August 26, 2009
Emotionally, when is it worth it to you to spend money to save time (sanity)?
Shopping for shoes on a tight budget is no joke, and flying wingwoman on a bargain hunt is usually my thing …. BUT …. after a particularly draining and unproductive 6 hour shopping trip through 4 enormous big-box discount shoe stores 17 months ago for a friend, I swore off in-store shoe shopping for the next three lifetimes. Very dramatic, yes. But Lordy!
We walked miles through soulless outlet malls, made all the more torturous by the hordes of screaming children and No Good Shoes. If we’d walked out of there with a halfway decent bargain, I would have been over the moon. As it was, we only found a single decent pair of shoes to even try and they were way out of her budget.
Recently, my only chance to spend some time with another girlfriend was to join her shoe shopping expedition. Teeth gritted, I agreed, lacing up my comfy new running shoes and lightening my pockets of anything that might weigh down my aching bones. “Haven’t seen her in over a year,” I grumped, “probably won’t get another chance before June next year.”
She picked a rather obscure (to me) shop, a wee little bit of a specialty shop, and didn’t name any other destinations when we set the itinerary. Another shrug from me, and off we went.
To my surprise, she spotted over a dozen pairs of possibilities in our first pass. That’s more than I see in full search of any run-of-the-mill DSW or Nordstrom Rack! (Then again, if I were the buyer, they would all have been eliminated on price alone. The cheapest regularly priced pair was $68!) My only job was to evaluate the look of the shoe, sitting on a comfortable couch, as the sales assistants brought wave after wave of shoeboxes. All told, she must have gone through 30 pairs, and they were unfailingly courteous and reasonably attentive.
After nearly three hours of sitting and chatting, lacing new pairs, and restuffing the unwanted shoes, she picked her favorite pair and paid $75 for them. As we sat and caught up over coffee and lemonade, I had a rather discomfiting sense that as a bargain shopper, I may have reached my emotional limit on the subject of shoes.
Once upon a time, not too long ago, I prided myself on finding a good deal on anything I bought, ever. Now, I might just hate fruitless shoe hunting enough to be willing to pony up full price on a comfortable, high-quality pair of shoes.
Honestly, that’s sort of disappointing. It’s not so much an unwillingness to sacrifice on quality by paying lower prices for a cheaper good. I just can’t stand the process! Seems like a wuss of a cop-out.
July 31, 2008
Know why? Because I returned the Martin + Osa shirts ($30), and only paid $19.90 (no tax!) for this one that fits per-fect-ly. Oh and I didn’t spend ALL of my travel money on Con (more on that later).
It’s short sleeve with a Mandarin collar, fits like a dream, is soft and stretchy and will go with jeans, tucked into business skirts – both regular and high waisted – and trousers. I did want fuller sleeves, but I can live with these.
July 9, 2008
My cable rate was up to $40/month for the past 6 months. When averaged against the other 12 months of the 18 month contract, it wasn’t a terrible price but then again, 18 months ago, I envisioned that I would be in a very different financial position.
Knowing that, I decided to cancel the cable service as soon as it was up. It’s not like I even know how to work our television anymore, anyway, so no great loss to me. On the phone with Dish Network, the CSR started asking me a couple of questions about why I was canceling and I took a minute to explain that I don’t spend that much time watching tv (er, none?) and that I wasn’t very pleased with the service quality.
He offered me a service with about ten channels for $10/month, and I was about to thank him and decline when he said, “for free for six months. Try it, and if you like it, it’ll only be ten dollars a month after that.”
Uh…. six months? Free?
Yes. Yes, six months free with some of my favorite channels (Food Network, History Channel, Discovery Channel) and he’s waiving the $5 local channels fee that I was protesting many moons ago. For life. He waived the local channel fee for life. Hum.
So, free cable for six months. Ok, why not?
Since we’re only a few days into the current billing cycle, he’ll apply it to this one, which means I can cross a $40 bill off my list of bills for the month.
And I might want to figure out how to work the durned tv.
July 8, 2008
My preference for Rite-Aid rebates, despite rarely going there since I don’t live near one, was always because I could easily submit the rebates online. Now we can submit our Walgreens rebates online as well!
Thanks to Kacie:
I just tried it out, and it was pretty easy. Go to Walgreens.com, click the EasySaver catalog button and click “claim rebates.” You’ll have to register for an account, but it doesn’t take much time.
You’ll enter a unique code from your receipt to show that you’ve purchased an item that generates a rebate.
June 19, 2008
For $3.50, I got some real mileage out of my small pink messenger bag from Target. Gosh, I bought that bag years ago, though it was after college. Well, it’s on its last legs: when reaching for a cable in the side, cell phone pocket, my hand went right through into the main part of the bag.
Just in time, a colleague came to the rescue! We’d been talking about where she gets her bags (she has at least a dozen, probably more, good-sized tote bags) because I’ve just been keeping an eye out. She mentioned that she was planning to get new makeup from Lancome, and they had a free gift of a large bag, and makeup bag with purchase. Since she’s got so many (ahem, high priced) totes, she had no use for the free bag.
It’s absolutely no frills: canvas, with nylon lining inside. No pockets, just the two shoulder straps with a minimal drop. I like it! It’s not the dream bag, of course, but who cares? It’s colorful, it’s sturdy, it’s free!
This will get me through a few more months, and even beach days. With the temperature in the hundreds, I’m not really worried about needing a closed-top bag.
June 9, 2008
My go-to cosmetic routine consists of Oil of Olay’s 4 oz bottles of facial lotion with SPF 15 and some Vaseline for my lips, or any other lip balm if I leave the house without moisturizing. This weekend, BD went on a drugstore run, and my lotion had expired a few months ago, so I asked him to pick up another bottle for me. I almost yelled: “Don’t pay more than $6!” but I just figured that he knows me well enough not to need that extra nag.
He sure made me proud: Longs Drugs had Garnier Nutritioniste Skin Renewal Moisturizer (2.5 oz) for 30% off, which brought the total to $9.44. Then there’s a $6 rebate on top of that, bringing the total to $3.44!
I believe the deal’s good for two more days, or at least the sale is (6/12). The rebate is good until July 3rd.
I’ve never used this lotion before, but I’m sure it’s fine. It smells like every Fructis product, yummy!
June 2, 2008
I got off lightly, but oy, I should know better than to take girlfriends to the mall for distraction. I mean, really. She “didn’t want to talk about it,” so she ended up buying shoes, twelve shirts and two pairs of crop pants. Spent juuust under $200. I have to admit, they were all very cute and work-worthy. If we were the same size, I’d borrow any of the stuff she bought.
I, on the other hand, having just said that I couldn’t justify buying any more shoes, found a pair of metallic multi-colored strappy shoes that will go with at least two dresses that I love to wear, but haven’t matched with any shoes. They’ll definitely go with a few other dresses I can think of as well, like all my black or green dresses. In my meager defense, I will say that they were originally $20, and were 50% off, so they were only ten dollars. I submit, my ten dollar shoes:
And the dresses I think will work with these shoes:
I did see some other shoes that were really cute, that were all gold, but I think this pair will be most flexible.
I swear, no more shopping!
