Posts Tagged ‘bargains’
-
My search for the perfect maxi dress
This summer I’ve spent a lot of time searching for the perfect maxi dress. I’ve hit up the high street and poked my head into haute couture, I’ve gone in-store and online, and I’ve shopped as far afield as Amsterdam and Paris, but no joy… until now.
Just the other week, on perhaps my hundredth try-on, I finally hit pay dirt, and at the most unlikely of places. This is a tale of shopping redemption, dear reader, and if you happen to be on the hunt for a maxi dress, may my tips and travails redeem you, too.
Maxi dresses look really easy to wear – just throw it on and out you go. But they’re a lot trickier to fit than you’d think. A few gathers in the wrong place and you look utterly tank-like; a slightly busy pattern and you’re all the eye can see for miles; a little extra fabric and you’re being offered a seat on the tube.
Posted in Bargains & Markets, Fashion
-
How the DIY wedding adventure began…
It all started in a midwestern high school way back in ‘97. Seriously. However, there were eleven years of romantic whimsy and wanton deviance of all sorts between our awkward adolescent fumbles and a two-week courtship in December ‘08 that led to an impassioned engagement and subsequent whirlwind wedding taking place this month (and, no, I’m not preggers, before the thought even enters your mind)!
Which, in very short form, brings us to here and now, with my fingers furiously and nimbly crafting away as my mind goes through a mini-checklist of ‘to dos’ for the forthcoming DIY nuptials.
Getting married is hard work (but the prep is satisfying too and I am silly excited to become Mrs. Teas). No doubt about it, dears. Even with shed loads of dosh, I bet it’s still a full-time job. The minutiae of it all boggles the mind. The Future Husband (henceforth referred to as FH) and I decided to do it on a temporal (out of necessity) and monetary budget (out of principle. I would rather die than spend a mint on a wedding), having only four months and limited finances to pull it off. Now, if you truly wanted to do DIY, you could just elope and carry a crate of wine to a mate’s house for a cozy party but doing that would have broken my mother’s heart and I don’t want that on my conscience. If elopement’s not an option, then I’m hoping my blow-by-blow posts might shed some light on how to make a wedding look fabulous without costing a fortune and leaving you insolvent before the words ‘I do’ even leave your lips.
The challenge: spend as little as possible while creating a stylish, intimate wedding by hand where possible; maintain my sanity; have a good time (I outright refuse to be so stressed out that I don’t enjoy the lead up to the big day or the day itself. What’s the point if I don’t enjoy it!?).
The checklist:
- Booze
- Cake
- Centerpieces
- Decor
- Dress
- Flowers
- Food
- Games
- Glasses/utensils, etc.
- Guest book
- Guest Favors
- Hair and makeup
- Honeymoon
- Invitations
- Judges
- Marriage license
- Music
- Parents gifts
- Photographer
- Rings
- Suit
- Tables/chairs, etc.
- Thank you cards
- Venue
- Vows
(You’ll notice a few things missing, like ridiculous engagement ring, rehearsal dinner, bridal party and all its trimmings, shower et al. The first and easiest way to cut down on the price of your wedding is to cut out all the unnecessary faff.)
And now the fun begins. Tools needed are: elbow grease, creativity, an eye for bargains and a well of personal favours. To date, we’ve nearly completed our wedding checklist for just shy of $10,000 (approx. £6,000. Sounds like a lot but add up everything and it’s a steal, really). The average cost of a wedding in American in 2009 is apparently $30,000 says the Bridal Assoc. of America. (And let’s be honest… I don’t know many who’ve spent even close to 30K… as FH has said, 100K is just an entry figure in the parlance of so many people. Stats are misguiding and this one is a national average and thus includes the full spectrum of weddings. Plus, it doesn’t include the price of engagement rings, which men spend too much on.) So, in reality, we’ve planned ours on a fraction of the typical spend on a big wedding nowadays (we still have 100 people coming. Big families).
And it’s friggin’ fun.
How are we doing it? Visit this space to find out.
(We’ll break down the numbers below for you post by post as they’re written since this in a sort of reverse chronological order.)
Total spent: £6,280 ($9,500 at today’s exchange rate)
Total saved: £13,554 (based on the average cost of an American wedding at today’s exchange rate)
-
How to win big (and save loads) on Ebay
Here are the beloved Marni boots I scored on Ebay a couple of months ago. They’re exactly what I was after: flat heels and over the knee in a rich chocolate brown. If I bought them in-store I would have payed £850. On Ebay I paid just £53. They are seriously the best boots I’ve ever owned, but it took a little time (and Ebay savvy) to get my mits on them.
Here are my top tips for scoring big on Ebay:
• If you’re after a specific item, do your research first. Make sure you’re aware of its actual retail value.
• Resist the urge to bid on the very first thing you find. Spend a couple of weeks watching similar items on Ebay first and see how much they go for. For instance, I’ve been watching Anglepoise lamps on Ebay for the past couple of months. It’s been really interesting to see not only how much they go for, but the variety of lamps on offer – varying from very poor condition to completely re-conditioned and brand-spanking new! When I eventually come to bid on a lamp I’ll be much more confident about how much I can expect to pay.
• Save searches to your Ebay profile and sign up for daily emails alerting you to new auctions. I’ve currently saved 92 searches to my profile, and get about 40 emails a day! (I know it’s a lot but I just quickly scan the auctions for any outstanding gems.)
• Include mis-spellings in your saved searches, such as Mui Mui (instead of Miu Miu) and Vivenne Westwood (instead of Vivienne Westwood). It’s amazing how many people get the spelling wrong in their auctions – and how they’re easily overlooked.
• To avoid missing out at the last second, make sure you snipe by using a service like Just Snipe. It may be a wee bit naughty and not exactly in the spirit of Ebay, but let’s face it, everyone does it and Ebay doesn’t seem to have a problem with it. A snipe service will put in a bid during the last few seconds of the auction (which is extremely difficult and quite frantic when you try to do it manually). All you need to do is nominate your maximum bid and it will do all the work for you.
Total spent: £53
Value of boots: £850
Total saved: £797What’s your best buy on Ebay? Got any top tips of your own?
Posted in Bargains & Markets, Fashion, Vintage
-
Market challenge: How much can you haggle or get for free?
I love the idea of haggling. Really, I do. It’s an age-old system of two parties negotiating the best deal for themselves. But I just happen to be spectacularly crap at it. Especially at farmers markets - I feel like a total cheap-arse offering a farmer-type peanuts for their organically grown and loving-tended potatoes. OK, so that’s not exactly the reality of the situation, but you know what I’m getting at. Nobody wants to be a scumbag.
So this really was a challenge for me on a number of levels. Especially as my local “farmers market” also happens to be one of London’s number one foodie tourist attractions, Borough Market. I generally make a weekly trip to Borough to pick up some goodies for the week – and to grab some coffee from Monmouth to kick-start the weekend. The thing is, I often go first thing in the morning, mostly to avoid the tourist crowds which really start to get crazy at about 11am.
But one week I happened to be there towards the end of trading, around 4pm, and noticed that the stall owners were madly discounting all their produce. So I decided to head back there at 3.30pm, to find out exactly how much I could haggle - or get for free.
First thing I noticed? Nobody is discounting at 3.30pm. It’s still packed with tourists milling around the stall counters and paying top price for produce. So there’s no need for the owners to discount or bargain with customers. I snuck up to a couple of stall owners and offered £2 for half a dozen sausages, and was just about laughed away. The embarrassment!
So whilst I waited for the crowd to dissipate and the day to wind down, I dedicated myself fully to getting as much free stuff as possible – ie. samples. Now, I usually steer entirely clear of food samples. Honestly, I really don’t want your teensy bit of bread covered in oily pesto that has been man-handled by hundreds of other grubby fingers. Yeeuurk. So I literally had to swallow my germ-phobia and get on with it. I felt like a total scavenger, swooping in on any out-stretched platter of crumbs.
But you know what? I did quite well. In fact, I just about made a three-course meal of it. Here’s what I scored…
STARTERS:
10x chunks of cheese
3x pesto on breadMAIN:
2x samples of sausage
2x samples of ravioliDESSERT:
3x pieces of cake
1x pieces of fudge
2x pieces of browniesI was starting to feel quite full by the time 4pm drew near, so I had to draw on my inner reserves and steely determination to haggle with the best.
Coming up in part 2: The full haggling results! In the meantime - enjoy this video:
Birdy Moola goes to Borough Market! from OolaMoola on Vimeo.How much can you haggle or get for free? Read more at our blog!
Posted in Bargains & Markets, Food
