Bargain Clicking

Over the weekend, I started putting away some of my heavy-duty winter gear, like my parka and the seriously insulated boots (Chippewa, made in the USA) that I bought after that first December snowstorm. Am I worried that we might get a storm in April? Nope, I'm not even considering the possibility. Having worn one pair of boots or another pretty much every day for the past four months, I've reached the point where I'm kind of tired of them. I'm ready for the weather to warm up, so I can break out some of my favorite retro sneakers. In fact, I'm tired of most of my winter clothing. Happens every year around this time.

In a similar vein, one morning a few weeks ago I was getting ready for work when I realized that I was tired of wearing jeans every day. For a long time I had thought myself lucky because I had jobs where I did not have to adhere to a dress code, but suddenly I found myself wanting more variety. It's not like I don't own any other pants besides jeans, but when I took a closer look, I found that in fact I had little else: one or two pairs of khakis that fit, one or two pairs that no longer fit, and a couple pairs of corduroys.

Beyond wanting to mix things up, I think this also has something to do with environment. At my previous office job, the company's founders (two around my age, one about a decade older) and most of the other employees dressed like the computer programmers and web developers they were: jeans, T-shirts, sneakers, the occasional button-front shirt, shorts in summer. One guy took off his shoes as soon as he arrived in the office, and padded around in his socks all day. I took my cues from the rest of them, and adjusted my manner of dress slightly so it more or less aligned with what everyone else was wearing.

The same thing is now happening at my current job. I've been here for more than two years; I started as a contractor, and was hired as a full-time employee almost a year ago, so I feel established and like I belong. The guys in this office don't dress up, but they do dress one or two notches better than the guys in my previous office, so I am reacting to that by wanting to elevate my own dress accordingly.

On my lunch break a day or two after this realization, I was poking around on eBay and drifted into the clothing section. I've bought shoes on eBay, but no articles of clothing other than a coat a couple of years back. After a few minutes, I realized that there were tons of brand-new clothing items for sale, much of it dirt cheap.

As a result, over the past couple of weeks I have picked up several new pairs of khakis at an average transaction price of around $11 each plus shipping. One of the pairs of pants that no longer fit me was a style I particularly liked, a nicely broken-in khaki made by Polo and inspired by World War II uniforms, that I found on clearance a few years back at Bloomingdale's in Manhattan. They are well-made and (at least when I first got them) fit me extremely well.

I love these pants and was really bummed that they no longer fit me, so I was very excited to find some of them available in my current size on eBay. (Note to self: make an effort to prevent waistline from expanding any further.) Finding them at all felt like a victory, since they are not carried by many stores; in those that do, they retail for around $100 a pair, so finding them so cheap on eBay was a double bonus.

I also scored an $80 pair of L.L. Bean shoes for $20, and a vintage Woolrich shirt-jacket (a good layering item during the transitional weather of April) in excellent condition for $10. There are a couple of other auctions that have a few more days to go, but other than those, I think I'm set for a while. On the other hand, there's a part of my brain that says I should buy as many pairs of these favorite khakis as I can find, and hoard them.