Coffee Break: Perfect Stretch Boot 30

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woman reclines against wall, she is wearing black knee-high boots and a beige skirt

Sarah Flint's shoes are gorgeous and well made, but they can be pricey — so I'm excited to see that the current sale she's running extends to basics like these bestselling water resistant stretch boots.

They come in three colors: black, navy, and taupe, in a lovely extended range that includes US sizes 4-13.

The boots were originally $775, but are now marked to $489. (Do note that they're only eligible for exchange or store credit, unfortunately!)

Sales of note for 1/16/25:

  • M.M.LaFleur – Tag sale for a limited time — jardigans and dresses $200, pants $150, tops $95, T-shirts $50
  • Nordstrom – Cashmere on sale; AllSaints, Free People, Nike, Tory Burch, and Vince up to 60%; beauty deals up to 25% off
  • AllSaints – Clearance event, now up to 70% off (some of the best leather jackets!)
  • Ann Taylor – Up to 40% off your full-price purchase; extra 50% off sale
  • Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + extra 20% off
  • Boden – 15% off new styles with code — readers love this blazer, these dresses, and their double-layer line of tees
  • DeMellier – Final reductions now on, free shipping and returns — includes select options like Montreal, Vancouver, and Venice
  • Eloquii – $29 and up select styles; extra 50% off all clearance, plus ELOQUII X kate spade new york collab just dropped
  • Everlane – Sale of the year, up to 70% off; new markdowns just added
  • J.Crew – Up to 40% off select styles; up to 50% off cashmere
  • J.Crew Factory – 40-70% off everything
  • L.K. Bennett – Archive sale, almost everything 70% off
  • Rothy's – Final Few: Up to 40% off last-chance styles
  • Sephora – 50% off top skincare through 1/17
  • Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
  • Summersalt – BOGO sweaters, including this reader-favorite sweater blazer; 50% off winter sale; extra 15% off clearance
  • Talbots – Semi-Annual Red Door Sale – 50% off + extra 20% off, sale on sale, plus free shipping on $150+

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76 Comments

  1. I’m finally getting around to set up my living trust and ancillary documents (using a lawyer). I’m not married, and have sole custody of a young child who will be the beneficiary. It’s very difficult for me to figure who to name as the trustee, as it seems like a huge ask of someone who’s just a friend. My BFF lives out of the country, so that’s practically complicated (and has tax implications). My family is also all out of the country. My mom is elderly and this kind of stuff would be confusing and overwhelming for her. I’m not super close to my brother and not sure he is a great fit (I have some concerns). My lawyer told me that banks as trustees are difficult to work with. She does have some names for individual fiduciaries which may be an option, but that also doesn’t seem ideal (will they still be in business? How big are their fees?). What did you do? I’m just not close enough with any friends here to ask them to be my trustee.

    I also don’t know who I would name on the medical POA. Certainly not my child’s father (he would love to see me gone so he could get custody). A friend?

    Also, any other tips for setting all of this up? I’m making sure my animals will be provided for, and my child will get income from the trust while in school and college, and then two distributions at age 25 and 30. I don’t want my child’s father (who would become the guardian if something happened to me) to have access to any of the funds beyond what is necessary for my child while the child lives with him.

    Any advice welcome!

    1. Are any of your friends in a similar situation with having limited family? You could ask them and offer to be a trustee. Is there anyone in the father’s family that you’d trust?

      If you can’t find an option, maybe having your brother or best friend have control to pick a fiduciary would be a good option if it’s ever needed.

    2. I think you should ask your closest, responsible friend who is in the US to be the trustee. Yes, it feels like a big ask, but friends are generally willing to rally in an emergency (i.e., your death while your child is still young). As your child gets older, it is easy enough to change the trustee if someone else who would be better comes into your life.

      For the medical POA, I would probably suggest naming your mother, with a friend or your brother named as the back-up.

      1. Agreed! Friend is the best option in this situation. Your attorney should write some language into the trust allowing any guardian “reimbursement” for amounts spent on the child, so your child’s father couldn’t get his hands on the trust money without expending his own first.

      2. I recently talked to a friend who is not married about doing estate planning, including poas. My friend isn’t close to her family and thinks they’re crazy. I told her I’d be happy to serve in any capacity she may need, whether that’s to make medical or financial decisions or manage an estate. Yes, it would be a lot of work, but it’s also something I’m happy to do for a friend who needs support. If you have a friend who you trust, ask that person.
        Remember your estate planning documents capture where your life is right now. You can change them as time goes on to make other choices based on life stages.

    3. I would be extremely honored to do this for “just a friend”. It would signal “even though we don’t talk that often, I truly trust your character, responsibility, and judgment,” and I, at least, would take the opportunity extremely seriously. So: think about who you think is your wisest, kindest, most mature “just a friend,” and make the ask. Worst case scenario is they decline.

    4. I would suggest co-trustees of friends. I’m currently managing a trust and asked two of my friends to be trustees. It’s not as much of a lift as you think. The major role of the trustee is just managing assets. If it requires the need for financial planning, then the trust should cover that expense. Mostly in my case, it’s determining if something is a reasonable expense. It’s also much more long term because it’s a special needs trust, but these are people I trust to make financial decisions in the best interest of the beneficiary. In your case, it would be less involved because your child would ultimately be able to manage their own money. I would ask people who are financially prudent.

    5. Choosing a guardian and backup guardian + the trustee was the hardest part, by far, of putting together our wills and our trust. You’re not alone.

      In the end I went with my most trustworthy sibling for both, though I do have some concerns. There is no perfect choice, unfortunately. A long term friend agreed to serve as backup guardian. If my other sibling found out after I died that they were not the backup guardian, nor an heir, they would raise holy hell, but I figure I don’t have to deal with that when I’m dead.

      1. Yeah the guardian point is tricky. If something happens to me, the best thing for the child is to go to his dad, as long as his dad has his drinking problem and depression under control. I mean, right now I think he does? But if the dad is unavailable/unfit at that time, it pains me but the best choice is actually the dad’s brother, who is stable, married, and has two kids of a similar age. I would love to have my mom as the first choice, but I think it would be difficult for her to handle. And my brother, while he loves his nephew, is childfree by choice and just not the best fit. These things are so hard to navigate. But I am keeping in mind that it’s the child’s best interests that matter.

        1. Ask your brother before you make assumptions. I am childfree by choice but would absolutely raise any of my nieces and nephews.

  2. I’m the other poster of the trust question, posting this separately as it’s a different (but related question). I’m looking to pick 5 charities to receive fixed amounts of money upon death. I’m looking at Charity Navigator for ratings, but would love some ideas/recommendations if anyone has looked into this. I’m thinking at least Doctors Without Borders. Some cancer research charity, and a pediatric cancer research charity. Maybe something for senior dogs (Old Friends Senior Dog Rescue, perhaps?).

    1. Look locally for at least a couple of them. Your bequest is most likely budget dust for a large org like MSF, but could be transformational to an org that’s doing work you value in your own community, helping neighbors.

        1. Also, and I say this as a former university finance person… if you give to your alma mater, never, ever give unrestricted.

          1. Ha, I feel like I’ve given my alma mater enough of my money after they jacked up tuition big time. But that’s good advice.

    2. Child of multiple cancer survivor here. Cancer research is a very valid cause, but also consider the local charities that provide general life supplies and support to cancer patients and their families — toys for kids, childcare, cleaning/sanitization services for immunocompromised patients, housing for family members, wigs, warm blankets, transportation, dog therapy, etc. Seeking advancements in treatment is critical, but if you want to go more local/small scale, supporting patients in the midst of it can also be a wonderful outlet.

      1. There’s a crucial cancer support organization in my area that helps with transportation to/from treatments, rent and utility assistance for low-income people who can’t work because of chemo and then lose that income at the very time all their expenses are sky-rocketing, etc. An organization like that would greatly benefit from your donation.

        Also consider organizations that do: foster family support, refugee resettlement, immigration services, help for people who have been trafficked, domestic violence shelters — the list is endless, and your donations would really matter.

    3. Your local community foundation can be a good resource for finding local charities, or you can leave the money to them to regrant.

    4. I don’t know why you are thinking about this right now, at this point in time, your only concern need be that you’re happy with your choice for the next year or so. It doesn’t have to make sense, it doesn’t have to be excecuted. I would leave the research charities for the billionaires (unless that is you, if so, well done!) and go for smaller goals.

      If It was me, right now, these are the kinds of charities I’d pick:
      – Doctors without Borders. This is an always pick for me, and my international crisis charity of choice.
      – My local charity that helps young people that need immediate help because of shit circumstances (families) because they are LGBTQIA+ or young people who are otherwise abused by the people who should care for them. In the US I’d look at the Trevor Project and whatever local equivalent.
      – My local charity that helps people homeless people, displaced people, illegal immigrants and others who might need a meal or a bed in the next few hours.
      – A charity that helps people who need immediate sanctuary from domestic violence.
      – A local charity that helps children who need stipends or scholarships to be able to go to college.

    5. My women’s volunteer group gave $1500 to a local women’s rest/shelter once –and the response was overwhelming. “This pays our utility bill for the entire year.” Smaller organizations absolutely need unrestricted gifts much more –they have to keep the lights on, the telephones operational, the payroll rolling.

    6. We just updated our estate docs. The charities we want to leave our estate to have changed since we last updates our trust documents, and we know we may change our minds in the future. So that we have flexibility, the trust says the residue of our estate goes to our Fidelity charitable giving account. Then we specify, on the Fidelity site, the beneficiaries of that charitable giving account (for now we are choosing Doctors without Borders and Berea College).

      If we change our minds in the future, we simply update the beneficiaries with Fidelity (takes three minutes to log on and make those changes) and we don’t have to redo our trust documentation.

  3. How long should I stay in a job to avoid looking flakey? When I started my career, 2 years was the common advice but I’m wondering if that has changed. Also, does being in leadership change the calculus?

    1. I’m currently reviewing resumes and interviewing candidates, and I look for patterns. If you jumped from one job within a year, I wouldn’t be too concerned as there could be a lot of different reasons (got recruited into an even better gig, the job wasn’t what it was advertised to be, the management left right after you started, etc.). I will certainly ask you about it. But if I see a history of tenures of less than a year, or around a year, then I have some concerns.

      1. agreed. most people in the course of their career have at least one very short position but if someone is in their 40s and has never been anywhere more than a year or two it’s a red flag. Personally i don’t really care if a person has been there more than 5, like it’s nice to be one place a long time but i don’t have a feeling about it– like it’s not better to have been there 10.

      2. I think it depends a lot on your profession. When reviewing a resume, if I see someone who switches law firms ever two years to every two and a half years, it’s a huge red flag. But that because that’s the timeline of when a new associate often gets asked to leave. For my friends in tech, that would be normal.

    2. I think it depends a lot on your profession. When reviewing a resume, if I see someone who switches law firms ever two years to every two and a half years, it’s a huge red flag. But that because that’s the timeline of when a new associate often gets asked to leave. For my friends in tech, that would be normal.

  4. PSA: I was very (pleasantly) surprised by the quality and options for jeans at Abercrombie and Fitch. I’m mid-30’s, was looking for something trendy but reasonably sturdy, and they had lots of options. Love that the store I went to had every single jean option in my size, curvy fit, and short (as well as non-curvy, regular and long lengths.)

    Worth considering if you need new jeans.

  5. Help me shop. I want a maxi dress like the Anthropologie Somerset dress but without a tiered skirt and that isn’t so low cut (it has an eye and hook fastener at the bust but that always pulls weirdly on me even if I sew it shut). The main things I like about the dress are: elastic waist, no zippers, sleeves are a good length and not too flowy but not too tight, and it doesn’t look dowdy or tradwife (to me, anyway). I feel like I had some similar-ish maxi dresses from lands end years ago but got rid of them because it became a big instamom look. I’m specifically looking for this to grow with me during pregnancy and to be a cool photo shoot dress, but I’d also like to be able to wear it otherwise. Suggestions?

    1. Seasonality will make it hard to shop for that right now (at least where I live.) These sorts of dresses seem very common to me in summer, like a million options at the Winners/TJ Maxxs of the world, even Banana Republic, Old Navy, Gap, etc. Price point doesn’t much affect whether these types of dresses are stylish on the individual level (IMO).

  6. Help us choose a honeymoon destination for this October! Deets: 2 people, 1.5 weeks long, interests include history, nature, food.

    Option 1: Tour of UK and Ireland ending in Scotland. Friends of ours are getting married 2 weeks after us in Scotland, hence the ending point! Pertinent: I have been to the Cotswolds/Ireland, but FH has not.

    Option 2: Japan. We love everything we hear about Japan and neither of us have been! But, we wouldn’t be able to go to our friend’s wedding.

    Option 3: Greece/Turkey. I grew up adjacent to Turkish culture and absolutely love everything Greek! Again, probs couldn’t attend our friends’ wedding.

    1. early October in Greece is stunning – and not mobbed the way it is in summer. That would be my pick.

    2. Option 1. I always enjoyed other people’s weddings before I myself was married, but I LOVE them now. I think it would have been incredibly delightful to attend my friends’ wedding a couple weeks after I myself got married.

    3. I mean, those all are great, but with those facts and only 1.5 weeks, I’d do a trip exclusively in Scotland. We have similar interests spent 2 weeks only in the Highlands and it is our favourite vacation ever, and we’ve been some “cool” places. We could easily have spent 4 or 6 weeks and will definitely go back. Just get a car and drive…

      Food will not be amazing at some locations, but we also ate at good fancy and good not-fancy spots.

    4. If you want to attend your friend’s wedding, why not take your honeymoon later? You could do a mini moon (locally? A longer time in Scotland?) and then do the full honeymoon when it works better for you

      1. Good q! Our jobs are such that it will be hard for us to take that amount of time off for the foreseeable future, and we don’t want it to be a “oh we’ll get to it someday” thing that never happens.

    5. I think if you want to go to your friends’ wedding, Japan is out. Travel in Europe is cheap with both rail and air options so you could still go to Greece or Turkey, I don’t know that I would do both and Scotland. I also wouldn’t try to hit all of the UK in a week and a half.

    6. The food in the UK isn’t the most exciting, yes lots of history but room temperature drinks and bland palates

    7. Why couldn’t you attend your friends’ wedding if you went the Greece/Turkey option? It’s only about a 5 hour flight from Istanbul to Edinburgh, which seems maneagable–you just book it as a multi-city flight and return from Scotland.

      I’d say it depends on how much you want to go to your friends’ wedding. I haven’t been to Ireland and Greece, but have been to UK/Scotland (also for a wedding, actually), Japan, and Turkey. I would probably pick Turkey/Greece as I think they have better food options and the history is also excellent, but UK/Scotland could also be great. Though I might pick just one (Turkey or Greece)–I could easily spend a week and a half just in Istanbul.

    8. 1.5 weeks isn’t enough to combine Greece and Turkey. You could easily spend two weeks in either country. I’d pick one.

    9. Could you do 1.5 weeks in either Greece or Turkey, and then fly to Scotland for a couple days at the end to go to the wedding?

    10. Of course you can honeymoon in Greece/Turkey and attend your friends wedding!

      If you want attend a wedding in Scotland in the, say, last two or three days of a 10 day (!) period it will be easy-peasy from anywhere else in Europe.

      If by tour you mean doing “everything”, you need a lot more than 10 days! Neither of your options will be done in 10 days. You need to curate and choose.

      Depending on your starting point, you could also do Japan. I would LOVE Japan in October (and so much more than Greece or Turkey!), but it depends on where you live. If you are West coast – yes, go westwards! LA flight to Japan, week in japan, flight to UK. As long as you’re travelling westwards you’ll be on your body clock’s team.

  7. Is there starting to be a change with how people view living in California with all the wildfires? There’s a not insignificant segment of the population that says, for example, I’d never live along the Gulf Coast because being washed away by a hurricane doesn’t sound fun to me. Are people starting to say that about California and fires or is it still in the collective subconscious as a one-off, couldn’t happen to me thing?

    1. My sibling lives in CA and fire season is absolutely a thing now and a concern for parts of the state. Keep in mind, though, that it is a huge state. The fires this year are in LA, in prior years, they have been in Northern CA. There are big swaths of the state that don’t have the same fire risk (but might have an equal or higher risk of earthquakes). As someone said above, it seems like every state has their own particular risk but certainly the visibility and breadth of the current fire is just mind boggling.

    2. I live in the northeast near BOS and love it, would actually move more north to get more snow. Would not consider moving south or to CA.

    3. This is purely hypothetical for me since I live in the upper Midwest and will stay here forever.

      I have always considered California’s potential for earthquakes, tsunamis, and droughts a huge mark against living there. Fires don’t really change that calculus in my mind.

    4. No. Most of the houses in California are still at relatively low risk of burning in a wildfire. Living in the hills is nice, but dramatically increases the risk of your house burning. Climate change has also increased the risk of fires coming into more urban areas, but the risk is still low enough that it’s more on par with the risks anyone faces anywhere.

      I’ve lived in lots of parts of the US, including areas of CA that regularly burn (but not in the hills), an area of the Midwest that most people think of as safe but is currently facing skyrocketing insurance premiums because of hailstorms, Vermont where hurricanes and floods have caused huge damage, and inland North Carolina, which was devastated by a hurricane this fall. Climate change affects every state, but the risks are often quite local. If you’re concerned, don’t live in a floodplain, on a steep hill or in an isolated area that’s easily cut off, or at the wildland-urban interface in a fire zone. And obviously this is a very good reason to take climate change seriously, it’s going to be incredibly expensive not to!

      1. Yeah, Asheville was being sold as an escape from climate change issues…. I feel like we all have risks, they are just different. And at least in California we have politicians who actually care about the climate risks and are try to stay ahead of them, rather than banning mention of them like in Florida.

    5. I think I’ve seen a few people here mention the smoke as a quality of life issue that shapes their decisions.
      It does change the calculus for living in the hill neighborhoods with often spectacular views, not least because these neighborhoods are being dropped by home insurance which is prohibitive for most owners.

    6. Starting? No- we’ve been in wildfires being an annual thing for a decade or two. My house is hard to insure and we get vegetation clearance inspections to cut down on fire risk.

      That said, where else would I live? The climate is wonderful, the job market is enormous (California is the 4th largest economy in the world), the politics are … occasionally wacky but at least protect human rights.

      1. Grew up here, we had regular wild fires my whole life, it’s nothing new. I remember them in the 80s. Not to say climate change isn’t making it worse, but it’s a known risk of living in CA and I’ll never live anywhere else. IYKYK

    7. I think everyone has different natural disasters that rank higher in their minds as reasons not to live in an area, but they’re usually not top-of-mind concerns. I have no desire to live in Cali because of how expensive everything is and the traffic issues, and the earthquake risk is actually scarier to me than wildfire risk because I’m aware of relatively simple and cheap mitigation options (landscaping is everything) while earthquake mitigation options are insanely expensive.

      1. Eh, not everywhere. We don’t really get natural disasters in Boston/northeast. Sure we get snow, but monster blizzards seem to be far, far less frequent as climate change marches on. And the impact isn’t all that awful because snow just melts…. I know the cold isn’t for everyone but I don’t live in fear of fire, tornados, floods, earthquakes or hurricanes. I won’t pretend we’re immune – we’re past due for a hurricane to skip off the OBX and nail us, but it’s like once in a 20-year event these days.

        1. Yea I live in Central PA. It’s boring AF here w/r/t natural disasters and I love that. I will nope right out of large earthquakes (we had a tiny one years ago but it was nbd), regular wildfires, tornadoes, direct hit hurricanes (we of course get the rain and wind tails), and tsunamis (although not as high of a risk in the US for now).

    8. I grew up along the gulf coast so I’ve experienced lots of hurricanes. But really only maybe 3-5 severe over the course of my life? Disasters can happen anywhere. It’s also just as devastating to lose your house in a regular house fire as this. You can’t remove all risk from your life. How many people buy houses with low risk from the 100 year flood only to get hit by the 100 year flood?

    9. I have lived in California my entire adult life and most of my childhood (almost 50 years now). In that time I have been evacuated for fires twice (once precautionary and once the fire was really, really close) but did not have damage either time. I have been close enough to several other fires to smell smoke but only two of those was enough to cause me breathing problems.

      Which is my way of saying in 50 years I have been fire adjacent, but not enough to be life altering (although that first evacuation definitely caused me to have a go-bag). Los Angeles County has over 9.4 MILLION people. Even if a few thousand people lose their homes (and without discounting the horrible tragedy of that for those people and that community!) and 100,000 are evacuated, that is a tiny percentage of the people in that county, much less all of California.

      This is horrific for everyone who lives in LA (the smoke, the fear, seeing places you know and love destroyed), but California is a big state and I doubt this will cause a substantial number of people to move.

      Think of it like the Florida Keys. Maybe people leave some of those tiny islands, but Tampa is not being abandoned. Some people might decide not to re-build on steep hillsides in heavy brush. But we are not abandoning our state in any substantial number, particularly when the alternatives mostly have their own issues.

    10. No. California is home to over 39 million people. Are you saying we should all move somewhere else because it’s too dangerous to live here?

    11. I literally said this to my neighbor friend while we were waiting at the bus stop earlier today. would not move to Florida because of hurricanes and would not move to California because of wildfires and earthquakes. DH grew up in LA, in one of the neighborhoods currently under evacuation warning, but has no desire to go back. I grew up in the Midwest, so the limit of my natural disaster tolerance is tornado warnings and lake effect snow.

    12. Not for me or any of my friends/family. I was born and raised here, and left only for a time in late teens/20s for college, law school, and my first few jobs. Wildfires, as horrific as they are (and this is the worst I’ve seen in my life) are unfortunately now part of the price of admission of living in California. This is my home and I’ll never leave it. Plus, I figure most parts of the country have their issues, whether it be terrible weather, hurricanes, or what have you. I’ll take this in exchange for everything else CA offers me (which is a lot).

    13. I’ve lived here for about 25 years. There are brushfires every year in Southern California. Some years there are big ones, some years not so much. It’s kind of like hurricanes in the mid-Atlantic, tornadoes in the Midwest, flooding around the Mississippi. Most CA people don’t think brushfires are a “couldn’t happen to me” thing unless they live in DTLA or a similarly-urban kind of concrete jungle (which is pretty uncommon). People live here because they grew up here, they have families here, this is where their job is located. Maybe it will scare off some people, but California isn’t necessarily worse on the natural disaster front than lots of other places in the US.

  8. How do you like to store your shoes? We just got a dog six months ago and I’m realizing that’s a pain point because we don’t really have a place to put the shoes to protect them from the dog without just kicking them into a closet. Do you prefer something open or closed? I think we need eye level, not lower down.

    1. Dog training! I’m serious; having a well-trained dog makes life more pleasant for everyone.

      We have a cheap 4-level shoe shelf in our landing area. Shoes in current rotation go on that, wet boots go on a drip tray next to it, and out of season shoes are in plastic bins in our bedrooms.

    2. shoes that get worn for regular life walking around (city, so talking sneakers, commuting flats, Birks, etc) live in an Ikea shoe cabinet by the door.

      everything else lives in the clothes closet.

    3. I agree fully with training the dog as the best long-term solution because it won’t just be shoes, but I really like my multi-tiered rolling shoe racks that fit in a corner of my closet but can be easily pulled out for access. I also just use a big trunk to store my extensive sneaker collection, with laces tied to keep pairs together.

    4. I recently bought a shoe storage cabinet from Wayfair and I am LOVING it! It stores “current shoes” with the rest of my vast collection stored in a couple of bedroom closets. I’ll post a link separately, so that this comment hopefully doesn’t get stuck in mod.

    5. Baskets for sneakers, closets with shoe shelves for everyday shoes and in their boxes on shelves for designer shoes. And puppies gonna puppy. Mine chewed everything including some very expensive manolos so just get the good stuff out of the way while they’re in that phase. They like shoes because they smell like you. Now mine just cuddles with the occasional forgotten shoe when I’m out to dinner.