Neo-Year Resolutions

Losing Weight

That Earth Faerie! She can be such a wonderful cook that it’s near impossible to get her to cater your holiday season dinner, but if you are lucky enough to have gotten a hold of her, I’m betting you and your pets put on a few pounds! There are a few things that you can do to help push those pounds off.

1) Stop accepting her quests for a little while! The Earth Faerie always makes you gain weight when she gives you a quest. Sure, you’re doing your good deed and helping her out, but as a reward she feeds you so much that you gain weight every time! Consider helping her but not eating her food afterwards. I’ve taken to sending her what she is looking for anonymously; thus I’ve done a good deed and still don’t end up gaining weight.

2) The holiday season brings the holiday foods out in spades! Cakes, cookies, and candies are just the tip of the iceberg. Loading up on fatty or high calorie foods will only make you gain weight faster if all you do is sit and watch the poogle races! Start cutting back on the sugary sweets and start piling on the fruity sweets. Both fruits and vegetables will help lower your weight for sure.

3) Get active and stay active! Alright, you don’t have to join a gym, 'cause, well, the pirate patch wearing Eyrie is a little scary, I’ll give you that. All those “Arrr, maties” while you’re trying to work out can get annoying too. Start looking for good activities for yourself and your pets. Exercise can be fun! Try playing Kass Basher or hosting a Snowball Fight all your own. Get yourself and your pets up and moving. You’ll have fun and get in shape all at the same time!

Saving Neopoints

Many of us went shopping for holiday gifts for our pets, and at the end of it all, spending all that cash was worth it to see their faces light up when they opened their presents. But let’s be practical, most of us ended up spending far more than we meant to. You can admit it; it happens to everyone. You go into a store, drawn in by their flashy advertising and low holiday sale prices, looking for one item, and you find five more things that the people on your list would love to have. It’s the holidays and these sale prices won’t last, so of course you picked them up. So how do you earn back all those points you spent? Here are a few tips.

1) Pick an amount to save daily. If you’re like me and like to buy things randomly, saving up can be a bit hard, that’s why I start small. Pick an amount, for me it’s about 10,000 NP a day, to earn.

2) Every day, play games or restock until you have earned the chosen amount. Then put it in your bank and leave it. After ten days you will have saved up 100,000 neopoints! It's not that hard to build up your bank account, you just have to keep at it and not spend your points foolishly. Resist the after holiday sales rush. You’ll be in a better mood and you’ll have your money still!

3) Add some variety to your earning styles. Games are a good solid way to earn points, but consider some of the riskier gambles if you are able. Restocking and the Stock Market can earn you big bucks with little effort, but there is a high risk involved in them as well. If you end up setting aside some points to restock with, make sure that you understand that while you may increase your wallet, you may also buy a dud that drops in price the next day, losing you hundreds! The same can be said of the Stock Market. Watch the trends of the stock you are considering for a day or two before committing, and be ready to sell sell sell when the stock is high. Wait too long and it will go down again.

Message Board Etiquette

Over and over and over! You’ve seen the same question posted again and again. People just don’t get it; they keep asking and you have to go into their board and tell them what is what. Maybe you get angry, because really having to answer the same question fifteen times a day could likely get a bit irritating and with it being the holiday, you may already be a bit on edge from the lines at the NC Mall. I’ve got an idea or two for you too.

1) Take a breath! Really, take a moment and consider what you are saying. If someone is asking for help, it is because they honestly do not understand what is going on. Going to their board and snapping at them about it is not going to answer their question any faster. If you are getting fed up with answering the same questions again and again, then don’t answer them. It’s just as easy to backtrack and move on to a different question than it is to sit there, get angry, and start rating about how the person has been on the site for ‘x’ number of months and they should know this already.

2) Make a petpage! One of the handiest things in Neopia is our ability to allow our pets to host their own webpages. With just a little effort, you could answer all the common questions that you seen on the message boards just once. It doesn’t have to be a pretty or flashy page as long as it gets the work done. Then, the next time you see someone who has that question, you can just direct them to the page and allow them to research their own answers from what your pet has written down. It’s simple and there is no fuss.

Pet Styles

It all comes down to one of the most common resolutions of any new year. Changing your personal look. Maybe it is that Darigan color your pets have been eyeballing all year round, or those new Royal threads. Or maybe you’ve had to drag one of your pets out of the NC Mall because they just keep trying on different outfits and exclaiming that they want them. Helping your pets reach their dream color or outfit can be one of the most daunting Neo-year resolutions of Year 10, but it can be done!

1) Pick a goal! It sounds easy, but this can be one of the hardest steps. Does your Uni want to be Royal or Island? With how indecisive Unis can be, getting her to pick a color can be hard. Do you have to pick just one, though? No! Now your Uni can get painted Royal and then Island and put back on her Royal robes. So sit down with your pet and take a look at what colors they really like. Pick an order in which you are going to paint her, so that you get the mixture of colors and clothes that you want.

2) Start saving up. Don’t get distracted by new items that come out in Neopia. Stick to your goal and don’t go spending all your savings before you are ready. Work on getting one pet a style before you start on another pet; that way you don’t end up getting confused with what all you are doing.

3) However, buy as soon as you can! Clothing and paint brush prices seem to change every day. Don’t miss out on your favorite top hat or paint brush because you waited too long and the price shot up. Get your bank account to where you have a bit of a cushion, like 50k to 100k, in there before you buy something really expensive, but don’t wait too long because the price may go up.

Hopefully this will help you reach your Neo-year resolutions! As with any goal the most important things to remember are to keep your goal in mind and make those small steps that work up to the bigger goal.

As for me, I’m going to go find that Earth Faerie one last time before I start looking for a gym.