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saving money

From the Ground Up: Shoes

shoes

There are many things about being female that are just plain unfair. Women’s clothing many times does not come with pockets or the pockets are small and useless (and yes I know many women refuse to un-sew the openings because ‘it ruins the line’). Women’s shoes many times are built along the philosophical lines of Chinese footbinding. But my major beef (or bone to pick depending) has to do with simple shoe quality. No matter how expensive women’s shoes are, unless you are getting something like orthopedic shoes from your podiatrist (and those can be absolutely costly and we won’t discuss the fashion factor), or perhaps something like the penny loafers still handsewn by Sebago, you are getting a shoe that is held together with glue.

Ah, but you say, “Aunt Toby, I don’t care about that – they just talked to me…and asked me to buy them and take them home and love them…”

And Aunt Toby’s answer to that one is: “Poppycock – if you want to truly save money on clothing and shoes, you have to buy things that you can wear for a long time , can maintain and can get repaired if need be.” (more…)

Don’t Save Money — SAVE MONEY!!

Money You hear this from people all the time, “I saved xxx much money.” “I got a great bargain; on sale, it was $xxx but I paid $yyy.” “I found a way to only pay, $xxx for thus and such; I saved so much money.”

As many of you know who read my other diaries, I am someone who believes in the power of language. I believe that words and their meanings have almost a magical quality to change our thinking. Think about the phrase “Homeland Security” – think about what THAT’s done to us.

Aunt Toby is here to announce the opening salvo (remember that detergent?) in my war against any of the words starting with the letters: S-A-V. That word and all of its daughter and sons (saved, saving, savings) have basically lost complete meaning. And here is my reason why: People think that “saving money” (that is, paying less for something you are going to buy anyway, or buying something based on the discounted price) is SAVING MONEY.

What you really DID was “NOT SPEND MONEY” or, perhaps more clearly, “NOT SPEND AS MUCH MONEY.” You did not actually SAVE MONEY. (more…)

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