July 2019 Shopping Reflections

This last part of the month has been, to say the least, an adventure. In multiple matters I'm working on, we've recently won some favorable rulings. Except that, with all the trouble caused by other implications of the court's other rulings this week, including on some smaller issues we lost on, it really doesn't feel like we're winning. This was not a phenomenon I would have understood at earlier stages of my career, but now I know. Let's just say that litigation is a field with lots of surprises, which generally come around with little warning. I work with great people, and we, as a team, manage the surprises fairly well, with as little fuss as possible, but it's still challenging. We certainly can't control the actions of the court or opposing counsel! 

All the work-related stress has the side effect of amplifying those desires to shop I mentioned last month. As you'll see, this hasn't resulted in many actual purchases in July. But I think August and/or September will end up being far more eventful on the shopping front. Fair warning, I've been feeling a particularly strong impulse to treat myself to something nice after the time I've been having with work recently, enough that I think it's safe to assume I'll be indulging that impulse sometime soon. 

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As for what I expect to indulge in, that's still a bit of an open question. I have a fondness for the idea of printed silk scarves, as seen in a few images on my personal style inspiration Pinterest boards, so I've been thinking about getting a secondhand Hermes silk scarf, probably from TheRealReal. They generally have a fairly wide selection of the 90 cm x 90 cm silk scarves. I also keep looking at more Alighieri necklaces, although it takes me a long time to decide on which designs I think are prettiest or will suit me best. I keep changing my mind! At the moment, it's either something with a longer chain length, like the Initial Spark or the Odyssey (some retailers may have a version of it with a shorter chain), or maybe the Fractured Cloud because I find the shape of the pendant particularly intriguing. 

Fashion - (TOTAL: $16.00)

• Falke Invisible Liner Socks, black - $16.00 - I still don't have a go-to brand or design for liner socks designed to be worn with shoes like ballet flats. Previously, I've mostly been buying ones from Hue with silicone grips at the ankle, but they're only so-so at best. They slip off my ankle semi-frequently with many shoes, aren't "no-show" enough for some shoes, and also aren't very durable. I've been wanting to try different kinds to see if I can find something better, so I got a pair of these more expensive Falke ones to try, because I know from experience that Falke tights are pretty good. Sadly, these liner socks aren't great for me either. They're not no-show enough for the only pair of ballet flats I currently own, the Cole Haan Tali flats. The elasticized cuff with no silicone grip also did not stay on my ankle well at all when I tried them on for a day with my Sam Edelman loafers. Thus, they're less functional than the Hue ones for me. Alas, it's back to the drawing board for me when it comes to my search for a good pair of no-show liner socks. 

Does anyone have recommendations for a particularly good brand of no-show liner socks? Then again, maybe it's a category of item I don't actually need. With how my feet are now, I'm not likely to wear that many more ballet flats in the future, given that they all tend to be too uncomfortable for all-day wear for me these days. The shoes I am more likely to wear in the future, such as loafers or slip-on sneakers, are all much higher-coverage than ballet flats, so I could just stick to wearing more high-coverage socks. 

The Equifax Class Action Settlement

via Unsplash

Nearly two years ago, news broke about a massive data breach at Equifax, one of the major credit reporting bureaus here in the US. The scale of the breach was massive, affecting more than 140 million people. Given the number of people affected (I've occasionally seen reports that the figure represents 44% of the US population), the odds aren't great that one's information wasn't included in the breach. Equifax later reported to the SEC with firmer details about the total numbers of individuals that had certain categories of information stolen. Let's just say that one might not be left in good cheer after seeing the Social Security Number category!

Fast forward to a few days ago, and a settlement has now been preliminarily approved by the court in the class action arising from the Equifax data breach.

Before we go any further, an important disclaimer: Please note that nothing in this post constitutes legal advice and this post does not create an attorney-client relationship. While I am an attorney, I am not your attorney. This post is intended for general informational purposes and entertainment only. All opinions are my own and not those of my employer. 

Back then, I hemmed and hawed for quite some time about whether to freeze my credit or take any steps beyond the CreditKarma membership I already had (which, in my experience, gave me reliable notifications any time a new account popped up on my credit report). I ultimately decided against taking additional action. To be frank, I thought that freezing my credit sounded like too much of a hassle, given that I had some interest in future credit card signup bonus accumulating activities. I never even used that website Equifax made available for checking if one was affected by the data breach! (Back then, I remember some journalists were reporting that said website sometimes gave conflicting answers when they tested the same person's information multiple times.) Gradually, I forgot about the news story. 

The court has now given preliminary approval to a class action settlement arising from the Equifax data breach. A copy of the court's order can be reviewed here, along with certain other key documents from throughout the history of this case.

I imagine that people are leery about going to and trusting what could appear to be a random website when it comes to something like this, so I first looked to the Federal Trade Commission's ("FTC") announcement of the settlement to point me to the settlement administrator's website. On that website, there's a place to check whether one's personal information was affected by the breach, i.e. as the website calls it, to "check your eligibility" and whether "you are a settlement member". Using that feature requires typing in one's surname and the last six digits of one's Social Security Number (which might reasonably have caused me some suspicion if I had not first been directed there by the FTC's website). 

A Shopping Survey

via - The Lo & Sons Pearl in Pacific Blue is one of my favorite and most functional  purchases from the past 12 months.

I've had a bit of writer's block lately, and I thought that this survey Elaine shared from the Good Trade (which covered groups of people who had spent under $500, $500 to $1,000, and over $1,000 on fashion last year) was a nice and slightly new spin on a way to discuss my shopping. Because I focus primarily on how I'm feeling month-to-month with my shopping check-ins, it's easy to lose track of longer-term trends and changes to my approach. My answers to these questions cover the past twelve months, from July 2018 to June 2019. 

In addition to my actual total spend for that period, I also threw in the number for how much I spent minus jewelry. In recent months, I'm starting to think of jewelry as a somewhat separate category from everything else in my closet, something which I enjoy collecting for its own sake rather than for practical reasons (almost like collecting wearable art, I suppose). With almost everything else, I'm far more inclined to think about utility and whether the item would be redundant of things I already own. But with jewelry, my desire for a new item is pretty much always a "want," there's never really a case to be made for it being a "need." 

Also, what I'm willing to spend on jewelry has been inching up towards being disproportionately large relative to what I'm currently willing to spend on most other categories for my wardrobe. There could come a time (it might already be the case now) when the jewelry portion of the total cost of my shopping each year distorts the analysis of how much I'm spending spend on clothes, shoes, and other accessories that I see as more utilitarian. 

Age: 30
How Much You Spent: $3,452.58
How Much You Spent (Minus Jewelry): $2,305.48

A Purchase You Planned: This is a surprisingly difficult question for me, given that I pride myself on "planning" every purchase! Most of my purchases in this one-year period - especially after I became more regimented about using Pinterest to track all my potential shopping - were planned out ahead of time by at least a few weeks. When everything is planned in a similar way, not much stands out as being a particularly good answer to this question.

I would say that the purchase I planned out the most in the past year was the Elizabeth Suzann Georgia dress and Asawa belt I received last month. I'd spent a lot of time thinking about all the ES dresses before I first saw a photo of this particular dress and belt combination and could finally make a decision. Because of the four week production time and ES's store credit-only return policy (though the secondary market for ES seems robust enough that one should have little trouble recouping close to the full cost of the store credit), I had to feel extremely certain about this purchase before I put in the order. And it turned out well, the dress and belt together really work for me, and it's a combination that I like wearing for both work and weekend. 

An Impulse Buy: This may sound contradictory to what I just said about how much planning I do with my shopping, but I also find this question difficult to answer because, in actuality, one of the main reasons why I spend all that time planning out purchases is that I'm otherwise very prone to sudden impulses and compulsions as a shopper. I know this about myself, and so I need to take those "extra" steps to rein those tendencies in. Enough of my purchases in the past year were originally inspired by fairly sudden impulses (even if I ended up sitting on the idea for at least a few days - usually at least a week or two - before letting myself go ahead and put in those orders), that it's hard to pick just one item as an answer to this question. 

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If I had to pick just one thing, I'd say the Sam Edelman Lior Loafers in gold glitter (similar) from November 2018 were my most impulsive purchase. I definitely wouldn't have gotten them if I hadn't seen them for a particularly good price during the Black Friday sales. I had an easier time putting these into my semi-regular rotation than I imagined, and I wore them almost once a week since I got them, mostly on casual Fridays. At the same time, maybe because these shoes are made of fabric backing under the glitter and not leather, they're not as durable as my other Sam Edelman loafers. There's a rip developing near a seam on one shoe. So this was initially a more successful purchase than anticipated, but also ultimately a little disappointing. 

Link List: The Farewell

This past weekend, K and I watched The Farewell, the new film from director Lulu Wang, starring Awkwafina. I hadn't realized that it was only released in four theaters nationwide last weekend, so I guess we were very lucky to be able to see it! The movie is really good, all the actors and actresses are excellent, especially Awkwafina. Although the subject matter is quite sad, with clear parallels to things that have happened in my own family, there are also surprising moments of levity. 

1. // I couldn't imagine creating a piece of art that's so personal, it must be incredibly nerve-wracking to see how audiences will react. This article in The Atlantic about Lulu Wang and the movie is great. One particular quote from the director was especially poignant, I thought, and really captured something I think about whenever I recommend something that speaks to facets of the Asian-American experience I find familiar and that resonate deeply with me: 

“I was just really hoping people didn’t hate it, because it is so personal, and it is my family. If they hated it, then they hate us, in a way, you know?”

That's even a sentiment I've expressed, though it was only buried deep in the footnotes of a post focused on something else. 

Whenever I recommend Kathy's novel Family Trust (affiliate link), I always do so with some trepidation because it's about people so much like me, my parents, and the community I grew up in. It's not exactly the same (there are some substantial differences, including in socioeconomic class), but before I read her novel, I would never have dreamed of seeing something so much like my lived experience depicted in a creative work, one that was receiving a fair amount of positive buzz and attention. To the extent that anyone out there found the characters in the novel absolutely loathsome or completely irredeemable, I would take it a bit personally. Such a strong negative reaction would suggest to me that the reader might not be inclined to show empathy to people a lot like like my parents and I, and that would make me sad. 

2. // Because I so recently wrote about my past notebook-hoarding habits (which did not go hand-in-hand with actually using said notebooks), I was a bit tickled when I saw that Vox's The Goods recently published an article about that exact phenomenon, of how difficult it often is for people to use up their notebooks and journals:

“A new, unused, good-looking notebook represents pure potential. The words we inscribe into this beautiful notebook will be words of pure genius, we tell ourselves,” Korkki says. “A used notebook is sullied — it shows how we attempted to achieve something impressive and fell short. [] I hate to continue writing in a journal I have previously abandoned months or even years before because that journal represents the ‘old’ me. A new journal represents the new me, who will always be disciplined and inspired.” 

But what about actually finishing the notebook once you’ve started? 

Korkki believes that “people lose steam because the idea of perfect writing in their heads never matches what they end up putting on the page, and they become discouraged.” 

I can certainly relate to all that! It's only now that I've accepted that notebooks have the most utility to me when I'm not too "precious" about them, and when I prioritize using them frequently over needing the words I put in them to be particularly high quality (or to be done in especially neat handwriting), that I actually can use them up. With my writing and journaling style, anything I handwrite tends to be in a very stream-of-consciousness style, and I never really go back to read over it. Once I've written out whatever I was thinking, the words are no longer as meaningful to me. 

3. // I was glad to see that one of my favorite bloggers, previously at To Universe, with Love, is back and newly blogging at Of a Certain Vintage. Recently, Luxe did a good entry about the importance of knowing one's values when making money-related decisions. In some ways, at least to me (a major homebody and also a fairly shy introvert), it was also an entry about introversion, about choosing not to do (or spend money on) certain kinds of social outings. 

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4. // There are a few small items from the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale that I have bought in the past, and that I think could be a good deal: I got these Nordstrom-branded cubic zircona stud earrings last year, on Kathy's recommendation. They're a solid choice, and more importantly for their being a good value, Nordstrom does not seem to discount them at any other time of year. 

A lot of the more interesting items in the sale are from the beauty section: I recently bought one of those Slip silk pillowcases to see if it would help reduce the tangles and split ends my hair's been prone to. (It helps noticeably, but it definitely isn't a miracle product either. I'm satisfied with my purchase, but I won't really be able to compare it to any other silk pillowcase because I don't plan to buy any others to try.) Nordstrom is offering sets of two Slip pillowcases at a substantial discount, in white or beige. 

An Infatuation With Good ~50 GSM Paper

One of my old vices - small-ish in total cost, but unfortunately maybe not that small in resulting waste over many years - from before I started this blog and before I started examining my spending habits more carefully, was buying up notebooks and journals that I'd then proceed to write or sketch in for only a few pages at most before moving on to the next book. Happily, things have changed quite a bit since then. I've cut down significantly on that habit of overbuying notebooks and have started actually using up the ones I have in their entirety.

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My KonMari-style decluttering (including of my desk and bookshelf) back in early 2015 was enough to teach me (among many other sobering lessons) not to wastefully accumulate notebooks anymore, given my horrible track record with actually using them. And when I returned to the private sector in late 2017, I learned that I actually could stick with and use up a notebook after all, utilizing a somewhat bullet journal-like system for keeping track of my to-do lists and other notes. I spent approximately a year and a half filling up my A5-sized Leuchtturm notebook with dot-grid pages, writing in it just about every day. Through that, I trained myself to be a lot less "precious" or finicky about how I used my notebooks, learning to not feel a little anxious, like I'd permanently marred a once-clean and perfect notebook - making me want to pull out a new one instead - if I made spelling or other errors, or if my handwriting wasn't always neat, or if I needed to cross some things out.

Looking back, I'd actually mostly stopped with my bad habit of over-buying and under-using notebooks and journals while I was in law school, I suppose because school and internships were keeping me busy. At the time, there wasn't any appeal to the idea of doing any more writing for fun in addition to what I needed to do for school and work. Plus, relying on digital solutions like Google Calendar proved to be far more practical than keeping a hard-copy planner while I was in law school. Once at my first job, a combination of my work calendar in Outlook and my personal Google Calendar was more than enough for scheduling purposes. And for a time, I added on the Wunderlist app as a way of keeping track of both months-out long-term deadlines and also small, immediate things I wanted to remember day-to-day.

Though I eventually did buy some smaller Rifle Paper Co. notebooks later on at my first workplace, to keep a separate and more condensed list of upcoming deadlines and important tasks, when my note-taking system on the firm-provided legal pads grew a little too haphazard and voluminous to be a good system for that purpose. (I take super-wordy, stream-of-consciousness-style notes at meetings or when I'm researching and planning out how to write something work-related.)

Much more recently, I might be slightly finding my way back to my old weakness for collecting pretty stationery, now that I think I've finally learned how to be fully committed to actually using it all up. The resurrection of this quirk of mine likely began with my trip to Japan last September, as stores there really do have the most wonderful selection of stationery.

It was in Japan that I finally had the chance to handle one of those popular Hobonichi Techo planners. While I ultimately tore myself away from them because a pre-printed planner just wouldn't be functional for me, I had become quite taken with the texture of the 52 GSM Tomoe River Paper used in the Hobonichis. That paper was lovely and smooth (but not too smooth and almost slippery, the way the Clairefontaine-made paper in Rhodia notebooks feels to me), and also much lighter and thinner than that of any other notebook I'd ever used, while still being reputed to be a high-quality paper on which most inks and pens would not bleed through. People even color in pictures or paint with watercolors on the pages of their Hobonichi planners, and the paper's supposed to hold up!

A Year Later: The Shoes of Spring/Summer

Outside of my trusty FitFlops, the vast majority of the shoes I currently wear in the warmer seasons are approximately a year old. I bought my trusty Sam Edelman Loraine loafers in black leather (now on sale in limited sizes) last May, the same month I bought my somewhat impractical Soludos llama slip-on sneakers in pale pink canvas (discontinued, but discounted in navy blue or burgundy velvet). I'd bought my M.Gemi Felize in gold shimmer-effect leather that March (discontinued, similar gold leather). I also bought a pair of Rothy's Points last June, and was really hoping they'd be as durable for me as they are for many of my colleagues, such that I'd still be wearing them now. But alas, that was not to be, and I got barely a few months of heavy use from them before they started developing holes in the outer edges, the way all other ballet flats also tend to do on me.

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That was a lot of shoe shopping in just a few short months last year, but part of my rationale was that I wanted enough pairs that I wouldn't need to wear the same ones two days or more in a row, in hopes of getting more longevity from my shoes than I did before. Now that I've had most of my spring/summer shoes for a year (the Sam Edelman loafers also get worn in fall/winter, but not the rest), I thought it was a good time for an update on how these shoes were doing, whether I was actually getting a longer lifespan from them than before. Unfortunately, perhaps because of the styles I choose, or my wide feet and my manner of walking, or because I don't yet do much work to maintain my shoes, this update won't sound too impressive or exciting. While I don't think I'll need any new shoes for spring/summer this year, I don't expect that the shoes I currently have for those seasons will last too much longer into next year, particularly if I need my shoes to be presentable-looking at work.

Sam Edelman Loraine loafers, black leather: These have gotten the most wear by far, as I also use them frequently in fall-winter, so long as there's not too much slush and ice on the ground. I've gotten them reheeled once, within the first three months, but they haven't needed another visit to the cobbler since, though they'll need another trip there soon. In terms of physical condition and sturdiness, these loafers are holding up fairly well, having only accumulated a few small scuffs, just normal wear and tear. As I observed when I bought them, they're made of a very soft, pliable leather which makes them fairly comfortable if they fit your feet well, but likely isn't as good for their durability. In terms of aesthetics though, the leather is starting to look quite worn-in and dull because I haven't done anything to maintain them, outside of the one time I got them reheeled. (Not sure if this is the type of thing shoe polish is good for, as I'm completely clueless about shoe care and maintenance!) 

If I'm not able to learn how to maintain these loafers better, then I'm not sure how much longer they'd stay presentable-looking for work. It'd be a pity if I couldn't spiff up the leather a bit and get them looking better, since they've otherwise proven to be comfortable and sturdy. One additional note: From my experience with the gold glitter version, which are made of fabric rather than leather, the fabric ones are not as durable. A rip developed last month long one of the seams on one of my gold glitter loafers, and I'd generally only been wearing them once a week since I got them, so they hadn't seen anywhere near as much heavy use as my leather ones, which have not had this problem. 

M.Gemi Felize, gold shimmer-effect leather (similar): I'm very careful with these and never wear them out if there's any chance of rain, so they generally only end up getting used once a week, a little less often this year because we had a rainy start to the summer. I'd never before owned a pair of driving moccasin-style loafers with rubber pegs instead of an actual sole on the bottom, and I was a little concerned these shoes would wear out very quickly, but they haven't been too terrible on that front. It was only towards the end of last summer that some of the rubber pegs near the heel started getting close to being so worn down that the leather on the bottom of the shoe would start rubbing against the ground soon. The outer edge of my right shoe is also starting to rub against the sidewalk a little, thanks to my wide feet and the way I walk, though it isn't too close to developing a hole yet, it's just that some of the gold shimmer-effect on the surface has started to rub off. I think these shoes will last through part of next summer if I continue wearing them once a week-ish, though not too much longer than that.

As someone who doesn't have remotely adventurous tastes in shoes, I continue to find M.Gemi's business model perplexing, because it seems to be so focused on constantly developing trendy new styles, colors, and leather textures, including the shimmer effect on my loafers. They so rarely stock their more classic designs, like this Felize or the similar Pastoso, in neutral shades of leather. (I continue to resolutely avoid suede shoes of all kinds because I think they wouldn't do well on NYC's super-grimy sidewalks.) Even if M.Gemi's bread and butter is weekly releases of limited runs of exciting new styles, I suppose I'd imagine that it should still be a no-brainer to also consistently stock more classic, neutral shoes as well, since I'd have assumed there'd always be a market for those more "boring" designs, the kind that almost never go on sale from other brands either.

Soludos llama slip-on sneakers (navy velvet, burgundy velvet): Similar with the Felizes, I also try not to wear these out if there's even the faintest chance of rain. I'm almost more careful with these than the Felize because the pale pink canvas is so prone to getting dirty! I ended up wearing these about once a week last year, but have only used them once this year because we had such rainy and unpredictable weather for a while. As with the Sam Edelman loafers, when it comes to the physical condition of these slip-ons, they're holding up well. The only flaw they've taken on now is aesthetic, that they're already looking noticeably dingy despite infrequent wear, as can be expected due to their light color. With the llama applique and the cork-looking insole, I doubt these could be machine-washed like some other sneakers.

With slip-on sneakers like these, I'd expect them to be durable enough to last through a good long period of frequent wear, at least if they weren't a color that's prone to showing dirt and dust. I suppose I should have learned from that mostly-white pair of Keds I wore a lot back in 2015 to 2016 that slip-on sneakers in light-colored fabric are just not a very functional choice when one lives in NYC and does a ton of walking! I'd be better off with something like the black leather Vans I wore from 2016 to 2018.

Rothy's Points, gray birdseye: Well, I don't have these anymore because they weren't capable of enduring a full year of frequent use at my hands! It was such a big disappointment too, because they're not cheap, and they do also have some noticeable advantages over most other ballet flats I've ever tried. So many of my women colleagues really love these and have been wearing theirs frequently, including on their commutes, for ages, certainly well over a year. I'd hoped I would have a similar experience. Alas, I think it's just the way I walk, I grind down almost all of my ballet flat-style shoes with remarkable speed, in as little as a month or two of frequent wear. On me, these Rothy's points lasted around three months of 3-4x/week wear before they started developing holes in the outer edges.

I would still recommend Rothy's to other people who don't destroy their ballet flats the way I do. They're remarkably comfortable for a ballet flat, I was able to walk around NYC and stand in them all day most days, which I can no longer do with other ballet flats. I also loved how light and easily packable they are for travel. Being machine-washable (cold water wash and air dry only,  I'm told that any exposure to heat will cause them to shrink) was a huge plus, though because they're made of recycled plastic, they did make my feet sweaty, and the shoes would get quite smelly very quickly between washes. Being plastic and machine-washable, exposure to rain will not cause lasting damage, though I did hate how they felt on my feet when they were damp, so if I got badly rained on during my morning commute, I'd need to switch to other shoes at my desk for the rest of the day. (And they generally wouldn't be fully dry yet by the end of the day, when it was time to head home.)

What does a proper shoe care and maintenance regime, particularly for good leather shoes, look like anyway? I'm eager to learn, and any suggestions would be much appreciated (and of course, the internet provides many easily found and helpful resources for such things, which I'll also look into). Additionally, I'm still daydreaming about someday having a pair of those famous Gucci Jordaan loafers in black leather, after seeing, on another woman while we were both in an elevator, how much sleeker and more chic they looked compared to my well-worn Sam Edelmans. But I wouldn't dare buy a pair of shoes that fancy if I hadn't first learned to take scrupulously good care of them first!