Frugal Friday’s Workwear Report: Tartan Top
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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.
My teenage daughter took it upon herself to put up our Christmas tree this week, so after many years of complaining about Christmas creeping into my Thanksgiving celebrations, I guess I’m part of the problem now.
(We are also first-time kitten owners, so I’m accepting all advice on how to keep the cat out of the tree, please and thank you!)
Even if you’re not quite ready to celebrate the holidays, it’s not too early to grab a festive top for those in-office holiday lunches and post-work holiday happy hours. This tartan top from J.Crew Factory would look great with a sweater and a pair of trousers for a fun office look.
The top is $48.50 at J.Crew Factory and comes in sizes XXS-3X. (They also have a lot of other fun tartan things, including several cute shoes for women… perhaps something to wear to your company holiday party?)
Sales of note for 11/6:
- Nordstrom – Early Black Friday sale! Up to 25% off fashion + 15% off all fragrance
- Sephora – Savings Event! 10-20% off for members, and 30% off Sephora Collection
- Ann Taylor – 25% off your purchase, and $50 off $200
- Brooklinen – Surprise weekend sale, 20% off
- Electric Picks – 25% off
- J.Crew – 2400+ markdowns
- J.Crew Factory – Extra 50% off clearance
- M.M.LaFleur – Save 20% on suiting and dresses! Try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off on other items)
- Talbots – Enjoy 30% off your entire purchase
I gained 10 lbs this year. Stress and lack of movement. I wear mosyly dresses, so my clothes still fit everywhere but the bust – any button down front doesn’t fit now. Never had this issue brfore. Any suggestions? Is there anything a tailor can do? Do I add a camisole and unbotton the dress more?
Try a minimizing bra?
Minimizers squish your bust under your pits and can give you a weird shape, so those might not work.
For me, I don’t really need a minimizing bra to reduce bust projection – less structured bras can make things ‘stick out’ less, and may work for this person’s needs.
The cami and unbuttoning might work as a short term fix, but I think your best bet is to shop for new dresses.
Any favorite all inclusive resorts in warm places? My parents are looking for a pretty beach and nice on site restaurants to break up the Midwest winter gloom. One parent has some mobility challenges and an all inclusive is an attempt at concentrating the enjoyable parts and cutting down on transit.
Bonus points if there’s a direct flight from O’Hare and not extensive travel once you’ve arrived.
Thanks!
There are literally hundreds of options at all price points in Mexico, the DR and Jamaica, all of which have daily non-stop flights to ORD. The Cancun area is what I’d suggest for first timers. What is their budget? If they can go $800-$1k a night, Atelier or LeBlanc. If they’re trying to keep it more like $500-600, Excellence or Live Aqua. Below $500 for an all-inclusive you start to get into Carnival cruise ship vibes which doesn’t sound like what they’re looking for.
See you mentioned nice restaurants I’ll also add that even at the luxury places the food isn’t outstanding, just good.
This is absolutely untrue. There are many 5* resorts available for less than $500/night if you aren’t going at peak holiday/spring break etc.
Sounds like you haven’t tried to go anywhere for a while.
Costa Rica.
Agree that from chicago Cancun or Riviera Maya are great bets. We have used Costco travel multiple times for this and they have great options.
I’m a newly appointed practice group chair at my firm! I start Jan 1 but we transition starting now. (Shadowing meetings). I have a 6-year term: I’m committed to not rocking the boat my first year. Part of my appointment is because I work in office 4-6 days/week and we have a lot of new associates who need mentoring. I found out this week that my pg chair receives a new 3-ring binder every month. The binder is from our managing partners, and includes hard copy reports they don’t email others. (so the outgoing pg chair has 60 binders in his office). I have no idea where to put these. I have eliminated most furniture from my office. I can’t have them on a normal bookcase. I also need a space for people to put confidential info if I’m not physically in office. I have started asking around and folks have shown me piles under their desk, stacks of boxes in their offices – What do I do? I may be able to cap it at 12-14 but am guessing there is a reason folks aren’t scanning these in…
Is it possible your document management system has privacy settings that the outgoing chairs don’t know about? There are def ways to store things such that only certain people can see them.
If the issue is they SHOULDN’T be stored for whatever reason (scary) then why the heck aren’t people shredding them after use?
Short term answer is, get some furniture for your office (even if you prefer more minimalism). Locking cabinet with shelves should work, right? And maybe a locking file folder for the “if you need to drop stuff off” (I have one where each drawer has its own lock, so I’m not sure how many people are dropping confidential paperwork off for you”
And long-term answer is….??? Your file management system is email and print copies? When you’re ready to rock the boat a little, budget for a nice IT consultant and get that digitized.
This sounds insane. Is there a locked storage closet somewhere that these can be dumped until you or someone else has the bandwidth to scan them into a secure location or determine if they can be shredded?
I don’t understand how a law firm has such poor document management systems and incompetent IT. You do not need a bunch of binders this can all be easily digitally stored. Such a waste of space and paper.
Any chance the person giving those binders up has a piece of furniture that could come with them?
Sorry another high school Q – my daughter keeps making stupid mistakes on her math tests, like switching the answers for X/Y axis and things like that. She also says she’s kind of panicking during the tests, although at this point I feel like that’s more normal than not. We’re going to look into dyscalculia and talk about anxiety with her doc, but any other tips for not making stupid mistakes? Drills or mental checklists or things?
IMO she needs more practice with a 1:1 tutor. Worth the money since math is so foundational even if she doesn’t take any math in college. Will be expensive.
The swapping things around can be a NVLD thing. She definitely needs to be taking time to double check her answers; her math teacher or any math tutor should be able to walk her through that.
Practice until it’s second nature and boring to her so when she sees the test there’s nothing to panic about.
This right here. The amount of practice she thinks she needs <<< the amount of practice she actually needs in order to master both the concept being tested and the foundational arithmetic needed for the problem.
I tutor high school & college math and see this all the time. Everyone hits a wall at some point. Algebra 2 and Calc 1 are the most common.
I was a math major and now I’m an economist and I have always done and still do these kinds of things. It sounds like she’s beating herself up and if it helps this internet stranger gives her permission not to do so.
A few practical things I do to manage these sorts of issues:
(1) Solve a problem two ways and make sure I get the same answer. For me, this means doing a problem algebraically and drawing a picture.
(2) Related to (1): tell myself a story that goes with the problem. Is my answer consistent with the story? For the X vs. Y axis thing I would tell myself a story that starts with X and ends with Y, because functions map X to Y.
(3) Identify a pattern to my errors and select methods that avoid my most common errors, e.g., I’m prone to sign errors (plus when it should be minus and vice versa) so I avoid multiplying things out until the very end of a problem.
FWIW I had and never got over test anxiety. The only thing that helped was having some fine motor thing to do on the side to take the edge off. I took a zillion snacks to my grad school comprehensive exams so I would have something to do with my non-writing hand/mouth. It was really steadying. That may or may not be an option for her in high school but it’s worth considering if/when it’s possible.
There are lots of little tools people use to help them avoid this — one starting point would be for your daughter to think about what tools actually help her identify this *kind* of error in other contexts. For example, if she’s checking her final paper for typos, what does she do? (ie. read it out loud or backwards, or have a checklist of “ok, no they’re/their/there errors, no to/too errors”, etc. Use whatever works for you in other contexts in math.
But some math specific ones are:
(She’s already showing her work as she goes, right? Start with the answer, and then go backwards up through the steps to make sure they all make sense (going backwards makes them “new” and helps your brain not just follow the path it did the first time).
Estimate the answer first – ie. is this going to be positive or negative, a number under ~10 or in the the hundreds, or in the millions (so if you drop a zero, you will definitely notice); a straight line or a parabola?
For timed tests, I liked to circle the problems I was skimming/not as confident about, so I immediately knew which ones to go back to if I had extra time (and pair that with, commit to yourself to use all the time allotted – even if you’re done, don’t turn the test in early. Rework problems, even if you’re “sure they’re all right!” until time is up.
Obviously, if you or your daughter thinks this is something more, or feels like you need professional guidance, learning disability testing and talking to the pediatrician about anxiety are reasonable and I don’t want to discourage you from seeking professional guidance. But this sounds to me much more like a spend a few hours looking up “test strategies” or get a few sessions of test-strategies tutoring than indicative of discalculalia or clinical anxiety
I want to transition to a laptop backpack for my daily commute and am comparing options knowing that November sales are probably the best time of the year to scoop up a deal. My work wardrobe skews business formal, and I’m occasionally a road warrior or flying to meetings. My old Everlane Transit backpack is too rugged for business formal settings. I’m looking at Tumi, Monos, and Lo and Sons, with Tumi – especially the leather option – carrying the highest price tag. Are these worth it? Any other recommendations from ‘rettes that I may be overlooking? Ideally, the bag provides space for an up to 15” laptop and if it matters, I’m 47, 5’11, and a size 12 so a larger bag shouldn’t overwhelm my frame.
I really like Knomo for this. It’s nylon so it’s not heavy, but I find it to be fancy enough for a business formal setting.
Lo and Sons. I can’t justify the Tumi upcharge.
+1 for Lo and Sons
I’ve used the Tumi backpacks for the past decade, and would vote that it is worth it because of how long they’ve held up. Only caveats are (i) if you frequently need to bring home binders, it only really fits a two inch binder and (ii) over 20lbs in it starts to put a strain on my back – for those trips, I switch to my black hiking backpack.
I have an Away backpack that works well. I’m 5’4″ and a size 10 and its not too big at all.
They may be too rugged, but the Timbuktu laptop backpacks (all their bags, really) wear like iron, My husband, adult kid, and I all have had them for years – my kid used it daily for schlepping around campus, overseas trips, etc. and it looks new.
Leather gets so heavy if your commute involves any walking or cycling.
A longish walk to the train and back, yep. Thanks for mentioning – I didn’t even consider this prior to posting!
Agree, I gave up leather because of this years ago.
Cuyana has a leather laptop backpack that I think looks really good and can also be carried over an arm if you’d rather not backpack into a meeting or lunch or whatever
I really like my Tumi backpack, and it was worth the cost to me. I’d suggest going to a store (or ordering) both the leather and nylon versions. I thought I wanted the leather but it was noticeably heavier to me, and the nylon looked sharper than I expected so I got the nylon. FWIW, I’ve had it for 5 years, with 6-10 business trips per year, and it still looks nearly new.
I got a Lo and Sons Rowledge earlier this year off Poshmark and am very happy with it! Super roomy while still structured, and doesn’t feel floppy the way my Knomo (which I used for 5+ years) did.
I have a Tumi and love it, but I have the nylon not the leather. I do think a leather backpack would be very heavy. It’s holding up very well and works well for daily use and for travel. I did look at several options, including less expensive options, and the Tumi I picked just had the combination of features I wanted, so I decided it was worth the price tag.
Is it a red flag to you if you’re dating someone who has no friends and seems like there have never been friends thru life? I’m not suggesting that everyone has to have a tight group of bros since preschool or college because life just doesn’t work that neatly. But just thinking a man should be occasionally grabbing drinks or lunch with someone or at least he used to do that.
Thought about this because someone asked whether it was a red flag that their BF was still upset by food delivery on the floor a week after the fact. My thought is the few times I’ve ended up with really finicky men it also turned out there were no friends along the way. Makes me think guys like that aren’t socialized around peers their age. Because a man hanging with guys on the regular would realize this was NBD and would realize he’d be totally made fun of for acting scared of regular life. Almost exposure therapy if you will.
I would think it’s weird if a guy doesn’t have any friends, yes. Not sure what that has to do with food delivery.
She seems to mean that outlier behavior would have been bullied out of him by now. I’m not sure that’s how OCD works though; it’s probably more that people avoid men with unmanaged mental illness than that having lots of friends is itself a treatment.
My husband doesn’t go out regularly or have close friends at this stage of life. He did in high school, some in college, some right after college, but they’ve all fallen away. Now he is social when we go out but never goes out with friends apart from me. He is truly a top notch spouse, so it doesn’t bother me.
I think OP was more saying it’s a red flag if they’ve never had friends, which wouldn’t describe your husband. I agree with this though.
+1. My husband’s childhood friends live 6,000 miles away now and they would still be friends if they lived together, but he’s in the same boat here in the U.S. College and social friends have fallen away and moved away. His only friends are also my friends and I’ve struggled to make new ones too. I was really hoping grad school would solidify some friendships and I made a lot of situational friends there, but the second graduation came, they all melted away despite my efforts. It was really frustrating – still is!
Same boat. My spouse is lovely, and he does have a couple of grad school friends who keep in touch via text, but he doesn’t do in-person socializing with anyone other than me. FWIW, my social life is very similar, although I have a circle of work friends with whom I do go out for happy hours a handful of times a year.
I think it depends a lot on whether he’s ever had friends or whether it’s more specific to his current circumstances, or if there are other things that explain it. As someone who’s moved a lot as an adult, it’s not super easy to make friends when you move somewhere new in your 30s or 40s so I have a much more limited social circle than I did in childhood, high school, college, or my 20s (as does my husband, who has moved with me). I don’t think that really says anything about us other than how hard it is to build up a new group of friends in a new place at this stage of life. I know you said it seems like it doesn’t seem like it doesn’t seem there have ever been friends, but do you really mean no friends or just no friends he’s currently in touch with because they’re elsewhere or something has happened to them (a somewhat disconcerting number of my childhood friends have died and I’m only in my 40s)? There can also be other reasons good people struggle to make friends, like if they grew up in a small town where they didn’t really fit in with the other guys, for example. The lack of socialization can still be something to be careful about, but not necessarily something you need to avoid completely.
I encourage my spouse’s healthy friendships, but I don’t want bro culture in my life period.
Having friends is not “bro culture.”
OP mentioned being socialized around peers their age. That’s very often not a green flag at all!
The OP did reference “bros” so I think the person you are replying to was just clarifying that bro culture isn’t her cup of tea. It’s pretty clear she wasn’t equating all male friendships with “bro culture”.
Not having many or any friends that he actively socializes with at a particular stage of life wouldn’t be a red flag for me, but I would pay attention to how he treats people (obviously) and also whether he clings to me as his only form of socialization.
Never having friends is a bit more concerning, though. Have you talked to him about this? Not like, have you interrogated him but has it come up naturally in conversation? Has he always been a happy loner, or very shy when young? Or (more concerning) did he want to have friends but drive them away with bad relationship habits or other hold antisocial beliefs?
I wouldn’t think it’s weird if a guy doesn’t have lifelong friends, like isn’t still hanging with his high school circle (although I always think it’s cool when someone has that kind of relationships), but mostly because I tend to live in places and be in social circles where people are pretty mobile/few people live near where they grew up.
But yeah, single guy with no other social relationships than dating would be a red flag to me.
It depends? Lots of neurodivergent folks lack friends because they are undiagnosed and thus try and befriend neurotypicals. That’s not a red flag in my book, science has repeatedly shown there is basically nothing they can do to overcome the thinslicing. It’s also pretty easily remedied by focusing on befriending other neurodivergents. Some people are just raging a-holes though and lack friends for that reason, not something that can be overcome.
Astounded at the idea that NDs hanging out is an easy remedy. It’s more like trying to get several house cats to get along.
Haha I was friendless until I was like 25, then I found a bunch of other queer NDs and we’ve been going strong for 8 years! But you need to be the same ‘type’. Like cats we either hiss and hate eachother or become a bonded pair.
IDK… I went to grad school for computer science, where probably a majority of us were some flavor of neurodibergent and it was awesome to be part of the normal for a change. Made it much easier to get along and make friends.
There is a lot written about how many men don’t have friendships these days. For married men it’s like a joke among the wives, their only friends are the wives’ husbands. True, a lot of the older guys have had friends in college — but if your guy is on the younger side that’s also occurring more regularly I think, where young guys don’t have friends or are just kind of “friends with everyone.”
Actually there was just a story in the Cut about this, but tons of memes. Blame toxic masculinity?
https://www.thecut.com/article/my-husband-has-no-friends.html
I blame toxic men. Way too many men with friend groups are putting up with something they shouldn’t from their friends.
Yes, it’s a red flag in a partner and frankly anyone else.
I have a different tartan top from JCF that has become my annual workhorse for holiday dinners.
to the person that posted yesterday about the take out food. that sounds like text book contamination ocd to me. for my husband it manifested in his late 20s/earlys 30s.
Its a very very hard disease to live with.
I had posted here a while ago about recently becoming aware of the Zero COVID community on R3ddit and man, the contamination OCD is rife there. It sounds incredibly freaking hard.
Now I kind of want to read that thread but not go down that rabbit hole. IDK Covid to me seems like if you have reason to be covid cautious just mask. Like it’s been shown that it isn’t spreading thru touching door knobs or groceries. I wonder if people are stuck in the worries of early 2020 when the means of transmission wasn’t known.
Different poster – were you guys able to remedy it and can you share how? Does it require anxiety meds, therapy etc? Or are you still dealing with it.
A former colleague and good friend deals with contamination OCD. IT was fine at the office but when we had to travel for out of town court hearings, it was unbearable for him and for us as coworkers. Even with medication, he would be tortured with the fear due to stress.
How – like staying in hotels and eating in restaurants or something else?
Well, it’s like a variant of not liking edible arrangements. I think they are gross and won’t touch them. This is just a worse version. Some people have a hard time with “what I don’t know won’t hurt me” because there are plenty of instances with food where that just isn’t true.
My household has actual immune issues that require precautions, so sometimes I feel impatient about people who justify what seems to be a subjective ick factor in risk terms but aren’t consistent. But I really shouldn’t. Lowering risk is lowering risk, and everyone has a right to care about some things more than others and take more risks when it’s subjectively worth it to them than when it’s not.
And I also feel weird about it when people with OCD are discouraged from taking precautions that are actually recommended (like basic food safety guidelines).
Was talking to my son and his gf about the Steve Tyler suit and that I think we need to change the culture and not prosecute old rockstars. We talked about Cornell and we think all are guilty but they both feel that alcohol is an issue with s*xual encounters. My son told me something that made me so proud. He was at a party and two people were very drunk and fooling around. He pulled the woman aside and suggested she maybe hold off. She was then crying and revealed a r*pe. He said most guys would never that but he knew both of them and that they were really drunk. How do we further change our culture?
Old rockstars need to be cancelled
We don’t really change culture, it happens over time as new norms take root.
For example in high school it was nothing for my bottom to be smacked walking down the hallway by my classmates. Now people get assault charges for it.
The culture we need to change is the culture of excuses and facilitation. Most men know what they’re doing and deliberately create the circumstances they want to create. There’s a reason your son didn’t pull the man aside, yes?
He talked to the intoxicated man also when he went over. I can’t really put the whole discussion on here but your perception is super ignorant. Are you suggesting he was wrong to protect that woman? You are a mess.
He should have pulled the guy aside and let the woman stumble off and find another dude to make out with? Okay.
As to changing the culture, I think we need to stop judging women who do say “yes” on a first date. I grew up on the message that we say “NO” several times to protect our good girl image and that is gross to me.
-Hold men accountable. Actual consequences go pretty far in shaping behavior.
-Stop making excuses for men and boys
-Stop blaming victims
-Take women and girls seriously
-Educate men (and everyone, but especially men) on enthusiastic consent
-Stop allowing men to act like determining whether someone is actually consenting is a great mystery that cannot be solved, so therefore they just can’t be asked to
-Raise boys to view girls as equal members of society worthy of respect and not objects to be acquired, used, or otherwise manipulated
-Push back on r*pe culture
I think i have a different definition of frugal
it’s JCF, so just assume you’d pay no more than like 75% of the “list” price.
**75% OFF the list price. Bad typo lol.
I’d like a wool winter jacket. I’ve ALWAYS defaulted to JCrew and I’m not opposed to buying there again, but I’m thinking it might be worth branching out. What are your favorite stores? Hoping to spend $500 or less but willing to spend more for the right one. Thinking neutrals, and my style is more preppy/classic than trendy if that matters in the realm of wool coats.
What stores? What am I looking for? Size M, 5’7″… maybe a size 8 if numbered sizing.