Fabulously Broke in the City » Life

What’s their interest?

FB @ FabulouslyBroke.com — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:00:55 +0000

This is a question I ask myself a lot when it comes to dealing with other people

What’s their interest?

What’s their motivation?

A good example is a financial advisor selling you mutual funds.

Off the top of my head, I ask:

Are they salaried employees or commission-based?
If commission-based, do they make any money off the actual sale, or the final amount of what they sell?
Do they get more money pushing certain funds over others?
What is the cost to me?
How is the cost calculated? In what scenarios?

Not all interests or motivations are bad, and sometimes people have an interest in just being good.

Just understanding what someone is getting out of the situation is always helpful, even if you don’t use the info.

If you are reading this on any other blog than Fabulously Broke in the City or via my RSS Feed, it is stolen content without credit.

You can contact me here or find me on Twitter via @brokeinthecity.

Come and visit my other blog: The Everyday Minimalist where I am living with less, but only the best!

Shop like a Parisienne!

FB @ FabulouslyBroke.com — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 06:00:03 +0000

It is universally accepted that French women in general are achingly chic, but they don’t spend a lot of money to achieve that look.

(Although if you read The Essence of Style — How the French invented High Fashion and Fine Food, you’d come to different conclusions about how often hairstyles and fashion changed in the past and how many husbands went into debt for their wives’ shopping habits)

Seriously, how can someone achieve looking chic without spending $$$ on designer duds? Or updating every season?

Here’s how they do it:

They don’t follow trends that don’t fit — Skinny jeans make you look less than skinny? They’ll pass on that, s’il vous plaît.
They don’t spend $$ on anything that isn’t going to be classic — Harem pants are cute for one season, but they’ll pass if they’re on a budget and wait for something like a chic sweater to come into vogue
They save their money & spend it sparingly — If they’ll wear a certain coat for years and years to come, they’ll shell out good money for that one item and milk cost-per-use out of it
They don’t accept cheap substitutes — Sure, H&M is fun for trends, but if they’re looking for a nice leather bag, they won’t buy 10 fake leather ones before they realize it doesn’t fill the void of what they really wanted
They don’t save their Sunday best — If they have a lovely silk shirt, they’re up for wearing it any day of the week, not just for special occasions
They know what their style is — It’s usually pretty modern, but they know what makes their style their style
They invests in the basic luxuries of their style — They may not spend $25 on a cheap bag, but they’ll spend it on the perfect red lipstick that they’ll wear day in and day out

Luckily, I follow most of the rules above (I am still caught in the trap of buying more than I should and more than my wardrobe needs), and I’ve noticed these changes:

I spend less money — Mais oui! I spend less money because I am buying less
…but not significantly less — Need I remind you that I shelled out $1900 for a wool coat from Burberry that I have actually slept in?? I was willing to pay that price because it’s a quality piece I know I will wear constantly, love wearing and it is not another cheap wool substitute (I had 3 of those before I realized that $100 will not give me that silky soft feeling I crave)
I have a more organized wardrobe — I know how many tops and pants I have, and so on because I catalogue everything in my wardrobe now!
I know where the gaps are for my shopping list — I am starting to see where I missed certain key pieces, like skinny jeans to tuck into boots, when I was fooling myself that I could do that with bootcut jeans wrapped tightly around my legs and held in place with socks
I have less to agonize over — Less stuff = less choices = less headaches, although I don’t have anything like my ideal and BASIC minimalist wardrobe of 30 pieces, in fact I have more like 100 pieces…
I have what fits and looks good on me — As an inverted triangle, I stay away from halter-anything & I try to get more voluminous items for my bottom half
I have streamlined down to my style essentials — I am realizing that I don’t really enjoy fussy clothing, and I have a few fussy pieces with ruffles and bows, but not many, because it is just isn’t me

Where I shop in Toronto: An Overview

How I am Shopping Smarter: Cataloguing my clothing onto my iPod Touch

Wardrobe Essentials (Clothing only)

Shopping your closet: Mixing styles and making pieces work double-duty

If you are reading this on any other blog than Fabulously Broke in the City or via my RSS Feed, it is stolen content without credit.

You can contact me here or find me on Twitter via @brokeinthecity.

Come and visit my other blog: The Everyday Minimalist where I am living with less, but only the best!

How to make old clothing feel like new again

FB @ FabulouslyBroke.com — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:00:31 +0000

You know how when you open your closet you think: I have nothing to wear!?

Well I get that way sometimes. Yes this can be hard to believe coming from a girl who owns 20+ dresses but it’s true.

So what do I do? Here are some of the ways I make old clothing feel like new again.

LAYER YOUR CLOTHES

Try a top with a ruffled neckline for something different peeking out underneath a sweater, or a longer top in a brighter colour paired underneath a sweater for a pop of colour.

This sounds like such silly advice, but layering your clothes can create some really pretty results, and you’d be surprised how something old can look new again, paired underneath what you already own.

USE ACCESSORIES

The best minimalist trick in the book. When I travel for business, I take the minimal number of tops, sweaters, pants and a dress or two. To keep such a monotonous wardrobe fresh, I wear different necklaces (sometimes layering necklaces) and rings.

Not only is jewellery easier to tote around in a suitcase, it is also cheaper than a new outfit.

USE A BELT

Belting something, anything, makes it look different. I do this all the time, seeing as I have a very slim frame, and I have to work at getting a waist to appear.

Experiment with widths of belts, colours, and the placement of those belts on your body.

PIN BROOCHES & OTHER THINGS TO YOUR CLOTHES

Brooches are so underrated.

If you pair a whole bunch of pins and brooches, clustered together on the side of your sweater, you can create some interesting visual interest in an otherwise boring sweater.

SWITCH OUT THE BUTTONS

This is where it’s going to start to get interesting for updating new clothes. If you are handy with a needle and thread, cut off the buttons on a sweater and sew on new ones. You can make a boring sweater a lot more interesting if it has sparkly buttons on it.

Just make sure the buttons are the same size as the old ones, so they can still fit into the buttonholes.

SEW ON FUN DETAILS OR DYE YOUR CLOTHES

I am not a fan of dying clothing because it creates a huge mess and isn’t so hot for the environment. But it’s an idea.

If you are even craftier than your most basic seamstress, sewing on flowers, beads and other decorations can add a little Anthropologie-like flair to an otherwise neutral item.

Check out what you can do to a plain ol’ sweater via Beautiful Mess – Sweeten your Sweater:

It may be too sweet for you and not at all your taste (it isn’t mine) but the idea still holds true, just choose different shapes, beads, accents and whatever else to fit your own sensibilities.

There are some pretty amazing YouTube videos to teach you how to DIY EVERYTHING from fabric flowers to cutting up old T-shirts, to making necklaces or flowers out of zippers.

Me, I’m not very crafty, so the best I can do are things with felt, glue, some quick hand sewing and pins. Very basic items.

How I am Shopping Smarter: Cataloguing my clothing onto my iPod Touch

Wardrobe Essentials (Clothing only)

Professional Clothing in a Casual Marketplace

How to make laundry more enjoyable

My General Want List

Does eating out make it taste better?

If you are reading this on any other blog than Fabulously Broke in the City or via my RSS Feed, it is stolen content without credit.

You can contact me here or find me on Twitter via @brokeinthecity.

Come and visit my other blog: The Everyday Minimalist where I am living with less, but only the best!

Review of the Clarisonic Mia Facial and Body Cleansing Brush

FB @ FabulouslyBroke.com — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 06:00:54 +0000

Note: This post is for guys too. I know that there are some of you out there that actually like to have nice skin, contrary to popular belief, but don’t want to look like you get facials or to wear makeup This is apparently a big-seller for men, and a lot of guys buy the device and buy a second one for their wives or girlfriends!

I am a huge skeptic of devices like microdermabrasion facials at home and other devices for the skin, particularly because I loathe carrying that stuff around if I rarely use it and I only do it because I spent a fortune on it.

I also don’t get a lot of acne from my earlier years, mostly due to the fact that my diet has changed drastically — I try to eat as natural foods and as unprocessed as possible, cooking from scratch and avoiding things in a frozen box or can.

I’m thinking of never going to a restaurant again.. or at least, only going to sushi places from now on where the food is raw.

I rarely get acne now, and when I do, I know it’s because something I ate outside somewhere, had some additive in there that gave me essentially what is an allergic reaction in the form of a pimple, because my body couldn’t process it.

So when I heard about the Clarisonic At-Home Facial brushes, I was thinking:

PFFFT! $100 – $200 for a device that is nothing more than a glorified washcloth? You’ve got to be joking.

….until I bought it.

My reasons for buying it was unrelated to my face, and more that my body was starting to experience some throwbacks to eczema problems.

I was seeing a lot of layers of dead skin pile up, and using scrubs or brushes were either not doing enough for my skin, or scrubbing them red and raw (also not good for my skin).

When I heard about this Clarisonic brush that could be used on the body and on the face in the shower, I was curious.

I don’t believe in that “sonic cleansing power” stuff, but I tested it in Sephora, and I liked that there was a moving, whirring section in the middle of the brush so that I don’t have to try and move a static brush around in a circle to mimic its effects.

WHAT CLARISONIC MODELS ARE AVAILABLE

Clarisonic Plus = $225
Clarisonic Classic = $195
Clarisonic Mia 2 = $149
Clarisonic Mia = $119 <— the one I chose of obvious reasons

WHAT ARE THE OTHER DIFFERENCES?

Clarisonic Plus = 3 speeds, not as portable as it comes with a charging stand, can use the Body Brush head
Clarisonic Classic = 2 speeds, not as portable as it comes with a charging stand, can use the Body Brush head
Clarisonic Mia 2 = 2 speeds, portable, cannot use the Body Brush head
Clarisonic Mia = 1 speed, portable, cannot use the Body Brush head

WHY I CHOSE THE CLARISONIC MIA (ORIGINAL)

It was $119 and the cheapest of the bunch
The brushes are the same as on the higher-end Classic & Plus models (I felt them up)
The motors are the same too (sometimes smaller models are made with cheaper parts)
The ‘Mia’ is quite portable and travel friendly (the higher-end models have a huge charging stand)
It’s slightly smaller than the higher-end models, but only in the length of the handle, not much else
It only has one speed, but frankly, Fast vs. Normal vs. Slow felt the same to me
I didn’t need extras like timers, speeds and so on, if it would be $50 – $106 more expensive (ouch!)
Any brush can be used with it except the body brush, but the ‘normal’ brush head works fine on the body

The brush is pretty compact, as pictured beside my compact digital camera case:

This is the brush on the device itself. The little black bristles and the white section in the middle, rotate. The outer bristles don’t, which keeps in the water from spraying all over your bathroom and face.

THE COSTS OF A CLARISONIC MIA (UP-FRONT & FOREVER)

It costs $119 USD to buy it, plus taxes, but it doesn’t stop there!

The brushes are around $25 each, to be replaced every 3-4 months (like my electric toothbrush), but you can buy them in twin-pack deals for $40, which works out to $20 per brush head.

Now, each brush head has to be separate. One for the face, one for the body (makes sense, actually… I’d use ‘sensitive’ on my face, ‘normal’ on my body).

They recommend using the facial brush twice a day and replace it every 4 months. I plan on using it once daily at night, and replacing it every 8 months, then.

They recommend using the body brush every day and replacing it every 2 months (twice as long to cover your body). I plan on using it every other day (or less as not to irritate my skin), and replacing it every 6 months.

I am not a fan of being obsessively clean.

Read: The Great Unwashed and our Obsessive Cleanliness

So $20 per brush head, because I like deals and if I can stock up when they go on sale or discount or something, I will.

For the face: Replace every 8 months= ~$30/year
For the body: Replace every 6 months = ~$40/year

I am looking for a final upkeep cost of about a maximum cost of $70/year in brush heads, if my assumptions above are correct.

I’ll have to try it for a year and keep track of my expenses in my budget.

WHAT COMES IN A CLARISONIC MIA BOX

The Mia
Charger
Small bottle of some face polish stuff (you can use any cleanser you have, however)

I think the higher end ones look sexier because they come with different face polishes in larger sizes, but all that frou-frou for extra money is not my cup of tea. Couldn’t care less, I don’t bother with the products given, I only want the brush.

I haven’t even used this face polish thing..

DID THE CLARISONIC MIA COME IN ANY OTHER COLOURS?

Yes. In these ones below:

The classic/standard pastels looked ugly, so I just chose plain ol’ white.

It looked the most normal.

CAUTION: Do not buy the black or grey ones in the store, if you ever come across them.

I know for a fact that they use different dyes in the plastics for the colour black (and very dark grey), which compromises the plastic and makes it more brittle/vulnerable.

Stick to any colour but the very darkest like black or grey.

They also had patterns (leopard at the time), but it was another $10 extra on top of the $119. I think the other darker colours (above) are ‘limited editions’, and must cost more money.

I was NOT (and still am not) willing to pay $10 more for another colour or pattern. Who is really going to see it?

USING IT

Waiting 24 hours for it to fully charge was agony, but absolutely necessary to make sure the battery doesn’t get ruined (ALWAYS fully charge your electronics properly before using it).

On the very first day of using it, I felt immediate results. My skin was softer, the layer of dead skin was sloughed off and by the end of the week, I was hooked.

One minute sounds like a long time to be rubbing stuff on your face, but frankly, it isn’t. It goes by so quick, sometimes you think: wait, I needed another 30 seconds!

I just lightly swipe it across my forehead, down the sides, onto my cheeks, on my nose, ending at my chin. By the end of that, depending on how slow or fast I go, I am pretty much done.

Then I just rinse my face, pat dry with a towel and apply my moisturizer.

To clean the brush, I run it under water, hold the handle tight and flick it dry.

One thing I will say is that you must use the brush twice a day.

I stopped for a day or so (only used it at night for 2 nights), and my skin was really unhappy. I broke out a little, and it was like my skin got used to using the brush in cleaning it, that if I stopped, my skin got angry.

Now, I just use it twice a day and my skin has never looked or felt better. I’m amazed and I’m not convinced a washcloth and rubbing it in circles on my face would have done the same thing in the same amount of time.

I could definitely use a washcloth, but I’d take 3 minutes longer to try and mimic the inner rotating brush.

ALL of my moisturizers, serums and lotions absorb a lot better now.

The minute I put on two drops of my argan oil on my face, it disappears almost instantly. That has NEVER happened before, I usually have time to rub it all over my face from one place and spread it around, but now, I have to dab oil on every part of my face before rubbing it in.

As for the body, you can do the test I did. I put the Normal brush head (Body Brush won’t fit, it’s too larger for the Mia), and you scrub one arm. Then you wash both arms and apply lotion to both.

Immediately, I could see the arm that was brushed, absorbed everything immediately. Even BF felt a difference when I tested him (he’s a super skeptic) and told me immediately which arm wasn’t absorbing the lotion as well.

MY QUICK PROS & CONS

PROS

It actually works and my skin feels much better with all those dead cells sloughed off
It is only 1 minute to wash my face really effectively
My products work better — my lotions absorb better rather than sitting on my face like a layer

CONS

Replacing the brush I really hate removing and replacing the brush because it’s unwieldy. You have to snap it on and twist, and the twisting part is hard because there seems to be nothing to grip on the brush to get it on the brush body itself.

2. The charger falls off easily because it isn’t snapped on or a cup of any kind. It’s two little connectors that you have to place carefully on the device, and make sure you don’t touch or move it accidentally.

3. Obviously, PRICE. Ick to the pricetag, but I am not willing to compromise on quality to be cheap, because I heard lots of reviews that the other imitation brushes DO NOT WORK as well as the Clarisonic and people waste $30 – $50 more by trying to be too cheap.

RECOMMENDATION

BUY. IT. (Preferably on sale if you can score that some how)

The hype is to be believed.

I spent the money, choked on spending it, and am still not loving the price tag, but now I am not going to spas to get my face scrubbed, exfoliated and cleaned.

I’m going to use this brush twice a day, forever.

If you are reading this on any other blog than Fabulously Broke in the City or via my RSS Feed, it is stolen content without credit.

You can contact me here or find me on Twitter via @brokeinthecity.

Come and visit my other blog: The Everyday Minimalist where I am living with less, but only the best!

Friends of a feather, flock together

FB @ FabulouslyBroke.com — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:00:37 +0000

I’m going to probably catch a lot of flack for this, but have you ever noticed a problem with making friends?

Specifically, making friends of the same social status as you are in.

Credit

I have a friend who is a doctor, and she just moved to a new city all by herself to start the job. Most of the girls who are there and around her age, are receptionists or nurses and they don’t seem to feel very comfortable in hanging out with her, just because she’s a doctor, and she has to tell them what to do.

It made me think of Grey’s Anatomy where you never really see nurses hang out with the surgeons at the same lunch table, and it’s rare to see higher-ranking surgeons hang out with the newbies.

I’ve been somewhat sheltered from this aspect, seeing as most of the clients I am with, tend to not have many women in the department, let alone women my age to hang out with and bond with.

It’s mostly guys around me, at least 20 years older with a wife, kids and there is no real connection other than work for the most part.

On top of all of that, I’m a lone wolf on projects, seeing as I’m a freelancer working among employees. I have to be uber careful about what I say and do, and how I project myself, so it can be hard to fit in.

Being a consultant means having to be an Every Woman/Man, and though many won’t show it, it can get lonely at times to not have a work friend to talk to, especially since I switch projects and clients so often.

I also find it hard to bond with a project manager, manager, executive or person way higher up than me in general. It just doesn’t happen, I’m on guard all the time.

The one thing my friend mentioned being uber jealous about my job was that I actually had to interact with people on my team — my project team, the client, the people I’m helping and just in general. I’m forced into social situations that can lend themselves easily to a rapport of some sort, even if it isn’t a strong one I can build on outside of work.

With her, she only hangs out with the other doctor in the field, who is again, older than her, not the same gender and just for the plain fact that she is sick of talking about doctor-y stuff all day (she thankfully spared me the details), and wanted to talk to other professionals not in her field or industry.

Have you come across this in your life?

If you are reading this on any other blog than Fabulously Broke in the City or via my RSS Feed, it is stolen content without credit.

You can contact me here or find me on Twitter via @brokeinthecity.

Come and visit my other blog: The Everyday Minimalist where I am living with less, but only the best!

What is ‘comfort food’?

FB @ FabulouslyBroke.com — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:00:38 +0000

What is comfort food to you?

For me, it’s foods I am familiar with from my childhood, or tasty things that make me feel all warm, fuzzy and satisfied when I eat them.

Tartiflette is a comfort food for me — sliced potatoes covered in Reblochon cheese and Fermier bacon? Bring it on.

This is from Pho Lien in Toronto

Ramen with a cracked egg in it used to be a comfort food for me, but now my body just rejects it by feeling sick or dizzy after eating it.

So now I eat Vietnamese pho (see photo above) as my comfort food.

Even a Polish hot dog is comfort food to me — smothered in sauerkraut, onions and a tiny bit of ketchup, I couldn’t think of something more delicious to eat (although very processed).

My newest comfort food is miso soup (preferably with bonito extract) with wakame seaweed. I absolutely love the light, tasty soup that warms my tummy as I eat it.

I also really like hummus, shawarma and fresh sashimi on rice with just a hint of soy sauce.

A lot of people I know cite Kraft Dinner with ketchup as THE ultimate comfort food, (read: Kraft Dinner — Comfort Food or Crap?), but after trying what they considered to be their comfort food, I wasn’t convinced.

To me, it was too orange, sticky, chewy, fake and too sweet with the addition of ketchup, but then again — that wasn’t what I ate as a kid! Everyone has different tastebuds and their favourite foods change as they get older, just as mine have.

So what is comfort food to you?

Kraft Dinner = Comfort Food or Crap?

Food, Food, Food

Food and Meal Strategies

Food Feasts: December 2010 and January 2011

100 Chinese Food Things MEME

Not venturing out today unless it’s for food

If you are reading this on any other blog than Fabulously Broke in the City or via my RSS Feed, it is stolen content without credit.

You can contact me here or find me on Twitter via @brokeinthecity.

Come and visit my other blog: The Everyday Minimalist where I am living with less, but only the best!

Diane von Furstenberg: The bearable lightness of packing

FB @ FabulouslyBroke.com — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 06:00:41 +0000

“If you can figure out your suitcase, you can figure out your life” – DvF

Diane von Furstenberg makes the most beautiful dresses I’ve ever seen, see the few I like from her collection below:

She did a very whimsical, fun video about traveling and packing.

She lives a bit like the way that I do — out of a suitcase, never in one place for very long, and very organized at traveling light for a fashion designer. (Note: this is still a lot of stuff for ordinary folks like me!)

She has 45 items in 3 suitcases to travel with. I am more of a single carry-on person when I go on vacation, but to move, 3 suitcases is enough.

Enjoy!

Suitcase Packing & Traveling Series

Packing for a Short Weekend Trip or Getaway (Pleasure)

Packing to move

Packing for a VERY long trip three weeks or for the long-term

Packing light for the flight

Packing Makeup, Toiletries and Tools for any Trip

If you are reading this on any other blog than Fabulously Broke in the City or via my RSS Feed, it is stolen content without credit.

You can contact me here or find me on Twitter via @brokeinthecity.

Come and visit my other blog: The Everyday Minimalist where I am living with less, but only the best!

Shopping your closet: Mixing styles and making pieces work double-duty

FB @ FabulouslyBroke.com — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 06:00:39 +0000

This is a follow-up post to: 10 steps to get your wardrobe to where you want it to be from my other blog.

I had a couple of readers tell me that they knew what styles they liked, but they seemed to be all over the place, and they didn’t feel like they could say: THIS is my definite style.

To that, I say: AMEN!

Can you imagine if you went through your whole life wearing one style?

Case in point: The Kaiser himself, Karl Lagerfeld from Google Images

He rocks it, because he doesn’t FEEL like wearing anything else except what you see above. Standard white and black suit and glasses.

Great for him, too boring for me to stand if I had to choose ONE outfit to wear forever.

So if you can’t just wear one set of colours and you want to wear a whole range of styles, this is the post for you (and me).

1) HAVE A CLEAR IDEA OF EVERY STYLE YOU LIKE

Here’s a general overview of my current style:

As you can see, it includes anything from retro Mad Men sheath dresses to something a bit harder. I also like a lot of neutrals, but really bright colours are also on the list.

I made this quickly (in about 10 minutes), so I haven’t included lovely pieces that are more romantic and floral in nature, or more of the other styles I like.

2) WEAR EACH STYLE SINGLY

There’s nothing wrong with wearing one style and then another the next day.

Who says you have to only have ONE style? Have a few, have a billion.

The only problem I can see occurring is the price of having to keep so many separate wardrobe styles, not to mention to find the closet space to do so.

3) SHOP YOUR OWN CLOSET & SAVE MONEY/SPACE

As you can see, I like a whole bunch of different looks, but I am not excited about spending a lot of money to achieve them, nor am I willing to keep and store pieces just to keep separate wardrobes of all of these looks.

It’s a lot to carry!

The best thing to do, is to buy items you love and then make them match to other items in your wardrobe, regardless of what ‘style’ it belongs to.

My favourite example of mixing and matching is in this one image, an outfit worn by Carrie Bradshaw (played by Sarah Jessica Parker) in Sex and the City: The Movie. Styled by Pat Fields of course:

There’s a mix of patterns, bright colours and then before it falls off the cliff for being too prissy and ladylike, she adds a gorgeous, leather studded belt.

And here is my fast attempt at doing something similar (please be kind!) in images.

WARDROBE PROBLEM: A LOT OF DRESSES

I have a lot of dresses. A LOT. It’s my favourite thing to wear, but sometimes I want to try something different without buying something new, and I want to re-purpose and change what I already own to look like something new.

So I shop and experiment with what I already own in my closet.

MAKING A DRESS BECOME A SKIRT

I started with a very simple, minimalist outfit that I like to wear when I go grab groceries, for instance.

A loose shapeless top paired with jeans. Slap on some sunglasses, put my hair in a chignon bun, add some flats, and I’m out the door.

In contrast, I also own really pretty pieces that are more retro/boudoir/Dita von Teese in nature:

I was browsing through my iPod Touch wardrobe catalogue when I thought — hey, what the heck is this one-note dress doing, just sitting there, UNWORN?

I still love it.
It still fits beautifully
It stretches, so I can breathe and eat
….but it is so singular in its style that I haven’t worn it out in a while in my very casual-ish life

My thought process of mixing this look up was something like this:

I had to at least match the colours somehow (black lace with a black top)
I could mix it up as a skirt by covering the top
I would have to choose a VERY casual fabric for the top; nothing stiff, nothing structured, something drapey

You can see where this went, and I came up with this:

The shirt is perfect for the top in theory. It’s loose, drapey, a nice casual fabric and it seemed RIGHT with the dress.

Unfortunately, it’s too long and it looks messy because the dress has an empire waist, so the skirt isn’t define until just under my bust.

So I shortened the length of the shirt by tying it into a knot.

Now my next problem — since there’s so much black on top, it really emphasizes my broad shoulders in contrast to the skirt that doesn’t puff out to give me more volume at the bottom to balance me out.

Enter: ACCESSORIES!

I found a thrifted brown belt that was perfect for the outfit. I made sure it was more of a casual feel of a belt and when I give myself waist definition, I make my bottom half look slightly larger, which makes my shoulders look slightly smaller.

I also checked to see that the hardware on the belt was a brass or a gold so it would be right in sync with the sort of pale champagne colour that is underneath the black lace skirt, and the gold buttons on the shirt.

The outfit is ALMOST complete. I still found the top a bit too overwhelming and I wanted to play down my shoulders even more.

So I unbuttoned a few buttons on the shirt to give more of a V-neckline to the look which cuts my shoulders down.

It also makes the look more cohesive. Now you can see just a BIT of the lace on top, but it isn’t a full lace dress which screams FORMAL to me.

With this, I’d just wear ballet flats, or a pair of boots, and I’d throw a simple gold ring on (if I decided to wear any accessories).

MAKING A DRESS BECOME A TOP

Now I have another example I created where instead of using the dress for the skirt, I’m using another dress I own, but this time for the top.

This is the dress I started with:

This is the way I normally always wear it. Belted.

And on a whim, I pulled out this sweater because I thought the colours looked all right together.

It might even look okay if it was belted across everything but I forgot to take a picture. Oops.

This is my first experiment with a skirt being layered over it.

I chose a white one with small black threaded patterns on it because it’s quite neutral.

As always, as an inverted triangle body shape, I had to add a belt.

The A-line shape of the skirt really works as well, because not only do I now have a defined waist, my shoulders don’t look as broad, because the hem of the skirt is flared out slightly.

I BALANCE!

Note: The skirt is big on me because I bought it 6-8 years ago, and since then, I think I’ve dropped half a size or a size.

I used to be a size 6, now I think I’m considered a 4.

I really like the look. Simple, neutral…

Then I tried it with the sweater to see if it still looked all right.

Altogether now!

It needs a belt, without a doubt. The belt separates the colours and patterns and the dark brown gives it a good, stable ‘base’ for the whole outfit.

I also tried it with two more skirts in my closet (I have a total of 5 skirts, no joke).

Enter: BELT TO SAVE THE DAY!

The last skirt is a grey pencil one that I own.

I tried to belt over the ruffle but it looks stupid.

So I pulled the ruffle out to cover the belt, but to still keep that bold splash of blue at the sides (and you can see it from the back as well).

So there you have it.

This is how I make my wardrobe work around the different styles I own and love to wear.

From there, I just go through my accessories and keep it simple. I only wear ONE item. Either a necklace, a pair of earrings OR a ring. Not all 3 at once, and not all of it matches.

Don’t be pigeonholed into only wearing one style in its entirety.
Don’t think you can only wear a dress as a dress. Make it something else!
Do something similar by picking out one piece that you love but can’t seem to make it fit into your lifestyle and/or with other pieces.
Start matching by picking out other items that match in colour and experiment with looks until you find one or two you like.
Try wearing tank tops with fancier skirts.
Wear blazers over dresses.
Layer tank tops underneath button-up shirts.

You just need to play around with pairing items together you would never imagine would make sense.

If it works, you’ll know it.

If it doesn’t, you won’t feel 100% about it and you won’t reach for that combination anyway.

I hope that helped!

P.S. I also found a post today that went quite well with today’s post: Elsiecake — 8 pieces and 8 outfits

You can read more of the Shopping Your Closet series posts here.

Shopping your closet: How to mix and match colours

The Minimalist Wardrobe: 30-Pieces would be my Barest of Bare Minimums!

How I am Shopping Smarter: Cataloguing my clothing onto my iPod Touch

Shopping: Makeup, thrifting for designer clothes and buying wearable art

Style & Shopping Profiles

Double Agents Lurking in your Home

If you are reading this on any other blog than Fabulously Broke in the City or via my RSS Feed, it is stolen content without credit.

You can contact me here or find me on Twitter via @brokeinthecity.

Come and visit my other blog: The Everyday Minimalist where I am living with less, but only the best!

Why are women refusing to marry down?

FB @ FabulouslyBroke.com — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 06:00:43 +0000

A thought provoking post from Financial Uproar (yes, a man) who basically asks women why they refuse to marry down, when men have been doing it for centuries!

His last paragraph sums it up:

It seems to me that women want to have it both ways. They want to maximize their own earnings, but still end up with a guy more successful than they are.

They want to feel taken care of, yet independent at the same time.

They fight for wage equality and equal opportunities, yet refuse to even consider dating someone who doesn’t meet their definition of success.

They want to simultaneously take care of themselves and have a man take care of them.

Enough with the double standard.

I see his points, but here are my responses as a woman who believes in 50/50 in a relationship (I pay half for everything including rent, food, etc), and who has a partner who has equal earning power (although in a regular job situation, he earns 30% more, being that he is older & more established for experience, but as a freelancer, I earn the same amount as he does).

I wouldn’t say we’re REFUSING to marry down, it’s just that we have other priorities to think about.

FAMILY & CHILDREN

If you don’t want kids, why not “marry down”? But if you want kids, my earning power would be diminished for the period of having children (especially in a job like mine where it’s 100% travel), and I need someone who can fill in the gaps there just in case.

Women don’t have the choice to NOT carry the child (save for adoption or foster care).

If we could offload it or take turns with our partners (lucky lesbians), we would!! However, carrying a new life for 9 months, and then having to go through giving birth and recovering from that, while taking care of the child for at least the first 6-12 months of their life, is not an option we can shrug off.

We’re the ones who have to physically do it all and it affects our jobs and therefore, our earning power.

Maternity leave in Canada is pretty generous, but the U.S. is not as forgiving. You could be on maternity leave UNPAID for a year or however long, and in between that time, you could be fired and replaced by someone else who doesn’t have a small baby hanging off them.

Therefore, we can do things like save as much as possible from our income, but frankly, shizz happens.. so we need a partner to take over just in case something happens, so that the family stays secure and well taken care of.

In the case of all single mothers who do all of this on their own, I salute you.

WE DON’T OPERATE IN THE SAME SOCIAL CIRCLES

The main point here is that I wouldn’t even meet him unless it was by chance.

I am not saying this to be a snob, I am saying it’s the truth.

If I have friends who are doctors, lawyers, in business, and they have friends of the same social circle, it’d be unusual to meet someone there who didn’t go to the colleges we attended, hang out in the same professional circles, work at the same jobs and/or stayed friends all the way from elementary or high school.

Someone who works at McDonald’s generally does not have the same friends of someone who works at a bank as an investment banker.

My second point is that it gets uncomfortable at gatherings when your friends don’t swim in the same circles.

That’s not to say that we can NEVER have friends who work at minimum wage jobs, or whatever… but if you put them all together, it might cause tension or discomfort especially in a romantic situation where they are the only ones who didn’t go to the same college and so on.

Or they just feel intimidated.

I was once told that I used fancy English instead of so-called normal English, just because I said: “I am not” rather than “I ain’t“. His parents actually told me that I made them uncomfortable with my choice of words.

Our friends may not have the same topics of interest or the same social/educational background to feel comfortable with each other.

This doesn’t just apply to women “marrying down” either.

For the record, I have seen this with men who have wives who aren’t in the same social circles as their husbands and their friends with their wives, so even when guys “marry down”, depending on the gap in social and educational status, their wives can also feel left out from conversations or just plain uncomfortable.

They feel like they don’t know what to talk about, they get shy, they feel like they aren’t intellectual enough to hold a conversation — lots of insecurity comes through without them knowing it.

They may look for any opportunity to either try and prove themselves to be worthy (charities, going back to school, etc — my cousin’s wife is like this, a real go-getter in society) or they find ways to beg out of these engagements or avoid them completely.

PULLING THEIR WEIGHT FINANCIALLY

Granted, I don’t need much money to live, if I think about it deeply.

Sure, I spend more than I need to live, but if push came to shove, I could cut down on my spending habits.

However, that situation wouldn’t last for long if I could help it, because I’d look for a higher-paying job ASAP so that I could go back to eating good food and not living off ramen noodles.

I may be down and out, in Starbucks or McDonald’s serving the masses, but I’d have a Plan B on the side to get out of it and have a better job, considering my educational background and experience.

Even so, I want someone who can pull their weight financially, the way that I can. I don’t want to support anyone as much as they don’t want to support me! I want to be interdependent, not dependent OR independent. If not, what’s the point of a partner?

I had a friend from my business school who was fired unexpectedly from a company, and she ended up waitressing to pay her share of the bills even though her investment-banking husband could have easily handled the bills on his own.

THAT, is pulling your weight financially.

I don’t need a millionaire (I have my own money, thank you), I just need someone I can bond with and who works hard, and doesn’t just say: I will be a McDonald’s burger slinger forever, and nothing more.

MEN GENERALLY DON’T WANT WOMEN WHO INTIMIDATE THEM

I am controversial in saying this, but it is my experience that not only do women don’t want to marry down, men don’t want to marry up either.

I am not saying it is EVERYONE’S experience or views, but that’s generally what I am observing, even when I talk to guy friends. They want to feel like THE MAN.

Read:

LOOK I JUST WANT A PARTNER

The bottom line of it all is that I just want a partner.

An equal partner who is comfortable with my friends, is ambitious as I am, who can talk about the same topics that I can, rather than tell me “what you said, just went over my head“, and is truly my better half.

If I make more than him, great. So long as he doesn’t start getting lazy, slacking off and refusing to pull his weight because I’m there to fall back on.

…and if this guy happened to be working at a minimum wage job or going back to school at that moment, I wouldn’t hold it against him at all.

It wouldn’t freaking matter if I fell in love with him at the so-called ‘wrong stage’ of his life.

To me, he’s basically ‘making it work’ (in Tim Gunn’s words) to improve his situation and that is impressive.

I would see the potential in such a partner and his temporary situation wouldn’t matter as long as he had plans to move out of it, and not be complacent.

Besides that, I should note that it seems wives who end up supporting their husbands (usually it’s because the husband has a failing business he tried his hand at), and/or are the breadwinners in the marriages, tend to resent it greatly even if it makes no sense.

Read: MSN — The secret lives of breadwinner wives

Miss Representation: The way media portrays women

FB @ FabulouslyBroke.com — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 06:00:53 +0000

Check out this trailer — the film is called “Miss Representation”, and looks to be very promising.

Hat tip to Fabulously Frugirl for the link, go and read what she has to say!

WOMEN ARE JUDGED ON A HARSHER BASIS

It is true that women in media and in general are being judged harder for not taking care of themselves, looking haggard, etc… but men are not under the same level of scrutiny.

No one has ever really said: Wow that Bill over there has really been getting fat and letting himself go lately. What a hot mess! How will he ever hang on to his wife looking like that?

Guys have to go to some major extremes to elicit such comments, whereas if a woman just forgets to touch up on her hair dye, suddenly she’s an ‘aging hag’ who will lose her husband to a hotter, younger woman.

I love this old ad!

Let me state that I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to look pretty (heck, everyone wants to look attractive, even men!).

I myself don’t dress up, wear skirts and put on makeup only to look pretty — I actually find it fun and enjoyable to spend time looking nice.

(Men take care of themselves too so that they look great because they are JUST AS VAIN AS WOMEN, it’s only that they just are under less pressure and scrutiny to do so.

See: Jersey Shore, Adolescent Boys and their Axe deodorant and hair gel and metrosexuals)

The real difference is my goal is never to look overtly sexy, like some extra off an MTV video, which is why you’ll never catch me in a bikini top and a miniskirt, strolling down the street in some UGGs in the middle of summer.

The least amount of clothing you’ll ever catch me wearing on any given day, is a full tank top and a skirt above the knees.

These outfits above? You’ll never catch me dead in these outfits where they’ve forgotten their bottoms.

BEING A FEMINIST

When people hear the term “feminist”, they think of these hippy, granola-crunching women who want other women to stop wearing makeup, stop shaving their legs and wearing dowdy clothing so that people are forced to look at their personality and brains instead of their looks. These stereotypical feminists are supposed to guilt trip other women who enjoy wearing a little lipstick and dressing up in skirts.

I don’t think this is the answer at all, because I consider myself a feminist.

Feminists are women who want other women to succeed to the best of their abilities and to be their own selves. Period.

I want other women to earn more money (or at least, as much money as men in the same positions), negotiate for their money, succeed in life, be financially independent, and to understand how important it all is.

The answer is to be a person who sets an example and tells young girls and women in your life how important it is to be intelligent, hardworking and have a great personality above spending all of their time trying to look ‘sexy’ or ‘hot’; that it is not wrong to want to look pretty, but they should be smart as well.

It is important for women of all ages to be role models and to show girls that they can be smart AND still enjoy being fashionable, not that they have to choose one or the other.

This makes me think that it is even more important for women to be financially independent so that money will never be the driving factor in trying to focus only on looks.

A woman should never have to be dependent on anyone else. They should CHOOSE to be interdependent in a true and equal partnership.

I feel like men (in general) understand this much better than women, and are well-groomed to fight for more money, rise in their careers and prove themselves in other ways to get women.

Once guys have money, they know they can be the most unattractive, undesirable man on the block, but they’ll get unlimited women, one hotter than the other only after them for their money.

In contrast, women have a stereotype of choosing their looks and their body to get to that money indirectly, and are not typically encouraged to succeed in their own careers to obtain the same amount of $$$$$.

In conclusion, the change starts with us, and I can’t wait for this film to come out so I can hear what other women have to say about this.

And I’m interested in your opinions too, both women AND men

Why does it seem like men cheat more than women?

French women don’t get fat

What have you eliminated that you do not miss?

How men and women rate their potential partners

Cooking & Gender: Men, Women & Stereotypes

If you are reading this on any other blog than Fabulously Broke in the City or via my RSS Feed, it is stolen content without credit.

You can contact me here or find me on Twitter via @brokeinthecity.

Come and visit my other blog: The Everyday Minimalist where I am living with less, but only the best!

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So there you have it.

You can read more of the Shopping Your Closet series posts here.

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Why are women refusing to marry down?

FAMILY & CHILDREN

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LOOK I JUST WANT A PARTNER

OTHER READING:

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Miss Representation: The way media portrays women

WOMEN ARE JUDGED ON A HARSHER BASIS

BEING A FEMINIST

And I’m interested in your opinions too, both women AND men

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