Previously, on Corporette…

13 Comments

1. Someone kept recommending an in-home security system you can install yourself – which one was it?

   1. for some reason I remembered it was Blonde Lawyer who kept recommending it (thanks, brain space!) — so was able to retrieve from a s!te search. She said “I posted this yesterday but we use SimpliSafe. Install yourself (easy), not hard-wired (portable), no contract, and only $14.99/month. We love it.”

2. I am crying at my desk because a customer yelled at me on the phone. I managed not to cry during the call, but now I can’t seem to stop.

   1. Go to the bathroom and splash your face with cold water. You’ll be fine.

   2. I got “yelled at” over email a few minutes ago. I’ve been angrily stomping around since. I’d really like to revive an office punching bag.

3. There has been a lot of discussion I’ve seen about how much folks spend on clothing. A dollar amount is pretty meaningless to me, as everyone has such varied salaries. Is anyone willing to divulge percent of take-home pay that they are spending in clothing/shoes/accessories and the like for yourself monthly?

   For me, it’s somewhere in the 2-7% range. I don’t make a lot, but I don’t buy a lot either.

   1. Mine is 2-7% of my total pay (not take home).

   2. I’ve tracked all my purchases this year, so this was some fun math. So far in 2014, I’ve spent 2.7% of my own income on clothing, and 1.8% of the household income (both net pay). If you take out the suit I had to purchase recently, you could nearly halve those percentages. I’ve set myself some shopping limits this year, so it’s much lower than normal.

   3. We started an official budget this year, and have been putting a certain amount per month into a “fund” to be used on clothing, household stuff (non-necessities like decor), and a new laptop; this amount is about 4% of take-home, and it covers clothing for me, my husband, and our toddler. So, I’m thinking for my stuff, it’s around 1% of take-home, probably less.

      That said, we’re not spending much on clothes right now – I’ve got a decent wardrobe built now, and am hoping to get pg soon, so no sense in buying much. (Also, husband is a SAHD, so he doesn’t need much, and baby has two very generous grandmothers, so we almost never need to buy clothing for him.) I’m sure that we’ve spent more in the past.

   4. I’d like to hear Ellen’s response, though I suppose her percentage is quite different if you separate out her own spending vs. the Manageing Partener’s spending.

   5. About 10% of take home, which sounds like a lot but it works out to 100/month. I am building a wardrobe right now (almost done actually) so that number will go down to much much less. Plus intern slave labour, yay for being paid less than fast food workers!

   6. For me, ytd, it’s about 1.5% of my total pay for ytd. I don’t have time to shop much, so periodically I will go on a huge shopping binge and that’s it for the year. My big shopping trip was this winter, when I decided to clean out my closet and realized I had nothing to wear, so I am probably done for the year. I got 2 blazers, 3 blouses, 2 skirts, a sheath dress, a pair of heels and a pair of jeans. For the full year, assuming no more shopping, it will be about 1% of my total pay.

   7. Good question! About 4-6 percent of take-home (salary only, not bennies).

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