, or charging $40 for a hammer made at forty cents per unit by a nine year old Chinese kid?

Things to Never Buy New

  • BOOKS:

Especially the following:

-       Any book by Tom Clancy
–       Any book by James Patterson
–       Any book by Danielle Steel
–       Any book by John Grisham
–       Any copy of The DaVinci Code (Ew.)
–       Any copy of Wild Animus (You’re a sucker if you pay any money for this, they give it away on all college campuses)
–       Any objectivist propaganda by Ayn Rand
–       Any copy of Shōgun

  • TOOLS:

People are always trying to get rid of their tools—they bought new ones or they don’t use them anymore: whatever the reason, they want to get rid of theirs. You can buy tools at anywhere between 10-20% of what they’d cost at a Home Depot. And if paying a fraction of the cost for tools and enriching your local economy wasn’t enough incentive, you should be aware of the political campaigns Home Depot supports and determine whether or not they align with your own beliefs.

If you’re moving into your first place and you’re looking to build your kit of indispensable tools, look out for these items at your local flea market. You could save a nice bundle of money. The tools commonly spotted:

-       Hammer
–       Scissors
–       Basic screwdrivers
–       Razor heads
–       Razor blades
–       Duct Tape
–       Tweezers
–       Nail clippers
–       Saw blades
–       Drill bits

  • OTHER:

-       Sunglasses

Seriously, unless you’re buying Ray-Bans or Oakleys, all sunglasses are basically plastic shit made in China. Twenty dollars for cheap plastic crap is a crime, and retailers that sell them at that price ought to have bamboo shoots shoved underneath their toenails. At a flea market, you can buy them for about $5 a piece, or cheaper.

-       Leather jacket

This is important, because a brand new one rarely (if ever) costs less than $150 and they can cost as much as $200-400 or more, depending on the brand. But if you hold out for exactly the jacket you want, you can usually find it between $10 and $40 at a thrift store. These are the real gems of thrifting. If you have a nice leather jacket like I do, you wear it all the time. You will have saved hundreds of dollars and look like you stepped out of a Macklemore music video (can I refer to that song a little bit more? I definitely haven’t done it enough).

Getting Started

Yelp. Google. Seriously.

First, finding the thrift stores presents a logistical problem. You rarely ever want to hit just one. The most fruitful method I’ve found is to Yelp it, and then transpose the positive Yelp hits into a Google Map. From there, I group the stores into sectors, or ‘circuits,’ that I can hit as part of a planned trip or if I just happen to be nearby. This type of informational awareness allows me to attack all the thrift stores with optimal logistical efficiency. No wasted gas, no yo-yo-ing back and forth across town—you will be a precise, methodical, lethal thrifter.

If you choose to hunt at a flea market, make sure you have cash. Since there is no ‘check out’ save the person who is manning the stall, take the opportunity to hone your haggling skills. Some people will be receptive to it; others will not. The method of haggling I have found to be most effective is to hover and look indecisive. An experienced fleamarketeer will sense the opportunity, and swoop in and make you an offer. Make your best “Aaaggghh, I dunno…” face, and watch the price fall. Finally, take out some cash, make sure they see it, and undercut the second offer by about 10% or try to get a bulk deal if applicable. Do not do this at a brick-and-mortar establishment—it is a major protocol breach. Likewise, at a brick-and-mortar store, cash isn’t as important as it is at a flea market or garage sale, since most thrift stores take credit cards.

So support your local economy, save some money yourself, and have some social fun in the process. Thrift, you magnificent millennial bastard children of capitalism, thrift!