June 27, 2008
No sooner do I blink, the pants are gone
Seriously, in a day, these pants went on Final Sale for $19.98 which I could completely afford …… and all the khaki, not size 16 petite, pants are GONE.
I guess we weren’t meant to be.
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family
Farewell to the best boy in the world
About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
Read MoreAnn Taylor “sale” price still holding strong
Ough, I’ve been eyeing these cropped pants from Ann Taylor for what seems like an age. It’s probably been about a month since I tried the 00P, and found that they fit a treat.
I’d been wanting to replace my old capris for a few years now, having gotten rid of them long before I ever found a substitute pair, because they were really stretchy, formfitting, and too casual for work. Heck, sometimes I felt like they were just too casual at all.
As usual, they fit, but the price didn’t. On sale, they were $50. Nuh-uh, that’s way too expensive! I do have a gift card (heh, of course) but only for $30 and I’m not willing to spend that much on a pair of pants.
Just checked on them again today, and they’re still $50. Looks like AT’s will is still stronger than mine. Or is that the other way ’round since I still refused to buy them? Actually, it’s a draw right now. Le sigh. Oh well. I’ll just keep checking back. If the price drops to a gift cardable level and they still have my size, we were meant for each other. If not, I’ll live.
Finally tried my local farmer’s market
It’s almost shameful that it’s taken me this long to try our local farmer’s market. It’s only a few step from my train stop, and it’s usually going strong from April through October, 5-8 pm, once a week. The biggest obstacle has always been that the closest booths to the train station are the food booths, with kettle corn, funnel cakes (mmmmmm), and bbq stands all in the way of my fresh produce. Fearing for my wallet, I’ve simply never deemed it a worthwhile endeavor to out-willpower the funnel cake.
Today, I marched myself all the way to the produce area and found my three tomatoes, three short and fat cucumbers, and a pound of green beans for all of $3.73!
The green beans look super fresh, and the tomatoes and cucumbers should hold me over until our harvest at home. I think we should be ripe and ready for picking in about a week or two?
Wonderful SoCal weather and soil that we have, our plants have blossomed and fruited in what seems like no time at all.
June 26, 2008
Ach, I’m one of THOSE people now
Boston Gal’s posting of this WSJ article about folks who are cutting back on their retirement savings made me feel guilty.
I know that I had a perfectly good reason for doing it, but it still stings that not only did I cut down, massively, on contributions, my account keeps dropping like a rock and doesn’t even reflect the amount of contributions I’ve been making since the beginning of the year. At this rate, I’ll never crack $25,000! [I’m not talking about overall, just between the 401(a) and 403(b).]
Ok, that’s not guilt I’m feeling, I’m just disheartened.
The important things to remember:
1. The reduction is temporary. It does not affect my match because I’m maxing out the 401(a) which is the only account that is matched.
2. Finances have to be flexible to accommodate when life happens. Obstacles are inevitable, and stubbornly stashing hefty amounts in my retirement fund while cash flow suffers does not make sense.
3. I’m simultaneously working on reducing all expenses so as to narrow the gap between expenses and income. This reinforces the temporariness of this solution. I’d like to see the gap closed in a matter of months, but it’ll take some more mathing, when I have time.
Selling the truck: Nary a bite
This is getting tres frustrating. I know the economy’s tanking so it’s going to take a while, way to go me for waiting this long to sell the truck, but still, it tries my soul that there has been absolutely no response to my Craigslist ad in the past several weeks. Not even a single flaky, half-interested email. None. Zip. Nada. Zilch. Nothing.
I went to AutoTrader and found that they don’t even have their 90-day, sell or get your money back guarantee anymore. Dangit!
I’m doing so well with the little things, but the big things are really breaking my budget.
So, am I a standard, enhanced or deluxe ad buyer? I’m so anxious to get rid of the thing that I’m willing to consider springing for the deluxe ad!
Standard: $29
Enhanced: $49
- Magazine Ad
- Single Photo
- Thumbnail Photo
Deluxe: $79
- Magazine Ad
- Single Photo
- Thumbnail Photo
The mood I’m in? I just want to spring for the $79 and pray for the best. It’d feel worth it get the craptacular payments off my expense sheet!
June 25, 2008
Fashion Meets Finance event
What a disappointment. The title of this event, Fashion Meets Finance, had me jazzed, until I read the article. Then I was just completely disgusted:
The invitation for the Fashion Meets Finance event held last Thursday at Taj read, “Women in fashion need men who can facilitate their pre-30 marriage/retirement plan ā¦ And men in finance need women who will allow them to leverage their career in their dating equity.”
Can these people really be serious? Can people really be so shameless?
Apparently, there are so many people out there happy to attend such an event, “over 1,000 ā twice the capacity of Taj) that the organization would have to turn away more than half of them.”
Ugh. This completely tops my disgust over the glorification of prom.
Purging regrets
Whoops. I’d mentioned before that I have this weird cycle of either acquiring or divesting myself of stuff. Sometimes I’m ruthless, other times I’m sensible about the decisions to keep or not to keep, but most times I assume that if I hadn’t worn it up until that point, I won’t want to ever again.
Apparently, I’m wrong about that.
The weather has been insanely hot of late, hot enough that my usual uniform of jeans and a shirt was unbearable. Sorry, FB, it was the weather that forced me to finally follow my resolution to dress better for work, not a sense of fashion. Or shame. š
I’ve broken down and been wearing dresses and skirts to the office. This is quite the rarity, and while I have a lot of dresses, some of which date as far back as early high school, I don’t have that many office-appropriate dresses. I’ve been pairing tank tops (that are still cool and much more appropriate layered than alone), or 3/4 sleeve button downs with skirts to stretch the summer wardrobe. While contemplating what other spring and work appropriate items I could pull out from storage, I realized there was one dress that would work, from high school graduation: it was a nice, stretchy darker lilac material and ran a bit longer than knee-length. Not the maxi-dress, but not too casual, either. Unfortunately, I decided several months ago that I had too many dresses and I could well part with that one because I’d not worn it in years.
It’s rare that I regret clearing out the closet, and the one-in-one-out method, but I’ve really got to rethink my keep or toss strategy.