The Cost Of: Prenatal Care, First Two Trimesters

Coach wristlet (affiliate link) 

With any medical care-related expense in the US that's billed through health insurance, it's not necessarily that meaningful to hear about anyone else's experience. So much depends on the vagaries of one's own health plan, something I personally find nearly impossible to decipher or predict before my bills after insurance actually come in. (That's as someone who litigates multi-million dollar commercial contract disputes at my day job, no less!) 

Nonetheless, I always like to read about how much things cost, including American healthcare. I was originally hoping to do a post like this earlier in pregnancy, potentially one for each trimester. As it turns out, the billing department at my OB-GYN's office can be quite slow, so it was only recently that what I think(?) is the last bill from before the end of my second trimester - nearly 7 weeks ago - was finally processed with my insurer. 

This kind of timing isn't necessarily a huge shock in the American system, either. For instance, it was only this June that I finally saw a record pop up with my insurer for a PCR COVID test I took last December, during the start of NYC's Omicron surge. (That length of delayed billing is pretty unusual though, in my experience. There wasn't actually a bill to me involved either, because COVID testing in NYC was generally still free to the patient with government support back in December 2021.) 

For my prenatal care throughout the first two trimesters, through 26 weeks of pregnancy, the amounts I paid out of pocket for expenses that were - or could have been -  put through insurance was: $1,827.68. 

Unfortunately, I think this solidly establishes my health plan as being "not very good," in terms of the extent and quality of my coverage. Which is something I did already know beforehand. Many biglaw firms are known for offering associates extremely expensive health insurance plans, sometimes with poor coverage. My health insurance premiums aren't as bad, but the co-pays and other terms keep getting slightly worse by the year. For one random data point of comparison, a YouTube vlogger I follow who also lives in NYC only paid around $366.00 out of pocket on her insurance for prenatal care through roughly the same point in her pregnancy.

Life Lately: Back From Vacation

One of K's photos from beautiful Grace Bay Beach in Turks and Caicos.

I just got back from a lovely and rejuvenating vacation or "babymoon" to Turks and Caicos, and am now settling back in for several more extremely busy months at the office before our little bean arrives. Today's post is a grab bag of a few smaller, non-pregnancy related things that have caught my attention recently. 

I greatly enjoyed this Harper's Bazaar article about the history of Tibi as the brand reaches its 25 year anniversary. There won't be too much new information here if you've followed the company and its founder Amy Smilovic for a while, but I still find the story of Smilovic's complete reinvention of the brand around 2011 fascinating. It's particularly interesting because Tibi was first founded with its original more preppy, print-focused aesthetic - so different from the brand's approach to design today - in 2008, around when I first became interested in fashion (though I didn't have any sense of my personal style and just read about what was popular in fashion magazines and other blogs). Many brands I remember from back then are no longer around.

Please note that this post contains affiliate links that could result in my earning a small commission - at no extra cost to you - if you click and make a purchase. Thank you for your support!

Speaking of things I first came across in part because of my interest in Tibi, here's another jewelry brand somewhat in the same design vein as Smilovic favorite CompletedWorks (also here, here, here, and here): I recently learned about Agmes Jewelry (also here, here, and here) from fellow Tibi fan TheCreativeClassicist, who in turn discovered it in part because of new J.Crew head of women's design, Olympia Gayot. Agmes is somewhat similar to CompletedWorks in that both favor very contemporary, more sculptural designs. Some Agmes pieces I like can be found in the widget below: 

These days, I find I have many ideas for longer-form posts, but not much time and energy to write them because of my long hours at work. Among other things,  I haven't really written about personal finance or money for a long time. 

One big idea is for a post about K and I's experience with negotiating and signing a fairly straightforward and simple prenup, which then became a postnup - a distinction that generally doesn't make a significant difference under New York law - due to getting time-crunched in the weeks before our courthouse wedding last year. Throughout the process, I did learn that some of my original assumptions about prenups were a bit incorrect. 

In general, I feel like many people around my age in the US have a fairly accurate sense about how prenuptial agreements generally work and why both people entering a marriage might want one. For instance, when the topic comes up on r/MoneyDiariesActive (e.g. here, here, here, here, and here), most replies are in the zone of reasonably correct. There aren't too many people whose views are completely off-base. People do sometimes forget that because prenuptial (or postnuptial) agreements are contracts, they can be negotiated and customized to a potentially very large extent by the parties. Thus, relatively few things are inherently true about all such agreements. 

Entertainment-wise: This year's Formula 1 racing season has been incredibly dramatic, but often not for happenings on the racetrack. K and I continue to derive tons of amusement from following the sport. 

We also recently took advantage of a few months of free Apple TV+ through one of K's other subscriptions, and it's been fun watching some of their shows, in particular Foundation and For All Mankind. The writing quality on For All Mankind can be uneven - it's an alternate history about the space race with very long time-jumps between seasons, which can cause some issues with character development - but we've still been really enjoying it so far. 

The First Trimester

Our little bean at 12 weeks.

Some personal news: I'm pregnant, due in mid-December! When this post goes live, I'll be in my 15th week of pregnancy, just past the first trimester. K and I are so excited to become parents. I also feel incredibly fortunate that everything's been going smoothly so far, according to my OB/GYN it's all proceeding as expected and low-risk.

Today's post is about my first trimester. Be forewarned, I mention some detail about things like ovulation tests, irregular cycles when coming off the pill, side effects of pregnancy, and that sort of thing. Along with that, an important disclaimer: I am not a medical professional, but I always take seriously the advice of the team at my OB/GYN's office.   

The Post-COVID Era NYC Rental Market

via Unsplash

I don't know about your neck of the woods, but here in NYC the rental market has gone completely bananas! We got a sweet deal on our previous lease renewal last summer, thanks to the lingering effects of COVID on NYC rents, but those renter-friendly days are definitely long over. 

Within a few months after last year's lease term started, I was already noticing that rents in Manhattan were climbing back up, eventually increasing by early 2022 to the point where it was almost like COVID never happened. Around 2019, market rents in my not-particularly-hip neighborhood had suddenly skyrocketed over the original not-terrible-for-Manhattan norms that had prevailed since K and I first moved into our current building in late 2015. So when I say the local rental market looks as if "COVID never happened," I'm talking about fairly significant increases over the most recent high water mark of rents (from early 2020, before the COVID shutdowns). 

I was commiserating about the state of the rental market to a close law school friend who lives not too far from K and I. Both of us were bracing for some really painful lease renewal offers from our respective landlords. Somewhat... luckily, I guess we need to call it, even if the result is still a ~18% rent increase compared to last year for both of us... we both actually ended up being... pleasantly surprised by the offers we received. Despite that ~18% increase, both offers are also significantly under market compared to what new leases currently go for in our buildings. (Each landlord also made it extremely clear our offers left absolutely no room for negotiation. It's take it or leave it!) 

It's hard to get a perfect read on what market rates look like right this moment. Listed rents on StreetEasy for one-bedroom apartments in my neighborhood recently shot up by $300+ since the last time I looked in earnest, around four weeks ago when we were considering whether to accept our lease renewal offer. If current listing prices on StreetEasy are serious - I'm embarrassed to say I've never been great at negotiating personal business matters, so I don't know have any read on how much flexibility there might be on new leases - market rents on comparable units are possibly 35%+ more than my COVID-discount rent from last year, and ~17.5% more than I'm paying for my renewed lease, which K and I signed barely three weeks ago! 

If you're a renter, how's the rental market looking where you are? I hear things are pretty tough in a lot of big cities in the US, there may actually be some cities out there that have seen more dramatic recent rent increases than NYC at the moment. 

Suiting Up for Job Interviews

Suit on the left is from Theory (blazer and skirt; affiliate links) and the one on the right is from Brooks Brothers. At present, it's difficult to find more conservative-looking wool or wool-blend women's suits at stores with more entry-level pricing!

Today's post is just a small life update: Part of the reason I've been so busy and unable to focus on blogging in recent months is that, in addition to things being so hectic at the office, I've also recently had more interviews for some of those government litigation jobs I started applying for over a year ago! At least two of the government offices I filed applications for in late April of 2021 only started interviewing candidates who applied in 2021 starting around March 2022. 

Many of those jobs can also be expected to have an extremely long hiring process; months can  go by between interviews. Should I be lucky enough to receive an offer, there's also a potentially lengthy background check process, one that can take several more months. 

I must say, I don't think I realized just just how long this process could take for me until I started with this year's interviews. But I'm extremely thankful to have the opportunity to interview in the first place. (With the nature of my current workplace, they don't mind that I'm looking at this type of government job, they're actually quite excited about it. It was also necessary for my current supervisor to write a letter of recommendation for my applications!) 

So yes, that's one important thing going on in my life recently. If I'm ultimately successful with getting one of the jobs I've been interviewing for, that will also involve taking at least a 60% pay-cut - the actual number may be well over 60%, though should at least be a bit less than 70% - from what I currently earn in the private sector. I'm definitely mentally prepared for that, it's part of why I rushed to pay off my law school student loans as fast as I could in recent years, finally finishing them off last July. Though the question of whether I'm actually really financially prepared - can anyone ever be for such a drastic change? - is a much more complicated one, as I'm just not very good at doing long-term financial projections. 

2021 Year in Review: Books and Podcasts

2021 was far and away not the best reading year for me. For the first part of the year, I thought I had a better attention span and ability to focus on reading than I did in 2020, but then starting in September I suddenly became completely unable to read for fun, even if the books I was working through were fairly well-written and engaging. 

As reported in my monthly reading reflections posts for the months until I stopped reading for fun, I read 26 books in 2021. In today's post, I'll highlight some of my favorites for the year, though I don't think any of them will be a surprise!

Please note that this post contains affiliate links that could result in my earning a small commission - at no extra cost to you - if you click and make a purchase. Thank you for your support!

As for 2022, I'm doing a little bit better with reading for fun. I blazed my way rather quickly through Leviathan Wakes, the first book of The Expanse series. (By the way, the television series based on these books is really, really good; K and I binged it during the earliest months of the pandemic and we highly recommend it.) I'm roughly a third of the way through the second book now and I think I may be able to power right through the entire series in fairly short order, probably to the exclusion of reading anything else. The only downside with reading The Expanse books is that they contain very fast-paced stories, so they're not always the best pre-bedtime reading. Sometimes, they're too exciting, so I stay up a bit late to continue reading! 

I may hold off on doing more "monthly" reading reflections posts until I've finished the series, or maybe I'll only do those posts in the meantime if I have any other reading to report. Based on what I've heard from fans of the series, The Expanse should be consistently well-written throughout, so it's not the sort of thing where it makes sense to give my thoughts on each individual book as I finish reading it. It'd make more sense to evaluate the series as a whole. 

Anyway, without further ado, here are my favorite books of 2021. They're somewhat listed in order of how much I liked them, with the ones I liked most towards the top of my list. 

• Piranesi by Susanna Clarke - There's probably no surprise that this was my single favorite book of 2021, as I sang its praises effusively back when I first read it. It's just such a beautiful, lyrically written novel, with such a unique fantasy concept behind it. I was also really glad I didn't accidentally come across any spoilers before I finished reading this book, since it allowed me to slowly discover what was going on right alongside the narrator. 
• Crying in H-Mart by Michelle Zauner - I read a lot of great nonfiction books in 2021, but this powerful memoir about Zauner's late mother was my favorite of the bunch. I generally like the deeply personal stories found in all good memoirs, so any strong writing from that genre will typically have an advantage with me over other types of nonfiction. People often review almost all bestselling memoirs as being honest and raw in their way, but I think Zauner's memoir really stands out as being particularly unflinching and self-aware. 
• Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker - This was a really well-written and well-reported nonfiction book, with a lot of empathy to the family at the center of the story as they did their best for each other through tough circumstances. 

I also thought it'd be nice to highlight some of my favorite podcasts from 2021. 

• Maintenance Phase - This podcast focuses on analyzing various aspects of American diet culture and, to a lesser extent, wellness culture. It's a really fascinating look back at some of the things that were definitely part of my awareness when I was growing up through the 1990s and earlier 2000s. (Think things like the short-lived presence of olestra snack foods, the ubiquity of Snackwell's cookies, and the fact that the Biggest Loser television show exists...)  
• I Will Teach You to be Rich - Ramit Sethi's the author of my favorite introductory personal finance book, also titled I Will Teach You to be Rich. His new podcast should appeal to anyone who enjoys the kind of personal finance discussion - emphasis on the personal - I sometimes mention here. His podcast focuses on interviews of couples who have some kind of fundamental disagreement about how to manage their money, which implicates larger questions of their values and lifestyle choices. He tries to help them work through their disagreements. The first few episodes have titles that sound like huge, intractable disagreements, but most of those couples actually were not in as contentious a spot as it sounded like. For instance, the $450,000 student debt in episode four was on track to eventually be forgiven through one of the non-PSLF income-based repayment programs - like with the orthodontist mentioned in the long-ago viral news story discussed here - so it was actually being managed reasonably, there was a plan in place. The more recent episodes have included couples that sounded like they might not be able to resolve things, however. It does make me a bit nervous that these interviews sound like they're trying to be financial therapy, which is maybe best left to licensed professionals? But it is a very interesting series to listen to. 
• Blind Landing - This is a fairly brief but well-reported podcast series about a serious problem that occurred during the women's gymnastics all-around finals at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. The vault was set to incorrect specifications, which ruined the competition for some of the athletes and could easily have caused serious injuries. The series also touches on broader issues of athlete safety in gymnastics, including the lack of one-touch warmups in event finals. 

What were your favorite books or podcasts of 2021? I'm always interested in hearing recommendations for books and podcasts basically anytime, particularly if there are any other good personal finance podcasts out there that focus more on the "personal" side of things. 

Federal Judiciary Financial Disclosures

via Unsplash

Now this is a terribly un-festive and rather unseasonable post to publish so close to Thanksgiving! I already had most of this one written before things got really hectic at work in early November, so I figured I should just go ahead and publish now that it's ready. Even if almost no one who reads here is as interested in the United States federal judiciary as I am, I still like to think and write about these things...

Because I've been so busy at the office recently, I haven't had any interest in Black Friday sales this year. I'm even a bit too frazzled to think about the year-end holiday gifts I'm somewhat obligated to buy, but have not yet started shopping for (which is probably going to cause headaches for me with all the ongoing supply chain and shipping issues). Long story short, I don't think I'll be making any posts fully dedicated to Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales or holiday gift shopping this year. 

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The Wall Street Journal recently did some in-depth reporting about what's apparently a significant number of US federal judges who have - sometimes through the judge's spouse, financial advisor, or a family trust - either held or actively traded the stocks of companies with active litigation pending before them. I was shocked and appalled. It's critically important that our federal courts avoid even the appearance of impropriety, and this is an obvious and profound failure in that area. The law is also extremely clear, holding the stock of a particular company - however small the number of shares - means the judge must recuse themselves from all cases concerning said company. 

Based on the WSJ articles, it seems these were generally not knowing violations of the judicial ethics rules and laws. In the federal courts I'm familiar with, case assignment is random, done by a spin of the wheel, whether virtual or physical. The clerk of the courts' offices - not the judges' individual offices - automatically screen cases to ensure no judge is assigned to one they have personal conflicts with. Judges have the responsibility of providing their court clerk's office with an updated conflicts list or "recusal list." Any case including a company the judge owns stock in is obviously off limits, the judge is automatically recused from cases involving those companies. Or at least, that's what happens when things work as they should.

Certain judges probably didn't keep their recusal lists fully updated to reflect all stock transactions as the trades occurred. Some of the judges have stated the trades were done by a spouse or financial advisor, and the judge had no idea they happened.  

Reentry Thoughts: Wardrobe and Personal Style Changes

I'm interested in getting this Tibi skirt when it eventually becomes available. My outfits with it would look a little different, though.

Please pardon me for disappearing completely for nearly three weeks! Work really ended up taking me by surprise, it's been fire drill after fire drill in my professional life lately. That can be difficult, but overall I'm glad things are finally returning to a pre-pandemic level of busy at the office. My caseload in particular saw considerable COVID-driven disruptions for well over a year - that wasn't true across the industry for all litigators, I got it worse than most - so I'm ultimately happy to have more to do at work than in most of 2020 and the earlier part of 2021. 

As of late last week, I've now had my third shot of the COVID vaccine. Minimal side effects this time, not even a sore arm near the injection site. It's kind of wild to think that, as late as March 2021, I had no idea how quickly I'd be able to get my first shot. Fast forward to now, and it's easy for basically any person aged 18+ to get their Pfizer or Moderna booster in NYC, as long as it's been at least six months since they finished their first full round of the vaccine. Very recently, NYC authorities expanded eligibility to include the entire group, with no need for any qualifying health conditions. (I'm less familiar with the booster guidelines for Johnson and Johnson.) 

I've been fully back in the office since mid-July, and may even be back to doing some international business trips as early as next January or February. Many court appearances in NYC are back to being in-person and various other in-person meetings are also happening, at least on the litigation side. Suffice to say, I feel like my working life is almost entirely back to pre-pandemic "normal", except that we still wear masks in indoor public settings - which I'm perfectly happy to do - and we try to keep events with an indoor dining component to a minimum. 

Now that I've been fully back in the office for several months, I have some thoughts on how my wardrobe needs and preferences have changed, after most of my outdoor clothes and shoes went almost entirely unused during my more than 15 months of COVID social distancing. One big - and possibly temporary - factor causing these changes is that my workplace still allows a casual dress code for now, a pandemic-driven change from our previous business casual dress code. 

Life Lately: A Spendy Month (or Two)

The green chickpea hummus at ABCV, which is quite tasty and also a suitable dish for my current health and fitness goals!

As of last week, NYC now requires restaurants and many other businesses to check for proof of vaccination before allowing guests over the age of 12 to participate in various indoor activities. K and I have been indoors at a few restaurants since the new policy took effect, and we've seen... a range of different levels of verification. 

One restaurant checked our vaccine cards - using the New York state Excelsior app, because K and I both got our shots from state-run sites - and our photo identification. Another asked us to self-attest to our vaccination status, but waved away our attempt to pull out our phones to actually show our vaccine information in Excelsior. Yet another restaurant didn't ask us anything at all. We'll see whether restaurants become more uniform in checking vaccination status in the next few weeks. 

Since I officially finished paying off my student loans last month, I've sort of been spending money like it's going out of style. There was that substantial jewelry gift to myself, which was planned out ahead of time, and then a round of orthodontic treatment, which was a bit less planned out. (I'd had a vague notion since the accident in 2017 that I'd seek out an orthodontic consult for it eventually, but had no concrete idea of when that should actually happen.) Our recent trip to Crested Butte, CO was also on the pricier side. 

K and I have also decided to move forward with a small, immediate family-only courthouse wedding ceremony, leaving any bigger celebration and reception for an as yet unknown date down the line - only after the COVID situation has calmed down both domestically and internationally - so there are also quite a few expenses related to that. For instance, K bought my engagement ring so I'm buying our wedding bands. 

I think K and I may have left it far too late to successfully book a photographer now for a late September date - even if it's on a weekday and we'd only need the photographer for two hours max because it's going to be an extremely informal and quick wedding - but if it's possible, we'd like to arrange that. It was probably extremely foolish on my part to have waited until last week to start looking for a photographer. Everyone I've spoken to so far is already close to fully booked through the end of the year. (I may have been lulled into a false sense of security by my own line of work. Clients who are willing to pay can easily arrange to retain a team of biglaw or biglaw-ish lawyers for significant, urgent work with barely a week or two's notice... Obviously, the legal business is very, very different from most others, which I should have realized, duh.) 

Also, I now have my new braces on, for a round of treatment expected to take four to six months. It's been quite an adjustment! I had braces when I was a teen, but I'd completely forgotten they come with restrictions against eating certain types of food. I never experienced much pain, discomfort, or other problems with my braces as a teen, but I think my teeth are slightly more sensitive this time around. My speech is somewhat affected, I can't pronounce some words well because the braces are in the way. 

After barely a week of wearing my new braces, I swear I can already see some movement! So I'm currently feeling reasonably optimistic that my treatment timeline might be closer to four months than six. Either way, because I'll likely be wearing a mask in all indoor public settings for the next several months - except when actively eating or drinking - barely anyone outside of close friends and family will ever actually see my braces. 

Money Life Lately: Less Biglaw-ish Than Before

Kate Spade "Buzz" Small Slim Bifold Wallet (affiliate link)

Today's post is a bit of a grab bag about some of the smaller things going on in my financial life recently, outside of the really big thing - fully paying off my law school student loans! - that just happened. 

Less Biglaw-ish Than Before

Throughout the years since starting my current workplace in 2017, I've always described my job as "biglaw-ish." This made sense because our attorneys are similarly credentialed; typically have biglaw work experience; sometimes have similar work hours; and also because we were on the same salary scale, even if our year-end bonuses were typically ~25% of what our biglaw peers were earning and we also never got any part of the "special bonuses" that started appearing in recent years.  

After a bit of a market-wide slowdown in the first month or two of COVID-driven shutdowns in the US, business has apparently mostly been booming at many American biglaw firms. Early this year, a round of new special bonuses were announced. I understand that assurances were also given by certain firms that these special bonuses would not result in the reduction of year-end bonuses later on. Given typical practices at my workplace, I naturally expected the biglaw special bonuses would not have any effect on my total compensation. 

A few months later, I was rather shocked when biglaw firms also provided a new round of across-the-board raises for associates, on top of the special bonuses. So, uh, business is clearly still extremely good at some biglaw firms, to say the least. 

As for me, my workplace is officially no longer on the biglaw salary scale. This isn't too much of a surprise because we're a much smaller entity, and accordingly, our practice is far less diversified than that of any given biglaw firm. Instead, we got smaller raises across the board, and it's unclear what will happen the next time biglaw firms decide to increase associate salaries again. Anyway, I'm not worried about this change, though obviously, more total compensation is always nice. I had a lot of reasons for joining my current workplace rather than returning to my original biglaw firm, and I've never truly regretted that choice. 

The First $100,000...

Tory Burch Robinson Colorblock Card Case (affiliate link) 

As I mentioned in an Instagram story last week, I've officially fully repaid my student loans! It almost feels anticlimactic to be done so suddenly with something that's taken a little over six years from when I graduated law school. (But with the paycut I took while clerking, I was only able to make serious payments for five of those years. I couldn't even keep up with the ~6% interest that was accruing to the tune of roughly ~$990/month while I was clerking.) 

Is it funny, or maybe just strange, that I don't even actually know what my total student loan balance was at its peak? Because ~6% interest was steadily accruing on the vast majority of the balance at all times - including while I was in law school and in the months between graduation and when I actually started working - the total balance was constantly in flux. If you've ever noticed inconsistencies in how I've described the size of my initial student loan balance over the years, it's mostly because of this constantly accruing interest. My total amount actually borrowed was different from my balance upon graduation, which was also different from my balance when I started working, etc. etc. I know the all-time high was at least ~$195,000, but I can't recall if it ever actually got much closer to $200,000, or even slightly exceeded it. 

There's a pretty common trope in personal finance-focused online discussion spaces about how "the first $100,000 is the hardest" to accumulate in savings and investments, and that's certainly been the case for me. Heck, because I started with an extremely negative net worth thanks to my law school student loans - and because I took that aforementioned paycut to clerk very early on in my career - it even took a super-long time for me to get to "the first negative $100,000" in net worth!

A Big and Somewhat Impulsive Idea

Somewhat random, but I really like Julianne Moore's street style. It's totally how I'd dress if I was an extremely wealthy woman living in NYC, with lots of practical-looking shoes plus nice handbags and comfortable-looking - but also luxe - coats and sweaters, all heavy on neutral colors. 

This is totally not the best thing to admit, and I'm not exactly proud of it, but now that I'm within spitting distance of finishing off my student loans for good - I'll most likely fully pay off the last ~$5,000 with the lion's share of my next paycheck in a few days - parts of my brain have been really clamoring for some extremely fancy shopping. And it's not just for the jewelry gift to myself I've been thinking about for a few months, the impulsive part of me wants even more than that! 

I think I'll end up doing a passable job controlling these impulses. I'll probably indulge a time or two, but primarily through the secondhand market. Given that I'm currently actively seeking to take a dramatic paycut to work for the government - if only they'll have me; it's a process that could take a year or more, and I only started applying recently - there's a definite budgetary limit to how much or how often I can act on these shopping ideas that have started popping up in my mind.

With this particular specific idea I'm about to name, I'd hoped a search through my blog archives would reveal that I'd been foreshadowing it for at least a few years now. In other words, I thought I'd previously mentioned this item at least a time or two, even if only in passing. It turns out that was not the case. 

I'm pretty sure I remember saying somewhere that I think this specific handbag is pretty cool, and that people roughly around my age who fell in love with it as far back as the mid 2000s, including Jessica, had excellent taste. (It's definitely a design that's withstood the test of time so much better than many other "it bags" that were also around back then, such as the Miu Miu Coffer I was totally in love with.) Maybe I only mentioned this in comments on other blogs? 

Please note that this post contains affiliate links that could result in my earning a small commission - at no extra cost to you - if you click and make a purchase. Thank you for your support! 

The item I'm talking about today is the Balenciaga City bag, specifically in black lambskin. I call it a "big and somewhat impulsive idea" for me because, up until a few weeks ago, I never seriously considered even a used one as a possible purchase for myself. At its retail price - which I think may have been around $2,050 most recently, though Balenciaga doesn't really sell this classic style much anymore? they also offer newer, more structured takes on the City design that I don't personally like - it was completely off the table for me, in part due to my highly nitpicky preferences that lead me to heavily favor extremely simple handbags (most of my collection is pictured here, I think you'll see what I mean by "extremely simple").

Checking In

Oops, pardon me for disappearing for a week! One thing I didn't take into account when I said I thought I would be able to return to a more regular posting schedule this month was that I get incredibly stressed out when preparing for and thinking about upcoming job interviews. Ever since the earliest days when I've needed to do them as an undergraduate student, I've always found job interviews particularly challenging. But I hadn't done any interviews since early 2017, so I'd forgotten how much of my mental energy they take up. 

But I'm very lucky to have already had a job interview to prepare for. I've only been applying in earnest to government jobs for around a month, and frankly, I wasn't expecting my first interview to come around so soon. 

My interview was done remotely via videoconference, and in the near future, I'd expect all or most of my interviews to be done that way. I was initially quite nervous about the format - I've only ever done in-person job interviews and also haven't had the opportunity to participate in a videoconference court hearing or deposition yet - but I was surprised to find I actually quite liked it. I was less nervous than I usually am during in-person interviews, and being able to see myself on the computer screen helped me stay calm and think through my answers. 

I did alright in my first interview, though I could definitely have done better on one or two of my answers during the half-hour session. (There will be three rounds of interviews for this particular job - to hire just one candidate - so my best guess is that I have a decent chance of advancing to the second round, but am almost certainly not standing out as the single best candidate so far.) I had worked hard to prepare, but my focus was a bit off: I over-prepared for certain types of more technical legal questions - that were, in hindsight, highly unlikely to be part of this first round  - and so I underprepared for some other types of questions. The important thing is that I know how to prepare better next time, whether for the second round for this job or a first round interview at another job. 

Here are a few small things that have made me happy recently while I've been preparing for and worrying about my job interviews:

Succession on HBO: A good friend suggested a few months ago that if I had enjoyed Billions so much, also on her recommendation, I should also try Succession. It took me forever to follow her recommendation. Succession sounded like it would be darker and overall have a more serious tone than Billions, and I wasn't sure I would actually like that. 

Recently - when K and I decided to subscribe to HBOMax for a month or two to watch a few other things - we finally decided to also try Succession. After the first few episodes - the pilot episode is clunky and there are so many important characters that it takes a few episodes to get a handle on all of them - we were completely hooked! It's an incredible television show, extremely well-written and well-acted. The overall subject matter is quite dark and most of the characters are somewhat terrible and selfish - there's a particularly awful moment in the pilot that almost turned me off the entire show - but there are also so many absolutely hilarious moments. 

I can't think of any other show quite like Succession. There are many shows I enjoy just as much, but I can't think of many other shows that are so consistently well-written and so smart about it all. (Admittedly, I haven't watched a lot of the frequently-recommended, all-time great shows out there, such as Breaking Bad or Mad Men.) 

Successful Rent Negotiation: As I mentioned a few months ago, rents had fallen significantly in many parts of NYC after the pandemic started, including in our neighborhood. By late November last year, rents for new leases on units comparable to ours were ~$700 to $800/month less than our current lease, after factoring in rent concessions of one or two free months (when we'd signed back in May 2020, the market hadn't fallen so much yet and our rate was probably ~$100/month less than new tenants were getting). 

When I posted, we were still approximately six months off from when we'd need to sign our next lease renewal, but we were already pretty certain we wanted to continue living in our current apartment through our next lease term. Cat made the helpful suggestion that we should try to renegotiate immediately, that we could lock in a better deal that at least partially reflected the new, lower market rate in exchange for offering to commit to whatever new, additional time period was agreeable to us. 

We ended up not initiating the negotiation as quickly as we should have. December through February ended up more difficult than expected, we started feeling the pandemic blues badly and I had some additional stressful things going on at work. By the time we opened up negotiations in late February, the market looked like it might be starting to recover slightly, but we were at least able to successfully negotiate for a savings of ~$500/month, and we committed early to a new lease covering the period through summer 2022. 

Things I Bought Recently

via Yoseka Stationery

Like I mentioned last month, I'm still feeling the pandemic and social distancing blues. But I'm also guardedly optimistic that - because COVID vaccine distribution has been quite robust in NYC and with the new availability of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine - there's a chance vaccine eligibility might open up to the general public here in New York somewhat sooner than the original projected date of late May or early June. 

Because Connecticut is opening vaccine eligibility up to different age groups step-by-step, K's parents were recently able to make their first-dose appointments as part of the age 55-plus group. That's a huge relief to us! California's vaccine rollout isn't quite there yet, so we are still waiting for my mom to be eligible to make her appointment. 

I'm still mostly compliant with my low-spending goals for these few months, as I continue to work on finishing my student loan repayment. But I still allow myself occasional indulgences. In particular, I buy myself stationery or food treats semi-regularly, because those tend to be more moderately priced than clothing or accessories. Today's post is about some of the things I've bought recently, two of them fun and one of them much less so. 

Midori Five Year Diary with Embroidered Cover: I was originally not going to buy this Midori journal because I already have another five-year "a few lines a day"-type Hobonichi, but when Jetpens got these back in stock, I ended up not being able to resist. The embroidered cover is just so pretty, and I know from using another, less fancy Midori notebook that their paper is high-quality and fountain pen-friendly. (I do slightly prefer Tomoe River paper over Midori paper, however. Some extra-fine nib and ink combinations end up too dry for the Midori paper, and Midori paper doesn't show quite as much sheen or shading with some fountain pen inks compared to Tomoe River.) This journal also comes with a clear plastic cover to protect the embroidered details and keep the fabric cover clean. 

Because I'm currently using my five-year Hobonichi Techo journal for daily memory-keeping, I'm going to set aside this Midori Five Year Diary and save it for some other use later.  

Hot Chocolate Balls: These aren't quite the highly Instagrammable hot chocolate bombs with pretty, decorated chocolate shells that have been trendy recently, but they make a tasty, rich, and not overly sweet cup of hot chocolate. I heard about this company from one of my undergraduate school's alum facebook groups because they're a small business that's local to where we went to school, so I decided to try them out. I really like these hot chocolate balls, though at ~$3/serving before factoring in tax and shipping, it's definitely a splurge compared to figuring out how to make a similar hot chocolate mix at home with cocoa powder and chocolate. 

We've almost finished using up the original set I bought, two sleeves with six servings each. All the flavors were pretty good, so I'd consider ordering another set again as a special treat once in a while. 

Turbotax: (affiliate link) Ah, and now for something substantially less fun. Longtime readers may recall that I complain about Turbotax almost every year around tax time. I've even said I wanted to "break up" with Turbotax, but I ultimately failed to do so because I just couldn't get used to using any of their competitors I've tried (mainly CreditKarma and H&R Block's website version). 

I've used Turbotax's desktop software to file my taxes basically every year of my adult life - it typically costs me ~$50/year to buy - because I've become completely dependent on them. Everything else's user interface - even Turbotax's website version - just confuses me too much. I'm definitely not a Turbotax shill or anything, in fact I really hate that I'm completely dependent on their "personal income tax for dummies"-type user interface and approach. You'd think a lawyer would be less intimidated by her taxes!

Pretty much every single year, I end up running into at least one weird Turbotax software glitch. Most years, I have trouble saving my filed tax forms as a PDF, the software often crashes while trying to save or print as a PDF. A few times, the reporting of my backdoor Roth IRA conversion has been glitchy or confusing. I always figure it out in the end, but it can cause quite a headache. 

This year's problem ended up being the most annoying of the lot. Many people who needed to report a IRA distribution - which I do as part of reporting my backdoor Roth IRA conversion - found their e-filed federal tax return was rejected by the IRS due to a purported error with a "FED_Taxable_Inherited_IRA," even though none of them actually reported an inherited IRA. It was quite nerve-wracking to get this error message, because it was clear I couldn't do anything myself to fix it, I was dependent on Intuit to fix the problem on their end. Thankfully, it seems the company fixed the issue causing the error by March 5, and I was able to file my taxes afterwards with no trouble. 

I hope that you and your loved ones are doing well. If you live in a country where COVID vaccine distribution is a high priority, I hope that at least some of your higher-risk friends and family members have been able to get their shot(s) by now, or at least to schedule their appointment(s)! I'm really hoping that vaccine supply will continue to increase faster than originally expected, so that K and I - and the rest of the general public - can hopefully become eligible by sometime in May. 

COVID-Era Spending Changes Revisited

Kate Spade Cardholder

That Vince boiled cashmere funnel neck sweater I like so much is finally on sale in pretty much all of this year's colors, including the medium blue color I'm somewhat tempted by. Many of their other sweaters from this fall/winter season are also on sale, including this cashmere donegal turtleneck. (Though alas, I don't think current sale prices are better than what was available during the most recent Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale period.) 

Back in August, I wrote about how COVID-19 social distancing and lockdowns changed my spending. Now that K and I have spent quite a few more months living a socially distanced lifestyle - it's been almost a full year now - I figured I should update my analysis to see if my main prediction - that "it's likely most of my spending changes from the [first] five months of COVID-19 lockdown could persist through the end of the [calendar] year" - turned out to be true. This post also serves as a sort of "spending year in review" for 2020. 

Please note that this post contains affiliate links that could result in my earning a small commission - at no extra cost to you - if you click and make a purchase. Thank you for your support!

Now that I have all my 2020 You Need a Budget ("YNAB") data to work with, I've adjusted the methodology for this analysis. Last time, I compared my average monthly spend for the entirety of 2019 with my average monthly spend in the full months for which I had data available from after COVID shutdowns started, namely April through July 2020. This time, I feel like comparing my spending for each full year - 2019 versus 2020 - makes more sense, even if January through mid-March 2020 weren't affected by COVID shutdowns. When averaged out over the entire year, the extra non-COVID era-compatible spending - e.g., at restaurants - from January and February 2020 is fairly negligible. 

This time around, I've also modified the list of spending categories omitted from the analysis. Like last time, I'm still leaving out my student loan payments and charitable contributions. Unlike last time, I'm now including my taxes (which increased slightly in 2020, but by a relatively negligible amount when averaged out over the entire year) and gift-related spending for my friends and family, the building staff at my apartment, and the non-attorneys at my workplace (which stayed about the same between 2019 and 2020). 

With regards to my student loan payments, I've ratcheted up the amount I pay each month significantly over time - for instance, I was at $4,800/month last August and am now at $5,100/month - so it'd throw off the analysis to include them. It's also a spending category I could pull back on significantly, if needed, because my minimum monthly payment after refinancing is only ~$1,600/month. And if all goes well, by August or September of this year, I'll be completely done repaying my student loans for good and will never need to worry about them again! 

As for charitable giving, I omit it from this analysis because it's so discretionary. Before 2020, I was admittedly not great about making charitable giving a regular part of my monthly budgets. In earlier years, particularly when I still had a negative net worth of five or six figures - recall I only hit "net worth zero" for the first time in April 2019 - it was something I struggled with because the hours I spent on pro bono work were clearly so much more valuable than any amount of money I could hope to give at the time. Now that I'm in a much stronger financial position than before, however, I can give more regularly (~$2,630 total last year, all from after the COVID shutdowns began in March). 

When I calculated my COVID-driven spending changes last August, I found I was spending an average of ~$1,300/month less than usual. This time around, when comparing my full-year spending for 2019 and 2020, I saw I spent an average of ~$980/month less than in 2019. So that's approximately $320/month less in COVID-driven reduced spending than I originally calculated back in August. (Keep in mind, though, that charitable contributions were omitted each time, so both measures of my "savings" from COVID social distancing should arguably be reduced by the ~$200/month I donated last year.) 

So what changed? Where did that other $320/month in reduced COVID-era spending or "lost" COVID-driven savings go? 

How I Approach Investing

Kate Spade Polly Wallet (affiliate link)

How I approach my investments is a topic I've alluded to a few times over the years - see for instance here and here - although I don't think I've ever discussed it in great detail. Accordingly, I thought I might as well write a full post about it. Though, spoiler alert, nothing here will be at all new or novel to anyone familiar with what many Financial Independence, Retire Early ("FIRE") related internet forums and bloggers generally recommend! It's also mostly consistent with the recommendations in the two beginners' personal finance books I've mentioned over the years. 

One quick and important disclaimer before I continue: I'm definitely not a qualified investment professional. Please do your own research elsewhere before making any investment decisions.

Investing History

Because I didn't really start investing - whether in tax-advantaged retirement accounts or anything else - until I graduated law school, I got my start on the later side of early adulthood, at age 27. Before then, I briefly had up to ~$2,000 in a Mandatory Provident Fund ("MPF") retirement account in Hong Kong, but didn't even really know I needed to proactively select my own investments - not just let them sit in the settlement fund - much less how to actually select said investments. So my money in my MPF only really ever stayed in their equivalent of a money market account, until I eventually cashed out and used it all to help pay my living expenses in law school. (Given what I've explained, the money obviously didn't grow much. It was the equivalent of roughly two months' rent in my law school student housing.) 

My first contribution to a tax-advantaged retirement account in the US was at the tail end of December 2015, when I first became eligible to contribute to a 401(k) - with no employer match, as is somewhat standard in the industry - at my first biglaw job. And then because of the timing of my clerkship and the pay cut I took that year, I still wasn't able to invest much in the beginning. I never even got remotely close to maxing out my 401(k) or backdoor Roth IRA for any year until 2018, once I'd returned to the private sector for a while. 

Since 2018, though, I've been maxing out on contributions to my 401(k) - still no employer match, because my workplace takes many of its benefits-related cues from biglaw - and backdoor Roth IRA each year. These are the only types of tax-advantaged investment accounts I currently invest through. (Because my workplace doesn't offer a High Deductible Health Plan or "HDHP", I cannot invest through a Health Savings Account or "HSA".) On top of that, I also started investing a bit in a post-tax brokerage account beginning in early 2019. Since then, I've also budgeted to continue adding more to those post-tax investments every month. 

2020 Year-End Shopping Reflections

Unlike in past years, I don't really have all that much to say when it comes to my 2020 fashion-related shopping, particularly when it comes to the analysis of individual purchases. I shopped a fair bit less than normal because it was a strange year, purchasing 20 total items in 2020 compared to 28 total items in 2019. I spent $3,528.14, significantly less than 2019's personal all-time high of $4,409.33 and also less than 2018's $4,016.51. 

I've already laid out most of the relevant personal finance context for 2020's fashion-related shopping in my recent and very belated 2019 year-end shopping roundup. My personal finance situation has changed dramatically since 2018: I first hit "net worth zero" in April 2019; paid down my student loan balance to five figures in late December 2019; and I've been steadily making substantial student loan payments since, most recently at $5,100/month. Assuming all goes well, I should finish paying off my current ~$38,900 balance - down from over $190,000 when I graduated law school in 2015 - by mid-August 2021. The end of my student loan repayment journey is finally in sight! 

Now that my student loan balance is solidly in the lower five figures and the possibility of being debt-free seems far more concrete and easier to imagine than before, I feel more acutely that every dollar spent now to indulge my fondness for clothes, shoes, and accessories - or to enjoy any other luxury - is a dollar not put into eradicating my remaining student loan balance even more quickly. To have full repayment be so tantalizingly close is to develop a more acute sense of opportunity costs with all my discretionary spending, I suppose. Would I rather buy this fun or pretty thing? Or are those dollars better spent on leaving my student loans behind for good? 

That's an indirect way of saying that I think - fingers crossed! - the first half of 2021 should be a fairly low shopping time for me when it comes to my closet, mainly because I'm just so eager to put more cash into my student loans. In any case, I expect to still be working almost fully from home until the COVID-19 vaccine is widely available to the general public here in NYC (vaccine distribution has been logistically challenging and slow in NYC so far, so this may not occur until summer). Between that and all the nice, colorful loungewear I already bought in 2020, I really shouldn't have any wardrobe "needs" coming up before August this year. 

I can't guarantee I won't still pick up something for my closet here and there when I see something pretty, particularly if there's a good sale available. But I also feel like I've gotten all the pandemic-induced stress-shopping urges out of my system by now - I pretty much went through two separate rounds of that in the first six or seven months of social distancing - so I also don't think I'll indulge too much. 

Link List: Some Money-Related Things

via Unsplash

I hope that everyone is doing well as we head into the year-end holiday season! K and I are now 13 days into our stricter-than-usual pre-holiday quarantine, in hope of spending Christmas and New Years with K's parents. I'll also be taking the last two weeks of the year off from work - using up the remainder of my 2020 vacation time - which will be nice. I'm feeling a bit of writer's block on blog-related writing, so I think my posting here may slow down a bit for the the next two or three weeks. 

Not a huge link list post today, but there were a few interesting money-related links I saw recently, so I figured I might as well share them now, instead of waiting to try and find other links to add. Sometimes I hold onto links for so long while trying to compile a longer post that it becomes too weird to share them because they were from so many months ago!

1. // Corporette occasionally does reader-submitted "Money Snapshot" posts, and the most recent one - from a doctor in a very high-paying Public Service Loan Forgiveness ("PSLF") eligible job - ignited quite a bit of discussion, both at Corporette and at r/MoneyDiariesActive. Be forewarned, the Corporette discussion is particularly negative, with a lot of people unreasonably criticizing the doctor for using PSLF when it's not her fault the program is structured in a way such that she is eligible for it! Also, while I'm no PSLF expert, I'm pretty sure both discussions are peppered with commenters misunderstanding how PSLF works. 

The student loan forgiveness programs available to some federal student loan borrowers here in the US - generally after relatively lengthy periods of income-based repayment before the remaining balance can be forgiven - are sometimes seen as controversial. (In 2018, I wrote a post that discussed a somewhat viral story about an orthodontist relying on PAYE or REPAYE to handle what had apparently grown into a million dollar student loan balance.)  

2. // Anne Helen Peterson just published the first article in a planned series for Vox about "America's Hollow Middle Class." I thought this was an interesting read, and I'm looking forward to more! The author notes on Twitter that it's by design that this first article is a bit broad and general. Future articles in the series will be more focused on some of the many relevant underlying factors to this discussion. 

3. // Amanda Mull wrote in The Atlantic about the Afterpay, Klarna, and Affirm-type interest-free, "buy now and pay in installments" options that are popping up at various online retailers. Even one of the big fountain pen shops has partnered with Affirm! I confess, I've never really been able to understand why there's a market for these payment arrangements. This article does somewhat begin to answer this question - it may be, in part, for people who don't use credit cards - though I still don't quite understand why customers are interested.  

4. // Abra at Capitol Hill Style recently wrote in considerable detail about her experiences with running a monetized blog. Whenever a more popular blogger writes about the business side of blogging, I'm always interested in getting that behind-the-scenes look. She's probably somewhat unique among more prominent, longstanding fashion bloggers in that she chooses not to do sponsored posts. 

Abra's commentary about her past experience with ShopStyle's Pay Per Click ("PPC") program was particularly interesting to me, as someone who also may ultimately prefer that affiliate link model for my blog. She notes that her PPC earnings - before she transitioned to the sales commission-based model - had ranged from $0.04/click to $0.09/click. My own PPC earnings never rose above ~$0.075/click. The only other data point about peak PPC earnings I'm aware of is that Ariana of the now-shut down Paris to Go (I miss the blog dearly! I still follow her on Instagram) has sometimes discussed her past blog earnings in Instagram stories. I vaguely recall that it sounded like she sometimes got significantly above my typical $0.06 to $0.07/click commission rate because she was very focused in how she approached affiliate links. 

Regardless, in-depth discussion about ShopStyle's previous PPC model is largely irrelevant now, as I don't think the company is particularly interested in supporting it anymore. But I'm still interested in looking back on it sometimes. 

I'll probably write at least one or two more new posts before the end of 2020. But in case I don't manage it, best wishes to you and your loved ones for this holiday season and for the new year! 

With the start of Pfizer COVID vaccine distribution to front-line healthcare workers here in the US and FDA approval of the Moderna vaccine likely to come soon, I'm feeling more optimistic about 2021. As a younger-ish adult with no risk factors and who works a non-essential, mostly remote for now job, it likely won't be my turn to get a vaccine for at least a few more months. Once it's available to people like me, however, I'll be rushing to get it. 

Money Life Lately: Year-End Holiday Tips and Office Gifts

Marc Jacobs "Snapshot" Leather ID Wallet (affiliate link)

Here are a few small things happening with my money and spending recently, in areas outside of shopping and fashion. I can't believe it's already December! It's difficult to get fully into the holiday spirit this year because it's logistically impossible for my mom, sister, and I to safely travel and see each other. But the show must go on with regards to certain holiday-related expenditures of mine, namely: (1) year-end holiday tips for the staff at my apartment building and (2) year-end holiday gifts for the receptionists and assistants!

I don't often discuss these year-end gifting expenses. I think the only time I've ever mentioned them was a few months ago when talking about how I calculated my total savings from staying home and socially distancing. Even if I don't discuss them, however, these particular costs have been a regular part of my life - and reasonably so, in recognition of the recipients' hard work all year long!- since I graduated law school. (Except that there weren't any year-end holiday gifts at work when I was clerking.) 

Health Insurance and Prescription Co-Pays

Longtime readers may know I like to complain - at excruciating length - about my experiences with the cost of healthcare here in the US. That's despite being fortunate to not actually have much to fuss about, relatively speaking. Generally, with the exception of when I had that accident requiring a bunch of urgent dental work, what I'm complaining about is just a few dozen extra dollars here and there. Even the very small unexpected medical expenses aren't fun, of course. But compared to all the possible problems with medical bills here in the US, my issues are small potatoes. 

My biggest perennial problem with my medical expenses is that I've often been charged co-pays on my birth control under most of my workplace health insurance plans, even though that really shouldn't happen under the Affordable Care Act. (The insurers' general rationale seems to be that they fully cover plenty of other types of birth control - including other pills and IUDs - just not yours.) It's an on-again, off-again problem that comes and goes depending on the workplace, but I've had this issue more often than not.

For my first few months at my current job, things were good, my co-pay for my birth control pill was $0/month. Sometimes I got the generic, sometimes the brand name, but I didn't really care about that. Then all of a sudden, things got weird. Suddenly, I was paying $35 to $45/month in co-pays for the same pill. To add insult to injury, my insurer covered the brand name at that level, but didn't cover the generic at all. The co-pay also seemed to change every time I got a refill. It wasn't my first rodeo with having a co-pay for birth control, but previously, I only ever had a $10/month co-pay. 

After a certain point, I started using GoodRx coupons to keep costs down, because the ~$25/month or so GoodRx cash price was always cheaper than getting my birth control through my insurance. And even then, the price I paid was rarely exactly what was listed on GoodRx, it was often a bit less, sometimes more like ~$15/month.

All of a sudden this month, however, my co-pay for my birth control pill on my insurance was back to $0/month. And for the brand name, no less! I swear, I don't understand the logic of how this works. But I suppose we can consider this a happy ending, for now. (The co-pays for this particular prescription have constantly changed on me practically every time I picked up a refill in the past two years or so, so I'm not sure I believe my recent good fortune will last...) 

Shopping Life Lately (and Curology Update)

I'm more than a bit surprised I've managed to not buy much for myself in this year's round of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. In fact, I haven't bought myself any clothing, shoes, or accessories this sale season. That is quite out of character for me: Just compare this year's Black Friday "haul" of zero things for my wardrobe with my 2018 and 2019 performance! 

Anyway, I definitely don't believe in Black Friday sales having special ethical or moral significance, whether one abstains or partakes. (Though my overall preference is generally to consume less, and to put what I do consume - particularly new items bought at retail - to the most rigorous, long-term use possible.) It's just another sale season and, frankly, there are many women's apparel and accessory sales all year round. In past years, particularly before I started this blog, I'd typically found that Black Friday and Cyber Monday weren't even a great time for discounts on women's fashion, though that's changed somewhat more recently. But, for the largest discounts on clothing and accessories this general time of year, it's still the post-Christmas sales one should really keep an eye out for. 

Black Friday Purchases (and a Return) 

I ordered that collared polo sweater from The Reset, and it arrived this week. Upon trying it on, I realized an important detail I overlooked when the design first caught my eye: The collar and v-neck design on most polo sweaters might not look quite right or proportional on me, as I'm busty enough that they won't look the way they do on the models. Plus, this sweater is a bit shorter in the body than my usual preference - it's not unusually short, and I definitely wouldn't call it cropped, but I personally prefer my tops on the longer side - and that combined with the neckline and the somewhat boxy fit made my torso look... stubby. I also found the sleeves puffed out a little too much just past the awkwardly-long-on-me cuffs. In other words, this sweater did not suit my body shape and proportions, and straight back into the mail it goes. 

Mostly because 2020 has been such a strange year, this return to The Reset is actually the first return of any kind I've done with any retailer this year. If you'd told me in 2019 that I'd spend 11 months of 2020 not making any shopping returns at all, I'd probably have laughed, it would just sound so outlandish given how much I typically rely on online shopping and my admitted propensity for ordering multiple sizes of a single item to try. 

Please note that this post contains affiliate links that could result in my earning a small commission - at no extra cost to you - if you click and make a purchase. Thank you for your support!

I was also briefly tempted by Vince's site-wide 30% off Black Friday sale, particularly by this year's medium blue version of that boiled cashmere funnel-neck sweater I liked so much from last year. But I already have a very similar-looking sweater from Brora in basically the same color, and I definitely do not need two different medium blue high-necked sweaters. (Though between the two designs, the Vince one is definitely more elegant-looking!) 

As for what I did buy during this year's Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale period, I did my Christmas shopping for K and his parents.* I decided on L.L. Bean Wicked Cozy blankets for his parents because I enjoy mine so much and had no better ideas for them while they're also stuck at home. (My Christmas gift for them last year was a set of nice, lightweight carry-on suitcases. For obvious reasons, those have gone unused.) For K, I pre-ordered a copy of the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 game for Playstation 4.