let me gooooo .....
I'm a Flylady dropout many times over. Try as I might, I just can't get into polishing my sink. But the one weapon in the Flylady's arsenal that I unequivocally do like is the 27-Fling Boogie. That's the 0ne where you throw out 27 bits of useless clutter. If you're a naturally tidy person who throws out your junk mail and last month's magazines right away you won't understand the value of this drill. But if you're a hoarder/slob like me ... give it a shot and you'll see what I mean.
Thing is, I've got a few kinds of clutter that I have a very hard time getting rid of. Namely, high-end beauty-product clutter. I have shoeboxes full of all kinds of bottles and tubes and jars and compacts, some of them dating from the last millenium, that I will surely never use again, that I can't make myself toss because they cost so much money. In some ways these boxes serve as a salutary reminder to me not to buy more of this stuff. In other ways they're just my particular albatross and I'd love to get rid of them. Rancid perfumes, dried-up foundations, nail polishes that have separated--Chanel or not, they're useless except as a club with which to beat myself over the head, but the thought of throwing them away makes me feel horribly guilty.
Even so, I think I'm almost ready to suck it up and pitch the stuff. We all make expensive mistakes, right?
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Borders Rewards
I have a coupon for 40% off any book in the store, and I plan to use it :)
I know it would be better if I limited myself to library books, but sometimes there's a recent release I'm just dying to read, and anyway I've heard Borders is in some financial trouble so really it's practically philanthropy on my part to shop there. I mean, if I don't Borders might have to close some of its stores, and that would put people out of work, and that would suck.
Edited to add: I used my coupon to purchase the new Deanna Rayburn book, Silent on the Moor. It's one of those absurdly expensive trade paperbacks that cost more than hardcovers used to, but with my coupon it was less than $10.00 so I don't feel too guilty.
I know it would be better if I limited myself to library books, but sometimes there's a recent release I'm just dying to read, and anyway I've heard Borders is in some financial trouble so really it's practically philanthropy on my part to shop there. I mean, if I don't Borders might have to close some of its stores, and that would put people out of work, and that would suck.
Edited to add: I used my coupon to purchase the new Deanna Rayburn book, Silent on the Moor. It's one of those absurdly expensive trade paperbacks that cost more than hardcovers used to, but with my coupon it was less than $10.00 so I don't feel too guilty.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
My brother-in-law Ben drove the same Acura Integra for well over a decade ...
and used to get all kinds of grief about it from his law partners. His response invariably was: Sure, $25,000 would put me in a new car ... but if I take that same $25,000 and put it in the market it'll turn into $500,000 by the time I retire, and I think it's silly to spend half a million bucks on an asset that'll lose a quarter of its value as soon as I drive it off the lot.
Problem with Ben's reasoning is, it doesn't work very well in a bear market. With the Dow routinely dropping 300 points a day, spending money on depreciating assets such as shoes or Nars cosmetics seems perfectly reasonable, while spending money on assets that won't depreciate or may even increase in value, such as jewelry or first editions, sounds positively smart.
Le sigh.
Problem with Ben's reasoning is, it doesn't work very well in a bear market. With the Dow routinely dropping 300 points a day, spending money on depreciating assets such as shoes or Nars cosmetics seems perfectly reasonable, while spending money on assets that won't depreciate or may even increase in value, such as jewelry or first editions, sounds positively smart.
Le sigh.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Twenty percent off
Just for today, if you spend more than $175 at www.jcrew.com, your order will be discounted 20%. Big whoop, I know, but since Paul's birthday is in a week and his favorite jeans are from J. Crew, I went ahead and took advantage. (Apparently the Reformed Shopaholic is not doing that tiresome, pretentious third-person thing any more, thank Goddess.) If you've got a birthday coming up (or if you just had one), the code is SHHH.
Also, if you need to buy skin care, www.skinstore.com is giving a 20 percent discount through the 17th. The code is STAR20. SkinStore sells pretty much every high-end skin care brand you've ever heard of, and more than a few you haven't, so if you're just about out of something you need, chances are good you can find it there for less than at the department store, salon, or dermatologist's office.
Also, if you need to buy skin care, www.skinstore.com is giving a 20 percent discount through the 17th. The code is STAR20. SkinStore sells pretty much every high-end skin care brand you've ever heard of, and more than a few you haven't, so if you're just about out of something you need, chances are good you can find it there for less than at the department store, salon, or dermatologist's office.
Can't buy me love
The Reformed Shopaholic finds Valentine's Day to be profoundly annoying.
It's the day when men feel obligated to spend money they may not have, buying overpriced red roses that have no scent and probably won't open properly, to impress women who've been brainwashed by Tom Shane and the nice folks at DeBeers into believing that if their man really loved them he'd be shelling out the big bucks for some sort of a diamond-studded something.
Likewise it's the day when women feel obligated to don unflattering, uncomfortable, over-priced, badly-made lingerie from Victoria's Secret, to impress men who'd really much rather see them dressed in a tank top and a pair of men's boxers, or in nothing at all.
It's also one of the three days out of the year (the other two being Christmas and Mother's Day) that brings out the hidden aggression in department store perfume sprayers. It's chemical warfare all wrapped up in a pink satin bow, with shower gel and a silvertone keychain made to look like Paris Hilton in a fairy outfit thrown in as your Free! Gift! for buying.
It's not that the Reformed Shopaholic hates perfume. On the contrary, she loves the stuff even though she hardly ever gets to wear it because she works in a gym. She simply doesn't like the process of buying it. She doesn't like being pounced on by overly made-up salespeople working on commission, who invariably try to direct her attention to fruity florals and "aquatic" scents she wouldn't wear on a bet.
Thankfully, there are alternatives to the department store. If you know what you like, you can almost always find it online for less at such sites as www.beautifulperfumes.com. And if you're looking for something new you can buy samples at www.luckyscent.com and www.theperfumedcourt.com The sample vials are generally large enough to allow for at least a couple of wearings--long enough to determine in the comfort of your own home whether the fragrance is actually something you can live with.
Not only that, but if you decide you like a fragrance enough to want to wear it, but not necessarily enough to shell out >$100 that you may not have, to buy a full-sized bottle you probably won't get to use up before it turns rancid, The Perfumed Court gives you the option of buying decants. You'll pay a lot more per milliliter of fragrance if you purchase this way, but even so it beats paying megabucks for a vat of perfume you won't use. Of course if you buy a decant you won't get the pretty bottle, but if you're not into bottles so much that's no great loss.
Oh, and FYI, you actually can buy love at Luckyscent. Or rather, you can buy Love, a "soft and sugared elixir mixed with the orange delights of bergamot and neroli, warmed with caramel and vanilla." And a whole lotta jasmine, or at least that's what comes out on my skin. Basically, it's like wearing a jasmine meringue pie, and definitely it's not for me. Especially not at $225 for 50 ml. Sheesh.
It's the day when men feel obligated to spend money they may not have, buying overpriced red roses that have no scent and probably won't open properly, to impress women who've been brainwashed by Tom Shane and the nice folks at DeBeers into believing that if their man really loved them he'd be shelling out the big bucks for some sort of a diamond-studded something.
Likewise it's the day when women feel obligated to don unflattering, uncomfortable, over-priced, badly-made lingerie from Victoria's Secret, to impress men who'd really much rather see them dressed in a tank top and a pair of men's boxers, or in nothing at all.
It's also one of the three days out of the year (the other two being Christmas and Mother's Day) that brings out the hidden aggression in department store perfume sprayers. It's chemical warfare all wrapped up in a pink satin bow, with shower gel and a silvertone keychain made to look like Paris Hilton in a fairy outfit thrown in as your Free! Gift! for buying.
It's not that the Reformed Shopaholic hates perfume. On the contrary, she loves the stuff even though she hardly ever gets to wear it because she works in a gym. She simply doesn't like the process of buying it. She doesn't like being pounced on by overly made-up salespeople working on commission, who invariably try to direct her attention to fruity florals and "aquatic" scents she wouldn't wear on a bet.
Thankfully, there are alternatives to the department store. If you know what you like, you can almost always find it online for less at such sites as www.beautifulperfumes.com. And if you're looking for something new you can buy samples at www.luckyscent.com and www.theperfumedcourt.com The sample vials are generally large enough to allow for at least a couple of wearings--long enough to determine in the comfort of your own home whether the fragrance is actually something you can live with.
Not only that, but if you decide you like a fragrance enough to want to wear it, but not necessarily enough to shell out >$100 that you may not have, to buy a full-sized bottle you probably won't get to use up before it turns rancid, The Perfumed Court gives you the option of buying decants. You'll pay a lot more per milliliter of fragrance if you purchase this way, but even so it beats paying megabucks for a vat of perfume you won't use. Of course if you buy a decant you won't get the pretty bottle, but if you're not into bottles so much that's no great loss.
Oh, and FYI, you actually can buy love at Luckyscent. Or rather, you can buy Love, a "soft and sugared elixir mixed with the orange delights of bergamot and neroli, warmed with caramel and vanilla." And a whole lotta jasmine, or at least that's what comes out on my skin. Basically, it's like wearing a jasmine meringue pie, and definitely it's not for me. Especially not at $225 for 50 ml. Sheesh.
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