Trying to be healthy? Eating lots of fruit and vegetables, and doing heaps of exercise? Well there is one more thing you should be considering: how much food you actually eat. Most of us eat way too much – the excess calories helping to form the “beer gut” that seems to be an ever growing symptom of obesity. But to help with dieting, watching the size of your meals is the key to losing weight. The issue we currently have is most of us don’t realise exactly how many calories are in the food we eat. For example, I found out that I was eating THREE TIMES the amount of cereal I should be eating in the morning. All those extra calories were a hassle.
Most people typically will eat whatever they have on their plate, and with plates getting larger and larger, that is much more food then what we need. Overeating is also caused by people being bored, or by some people as a means to alleviate depression. By switching to a more maintained portion control eating plan, you will reduce the amount of calories consumed.
The common rules for correct portions are roughly as follows:
- Protein such as meat should not be larger than a palm size piece..
- Carbohydrates such as pasta can be measured by fistfuls.
Also don’t forget the 5 vegetables and 2 fruit servings per day rule!
Over the last couple of months I have been forced to tackle some debt. After calculating my tax return, I ended up owing the government a nice little sum last financial year, as I worked several jobs and managed to earn over the HELP repayment threshold. I also had to pay car registration, car insurance, a PPCA license, and a couple of other things.
After getting through all that, I realised that I needed to get into a better way to pay off my other long-term debts, such as my car loan and my HECS (HELP) debt. A little bit of research on the internet helped me find out about the Debt Avalanche method for handling debt. Flexo‘s post details how to best look at tackling your debt, by first targeting the higher interest rate debts in order to minimise the effect interest has on your overall balance. I’m going to quickly give a brief overview of this method.
- List all your debts, sorted by interest rate
List all your debts, ordered from highest interest rate to lowest interest rate. This shows you which debts will cost you more over time. Most people will have credit cards up the top of this list, as they are designed to charge us the most!
- Pay off the minimum amount for each debt
We don’t want any extra fees now, do we? Make sure you pay the minimum amount for all your accounts so you don’t get any fees.
- Send extra money to the highest interest rate debt
By paying off the highest interest account, you will save more money by having less interest to repay.
- Rinse and repeat
Do it every month, and eventually you will have paid off your debts!
Sounds simple ey? Make sure you check out the full post by Consumerism Commentary to learn more.
Just wanted to quickly show you all what a friend of mine got as a Captcha earlier today whilst attempting to comment on a story by The Age.
Quite funny to see, but seriously, Captcha images should have numbers and letters. Oh, and if you are wondering what Captcha stands for, it’s “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.”
Bills. We all have them, we all hate them. Being able to budget effectively helps gives us financial freedom in order to enjoy the rest of our lives.
A good way to start budgeting is by visualising how much of your income gets eaten up by bills. A great post by Matt over at Steadfast Finances talks about an exercise you can do using a calendar in order to get a better grasp at how your money is actually being used. I would recommend doing this exercise using February as the month you complete this on, as 28 days = 4 weeks = easiest time to do it.
As you can see, I have personally used this method to see how my pay is spent on my things. As you can see, half of my pay per month goes straight to bills. This means I can put aside some of my money into my special savings account, and then keep some aside for social outings.
By visualising what you spend, you can start to work out where you could be saving additional money. For me, I was spending over $200 a month just on lunches for work. By switching to home-made prepared lunches, I have additional money to add into my higher interest bank account (as well as being more healthy). In turn, that is an addition $2,400 a year I can save.
Try it, and see how you go.
If you are a user of Facebook, you will have most likely encountered the wave of spam applications that have been going around for years, such as ‘Photas’. These applications pose as official notifications, and are designed to trick you into accepting them as a genuine application. The latest one mimicks someone liking your photos.
The best way to tell you it’s a spam application is it will require you to authorise the application after you click on the notification.
However, if you have added the Photas (or any other) spam application, go to the Application Area at http://www.facebook.com/editapps.php and remove the application from that list.
October 9th, 2009 bears with it a sad day – it’s the expiry date of the last batch of Polaroid film produced. Polaroid cameras were ‘doomed’ the moment that we gained the use of digital cameras.
While there are applications out there for computers (Poladroid) and iPhones (Polarize) to make Polaroid photos, I don’t think they will ever really give the same feel and look as having a Polaroid photo in your hand, a minute after you take the picture.
Apparently there is hope – some ex-employees are attempting to lease one of the shutdown factories and start producing the film again for 2010.
Guess we will have to wait and see!
Posted in In The News
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Tagged polaroid
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