Author Archives: blaak sheep

Fashion Savvy and Hygienic

I always feel so proud when I manage to save some money. Today I reduced my Telus bill from $144.00 per month to $64.00 per month. My roommate and I were paying way too much to watch movies and extra HD channels.

I’m pretty good at saving money once I put my mind to it. Once I grind in my feet I go for the gusto. It’s when I don’t put my mind to it that my magpie weaknesses set in and I become an impulse buyer. My current credit card balance can attest to that. I’ve cleanly paid off debt before; I can do it again. Besides cleaning up my Telus bill, I also paid portions to Visa and Fido. That feels good too.

Impulse buying for me includes clothing, shoes, manicures, pedicures and facials. For a woman to keep up with fashion trends, these can be difficult to keep under control. We are preyed on by the media to always look our best, to be well-manicured, cosmetic fresh, underwire-lifted and firm. To do this, we must spend our money, which can lead to catastrophic circumstances for some. Don’t get me started on why the government feels it is necessary to tax feminine hygiene products. I guess they feel it is a luxury to use these items when obviously they are necessities. Taxes on these products should be eliminated.

They need to come up with financial planning for the clean, well-dressed and finely groomed women. Then we could look good without experiencing guilt and stress at the thought of paying high-interest bills.  The banks could make it big on this. They should call it Fashionable Financial Planning (FFP) or the Fashion Savvy Credit Card; a financial package or product. Credit card companies should come up with compromising interest rates  and payment plans to accommodate these customers. Being fashion savvy is just as important as preserving the environment and using effective vehicle and mortgage payment plans.

Eco-friendly credit cards are the new trend. How one can spend money while saving the environment baffles me a little. It’s just as if you are just throwing money at the problem to make it go away without actually doing anything remarkable to make a difference. If Eco cards work, than so can Fashion Savvy (FS) credit cards.

Here is a quote from an Eco-Friendly Credit Card web page: “We present to you a special category of cards that are contrived to help you contribute towards a safer planet. By going for biodegradable cards to replace the plastic cards we carry, you can play a role in ensuring hazardous material isn’t stuck in the soil forever.” That sounds pretty good. It goes on to say, “Cardholders have the right opportunity to earn carbon offset points as they spend. These points are redeemed by MBNA Canada and would serve as a cardholders’ contribution towards greenhouse gas reduction efforts.”

Every time you charge a purchase to your “green,” environmentally friendly credit card, you get that warm, fuzzy feeling of knowing that you’re helping to put a stop to global warming and environmental degradation with every swipe of your card. The same concept can be applied to the Fashion Savvy (FS) card.

The Fashion Savvy  card offers points to use towards paying your bill as well as going towards certain vendors as rewards to be redeemed at the store. You also have the option to donate the cash value of your points to a charitable, “green” organization.  

The actual Fashion Savvy credit card would also made from biodegradable plastic to prevent further damage to the environment that is being incurred by spending money on un-earth friendly products such as plastics and other materials. The card would also provide rewards for purchasing earth-friendly products such as hemp and other plant-based materials, such as purchasing gas at an eco-friendly gas station and buying products that help reduce energy in homes and vehicles, such as bus tickets, reflective curtains, LED light bulbs, cleaner burning fuel, natural gas options and hybrid vehicles.

Another perk would be to eliminate the taxes on feminine hygiene products if you use your Fashion Savvy credit card to purchase them.  That might be a tricky one to run past the suits on Parliament Hill.

I think I might mention this to the banks and see what happens. It doesn’t hurt to try. I think it would be very popular amongst the many ladies who practise fine style habits.

I know Melanie and Sara would go for it. I wonder how many more of my friends would use it? Probably all of them since they all are a lot like me and like to spend their money.

If the credit card companies want us to spend money, they should do more in terms of rewarding us and charging lower interest rates. That is another perk to be put on the Fashion Savvy credit card: lower interest the more you spend.

Here is a summary of all the perks to be offered on the FS Card:

  • lower interest rates the more you spend
  • cash and product rewards if you purchase environmentally-friendly products and services
  • biodegradable or corn-based plastic
  • no taxes on feminine hygiene products if you use your FS credit card to purchase them
  • choice to donate rewards to a charitable organization instead of redeeming them
  • twice the points for purchasing products on holidays such as Mother’s Day, Christmas and birthdays
  • free helpline to help manage your debt

Opinion pieces like this can go a long way to help everyone involved.  This has been posted on my blog to generate responses. The more responses I get, the more of a case there is to start this up.  

Switching to a Fashion Savvy card will reduce the stress of shopping, if there is such a thing. It will also provide sound and mind-easing options for all credit card users. The tag line will read: “Fashion Savvy meets Eco savvy.”  Or “You can be both green and fashion savvy all on one card.” Any ideas for a better one are welcome here.

Vancouver – the dead man zone

 

You’re a woman of just about any age walking down the street, and a car goes by and you hear the shrill of a high pitched whistle, and then, ”Hey baby, nice ass!”  In fact, wherever you go you here names like “honey,” “baby,” “sweetie,” “cutie,” “beautiful” and “darling.” Sounds kind of like a town in Texas, don’t it? It’s actually the city of London, Ontario, a decent-sized city of just over 368,000 people located in the southwestern part of the province, a two-hour’s drive west of Toronto. As a person of the feminine gender, you are bound to get stared at, smiled at, whistled at, hit on, yelled at and even groped if you’re on a crowded city bus. It actually sounds like any big city, really, but from my experience of being born and raised there for twenty-four years, it happens the most often in London. I’ve lived in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver, spent time in Montreal, Seattle, Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels. I’ve never been to New York, so I can’t speak for that city.  However, one place in my experience was actually worse:  Cancun, Mexico. I’ve never heard so many “Hey Chiquita!” and marriage proposals during a one-week, all-inclusive vacation.

It’s either demeaning or ego-boosting, depending on the mood you or the person you’re with are in. After awhile, it becomes the norm, occurring at any time of the day in any location from the drug store to the local pub. Every woman can feel quite attractive yet preyed upon, never quite deciding if it offends her or not.

So you want to get away from all the laud attention and feel like a human being of equality and self-respect. Hail the city of Vancouver, British Columbia. Located by the Pacific Ocean, this city is known for its majestic beauty of mountain-lined coasts and valleys of rain forests.  People here love the outdoors and partake in sporting events such as rock-climbing, hiking, sailing, skiing, snowshoeing, golfing and running.

You arrive here and instantly notice how much more peaceful your walks downtown and to the corner store are (only if you can tune out the pandemonium of the death-defying traffic). It’s not just because of the ocean breeze blowing in your ears or the gentle lapping of the waves on the shores.  There’s no one yelling at you (except for the bad drivers), no sideways glances or whispering a demeaning name under his breath as he passes you. You are confident your self-respect has been restored and you actually feel liberated for once in your life.

But this liberation has gone too far. After months of the screaming silence, you notice something else. When you walk down the street, you don’t even get a glance from a man who passes you by. He doesn’t even acknowledge your presence. You say hello to one and he completely ignores you. Either you’ve gotten really ugly over the past few years, or all the men in Vancouver are gay, castrated or just too exhausted from all the outdoor sports. Maybe all the fresh mountain air has blown away all the pheromones and sexual desire. Oh, wait a minute, homeless men talk to me all the time, but they usually want money.

I went to a club once in the downtown core. My friend who is very attractive was wearing a black mini-dress showing good cleavage and pleather high-heeled boots. She looked hot. Not one single guy came up to her. She got a few fleeting glances. The men were literally on one side of the bar and women on the other, like a high school dance.

What is it with the men in Vancouver? I don’t care for the catcalling and shrewd whistling, but being liberated or not, there is still such a thing as attraction and if I’m in the mood to flirt, I’d like to have it reciprocated, even if it’s on the Skytrain. The men all stare at their feet. I know I’m not a supermodel in looks, but I also know I’m reasonably attractive to look at, especially in London.