Tuesday, January 1, 2008

I'd Like To Thank The Academy...

Tip Of The Day: The Top Five Reader Tips (actually, there are seven. But why quibble?).

Tip For Tomorrow: The nicest cheese shop, with the happiest cheese sellers, making your cheese shopping easy, cheap and FUN. Which yes, IS a weird thing to say about shopping for cheese.

Further Elucidation Of My Cheap Deal: Drum roll please… here are my top five reader tips for 2007, gleaned from the Comments Section of each entry. Thank you everyone for your tips, encouragement, and grammar corrections.

Number Five: The thrifty bloggers at NaBloPoMo.com - National Blog Post Month -
recommend that everyone buy thrift gifts this holiday and beyond. They advocate that you buy your holiday (or birthday, or whatever) gifts at consignment and thrift stores. That way, you save money AND recycle, which helps save the environment, which makes Al Gore love you. Thank you to GoodAndPlanty for the tip!

Number Four: From Michelle comes the following tip – stop by the Dollar Store section at Target for the best stocking stuffers, each item for only $1. They also make good Secret Santa gifts, and stave-off-my-pestering-child-who-wants-another-Barbie gifts. She recommended the Hello Kitty items, which are now gone, but the Valentine stuff is in, and it's equally pink and shiny and sparkly. Just kitten-free.


Number Three: The Bluest Butterfly recommends the Worthington brand at JCPenney’s for cool, comfy and cheap work separates. Worthington is not expensive to begin with, and their items seem to always be on sale, making it easy for you to shop. Plus, the clothes themselves are well-made, classic, and sized right. In other words, a 6 is a 6 and an 8 is an 8. No vanity and no tears, either.

Number Two: A free (FREE!) subscription to my new fave magazine, Nylon, is yours courtesy of Urban Outfitters, if you go here
http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/category.jsp?navAction=poppush&navCount=0&itemCount=60&id=NYLON_SUBSCRIBE
I was told of this lovely freebie by Tundrababe, who understands the all-important principal – sales are good, clearance is better, free is BEST.

Number ONE: Is a three-way tie between the ladies who comment the most, and who might hurt me if I pick one of them over the other. Yes, this IS me being political and pacifying. However, I really did think these tips were useful to a wide range of people. Next year, though, they’ll have to work a wee bit harder to reign supreme.

So now, in NO PARTICULAR ORDER (you hear that, ladies?) are the number one tips of 2007:


Lou recommends you stop by the consignment store, Unique, located in Burnsville, MN, if you live in the Cities. This store tip was also the genesis for my blog. I believe Lou had just gotten her hands on a sweater AND pair of pants for less than $20 combined at Unique, when she announced – “From now on, I’m only spending $20 on everything I buy.” And thus, a blog was born.


HaC recommends the worlds greatest online shoe store, Cutesyshoes.com. Shipping is free if you spend over $50, which trust me, is sooooo easy to do. And thank you again, HaC, for the gift of my awesome shoes from this awesome store. See, bribery DOES pay off.


Larue recommends, well, many things, but her best recommendation is the new jeans at Lane Bryant. Whatever your shape, for the lovely plus ladies amongst us, you WILL find the perfect pair at Lane Bryant. Why ALL clothing stores don’t follow their example is beyond me, but for anyone size 14 and above, your ship of jeans has come in.

A Few Honorable Mentions: to El Jefe, Lou’s Husband and Doc, for their suggestions and offered help on improving the look and use of my blog. Thanks to them, you will be seeing new and fun changes to Cheap But Not Easy in the new year. Stay tuned, and stay cheap!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Technically you can get Lane Bryant jeans starting in size 14.

And I am happy to be amongst such fine submitters as HaC and Lou for #1 tip.

I will do my best in 2008 to be just as advice-giving as possible. It may be difficult, seeing as I am such a shy and retiring delicate little Southern flower.

Anonymous said...

Haha - awesome! Free is my favorite four letter word.

Coldwater Creek has 60% off everything until Midnight tonight on their website. That's 60% off clearance stuff too! I love this skirt, it's now $16 from $79. This t-shirt was $20, now it's $2.80 (almost free!).

Anonymous said...

As long as you're in Burnsville, don't forget the Talbot's Outlet on the north side of 42-behind Chili's. They have PHENOMENAL prices and sales. They also carry both petites and woman's sizes, as well as boys, girls and infants clothing-not a huge selection of kids' clothes, but the quality is great. The even have shoes, handbags and jewelry.

The Cheap Chick said...

Okay, it's official, anything clothing under $5 is FREE. Thanks for the awesome tip!

Anonymous said...

Cheap doesn't equal cheaps**t. With all due respect (and I mean that sincerely), I'll bet I could tell Worthington from the expensive stuff 9 out of 10 times. Real cheap was once expensive.

Doc

The Cheap Chick said...

I disagree. I wear Worthington all the time, and you haven't told me I looked like cheap poop. Yet.

Penney's has changed, folks. If you haven't been there in the last 10 years, it deserves another chance.

Michelle said...

Awww...thanks! I feel so honored to make your list. :) Worthington has some really nice fashion forward tops right now. And JCP has started their massive winter clearance. They have an extra 20% off clearance right now and that will only get lower---probably an extra 40% at the end of the month.

Worthington is very good quality and always looks classy.

Anonymous said...

Oh hey...who's knocking JCP? Yes, it used to be filled with polyester leisure suits and sensible shoes but someone, somewhere must have given it a once over and said 'This stuff all sucks' and we should find them and thank them profusely. JCP, and all within its hallowed walls, is one of my 'first stop' shops nowadays.

And speaking of 'first stop' shops, Cheap Chick, please highlight the Twin Cities many thrift clothing stores (other than Savers...which is awesome, I agree, it has changing rooms!)

But other thrift stores are a great find as well, provided you know your sizes well and are willing to dig around for the good stuff. Most of them (disadvantage=big one) don't have changing rooms but every one has yardsticks nailed to the racks so you can measure. I measure everything, esp. pants, sizes being all over the place. And some thrift stores have a '50% off everything' policy on holidays, like Memorial Day, Labor Day etc. But beware, they're jammed on those days.

ok...nuf said

Kate (in the Kitchen)