Today in the News

Oooh, it's a good day for finance related news today:
People are cutting back their spending, even in Europe.
Meanwhile, politicians are using taxpayer money to guzzle gas.
Despite inflation, there are still stores where every item of clothing costs less than $10.
Fewer immigrants are sending money back home.
And there's an editorial on why a temporary gas tax cut is a bad idea.

But enough about the world, what about ME!?!?!
My last 5 financial transactions were:
$3.35 on breakfast (cash)
$4.42 on lunch yesterday (cash)
$3.35 on breakfast yesterday (cash)
$23.18 on Chinese takeout for dinner the last two nights (credit card)
$31.19 to ConEd (e-payment from checking account)

Okay, maybe the world is more interesting.

Customized, at a Cost

Ok, yesterday's post was indeed an April Fool's joke: much as I'd like my blog to make more money, I don't plan on getting into the merchandise business. But to those of you who are disappointed by that, I'll just point out that the 3 items I mentioned are all things that can really be bought online!

You can go to the Converse website and create your own customized shoes, with a variety of materials and colors. You select your options, they're displayed on screen, and then 2-4 weeks after you order, your unique Chucks arrive! I am seriously tempted to get a pair of suede ones, though perhaps not quite in the colors I displayed below. Actually, what's dangerous is that when you play around on the website, you have too much choice! I came up with about a dozen color combinations I could imagine wearing! But $75 is kind of a lot of money for such simple shoes. (The regular canvas ones tend to retail for $42 or less. Even that seems like a lot when I remember buying my first pair at an Army/Navy store for about $16, back when I was in high school and they were considered kind of punk!) It's still cheap compared to many other sneakers, though, and I do like the idea of having a pair that looks exactly the way I want them to. Do you think it's worth the money?

How about the Kleenex? Again, you really can buy these at the Kleenex website. I know some people can't stand to have their decor thrown off by a clashing Kleenex box. When my mother was visiting last year and wanted to help me decorate, a tissue box cover was one of the first things she wanted to buy for me. My own opinion was that it was the last thing I needed! It's not like looks don't matter to me-- they do. But I'm just not extreme enough about it to want to spend $15 or more on a tissue box cover, and I really don't see why anyone would want to pay $5 for a customized Kleenex box that is totally disposable. Sure it makes a fun wedding favor, but for everyday use, I would never spend the money. Even the regular oval boxes they have in the store come at a big markup compared to the usual ugly square and rectangular boxes, so I won't buy them, despite their cooler looks.

In any case, it's fascinating that we now have the technology to produce such things cheaply enough for them to be a mass-market item. It used to be that customization was only for things like tailor-made suits and shirts that were going to be really expensive anyway. And to me, something like a suit or shoes being custom-made is more worthwhile anyway-- if I made a bit more money, I would much rather spend the big bucks on a few perfect-fitting items of clothing than on off-the-rack stuff.

What's your opinion? Do you think customized items like this are worth the money? Have you ever purchased this type of item?

Dumb Money, Smart Money, Fat Money

I don't know where my head was last week. I ate dinner in a restaurant Thursday night, and paid for it with the Visa card I use all the time. Then on Sunday afternoon, I went to buy a couple of clothing items I'd found on sale (Ann Taylor Loft!) and freaked out when I couldn't find my Visa in my wallet. It took me a while to remember that the last time I'd used it was that Thursday dinner. The funny thing is that I actually did "use" it Friday night to pay for a delivery of Indian food, but since I have the number memorized, I didn't need the actual card itself and didn't notice it was missing!
Fortunately I was able to call the restaurant and they were holding onto my card for me. And no unauthorized charges had appeared on my account, much to my relief as a friend of mine just had to have her card suspended because of $7,000 worth of fraudulent charges at gas stations in Florida!
I didn't spend all that much at Ann Taylor, but I was a bit annoyed to have to put it on my Amex instead of the Visa. I was trying to rack up all the frequent flyer miles I could in hopes that I could reduce the cost of this year's big vacation trip... but I just called United and discovered that I couldn't get award seats on the flights I'd need anyway, so no great loss. Maybe next trip!

Part of the reason I didn't need my credit card the rest of the weekend was that I did some cooking with a friend. We bought the ingredients for two big batches of lasagna, for which she taught me her own recipe. So Saturday dinner, Sunday dinner and Monday lunch have been lasagna, and I have plenty left in the freezer. This was definitely an economical way to cook, but given the huge amount of cheese that went into this lasagna, I'm not sure it's all that healthy! If I keep eating like this I'll need to keep buying more new clothes, in ever larger sizes...

Women and Aging: Expensive No Matter What!

Here's another article I enjoyed from last Thursday's Times:

Nice Résumé. Have You Considered Botox?

We women just can't get a break sometimes. According to this article, if you let yourself age naturally, it will cost you money because you'll be passed over for jobs. If you combat aging with surgery, lotions, injections, etc., that will cost you money too! You can also spend $25.99 (or $14.29 at Amazon) on this book by Charla Krupp called "How Not to Look Old:"

The book is the latest makeover title to treat the aging of one’s exterior as a disease whose symptoms are to be fought to the death or, at least, mightily camouflaged. But the book offers a serious rationale for such vigilant attempts at age control, arguing that trying to pass for younger is not so much a matter of sexual allure as of job security.

“Looking hip is not just about vanity anymore, it’s critical to every woman’s personal and financial survival,” according to the book jacket.

Promoted recently on Oprah Winfrey’s show and “Today,” the book clearly speaks to the fears of professional obsolescence and economic vulnerability among women over 40, at whom it is aimed. “How Not to Look Old” made its debut on the New York Times best-seller list last week at No. 8 in the advice and how-to category.

Ok, on a gut level, this is nothing new to most people, but the article mentions a study that puts it in concrete terms:

In one study on hiring practices, for example, a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology applied to entry-level jobs in Boston and St. Petersburg, Fla., by sending out 4,000 résumés as a female job applicant; the résumés varied the year of high school graduation, which dated the job seeker as being from 35 to 62.
The study, published in 2005 by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, found that younger women were 40 percent more likely to receive an offer of a job interview than women over 50; a woman over 50 in Boston would have to send in 27 résumés just to get one job interview, where a younger woman would have to send in only 19, the study said.
“Seeming young can definitely help your economic status, and that pays the rent,” said Joanna N. Lahey, the author of the study, who is now an assistant professor of public policy at Texas A & M.

Given that the jobs applied to were "entry level," the age discrimination might have involved a fear that the older applicant would be more likely to want more money or not stay in the job very long. Also, the study doesn't prove anything one way or the other about how LOOKING old affects your employability since the candidates were judged on their resume and the age it implied, not their face-to-face appearance. Who knows, maybe a thin, attractive and well-dressed older woman with grey hair and a few wrinkles would be more frequently offered a job than a younger woman who was un-stylish, overweight, and ugly.
But also, you have to remember how this plays out with men: older men are just more likely to be considered "attractive" than older women, and even if they aren't considered particularly "attractive" it doesn't seem to be as big a detriment to their careers. Look at all the major political figures we see in the news lately: there's no accounting for tastes, but Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, John Edwards-- all those guys would be generally seen as "attractive," I'm sure. John McCain? Rudy Giuliani? Dennis Kucinich? Mike Huckabee (at any weight)? Now you're talking about guys who are not that cute. But what about the women who are national figures? Nancy Pelosi? Condoleezza Rice? Maybe not everyone would agree, but I would say they are much higher on the attractiveness scale, and Hillary Clinton looks pretty good these days, even if she is never going to be considered a great beauty and has been the butt of way too much criticism over her earlier fashion mistakes. It's not like attractiveness is 100% necessary to succeed in politics, but something tells me that if we ever have a woman president, she will be well above average in terms of her appearance!

The article acknowledges the notion that it might be politically uncorrect, to say the least, to play along with any of our society's prejudices about appearance instead of working to change them:

Many people would shun a book if it were titled “How Not to Look Jewish” or “How Not to Look Gay” because to cater to discrimination is to capitulate to it. But the success of “How Not to Look Old” indicates that popular culture is willing to buy into ageism as an acceptable form of prejudice, even against oneself.

Even women who would probably identify themselves as feminists put a value on appearance and youthfulness, while trying to say it shouldn't be a basis for discrimination:

[Faye] Wattleton, 64, described people’s outward aging and their decisions to ameliorate it as personal choices that others should not judge.

“Being a person who has had plastic surgery and goes to the gym five days a week to work my muscles up so they don’t look atrophied as a 6o-year-old, I don’t disparage people who want to maintain their appearance,” said Ms. Wattleton, a former director of Planned Parenthood. “But what I don’t want is a society that tells me I have to.”

Ms. Krupp argues that economic pressures require most women to adopt age-management techniques. As her book puts it: we cannot afford to let ourselves go!

“What are we going to do if we have to enter the work force at a ripe old age?” Ms. Krupp said last week. “Out of necessity, you can disguise the age you are by looking younger, hipper and fresher.”

She added that Americans of one class, religion or ethnicity have often tried on other identities if they appeared to confer some professional or economic advantage.

“There was a book on how not to look Jewish,” Ms. Krupp said. “It was called ‘The Preppy Handbook’ and it was a best seller.”

Yeow! Of course that book would not have been a best seller under a more blatant title...

But back to the age thing, frankly, I think there is a lot more to this issue than wanting to be employed, or how society discriminates. We all want to look young and feel young so we can believe we are that much further away from dying! And perhaps, further away from having to start tapping into our retirement accounts...

Working on the 2008 Budget...

I've been digging into creating a more detailed budget for 2008 in Quicken. I shared my early broad strokes in this post, but now I'm using a feature in Quicken that lets you start a budget by just copying your total expenses from the year before as a starting point. I know I had some weird expenses last year that I won't have this year, such as all the furniture I bought. And my property taxes should be lower. But I'm trying to budget for some fairly expensive travel, and there are a few other weird one-time things that I'd like to find room for this year. This is where things get really difficult. I want to meet my savings goals, but it just seems like there are a lot of other things I want too! For instance:

Travel: as mentioned in this post, I may do a big trip with a friend. The various options being discussed are going to be expensive. I'd kind of already written one of them off as being too expensive, but it may still be on the table and I don't want to pass up a good opportunity just over money. Money may be the most valid reason to pass it up, but the other side of the story is that I don't have many other friends who can afford this kind of travel and if I had to go alone, it would cost even more. I don't want to have regrets of the kind I did when I wrote "I Thought I Couldn't."

New computer: my iBook's hard drive is full and it's over 7 years old and seems incredibly slow. Does it work for a lot of the basic things I use it for, like Quicken and blogging? Sort of. Quicken works fine, but for some reason my web browser can't seem to handle Blogger anymore. The delay in typing is so long that I have to write my posts in TextEdit and then copy them to Blogger. Also, my iPod (I was given a new one) can't connect to this computer, so I have to burn CDs and load them from my work computer, which is technically verboten. (Shh!) Is any of this the end of the world? No. I guess I can try to keep going on this computer for at least another year, even though I'd really like a shiny new one.

New camera: my digital camera is also getting pretty old-- I think I got it 6 years ago. It is wonderfully small and takes pretty decent pictures, but I'd like one with more features and a zoom lens. After all, if I'm going to spend money on a fabulous vacation, I want good photos of it!

Home decor: I've bought all the major furniture I need, but there are still lots of little things I want. I have no area rugs in my bedrooms, my only window treatments are still those $5 stick-on paper shades, and I could use a couple more shelves for plants and things.

Clothes: this is an eternal problem. I always seem to need new ones, some years more than others. As usual, "need" is a relative term, but let's face it, no woman really wants to go around in jeans she can't button all the way just to save money! And after several years of scoffing at the ubiquity of fashionista clone-girls wearing Seven for All Mankind jeans, I tried on a pair belonging to a friend who wears the same size as me and suddenly understood what all the fuss was about! They fit like a dream and made me want to pinch my own butt when I walked past the mirror. But oh god it's going to hurt if I actually have to sign my name to a $175+ credit card receipt for a pair of those...

This is what it comes down to for people like me: you can't have it all. You can have a lot, but it will only ever be some of the things you want, even if your wants seem relatively modest by the standards of what you see around you. I'm trying to cut down on food spending, I've let a couple of magazine subscriptions expire, and I still refuse to buy a TV. But these little economies only go so far when you're trying to justify a few expensive luxuries. The budget isn't working. Something's gotta go.

T.M.I. Friday: Money, Thongs, and Full Frontal Savings

This may cross the line a bit into too-much-information territory, but aren't you dying to know how a thong can save someone money? (Or perhaps make them spend it...)

I haven't noticed if any of our male blogging friends have done a financial analysis of their preference for boxers vs. briefs, but in the spirit of full openness, I'll admit that I have always tended to favor pretty boring underwear. No longer the rib-high baggy cotton ones with bumble bees on them that I had to wear in 4th grade, but I have stayed a bit closer to that end of the spectrum than to the little lacy racy things you see at Victoria's Secret. For years, my favorites were Calvin Klein cotton bikinis bought on sale or at an outlet store. More recently, I've been trawling the $3.99 bins at the Gap. My main concerns were that my underwear be cheap, comfortable, and not something that would embarrass me if I was hit by a bus and taken to the hospital, a worry instilled in me by my mother. (Hmm, in that case why did she make me wear those bumble bee ones???)

When various women in my life, including my sister, aunt, cousin, and a friend or two said they often wore thongs, I said no way, not for me. Not only did the concept strike me as uncomfortable, I thought it was a big rip-off, some clothing designer's scam to make women pay more money for less fabric.
Anyway, someone finally clued me into the main reason to wear these things, which is only indirectly related to sex appeal: no more panty lines!!! Once that little lightbulb went off in my head, (yes, female readers, perhaps this is a bit sad given that I'm almost 40... but hey, better late than never...) I raided those $3.99 bins at the Gap again to actually try this exotic undergarment. And what further developed upon trying on certain items of clothing, was that the absence of all that extra undie fabric and its associated panty lines allows me to fit into smaller pants.
SO! At Ann Taylor, I am no longer painfully between sizes! And they're having a big sale lately! I proceed to have this big orgy of trying things on that actually fit me for a change. Then it gets even better: they were offering a deal where if you spent $100, you'd get a coupon worth $50 off your next $100. Immediately I start to strategize about how I can milk this deal for all it's worth. I have over $200 worth of clothes I want to buy. Can I buy $100 worth now and then use the $50 off coupon on the rest? Turns out the coupon won't be valid until a few days later. Should I buy some of the stuff and hope the rest is still there in a few days? Very risky, but I decide to try it. This decision is made on a lunchtime shopping trip, and by 2:30pm I'm convinced I've made a big mistake. At 5:15, I'm back in the store buying the items I'd left behind, none of which, luckily, have been snapped up by other shoppers. So now I've got 2 $50-off coupons.
My new plan was to see if I could wait, repurchase the same items using a coupon, and then return the original ones. Also, in the meantime I'd showed one of the sweaters I bought to a friend who tried it on, loved it and said she wanted one too. Great! I thought, now I know what to give her for Xmas. I had no doubt that I would walk back into Ann Taylor in a few days and have no trouble using my coupons.
But no such luck. Women in New York are real sale-stalkers. By the time I went back, those lovely sweaters were gone, vanished, vaporized. As was a lot of other stuff. At the nearest Ann Taylor store, I couldn't find $100 worth of stuff to buy. I ended up going to 2 more locations before I found anything I wanted. But when I finally did, it was great-- I got a suit that would have originally cost me $384 for only $130. I got a couple other things too.
All in all, I got a suit (jacket and pants), 4 pairs of pants, 2 sweaters, and 3 silk shirts, one of which will be returned. I spent just over $500. Of course I was already a bit over my clothing budget for the year, but as long as I don't gain any weight (please- god- please- god- please- god- I'm- going- to- swim- and- run- and- do- yoga- every- day- for- the- rest-of- my- life), these clothes should get me through a couple more fall seasons. I'd realized lately that I was really running out of professional-looking clothes-- I can dress fairly casually if I want to, but I've been a bit too lazy about it lately, and it was about time I got some grown-up garb back into my wardrobe! One must always remember to dress for one's next job, not the current one!

So how about that magical thong, huh? It made me go to a good sale, it made pants fit perfectly instead of ickily, and it made me spend $500 to look better and hopefully get a big promotion as a result! Does that really count as saving money? Well, I had hoped I would go home and find several pairs of pants in my closet that I'd given up on that would now fit by virtue of wearing a thong instead of regular undies-- you know, my theory of going shopping in one's own closet... but that didn't really happen. I think I had already given all those away to the Salvation Army! So much for trying to streamline one's wardrobe! And of course on top of the $500 spent at Ann Taylor, I had to go back to the Gap and buy several more thongs...

Yes, this is the blog where all financial issues get FULL COVERAGE... or less...

Scruffy

That's how I was feeling this weekend. I was hanging out with a friend of mine, and for some reason, the last couple of times I've seen her, I've happened to be wearing clothes that had small holes in them and were perhaps a bit frayed at the edges. I didn't think anything of it-- it's not like these clothes were rags, and anyway, for a weekend trip to the beach, it's not like I'd put on my finest formalwear. But my friend noticed and was sort of teasing me about not being able to afford new clothes now that I'd bought an apartment.
I laughed it off but actually bristled a bit at the idea that someone might think I looked like some ragamuffin who couldn't afford a new pair of shorts. I found myself feeling a bit defensive, explaining that I was not at all unable to afford clothes and owned many items that were new and in perfect condition.
It's not as if I don't like buying new clothes, or don't care about how I look. I am as vain as the next person... in fact, I might be as vain as the next two or three people combined... but I guess I have this thing of wearing certain items of clothing until they practically evaporate they are so threadbare. Usually these are clothes I just wear around the house, so no one sees them anyway, but sometimes they are things I wear in public on weekends, if not to work.
Part of the reason for this is definitely an attempt to be frugal. But I do often buy clothes that I don't really need, and I have closets and drawers full of items I hardly ever wear. So it's as if these few items that I wear constantly until they fall apart are somehow making up for that. I can say "boy, I really got my money's worth out of that t-shirt that I wore until I had to cut it up into dust rags!" Meanwhile, I have 40 other t-shirts that sit there unworn. Maybe one of them will become the favorite t-shirt to replace the one that was cut into dust rags, but chances are I might buy another one first!
The change of seasons always makes me feel like I need new clothes. I've recently bought a few items, and writing this is making me think it's a good time to spend a few hours going through my closets and drawers. I can bid a tearful goodbye to the raggedy old favorites that are making me feel scruffy, and rediscover all the things I already own that I should be wearing more often. It's kind of like going shopping, except that I've already paid for everything!

Prank Calls and Leather Skirts

One of my first jobs was working in a small clothing store. It was a popular store at the time, selling a fairly limited range of trendy items. I could go on for days about all the weird experiences I had there, but one that I often remember was when we had a bit of a problem with obscene phone calls.
A man would call the store and ask a question like "Do you sell pantyhose?" All the staff were female, so when whoever had answered said "No, sorry, we don't sell pantyhose," the man would follow up by asking "Are you wearing pantyhose?" And of course at that point, we'd just hang up on him.
But not my friend Janet! Here's how it went when she answered one of this guy's calls:

Janet: "Hello, TrendyClothingStore, may I help you?"
Man on phone: "Do you sell leather skirts?"
Janet: "No, I'm sorry, we have a lot of skirts but none of them are leather."
Man on phone: "Are you wearing a leather skirt?"
Janet: "Uh, no..."
Man on phone: "Why not?"
Janet: "Because they're too expensive!"
[click]

Rib-eyes and Fashion

I love the Thursday Style section in the NY Times. It's always full of crazy things to spend money on, and stories that point out the crazy ways we live:

Be Yourselves, Girls, Order the Rib-Eye

This article is about how women have stopped trying to eat salads and other light, dainty fare when they're out on dates:

Red meat sent a message that she was "unpretentious and down to earth and unneurotic," she said, "that I’m not obsessed with my weight even though I’m thin, and I don’t have any food issues." She added, "In terms of the burgers, it said I’m a cheap date, low maintenance."

Of course, what you order on a date has financial significance too, for both parties:

Hamburgers, she added, say you are down-to-earth, which is why women rarely order those deluxe hamburgers priced as high as a porterhouse.

“They’re created for men who want to impress women, so they order the $60 burger, then they let the woman taste it,” Ms. Gershenson said. “The man gets to show off his expertise and show that he can afford it.”

Then there's this story:

When High Price Is the Allure

Designer labels are expensive, and getting more so:

This is the fourth consecutive autumn season in which a weak dollar has meant higher prices for designer clothing, much of which is made in Europe or stitched from fabrics imported from European mills. As the value of the dollar shrinks against the euro, prices continue to climb, with retailers citing hikes of as much as 15 percent for shoes and bags this year compared with last.

Yet, merchants and manufacturers have seen surprisingly little resistance in recent seasons to the cost of luxury goods.....

“Price certainly plays into a product’s allure,” said Robert Burke, a retail consultant in New York. “For certain people, the higher the price, the more attractive the item becomes.”

I guess that is our economy right now-- rich people can have plenty of money to afford expensive clothes, and the garment industry is taking advantage of it, knowing that even non-rich people will follow along.

At Bergdorf Goodman, a Stella McCartney turtleneck devoid of trim sells for $995, and her cable-stitched sweater for $1,495. A pair of Kieselstein-Cord sunglasses is tagged at $595. Far from daunting, such a ticket might be downright seductive to customers, Ms. Sokol said. “When you are looking at a handbag or even a pair of sunglasses, a high price can have inherent snob appeal.”

Consumers tell themselves, Ms. Sokol went on, “ ‘If those glasses are $150, I’m not going to be as interested as if they are $350.’ ”

That is not to say that consumers are indifferent to price. Many are making emotional adjustments, finding ways to balance a love of fashion with the reality of its increasingly exorbitant cost. Eunice Ward, a lawyer in Chicago with a taste for quirky labels like Dolce & Gabbana and Stella McCartney, pays full price only for items that resonate with her sense of style. During a recent shopping trip, she spied a Yohji Yamomoto sweater. “I knew it would fit with my wardrobe and update everything,” she said, “that it was going to be my workhorse for fall.

“I didn’t even check the price at first. I knew I would love it, and I didn’t care.”

.... As a technical designer for a fashion house, [Kate Strachan] is well acquainted with the price of style. “I know a lot of quality, craftsmanship and time goes into some of these pieces,” Ms. Strachan said.

Regardless, she is determined to put a cap on her spending. Combing the racks at Saks, she sighed wistfully: “I can’t afford these kinds of things, so usually I buy what I need most. This year that would be a winter coat.”

Then with a self-mocking smile she added, “Of course there are times when I’ll splurge.”

Losing Your Shirt

I think it's kind of funny that the phrase "losing your shirt" is sometimes used to mean that you've lost all your money, in gambling or an investment. From a wee bit of research, it sounds like the original meaning of the phrase may not have had to do specifically with money, but now I think it usually does.

So to get really literal about it, what if you lose your shirt by spending money on really expensive shirts?

In today's NY Times Style section, there is a piece about Thomas Pink shirts by Mike Albo. Thomas Pink makes very nice, and very expensive shirts for men and women. They have a few stores in New York now, but I first discovered these shirts on a trip to London, where at the time, at least, they were within my price range (for a rare splurge) if I caught them having a sale at the shop in the duty-free area of Heathrow! I got a few beautiful shirts of very good quality, and still have them, though lately I don't wear them much as they seem a bit formal. And I haven't bought any more since then, since I couldn't quite bear to cough up the bucks, and none of the styles and colors were so seductive I just had to have them. But here's the part of today's article that made me laugh:

According to the slightly vague biographical information available on the Web site, Thomas Pink was a tailor in the 1800’s well known for his hunting coats. The company says that the expression “in the pink” originates with him. His legacy lay dormant in history until the 1980s when Peter, James and John Mullen, three enterprising brothers looking for an investment project, recognized the branding potential of his name and bought the rights to it. (I imagine the Peter, James and John to look like Jeremy Irons, Daniel Day-Lewis and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, in that order.) In 1999, the company was sold to the luxury goods conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton.

The brand may be trying to evoke a sense of Dickensian craftsmanship with its purchased history, but the appeal of the store is more about the marketing ingenuity of the Mullen Brothers and the acquiring power of LVMH than the Victorian ghost-tailor. Buying a luxury shirt here is buying into their vibrant view of the work world and celebrating how they transformed the name of an obscure clothier into a very successful franchise that boasts outposts in places like China, Dubai and Dublin. The bright natty shirts seem to flaunt a fearlessness and confidence in our global economy, especially if you are the kind who can invest in things and buy the rights to names.

This ploy works out fine, because the shirts are crisp and well made and attend to the right amount of detail without being tedious. In the dressing room I tried on a Slim Fit shirt in a subtle pale green check ($175). It fit marvelously, even though I looked less like a cheery British industrialist than a washed-up Hollywood actor trying to clean up for a court appearance.

But that makes sense because I suppose this isn’t a store for people like me with money issues who go to Barnes & Noble and buy self-help books like “Credit Hell: How to Dig Out of Debt.” These clothes are more suited for the hard-working finance types who have that Suze Orman glint in their eyes and who, when going to Barnes & Noble, select titles like The 48 Laws of Power and You, Inc.

Ever so gently, my sales associate encouraged me to buy the gorgeous pale green shirt. I politely declined. She said I could just try it out and return it after 14 days. I really wanted to do it, but that would mean I would be breaking some rule in one of my get-out-of-debt books, and I would have to punish myself by cutting up my credit card while crying. Instead I bought a collared gray sweater made of soft merino wool ($195) because it also fit superbly. This made perfect budgetary sense at the time.

Clothes do have a strange power over people sometimes!

'Tis the Season

In my post about financial routines yesterday, I didn't think to include "seasonal." With the sudden appearance of spring, and even summer weather, a certain seasonal spending binge has been on my mind: clothes.
Yes, in spring a young woman's fancy turns to clothing, but does her wallet turn there too? Every year, I feel like I want to buy a whole new wardrobe when the weather gets warm. And sometimes I feel like I actually do spend a ton of money in one big rush of shopping. It's not just the fact that it is spring, it's also that this time of year is when occasion arise that demand new outfits, such as weddings and parties and for those of us in publishing, the BookExpo trade show. But do I really end up spending as much as I think I do? Maybe not!
I graphed my monthly clothing spending in 2006 and here's what I found:

I did have a big spending binge in June but it wasn't as big a spike as I thought in relation to the rest of the year. And it was almost the only money I'd spent on clothes year-to-date, as I seem to have bought a bunch of stuff in January that I mostly returned in April!
Also, last year was a weird year. I was so preoccupied with moving out of my old apartment and finding temporary housing that I'm surprised I remembered to wear clothes at all. I was also consciously trying not to buy new stuff that would just have to be packed. And then in October, there was that big spike of spending when I had to buy fall clothes because all the ones I already owned were still in storage-- let's hope THAT doesn't ever need to happen again!

So every day now, it's just a question of how busy I am at work-- do I take some time at lunch to do a little shopping? I haven't done it yet, but it has to happen soon. I just got a Banana Republic coupon in the mail that might come in handy... and I have a coupon for Macy's... though now that I say that I am wondering if it's expired. This is the dark side of the spring clothing fling-- I will inevitably end up falling in love with things that are not on sale, that will probably go on sale the day after I become ineligible for any kind of price adjustment. But I like to think that I end up ahead in the long run: if I was the kind of agressive shopper who constantly scours the stores looking for bargains, I'd probably buy more overall. Instead, I try to shop only when I need to buy things, and I buy things I really like and will use, even if they are not on sale. I think I end up spending less money this way. (Yeah, you tell yourself that, Madame X... whatever makes you feel better...)

More on Laundry Pricing

I wish I was going to be reporting back to you all that I researched New York City law, wrote a letter to the owner of the drycleaning shop, and won a great victory in getting clean, pressed shirts for the same price as a man.

Sadly, this is instead a follow-up post that will detail my great stupidity and laziness.

I brought my shirts to work with me, and then took them with me again on my way home. When I got off the subway, I took a detour and went to a different drycleaning shop in my neighborhood to see if they did shirts. They didn't have any big signs about it in the window, but I could see the woman at the counter checking in a whole pile of shirts, so I walked in. I handed her my shirts, said they were to be laundered, no starch. She took them with a silent nod of acknowledgement and I thought, great! She's not going to hassle me! I gave her my info, took the printed-out ticket and left. Halfway home, I thought, gee, I didn't even check how much they charge to launder shirts, so I looked at the ticket. It turned out she had charged me $3 each, which must just be what they charge for drycleaning! And it was 50 cents more than what I was so incensed about paying at the other place! I felt like a complete dope, but I at that point, I wasn't about to go and ask for my shirts back.

There is a moral to this story, and it is that you must always ASK QUESTIONS! I'll bet I have lost a lot of money in my life just because I was too passive and accepting, and didn't take that extra step to ask why something wasn't cheaper, or how I could get it for less... or even just how much it was in the first place!

I do still plan to do some more shopping around for the best place to do my drycleaning and shirts... though perhaps as punishment for my stupidity I should force myself to iron for a while. Or change the title of this blog to "New York Dumbass's Open Wallet."

Price Discrimination at Dry Cleaners

Well, this started my morning off all wrong: I went to a local drycleaners on my way to the subway. I've used this place ever since I moved and found them to be friendly and reasonably priced. But after today, I'm not sure if I'm going back.
This morning, in addition to wanting to have my winter coat drycleaned, I brought in a couple of shirts that I wanted laundered. Sometimes I am just a slob and wear slightly wrinkly shirts, but when spring rolls around, I like having them pressed and since I still don't have an ironing board, and hate ironing, I thought it was time to have some cotton shirts done at the laundry.
So I hand the girl my two shirts and she says "are these man shirts or lady?" I look at her blankly and she says, "oh, these are ladies blouse, so dryclean." I say no, that I don't want them drycleaned, just laundered, no starch. She says they only do that for men's shirts, and that women's shirts have to be drycleaned, at a cost of $2.50 vs. $1.50 each. I argue that that is ridiculous, as all collared cotton shirts are the same and they should charge based on the service rendered, not what gender wears the shirts. She doesn't budge, so I told her I would be taking all my laundry and drycleaning business elsewhere. (Unfortunately, this meant lugging them into my office, as I didn't have time to go elsewhere before work!)
The thing is, I thought New York had passed a law specifically prohibiting this kind of price discrimination. A little googling found me a NY Times article from 1998 about a new law, but I'm not really sure exactly where it stands now-- the article suggests that the law just prevents drycleaners from posting separate price charts for men and women, without necessarily preventing them from actually charging differently. I've been to many other laundry places that were perfectly happy to do my shirts at the normal price, even if in some cases their drycleaning prices distinguished between a "blouse" and a "shirt"-- which is fine with me. A women's silk blouse is often going to be more delicate, more embellished, etc. than a man's shirt, so I can see why it might require more careful handling. But the kind of shirts I am talking about are almost identical for men and women other than the cut and the collars being a bit softer.
I might have to call 311 about that law, and write a letter to the owner of that store. I'm going to be really annoyed if I have to go a few blocks out of my way to do my drycleaning, so I would like to continue to give them my business, but if they're going to be jerks about this, they've seen the last of me.

Bought Clothes... and Thought About It.

The Gap is getting all my money this month. It's weird, sometimes I just can't find anything there, and other times, it's like this weird planetary conjunction where somehow the shape of my body and my taste in styles and current fashion and the cut and sizing of Gap pants all miraculously work well together at the same time and I buy a certain pair of pants in every color available. This week was one of those good times. So I got 3 pairs of pants and a jacket that was exactly what I was looking for. Just in time, as it was really getting ridiculous to still be wearing summer linen most days!

But I was thinking, does your personal finance style ever cramp your fashion style? I think mine does! As I've discussed in my "Buy Good Things" rule and elsewhere, I think it's a good investment to buy quality clothes that are versatile and will last a few seasons, in terms of their construction and materials, as well as their style. But if you follow this rule all the time, you can end up with a really boring wardrobe! Here's an example of my internal dialogue:

"Hot damn! Those are some FABULOUS orange metallic strappy high heels, and they are on super sale marked down to $59!! But even for $59, what the heck am I going to wear them with? You need a really snazzy outfit, and a really special occasion to wear shoes like that. There was that black-tie event that the CEO invited me to a couple of years ago when I couldn't go, that I keep hoping I'll be invited to again... of course if they do invite me again it will be at the last minute, and I still haven't had that dress altered... and that dress is black and if I wear it with orange metallic shoes it might look like Halloween... no, what those shoes need is a dress with some color, something a little outrageous, like maybe something in a blueish-green silk, which since I am not on Project Runway and can't make my own clothes, will be the kind of thing I'll never find now that I'm fixated on exactly what it has to be, or it will be $7,000 if I do find it... and then my $59 shoes will end up costing me $7,059... plus the $250 or so I paid for that unworn dress that I never had altered which will go unworn for yet another year... and I'd probably want to buy some new eyeshadow or lipstick to perfectly complement the gorgeous $7,309 silk dress and shoes, and some kind of bag, and a nice wrap if it's in the winter, so now I'm pushing $8,000 for these shoes that I might buy, to go with a dress that exists only in my imagination, to wear to a party I haven't been invited to. And if you take into account the lost compound interest on that $8,000, when it all comes down to it, HOLY SHIT I WON'T BE ABLE TO RETIRE IF I BUY THESE SHOES!!!"

If you go through this thought process enough times, you end up with a closet full of rather dull clothes that are all black, grey and denim. Luckily, I do let myself break my own rules now and then. And yes, I know that theoretically you can buy cute clothes on the cheap at thrift stores and sales but somehow all the people who are good at that seem to have wiped out the nice stuff by the time I go!

Seasonal Change

Ah, fall is in the air. Or at least, it was yesterday, but today and tomorrow it's supposed to hit 80 degrees! Either way, I think this is a lovely time of year in New York. It's sunny, not too humid, and the city seems to perk up, somehow, after the lazy days of summer when it's too steamy to think about anything but the beach, and lots of people are away. In the fall, everyone is back and all the cultural things are gearing up for new season. And who knows, we could even have a subway series.
So this feeling of renewal is affecting me. Soon I'll have a new home to really shake things up, but in the meantime, there are a few other ways the change of seasons might affect my finances.
First of all, I am newly resolved to try to eat more cheaply, and right now I am living in a place that is slightly better equipped to do that than where I've been over the past two months. I've had breakfast at home and brought my lunch the last 2 days.
Secondly, there is the issue of fall clothes. This is always the dangerous time of year. The fall clothes start hitting the stores in mid-summer, when it's too hot to think about trying on a sweater. But now that the weather is getting cooler, wool and suede and cashmere are no longer making me want to run away screaming! And that is just in the store windows... fall is when all the CATALOGUES arrive!
Fortunately, many of my usual catalogues have not been forwarded, but the ones I have gotten have a lot of dog-eared pages. The Boden catalogue, often the perpetrator of such pseudo-British atrocities as multi- colored- floral- design- printed- on- velvet cardigan sweaters, actually has a lot of cute stuff this season-- shoes, pants, shirts and some yummy suede belts that I want in every color! And yay, straight-legged jeans are back! (Though I can live without those ones that are super-tight and go all bunchy- yuk.)




Add to these temptations the fact that 90% of my fall wardrobe is still in storage and you can see why I might want to blow my year's clothing budget! A small spree would not be out of line: year to date I have spent only $440 on clothes, out of my total budget of $2500. The only problem is that whatever I buy has to fit in the suitcases I'm living out of.

And with the year coming to a close, I have to start thinking about whether I'll make my goal of maxing out my 401k contributions, as I'll probably have to hike up the percentage to do it. And I'll need to make sure I contribute the maximum to my Roth IRA too, though that can happen early next year too.
And there is holiday gift-giving to plan for...and holiday travel...

How about you? Do you find that certain times of year make you want to spend money, or change your financial habits?

Rule #7: The Now or Later Rule

Many people will tell you that before you spend a dollar, you should think about the future value of that dollar if you invest it. The thinking is that if you save money now, it will grow via investments, and then someday you'll have more money to do the things you want to do, and presumably, more time to do them when you're retired. This is not bad advice. I expect to live until I'm well into my 90s based on my family history, and I want to have resources to enjoy that part of my life.
But on the other hand, you can't save everything for a rainy day. Sometimes I ask myself this question:

• If I don't buy/do this now, will I still be able to enjoy what I'm buying/doing later?

It depends on what I'm spending the money on. Here are some examples:

Having a big house: postpone it, I can enjoy that when I'm retired
Elegant furniture: postpone it until I'm old and need to spend a lot of time sitting down or in bed
A car: postpone it, I'll have more of a need for it later, at least until I start to really lose my faculties, or get osteoporosis and turn into one of those little old ladies who can’t see over the steering wheel.
Travel: hmm, I might not enjoy mountain hikes and swimming with wild dolphins when I'm arthritic and decrepit. Better do it now.
Sailing: again, I might not be physically able to do it later, so I should do it now.
Gym membership: there may be cheaper ways to stay fit but if I even want to make it to old age, I don't think I should skimp on exercising.
Education: sure, do it now because it's an investment in the future anyway and I might have Alzheimer's later.
Clothes: who knows, maybe when I'm 80 I'll be rocking Miu Miu instead of muu-muu, but I think it's a better bet to enjoy wearing nice clothes now while I'm still young and slender!

I certainly don't make all my decisions using the "a bus could run over me tomorrow" argument: I do think you should plan for the rainy day. But I also think you should make hay while the sun shines, or at least before your knees give out.