December 2020 Shopping Reflections

via Unsplash

I hope that all of you are having a good end of the year! After 16 days of strict quarantine - in which K and I didn't even go into our apartment building's lobby - K's parents picked us up in their car last week so we could spend Christmas and New Year's with them at their home in the suburbs. Since then, we've just been staying home with them and helping with the cooking. It's been a good, very quiet, and relaxed holiday. I've taken many naps. 

Because our pre-holiday quarantine was so strict that we weren't even going into our apartment building's lobby to pick up packages from the doorman, I've been avoiding online shopping. Accordingly, December was another "no-shopping" month for my wardrobe, the third such month in 2020. (The other two were in February and July.) I don't consider this a noteworthy achievement or anything, it's just a reflection of how strange this year has been due to the colossally poor handling of the COVID-19 pandemic here in the US. 

When it comes to the shopping plans for the remainder of 2020 that I wrote about back in October, I ended up ordering two of the three items to try. I really liked that wool and cashmere-blend "Classic" wrap coat from The Curated, though I admittedly won't get a chance to actually wear it outdoors until we can move freely and safely about in public again. I really did not like that polo sweater from The Reset, unfortunately. After trying it on, I saw that most polo sweater designs are probably not likely to suit my more busty, somewhat top-heavy body shape. It's easy for the collar and v-neck combination to look awkward on me if the proportions aren't just right. The sleeves on The Reset's version also puff out too much from the oddly too-long cuffs - looking almost like a balloon sleeve on me, albeit a somewhat subdued one - something I didn't think was apparent from the store photographs. 

As for the gold-plated fringe earrings from Lingua Nigra, I ended up not ordering them this year even though they look beautiful and should suit my wardrobe and tastes very well. For some reason, out of all the types of clothes, shoes, and accessories out there, the idea of buying jewelry just makes me feel particularly sad right now, wistful about the life we're not living, the places we can't go, and the things we can't do. It's weird of me, and I obviously didn't have this mental hang-up about shopping for jewelry back in September, but I guess 2020 is a strange year. 

Happy new year to all, and best wishes for a better and brighter 2021! 

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...) 

Random Thing I Like: Whimsical Sweaters

Even though I've been overthinking everything to do with my wardrobe and fashion purchases for six years now, I still don't really know how best to describe my personal style. I know my tastes and preferences well, what's practical for my lifestyle, and how to identify items I'll keep reaching for and wanting to wear. But there's a significant gulf between what I like - in principle or in theory; maybe we call this my "ideal" or "fantasy" personal style - and what actually works for my body shape, lifestyle, and budget. 

In practice, my style - as seen in all my shopping since January 2015; keeping in mind it's not a perfectly representative picture because I still wear a moderate number of things I bought before 2015; I don't report gifts, including from my mom, sister, or K, which usually adds something like three or four items to my wardrobe every year; and some of my documented purchases have since worn out, or been resold, donated, or given away - is heavy on neutrals and fairly classic, basic designs and silhouettes, but with many "pops of color," particularly in jewel tones. I'd also love to add more prints to my wardrobe, but in practice it's rare to find a print I like, in colors I think will suit me, and on an item I think will suit my body shape, so I've mostly only bought fairly subdued, more "neutral"-looking prints in recent years. 

One aspect of my "personal style in practice", though it doesn't pop up often, is that I'm fond of occasional, distinctly un-subtle touches of whimsy. Think the bright pink limited edition Longchamp "Miaou" tote and the llama decal Soludos slip-on sneakers. And actually, were it not for the constraints of my budget and practicality concerns, I'd love to bring in even more of these rather in-your-face touches of whimsy into my wardrobe. 

There's been one particular type of whimsical item or design element I really like, which hasn't been represented in my monthly shopping budget posts: The sweater with whimsical motifs, typically flowers or maybe something animal-related. 

As far as I'm concerned, the ne plus ultra of this genre, based on all my online window shopping ever, was the Mansur Gavriel flower sweater pictured above. (I believe it's from 2016 or 2017. They also did a similar oversized sky blue sweater with a white cloud motif around this time, which I also thought was adorable.) If I ever see one of these Mansur Gavriel flower sweaters in my size - in either the pink or navy blue colorway - on the secondhand market for a remotely reasonable price, I probably won't be able to resist. Though if I recall correctly, the fabric composition wasn't ideal, there was a fair bit of nylon in it, and also alpaca (which I've never tried on before and could be itchy for me).