Money Saving Tips

With unemployment looming around the corner like a weird uncle trying to scare you when you leave the room, we’ve been thinking about ways to save our money. Then we thought to ourselves, “Hey, we’re not the only penny pinchers out there. Unemployment is at like 7%, which I’m assuming is out of 10. Perhaps we should be less selfish and share these money saving tips with the rest of the world. Surely that will get us into heaven.”

Kristine:

Cancel your gym membership. 

Instead, pretend the world is your gym. Who needs treadmills when there are parks you can run through for free? Who needs weights when you can find a twenty pound child to lift? Who needs a personal trainer when you can run into oncoming traffic and let the need to stay alive motivate you to push yourself?

Stop buying experimental chips. 

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been like: “Ooh! Dill pickle Pringles? Who ever heard of such a thing! I shall purchase them for the experience. If they’re terrible, at least I’ll have a delightful story to tell about that one time I bought gross chips.” Even if the chips are decent, I never finish them because I KEEP BUYING MORE INTERESTINGLY FLAVORED CHIPS. It’s a problem - one that I think the chip companies have caught onto. I think at one point chicken and waffle Lays were a thing and I kicked myself for missing out on them. Who kicks themselves over chips? This guy. I’m pretty sure if I kick this habit, I’ll save at least $40 a month. No joke.

Sign up for paperless bill pay. 

I know most people do this, but I don’t. I like the feeling of writing a check. It makes me feel important. When you’re not famous, signing checks, contracts, and restraining orders are the only time your signature holds power. So I’ve refrained from converting to online bill pay thus far, but if I switch over I’ll probably save $1.38 a month in stamps.

Recycle. 

This is probably a good thing to do in general because everyone judges you if you don’t do it. Also, the environment is dying, apparently. But in all seriousness, a wise old Asian man who was rooting through my trash bins taught me that actually taking your recyclables to the recycling center will get you some money. And if you don’t have anything to recycle, just throw an expensive party wherein you supply all the alcohol and pay off a friend to stay sober and save the empty bottles.

Instead of eating, suck on a lemon and sniff rancid milk. 

That’ll kill your appetite real fast. Then you won’t have to spend money on food! AND you won’t have enough calories in your diet to be able to go to the gym you can’t afford. Two birds, right there.

Joanna:

Don’t be a leftover snob.  

If I see leftovers I’m like no, I already know what you taste like. And you’re probably  not as good as when you were fresh so I’m gonna open this other more fresher thing. And then only eat half of it, so that there is even more perfectly edible food that I won’t eat in my refrigerator.

Don’t like new clothes so much.  

Maybe try different combos of the clothes I have. Experiment with laundry - like if I wash my old white shirts with a red pair of pants - BAM - new pink shirt that I didn’t have to pay for.

Don’t throw out soaps just because you have to really shake the bottle to get it out.  

Combine it with your husband’s old soaps and form your own new scent concoctions!  Who doesn’t want to smell like Glacier Orchids or Denali Coconuts?

Look into siphoning your neighbor’s gas. 

Because I don’t want to siphon my neighbor’s gas.  I live next to these people and in the event of a zombie apocalypse I need to know I can count on my neighbors for shelter should my house get overrun with the undead.   

That’s it for me. I think I just laid out the foundation to be the richest poor person I know.

Us in a nutshell

I just realized we don't have any photos of us that aren't flattering illustrations of our faces. It's not that we're dying to show our true selves to the world or anything (we're saving that for our bios), but in case you want to put a face to a name or know who you're target is, here we are:

Left to right: Joanna (pre-haircut), me (aka the Asian one), and Whitney (aka amazing).

That picture was taken at the Burbank mall (home of top notch world-renowned stores such as Tuxedo Junction, Elements of Earth, Back Lot Adventure, and Straight Talk Prepaid Wireless) last December. It was in a photo booth where you take the pictures and then "draw" on them after. Here are some of the other shots:

Yep, that's us! We don't normally have a rainbow over our heads or sparkles in our hands, but we're working on it.

Conversations with Lilly

Hi Everyone, this is me and my daughter Lilly. I've collected some of my favorite exchanges for you all to read. These are the kind of discussions you can look forward to when you have a two year old of your own.  Sometimes she says the most outrageous things.  Sometimes I do.  Together, we have a good time.

Context: Lilly running at me with her stuffed alligator. (but in fairness she watches a lot of Jake and the Neverland pirates - so I believe she’s paying homage to the tick-tock crock.)

Lilly: Run, mommy, here comes a cock-gator.

Me: Yep. Ok.

Thought it inspired:  What would a cock-gator look like?  A penis with a ton of teeth? Or with scales and a tail? All three? I don’t know.

Context: Leaving Lilly’s school.

Me: “Lilly do you like your friends at school?”

Lilly:”No I like chocolate.”

(this kid knows what’s up. Chocolate doesn’t take your shit or bean your head with a toy car.)

Context: After doing my best impression of Louis Armstrong singing “You are so beautiful to me”.

Lilly: “Mommy stop. You are not funny.”

Context: Long day at work, I was tired and I was  wearing a cardigan over a dress on a hot day.

Lilly: “Mommy, it’s hot. Sweater?”

Me: ‘Yeah mommy doesn’t want to look slutty at work.”

Lilly: “Ok.”

Me: “OMG what did I just say to you?”

Context: Watching Disney Junior, with a bowl of dinosaur chicken nuggets.

Lilly: Mommy, I want a fuck.

Me: What did you just say?!

Lilly: A fuck for my dinosaur chickens.

After laughing for five minutes

Me: Are you saying “fork”?

Lilly: “Yeah. Sorry.”

Context: Lilly runs into the room,  naked.  She was wearing clothes five minutes earlier.

Me: “Lillyanna Grace, where are your clothes.”

Lilly: “Sorry, Mommy, they’re off.”

Context: After running out into a parking lot, Lilly got yelled at -pretty loudly- by me.

Lilly: Mommy don’t yell at Lilly. You’re breaking my heart.

Me: Well I’m sorry. But if anything happened to you, it would break mommy’s heart.

Lilly: Ok. You fixed it.

Me: Fixed what?

Lilly: My Lilly heart.

A Tour of Our Office

In order to promote the utmost standard of hard work and productivity, an office should be clean, organized, and functional.

Our office isn’t any of those things.

Our office has been described as a spectacle, a college dorm room, and something out of a CW sitcom. It has never been described as “a professional workplace environment” or a “good reflection upon the company”. Usually people see it and say “wowww...” in that long, trailing off way that says they’re both impressed and judging you. And we’re okay with that so long as people know we actually do work. Really. We do.

When you walk into our office, the first thing you’ll notice is probably the snacks.

We keep our office stocked with snacks. So much so that we might have to throw a small party to get rid of them before we leave. I don’t know how the whole snack thing started - probably with a bag of Pirate Booty and some Oreos to fill our emergency chocolate needs. But as you can see, it has since spiraled out of control. We have everything from popcorn to dry cereal to Girl Scout cookies. People come by looking for snacks and we’re like “YES! PLEASE TAKE SOME.” And then they hang out for a while and chat because they’ve been taken in by our magnetic personalities. Either that, or they feel obligated to be friendly with us because they just ate our food.

The next thing you’ll notice is that Joanna and I don’t have desks. We both work on laptops and if we’re writing we project it on the wall, so we didn’t feel the need to have desks. Instead we have couches and super messy coffee tables.

How many caffeinated beverages does it take to keep a writer going, you ask? Answer: an unholy amount.

You’ll also notice our decorations.

I like to describe our aesthetic as: orange. We have a wall o’ stuff that mostly consists of Chris’s artwork, pictures of my dog Ponzu, and random ads I ripped out of a Teen Vogue. Also on display: 2 one dollar bills (we won them from a lottery ticket, so they serve as a constant reminder that we’re winners), Joanna’s certificate of completion for a mandatory sexual harassment test (naturally we laminated that), an empty box of coconut popsicles (that’s a weird one. I’ll give you that).

Another thing we have in our office is a Whitney!

Whitney is our amazing script coordinator whom we love and cherish and yell at a lot. She’s in charge of keeping us in line, typing down (and making sense of) the word vomit we call “jokes”, and bringing sunshine into our hearts just by being there. We could go on and on about the wonder that is Whitney, but we won’t. Because we plan on having a dedicated post on her later.

We have a projector that projects onto the wall so we can all see the genius that Whitney is typing. Unfortunately we project onto the same wall as the door so when people walk by it looks like we’re just talking to each other. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had to convince someone that we’re actually doing work. And how many times we’ve had to close the SNL video we were watching to do just that.

Other things we have in our office:

A popcorn machine

An air hockey table

A dartboard (okay, I see the college dorm room correlation now)

An ample supply of vitamins and drugs

A mini fridge full of salad dressing and juice

A balance ball

A 5lb weight

A mysterious stain

A quote wall full of inappropriate quotes we shouldn’t post about

That pretty much sums up our office. We like to think it’s become a bit of a Nickelodeon staple in the time we’ve been here. Someone once told us they heard an exec talking about how they liked Nick’s laid back atmosphere and said “there’s an office full of ladies who work from couches!” Yep, that’s us. We love our office and the time we’ve spent in it. We will miss it to pieces when we’re gone but at least we have this documentation of it. We shall sear these images into our minds like seared albacore tuna.

Things We Plan To Do With Our Free Time

We’re gonna be unemployed soon, and one of the ways we cope with the soul-crushing emptiness of not having a purpose in life is by filling that void with the possibility of maybe doing something. Here are some of the things we plan on probably getting around to, if time permits:

Kristine:

Write. 

Obviously. It is our craft and we’re gonna keep it sharp by doing things like updating this blog and sending mass texts to our family. When we’re not writing, we’ll be writing. That’s how much we’ll be writing. It won’t always make sense but the important thing is we’re doing it.

Take some improv classes. 

One of the things that’s immensely useful in a writers room is to be able to think of jokes quickly. (It’s also useful to smell good. Just a side note.) So we plan on taking some classes at UCB. We’ll probably have to perform at some point and I’ll probably shit my pants but I plan on buckling down and facing that obstacle with aplomb and Depends.

Catch up on TV shows. 

One of the perks of doing what we do is that watching TV is considered “research” and not “being lazy.” One of the other perks is that Rainbow slippers are an acceptable form of office footwear.

Try a Doritos taco. 

I guess I don’t have to wait until I have a ton of free time to do this but it seems like the kind of thing I shouldn’t let pass me by and if I write it down I’ll feel beholden to actually do it.

Learn a useful skill, like parkour.

How cool would this be? Answer: head explodingly cool. And we looked into it and parkour classes in Culver City are only $15! Is that a valid reason for learning parkour? Probably not. By that logic you could say that making a pipe bomb is something you should do because the materials only cost $15.

Finish that scarf I started crocheting in 2009. 

This is probably the least likely thing that will happen. Yes, it’s behind learning parkour.

Spend time with people I wish I saw more often, like my family and friends who live in the west side. 

My family is an hour away so it isn’t easy to “stop by.” But I like seeing my family because I love them and it warms my heart. Also they’re obligated to love me back no matter how terrible I am. And even though the west side is technically closer, it feels like it’s forever away. I probably spend as much time agonizing over how long it’ll take to get there as it would take to actually get there. Only I’m agonizing from the comfort of my home as opposed to agonizing in the middle of traffic, trying to sing along to Adele without letting my face get too expressive because the other drivers give you funny looks. (Joanna: Oh I think we should do more expressive faces and give people a reason to pick up their phones while driving.  “Honey, I just saw this girl.  She was making the weirdest faces at me.”  CUT TO them getting a ticket and us laughing all the way to bank.  Why did we decide to go to the bank instead of seeing our friends on the west side? Eh. Less traffic.)

Get an oil change. 

Just something I’ve been meaning to do for the last 143,200 miles.

Joanna:

Do some pinterest-ing.

I just signed up for Pinterest. Yes I know, sooo 6 months ago. But I got there eventually,  so look out all you crafty DIY bitches out there - I’m  probably gonna think things that you think are cool. And then try them and post pictures of all my epic failures. But maybe not. Maybe I’m really good at making mason jar vases or paper chandeliers or sherbert.  You don’t know. Because I don’t. So really that wasn’t fair. You had no way of knowing. I’m sorry I was so defensive there. I’ll make you a sherbert to make up for it.

Would also like to take up French and the drums. 

I probably won’t do either but if you have any recommendations on how to get started for free -  I’ll take them.

I would also like to develop a “catch phrase” or a signature gait. 

Just a little something so people think, man, that girl is a confident little weirdo. (I’m hoping that if I do enough practice walking - I’ll  deserve every bit of that “little” comment.) (Kristine: I like how Joanna groups her interests together. Obviously French and the drums go together, as do catch phrases and signature gaits. I mean, it makes perfect sense to me but it’d probably be hard to track in like a Family Feud scenario. Because that happens.)

I am also going to try and meditate.  

Probably need some candles and like a floor pillow. Ooh and Enya or maybe just a wind chime.

I would also very much like to try a Doritos Taco. 

(Kristine: We can have a Doritos Taco day. Followed promptly by a Lettuce for Every Meal day.)

I would like to catch up with friends and family on the east coast.  

So my phone bill will probably skyrocket.  Well ok, I would like to  catch up with family and friends who are “in my Verizon network” on the east coast.  So I guess first, I would like to take a poll of my east coast friends and family on Facebook and see which ones are Verizon customers.  If you are an east coast friend of mine and you’re not on Facebook, or you are on Facebook but you’re not a verizon customer,  I’m sorry I probably will not be contacting you by phone during my unemployment.

And quite frankly we hope this is all we get to do with our “free time” cuz we’re not planning on having that much of it.  Dear God, hire us please.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is this?

A: It's a website for Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco, lady-writers extraordinaire. We'll be posting things sporadically - what we're up to, funny musings on everyday life, political views we mimic from Jon Stewart, that kind of thing. Maybe some kitten videos. I don't know. The pawssibilities are endless! Q: That was a really bad pun.

A: Yeah, well, that wasn't really a question. I guess we both failed at something today. Q: Who are you?

A: We're a lady writing team. We've been working for Nickelodeon's TUFF Puppy and Fairly OddParents but our time here is coming to an end. As we move closer to the nothingness that is unemployment we thought it'd be good to have a somethingness that is a website. We will nurture it, probably be really excited about it at first and do something with it, like, every day. Then once the initial excitement wears off we'll probably ignore it in favor of watching TV. It's kind of like having a kid. (Joanna: Lilly, baby, Mommy would totally pick you over TV. Most of the time.) Q: What's that smell?
A: Cupcakes or buttery caramel coffee. We usually smell like one or both.

Q: I like your faces.
A: Again, not a question, but I’ll let it slide this time because it was a compliment. Thank you! It was designed by Christopher Lee. He’s my boyfriend so he has to do nice things for me.  

Q: Why lady-writers.com?
A: It seemed like the most accurate and concise way to describe who we are. It also made us laugh to think that someone could feasibly think we meant "lady riders" and go to that website instead. They would get a very inaccurate idea of what it is we do. They'll either think we're a female motorcycling group or a male stripper company. But hey, whatever gets us jobs, right?

Q: Are you saying you guys are open to female motorcyclist and male stripper jobs?
A: Not really. It was a joke. We tend to joke around when we're nervous or bored or feel like we have to fill the silence. Heh heh. Puppy brothers.

Q: Right. Are we done here? I have a thing at 5.

A: Suresuresure. Get outta here so you can hobnob or picstagram...whatever it is kids do these days. Dr. Mario? Is that still a thing?

Welcome to our website!