Not to be toxic
Which is like thinking that all our efforts to mitigate impending climate change disasters can actually work. It’s sort of too late and we’re too far gone. Everything and everyone is toxic. But have hopped off that bandwagon after realising that I wasn’t getting anything tangible out of it. Pay me $5 dollars- no, let me negotiate that to $20 - and I’ll probably do it. Maybe.

Time is money AND a commodity
I’ve started Ubering all the time when I saw that my hourly rate was over $70 (before taxes). I can’t be sitting at a bus stop waiting for the next one in 30 minutes because it’s simply a waste of my time, I reasoned. I’m too good to wait. And now, Uber rides have gone up like 25% and I’m thinking, I could have used that added fare for an extra bottle of Emma Lewisham Supernatural Face Elixir. So I’ve started bussing again and simply readjusted what I normally do like prepping meals the night before so that when I got home, I could start on the meal at an even earlier time. And today, I managed to take public transport, finish a gym workout in 30 minutes, dropped by the supermarket for some stuff and got the same bus back, all in under an hour (we have a 30-minute lunch-break and morning tea and I just worked through those). Save me nearly $30 had I taken Uber.

Be healthier
 have to admit that I’m slightly better with my health than my finances. However, I don’t want to be super aggressive about it and end up as a cautionary tale. I secretly revel in the fact that all my medical stats are good. But during my recent check-up and blood work, I got a younger doctor who thinks that my stats are rubbish. He straightforwardly told me to my face that I had the worst of luck because genes determine 75% of me, and that, it seems, there’s nothing I can do about it—except medicate, that is.

“Maybe it’s my coffee drinking,” I told him.
“How many coffees do you have in a day?” he asked.
“Eight to ten espressos.”
“Is that a lot,” he asked, “compared to a latte?”
I blinked. Mmmmmm.
There’s an earnestness there that’s missing from my regular GP, who I think is in her seventies.
“I think we can get this under control,” he said.
“What’s our timeline?” I asked.
“A fortnight- and if we don’t, we’ll find another strategy,” he said cheerfully. He has thin, ascetic features and wears rimless glasses. It’s the comforting, generic face of a doctor who believes that nothing is impossible in medicine.

I have my doubts, but if you’re receiving subsidized health care, your job isn’t to doubt it.
“Let’s do it then,” I said, smiling back.