Health & Fitness
Perk up Your Spirits with Humpday Doggie Contest* 2.0
May 5th, 2010 | 2 Comments
Tags: Contests, Health & Fitness, pets, Shopping, Travel & Entertainment
OK, that sounds way dirtier than we intended… that’s wrong even to our ears.
What we mean is this: it’s Wednesday, that day of the week you might need your spirit perked up, and you’re a dog lover. And you’ve got the most stylish/adorable/talented/heroic dog in the world.
We want you to prove it.
Tell us your most amazing dog story. Got a dog who could perform an incredible trick? Who saved you from a fire? Found novel ways to communicate? Helped balance the checkbook? Or just does something really really, really cute? (Don’t they all?)
Write to us about your favorite bitches to win a copy of The Bitches. Post in Drop-a-Dime box or email us at info@bitchesonadbudget.com by May 15th.
And be sure to read Chapter 10, “Pamper The Bitch,” in Bitches on a Budget. Tell us what you think of our doggie ideas!
*Oh, and make sure you send us your kitty stories. Of course we love little puss.
This is our second pet contest and we’ve received the most to-die-for cute pet pix. So don’t forget to send yours in –even send us your video!
B’ Give Back: Keeping Sanctuary
May 1st, 2010 | Comments
Tags: B's Give Back, Health & Fitness
Saturday is B’s Give Back day where we feature a member of our community and how they give of themselves to help others. Since one of our favorite haunts is the bird sanctuary (there is a whole section in our book about it), we were delighted to receive this note from a self-confessed Prada wearing, mud loving fan!
Ann Linde wrote:
“I’m a Prada bag by day and Wellies by weekend girl.
I live near an Audubon conservation area and it is the most beautiful place to go for a day trip. I started by just going for walks with a girl friend. Then as I got familiar with the trails, I started bringing a picnic lunch, a Field Guide to Birds and binoculars. It’s beautiful.
I don’t have time for regular commitments but there are always ways to participate. Everyone laughs when I tell them about the Loon count, groups of us go and count birds in a specific location. Other days I go and spend a few hours helping to clear paths. I get to meet tons of people and volunteer for a great organization.”
Tell us how you give back and maybe you and your organization will be featured in an upcoming Saturday story. Just leave your comment above or write us at info@bitchesonabudget.com.
Given the events on the Gulf Coast our thoughts are with all those preparing to help endangered wildlife survive the looming environmental catastrophe.
Organic vs. Not Organic: Battle of the Budget
April 30th, 2010 | 2 Comments
Tags: Food & Spirits, Health & Fitness, Shopping
The Environmental Working Group * just released their list of pesticide residue on fruits and vegetables. They break it down into “The Dirty Dozen” those with the most residue from field to market and the “Clean 15” those that have the least. We like to buy local and organic whenever possible, but often times market pricing and conditions don’t cooperate.
So if you’re on the fence on when to buy organic because of budget battles, go to the market armed with this knowledge.
DIRTY DOZEN
Celery
Peaches
Strawberries
Apples
Blueberries
Nectarines
Bell Peppers
Spinach
Kale
Cherries
Potatoes
Grapes (Imported)
CLEAN 15
Onions
Avocado
Sweet Corn
Pineapple
Mangos
Sweet Peas
Asparagus
Kiwi
Cabbage
Eggplant
Cantaloupe
Watermelon
Grapefruit
Sweet Potato
Honeydew
Melon
*Click on the link to read the full article
The Velveteen Revolution is it Happening?
April 29th, 2010 | Comments
Tags: good parenting, Health & Fitness, Shopping
The Velveteen Revolution: Say No to Wire-Thin Models
A message to the fashion industry: If you want hangers to show your clothes off, then put a bunch of hangers on a cleaning-store style conveyor belt and send that down the runway. It will be way cheaper than ‘hanging’ your garments on wire-thin women.
The fashion industry’s state of affairs has grown increasingly disturbing. Even the Creative Director of Sao Paulo Fashion Week, Paulo Borges, said this week, “This situation cannot be ignored. We would like to propose a joint effort towards minimizing this issue and preventing the effects of this trend on models, on our industry and on society itself.”
Echoing Mr. Borges plea, today we call out to the fashion, media, and entertainment world for A Velveteen Revolution. Unlike war and peace, this is simple. The message: Just stop.
Stop peddling your wares using underweight models. This is perpetuating an unrealistic and unhealthy body ideal for girls. It is time to halt this practice.
1. Designers and manufacturers: Stop designing for and featuring clothing on emaciated models. Stop advertising campaigns featuring them. Stop airbrushing photos.
2. Retailers: Stop buying and selling the clothing that is being marketed in this way.
3. Modeling Agencies: Stop recruiting and sending out underweight models.
4. Magazine editors: Stop accepting sample clothing for layouts in too small sizing. Stop the excessive self-congratulation when you feature a normal size woman in a spread.
5. Entertainment industry: Stop featuring models and actresses who resemble skeletons. (more…)
Read It And… Eat?
March 25th, 2010 | 2 Comments
Tags: Food & Spirits, Health & Fitness, nutrition
One thing is clear: someone in power must have got their hands on Bitches on a Budget.
According to the New York Times:
“Buried deep in the health care legislation that President Obama signed on Tuesday is a new requirement that will affect any American who walks into a MacDonald’s, Burger King, or Starbucks. Every big restaurant chain in the nation will now be required to put calorie information on their menus and drive-through signs.”
Hallelujah! Guess we were ahead of the curve. In our book (see page 81), we insisted that every B in American 1) learn how to read a food label, and 2) “demand your local town or city pass a law that requires restaurants to post calorie and nutrition values on menus.”
Not to take full responsibility (we know others who’ve made this demand for transparency), but it goes to show that we B’s are on the forefront of change. (Read The Bitches for other hot ideas.)
Our mission is simple. We want to be healthier, empowered, happier eaters. We want to know what goes in our bodies. Yes, sometimes we’ll indulge, but we want to know exactly what we’re eating, not to be tricked or mislead. An educated consumer is a healthier consumer. We deserve to know that a Big Mac contains 500 calories, that a Starbucks Iced White Chocolate Mocha has 340 calories, that Panera Bread’s Frontega Chicken Hot Panini weighs in at a whopping 860 calories.
This is good change.
Now we just have to tackle increased maternal mortality, homelessness, literacy and the economy.
We’re on it.
A Welcome Madness
March 18th, 2010 | 1 Comment
Tags: Health & Fitness, mamas, savings, simple pleasures, Travel & Entertainment
Sunshine! March Madness! Baseball! Fiddlehead Ferns! Asparagus! Evening walks! Yes, we’re entering the heady, glorious season of springtime. After the slog of winter comes fresh air, sandals, kites in the sky, little kids tucked in bed while it’s still light out. Happens every year, yet somehow this transformation never ceases to amaze us. Daylight Savings arrives and it’s like we’ve been bonked on the head with a hammer for three months and then, just like that, the hammering suddenly stops. Ahh. Mid-March rolls around with new light and earthy air, but we have no patience to finish the warm-up. Meaning we want to have fun. NOW.
And yet we’re B’s on a Budget, aren’t we? No willy-nilly trotting off to Italy, no open-air meals at the finest restaurants, no spontaneous shopping sprees for Miu-Miu sundresses and floppy hats. We want to celebrate this luminous season, but can’t spend too much.
In this spirit, we’ve composed a list of free/cheap spring activities that’ll make your blood pump, your soul wake up, your heart feel a little freer:
March Madness. OK, watching basketball is an indoor activity. But nothing captures the nutty, passionate, youthful antics of spring better than college basketball. Study the brackets. Throw a potluck party. Admire those lean, sweating, gorgeous players (men and women). Then go outside and shoot some hoops yourself. Yes, you: PLAY.
Buy a hula hoop. Five bucks. Amazing exercise. Do it in the front yard with the kiddos. Entertain the neighbors.
Forced blossoms. A branch of barely budding forsythia will spring into bloom on your kitchen table, reminding you what’s to come.
Creepy Crawlies. Buy (or make!) the little ones in your life a bug box, and hand them a good old-fashioned magnifying glass. They’ll spend hours collecting worms and caterpillars and who-knows-what. Time to turn their attention away from Nature Programming and into NATURE.
Finally, and best of all, school plays. Spring is the high season of middle/high school drama departments. Support local talent by attending shows in your area. OK, some of it might be funny (we recall having some, uh, bladder control problems during a recent off-key rendition of OKLAHOMA), but the charm-to-price ration has never been higher. Applaud for the awkward high school boy who sings like an angel…. gasp at the strangely sublime beauty of a hundred souls belting “Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I’ll Love Ya, Tomorrow”. Remember when that was you? Give them a standing ovation.
Get up. Get out. It’s time.
We Like it RAW!
March 9th, 2010 | 3 Comments
Tags: Food & Spirits, Health & Fitness, healthy food, raw honey
We first started writing this blog under the cover of relative obscurity, (before we became really big bitches- at least that’s what they say about us now), we wrote about experimenting with rough raw stuff. We were addicted pouring big money into our habit, we tried everything we could get our hands on. Some of the stuff was nasty, dirty looking, foul tasting–sure to make us ill. Some of the stuff was so refined and processed we felt nothing. Then we found perfection. It was as though Smokey the Bear married Marshmallow Fluff.
Oh!
We forgot to mention we’re talking about honey. Raw honey. For those of you who missed our earlier ranting and raving on the pleasure of yummy raw honey we thought we’d share our earlier post hoping that you’ll share with us your favorite honey variety. Enjoy!
You know our obsession with finding the little things that make a bitch happy. That spoonful of sugar…well, not sugar anymore if we can help it. These days we’re all about honey. No, we’re not members of the healthy food police, but we do like to eat as well as we can. For example, when given the choice we take brown over white rice and wheat over white bread. Organic over non-organic. Unprocessed over processed. And honey over sugar in all the right places: in our tea, spread on toasted Eli’s health loaf, baked into our favorite ancho chili blue corn bread recipe (we’ll share, we promise). We’ve been experimenting with raw honey. Interesting. We’ve tried it all. We’ve explored the gamut of ‘raw’ honey—from the kind with a faintly feral hive odor and bits of bees in it (at least we thought we came upon wings and stingers) to a very pricey, waxy, raw clover blend with a bland odorless flavor. We’ve worked hard to find you the world’s best most delicious honey…and in our search we discovered something divine. It’s a lovely blend of that classic Smokey the Bear-container honey, fragrant wildflowers, and marshmallow fluff. 365 Organics Wildflower Raw Honey from Whole Foods is the one we love!
Tell us about your favorite raw honey and where you buy it.
Read Between The Lines
March 5th, 2010 | Comments
Tags: Food & Spirits, Health & Fitness
We never deny ourselves great food. Nope, us Bitches on a Budget believe wholeheartedly in yummy, satisfying, healthy, occasionally indulgent food. Our favorite food mantra comes from Julia Child: “Everything in moderation, including moderation.”
Food should make you happy… it should titillate… it should be fun, social, diverse…. it should keep you healthy… and it should be delicious. It is such an essential part of living it should be something you are literate about. That means not only knowing the provenance of your eggs and fish but also the nutritional composition of what you’re eating.
 In our book, we offer practical tips to help you become a more savvy, self-determined purchaser and eater. The first step to being an empowered consumer is learning to read a food label. Yes, B’s—time to get literate.
Click here to learn the basics. Trust us, you don’t need to be a math major to get your head around this stuff—browse for a few minutes and you’ll get the gist.
Here’s a link to an interactive site about making your calories count. (Although little sets our teeth chattering more than the euphemistic question “is it good for you” referencing caloric values.) Certainly we don’t want to overeat, but a smart B’s goal is a nutritionally balanced diet. And here’s the straight story on so-called “good for you” foods. Remember, a smart consumer knows that eating fat-free or reduced-fat foods isn’t always the answer to weight loss! (Never again make the whole-box-of-Snackwells-in-one-sitting-cause-hey-they’re-fat-free mistake. No more. Better to indulge in one of your own homemade chocolate chip cookies made from rich, natural ingredients—recipe to come soon, we promise.)
Our message? Eat what you like. Just don’t be gullible. How we eat says so much about how we live… so let’s start eating like the self-aware, fun-loving, empowered women we are.
Be a Video Star Contest
March 3rd, 2010 | 1 Comment
Tags: Beauty & Grooming, Contests, Food & Spirits, Health & Fitness, savings, Shopping, Travel & Entertainment
We never give up. (It can be kind of an annoying habit or a great strength–depends who you ask.) Anyway, we have this vision– the greatest piece of installation art on a Facebook fan page ever! We like to live without rules, be on the edge, we don’t know of anyone else doing this–besides this is FREE entertainment. Like all great art we’ve given it a cool post modern name: Video Contest: Script #1. Script you ask? Yes we going to give you two sentences that we want you to start your video with, the idea behind this is that we are a united community of struggling B’s all with the same problem. But each and every one of us although we share the same human struggle of being ‘bitches on a budget’ has their own unique way to look at this and we want to know what it is.
Video yourself (nothing X rated please) and post your videos here (click on the comments section right below the title of this post). As they come in we’ll re-post them on our fan page . You’ll be able to watch everyones and then we’re going to figure out a way to have everyone vote on their favorite videos. (Still working on it) Here it is start practicing your script:
Hi. My name is _______. I’m a Bitch on a Budget. Yesterday I went out and bought ________ and today I’m ashamed. Here’s what happened (share your sad tale of buyers remorse):_________________.
Finish your video with: Bitches on a Budget–I need help.
Lights, camera, action.
Keep The Right Things Up
February 24th, 2010 | Comments
Tags: Food & Spirits, Health & Fitness, Huffington Post
OK. We’ll be honest. We have a new book out and it’s our first. AH! So our emotions are a little raw. It’s a little like being unable to sleep on the plane no matter how exhausted you are. You know the feeling: it used to be the whole “if you’re not awake who’s going to will the plane up?” idea that kept you so vigilant. Now who can sleep when you have to keep your eyes peeled for what the guy next to you has in his underpants? (Boxers, briefs, or plastique?)
Anyway, we’re unable to sleep, glued to the Internet, watching as our Fanbase explodes on Facebook and our Amazon numbers mysteriously rise and fall by the hour. We still can’t figure out what the statistics mean, but we’re delighted that we’ve been able to stay #1 in the “Hot New Releases” in Consumer Behavior. Bitchy must be trendy.
As we’ve been on Amazon — stalking and willing on our book’s livelihood — we’ve been overwhelmed by all the books we encounter about dieting and exercise. As trendy as behaving bitchy seems to be, overeating, feeling guilty, and then punishing yourself seems to be way more in vogue. At least that’s what all the Amazon sales are telling us.
We’ve had enough.
What is wrong with all of us, so obsessed with weight and weight gain and diets? Is it the airbrushed fashion photos? The too skinny models? Why can’t we all just appreciate good food and get out and exercise the old fashioned way? When did a great plate of fresh pasta and tomato sauce become a nasty bowl of carbs? What’s wrong with eating homemade chocolate chip cookies? And, if you’re not a veggie for ethical reasons (we support you), an occasional BLT isn’t going to give you a coronary. Please.
How did play turn into scheduled exercise? Remember when you actually did the real thing instead of the fake thing? Climbed the stairs (not the Stairmaster). Walked the neighborhood (not the treadmill). Paddled the river (not the rowing machine). Smelled the fresh air instead of the inside of some sweaty gym.
You don’t need to pay people to tell you what to do (except for us, of course). Living a good life is all about finding balance in what you eat and how you behave.
So stop obsessing. Put your energy in a better place.
Bitches’ orders.
(We wrote this piece and it first appeared on The Huffington Post, Jan. 5, 2010)
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