March 2019 Shopping Reflections

Now that the weather's starting to warm up, I've been thinking a lot about summer clothing. As I can't help but emphasize several times every year, I don't particularly enjoy dressing for our long NYC summers. It tends to get hot and humid fast, with barely any days of balmy spring weather, and then I insist on wearing only fabrics I consider warm weather-friendly (cotton, linen, silk, or rayon) as much as possible until mid or late September, whenever the temperatures start descending rapidly.

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Once I'm sure that warm weather is here to stay for the foreseeable future, I'll need to start taking steps to do some maintenance of my winter gear. It's now been two long fall/winter seasons since I last had my L.L. Bean boots (with Gore-Tex and Thinsulate) resoled, and it's high time to send them back for another round. (Fun fact, my post about resoling my Bean boots is my single most popular one, because it gets, by far, the most Google search traffic. Alas, most people who come across it have no interest in the rest of my blog!) It's also long past time to launder my down coat (don't think too hard about how long it's been, but in actuality it simply doesn't get dirty easily, even with frequent wear). I think I'll be machine-washing my coat, and machine-drying it with some tennis balls tossed into the dryer to fluff it up. Wish me luck!

I tried on a few other things this month that were less summer weather-oriented, but was disappointed to find that those items, some of which I had really loved the idea and look of, didn't work for me at all. That was mainly the Rachel Comey Mars boots, which run very, very small (I sized all the way up from my usual 7.5 to an 8.5 and could only barely get them on due to the lack of zipper) and just weren't the right shoe for me, and the MM. LaFleur Etsuko dress in blue and black brush jacquard print, which didn't fit me right at all, as I'm just too busty. I was quite sad neither item worked for me, as they're both so pretty.

Fashion - (TOTAL: $69.80)

• Uniqlo x J.W. Anderson Wrap Skirt, navy blue - $39.90 - Longtime readers may recall that the last time I bought skirts from Uniqlo, it turned out poorly. Those skirts were too voluminous, and one flared out too much at the waist. There were also too long, close to being maxi length on me. I also didn't like the synthetic-blended fabrics, which made the skirts unsuitable for hot weather. When I wore one outside briefly in summer, just to run a quick errand and test it out, it started feeling a bit like a non-breathable fabric tents that held in hot air. This time, I have a clearer sense of what I'm looking for, I've been thinking about midi length wrap skirts or slip skirts, ones that wouldn't have as dramatic an a-line silhouette. This skirt seems to have been designed to be knee-length, but it's midi length on my relatively short-legged 5'3'' self. Plus, it's 100% cotton. I'm optimistic about this purchase, but we'll need to wait until the weather warms up to see if it turns out well and I actually reach for it often. This is a true wrap skirt, so it runs the risk of being fussy to put on, but I found it easy to work with when I tried it on a few times at home. Because it's so adjustable, I found the size S and M to both look very similar, though I picked the M because I wanted it to be potentially more forgiving in the waist if needed. 
• Uniqlo Linen-Blend Short-Sleeve Blouse, blue - $29.90 - I really wanted the white version of this or the linen-blend button-down short sleeve blouse to work for me, but I found both white blouses slightly too sheer. I wasn't going to keep this blue one, but after trying it on with jeans, I thought the slightly lighter and brighter than navy shade of blue was very pretty, and that it made for a nice contrast with jeans. I've generally been pleased with the durability of Uniqlo's linen-rayon blend fabric (those long open cardigans I bought last year and loved so much have a similar fabric composition, and they're still going strong) and find it to be comfortable to wear during the height of NYC summer. Both of these Uniqlo linen-blend blouses run quite large and have a lot of room in the body, and they can both flare out a bit from the widest point of the chest (a little bit of that "boob tent" effect I'm sensitive to, as a fairly busty person who is otherwise smaller-framed). But because this blouse is a bit shorter in length than the button-down and because of the sleeves and the look of the light, breezy fabric, I'm okay with the overall look of it, that effect is not as pronounced as with the other blouse. 

I found this to be a very reasonable shopping month, though of course, I still have most of the year left to go, so I can't be too proud yet! Although it might look like I'm thinking about a really large number of potential purchases, certainly far more than I could ever need, a lot of those images sort of represent many different possible ways of getting at an idea for just one or two actual potential additions to my closet, maybe one new summer dress, whether it turns out to have sleeves or not, whatever the silhouette or color (I find all my summer dresses fairly interchangeable in terms of the role they play in my wardrobe, even ones with dramatically different looks), and one or two new tops and skirts for summer. And sometimes I'm mulling over multiple colors of the same thing, or something like that, or thinking about many different possible ways of indulging in just one really fancy purchase, and only after I've moved some other things around in my budget.

How was your shopping month? Are you starting to think about clothes for next season? Do you have a preference between dressing for winter or for summer? I'm a winter person all the way, though of course, once the cold temperatures set in, I complain about that too, the same way I do about summer heat and humidity. Comfortable temperatures simply don't last very long here, so I'm fussing about the weather most of the year!

My Silliest Past Money Mistakes

In 2014, I visited Europe with some dear friends (this is a filtered and edited photo from Capri). Before I left, I vaguely knew that Bank of America had recently changed their policies to charge a 3% foreign exchange fee on all ATM withdrawals of foreign cash, on top of the fee for using other banks' ATMs. Somehow I did not put two and two together and realize that I should really get a ATM fee-free account at another bank before my trip. I have since remedied the situation.

By and large, my parents did a wonderful job teaching me the basics of personal finance. There were some gaps in my education, as is natural, and there are some things that I would do differently as a parent, which I think literally anyone would say. But overall, I had all the tools I needed to navigate money management mostly on my own since age 18, without getting into too much trouble and with a generally accurate understanding of what was happening (though that isn't quite the same thing as always using that information to make wise decisions). Thus, I was equipped to handle things like my credit card accounts, my undergraduate financial aid forms (I always filled out FAFSA on my own, as well as my mom's portion of the CSS Profile), my student loans (I fully understood the terms I was signing up for, though I waited until embarrassingly late to calculate the total balance I'd owe upon graduation and how long repayment would take; but I was approaching my mid-20s when I matriculated, so any failing is solely on me), and the like. What more could any person ask for?

That being said, I'm still one of those people who fusses regularly about the need for more and better personal finance education. Because it's generally never covered at any time in school, we're largely dependent on our parents, or on ourselves, to learn about the important details. And even very financially savvy and responsible parents can't realistically anticipate all of the potentially infinite range of financial questions or challenges their children might eventually encounter as young adults, and potentially make mistakes about.

In that spirit, I thought I would look back on some of the silliest financial mistakes I've ever made, and that I totally regret, in order of least expensive to most. And really, quite a lot of these examples happened while I was in my early-to-mid 20s, when one would think that I would already know better. Despite all my little mistakes and the many gaps in my understanding of personal finance when I was a younger adult, I've actually always thought of myself as being reasonably okay with money nonetheless, because, on the whole, I still knew enough to avoid getting into serious difficulties. Still, it wasn't until I read a few beginners' personal finance books in my mid-20s that I started feeling a lot more confident about what I was doing.

Without further ado, here's the list of the most foolish money mistakes I've ever made:

Purchased Bank of America's completely useless "credit protection" product. (Total cost: ~$18 over a year and a half.) I got my first ever credit card in college. It was a no-fee, super-basic Bank of America ("BoA") card connected to my student checking account. My mom suggested it so I could start building my credit history. I never spent much on it, mostly less than $100/month, consisting of things like a very occasional latte, some snack foods at Trader Joe's, and a piece or two of clearance sale clothing (recall that H&M felt expensive to me back then!). And I'd been taught good credit card habits: I knew it was important to pay my balance timely and in full every month, to avoid incurring late fees or interest. More importantly, and this is shameful to admit, but though I worked each summer and saved spending money for each school year that way, to the extent that shortfalls in my personal checking account happened, I was... backstopped... by mom and dad. They gave me bits of extra spending money throughout the year, including for my birthday and Christmas. They also paid for big things directly, like plane tickets home for the holidays. Had I ever made the unhappy mistake of letting my credit card balance get ahead of me (and I'd only ever dare do it for a small amount, given the spending habits I described), they would certainly have stepped in to cover the extra, no doubt with some well-deserved stern words about the responsible use of credit. 

So why did I think it was a good idea to buy BoA's "credit protection" for my new card? Well it only cost less than 1% of one's balance, and I knew my balance would never be particularly high, so I thought "it's cheap". And I also didn't understand how credit reporting worked, like at all. Despite my plans to pay my balance in full and promptly every month, part of my brain somehow still thought that my credit score could still take hits, somehow, for reasons unknown and out of the blue, and that maybe this BoA product would help? (Don't laugh! I was only 19, and when you're new to the world of managing your money, lots of things are mysterious and kind of intimidating.) Also, silly as it is, I remember being anxious about how making payments to BoA would work, because I didn't have a checkbook (my parents always paid their credit card bills by snail mail, with checks). Could my payments get lost? The obvious answer is a resounding no, as payments were handled by direct transfer from my checking account to my credit card account, using BoA online banking. But again, I was 19, and this was all new to me!

Shopping List Thoughts

It's still far too early in the year to know how my goal of reining in some of the slightly careless, not always well-thought-out, excesses of last year's shopping will ultimately turn out. January was fine, but February was less promising. It's too soon yet to tell how March will be, though it's looking reasonable so far. When I first declared that lofty intention to rein things in a bit last December, I didn't have the clearest sense of how exactly I thought I should go about it. 

Well, fine, I did say one concrete thing, that a few-months' shopping ban might be a good idea, something that clearly has not come to pass. But I also did mention how that was an idea that had never quite worked for me before. Another thing that changed my intentions on that score was that certain plans shifted and were postponed, in part because I balked at what turned out to be a far briefer than expected downturn in the stock market (a protracted one would affect the market for legal services and, therefore, my long-term job stability) and when the federal government shutdown looked like it might be here to stay (if federal courts close due to lack of money, an event without true precedent, my work would be seriously disrupted). I still want to go ahead with my plans, am still very certain of them, but at this point, working around my planned vacation schedule, I'll only be able to set a date in July or later, more likely in September or October. Once the procedure has actually been scheduled, then I think a shopping ban (at least as to clothes for which the fit would be seriously affected) in the few months surrounding the formal date would be a good idea. 

Anyway, I think I have a clearer sense now of how I want to approach my shopping-related goals. Although I fussed about 2018 being a year of somewhat excessive "joy" in shopping, upon further reflection, something resembling "joy" can be good. A form of it tends to correlate with an item becoming one of my "best" buys, my most-loved and well-used items, which is about as ideal an outcome as I could want. It's just that, as I mentioned to Jessica a few months ago in the comments, I can't always reliably differentiate between the fleeting "joy" of a super-impulsive purchase that I will get tired of in a few months and the deeper-set "joy" of something that becomes a well-loved favorite item that I will wear for years, and will want to admire out of the corner of my eye, or every time I pass by a reflective surface, each time I wear it. 

I've also been thinking about how to organize and make more effective use of my one central, consolidated shopping wish list for my wardrobe, the only other particularly concrete idea I had for guiding my shopping this year. It's taken a bit of time to work out a method for making the board well-organized, and to find a way to keep track of things I've tried and rejected, or what ended up getting purchased. I still don't have a perfect system, it's definitely a work in progress, but I've now added more internal organization to the board, by making several sub-boards. Those sub-boards will track items in four different categories, and I'll be moving items from one to the other where appropriate. 

• First is things I've now decided against, whether or not I actually tried them on first.
• Second is items I ended up buying. To the extent that I originally picked a different brand's store image to portray a general category of item, or color and type of item, I'll usually swap those images out with ones of the item I actually bought. 
• Third is things that are essentially "fantasy" items for me, whether because they were discontinued or are long since sold out, or, in some cases, if there's some highly impractical-for-me detail about them. Another factor is if I think the only realistic prices I think I could potentially find the item for, if one was available on the secondhand market, would definitely be too expensive for the purchase to be a good value to me. 
• Fourth, the list that's illustrated above, is items I'm still thinking about possibly trying and buying, some of which are vague and extremely unlikely fantasies, and some of which are much more likely to be actual potential purchases. In some cases, for the much fancier items, I would need to cut a lot of other things out of my budget, both for shopping and for some other expenses, if I was serious about making room for getting the item. 

And I must say, I'm having a lot of fun using Pinterest recently! I was so very late to the party when it came to making active use of Pinterest, given that I've only really been using it in earnest for a year or less. It's just one of the many ways in which I've proven to be a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to new-to-me social media platforms. (I still haven't figured out Twitter, for instance, and am still mostly too shy to actually interact with anyone or even put out much of anything in my own words there. I pretty much just use it as a kind of weird, mostly law nerd-y, and less visual Tumblr.) Over the years, I used Pinterest only occasionally to find photos to use in some of my posts, and I did keep a personal style inspiration board since the earliest days of this blog, but I didn't log in often until much more recently. 

Please follow the link below for some additional thoughts on the current state of my shopping wish list!

Things that Happen When I'm (Briefly) on Pace to Bill 3,000 Hours/Year*

*Please note that this is said with tongue firmly in cheek. While I did work that much for a few weeks in January, it was mainly due to an unusually urgent project of a type that isn't likely to recur often. At the rate I was working, I still would only have billed 3,000 hours if I didn't take any vacation and also worked at that exact same pace for the entire year. I don't expect to be anywhere near that busy again for quite some time, and thank goodness for that! Now, two months on, I'm already significantly "off pace" for getting anywhere close to 3,000 hours billed in 2019. I'll probably come in around 2,100 at most, if I had to guess.

I'm told there may be a number of biglaw firms where regularly billing close to 3,000 hours/year may be necessary to be a tip-top associate, but hours like that (as opposed to a "mere" 2,100 or 2,200... which is still a lot) are not terribly common. Lots of things need to align just right (or wrong) to get close, including that one's practice group may need to be consistently busy the whole time. A lot of practice areas are subject to the whims of the markets, and not every firm or practice group is always able to bring in enough new business to sustain hours like that. While I was in biglaw, I was on track to fall slightly short of 2,000 billed hours that year, even with significant pro bono hours included in my total (firms generally allow pro bono service to account for a small percentage of an associate's total hours for the year, usually not much more than 200 hours out of a 2000 target). Most of my fellow junior litigators there were also struggling to hit 2,000. I could speculate on what that says about where the biglaw litigation market is going, but I only have a small sample size of my old firm and my friends' firms to go off of.

Back in January, that intensely hectic period was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before. I didn't mind it too much, actually, I enjoyed having a lot of responsibility, but I was definitely also feeling sleep-deprived and exhausted by the end. At least for me, there is a point at which one works so much that performance and efficiency inevitably deteriorate. In no particular order, here are a few observations about what life looks like with just two or three weeks of working so hard that I'd potentially be on track to bill 3,000 hours that year if I kept it up:

A recent email from Ally, Bank where I keep my savings account. While it's great to save that money from coffee, if one wants to save and invest more than that, then further steps in other areas of one's finances would also be necessary!

1. // Latte factor: I tend to go to coffee shops a lot more often than most people who like to save. (Though I think we're all well aware that cutting out a frequent coffee shop habit wouldn't, by itself, be anywhere near enough when it comes to longer-term saving and investing for retirement and other big needs.) There have been times in my life, when I had a killer commute and needed to wake up hours earlier than I'm used to, that I had a latte almost every weekday morning and considered it "worth it". Given that I'd taken a large pay-cut at that time, I felt extremely sheepish about my habit, but in the end, it wasn't a big deal, relative to my larger financial situation in the long run.

This past January, though, when I started getting that fancy latte almost every morning, I was surprised to find that those purchases gradually started losing their value and appeal to me. I suppose that might have been because the biggest challenge at the time was the intensity of my work, not my feeling tired or sleepy from needing to wake up a lot earlier than comes naturally, so the extra caffeine boost wasn't as useful anymore. Also, the lattes finally stopped feeling "special" because I had them so often. My propensity for going to coffee shops has been significantly reduced in the weeks since that busy period. We'll see if the trend continues for the rest of this year!