Author Archives: cstudent

Month in Review – May Edition

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As I may have eluded to in a few of my other blog posts, I’m currently not working but will be starting my full time job in September. This has meant that I’ve had quite a lot of time to do a variety of activities, read a lot of books and think clearly about my goals. In the first of hopefully many Month in Review blog posts, I’ll be giving you a more personal look at some of things I’m getting up to, financial or otherwise.

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Reading

One of the things I have never been able to do while at school is reading (for fun that is), and I’ve definitely hit the ground running this summer. With all the free time I’ve had, I’ve managed to read the following books and more, which have all been excellent I might add;

Superfreakonomics

Already a huge fan of Freakonomics which I read way back in the day it seems, Superfreakonomics was just as good. I have to say I don’t usually think like an economist but it’s nice every one in a while to read a book that will open my eyes to a much more logical (but emotionally lacking) way of thought. Your everyday economist probably doesn’t discuss prostitution but these guys sure do..

Wheat Belly

Reading this book has drastically changed the way I eat, going from my student diet of pasta basically every night to switching over to an almost wheat free diet (I have to drink beer still of course). I didn’t believe that I ate that much wheat all the time but this switch has opened my eyes to the fact that wheat has become so intertwined with our diets in general. The thought of Sunday bacon and eggs without toast seems crazy right? We will see how long this goes and it might just inspire a blog post in itself- #wheatfreesummerliving (had to make my own hashtag obviously).

Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us

This one is a massive book but also one of those terrifying all your food is killing you novels. Read this one on my way to New York City and back and it was once again an eye opener. My fam and I don’t usually eat a ton of processed foods to begin with but whatever I used to eat (mainly crackers) will definitely be cut out of my diet. It’s a great (but extreme) look at the food processing companies in North America and beyond and how scientifically engineered our packaged food really is.

Please note* I definitely got all of these from the library..saving myself a nice chunk of change.

TV Watching

I’ve told many people before that I have a serious problem when it comes to watching tv and movies, I watch way too much. This month was no different since I’ve had some time on my hands. For this month I’ve dabbled in a few shows to get caught up for the new season of episodes or whatever awesomeness has appeared on Netflix as of late.

  • Veronica Mars
  • The Sopranos
  • Suits
  • The Mindy Project

All of which are amazing and the majority of which I’ve streamed through Netflix which is my favourite way to watch TV.

Who’s pumped for Orange is the New Black?!

Music

I realized that a horrible tragedy had been occurring the 8 months while I was at school..I was not at all in search of great music. I can’t say that it’s been a vast improvement this month but something I love to do since I’m always in search of some great music. Lately it’s been all too tied into my tv and movie watching where I’ve found some awesome (often Indie music) in the background of some of my favourite TV shows, I find it’s a nice break from the Top 40 crap on the radio. I also recently bought music (it’s shocking if you really know me), Breathe – Mermaids Exist which is a band made up of 3 guys, 2 of which I grew up with. Loved the songs so I had to download and show my support, check it out!

Activities/Things to Do

A few of my friends and I have actually decided to start trying out some of the best patio’s in the city according to BlogTO that is. We’ve previously checked a few off the list unknowingly, I guess we have great taste, and will continue to check out the rest.

I was also waiting until the weather got nice before I made the trip down to the Rogers Centre for a Jays game (when they open up the roof). I just went to my first game this weekend and will for sure be going to many more games this summer.

Goals

When it comes to this blog there are so many things I want to do/change so we will see how far I get, maybe a layout change + a new logo? You’ll have to wait and see. Plus there’s all the behind the scene’s stuff that I need to learn more about and take greater advantage of. Google Analytics is a powerful tool that I use but definitely not the fullest, so i’ll be looking into that soon enough.

Financially-I will only be working odd jobs here and there so it’s hard to really set financial goals for the summer right now. Once I start my job in September I’ll start to really outline my goals when it comes to finances. I definitely want to learn a lot more about retirement savings (scary I know) and ETFs and other forms of investments. I’ve only had slight exposure to stocks in the past so I would love to expand beyond that. Oh and those nagging things called student loans, I’ll be working on paying those off soon.

Travel

I’ve already mentioned that I recently went to New York City and absolutely loved it. I also just booked my return trip flight to Greece this month and will be gone for over 3 weeks. Can’t explain how excited I am and we’ve already booked our first few nights in Mykonos. I made sure to book with my brand new Visa to get some miles as well as booked through Expedia to get additional Airmiles through Airmilesshops.ca. Hopefully I’ll be able to use those soon enough for my next vacay. It’s going to be an amazing trip, really freakin hot and of course a great way to finish off my summer before full-time work. I’ll make sure to keep everyone updated.

This month in review is the first but definitely not the last. In the future I may even throw in some numbers but we will see how it goes. Overall May has been awesome (and thankfully the weather is getting nicer as well), so I can’t wait for what the rest of the summer months have in store.

What did you do this month and what are your goals financial or otherwise?

New York City Trip Recap

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After my previous blog post before I left for NYC, I figured it would be a great idea to provide a bit of a New York City Trip Recap. Overall I can’t say anything bad about the city, as a person who already lives in one of the largest cities in Canada I’m already used to the fast paced living that comes with big cities. Some people may have to worry about a bit of an adjustment period, but right away I loved it.

New York City Trip Recap

The Cheap Students New York City Trip Recap

Restaurants

A New York City trip recap wouldn’t be complete without discussing the food. It was unfortunate that the first night we arrived at about 9pm and it was pouring rain, but we still ended up finding a great restaurant located within walking distance of our hotel, Nizza. The restaurant was great given we basically stumbled in there to get away from the rain and didn’t look up reviews before hand. Another restaurant we tried out was 5 Napkin Burger which reminded me a bit of The Works in Canada but fancier and of course in NYC. It was a good restaurant but service was a bit slow. Overall, my favourite place was Pure Thai Cookhouse which was where we ate the last night. I’m a fan of trying out a variety of different restaurants and this was the closest thing to authentic Thai I’ve ever had. The restaurant was quaint and the service was awesome. We purchase 4 dishes and split them all, and realized how spicy Thai food really is. Loved this place and would definitely recommend it.

What I would do next time – Head to Brooklyn for a famous NYC slice of Pizza.

Getting Around

First of all, I want to thank everyone who commented on my last blog post-transportation is one of the biggest factors in NYC. If you don’t think ahead things can be costly, and they definitely had some great tips. I realized this when I got to NYC that you should NEVER drive there, it’s nuts, it’s crazier than Toronto and people are really aggressive. Take a cab, walk the city or take the subway. I have to say, the city is extremely easy to navigate, it’s a grid and the streets and avenues go highest to lowest..it’s a dream. I also want to note that in my last post I mentioned driving, we did drive but parked our vehicle in New Jersey at a friends place and never went near the city in the car (saving us some seriously inconvenient city parking issues). The subway system was also fairly easy to figure out and was inexpensive-it makes me a little jealous because of how lame Toronto’s system is. We also took NJ Transit back out to Jersey to grab our car and it was also super easy to use.

Daisy @ Prairie Eco Thrifter “The subway system is great there and easy to use. You can get anywhere on it”

Latisha Styles from Young Finances “If you rent a car, watch where you park. We got a $95 dollar ticket for parking on the street in the wrong location!”

What I Would Do Next Time – Fly, holy crap driving takes forever. It was budget friendly for the 4 of us to drive but those are 16 hours + of my life I won’t be getting back. Gas was cheap though..

Where to Stay

As mentioned in my last post one of the most important things is where you stay, and this was something I knew should be included in my New York City trip recap. We stayed in Hell’s Kitchen at the Holiday Inn Express and booked through Hotwire. The hotel had free breakfast and was brand new, a little cramped but what do you expect..it’s NYC. Also it had this awesome patio in the front where we always chilled out after a long day of walking, might have been my favourite part of the hotel. Overall found the hotel experience to be great but if you have a smaller budget Andrew from Living Rich Cheaply suggests, “that you can find better prices if you’re willing to be a little farther away (like New Jersey or Queens).” Something to definitely think about if I ever go again (probably soon!) without my fam.

What To See

There is a massive list of things that we set out to do before we went to NYC and they all would have been awesome to see but it just wasn’t doable. Some of the really great things to check out are (definitely a limited list);

newyorkcitytriprecap

Empire State Building – A view from below, taken with my wonderful iPhone 3GS.

Empire State building-great views, but there is a massive line. Everyone was there when we went of course (around 9:30am) and then there wasn’t a line by the time we got down.

9/11 Memorial-Honestly just a really moving place, and then you can also check out the Freedom Tower being developed nearby which is also a beautiful building

Century 21/Macy’s/5th Ave.-You’ve never see stores this big or beautiful, overwhelming but awesome. If you’re willing to put in a good day at one of these stores, especially Century 21, you will find some great deals.

Times Square-Duh…but in all seriousness, we went during the day and I wish I had of gone back at night. It’s just this overwhelming place that’s in all those cool action movies and stuff… Definitely a must.

Central Park-After walking around the busy streets of NYC for 2 days it was amazing to walk into a park within a city. Really beautiful, too bad we were dead tired or I would have stayed there forever.

Central Park

Central Park – A little bit of city and park.

China Town-You’ve got to go, it’s essentially a market where you can buy everything from purses, wallets, watches, perfumes. You can even experience people coming up to you trying to sell you some seriously undercover fake designer stuff. I didn’t try and I’m pretty sure it’s not legal but if you want to, test your luck. Also..did my very first negotiation in a market, got the guy down $15, must say I was pretty proud.

What I Would Do Next Time-Times Square and the Empire State Building at Night. And also find all the places they shot Gossip Girl, I might be a bit of a fan. Also I never went to any bars, definitely a must for next time. Also, check out a Broadway show and go to a Yankee’s game.

Miscellaneous

Keep your eye out for stars, famous people, athletes. My only celeb sighting was actually a player from the Brooklyn Net’s and was part of a mob chasing after someone near Saks 5th Ave. and the Rockefeller Centre (no idea who it was though). Be creative in your meal choices and walk the city. We walked 8 hours a day-burned a crap ton of calories and really got to experience the whole city instead of just being underground or shooting by in a taxi.

Overall I loved NYC and will definitely be going back again. Hopefully this little New York City trip recap provides a bit of a guide for those wanting to go to the city.