Sick Day

"So this will make my boobs bigger Mr Pharmacist?"
"No, this is for your chlamydia..."

Loyal readers, today I am battling a $hitty cold off and have been spending most of my day lying around in my room so I’ve decided to drag my sorry a$$ out of bed and do something a little productive like write a blog instead of watching the entire series of hoarders. Some of those people are messed up. I’m sure glad my life hasn’t brought me to the point where I am piling bags of my own feces 4 feet high in my bathroom and then having said pile of feces fall over and land on me, leaving me without the use of my legs. Luckily for me, all I have is a cold and a garbage bag full of snotty tissues, so it looks like all my exercising has helped to build up my sexy immune system. Now you’re thinking; “poor baby, using his financial blog to turn this into some personal blog where the writer just pauses and reflects on how terrible their day is going and hopes that someone out there will show they care by virtually wiping my nose” - right? Well you’re wrong! Getting sick is one of the best ways that you can save (and lose) money! This blog is about all the pros and cons of getting sick on a budget.

Ok, let me start off with some really good news. I have a permanent job now! That means I’m going to be getting sick pay (starting on the 21^st of March), holiday pay, vacation pay, pension, health coverage, the whole kit and caboodle! So isn’t it ironic that I would get sick a week before I get sick pay.  This is nothing new for me though. I have been going without any paid sick time in about 7 years and I think that’s something that many of us can relate too. We can’t plan when we get sick, but we can plan ahead for the days when we will be sick. Usually colds and flus arrive around the same time you see ads on TV for cold and flu medication (hmm). For me, my cold was starting to form last Wednesday, but I decided to have some drinks to celebrate the end of working contracted work the next 20 years which seems to have opened the floodgates for Mr. Mucus to come waltzing in. Let me tell you, if you feel a cold coming on, the last thing you should be spending money on is alcohol and start spending on cold medication. Both will get you feeling pretty buzzed, but cough meds will actually help to alleviate cold symptoms, whereas the alcomaboozeahol seems to enhance them.  Or maybe it’s just me and hot toddys are your cure for everything.  

I’ve been told about all kinds of remedies for a cold, but the only thing that really seems to work is called sleep. Sleep is completely free and it feels wonderful. Here’s what you do, take your bed, put some sheets, blankets, and pillows on it, and then close your eyes and doze off into cold-killing mode. It works wonders. When you can’t sleep because your throat is so sore and your nose so plugged with boogers that it hurts to breathe, that’s when you turn to medicine. Now listen, I know that some people think when it comes to medicine that “the more the merrier” is the best policy and that only “name brand” medications will do the trick; well I’m here to tell you that those ways of thinking are all bull$hit.

Ask your pharmacist for the store-brand
 "morni-cookyourowndamnbreakfast!"

The real way to find out what will work is to start with a trip to the pharmacy. Talk to that really good looking pharmacist (who unfortunately only gets to see you when you look like total garbage) and describe your symptoms. 9.5 times out of 10, they will know just what you need to take to get better faster. Once they show you which medicine to take, ask them what the equivalent knock-off brand is and save yourself some money. Trust me, I have tried name brand vs store brand versions off drugs and it really makes no difference. When I talk to my pharmacist, they tell me that it’s the key ingredients that matter and not the sugar and other crap that they put into the medicine. This also works for prescription medication that your doctor prescribes you. Did you know that you can ask your pharmacist to give you the knock-off brand on your prescriptions as well? This is true for inhalers, antibiotics, and heart medications (all things that I have had to take).

So we lose money by taking sick days, so how the h-e-double hockey sticks do we save money? That’s simple; you have to cancel most if not all money spending obligations. You can’t drink, you can’t go out to eat (what’s the point if everything tastes like Styrofoam) so you lie around in your housecoat and underpants unshaven for the past 4 days and write a blog entry; easy as pie. If you’re really good at getting sick, you’ll get sick for the entire weekend (like me) and you’ll have no choice but to save!

Does this lollipop taste like mercury to you too?

Sometimes you can actually make money being sick. Friends stop by with homemade soups, ginger ale, orange juice, movies, and a plethora of other wonderful things to make your $hitty day not so $hitty. It’s also a great time to call up friends and family and chat for hours on end. It’s not like you’re going anywhere, so why not listen to Grandma’s story about the guy hitting on her on the bus, or Grandpa’s story about those damn teenagers who keep skateboarding on the sidewalk? Before you know it, you’ll be feeling great and able to go back to work. On second thought, does anyone with chicken pox want to come over and cuddle?

Thanks for reading this one. I’m writing it while drinking store-brand NeoCitron so I don’t promise that any of this entry will make sense whatsoever.

XO (cough, cough)

John