A definite work perk

After spending 5 days in Cancun I am pleased to report that my skin is no longer a shade of pasty softest ivory… but simply soft ivory. While a trip down south for our National Sales Meeting is definitely a work perk, it wasn’t all sun and fun. In fact, I didn’t see the beach until 4:30 pm on Day 2 as my first 36 hours in Mexico were spent fine tuning and rehearsing my presentation. But by Day 3, once my team’s show went off without a hitch and we received rave reviews, I felt the stress of the past several weeks of loooooooong-ish work hours disappear. 

And what better place to celebrate than in Mexico?

Once our meetings wrapped up, I got to take some time out to read on the beach, splash in the waves, and sip sangria by the pool. Our hotel was a 5-star resort full of lush gardens and manicured ponds that made for a perfect setting for our group who was mixing business with pleasure.

Even though this was a work trip, there are always a few hidden costs that pulled at my purse strings. My Eye Candy was also away for his sales meeting so we spent $120 on doggy care for Miss Fergie. I also spent $18 on magazines for my in-flight entertainment (note: bridal magazines are more expensive than my usual literature, and this will be an upcoming blog entry as I’m just getting my feet wet with the extravaganzas of wedding planning). And I gave in and forked over $45 for an epic night to party at Coco Bongo.  

For those of you who have not experienced Coco Bongo, it is like all of Las Vegas crammed into one club and since they pump oxygen into the crowd, you constantly feel the rush of dancing alongside spectacular animations. I spent most of the night hiding from a creepy Beetle Juice impersonator and while I’d like to say he was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen, I have to confess that this was my second time to Coco Bongo so really – he was just the creepiest person I’ve seen since my last time there. And somewhat less creepy was Antonio Banderas who picked the same night as me to grace Coco Bongo with our VIP presence.

A few of my work friends opted not to leave Thursday night and extended their stay over the weekend.  This was a very tempting idea, but the financially fabulous me had to crunch the numbers first. For 3 more nights in Cancun, I would have spent:

• + $60 on care for Miss Fergie
• + $50 to change my flight on WestJet
• + $10 taxi to change hotels
• + $300 on hotel accommodations assuming double occupancy
• + $30 on a taxi from my new hotel to the airport as the work shuttle would not be supplied

… all for a grand total of $450. Definitely not “free”! I decided to skip the extra days in Cancun and keep my $450 locked-up in my Vacation Fund. The plan is to go later this winter to Cuba with my sister and our Eye Candies and then, work will be the most distant thought from my mind.

 Is traveling a work perk for you too?

*Rosie*

Sand and sea are no match for Essie!
(Read more about my Tour de Finance nails here.)

Poolside for some R&R

View from my room

Lush hotel lobby

My dream water feature

A fuzzy iPhone photo of Antonio party'ing at Coco Bongo.
You'll have to take my word for it that it really is him!

ESSIE’s new nailpolish collection is a small splurge worth investing in

When I started my quest to become financially fabulous almost 18-months ago, the first thing that I removed from my monthly expenditures was pedicures and manicures. Every three weeks I was paying $80 to refill my gels and every 8 weeks, I was paying another $65 to beautify my toes. No wonder my credit card was charged to the max! In the last year, I’ve only visited the nail salon once as I’ve perfected DIY’ing my nails at home.

Tomorrow I will be leaving for Cancun, Mexico for our National Sales Meeting (la chance!) and fortunately for me, ESSIE is launching a perfect spring-time nailpolish collection and I was given a sneak peak at the shade wardrobe. 

Her new collection, Naviagate Her, is financially savvy so it’s no wonder that I could not resist the pastels and pearl finishes. Essie Weingarten, brand founder of Essie, put together this collection for every woman on a mission and for all the ladies who in both fashion and finance, are willing to strike out and try something new. Who doesn’t love that attitude?

I chose two shades in fun pink hues that are a great way to represent my upcoming beach escape from the dreary Montreal winter. For my nails, I’m wearing a pretty peach A Crewed Interest and on my toes, Tour de Finance, a flirty fuschia.

The colour pay-out is exactly what I’ve come to expect from ESSIE – salon sophisticated and rich-looking. As an avid runner, I have embarrassing deep blue bruises on my toenails, but in one swipe, ESSIE covered those right up. Now my feet feel athletic and pampered! Experience has taught me that a top coat is the key to a successful at home DIY manicure or pedicure so I’m expecting my ESSIE indulged nails to last well beyond my upcoming 5-days of sand and sun.  

ESSIE’s Navigate Her collection is available right now at salons and professional beauty trade stores, but it will be hitting shelves of mass retailers like Shoppers Drug Mart and Wal-Mart at the end of March for about $9. If you’re looking for a hue to reflect the financially fabulously you and a small way to splurge on yourself, then I cannot recommend this collection enough. Shouldn’t your nailpolish colours always reflect your personal mantras?


*Rosie*

A collection made for fashionistas and personal finance bloggers. 

My beach ready choices: A Crewed Interest & Tour de Finance.

Upon posting this, my Eye Candy's reaction was, "Dear, you are definitely not a hand model." None the less, I am all peachy keen for this shade.

I have a theory that women wear the colour they want others to view them like on their fingernails. And on their toes, they reveal their inner divas. In which case, I am definitely a vibrant Tour de Finance!

Sticker shock

Friday night I went out my Eye Candy and friends for dinner at Le Chien Fumant – a petit bistro-resto in the plateau that has a low-key, but stylish vibe and the most delicious menu. I had only been there once before for my EC’s birthday, but he is a regular with his friends as their Moscow Mules are apparently legendary. Heading into the night, I had taken with me $75 of my Fun Money which I figured would be enough for dinner and a glass (or 2) of wine.

What I am about to describe is likely every other budget-conscious gal’s worst nightmare, but I think we all go through it as a “live & learn” kind of situation.

My good friend is a good friend of the chefs at Le Chien and he arranged for our group of 8 to enjoy a fixed-tasting menu that would be about 5 courses… but nothing too fancy. After having whispered side conversations with my Eye Candy, he told me that the dinner would now cost $100 each, but that it would be worth every penny. Given that we were sitting down for dinner and everyone was enthused to do a taster-menu, I refused to be the one who would bust-the-bistro-bubble and opt just for a meal à la carte. I had to bite the bullet and agree to split the bill.

Dinner lived up to its hype and I had a fabulous time with my friends while making new ones. But unfortunately, my evening came with a major price to pay. When the meal was all said and done, the bill came to $1,058 plus tip. Split between 8 of us, my share was $155.... YIKES! My evening out cost double what I had planned to pay.

I drove home that night (as DD, I had stuck to my 2 glass limit and drank about 6 glasses of lemon water), I could feel myself fuming. The fixed-menu may have been delectable; but spending an evening with my friends should not be a $155 expense. The worst part is that I knew I would have had just as much fun had I picked my own meal off the menu. I felt like my money had been spent for me and the social atmosphere of it all made me too uncomfortable to say anything.

While 2:30 am chats are never a good idea, I talked it over the situation at length with my Eye Candy as I’d never be able to sleep otherwise. I was mad at myself for spending my money so foolishly. In the end, I realized that there was nothing more I could have done as the eating arrangement was pretty unique to Le Chien Fumant. I had to chalk up my $155 to being a lesson learned: splitting bills with friends over dinner is never really “fair” and that’s the price to pay for their company. Also, if a restaurant is out of my budget, I need to be more confident in speaking up ahead of time that I will order my dinner.

On the flip side, I did make the most of the taster-menu at Le Chien given that I am a notoriously picky eater. Having sworn off seafood simply because I don’t like the look of it, I’m pleased to report that I tried 3 new appetizers and my sense of adventure received rounds of applauses from my friends: a lobster bisque, a mussel radish salad, and general tao fried calamari. These were dishes that I would have never ever ordered on my own for fear of wasting my money if I didn’t end up liking them. In some ways, I suppose the $155 has allowed me to expand my future menu choices… but my next dinner out will not be for a while as my Fun Money envelope is pretty thin this week.  

Are you comfortable splitting the bill with friends or do you speak-up about your budget? 

*Rosie*

How I'm saving $6 a week

Since coming home from my world wind vacation in Las Vegas, I have not been writing Weekly Spending Recaps. When I started them, it was because I was trying to save up my $80 of weekly Fun Money to put in my Vegas Baby envelope and I was scaling back on my miscellaneous daily purchases so that I could have more cash to spend as a tourist.

But the real purpose of my $80 weekly adult allowance is to have fun! It is something that I was inspired to do after reading Smart Cookies [read my full review here] as budgets can often feel restrictive, but the cash in a Fun Money envelope is there for a girl to have a good time and to spend on whatever her heart desires… as long as it doesn’t exceed the weekly allocated amount. By recapping how I was spending it, it felt too restrictive when my $80 is meant to be how I treat myself: a glass of wine after work with friends, a funky ring from H&M, a must-have nailpolish colour, or saved up over a few weeks for dress purchase.

While I have not been writing about my expenditures, I do keep my receipts and I noticed an interesting pattern was happening this spring-summer season: each week, I was spending at least $6 to buy a new pair of pantyhose. As a soft-ivory skin toned girl, I’ve always been conscientious of my milk bottle white legs and wearing pantyhose in the summer was an easy disguise for an instant sheer tan. That being said, I have yet to meet a brand of pantyhose that is durable against rips – whether they occur from a snagged nail when trying to put them on, a good-bye jump from my puppy as I’m heading out the door, or caught on a loose screw under my desk. Snags, pulls, rips and full-on tears are inevitable with pantyhose and I was making weekly emergency purchases to replenish them.

In some office environments, pantyhose are mandatory attire for ladies and I do agree that they give you a professional pulled-together look. Amongst my colleagues however, I am the only girl wearing them and I’m often teased that it’s an Anglophone-thing that makes it a dead give-away that I’m a Torontonian who has yet to assimilate to Montreal’s funky vibe. I also work in the fashion & beauty industry where office dress codes are not restrictive, but everyone manages to look like they’ve stepped off a runway daily. I believe in dressing for the job you want and not the job you have, so after I suffered my 8^th pantyhose snag in less than 6 weeks, I took a tour of our office and couldn’t find one female senior executive wearing pantyhose. They all had gorgeous sun-kissed gams with perfectly polished toes and lust-worthy sandals. Clearly, not wearing pantyhose didn’t take away from their professionalism.

My new must-have secret for saving money
and enjoying having sun-kissed legs.

The next morning, I busted out a bottle of Jergens Natural Glow Express Body Moisturizer from a goody-bag that I had received the previous evening at FLARE’s FALL 2012 FASHION NIGHT (I know, it’s too soon to be thinking about coats!). With running outside several times a week, my legs had moved up the colour scale from soft ivory to a natural beige so I had a pretty good starting point for my fake tan and the Natural Glow went on easily and smoothly. It didn’t stain my hands and it doesn’t produce a nasty build-up from re-applying daily. It easily scrubs off in the shower and the best part is that it doesn’t stain my towels when I dry off. I’m using my Express Glow daily now instead of a moisturizer and my legs are soft and finally sun-kissed. I am trying to even out the tan line from my running shorts, but overall, I'm pleased. My legs are still a far cry away from rivaling Gisele Bundchen’s, but at least I’m keeping my $6 this week.

Ladies, what do you think? Should pantyhose always be worn in the office regardless of the industry you work in and the temperature outside?

*Rosie*

Thirty flirty things to do this summer in Montreal

Ready, set, summer time!

Hello my financially fabulous friends! I'm sorry for being MIA over the last week; have no fears,I've not been going on any shopping sprees and refusing to share the details. Rather, I've been enjoying the hot summer sunshine that has finally made its way to Montreal. My Mum visited last week.  We had such a great time exploring the city, our time together inspired this post.   

I'm not going on any major vacations this summer; having just been to Las Vegas and Kelowna I'm still in the process of saving up for my next escape. While my co-workers are sharing plans for their fabulous upcoming adventures and as I reminisce about my July spent in Spain last year, I’ve decided to have fun at home. It will not be a staycation as I’m saving my vacation days for later in the year (hey, you never know where we might go!), but rather this is a list of my must-do’s between now and September 21st.

Thirty flirty things to-do this summer in Montreal

(or at least, inspiration for your own city too!) 

1.  Become a Patio Princess. Having set-up our terrace last weekend and taken the time to indulge in flowers, plants, and a little tomato garden, I plan to spend countless hours here sipping wine & enjoying the sunshine. 

2.  Leave my balcony to see-and-be-seen at the best outdoor patios in Montreal. 5à7 will be my next favourite numbers. SheDoesTheCity has put together a pretty good list that already includes some of my favourites.

3.  Check out the Montreal Jazz Festival. In my four summers in the city, I have yet to take in a show and this is really just unacceptable. Fortunately, the B-52s are giving a free concert so you’ll know where to find me on July 4th. (No, not the love shack!)

4.  Be all cultured and see a play by Shakespeare in the Park.

5.  Frequently wash our new Mazda CX7. Who needs a carwash when a little lady-power can get this chore done for free? Plus, I must confess, I’ve never washed a car before in my life! I’d rather acquire this skill in the summer heat than in the winter.

6.   Since we’re on the theme of cars and confessions, I’d also like to have my first drive-in movie theatre experience.  Bonus points if I can find a theatre playing Grease.

7.   Smell the roses at the Jardin Botanique.

8.   Be a beach bum in Ste-Agathe. Don’t forget your Ombrelle SPF 60.

9.  Indulge in ChickLit. I currently have on reserve with the library: Last Night at Chateau Marmont (Lauren Weisberger), She Went All The Way (Meg Cabot), and My Fair Lazy (Jen Lancaster).

10.  Watch the sunset from the rooftop terrace at Hotel Nelligan in Old Port while sipping a glass(or 2!) of Kim Crawford.

11.  Enjoy the relaxing whirlpools at Bota Bota and a spectacular view of the city from the waters of Old Port.

12.  Mix mojitos! Last summer, my Eye Candy and I, spent an evening trying to find the best mojito cocktail recipe. We must have tried 7 different versions in an effort to find our favourite. Unfortunately we forget which one was the best so we’ll have to try again.

13.  Picnic on Mont Royal and Parc La Fontaine with my Eye Candy and Miss Fergie… complete with a checkered blanket, stylish basket, and wine. (Vino is for me, not the dog.)

14.  Finally spend a fun-filled day at La Ronde.

15.  Get on my bike & ride. Training with 3 Vitesses for cycling started weeks ago, and yet, I've still been indoors enjoying my spinning classes. It’s time to finally start biking up Mont Royal or discover the race track of Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. 

16.  Explore Montreal’s spookier side. I love doing haunted ghost walks in foreign cities as there is something fun about walking around a town at dusk and hearing about its darker side. Why not take a Fantôme Montreal tour and find out who or what goes bump in the night?

17.  Main Madness as St-Laurent closes to cars and opens to pedestrians and great time. The best part of this festival is Montreal offering amazing street meat which doesn't require a tetanus shot.

18.  Giggle at the Montreal Just For Laughs Festival. Not all the shows are within my budget, but if there is a will, there is a way.

19.  Run! The Montreal half-marathon is September 25th and if I’m going to cut another five minutes off my time (!); I need to become a road warrior. In addition to my runs with 3V, I want to make running along the Lachine rapids a Saturday morning must-do.

20.  By the same token, jet boat along the Lachine Rapids.

21.  Be a master of the grill and create the ultimate go-to summer BBQ menu.

22.  Sip a sampler of beers at Ste-Ambroise Terrace.

23.  Brunch in the Atwater Market. This will be an easy one to cross of the list.

24.  Get a group together and enjoy a Croisière Fieste in the Old Port. I went to the “white out” party a few summers ago and had a blast. It’s time to relive the experience.  

25.  Indulge in haute couture. This is a call out to my favourite fashionista bloggers at FHTS and Behave Fashionably to join me indoors at The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

26.  Swimming! The 3V team trains at Parc Jean Drapeau weekly, and there is something about swimming in an Olympic sized pool that makes me want to be a mermaid when I go up. I’d like to take my Eye Candy’s neice (my BFF) for a trip to the wading pool here.

27.  On a different note, I’d like to soak up some sun at Hotel de la Montagne. I’ve heard co-workers at work gush about this rooftop pool and a day pass seems worth it.

28.  Find the best restaurant for tapas in Montreal and spend time reminiscing about our Spanish trip last summer.

29.  Spoil Miss Fergie and be a regular at the local dog park. With her pelt, she’s sweltering in the sun so evenings and weekends will be our time to chill-out with her furry friends. 

30.  Go to the Jacques Cartier bridge at night for the best view of the city’s Saturday night fireworks. I’m putting The Beatle’s Tribute on July 30^th into my calendar.

Hopefully this list is just the starting point of an amazing summer in Montreal. Please tell me what I've missed? I look forward to crossing off activities already.

*Rosie*