lay-by is your friend

Oh lay-by. You're an under-hyped marvel of life.

I put this bag on lay-by when I was at the height of my Christmas-ridiculous-hours-induced-wealth, but was unable to justify the purchase of a $500 handbag when I'd bought another in the same price range a day ago on eBay (another friend, although a more demanding one.)

Arguably I should not have put it on lay-by at all, since it might seem somewhat excessive to buy two expensive black handbags in a single week. As usual, however, I'm able to justify this excess: I'd just had to retire two equally pricey bags purchased several years earlier that were now showing the signs of daily use and lack of leather treatment cream. Rather than wear them to death, I prefer to retire accessories I love so they don't get destroyed and can still be brought out for special occasions. The retirement necessitated a new round of recruits - and fortunately MimCo was happy to oblige.

I love the zip top styles they make - not the button range though, I won't even get started on that one except for that one snide comment - because they're big and tough and have lovely leather and lovely lining. Previously I'd only seen this style in the rose gold finish, which doesn't really do it for me. So I walked past this at David Jones and had a minor moment of ecstacy, then panic when I realised I had no money due to the other bag-shaped purchase of a few days earlier.

The solution? Lay-by! It makes expensive investment pieces affordable even if you're as awful with your money as I am. It also helps shopping crushes turn into shopping love - I swear when you have to wait you appreciate it a whole lot more.

It's gone out of fashion lately - I suspect because the major department stores now have their own credit cards so they want you to rack up interest repayments and fees instead of slowly putting in the money in your unprofitable savings account. Both David Jones and Myer both charge fairly exorbitant fees for lay-by - I think about $10 - which seems like a poor justification for "service fee" when none of the floor staff know how to put a payment through, and it takes them about 20 minutes to retrieve your parcel.

Anyway, I've decided it will experience a rebirth in my life as one way towards fiscally-responsible fashion.

sales are not your friend

I'm very happy that the sale season is drawing to an end, and not solely because I work in retail. Yes, I'm aware that I've embarked on a savings project and should be embracing everything involving discounting and cost-cutting. But I hate sale time. Hate it.

Maybe it's a psychological thing, or an element of my suspicious nature, but I automatically assume if something has been discounted there's something wrong with it. Even if it's not a physical fault - tears, make up stains - there's a reason it's suddenly dropped in value by 20-50%.

It's on its way out. At the end of the season, the collections are being cleared to make way for the new, up-to-the minute styles, which are obviously better. The only reason it's been discounted is because nobody wanted it, so why should I?

Of course there are exceptions, (shoe-shaped ones), but the most heavily discounted items tend to be those which embodied key, designer-knock-off'd trends and certainly don't have a long and wearable life ahead of them.

Adding to my distaste is the fact that a lot of clearance sales aren't genuine. You won't often walk into the shop one day and see an item at full price reduced by 50% the next. More likely, it's been taken off the shelves or shunted off into a specially-marked "Non Sale Items" section for the duration of the clearance. In its place you'll find hangers and hangers of crap from the season before last, which the retailer still hasn't been able to move. I've worked in fashion retail and was horrified to see the cartons and cartons of old stock coming in the day before a sale starts.
Occasionally, you'll find a rare gem in this lot, but more often than not it's just piles and piles of no-longer-trendy crap that's been dug out of the warehouse and pretending to belong to the current collection. Yuck.

If, in an astonishing feat of good fortune, you do manage to stumble across a genuine clearance, you should still prepare to be disappointed. Fingering through the racks, you see that dress you always wanted but told yourself you could never afford. You find the price tag and gasp at the savings, feeling your heart get all a-flutter in excitement and anticipation.

Then you look at the sizes. They have 14s. Or 4s. What seems to be a buffet of exciting and colourful choices is really just the leftovers, and if you fall somewhere in the middle of the sizing scale, you're probably going to miss out. This is a particularly common problem towards the end of sale time, when the racks have been picked over and over by every enterprising young lass in the land.

If, by some miracle, you can actually find something that fits and isn't made from velour, you've entered a danger zone. Sales can induce a kind of hysteria that makes you spend a lot more than you normally would (again, the shoes). Things can be so cheap you can't justify not buying them, even though you don't really need them, and will regret it later when you get your credit card bill and want to cry.

Shopping during sale time is just not a pleasant experience. It means waiting patiently for the person next to you to move along the rack, tapping your foot somewhat impatiently while lining up for a changeroom behind a person with 25 different garments draped across every appendage, and fuming silently while waiting to pay behind someone (probably the same one from the changerooms) who wants to pay on seven different credit cards and start a lay-by.

Sale time means the shops will be disgusting with clothes strewn carelessly about and the most unhelpful and harried sales assistants you'll ever meet. (Not that you can blame them, when they've had to deal with customers like the one in front all day, every day.)

Sadly, sale time seems to last forever. Why the fuck do people brave the crowds on Boxing Day, when there are about four weeks of further reductions and newly shipped-in stock? You get sick of seeing the tables and tables of cheap junk cluttering the entrance of Myer or David Jones and you start to resent how much shop space last season's lines are taking up in your favourite boutiques.

It's a relief when the signs come down, the mess is cleaned up, and the uppity sales assistants return to their normal state of barely-disguised disdain when you ask for help.

Really, I'd just rather pay full price.
Which is maybe why I'm broke.

i spend too much money

I spend too much money on my wardrobe. I spend way too much money. Actually I don't like that word - spend - because it makes it glaringly obvious how much I've been throwing away. I tend to think of my wardrobe purchases as an investment, although it's not likely to return any dividends.

By the time pay day rolls around each week, I'm normally scrounging around for change in my car ash tray while wearing the lovely new dress I just had to have. I don't save anything and there's normally at least a couple of hundred dollars owing on my credit card. Which I cut up, by the way, but still use online because I can remember the numbers. I spend so much of my income on pretty new dresses and handbags and shoes that I can't actually afford to go anywhere wearing them.

Anyway, that's enough about that as it's too depressing to dwell on. The first step is admitting you have a problem and living a hand-to-mouth existence with $2.90 in my bank account because Mimco had a sale has definitely become a problem.

And the solution?
To stop, obviously.

Except that's never going to happen. Quitting cold turkey, I mean. I'm not going to stop wanting pretty new things, and as long as I keep earning money, I'll keep trying to find them. Instead of trying to stop completely, I'm going to (try to) change my habits.

So, here are the rules:

1. I am not allowed to spend more than a third of my wage on clothes, accessories or make up.

A third might seem pretty generous, but since I'm now wasting about 90 per cent of my income on a good week and three times my income on a bad week, a third seems feasible. Unfortunately I'm very bad at maths, so this will probably prove a headache. Sigh.

2. I am not allowed to buy anything full-price.

Which is not to say I should go all out just because something is on sale, but we'll worry about that when/if the problem arises.

3. I must learn to make do with - and make the most of - what I already have.

Obviously this is the most sensible thing I've written so far and if I were a stronger-willed/less consumerist/better person I'd be more committed to this frugal lifestyle and not buy anything at all. But that would be like trying to give up chocolate - I'd last a week and then eat an entire block in a single sitting.

Instead I'll try to keep my limited purchases down to things which work well within my existing wardrobe, and try to creatively devise new ways to wear what I already have. That at least should prove entertaining.

Anyway, those are the rules - all of which may be bent or broken at any point during this bizarre little experiment, and should probable be added to because none of those are particularly limiting, really.

We'll see what else comes up as I go along.