October 2017 – LongLegsBigCity

DIY Gumball Costume

October 31, 2017 1 Comment

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!! As you read in my very long post yesterday, I spent $114 Saturday. October is my most expensive month. Therefore, I always try to spend as little as possible on my costume. I already told you last week, I am always trying to re-purpose the costumes I already have, since I have an entire box of them. Also, I have many crafting tools at my disposal since I have been doing this for years. My emoji-boyfriend is not so into the costuming like me, but if I completely take care of the cost and the labor of making it, he will relent and wear what I make him. Therefore, I try and make his costume low-cost as well. Overall, I spent $41.25 for both of our costumes. Not too bad. It may cost a bit more if you need to buy a glue gun, but they are generally less than $10.

We got a LOT of compliments, so I figured I could tell you how to do it.

Supplies for the Tutu:

Red Tulle
Scissors
Elastic or Ribbon that fits around your waist

Honestly, I don’t need to explain this whole process because I learned it, like many other things, from YouTube. Here’s a link to a great tutorial. You can decide either to use elastic as a waistband, or to use ribbon if you prefer to make a big bow on the back. If you use elastic, you’ll need a few stitches or a glue gun to connect the two ends.

I’ve done it both ways but I find elastic easier for bathroom purposes. Just cut the tulle to the width you prefer and cut it to twice the length you want, so you can double it over. I ordered it in 6-inch width from Amazon this year for ease, and because I didn’t have much time to cut the strips, but it was a bit more expensive. I linked it above, they have a lot of color options.

If you buy tulle from a fabric store, you’ll probably need 4-5 yards from a bolt (about $3/yard), but if you buy it like above from Amazon, you will probably need 4, 25-yard spools because they are only 6 inches in width. It also will depend on how long and fluffy you want your tutu. I needed to cover my silver-unitard-ed bum, so I wanted mine extra long.

Use either a thick ribbon or some thick elastic for the waistband.

Lots of tulle strips, ready to be a tutu.

Supplies for the coin slot:

Piece of cardboard (cut out of any box)
Duct Tape
Sharpie

This was incredibly easy. I just took a piece of cardboard from a box and I covered it in duct tape. Then I drew on the coin slot. The tricky part is I made a little loop on the back from doubled-over duct tape, so I could tie some extra tulle to it, and connect it to the waistband of the tutu.

Final product! It faded a bit after 10 hours of drinking.

My loop contraption to tie it on the tutu.

Supplies for the Quarter:

One bowl for tracing
One piece of silver poster board
Scissors
Sharpie
Twine/string (stolen from the office)
A friend with amazing freehand drawing skills

Not much to say about this: trace a bowl for a perfect circle, have an amazing friend copy a photo of a quarter from the internet. Trace the pencil outline with a Sharpie. Or just freehand it with a Sharpie. I was ready to just write “25¢” on a silver circle, but my friend made a real piece of art. Then I punctured the front and back of the quarter with a letter opener, and threaded the string through. If you have money to burn, it may be a good idea to laminate the pieces so they don’t get soggy from beer, but I was short on time and money, and my emoji-bf is clearly better at not spilling than me. It lasted all day!

Supplies for Gumball Belly:

Same bowl for tracing
2 pieces of white felt
Scissors
Lots of pom poms
Glue gun
More sticks of glue for the glue gun than you’d think (I used 10)
4 safety pins

This was much easier than I anticipated. I spent a lot of time on the internet trying to decide how large the pom poms should be. Most people said 1 inch, so I bought the cheapest pack of them from Amazon (link above). They were definitely smaller than an inch, but it still worked out well and there was a great mix of colors. I traced the same bowl I used for the quarter on two pieces of felt, then hot glued them together. Then I started at the bottom of the circle, and tried to randomly place the colors, with some attention to keeping a variation of colors, but also not caring too much because real gumballs have the same color next to each other sometimes! It did take more glue than I thought it would, but ultimately only took about 10 minutes to complete while binge-watching Will and Grace. I opted not to use the white, brown and black pom poms, but that is up to your own artistic license. I also decided not to fill the circle up completely, to make it more realistic.

Safety-pin that baby onto your uni! (or tank top). I realized that I preferred it to be a bit underneath the tutu, making it more of a 3/4-moon shape, again to make the circle look a little more realistic like a gumball machine. Personal preference.

Supplies for headwear:

Headband you’re willing to part with
10 pom poms (I had plenty left over from the belly)
Glue Gun
2 sticks of glue

As I trolled google for gumball costumes, I saw a lot of people wear red beanies for the tops of the gum ball machine. That is a cute idea, but I have a really weird-shaped head. Every beanie I wear just makes me look bald. I settled on my old faithful hair accessories: headbands and bows! I glued 10 different-colored pom poms on a throw-away headband from CVS, and tied a red ribbon that I already owned in my hair.

I already owned a silver unitard from my previous jaunts as the Tin Man and a Hershey’s Kiss (see below), but for those of you who do not have one, you can always safety pin the gum ball felt belly on a white tank top and wear red shorts or a red skirt under your tutu. Highly recommend this costume, with or without the emoji-bf! You can be the quarter, too! The more accessories, the better. I plan on repeating the costume tonight to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters. Hopefully no one thinks I’m a clown and gets scared again! I think I already know what I want to be for next year, but if you have any great ideas, comment below! Have a boooo-riffic day!

Big City Living

Halloween Pub Crawl 2017

October 31, 2017 No Comments

Reporting live with the 2^nd day of my hangover still slammin’ in my head like a terrible rock cover band at 3 am. I can barely open my eyes in the blinding light of the sun, and a credit card is missing from wallet, which means I OBVIOUSLY had an amazing time on the annual Halloween Pub Crawl 2017.

The Halloween Pub Crawl was not my original idea, I used to be a lowly participant on my best friend’s family’s Crawl. She comes from a big Irish Catholic family with 5 brothers and sisters, and innumerable cousins, so there were always enough people for an entire pub crawl just by inviting the family. Since then, my best friend moved away, and her cousins are less likely to hang out with me without her. (I’m still hanging out with her aunt et al. this upcoming weekend for the NY Marathon, more on that coming next week). Anyway, now that all of my friends expect a Halloween bar crawl, the organizing is left up to me. This year, Facebook invitations went out in August, as is necessary with our crazy New York schedules. I invited about 85 people, and made sure the group was open for friends of friends to invite people. Overall, we ended up with 103 invited, and about 50 people showed up. Not a single member of my family. Not bad!

For the past three years, I have been organizing the Crawl by myself and the last two years I planned it to be held on 14^th Street, from west to east. This year, I decided to go old school to the Lower East Side. It’s annoying to get there on the subway from the Upper West Side, but #WorthIt because you only have to walk approximately 15 steps to get to another bar. Also, the looks we got on the subway were priceless. I was a gumball machine, but I think a little kid thought I was a clown and he had a minor breakdown when his mom told him to sit next to me.

5 days before the Crawl, I published the google map of our route, which included walking directions AND my own notes about drink specials. I tried to only pick places with major drink specials, since this was a marathon, not a sprint. I took out $100 cash and hoped for the best.

I won’t recount the whole pub crawl because it would be boring. Also because I remember less and less as the day goes on. But ultimately, we hit 11 bars over the course of 8 hours, and I had 16 drinks and bought three slices of Artichoke Pizza (LET ME LIVE!!) for $114. Not bad!!

This is the link to the original pub crawl map. And here are the bars we actually went to, not in exact order, necessarily, because my memory fails me:

The Grayson
Double Down Saloon
The Hairy Lemon
Mama’s
Ace Bar
Rue B
7B
Bua
11th Street Bar
B Side
HorseBox
Planet Rose

We started at the Grayson, and as usually I was running about 30 minutes late. I knew it would be an all-day event, so I figured it would be fine. Sure enough, we arrived and we were the first ones there! Grayson is a Wisconsin bar, which I did not know (Go Badgers!), but that worked to our advantage because they had $5 well drinks and an amazing DJ spinning live during commercials and time outs. There were a lot of time outs. I originally picked this bar because it had $5 mimosas, and I thought that would be a good way to easeee into the day of drinking, but instead I had one cider and switched straight to gin, which I would continue to drink for 9 more hours. We waited for 3 more people to arrive then walked one block away to the next bar, Double Down. Drink Count: 2.

The first to arrive! Note how bright it is outside.

Bar #2 and my memory already starts to fade. Why? Because the bar had 2-for-one happy hour, with well drinks = $6 (aka, $3 each), and the bartender was pregnant. Again you may ask, why does this matter? Well, because I think she was pouring all of the alcohol she couldn’t drink into our cups. But hey, I’m not complaining! We stayed at Double Down for over an hour because the drinks were incredibly cheap and because they had an awesome outdoor area and the weather Saturday was to die for! By the time we went to the next bar, we officially had 17 people on the crawl and it was in full swing. We wanted to switch to a bar with TVs so we could watch the Gator Game. HUGE mistake. Double Down has TV’s, but they only play porn. I’m not kidding. Drink Count: 5.

Anyway, we went to go to Hairy Lemon (the old Croxley’s), but we quickly found out by the overflow crowd on the sidewalk that Hairy Lemon is a Penn State Bar, and they are much better at football than UF this year. We vetoed Hairy Lemon. Luckily, this was the Lower East Side, and there was another bar literally next-door, Mama’s. And that bar next-door had 16 kangaroos in it. Again, not kidding. Only in NYC. We decided it was not an option to hang out with the kangaroos. They agreed to put the Gator game on for us, which was a mistake because we were already losing by nearly 20 points in the first 10 minutes. I decided to distract myself and put on a Kangaroo costume. Then people started to get hungry so we went in search of a bar with food. Drink Count: 6.

Found these kangaroos outside, knew we had to go in.

I put on the costume. Note how bright it is outside.

We did not find a bar with food. But we DID find another bar, Ace Bar, and they DID let us bring in our own food. A few people got slices of pizza. I did not. But I did have another drink! Drink Count: 7.

More people joined us on the crawl, and my memory of the order of bars gets a bit fuzzy here. At some point we went to 11^th Street Bar, we also went to Rue B, and Bua, and we headed (RAN) to HiFi because Happy Hours everywhere were about to end (it was 7:15), but HiFi said online that their happy hour was until 7:30. I clearly needed to get my butt there, since I was only at Drink Count: 12.

Well, joke was on us, the rude bartender told us that actually their website was Fake News and their Happy Hour only went until 7. LAME. We decided we did not want to be patrons for this alternative facts bar, so we left. Drink Count: Still 12.

We headed to Horsebox, where I ultimately must have decided I was not at all done drinking, because instead of paying in cash, like I had been doing all day, I decided to open up a tab. Daddy Warbucks of Gin and Gingers, apparently. This was a stupid move for 2 reasons: A. I definitely did not need drinks 13, 14 and 15. And B. I hadn’t used my card all day, so of course I forgot I had put it down and I left my credit card there. TGFFP. (Thank God For Fraud Protection). My new card should arrive tomorrow. Drink Count: 15.

Slowly, people decided they absolutely NEEDED to sing karaoke, as people always decide after 15 drinks. So began the slow exodus across the street to Planet Rose. Planet Rose is the dingiest and grossest of all karaoke bars in New York, which of course makes it the best. Apparently, you can sing songs there for free during the week, but I’ve only ever been there during the weekend, when it costs $2/song. Luckily, I had some cash left since it was clearly necessary at that point for me to croon Fiona Apple while laying on the probably-bed-bug-infested couch. Drink Count: 16. Karaoke Count: 1 song. Dignity Count: negative.

I managed to find my way, by myself, to Artichoke Pizza, which I had sworn all day I would end the night with. I bought three slices, one for me, one for me the next day (I’m so smart, even when highly inebriated), and one for my boyfriend. Turns out he doesn’t even like Artichoke pizza, so I still have a slice in the fridge 3 days later. If my hangover doesn’t go away by tomorrow, I think I know what I will be having for breakfast.

Overall, a major success. We had almost 50 people. A friend from high school who I hadn’t seen in 15 years came out. My costume was super fun, and comfortable, and I will be posting a DIY on how to make it tomorrow for real Halloween. And best of all, I didn’t die. For all of you New Jerseyans out there, Happy Mischief Night!!

Miscellaneous

Pre-Halloween Pub Crawl Poem

October 27, 2017 1 Comment

‘Twas the night before the Pub Crawl, and all through the City,

Millennials were home watching Netflix, no one getting litty.

The unitards were hung by the doorways with care,

In hopes that the Halloween Pub Crawl would bring strangers who stare.

The hot glue guns were heating, the felt was cut up,

The costumes were barely ready, but their minds were made up –

The next day would bring debauchery and a whole lot of booze,

With 13 pubs on the route, they packed comfortable shoes.

Generation Y was nestled all snug in their beds,

With knowledge their parents wouldn’t like their inappropriate threads.

Is it “sexy nurse” or “sexy cat” or “sexy bunny” this year?

Their parents lay in their beds, paralyzed with fear.

When out on the streets, there arose such chatter,

These are unitard-clad adults! These outfits do NOT flatter.

Their parents were relieved, and they thought to themselves, smugly,

THANK GOODNESS MY CHILDREN LOVE TO DRESS UP SO UGLY!

Can’t wait to crawl with you all tomorrow!!!!

Miscellaneous

Spotify Time Capsule

October 26, 2017 No Comments

Do you love the 90’s? If you were born in the late 80’s, probably the answer is “HELL YES.” If you were born in the 70’s and you love the 80’s, the same thing applies. Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera. What if I told you that you could be instantly transported to the best jamz of your youth, curated FOR YOU, with a click of a button? You’d totally be down, right? I thought so. Well that is exactly what Spotify Time Capsule is. It has changed my life and made my week. This feature has been available since September 28^th, and I don’t know how I have survived a month (or 30 years) without it.

During my Monday night Spin class, I casually mentioned that I had done an all throwback 90’s playlist last Thursday (listen to it here!) so a newbie to my class came up to me afterward and informed me of this magical feature on Spotify. Somehow, through a mix of creepy stalkage, magic, and voodoo (and by asking the year you were born), Spotify creates a playlist of every song you listened to from 5^th grade through twelfth. AND BEYOND. Ok maybe not EVERY one, but 55 of them! This is a creepily accurate list.

According to Spotify’s press release, this feature can be designed for any user over the age of 16, in 60 Spotify markets, and “gathers the 30 most nostalgic tracks from your teens and early twenties, creating the soundtrack for a trip down memory lane.” My capsule had 55 songs, so I guess it ranges per person. Maybe it’s because I obsessively use Spotify every day, and also because I pay for premium. But this feature is not reserved for only premium users! Most tech blogs presume that this idea comes from the “battle for subscribers” between Apple Music and Spotify, with both of them trying to add more personalized features. I have always been Team Droid, but in my completely biased opinion, I have to say, Spotify NAILED this one.

It would be one thing if it only picked songs from my already-downloaded library, but no. This list includes songs I totally forgot about but TOTALLY listened to. It starts with “This is My Party” from Fabolous and goes to “Case of the Ex” by Mya, two of my favs. At first, I was skeptical. Didn’t everyone love those songs? Also, are they only picking hip hop because I play a lot of hip hop for my spin classes? But then I scrolled down and realized a large majority of southern rappers, Trick Daddy appears more than once. Did they know I grew up in south Florida? HOW!? I didn’t even have Spotify back then!

Then I thought to myself, I liked more than Southern Rap. These Spotify biatches don’t KNOW me!! So I scrolled some more and found Backstreet Boys… then Fiona Apple… then Whitney Houston… a song from Pocahontas… OK THEY KNOW ME! THEY KNOW ME BETTER THAN I KNOW MYSELF! I have been listening to this playlist for two days straight. You guys absolutely must try it out and tell me if my playlist is different than yours! Click here to make your own, and then check out mine in all its glory. If you’re using the Spotify program and not the browser version, just type “time capsule” into the search bar. I guarantee you it will make your day.

https://open.spotify.com/user/spotify/playlist/37i9dQZF1E516gnkWfVieT

Miscellaneous

DIY Costumes

October 24, 2017 8 Comments

Halloween is Coming!!! Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year (except my birthday). How could you NOT like a halloween that is about candy, talking to strangers, and best of all: COSTUMES. I love dressing up, and I always have. If you have not already subscribed to my blog, you are missing weekly emails with CLASSIC #tbts of me in costume. I have dressed up as everything from a drag queen princess to a gypsy; you can see I have loved costumes since the beginning of time. At least the beginning of MY time. Also, I love love love crafting.

Growing up, I often had handmade or hand-thrown-together costumes, and I have been a fan of the DIY costume ever since. The best part about making your own costume is that no one else will have it. Anyone can go into a Spirit of Halloween popup and buy a sexy nurse or sexy army girl costume. But not everyone can put together a super-not-PC gypsy costume complete with crystal ball made of tin foil.

Which brings me to my next point: the point of Halloween is NOT to be sexy. October 31^st is not an excuse to forego half of your clothes. I don’t know who decided that a costume is just leaving half of your outfit at home and putting on cat ears, but that will not cut it. Reminds me of the infamous scene in Mean Girl, the epitome of this:

There is a meme that makes its rounds on Instagram every year, about “sexy girl Halloween costumes vs. me,” and that perfectly personifies my idea of Halloween costumes. The weirder, the better. This all started in 2009 when my best friend and her sister (and I) decided to be Treasure Trolls. This was LONG before the Troll movie. We made the most amazing troll costumes ever known to man. Photos are coming. Get excited.

So why and how are my ideal DIY costumes 100% awesome but 100% NOT sexy?? Let’s break it down step by step:

The base of the costume must ALWAYS be a unitard.

This is a tradition that has been unbroken since 2009. The most epic unitard was definitely the 2009 treasure troll one, because it was see-through. And ordered from eBay. According to the reviews, it was supposed to be used for fetish play. As in… there was a hole. In a choice place. In fact, one of the reviews recommended wearing it backward… depending on what you’re into. You catch my drift. Anyway, after this year, we realized that the hole was incredibly convenient because a unitard made of pantyhose material is not easy to take off and on! Think about how tough it is just to put on tights! (Ladies, you know what I’m talking about.) When you are pub-crawling, you are most likely drinking in excess, which means you are taking bathroom trips in excess as well. That hole in the unitard came in handy. These unitards were especially epic because they matched our skin and people thought we were naked. The next year we used a unitard as the base of our costume again, and a tradition was born.

Before I knew about the emoji pillows, we used pillow stuffing.

The next year we were a huge wolf pack. The fetish unitard only came in two colors, “nude” and “black” (racist, much?). Anyway, I chose to be the one black wolf in the wolf pack, like I’m the black sheep in my family. JK JK. Anyway, it was a hit yet again, with cutoff shorts and amazing hair and makeup to top it off, done by our friend who is a makeup artist.

The next year, I did a costume all by myself, and I knew I had a lot to live up to. I kept all of the preparations a secret! How could I outdo the Treasure Trolls from years past?? If you dream it, it will come. I became the World’s Tallest Oompa Loompa, and it was terrifying. Face paint, wig and all. I made the entire costume by hand, all the way down to drawing the stripes on my soccer socks, and buying long johns from Walmart.com. This was 2011, the year of the Halloween Blizzard. I was still living in Brooklyn and I knew I couldn’t miss the Halloween party in Manhattan, so I camped out at my friend’s house all day, scared that they would shut down the subways if I waited longer to go into the city. Painting myself into an oompa loompa in secret in a friend’s bathroom is NOT an easy feat. This look took some real determination, but I did it! For this look, I actually used Rit Dye to color my unitard the perfect orange-brown-skin-shade. Talk about dedication to the cause.

Around this time, for some reason, unitards became avant-garde. Of course, they were not avant-garde to us, but the addition of the word “morphsuit” to the Halloween lexicon was a gamechanger. Don’t get me wrong, we would never dare to purchase a morphsuit skeleton and that be the end of the costume. I like crafting too much for that. At first, they only had about 6 colors available, and we did our best with those. The first year we made use of morphsuits we were uni-corns. Get it? Unitard – Unicorn? I thought it was a great idea. We made horns out of Crayola Model Magic, and we painted and glittered ourselves into oblivion. Then we put on some false eyelashes. Then we added a tutu. TADA! Done.

Falsies and a tutu make the perfect costume.

This brings me to my next step to ensure ugly but classic costumes: DIY no-sew tutus! I originally learned how to do this from youtube, and I have mastered the skill throughout the years. I can now make a tutu with my eyes closed. Literally. I currently have 5 tutus in my closet. I will have 6 after I craft my current costume tonight (tutorial coming soon).

This brings me to the next and last step to ensure a not-sexy costume: stuffing your belly! You know how some girls diet so they can fit into their (lack of fabric) costume? I do the exact opposite! There’s nothing like covering your belly with some extra belly, so people can’t tell which part is natural and which part is just extra padding! It’s like they say in Miracle on 34^th Street, “since I carry my own padding with me, I got the job, see?” Often when I am researching DIY costumes and looking at how to make mine better (pinterest has been a lifesaver here, and I’m not even a member!), I have noticed that I often pick costumes that are picked by pregnant women. This is extra fun, because when people think I am pregnant, and they see me drinking in excess, it provides for some great looks and comments. LET ME LIVE, OK!? When I began stuffing my belly for Halloween, I used pillow stuffing that you can buy by the bag from Michael’s. Last year, I discovered a much easier way, I stuffed an emoji pillow in my unitard! The stuffing stays together and it’s perfectly round!

The best part about making your own costumes is that you can repurpose the different parts for different things. I repurposed my wolfpack black unitard to make it a bee unitard by making a new last-minute tutu. I have used my yellow unitard to be a Minion and a Care Bear (Funshine Bear), and Winnie the Pooh. I’ve used my blue unitard to be a Unicorn and a Smurfette (terrifying, really). I’ve used my silver unitard to be the Tin Man and a Hersey Kiss. It’s all about repurposing and #BallinOnABudget.

I wish I had this blog years ago years so I could have shared my ideas and steps to make my costumes.

My costume for this year is a surprise, but considering I was supposed to be in a big group costume that only fell through last week, you can be sure I will be repurposing a few items from my costume box! (Yes, I have a costume box… it takes up valuable closet space in a New York apartment but it’s #WorthIt.)

I will be posting a DIY blog specifically for my 2017 costume next week, after the big reveal this weekend at the traditional annual pub crawl. I hope you guys like it!

Fitness

Spin and Sip

October 20, 2017 No Comments

What’s better than a night of Spinning with your favs from the gym? A night of Spinning followed by a night of DRINKING! DUH. Last night we had the first in hopefully a series of #SpinAndSip nights at Brazenhead in Brooklyn. This night was in the making for almost two months. With all of our busy schedules, my constant weddings, etc., we finally settled on October 19^th as the inaugural night. I must have said that date 100 times in my classes in the weeks leading up to it. I’m sure you all tired of my constant blacklight photos and boomerangs on Instagram to promote it. The night has come and gone, and it was as fun as I imagined. We started with a BOMB@$$ All 90’s #tbt playlist in spinning (you can find it here, FOLLOW ME ON SPOTIFY!), and then we headed across the street for some libations.

I visited two bars in the area to check what kind of drink specials I could finagle, and Brazenhead won out. I went to law school around the corner, and I had hosted multiple events at Brazenhead before so I knew they were game. Specifically, I hosted multiple nights of Sex Ed Trivia for Law Students for Reproductive Justice. Lingerie, pleather knee-high-boots, garters, etc. Anyway, as usual, I am getting off-track. The point is, Brazenhead is a great space, with a neighborhood feel, TVs, and a cute outdoor space in the back. PLUS, the manager, Sasha, said she would give us wristbands and extend their happy hour pricing for us from 8-10 pm. HELLO $6 gin and tonics!!

Unfortunately, they don’t serve food (besides free bar snacks, like pretzels), but the manager said she didn’t mind if we brought our own food. A couple of people picked up real food for dinner, but the real MVP of the night was Jeannine, who brought snacks for everyone. In true elementary-school-teacher fashion, she brought pita chips, carrot sticks, and hummus. What a champion.

We ended up having 16 people show up, including 3 instructors (myself included). #TeamDodgeYMCA! Brazenhead was so hospitable, I could not have asked for anything more. They gave us wristbands, the bartenders were awesome, and they even reserved a huge circular booth for us in the front of the place. We played a few rounds of “get to know you” games, learned each other’s names, learned how many years we had lived in New York, a learned a fun fact about each of us. I revealed that I once brought a snow cone machine to sleep-away camp #fatkidforever. Best of all, we got to hang out with each other off the bike.

It was a blast and I can’t wait to do it again. Next time, I expect an even larger turn-out! Now accepting all suggestions for the next hashtag: #SpinAndSipTake2 #SweatThenSwig #SpiritsAndSpinning #SwoleSippers

Not all of us got the “funny face” memo.

Fitness

BollyX

October 18, 2017 1 Comment

FitForFreeNYC strikes again. This time, in a dance-cardio-sweat-my-butt-off-but-my-face-hurts-more-than-anything-from-smiling way. And it was my favorite price: FREE! BollyX is my new favorite thing. Read through and I will link you to more free classes popping up around NYC through the rest of the year!

Two weeks ago, after my experience with free yoga through FitForFree, I saw another free workout pop-up on Alexa’s instagram, BollyX, and I knew I had to go. When I signed up, I did not know much of what I was getting into, besides that it was a Bollywood-inspired dance cardio class, and that they were “celebrating body empowerment & self love.” I was game right away.

First of all, you guys know I am a wedding-guest-extraordinaire (7 in the past year). But absolutely nothing compares to the Indian wedding I attended four years ago. SHOUTOUT RIMA AND VARUN! They had a horse, the most beautiful bridesmaid saris, but best of all, the DANCING WAS AMAZING. I remember sweating up a storm on the dance floor, killin’ it at all of the moves I had practiced in my room ever since The Pussycat Dolls remade Jai Ho for the movie, Slumdog Millionaire. I have been cultivating my love for Bollywood for years.

Getting to Waterside Plaza was a pain and a half, involving a subway, a crosstown bus, and three queries to three separate security guards and a lifeguard. I felt like I was actually traveling to India. Or at least a quarter of a way across the globe. But ultimately, it was worth it. And I’d definitely do it again. In fact, I already signed up for 3 more classes!!

This class was everything I hoped for AND MORE. Meredith Higgins, a BollyX Global Community Manager, was subbing the class, and she was the BOMB. Check out her Instagram! According to her bio, her motto is “take life by the lady balls and ‘Get Shit Done!’” Hell yes.

It was like Zumba on crack, but with better music. It combined strength, dance, jumping, cardio, body rolls, smiles, and LOTS of shoulder shaking. According to their website, which I didn’t look at until this morning, it’s a high intensity cardio workout with “heart pumping beats of Bollywood,” that make you “feel that muscle burn and unleash your inner swagger.” Spot on. There were a lot of cardio songs, but there was also a song for lower body toning, and one for upper body toning. Those Bollywood stars must have some JACKED shoulders! On their “about” section of the BollyX website, it boasts a 500-800 calorie burn per session. According to my Fitbit, I only burned 415, but I feel like that can’t possibly be true. I was sweating like crazy! And more than anything it was SO FUN. My face hurt from smiling and laughing.

Toward the end of class, we broke into 2 groups and Meredith taught us a “performance” song, where it’s only 90 seconds of choreography, and you’re supposed to give it your all, like you’re leaving it all on the dance floor. We did the routine twice together, then she split us in two, and we performed for each other while clapping along for the other group. Meredith led each of our groups through it, and then we performed it facing the front! You can even see a clip of it in her video here. I, unfortunately, wore neon yellow so you can’t miss me messing up all the moves. But at least I was smiling the whole time! WHAT A BLAST. ABC News did a piece on it too, if you don’t want to watch me, specifically.

Luckily for you, there are pop-up FREE classes throughout the rest of October, November and December in New York and throughout the country! Go to Eventbrite and search for Free BollyX, or click here for the New York ones at Waterside Plaza, where I was!

Check out our awesome boomerang from after class with Meredith, I think we can now be considered BollyPros.

Travel

Florida and Friends

October 16, 2017 1 Comment

3 weeks ago I went to Florida to visit my friends. I left a part of my heart in South Florida, where I grew up, but I never seem to make it there to visit more than once a year. Ever since my family moved to Pennsylvania, I have felt a bit like a kid with separated parents – splitting my time and my holidays between my blood-family and my second-family, my Florida friends! I won’t recount my entire trip here because it would take forever, and also because it was mostly LOTS of drinking, but I will give you a list of some highlights:

Rosh Hashana dinner with my friend’s family at Seasons 52. If you don’t know what Seasons 52 is, it’s basically a calorie-conscious restaurant. This one happens to be in East Boca Raton, which means it’s the most calorie-conscious franchise around. The whole menu has the calories on it (luckily the cocktails don’t), and you’re likely to hear nobody order directly off of the menu. It’s more taboo to order something directly off the menu than it is to get a wedding dress off-the-rack. GASP. You absolutely must always use the menu only as a starting-off point, then make sure to make at least 4 substitutions, and order at least 2 of the 4 ingredients on the side. Light on the dressing. 3 drops, not 4. My friend ordered a Bourbon Bramble with Vodka, and apologized 3 times for the liquor substitution. Our server promptly told us that it was the simplest order he had all day.
The beach. I love the beach. Waves, warm water, sand in my butt. Ok, maybe not the last one.
Chivalry! I almost forgot the concept after living in Florida for so long. I think I may have touched on this in my blog about things I forgot about Florida, but I had to mention it again here. Actually, maybe I didn’t mention it. But you should still read that blog. There were so many chairs given up for me that I lost count. And not only are drinks drastically less expensive in Florida, but they are often free because guys buy them for you. What a fantastic world we live in.
Visiting a Rothschild mansion. One of my friend’s friends is the caretaker for an amazing mansion owned by the Rothschilds. They only rent it out 5 days/month, and the rest of the time it is hers! We went over there and got the grand tour. And took photos, because duh.
Bru’s Room. I freaking love that place. I dream about their mozzarella wedges. I’m actually surprised I didn’t take a photo of them. I’ll let you imagine them instead – picture this: Mozzarella Sticks, but larger, with more cheese, and stretchier. And then more delicious warm cheese. And did I mention that Bru’s Room also has $5 Skyy doubles? I think I made money just traveling to Florida.
Pollo Tropical (I love food, ok?). The main highlight of my trip (besides, of course, seeing my friends), was going to Pollo Tropical. Not just going, but bribing my Uber driver to take me there after a 5-hour-long Happy Hour. I told our nice driver that I would order him anything off the menu if he would take this detour for us. The max price on that menu is $7.99 so I was confident I’d come out on top for this deal. Sure enough, after ordering 4 TropiChops (the leftovers make for a FANTASTIC hungover breakfast), our Uber driver delivered us to our final destination. Best part??? Uber sent me an email the next morning, apologizing to me for my ride taking “longer than expected” and giving me $5 off my next ride!! That TropiChop paid for itself! God is good! And that curry mustard… y’all, I think there is crack in it. You heard it here first.
Watching Florida Football with Floridians. New Yorkers are a lot of things, but they are not big college football fans. They just don’t get it. We spent a full 12 hours eating and watching college football. There’s nothing like it!
Brunch: seeing my friends and their kids. It’s crazy to think that my partying friends now have little offspring running around depending on their parenting. But as it often is with kids, they grow up so much in so little time! It’s fun to see them grow up, and I always hope they remember who I am. I got to see everyone at a farewell brunch on the beach and it was amazing.
Randomly running into people from high school. Moving to a different state, it’s rare I run into people I have known for a long time. It does happen, though, this city is big, but it’s also small. Anyway, I went to a bar in Delray Beach and I happened to know both of the bartenders! One of them went to my high school, and our last names had us seated next to each other in almost every class. The other one was roommates with my first boyfriend when I was 19.
Speaking of boyfriends, the best part of my trip was having my emoji-faced bf surprise me by coming for a day and a half! I was hoping he’d be able to come to Florida to meet all of my friends, but he had been so busy with work, I didn’t think he’d be able to make the trip. Sure enough, the first morning I was in Florida, he told me he had a surprise for me, and told me to check his Google Calendar (yes, we share calendars, we are that couple). First, I thought he meant that he was getting the new iPhone (he had an appointment at the apple store), but then he said “no, look at Saturday!” and I saw that he was going to wake up at the crack of dawn to get in to Fort Lauderdale at 9:30 am. What a guy. I loved having him there, and I’m so glad he got to meet everyone from my formative years. He even got a taste of the South Florida club.
Visiting my best friend’s mom. Although some of my friends have left to different corners of the USA, some of their families still live in Florida. I always try to fit in a visit or two. This time, I got to see my bff from high school’s mom and she got to meet my emoji-bf for the first time! He even revealed his face to her. Unfort. you guys don’t get to see it here.

Every time I leave Florida, I feel nostalgic for the days when I went out every night to bars and of course, out dancing until dawn at the club – all those Fitbit steps before there was a such thing as a Fitbit! But my hangover on the last day of the trip proved to me that I may be a bit older than I was back then. It was nice to get back to New York and lay in bed for a week. That is, until my next trip/wedding in North Carolina this past weekend. Blog about that coming soon!

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Long Legs and other Personal Problems

Student Loans Part Three

October 12, 2017 1 Comment

You read a few weeks ago that I have almost 100K in student loans. How in the world am I going to pay them off, and will I ever? Listen, I am not a financial planner (go to myfedloan.org and see if you can figure any of that complicated website out), but I have learned a lot through years of experience, and daily conversations with my emoji-bf/in-house finance bro.

Read on, and you will see how I have enrolled in a combination of income-based repayment plans and public service loan forgiveness plans throughout the years. Also, see how I’m making good use of all of those spam credit card offers I get in the mail every day.

This is the last installment in the series, but I will probably write an additional post addressing questions and stories I’ve heard throughout the series. I promise not to use any names! If you have any other questions or anecdotes, please leave them as comments, and/or write me directly. I love hearing your stories and questions!

Part 3 – Paying Back My Student Loans

Soundtrack: Sallie Mae Back by Dee-1 (alternate: She Works Hard for the Money by Donna Summer)

“I got 2 jobs really got on my grind, No time to whine I can’t ride my pine, In the game right now my time to shine, Started paying them loans back one at a time, got them down down down down down down down till I payed them all off. Peace sign.”

Here’s my story:

When I began working in 2013, I had to start paying off my seven different loans. Six direct subsidized and unsubsidized loans from FedLoan Servicing (one from each semester of law school), and a private loan from when I was studying for the Bar, because I was not technically a student (you graduate months before you take the Bar, making you ineligible for “student” loans from FedLoans).

Let’s start with my federal loans, weighing in at approximately 94 grand:

When I finished law school, I was automatically enrolled in a regular 10-year, monthly payment plan, and I was paying $1,200/month. Even at the law firm, that was a serious drain. I could barely pay my rent.

When I realized I was going to quit my job, and possibly never work in law again, I switched to a pay-as-you-earn, income-driven repayment plan, where my monthly payment was reduced to an amount intended to be affordable based on my salary. There are four different kinds of these. Honestly, I was overwhelmed and couldn’t choose, so I called FedLoans and asked their advice. Not a bad idea.

Income-driven plans are where you pay a percentage of your income to student loans, and some of them are designed so you never pay more than 10% of your income, before taxes. A bargain! After 20 years of on-time payments (240 payments), the balance is forgiven by the government. This is helpful since depending on the amount of your loans, sometimes your income-based payments barely cover the interest alone, so the principal continues to grow (DEPRESSING). I told you a few weeks ago about how in 4 years of payments I have not touched the principal. WOMPWOMP.

I knew I needed to build up some savings in case I was going to get less money at my next job, and then I realized I definitely needed to save because I was dangerously close to quitting with no job prospects at all because I was so miserable. By switching to the income-driven payment plan, I was able to cut my payments in half. When I switched plans, I started paying $600/month to the government, and $200 to my private loans. Still seems like a lot? It was. But it was an improvement.

But wait, there’s more. I actually did get a job, and better, it was with a non-profit organization. When I began working for a non-profit, I knew I should apply to the public service loan forgiveness (PSLF) plan I had sort of heard about, but I didn’t. This program forgives the remaining balance on your Direct Loans after you have made 120 qualifying monthly payments while working full-time for a qualifying employer. That is HALF of the payments than I would make otherwise. Thankfully, when I finally did apply, 8 months into my new job, they applied my previous 8 months of on-time payments as qualifying toward my 120 months of qualifying payments. If you work for a qualifying employer and you are currently on an income-based repayment plan, DO THIS NOW.

PSLF has very specific rules and you need to reapply each year to certify that your employer still qualifies. There are some sticky rules; I know a teacher in a public school who teaches special ed, but still does not qualify because her school receives a certain amount of federal funding and the school needs to be low-income. Seems unfair, she doesn’t receive the funding herself, the school does!!

Anyway, the PSLF plan applies to me (at least for now) because I work for a 501(C)(3) organization. However, there is a huge problem that has made front page New York Times news lately, about people detrimentally relying (look at my legal jargon) on this program, but then when they go to cash in on it, they were told it didn’t apply. The program began in 2007, so the 10-year forgiveness is just now up for those who began the program at its inception.

I have been on an income-driven, PSLF plan for 3 years now. At the current time, I pay $450 to the government and $200 still to my private loans per month. You, too, can pay less money in loans by making a much lower salary! Meanwhile, my principal continues to go up, and I’m basically screwed forever unless by some miracle, the PSLF program continues to exist. Then, I will be home free in 7 years, living the dream before I turn 37!

For now, I will just pray that Democrats get their sh*t together and don’t let the PSLF program get trashed by our Commander in Chief.

Now let’s look at my private loans, weighing in at about 6.5 grand:

This is where things get interesting, at least for finance people. For some of you, you’re already fast asleep.

I have more options available to me with my private loans, solely because there are less of them. I started with $12,000, and I have paid off more than 40% (pats self on back). My private loans have always been on the same payment plan; a standard 8-year repayment. On this plan, they would be paid off in January 2021.

This is embarrassing to admit, but my bf asked me my interest rate on my private loans (we talk about money a LOT), and I said I didn’t know. He couldn’t believe I didn’t know, but I said, “what does it matter? I pay what I can, they charge me as much as they f*cking want, and that’s the way the cookie crumbles.” Clearly, I have some major emotional baggage tied to these payments and I don’t love to talk about them (check out the first post in this series on the emotions attached to having loans).

Anyway, I honestly did not even know where to find my interest rate, but I started by logging into the website for my private loans. I hadn’t signed into the site in over a year. It’s on auto-pay, so why should I? More emotional baggage there; it’s easier to ignore and pretend it’s not there. In fact, it turns out I am not alone at all with this attitude, as more and more borrowers choose to remain ignorant of the details of their loans. According to a Citizens Bank survey and Forbes article:

45% of survey respondents didn’t know what percentage of their salary went to paying off their loans.
37% were unaware of the interest rate on their loans
A very oblivious 15% were even unaware of how much they owe.

But knowing your interest rate is especially important, because then you can look to see what you are paying toward your principal, and you can also see if there are better alternatives available. When I finally found my interest rate for my private loan, it turned out to be 8.49%. That’s pretty high. I pay $191/month in private loans, and at the time I looked, $41 of that went toward interest. That was 21% of my payment that did not even bring down my principal. That is $600 a year for INTEREST. WTF? Luckily for me, I have very good credit. Ok, it isn’t luck, it’s more like, “thanks to my dad opening credit cards for me since I was 6 months old, I have very good credit.” I have mentioned this before. Thanks again daddy!!

Thanks to this great credit score of mine, I get credit card offers in the mail daily. I am not exaggerating, I get one in the mail every single day. In the past, I threw them directly in the trash. Emoji-bf told me to start saving them. One month went by, and I had 30+ offers. We went through them and found a card offering a 21-month, interest-free, 3% balance transfer, with $0 annual fee, the Citi Diamond Preferred. That means I could transfer money to the card up to the credit limit, pay a one-time, 3% fee, and then not pay interest for almost 2 years. Emoji-face suggested that I transfer my student loans to the credit card. I did not know this was a thing. In fact, I asked him if he was f*cking with me. But no, it is a thing, and a really good thing, at that. You can transfer money from anywhere, including student loans! More math coming up, beware.

At the same time as I transferred my balance to a credit card, I opened an American Express high-yield savings account with 1.15% returns. Basically, since I was paying $41/month in interest, if I didn’t have to pay that for 21 months, I would save $840. That is $840 I could put in my savings account and ultimately pay toward the principal instead of throwing it down the drain. Not to mention the difference between my minimum credit card payments versus the minimum payment I was making on my loans. If I make minimum payments of $100/month to the credit card (it will actually go down over time), and take the $91 difference ($41 went to interest, $50 to principal) from my loan payment and instead put it in my savings account, by the end of the 21 months, I would have almost $2000. Plus, it’s earning something in the savings account.

The thing to remember here is, if you haven’t paid off your loan by the end of the no-interest period, you may be screwed by the interest rates that kick in. If you do this, make sure you have enough to pay it off by the end of that period. In my case, I have $6,713 in private loans, so I will need to make sure I save the difference, $2,689 (6,700- (191 x 21)) by the end of 21 months. If I can do that, my private loans will be paid off by May of 2019, instead of January of 2021, just by taking advantage of a credit card offer I was going to throw in the trash.

That seems like a LOTTT of money to save, but if you divide it up over 21 months, it’s only $126/month. Less than 3 extra spin classes to teach per month. Or one spin class and one less drunk brunch. That is doable. However, it is NOT doable if I go on vacation to exotic places.

The best part of transferring my private loans to the credit card? All of the notifications that my loan had been paid off. I got an email from mint.com, I got an email from Wells Fargo, I got a letter in the mail from them, AND I got a check because I somehow OVERPAID them ($6.27… every bit counts!). Imagine the feeling when I actually pay them off instead of just transfering them to a credit card! I bet it will feel even better. 20 months to go.

$6.27 from Wells Fargo to me for my overpayment!

Conclusion to this series, or VERY long story short: I sort of screwed myself by going to law school if I planned to be a world-traveler at a young age. But I am working on digging myself out. Working very hard, I might add. I’ve got my hustle, I’ve got my side hustles, I’m churning multiple credit cards, and I am learning to LOVE the taste of eggs ($1.99/dozen!). In the meantime, I will watch all of your beach vacations on Instagram from my incredibly overpriced, New York apartment.

Fitness

Guest DJ Spin Class

October 11, 2017 4 Comments

I have been teaching Spinning classes for 11 years. During some parts of my life, I was teaching 4 classes/week on the bike. And I made the playlist for Every. Single. One. Y’all remember Kazaa? Napster? They were after people like me. JK. I downloaded allll of my music legally. 😉 Anyway, I digress. Monday, that all changed; I didn’t make the playlist, Tim did!

Tim has been attending my Spin classes religiously for a year. I thought it was longer, but it’s just because he never misses a class! When his sister was in town, he even brought her along for the ride. Literally. (I crack myself up.) Anyway, Tim had never made a playlist before, but after attending nearly 100 of my classes, he wanted to try it out. I had faith in his musical choices because he tends to win round after round of Name That Tune when I challenge the class. I figured if he could identify Taio Cruz with less than 1 second played, I was in good hands.

Sure enough, he pulled through. He sent me the full playlist on google play music, and I transferred it to Spotify, where I have an unlimited membership. See? I’ve transformed into a good, law-abiding citizen. Tim knows I love a good spattering of K-pop in my class, but unfortunately the only song he picked that I couldn’t find on Spotify was Energetic by BOA. Truly unfortunate because it is a JAM. Not to worry, I subbed in another K-Pop song in its place: New Face by Psy, the lyrical genius who brought us Gangnam Style.

The playlist featured some of my favorite artists including Busta Rhymes, Major Lazer and Ariana Grande. He also included some songs I had never heard of before by great artists, like Alphabeat by David Guetta. Tim told me the drills he thought would go best with half of the songs and left the other half to my spin drill expertise. I played the new songs through about 4 times until I felt comfortable cueing them, then I called it a day. So much less effort on my part.

We had a blast, and I had to do so much less work! Since I had been promoting the class for weeks on Instagram, I had to appease my followers. Accordinglyyyy, after class we took some awesome photos and boomerangs to commemorate the occasion and post on all the social meds. Duh.

If ANYONE wants to guest DJ in the future, send over your playlists! I even take requests for single songs. The only thing is, I always reserve the right to VETO. Maroon 5… never gonna happen.

The full playlist can be found here. And while you’re at it, click here to follow me on Spotify to stay up-to-date.