2004-09-24 - 10:03 a.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Separate Ways", Journey

Tuesday, September 21

This contains a really long, rambly post yammering about budgeting, clothes, this season's trends, and the constant battles with the miser in my head who doesn't want me to buy anything. Men, just skip it. Women, if you like clothes, I'm looking for your perspective, whether it's similar to mine or way different.

Earlier this summer, Poindexter and I had a casual conversation on the couch about money. On this house, we put 10% down and put 10% on an equity line of credit, and then over the last two years we paid off the credit line plus an additional 4% or so). Originally we had intended to then max out the credit line again with kitchen and master bath renovations.

We already live beneath our means (we could live on just my salary and rental income, so P's income is for emergencies, investing, and fun). But true to our miserly, fiscal-conservative natures, once that money was paid off, we didn't really want to take all the debt back in the form of the credit line. So we decided instead to put off the renovations indefinitely, and instead focus on some smaller, cosmetic cash projects -- the availability of cool inexpensive kitchen cabinet doors from IKEA was part of what triggered this decision -- and save up to pay cash for the gut-and-rebuild renovations in a few years.

What this has done is change the way we view our savings. We already pay less for the mortgage+taxes+insurance than we would pay to rent a house like this one (much less if you consider that some of it is equity). The 401Ks are maxed out and our only debt is the houses. Instead of our monthly savings being money that had to go into paying off the house or paying off renovations, it now has become "money we can spend on frivolous things if we feel like it."

In Poindexter's case, this money takes the form of the Honda CRF 250X, which is his personal Holy Grail of Dirt Bikes. We're gonna pick it up on Saturday, I believe, at the dealership where my bike is currently being repaired. He's very excited. I can't wait to see his face when he rides it.

In my case, I'm spending what I hope is a one-shot deal of an exorbitant amount of money (by my standards) on clothes. It's far less than Poindexter's dirt bike, but not all of them will last as long as the dirt bike will.

I've been getting InStyle magazine for about a year now. I got it primarily because I liked looking at the fancy red carpet outfits and I liked the "InstantStyle" feature, where they put together different outfits for different occasions. But I never really took it very seriously, as in, applicable to my own life, until this season. This season I am in a state of feverish excitement about fashion.

At first I thought I was just getting more interested in clothes, like a stage. I had a guns stage, a hair stage (which is how I ended up with blonde hair by accident), a gardening stage, I figured now it's clothes. (By "stage" I mean "state of feverish excitement" -- I still love shooting and gardening and do each regularly but I'm not driven to journal about them, which is a shame because my garden was awesome this year and I must take pictures SOON.)

But that's not precisely it. I went back and looked at my summer magazines and didn't have any interest in what I saw there. Apparently I'm excited about the type of clothes that are available this season, specifically fall. It's all about TWEED! And pencil skirts, and circle skirts, and pumps with straps. There's something about the clothes that is driving me absolutely crazy. I am a tweed freak -- as I told Terry, if I don't watch out, my entire wardrobe will be tweed, and despite my perpetually peeking belly, I love clothes that emphasize the female figure without actually revealing a lot of skin.

I am just relieved that I don't like all the trends, only a few. Here's my list of "WOO!" and "Ick":

WOO!:

Pencil skirts
Circle skirts
TWEED anything
Girly sweaters
Flippy skirts
Berry colors

Ick:

Huge fur collars
Animal prints
Ponchos/shawls
That gross shade of green
Argyle with tweed?!
textured tights

I got no objection to fur, but I don't like it. I like feeling it, but hate how it looks.

I cut pictures out of magazines and made myself a wish list of items. Items that were far too expensive or really wouldn't work with my existing wardrobe got put on my wall. Included besides the above "WOO!" items were "tweed coat" and "fifties-style dress". I don't know if I'm going to get that dress -- I don't have much of an occasion to wear one, ever -- but lordy, they are so pretty.

Until the past couple years, I have not spent much money on clothes. I rarely paid more than $15 per piece. It's because I'm a miser. But then my mother-in-law went shopping with me and gently introduced me to the idea that there were some types of clothing that are worth paying more for. Specifically, classically styled, well-made clothes. Fully-lined pants! Heaven! I love those so much. I also discovered that since I am tiny, stores usually only stock ONE -- if that -- of my size of a given article of clothing, which means I had better grab it before the other small girls do or I'm not going to get it. Clearance racks never have anything in my size. I've also been paying more for shoes (often at Aerosoles) in order to get well-made, walkable-but-not-sneakers shoes. Used to be I bought all my shoes at Payless, but they haven't been comfortable at all lately, not even the "Highlights" ones.

So. I've been meeting more with clients this past year and expect to at least in the next two years (even more if Kerry gets elected), I wanted to get a few professional-looking items to wear to these meetings. Plus, I will be attending a public release of a paper for the Neverending Project if it ever does, in fact, end. And I had this idea that I wanted a tweed coat while I could get one. So I went to Lord & Taylor, a store I have not heretofore shopped at, simply because I love the building the store is in. And I discovered that the stuff in their petites section, particularly the store brand, was apparently designed with me in mind, and I walked out with more dollars-worth of merchandise than I've ever spent in a single outing. (I get 10% off when my new Lord & Taylor credit card statement arrives.) I had two pantsuits (black and brown), a purple/pink tweed skirt and jacket and coordinating plum work pants, a fitted pink cardigan, and a couple of button-down shirts. I basically bought everything that fit, figuring that I would discuss the purchases with Poindexter and make returns if necessary.

My inner miser had a conniption. After I bought them, I agonized over my purchases for the rest of the evening (trying them on, trying them with clothes and shoes I already have, re-trying them, etc.). Poindexter thinks these were all reasonable purchases and yelled at me to "JUST KEEP THEM!", but was wondering if I really need three suits to meet with clients 5 times a year. Except sometimes they're the same clients, so I can't wear the same suit all the time. Plus I *LOVE* the pantsuits and will probably wear them just because I can, and they are very simple and plain in style so I can probably get them to last over 10 years, as long as I don't gain much weight. But I still feel guilty about the purchase, even though I ended up returning a third of the items because I didn't love them enough, and the brown pantsuit (which was not the less-expensive L&T brand like everything else was but which fits me perfectly) was an additional third all by itself. (I think I mentioned that I have an fairly ironclad rule about not buying clothes I'm not in love with.)

So I am going through a bit of a shift in my idea of how much is appropriate to spend on clothes, I think. Affordability is not the issue; the issue is "Well, you don't need this" and "Is this really worth $50/$80/$200?" I used to shop in juniors stores (making it easy to keep to the $15 rule), but lately I've been wanting to shop primarily at Petite Sophisticate and Ann Taylor Loft -- basically the only stores that have my size in non-teenybopper styles. They have some really, really nice work pants that are around $79. I use the coupons, and many times I have been in that store with a coupon and left because I didn't love anything enough, but that's still more than I've paid for pants, like, ever.

Are you someone who will spend $200 on a pair of pants? If so, please tell me about it.

Poindexter says "Before long we're gonna be old people wearing bathrobes all the time," so I should have fun with clothes now, splurge a little. I suppose he has a point. :) His mother agreed. In fact, she has always loved clothes, since she was in her teens (I am a late bloomer, by contrast) and yet she shops at Marshall's a lot, so I asked Poindexter to ask her what she felt an appropriate amount of money was to spend on clothes. I know it should be OK for me to spend more money (particularly once in a while when the current trends fit my personal style so perfectly), but I wanted some sort of upper bound. MIL was no help:

Poindexter: Mother says if it fit and she liked it, she bought it.
Me: LOL
Poindexter: would spend $160 on shoes for one event.
Me: Wow.
Poindexter: Mother doesn't think you need to fret.
Me: And that was 10 years ago or more.
Me: Well, my instinct is not to spend money...
Me: So I have to give myself permission to do stuff.
Poindexter: You do!
Poindexter: I did!
Me: I know.
Me: I'm trying.
Me: I have a problem.
Me: Miser-ism.
Poindexter: Mother knows workiing broads down there [FL] that buy a whole new wardrobe twice a year.
Me: WOW.
Poindexter: Just for the seasons!
Me: WOW
Poindexter: Of which there are none!
Me: And here I'm talking about wearing my suits for 10 years.
Me: What does your mom consider a reasonable amount of money to spend on a pair of nice pants?
Me: Or a skirt?
Me: (like a range of reasonable)
Poindexter: nothing's unreasonable.
Poindexter: if you like it and it fits.
Me: Good grief.
Me: That's pretty open-ended.
Me: There's a skirt I like in the magazine, Prada, $1250
Poindexter: The walgreens clerk spends $150 per pair of jeans.
Me: What Walgreens clerk?
Poindexter: Fuck if I know.
Poindexter: some broad.
Poindexter: Mother says, buy it now because in 25 years nobody will care what you're wearing.
Me: LOL
Me: OK.

No, I will not be buying the Prada skirt. The marginal utility of paying more than $100 even for for a really well-made, gorgeous skirt is essentially zero to me. But with Poindexter egging me on, in addition to the suits and jackets, I have bought a few more things (mostly with sales and coupons and at outlets this time), which I will elaborate upon in another entry wherein I also talk about my inability to accessorize.

Meantime, I would like to ask you: What do you think is a reasonable amount of money to spend on clothing? On an individual piece, or collectively over the course for a year? Do you budget a set amount for clothes? Have you ever heard of a recommended budget for clothing? Leave comments anonymously if you prefer, and give yourself a pseudonym so we can keep track of comments left by the same person -- I don't track IPs. But I am very curious about this.

Friday, September 24

So, the Victoria's Secret Winter "Look Book" arrived a couple days ago, and I spent some time leafing through it, and much to my relief, I didn't see a single thing I wanted. So apparently I have not turned into a shopaholic, it was just the tweed and the 50s styling in the fall styles that triggered my feverish excitement. (TWEED!) At this point, I am making a little list of things that I'm willing to wait for clearance sales for (such as a crocodile-look structured bag).

I went on what I termed "a fruitless trip to Freehold" yesterday with my mommy, and found that the only things I was still lusting after were variations on things I've already got (like this, whose frayed hem is too trendy for me to pay that much for). So that was good. The trip was fruitless in that the main point of it was to go to Nordstrom to look at shoes, only to discover that it was one of the smallest shoe departments of any Nordstrom's -- indeed, smaller than the one at Macy's in the same mall -- and didn't have much of a selection.

They did have the two pairs of shoes I was interested in -- the Franco Sarto and the Via Spiga and I was horrified to discover that although both pairs looked absolutely fabulous, they hurt my feet. The heels were fine, the soles were padded, but something about the stiffness of the material made it dig into my feet. And I have really narrow feet! The Via Spigas, in particular, were EXACTLY the perfect round-toe shape that I like -- oval rather than little-girl round -- and yet, they hurt. *cries* I'm so sad.

But I gotta say, WTFF!? Two hundred dollars for a pair of shoes that are stiff and hurt? Plus I am getting really sick of trying to find shoes at this point. My "basic" color is chocolate brown and for some reason I'm having trouble finding the styles I like in that color. My mom says there's some guy in Doylestown who will make them for you. They probably cost a fortune, but if I don't have to leave the house to decide on the style, I get the exact style I want, and it is guaranteed to be comfortable and fit perfectly, I'm beginning to wonder if that's the way to go for the type of career and dress shoes I'm looking for.

Well, no use crying over spilt milk, is that the expression? Let's move on to the stuff that DID fit and didn't hurt. My purchases this season were:

- A pink knee-length wool coat with basket weave pattern.

- A classic brown single-breasted lambswool coat. Very plain. This is a ten-year coat, definitely. After I got it, an identical coat in camel showed up in Glamour magazine in the "what's your style" feature under "Classic". Ha!

- A black circle skirt, shown here with two pairs of shoes I got to go with the business clothes (yes, that mirror needs dusting):

The second pair of shoes are plum, to go with the plum pants. I was considering buying the black version, instead of the black shoes you see here, but I don't like how they look with the skirt (heel is too blocky and short). But they are great with the pants and I love the T-strap style. The 3-inch heels are not walk-a-mile shoes but they are amazingly comfortable for that heel height and my wimpy feet. They were only $28, too -- TAKE THAT, VIA SPIGA!

Among my more splurge-y purchases are: Olive tweed pants, brown/red houndstooth check pants, a brown skirt to go with the brown pantsuit jacket and a camel shirt my MIL gave me, and pink corduroy pants (not on the website, but "free" because of a coupon) from Petite Sophisticate, plus this fitted sweater in red (goes with the check pants and circle skirt) and pink (goes with the plum pants and tweed jacket). All of these pictures are too tiny for you to see the clothes well -- the colors are actually a bit brighter than the way they look there. Or else (more likely) I need to adjust the color settings on my monitor.

From Express, I got a flippy (tulip-style) cream/brown tweed skirt and deep pink cable-knit sweater.

I also got a couple girly fitted sweaters, one cream (with a little bow at the shoulder) and one brown (plain).

I also ordered a couple of Victoria's Secret jeans, "The Sexy", in stretch. It sounds tarty, but they are actually just are classic straight-leg 5-pocket jeans, they work with my boots, and they fit me perfectly. I got one pair earlier in the summer and decided I needed to grab more before they changed the style -- my hope here is not to have to buy more jeans for at least five years.

So, now I need to work on accessories, and on finding new ways to put these clothes together.

I have a set of colors that I think look good on me: browns, creams, deep blue, deep red, aqua, and deep pinks. I'm not really a fan of black or white, which I have gotten tired of because they are not really colors, and because everybody wears black. Seriously -- I stood on a corner in the business district on Wednesday for about 5-10 minutes and about 90% of the career-dressed women I looked at were wearing black. But I will wear them -- and I have a lot of black shoes -- because they go with anything. These are the colors I'll allow near my face. Other colors I like make me look jaundiced or gray (gray, yellows, oranges, light pastels) so they turn up occasionally in pants or skirts. But generally my clothes come in one of approximately five different colors, so they mix and match fairly well.

I noticed, though, that I have a lot of difficulty mixing colors. If I have a multicolor skirt, I'll match the shirt to a color in the skirt. I will match brown with cream (I love monochromatic looks, different shades of the same color, and I consider to cream/ivory to be very very very light brown), but matching brown with pink is not something that occurs to me offhand. I could probably match those olive tweed pants with a chunky plum sweater I've got, but that feels off to me.

I also have trouble mixing textures or prints. It would never have occurred to me to mix crocodile shoes or bag with tweed pants (even in coordinating shades), but I've seen this combination several times in the magazines and it is growing on me. I've seen people mix argyle with pinstripes. Is that cool? It looks odd to me. I've always envied people who can see different, unusual combinations of clothes rather than behaving like her clothes are Garanimals, as I do.

I've been looking very closely at magazine layouts and ads to see what kind of combinations other people are doing, and will try to apply it to my own closet. But I can't mix purple with yellow. Or argyle with pinstripes. I just can't.

Accessories are also hard. Jewelry I'm drawn to often doesn't suit me (I saw a woman wearing a chunky beaded necklace with a pantsuit yesterday and thought it looked awesome, but I could tell the necklace was too "big" for me), and or else it is so delicate as to nearly disappear, and not contribute to the outfit. A bag is something that I think of as utilitarian, but lately I've been really charmed by how a good bag can pull an outfit together, and I've always got crap I need to cart around. At the same time, the miser wants to know why I need a different bag for every outfit when black or brown goes with everything in my closet. I love watches, and it never really occurred to me to have different ones, but that could be fun. They have them at those little kiosks in the mall, so I could get funky trendy ones there.

One of the big things this season is the brooch. I'm not real big on brooches. But I wanted one to dress up the red sweater/circle-skirt combination, which is very plain. I've been looking, but everything I've seen is either not lovable enough or too expensive. Last night at my mom's it occurred to me that she had bunches that she never wears anymore (she seems to have quit wearing jewelry for the most part). So I asked if I could borrow some. I got a few gold ones from her, one a circle pin! She said she used to wear them when she was working (which means, before I was born!). She didn't have any red ones, though. Then she remembered that my grandmother's jewelry is still in the basement. So she brought that out, opened the jewelry box, and laying right there was a gold brooch with red stones in it. So awesome! Not only is it perfect for the outfit, but it has great sentimental value to me.

I will post pictures of myself in these outfits as I wear them (as soon as it gets cool enough to actually wear them! not that I am complaining about this warm fall), and you can critique my combinations and accessory choices.

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