Coffee Break: Classic Belt

This post may contain affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

woman wears all beige outfit with brown classic belt and white t-shirt beneath cashmere sweater

Hunting for a classic belt to wear with everything? These J.Crew ones are highly rated — and this caramel tan color is marked down today to $32 (with lots of sizes left).

The belt comes in 9(!) other colors, is made of “rich Italian leather,” and is just over 1″ wide. You can monogram it for an additional $10.

Sales of note for 2/7/25:

  • Nordstrom – Winter Sale, up to 60% off! 7850 new markdowns for women
  • Ann Taylor – Extra 25% off your $175+ purchase — and $30 of full-price pants and denim
  • Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off everything + extra 15% off
  • Boden – 15% off new season styles
  • Eloquii – 60% off 100s of styles
  • J.Crew – Extra 50% off all sale styles
  • J.Crew Factory – 40% off everything including new arrivals + extra 20% off $125+
  • Rothy's – Final Few: Up to 40% off last-chance styles
  • Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
  • Talbots – 40% off one item + free shipping on $150+

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

102 Comments

  1. what stores do you still shop at in person? i work from home so i get a lot online but it feels like malls are either teenage clothes or upscale athleisure like lulu/athleta/alo.

    1. Thrift stores! I love taking an afternoon with a coffee and going through the racks. In person is much better than online thrift in my opinion since there’s so much vanity sizing lately I can realistically be anything from like a 0-14.

      1. I still mourn the death of Loehman’s and the original Century 21. I got the majority of my ‘adult’ clothes at both of them. Those older women in the changing rooms taught me what to look for in terms of ‘good’ fabric, stitching, and how things should fit (and what could easily be altered).

    2. None, and I don’t think I’m alone. Malls are dying. My small city doesn’t even have a mall anymore.

    3. For clothes, zero. There are more sizes available online and I’d rather try stuff on in my own home.

      1. Same, although I anticipate not much unnecessary shopping at all in the near to mid-term future anyhow.

    4. A few times a year I go to our major upscale mall nearby and scope out the end-of-season sales at Bloomie’s, NM, etc. Similar pieces online are often marked final sale and while I’m willing to risk that when it’s like a $12 tshirt, for a $150 sweater marked down from $400, I prefer IRL hunting.

      Otherwise mostly online, since selection in store is a subset of what’s available online. Unfortunately it’s a spiral; of course no one goes to a store if they don’t think they’ll find what they want, and then stores carry less and less…

    5. I mostly shop Marshall’s or Nordstrom Rack type places in person because I’m looking for a good deal.

      But when I’m looking for a specific thing, I got to a large department store. Last summer I wanted to get a week’s worth of button front cotton shirts in my new (smaller, yay) size so I went to Macy’s and Nordstrom. I actually had the most luck at Macy’s, which surprised me because I shop online at Nordstrom more often.

      It was especially important for me to try them on in person because the fit is harder to get right in woven fabric tailored clothing.

    6. I have an outdoor retail center pretty close to my house, so I’ll hit JCrew, Athleta and Lululemon in person. I also go to Gap for GapKids mostly. But that’s about it. Banana and Loft seem like a total waste of time these days for me, personally, but they’re also in-line at this retail center. Everything else is online – I just feel like no one carries any inventory. Nordstrom is the biggest offender of this, in my opinion.

      1. Good point on kids clothes. We’ve got a fancy mall a few towns over so I’ll usually drag mine over to try things on for size (and buy 1-2 things) and then order online once I know how the brand sizing works. We’re now in the tween/teen stage where age based sizing is a nightmare and these trips are becoming more frequent as they grow up/out of things with almost no notice.

    7. I always buy jeans and bras IRL – jeans usually at Nordstrom or Madewell and bras at a small independent shop in my town. Beyond that I’ll pop into stores when I’ve got free time on business trips but rarely spend a weekend day ‘shopping’. The few exceptions are Madewell/Anthropologie/the local boutique that are in the same shopping strip as my hairstylist. Every few weeks I’ll browse through after a cut and color and will usually pick up a new seasonal piece or two.

    8. In the last year, grocery stores and other food stores, Target, a few different hardware stores, the local appliance store, IKEA, REI, and I’ve picked up some prescriptions at CVS. I generally buy clothes online because I wear petite sizes and most stores don’t carry those, but I wanted to buy a new winter jacket and other winter gear so we did hit up REI in the fall. It was a terrible experience. They barely had anything in stock, it was all XS or XL, and most of it was chained to the racks so you couldn’t even try it on easily. I gave up and ordered a jacket online (not from REI). I did manage to buy some mittens and my husband bought some hiking boots, which were nice to be able to try on. Oh, and we bought a new mattress online after trying them at a lot of stores, including the store we ultimately bought from, not sure if that counts. We recently bought a house, so we also did a lot of in person furniture shopping at a pretty wide range of stores, but didn’t end up buying much.

    9. In my area, we still have a few regional super-boutiques for lack of a better way to describe them. Think a smaller scale version of NM at a similar price point.

    10. Nordstrom, Bloomingdales, Anthropologie, Evereve, White House Black Market, J Crew, DSW, Nordstrom Rack, and local boutiques. If I’m hunting for something specific and haven’t had any luck in store I’ll look online. But I prefer to buy in person when possible, especially jeans and shoes.

    11. Nordstrom and Anthropologie. I live near a major outdoor mall but no longer like going there unless I have to. It’s a good idea for me to try things at Anthro because I like some really wacky clothes online, but get a reality check when I am in the dressing room. I remember I am a lawyer in my 50s and not a twentysomething waif on her way to Coachella.

    12. Costco and Target (but not always, sometimes do online pickup and instacart). All my other groceries are delivered. I order pretty much everything else online.

    13. I vastly prefer shopping in person for clothing–sizing and fabric quality are so hit or miss, and dealing with returns annoys me (plus most of them get trashed anyway). My go-tos are Madewell, Anthro, Lulu, and a couple of local consignment shops.

    14. I try my best to do all my shopping in-person. I would rather try the clothes on at the store before I buy them. Plus the returns and all the packaging with online orders are a hassle for me. I am lucky enough to have a variety of stores very close to me, and I can get just about everything I need from those stores. And I want them to stay in business! The only things I buy online now are books that my local bookstores don’t carry.

    15. I don’t buy much at our local mall, but do stop there for frozen yogurt, dinners out, and holiday events.

  2. I think 2025 might be the year i leave private practice. I worry a little about what is next – and i have to do some looking – but any success/happy stories appreciated. I am a partner, midsize regional firm, pretty independent but no portable book …but my firm’s very public stance on social issues no longer is acceptable to me.

    1. left in 2022, went to a major US ins carrier in the Excess/Surplus/Specialty division and still get to use my legal brain weekly (and I’m paid/respected for it too!)

      never looked back. there are many roads ahead in the insurance industry for me, but arguing with nasty NYC-area attorneys was not it for me anymore, nor was dealing with my disrespectful partners.

  3. Do any of you use an electric razor for leg hair? I could use a recommendation. I am willing to shave with a razor for the rare occasion I wear a dress or skirt, but I’d prefer to shave my legs sitting down, with my glasses on where I can see what I’m doing.

    I’m not super into paying a pink tax if a men’s electric razor is just as good but don’t know if leg specific shavers would work better for this task.

        1. True, but on the other hand I’ve tried both men’s and women’s electric razors over the years with limited success. Best of a mediocre bunch was Braun Silk-épil – nothing in the men’s line worked though I was never sure why.

        2. FFS not every question needs to be answered exactly as asked. Would “no” be more helpful than explaining why a plan is a bad idea?

    1. I shave my legs with an electric razor. I don’t care that it leaves stubble and I think it’s hilarious that somebody’s telling you there’s a right and wrong way to shave your legs. I just have a cheap bikini line trimmer that I think I ordered online a million years ago. It does the job just fine, I don’t think you need to look for a specialty one or anything.

        1. What do you mean? I do this too. I don’t care about getting a close shave. It’s good enough.

          1. Which razor do you use?
            My postmenopausal leg hairs are sparse and fine so stubble isn’t an issue for me anymore.

          1. You don’t think there’s a difference between long body hair and very short stubble?

            Or do you just want to be right?

          2. I wonder if you’re this obnoxious in real life, or only when you can hide behind the internet.

          3. Because it’s both scratchy and itchy? I don’t know whose idea it was to have it grow in the first place, but it seems to serve no purpose except be annoying.

          1. I feel like even early 90s “Sassy” magazine would think this is a weird thread. Come on y’all be nice

  4. low stakes question. All slow cooker recipes seem to require no more than 6 hours cooking even on low. I assume I am not the only person who is gone from their house for my longer than 6 hours and realistically the time between when i leave the house and when i eat dinner is closer to 12. What to do? it seems illogical that i only use my slow cooker on days when i am home to put the meal in it at noon or 1….

    1. Mine will switch to “keep warm” function after the cooking timer is off, but a lot of recipes I do tend to stick to uses when I am not gone for a full workday or longer, lest the food get mushy or overcooked.

      1. This. My non-programmable cheapo Crockpot automatically switches to “keep warm” mode when the cooking time is up. I still prefer to use it when I’m home. I make a big batch and eat the leftovers on busy days.

    2. I don’t think you’d ruin anything by cooking on low for a couple of hours longer though 12 hours may be pushing it.

      They make programmable slow cookers that can switch to “keep warm” after a set time.

      1. Agree. I cook for the sabbath and my crockpot is on for 30 hours or so before I serve the stew. Eight hours vs. 6 shouldn’t make much difference.

    3. Definitely not a practice food safety hawks would endorse, but I have an older manual-knob slow cooker that I hook up to an outlet timer that is set to not come on until mid-morning, then late afternoon I have it cycle on and off in half hour spurts until I get home.

      My newer touch-pad ones, the temp is so hot even on the “keep warm” setting that I sometimes just cook with that for a whole day.

    4. You cook for 12 hours- any recipe that works in a slow cooker works for practically any length of time.

    5. All the people commenting about the keep warm function may have some misconceptions about food safety. Most slow cooker keep warm settings keep food at a temperature of about 145 degrees. This varies depending on the brand and age/quality of the slow cooker. 140 degrees counts as “room temperature” for commercial food safety regulations. While I have been known to disregard the strictest interpretations of food safety (hello day-old pizza) 3 hours is really the most I would ever leave food in the crock pot on warm. Maybe 4 if I was hungry and had had a long day and the food was there.

      Anyway, I don’t use my slow cooker on work days unless it’s at least a partial WFH day.

      1. I’m the timer person above. My keep warm setting will end up boiling the cooking liquid by midafternoon if I put frozen chicken breasts in first thing in the morning. It’s clearly way beyond 145° F.

        1. Same here. The food is piping hot when I get home when it has been on the keep warm setting for a couple of hours.

  5. Where do you find new music? Tiktok circa 2022 was great for this but not these days. I hate the radio and I apparently shop for groceries during the Billy Joel hour.

    1. Sirius XM in the car and Spotify on my phone/at home. Spotify has ‘smart shuffle’ and stations inspired by certain artists. I’m currently liking stations ‘for’ fans of Sabrina Carpenter (lots of power pop), Lord Huron (country-ish alt rock), Noah Kahn (singer/songwriter heavy station), the Mowgli’s (upbeat alt pop rock), Hozier, and Maggie Roberts (lowfi female singer songwriter that reminds me a bit of Joni Mitchell).

    2. Spotify has a bunch of playlists which recommend new music based on your past listening history. It’s kind of an evil company but then I usually go to concerts and support artists so I figure what they lost in streaming revenue they make up in other ways.

    3. I listen to a lot of playlists on Apple Music. When critics did their end of year “best of” articles, I made my own best of 2024 playlist and found a lot of good stuff that way. I watched the Grammys and made mental notes about albums I liked. I watch Tiny Desk Concert on YouTube and sometimes go after those artists.

      Hope this helps! It’s hard to find new music and it’s so easy to just listen to the same stuff.

      1. Spotify has a feature where you can create a “blend” with a cool friend, which will mashup their current faves with yours.

    4. I listen to some of the playlists/stations my iPhone/apple music has curated for me. I skip tracks I’m not enjoying but have found many new to me tracks that I do enjoy this way.

    5. Bandcamp. I refuse to use Spotify because of how little it pays artists. But Bandcamp is a great way to find new music and it pays artists fairly.

  6. ISO recommendations for (1) things to do, (2) restaurants, and (3) patisseries/boulangeries in Nice, Monaco, and Lyon – traveling there in April with our young teen DD. Thanks!

    1. We were in the French Riviera for 10 days in September. A big draw was the ability to relax and swim at the end of the day which is going to be… kind of cold in April. You might get mild spring weather or you might get chilly mistrals.

      Monaco – we really did not like and bailed after about 3 hours. The palace area felt fake and Disney, and the modern & casino area overflowing with guys pretending fancy cars were theirs, and their dates teetering around in heels and a lot of lip filler. If you’re interested in high-end shopping, none of the stores had lines outside like you get in Paris, though.

      Nice – we enjoyed biking the Promenade and climbing Chateau Hill. We got one really rainy day and the entirety of the tourists at the time were in line ahead of us at the Chagall museum, so we didn’t make it in there, lol. We also did Rick Steves’ walk around the old city.

      Loved –
      -the insanely good Italian food in Menton (we went to L’Avenue 2x for lunch and still dream of their vongole)
      -the quaint feel of Villefranche (plus it has the nicest beach, sandy for the most part rather than rocky)
      -walking around Cap Ferrat and having indulgent meals in St Jean (went to Diva 2x)
      -Villa Ephrussi gardens were a little weedy in September but will probably be gorgeous in April
      -getting rotisserie chicken sandwiches from the tiniest storefront ever around the corner from our apt in Beaulieu-sur-Mer (it’s near the main square, a few blocks up from the train station)
      -We did a day sail out of Menton as well but April may be too early for those to be offered
      -If you have good legs, doing the climb up to Eze from the sea-level train station (sneakers required, though we saw one girl picking her way in Havianas)
      -driving up to La Turbie for a fun local scene (popular spot for serious cyclists to stop for a bite, and seeing the Trophy)
      -did a rose-tasting day trip into the nearest areas of Provence, which probably is not on your list with a young teen, but which was delicious

      1. oh and I’ll add, the ability to town-hop easily and inexpensively by train in this area is unrivalled. The SNCF app was our MVP of the trip!

      2. This is all great advice. I would also choose any of these smaller villages over an extended time in Monaco (or even Nice honestly).

        Antibes and Cannes are also nice if you want to go the other direction from Nice, though April will be sleepier. There is a spectacular walk around Cap d’Antibes called Le Sentier du Littoral – highly recommend.

        1. Agree on Antibes
          And would recommend Le Tilleul in Saint Paul – it is right next to Foundation Maeght.

    2. Everything mentioned above sounds perfect (I personally loved Villefranche). I’ll add if you like perfume then it is worth the train to Grasse

  7. Planning to go to Quebec City and am starting to research. Want to go for a week, is it doable to add Montreal? Best way to go between the two cities? Any great hotel recommendations – price not an issue, willing to go up to 1k/night (always nice if cheaper of course but staying somewhere wonderful is a huge part of travel for us). Many thanks in advance!

    1. Chateau Frontenac is the best hotel in QC in my opinion, and Place D’Armes is the best hotel in Montreal. One week would be tight for both cities, but if you fly into one, take the via train between cities and fly out of the other you could make it work. There’s a lot of historic sites and great food in both places.

      1. +1 and make sure you have a river view

        Also it’s totally doable to add Montreal and when we did it we rented a car and drove. And we stayed at the Le St-Martin Hôtel Particulier and loved it

      2. +2. We also really liked this hotel. The lobby is busy, but it is a very cool hotel. My kids loved the indoor pool too. ;)

    2. Montreal is doable if you have 7-day week, but it is a solid half day of travel to get there (either rental car, train or you can hire a car service to drive you) so I tend to pick one city or the other. Both cities are very much cities that are at their finest when you just experience them – rather than have a detailed agenda, go for a walk, stop at a cafe and eat lunch. I would do the Chateau Frontenac with the Gold Floor at your budget for the hotel. We’ve done it several times, it is worth the price, and the kitchen has gone above and beyond for people with dietary restrictions.

    3. Chateau FTW in QC, you definitely want Saint-Sulpice in Montreal. Luxury! And very clean/quiet. It’s practically adjacent to the Aura Experience Basilica light show which is worthwhile if it sounds good at all to you. Have fun!

      1. Oh! Train in between was fun and easy, a nice break in the trip. The Quebec aquarium punches well above its weight, but you will need to take a car there (we didn’t try to figure out public transport, and it’s definitely a ways out of town).

  8. Random question: how is weed smoking in dorms managed in 2025? Kiddo is realizing that she does not want to be in a sober living dorm but also does not want to be choked by second hand weed smoke, whether from a roommate or from across the hall. She heard some stories from kids home on break that this is a big issue at some schools (and at off campus apartments popular with students, that is not in our immediate radar for freshman year but good to be aware of also).

    1. I think it varies by school. I would look at the on-line college forums. My kid says it happens at her school but isn’t pervasive.

      No college is going to have an official policy allowing smoking in rooms.

    2. The solution is to choose a “dry campus.” Nobody believes that those are really substance-free, but the rules are generally enforced where it becomes an issue.

      1. Oh, I could never choose a dry campus. The first miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding. I’m used to alcohol, starting with at church. Something has always rubbed me the wrong way about outright prohibition. I’m imagining something like Footloose, where there also isn’t dancing and I suspect that women are going to college to find a husband vs prepare for a career. I guess maybe Quaker schools could be different but my experience is that hey tend to have more hippies vs fewer.

      2. Dry campus seems like a huge overreaction and would also probably have a lot of rules about dating, etc. that would be annoying to deal with.

        1. Nah, there are dry campuses that are absolutely not fundamentalist. Parties happen mostly off campus but there is still some partying happening in the dorms. The difference is that if someone complains about activity that disturbs others they will enforce the rules.

          1. Dry campuses kind of scared me when I was a student; I don’t think I could handle the kind of off campus parties that trashed whole neighborhoods.

          2. As a parent I would much rather kids drink on campus rather than drive to off campus parties.

        1. Is there flavored flower? I think it’s just tobacco. Oh or are the concentrates flavored? But I thought the benefit was that there’s no smell with concentrates? Honestly asking.

          1. Have you never walked downwind of someone vaping? It’s like a nasal Appletini when flavored. Blech.

    3. Back when I was college, the “dry dorms” were the dorms with all the weed smoke. (And had little to do with sober living; it was more about a quiet place to sleep and study while partying elsewhere without personally hosting!)

      I’m also curious how it’s handled all these years later. I swear the smell is stronger these days (even outdoors!).

    4. Doesn’t “no smoking” ideally cover this? Does not have to be nicotine?
      I really have no idea and would probably be very happy in the sober living dorm!

      1. I’d think that if you are OK drinking, you might want to be mindful of any roommates in recovery. I just don’t want some things where I live but might partake elsewhere. But not with a roommate in AA, etc. They likely want a break from even casual drinkers, etc.

      1. not allowed does not mean “never happens” or “roommate smokes elsewhere and their clothes stink up the room”…

      2. I’d agree for cigarettes and cigars. But for all other things, I suspect that the lived experience is very different, especially where it is legal under state law.

    5. My kid ether smokes while taking a walk, or goes out on the balcony. Otherwise occasionally blows the smoke out an open window, but prefers to avoid that if possible.

    1. I didn’t know they have adult courses. My friends who did them when we were teens gained a lot of impressive skills and confidence which I guess becomes leadership ability