Posts Tagged ‘Life’

December3

28 Ways on How to Beat the Blues This Christmas

By: Ririan

Christmas_blues
Are you blue this Christmas? Just in case you are, here are 28 ways that will help you beat the blues with this Christmas:

1 Throw, a Billy Wilder comedy film festival made up of Sabrina, Some Like It Hot and The Seven Year Itch.

2 Rent The Talented Mr. Ripley and fast-forward to the nightclub scene in which Jude Law, all tanned, handsome and sweaty, sings “Tu Vuo’ Fa L’Americano”.

3 Read any Angelina Jolie interview given in the past four years to remind yourself that there still are some people in Hollywood who don’t BS.

4 Make a donation to the charity Jolie supports, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

5 Start a campaign similar to the one in Pay It Forward and do nice things for three people.

6 Buy the Rush Hour 2 DVD or VCD and skip ahead to all the comical flubs tacked on to the end of the film.

7 Take a page from Derek Zoolander’s book and invent your own “Blue Steel” look to use on co-workers who have been hard on you all year.

8 Gather up some tots as an excuse to see the Harry Potter movies again.

9 Gather up some tots as an excuse to rent Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas again. Bonus: serve green eggnog.

10 Spice up the company Christmas party by going in a Playboy bunny outfit like the one Renee Zellweger wore in Bridget Jones’s Diary.

11 Bake some fruitcake and throw a Joan Crawford movie marathon made up of Humoresque, Possessed, Female on the Beach and Torch Song.

12 In the spirit of Hollywood’s legendary rebel, James Dean, tell someone who’s been getting on your nerves all year where to stick it.

13 Watch Cats & Dogs with the furry friends in your life.

14 See for yourself what the chemistry was like between exes Penelope Cruz and Tom Cruise by watching Vanilla Sky.

15 Be grateful you had nothing to do with Original Sin.

16 Listen to Billy Bob Thornton’s album, Private Radio, which features a cut in which he sings about a man who wears his sweetie’s panties —something Thornton has admitted to doing.

17 Throw a Cate Blanchett film festival made up of Elizabeth, Pushing Tin, The Talented Mr. Ripley and The Gift.

18 Buy cotton candy, make popcorn, whip up a few milkshakes and pop in the DVDs/VCDs of Clueless and Legally Blonde for a funny, featherweight double feature.

19 Count the number of actors with highlights, face-lifts, tooth caps, implants, waxed chests and fake tans in the holiday movies.

20 Rent Angel Eyes to hear Jennifer Lopez coo in her adorably disarming Bronx accent, “Let’s talk about somethin’ st000pid.”

21 When bored at the office Christmas party, hit the spiked eggnog and speak entirely in movie quotes. For an extra challenge, limit yourself to a certain genre, like Adam Sandler comedies or Jane Austen adaptations.

22 Rent My Best Friend’s Wedding and fast-forward to the scene where Cameron Diaz massacres “I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself” karaoke-style.

23 Remember that studios are still funding movies made by directors such as Steven Soderbergh, Michael Mann, Cameron Crowe and Lasse Hallstr6m.

24 Make up your own “Bad Movies We Love” list for 2004.

25 Give a female friend who’s not into grooming a makeover like the one Anne Hathaway received in The Princess Diaries.

26 Enjoy a getaway to Paris by seeing Arn6lie, which is set in the city’s picturesque Montmarte district but was actually filmed all over the City of Lights.

27 Look up Demi Moore’s, Meg Ryan’s, Tom Cruise’s, Cher’s, Mel Gibson’s and Brad Pitt’s birth names and high-school yearbook pictures.

28 If you have access to one, send Charlie Sheen a time-travel machine so he can revisit the ’80s, a decade he seemed to thrive in and enjoy.

Posted in: Featured, Motivation, Productivity2 comments

November13

The Secrets about Self-Improvement

By: Ririan

sunrise
The word self-improvement becomes synonymous with success, only if the tips you are really following, fetch you some improvement in your life style. The improvement may be in terms of your financial growth or your health or in your relationships. Read through to unravel the simple methods to improve you to the greater heights.

Start with where you are and what you have!

This above line may sound very familiar. But it is important that you should remember or never forget this line when you get up in the morning. Many times you want to start a new venture or even simply new practice in your day-to-day life. For example many of us want to stay fit. So we want to hit a gym. But most of us will not immediately work-out the plan. They will say themselves that let me start on the first day of next week which will grow to month or even a year. Like this, you may want to meet your parents or want to say sorry to your friend and the list continues. These are little things but they make huge differences in your personality and in your life. Do it today.

Don’t blame the things around you:

As long as you are still alive, you are capable of changing and growing. It is you who is responsible for everything which is happening to you. So don’t blame the things around you for your failure.

Take up the responsibility for your own growth:

Life gives us lots of opportunities. But we are not saying ‘YES’ to that. Many a time you want to take up a challenging assignment. And the next moment you will think about the hard work that needs to be put on that task. And also you doubt your ability. So the result is the hesitation, a thief of success. Take up the new challenges. Be open to the new things. Try your hand in adventures. These things will automatically show the path to the growth and self-satisfaction.

Don’t live in fear:

Do you know more people are more scared than you? So never let the fear factor swallow your success. Don’t compromise often with a phrase “if you were”. Stop praising about the great souls. Be the change you want to be.

Rise before the sun:

Last but not least. Wake up earlier and plan the day and at least move an inch daily.

Posted in: Featured, Self Improvement12 comments

November12

Self Improvement Tips

By: Ririan

• Self improvement is the act of improving yourself. Understanding yourself is a difficult task, but it is the first step of self improvement. First recognize your strength and weakness. If you realize yourself, you can work to improve yourself. This will help you to believe that you are proficient.
• The major key for your success and happiness is to believe in you. You learn to love yourself and trust in your capabilities. Think that you are very special. Believe that you can change the world and can attain your great destiny.
• Dream big and work hard until you make it to be achieved. Believe that nothing is impossible. Your family and your friends will light up your life. They are a grand resource of motivation.
• Every day you may feel fear to do some things. Living a bold life gives you a confidence. Just break the walls around you.
• When bad things happen in our lives, try to change them. This may leads to falling in to depression. Make yourself allow the things that you cannot change, you will become happy.
• Ignore the persons who are trying to break your motivation.
• You want to encircle yourself with positive optimistic people who love you. They lift you up and give confidence along your troubles.
• Kindness has a tendency to come back. Be generous with your smiles and many other things. Try to help others. You may be in need some day and people you know will come to assist you when they recognize that you would do the same for them.
• Be ready for everything that will approach your way. Build yourself up before people bang you down.
• Write down the jobs you want to attain in each day. Tick them off when you complete them. If you can’t do all things, it doesn’t matter; move that task to tomorrow’s list.
• Getting up early and eating breakfast will give you a good start for the day.
• You need energy throughout the day to achieve your goal.
• You can also do some exercise in morning. If you live with other people you can attempt to make use of this opportunity to get everyone together at the table to eat in the mornings. This is a nice way to start the day.
• Enjoy your life! You will feel a lot better when you realize how great your life is!

Posted in: Self Improvement7 comments

November10

What I Have Learned in these Economic Times

By: Ririan

learnedeconomy
We hit an economic recession, a near depression was in view in September of last year, we have had government bailouts, a burst of the real estate bubble, a stock market crash, devaluation of the dollar and over 10% unemployment, these are the headlines of the last year. Hardly a day goes by when these headlines are not hitting us in the face, and while all of those are very real, the question is what really hits home for the average person? There is the old saying that when your neighbor loses his job you are in a recession, when you lose your job it is a depression, and I believe that. During this recession, the number of people who were forced to file for Bankruptcy in Detroit is overwhelming. When someone has lost their job any economic advice is easy, cut back on everything you can and try like hell to get a job. It’s easy advice, and not always so easy to do. But the question is for those of us who still have jobs but are dealing with some very real consequences of this economic slide, how do we deal with it? I am not her to give economic advice, lets leave that up to the professionals, if you can even find one anymore. I am just here to share my thoughts on the issues, how I have dealt with some of the things I have been faced with.

The first thing that i have done is cut back, and that is the obvious place to start. Last fall and winter, during the economic melt down I was petrified, I had seen my retirement accounts fall by north of forty percent with no end in sight, I didn’t know if my job was safe or anyone’s job for that matter. So I would say from October through January I spent on nothing except my children and even that was kept to a minimal. But around February I realized living scared was no way to live at all, so we began to do things again. My wife and I went out to dinner, even to some of our favorite restaurants, but we scaled back, our dinners were less expensive and less frequent. For spring break we decided to take our kids away, but we went somewhere that was driving distance, and found incredible deals on the internet. This year the lease on my car was up, so I go a less expensive car to save more. My wife’s lease is up this year and we will do the same thing. I am very concsious of saving more money than i have in the past, I think for the first time in my life I was scared into believing that things will not always be good, and while I have always been a saver, I probably was not as careful as I should have been.

One of the big issues we have faced is our home, we our one of the one’s that is “underwater” in our house. The truth is the financing was so cheap and interests were so low we may have like many others bought more home than we could afford. Now, we didn’t do any 100% financing but I did only put down 10% on my home, the truth is we should have bought less and put down more. Also, we bought in 2006 near the top of the real estat market, and we did a seven year interest only loan. The good news is we have four more years of these payments before our loan becomes an adjustable mortgage. it was a big mistake, we should have bought with a 30 year mortgage at a payment we knew we could afford forever, but we fell into the trap of finding our dream home and over extended ourselves. Hopefully home values will go back up, and we our trying to save so that we can put more down if we need too, or that the banks will work with us. I don’t want to lose my home for several reasons. First, I believe most people want to make good on their debt, I gave a commitment to pay for something and if I can I will honor it. Second, although I was stupid in the way I financed the home my intention is to live here until my kids are grown and we retire, so we had a long term plan of twenty years or longer. Third, we love our house, it is our home, and I believe most people feel this way, they did not buy it as an investment first and a home second, quite the contrary, most people did it the other way. This is our home and we intend to keep it.

These are some of the issues that we have faced. Fortunately, although we lost a lot in our retirement plan it has come back quite away. We will be more prudent with it in the future, probably less stocks and more fixed income investments. We like many others hoped maybe our retirement fund would grow and maybe make us rich, we saw great returns for a while. Now, our goal is what it always should have been, to keep it safe and let us retire with it. Again, we our concentrating on saving more money, to get us through those so called “rainy days.” And finally, we are dealing with the issue of our home, that is our main concern but I believe that we can work our way through it. I have learned a lot the last two years, nothing lasts forever, when things are too good to be true they probably our. And most important, live within your means, not what is inflated, not by what you think you will be able to afford, but by what you know you will be able to afford.

Posted in: Featured, Money & Finance6 comments

October19

Saving Money is a Discipline

By: Ririan

Saving money is discipline, pure and simple. It is a discipline like exercising on a daily basis is, or like sticking to a diet. There are no huge secrets to the art of saving money, no secrets that we will reveal that you have never heard before, no earth shattering new technique, just simple focus, mental conditioning and effort. I know many of you think that you just can’t save any money on what you are making, that you barely get by as is, and I am sure for many of you that may be true, but it probably isn’t. The good news is I’m not trying to sell anything here so I am not going to tell you everyone can save money. In this economy many people have lost their jobs, their cars and homes, for them their problems are more severe then simple tips on how to save money. But 90% of you still have jobs and have an income and for you there is more than hope to save money, there is a solution.

First lets do away with the obvious, “if I just made more money I could save more,” this is completely untrue. “I have done a budget and there is no where else I can cut.” Budgets are an outstanding and needed tool for financial health, but just because you have done a budget doesn’t mean there isn’t room to save more money. As stated earlier, saving money is a discipline and like most disciplines it requires dedication, repetition and certain drills. So, for our purposes I am going to suggest one simple drill to work on and perfect, and it won’t cut into your budget, won’t require you to make more money, and will not require you to give up anything significant in your life.

Let’s start with Day one, month one, you need to do one simple thing. Before you go to bed at night take one dollar from your wallet or purse and put it in a drawer. Everyone has a dollar in their pocket, take your loose change you have lying around if you have to, but find a dollar. Now, repeat this procedure every day for thirty days, one month. This is no problem for 99% of the people who are working, do it every day, remember it’s a discipline. At the end of the month, what do you have? Thirty dollars obviously, I know it doesn’t seem like much but you saved thirty dollars more than you did the previous month.

Next, day one, month two. At the end of the day you need to do one simple thing. Take two dollars from your wallet or purse and stick it in the drawer. If you had a dollar in your pocket last month then you will have two dollars in your pocket, no one even notices two dollars. Repeat this procedure for thirty days, do not deviate, at the end of two months you will have saved ninety dollars, I know, seems like a lot of effort for ninety dollars. But you are working towards a goal, developing a discipline, and saving money.
Next, month three day one, repeat the same procedure only with three dollars, if you did two you can do three. At the end of the month you will have saved one hundred and eighty dollars. Do you see where we are heading?

Now I am not saying this can go on forever, the next month is obviously four dollars. At some point to do this you may have to give up something. For me I gave up starbucks in the morning, I made my coffee at home. For a friend of mine to meet his goal he gave up sodas from the vending machine during his coffee break to make his goal of four dollars a day. But if you save four dollars a day for a year you are saving an additional $1500, and if you could save five dollars a day by just making sure you tuck it away in a drawer every night, you will save close to $2,000 a year. And some of you may be able to save even more than that everyday and that will translates into large savings. Most of us really don’t even think about four, five, six or even more dollars, we spend it without considering it no matter our financial situation. But if you instill this discipline, practice it, take it as far as you can without altering your life, you will find that you have acquired a discipline that can save you thousands of dollars a year. Almost every working person can afford to do this, give it a try and see the results. And remember saving money is a discipline, it takes focus and a goal.

Posted in: Money & Finance3 comments

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