Great piece, Cynthia!  One of the things I have done through the last few months is maintain my monthly pedicures.  There’s a little place in the shopping center close to my house that does spa peds for $18 (throw in another ten and they do your fingernails while your feet soak).  They also massage your legs for about 10 minutes… to me it’s a bargain.  They will do the little design thingies too.  During the winter, I do the funkiest colors they have on my toes… who’s going to see the florescent green on my toes in the SNOW?  Currently, I have hot pink toes with flowers in the middle (and a little rhinestone in the center of each flower).

Tomorrow, my friend and I are going back, and because we are getting close to warm weather, I’ll probably do a reverse french pedicure, maybe an Easter egg?  Who knows.. whatever I do, it will be fun to sit and chat with my friend, and get an innocent luxury that makes me (and my toes… by the way, the dog seems fascinated with the peds as well) HAPPY!

Enjoy the lipstick!

Nanchan…I love the dog being fascinated with the peds.  I just love getting those pedicures…it makes me feel so dainty and feminine.  I think my kids finally got the message…."give me gift certificates to the local nail "…. they always say "I can’t find anything to buy you" …well now you do!

Sure things can be tough balancing the home budget, but I have learned to cook more healthy meals without the heavy meat content, less fast food, and I haven’t been sick with a cold since I turned the house furnace temperature down several degrees, plus my electric bill went down.  And, I can’t believe the number of really good coupons which are available.  I have been visiting  chain restaurant sites and registering …. so far in the last couple of weeks I have 5 coupons for free food at restaurants (Texas Roadhouse, Applebees, etc.)  Maybe this downturn has been good for me.

And I still buy lipstick.  Those cheaper brands have the most interesting colors….some are really wild but look wonderful when I put it on. 

Cynthia…cute piece!  I just bought a very bright colored dress with bright yellow shoes and shawl…so I think that Harper’s Bazaar lady is on to something.

Before Christmas there was a question on this site about the recession and shopping.  I noted that I’d been in malls in Ohio and Florida and the only busy stores or counters were Sephora and the makeup counters in department stores.  Of course, I didn’t happen to look at the candy counters, so I can’t comment on that.

From Notes on a Scandal:

I am good at waiting. It is one of my great skills. Richard described the

Harts as immediate gratification people. Well, I come from deferred

gratification stock. In my family, when I was growing up, taking what you

wanted at the moment you wanted it was regarded as very bad taste. My sister

and I were taught to look down on the children at our school who had new

clothes every week. Their parents didn’t know how to save, our mothers

explained to us. "They have new jackets now," she liked to say, "but they’ll

have run out of coal by the end of the month." Saving was the ultimate

virtue in our household, for it was only by saving–––by putting off anything

desirable for us as long humanly possible––that the terrible fate of

being"common" was ever to be escaped. We ate bread and lard for tea all week

so that, even though my father earned his living selling stationary to shop

owners out of a little van, we always had proper jam and scones on Sunday

when our relatives came to visit.

   My mother had an "everyday" and a "best" of everything. She saw it as a

mark of her good, English sense that by making me wear a frayed crochet cap

every day of my life for five years, until the thing disintegrated on my

head, she was able, during the same period, to maintain my "best hat"––a

glazed straw meringue decorated with three paper roses––––looking as

pristine as the day she had purchased it. On those occasions that she broke

down and let me wear the best hat, she insisted on it being worn with a

protective bag over it until I was safely at my destination. So strong was

the pleasure deferral instinct in my mother that she would rather have me

walk down the high street with a paper bag standing high on my head like a

papal crown than risk exposing the sacred meringue to the dirty air. 

We have always been afraid the money gods would make us poor again if we got too carried away.  So we are doing okay.  We have paper losses but our income is the same. 

We enjoy a few luxuries like good food and a travel.  I never cared for expensive clothes or cars.

Starting last July, a light bulb went off in our heads and we liquidated assets and put as much as we could into our money market account.   It was perhaps one of the smartest moves we’ve ever made…not knowing what was ahead.    We have continued to save money and will continue to save until we see some jobs come back for America.   

For the first time in many years, we put ourselves on a budget and were stunned to learn how much we could actually do without.   Since we love to cook, we didn’t budget at the grocery store and we found other areas where we could definitely do a better job.  

I don’t mind getting back to the basics in life.   And, I don’t mind saving money during a recession.