Expense Report #35

I did make two discretionary purchases last week, but in both cases I combined multiple discounts. First, I've been pondering a pair of blucher mocs from L.L. Bean for some time now. I had a pair of them about 20 years ago, and I'm not sure what happened to them, but I suspect that since my tastes went through several changes before coming back around more or less to where I started in high school 30-some years ago, I probably got rid of them due to lack of use.

For $69, these are very reasonably priced shoes to start with. I had received an email from Bean offering 15% off any order for Bean Visa card holders, of which I am one. I was also able to apply one of my $10 reward credits (earned by using the card), bringing the total below $50. And as in years past, Bean is offering everyone free shipping during the holiday season (with the Visa card, I get free shipping anyway). So it was too good a deal to pass up. The soles of these shoes are a bit thin to wear in weather like today's, but otherwise they are comfortable and, in my opinion, better made than most of the shoes Bean is offering these days.

The other purchase was from J. Crew. Last week they were offering 25% of all sweaters. I looked around the site, but didn't see anything immediately compelling. But then on Wednesday morning they announced 30% off one order, which also applied to the sweater sale, bringing the total discount on sweaters down to just short of 50%. (As I mentioned the other day, that's a number more likely to get my attention.) That's about as good a discount as you are likely to see from J. Crew, short of a multiple-markdown clearance item in the back of a store.

But I wasn't done yet: I had a $25 J. Crew reward card that needed to be used by December 15th, so I purchased this cashmere "sweatshirt" for around $100, which is roughly 40% of its normal asking price, and a fine deal indeed.

After this, I really do need to stop buying myself clothing and shoes for a while, and focus on trying to sell some of the stuff that doesn't fit or otherwise hasn't worked out for me.

(By the way, J. Crew is offering a similar deal this week on outerwear.)